The Fire and the Light

by Glen Craney

  Loupe had not expected to find the Lion such an old man. He still snarled and clawed, but twelve years of war had taken a toll. His leathery skin was marred by scars and his jittery hands were twisted and knotted.

  Unnerved by her judging glare, Simon turned aside and lobbed a verbal shot at the city’s elders. “I’m not surprised you send a spayed rabbit to do your bidding. You eunuchs have done a poor enough job of it.”

  “I’ve given you several sleepless nights,” said Loupe, reclaiming his attention. “Do you wish a few more?” While Simon glared at her in rankled agitation, she searched the ranks of the crusaders and was flicked by a twinge of foreboding. “Where is the Bishop? He must sanction the pardons.”

  Simon’s tight-lipped sneer metamorphosed into a fanged grin. “You’ll have your pardons ... for thirty thousand marks.” When Loupe stood to protest the treachery, Simon affected astonishment. “Did Folques fail to mention that condition? His mind must be turning to mush from drinking too much of that piss you Ocs supply him for altar wine.”

  “That’s more than our entire treasury,” sputtered a burgher.

  “You might just make it if you melt down all of your silver.”

  Loupe shoved her chair from the table in hot anger. She turned to leave but was stopped in mid-step. Three hundred crusaders, some armed with crossbows, appeared on the tiled rooftops. Simon had used the night’s truce to funnel in additional men from Carcassonne. More Northerners emerged from the warrens and tightened a cordon around the ambushed delegation.

  Simon climbed atop the trestle table. “The other nobles in this putrid hole will be stripped and banished within the hour. The rest of you dregs will stay and raze these walls. Refuse, and your witless leaders will be hanged!”

  During the ice-sheeted weeks that followed, Simon drafted every able man, woman, and child into his corvée gangs and forced them under threat of death to tear down their beloved rose-hued walls and towering belfries, which had survived since the days of Julius Caesar. With each falling sun, the Occitans grew more resigned to the bitter realization that young Count Raymond was not coming to save them.

  On the morning that marked the third week of their imprisonment in the dungeon below the Narbonnaise, Loupe and her fellow consuls heard a key turning in the lock, followed by footsteps. She knew from the jangling of a sword that it was not the bailiff bringing their daily gruel. The burghers fell to their knees, certain that Simon had finished his demolition of the city and was coming to take them to the gallows. She hid behind the grille. The door creaked open and a knight armed with a torch emerged from the stairwell. She pounced on his back and dug her fingernails into the crease of his neck.

  The man thrashed and spun to buck her. “Get off, you leech!”

  “Carry me to de Montfort!”

  “I’ll drown the both of us in the Garonne first!”

  Confused by his curse, Loupe loosened her clench.

  The intruder hurled off his helmet to get a better look at his ferocious attacker. Tall and brocaded in the shoulders, he had thick waves of auburn hair and a bright, well-favored face; his hazel eyes held a spark of mischief as his impertinent mouth curled a broad smirk. “You don’t remember me?”

  Loupe’s eyes rounded with recognition. She launched a punishing kick into the shin of Bernard Saint-Martin, the freckle-faced boy who had been her persistent admirer years ago in Foix. “You joined the Lion?”

  When Bernard leaned down to rub his leg, Loupe slithered past him and escaped up the stairs. Outside she was greeted by her father and Count Raymond. The Toulousians lifted her to their shoulders to celebrate the city’s deliverance. Roger leapt from his saddle and hugged her. “We drew the Lion off toward Mossaic. We have his hag trapped in the donjon.”

  Atop the tower, Alice paced the battlements while searching the horizon.

  Loupe shouted, “You’ll soon be enjoying my accommodations below!” She warned Count Raymond, “De Montfort will be no more than three days away. The ramparts are in ruins.”

  Raymond weighed the risk of being caught inside the city if he stayed. He climbed onto a pile of stones to be heard by all. “Citizens of Toulouse! These walls must be raised before the Lion returns! Can you do it?”

  With a thunderous acclaim, thousands ran to the surrounding fields and began carrying the scattered stones back to the foundations. Inspired by the rhythmic beat of gongs, the Toulousians labored throughout the night under the light of massive bonfires while the soldiers siphoned the Garonne into moats and Raymond’s engineers raised cranes and scaffolds. The women and children carried buckets of mortar to the masons, damning Alice with imprecations each time they passed her tower to empty their loads.

  Simon halted his cavalry on the ridge overlooking Toulouse and stared incredulously at the resurrected walls. He scampered back and forth along the river like a trapped fox, squinting with rising distress from each closer inspection. His crazed wife and her harried guard of ten knights still held the Narbonnaise, but they were being pounded mercilessly by the Occitan trebuchets. Although the donjon sat just beyond the restored walls, the Wolf had positioned his bowmen to prevent entry.

  “Release my wife, Wolf!”

  On the parapet, Roger taunted him, “Your mane looks a bit scruffy, you old mouser! We’ll allow you to exchange places with your hissing kitty.”

  Simon’s face contorted in purpled rancor as he led his troop farther down along the river. Finding a ford, he doubled back to the undefended suburb of Saint Cyprien, a section below the city proper that faced the weakest point of the reconstructed ramparts. Two parallel bridges built of ashlar stone—the only entries into the city—crossed the dangerous headwaters. He bit off a litany of curses. The Occitans had anticipated his maneuver by posting detachments on the gate towers situated in the middle of both bridge crossings, a hundred yards apart. Raymond de Perella commanded the Pont Vieux and Bernard Saint-Martin protected the Pont Neuf. Simon had no choice but to build a second city on the far side of the river. The fate of Occitania would be decided in the desperate fight for these two narrow bridges.

  Two months into the standoff, Loupe was awakened by a raging thunderstorm. She rushed from her bivouac in the Maison Commune and found that the Garonne had flooded during the night. Sections of both bridges had been washed away near a slogged no-man’s island called Montfort’s Purgatory because the dead of both armies were thrown there. Troubadours sang that the white lilies in this macabre charnel represented the Toulousian martyrs and the red lilies the Hell-burnt souls of the crusaders. All that remained of the Pont Neuf was its far abutment. Raymond de Perella and his men had ferried across to the surviving tower to aid Bernard and his garrison. Both Occitan detachments were now trapped together—and Simon, spying an opportunity, was launching an attack.

  Roger braced a shoulder into the driving rain. “I can’t get more men to it!”

  Loupe found a bundle of rope. Drafting her best crossbowman, she ran with him to the river’s edge. “Bind the rigging to your missile.”

  The dubious bowman did as ordered, but his missile fell short and caromed into the river. As de Montfort’s crusaders poured onto the bridge, Loupe reeled in the rope and forced it on the archer for another try.

  “Even if I thread the lancet, there’s nothing to hold the binding in place.”

  “Aim for their backs!” ordered Loupe.

  The bowman shook his head as he took aim and fired again. This time, the missile miraculously threaded the tower slit and impaled one of the Northerners who had fought his way into the breach. The crusader bent over the ledge with the arrow passed clean through his breastbone. Bernard extricated the rope from the dead crusader’s entrails and hurriedly tied it to an iron ring.

  Loupe knotted her end of the rope to four yoked mules. “Three at a time!”

  “It won’t hold one!” warned Roger.

  Loupe leapt onto the rope and began rappelling across the raging currents. One false grip would send her to the freezin
g waters. Shamed by her example, several of the Occitans followed her onto the traverse. The mules dug in against the sliding mud. Halfway across, she heard a groan. The soldier behind her clutched at an arrow in his gut and fell to his death. Near exhaustion, she attacked the last few lengths with her hands bleeding from the rope’s burn.

  Bernard pulled her into the tower moments before de Montfort sent a second wave of attackers across the ruins. A large stone fired from a Toulousian trebuchet crashed into the far reaches of the bridge and sent dozens of charging crusaders plummeting to the water. One by one, the Occitan reinforcements scrambled across on the rope. Those Northerners who had navigated the remnants of the bridge discovered that their path of retreat was destroyed. Outnumbered, they flung off their armor and dived into the river to avoid being cut down.

  A clamor of victory arose on Toulouse’s walls.

  Bernard hugged Loupe. “You saved my life, little She-Wolf.” He dropped to one knee. “Marry me! Or I’ll keep you hostage in this tower!” Before she could repulse his embrace, he stole her breath with a kiss.

  A troubadour on the ramparts celebrated Bernard’s bold advance by breaking out in song. Bernard surfaced from his conquest and shouted to Roger on the river’s banks, “Wolf, I wish the hand of your daughter in marriage!”

  Roger waved him off with a grin. “She’s more than you can handle!”

  Embarrassed by her stirred feelings, Loupe backed away and dived for the rope before Bernard could embrace her again. “You never could catch me!” she teased as she rappelled off. “And you never will!”

  Nine more months of siege passed in bloody stalemate. With the onset of winter, Folques had decided to travel north to preach the crusade for funds and recruits. Simon had all but given up on the Bishop’s return when, on this hot June morning, he saw his old comrade appear over the shimmering horizon with two thousand troops. He rushed from his tent to confirm the reality of the blessed sight. “Did you think I’d last forever?”

  “I have brought you the hero of Bouvines,” said Folques.

  Mathieu de Montmorency, the foppish brother of Simon’s wife, rode jauntily into the camp at the head of the reinforcements. Sniffing his perfumed kerchief to chase the stench, he regarded de Montfort’s ragged army with a pinched nose as if encountering a demoralized band of squatters in a squalid ghetto. “This is what has become of the great victor of Muret?”

  The Lion of old would have been at the insolent man’s throat. But Simon merely dropped his hands to his knees in fatigue.

  “Are you not well?” asked Folques.

  “I am drained beyond all measure,” whined Simon. “Those damnable Ocs nip at me like mad geese.”

  “Shopkeepers have brought you to this sorry state?” chortled Mathieu.

  “You haven’t fought them half your life!” snapped Simon.

  “Nor do I intend to,” said Mathieu. “I’m pledged for forty days. I spent half that time reaching this dung pit. I suggest you order an assault on the morrow.”

  Simon had heard his fill of such reports from Paris condemning his failure to take Toulouse. Anxious to reveal the true reason for his delay, he led Folques and Mathieu to a deep ravine on the far side of a forested ridge. Out of sight of the Occitans, his engineers were hard at work constructing an assault tower that rose more than five stories in height. The magnificent creation possessed retractable boarding planks and large wooden wheels that would roll it flush to the city’s ramparts. Tanned hides covered its thick timbers for protection against Greek fire and its roofed penthouse was large enough to hold fifty archers who would fire deadly enfilades from a steep angle.

  Simon kissed one of its newly notched beams. “God’s glorious reward to me. It will lead me to my consummate victory.”

  “Let the Ocs have a look,” said Mathieu. “They’ll surrender at once.”

  “Not until the opportune moment!” insisted Simon. “I’m going to take the bastards by surprise!”

  The next morning, Simon awoke at dawn to hear Folques say mass. The younger men in the army cracked jokes behind Simon’s back about his rabid devotion, for he was constantly bragging that he had not missed the daily Eucharist since taking the Cross twelve years ago. Despite their frequent quarrels, these two old veterans of the heretic wars had come to cherish these early mornings together. In recent months, their conversations often turned to the subject of God’s redemption, for both were increasingly hagridden by the doubts of advancing age.

  “I had another dream,” said Simon. “I cannot shake its hold.”

  “Have I not warned you that the night is Satan’s porthole?” said Folques. “Give no heed to such visions. They were Innocent’s undoing.”

  “This one has plagued me for years,” said Simon.

  “Expose it to the light of day and it will wither.”

  “It commences with a lion stalking a maiden. Instead of running away, the maiden approaches the beast. I always awaken in a cold sweat.”

  “That fairy tale frightens you?”

  “Last night, for the first time, the dream ended differently. The lion allowed the maiden to grasp its jaws.”

  “Sleep is plagued by the bestiaries of the absurd,” assured Folques. “Give no more thought to it.”

  Simon trembled from the recollection. “Hear me out! The lion could not overcome the strength of the woman’s hands. It was as if she possessed some hidden power ... What do you make of this?”

  Folques was alarmed by the deepening fissures in Simon’s fragile mind. The old warrior seemed even less stable and coherent than when they had last been together. “We must pray on it.”

  Tears flooded Simon’s cataract-glazed eyes. “What year is it?”

  “1218. The 25th of June. Why do you wish to—”

  “Hear my confession.” Simon stumbled to his knees before Folques could demur. “Blessed Father, I stand on the threshold of bringing this evil land under Your righteous hammer. You lit the fires at Beziers. You granted me the victory at Muret. My life is growing short.”

  “Simon, you must not talk like—”

  “I beg just one more miracle.” Simon fought in vain to prevent his clasped hands from shaking. “Merciful God, help me to breach those insolent walls that—”

  A soldier rushed into the tent. “The Ocs are attacking the assault tower!”

  “The tower?” sputtered Simon. “How could they reach the tower?”

  “Lord Mathieu ordered it rolled to the walls last night.”

  Simon crawled screaming from the tent on hands and knees. “The damned fool! My tower! He’s taken my tower!”

  Below the ramparts of Toulouse, a fiery tempest swirled around the base of the wheeled citadel. The Wolf and his raiders had sortied from the city before dawn to ambush Simon’s brother-in-law, who had moved the contraption closer so that he and his Parisian drinking companions could lounge on its roof and taunt the Occitans. The crusader encampment exploded with shouts and harried mustering. Guy de Montfort led a contingent of half-attired crusaders toward the burning tower in a desperate effort to save it. A bolt whistled across the sky and sliced through Guy’s leg. He dropped to the ground in agony.

  Simon did not stop to assist his brother, but stole his sword and limped in a jagged run toward the conflagration. “Save my tower!” He was stopped abruptly by something that crossed his line of vision. He looked up to see Loupe and four Occitan women loading a catapult on the ramparts. “Damn your blackened soul, Esclarmonde de Foix! I’ll melt this mountain of Satan yet!”

  Loupe realized that the half-senile Norman was under the delusion that he stood below Montsegur. She was determined to disabuse the old Lion of the notion that she in any way resembled the aunt she so despised. While the other women heaved and levered the catapult into position, she loaded a stone into the sling and whispered, “For you, mother.” She cut the latch and unleashed the catapult’s arm. The stone sailed smoothly into the cloudless sky.

  Simon stood laughing like a madma
n at the absurd spectacle of the Occitan women trying to hit him.

  Folques hurried to reach his old friend. Suddenly, he remembered the dying vow of the Cathar witch in Lavaur. “Simon! Take cover!”

  Simon turned toward Folques’s shout—the stone smashed into his left temple. A flash of disbelief crossed his blackened face. Rivulets of blood streamed down his forehead and his right eye dangled from its socket. Staggered, he looked down at his chest with his remaining eye and ran his hand through the brains that had splattered his hauberk. He crumpled to his knees. His head, a mash of blood and bone, fell face first to the ground.

  Both armies ceased fighting as if God Himself had decreed sound and motion stricken from Creation. The Occitans approached warily and looked down at the most feared man in the Languedoc.

  “Simon!” cried Guy, writhing from his wound. “Simon, get up!”

  Folques reeled back, pallid and lost. The crusaders around him broke into a panicked retreat. The Occitans were so astounded by Simon’s refusal to rise that they could not organize a chase. Suspecting a trap, Roger stood astride the body and cautiously flipped it over with his sword.

  The Lion stared up with one eye—in death.

  On the walls, the cheering Toulousians carried Loupe to the field in a triumphant procession. Above them, on the allures, a troubadour blew his horn for silence. The Occitans halted their jubilation and bowed heads in remembrance of the thousands of countrymen who had lost their lives to the wicked man who lay before them. The troubadour sang a paean until his lungs nearly burst:

  De Montfort es mort

  Viva Tolosa

  Ciotat gloriosa

  Et poderosa!

  Tornan lo paratge et L’onor!

  De Montfort es mort!

  The bells of Saint-Sernin tolled joyfully. Soon, the belfries of neighboring towns chimed in. By nightfall, every church in the Languedoc pealed with the announcement of a miracle.

  Lady Giraude’s prophecy had come to pass.

  If the saint drinks a poison, it becomes an antidote.

  But if the disciple drinks it, his mind is darkened.