The Fire and the Light

by Glen Craney

  “What did the Master say?” she whispered, eyes closed.

  “Our Lord told him, ‘Dearest Thomas, this is the Robe you wore before you were born.’”

  A dove flapped across the exposed ribbing of the scavenged roof. Startled, Guilhelm looked up to the clear night sky and saw the constellation of Virgo, the celestial abode of the Madonna. One of its stars shot across the black expanse and fell toward the crag, leading his gaze downward again. Esclarmonde was smiling at him with a look of radiant peace. His heart fluttered with hope. Was the star a portent from Heaven? Had the Almighty granted his petition in reward for his service to the Cross? Tears streamed down his cheeks as he kissed her to confirm the blessing.

  Her lips were cold.

  She had been fixed not on him, but on the Virgin’s constellation. Had she witnessed a revelation from another realm? Heaving with grief, he pulled her into his arms and whispered, “Farewell, my pearl. I pray you have found your magical robe.”

  She had always assured him that, verily, there was a beneficent God who granted the petitions of mortals. But if such a divinity did exist, He had long ago abandoned this desolate mount. The Light of Montsegur—the solitary light in Guilhelm’s world—had gone out forever.

  If the spiritual universe and the way to it were shown, no one for a single moment would remain.

  - Rumi

  XXXVIII

  Toulouse

  February 1244

  Three days of unremitting rain had turned the road north along the overflowing Garonne into a quagmire. Hundreds of starving Occitan refugees were encamped along the approach into the once-proud capital of Toulousia, a battered shell of its past grandeur, its largesse pillaged and spirit crushed by the Dominicans who had installed their inquisition headquarters in the Maison Communale.

  Hooded in a tattered cloak, Loupe fought her way through this morass of misery on a crutch to ease the pain in her swollen ankle wrenched during her descent down Montsegur in the darkness. She slogged toward the gendarmes who manned the arched gate of the Narbonnais tower and shouted, “I must speak with the Count!”

  Her plea was answered with a halberd’s jab. She tried to force a breach, but the guards pummeled her into the rabble of commoners and dispossessed nobles who had come to petition relief from the Dominican reign of terror. Dazed by the blow, she revived to consciousness under the trampling of feet. She staggered upright again and clawed to the fore. “I have a communiqué!”

  “A diplomat,” scoffed the sergeant of the gate. “From King Louis himself by the look of her fine raiment.”

  Drenched and wasted, Loupe looked down at her oversized vagabond’s rags and only then realized how much she had changed in weight and appearance. “I come from Montsegur!”

  The sergeant lost his grin. He glanced with alarm at the claque of black-robed friars congregating at the door of their inquest quarters. “Away with you! We have no dealings with your kind!”

  Loupe saw that she was standing under the parapet where she had launched the shot that killed Simon de Montfort. The inscription stone set in memory of her deed was weathered and defaced. She could not accept being denied entry into the city that she had once saved. For two weeks, she had clung close to the isolated forests along the Ariege and Garonne rivers, avoiding the French scouting parties while cadging for scraps and surviving on dead carrion and rotted fish heads. Having made it down the pog and across the frozen causses on one good leg, she was determined not to fail at this eleventh hour. She made another attempt on the gate and captured the sergeant’s face. “Guiscard Cabresine!”

  The sergeant shoved her away. “I’ll not have my good name bewitched!”

  “We fought together on these walls!”

  He spun back to examine her features. “The She-Wolf?”

  “Get me in!”

  “What has happened to you?” While the Dominicans were preoccupied, the sergeant hurried her inside. “I may lose my head for this.”

  The mob clamored in protest as the guards slammed the portcullis. Loupe was escorted past the corridor rush lights and up the circular stairway that led into the great hall where de Montfort had once planned his campaigns. There she found a scene starkly different from the one outside. The knights and retainers were in fine mettle, reveling bawdily and stuffing their mouths with exotic viands. A lute-playing minstrel pranced from table to table while several rake-hells hovered over a dice game of Todas Tablas. The music stopped in mid-chord and the men stared at her as if an exhumed corpse had walked into their midst.

  At the head table, Count Raymond continued to chomp on a joint of lamb. Belatedly alerted by the cessation of the carousing, he looked up in mid-bite and flung the morsel to the floor in exasperation. “Insufferable mendicants! Can I not take my repast without being plagued by petitions? Who let this one in?”

  Loupe moved to pounce on the meat, but she caught herself.

  “My lord, this is no beggar,” said the sergeant.

  Raymond stabbed his knife into a pile of chops and dug out another steaming bite. “If that’s no beggar, then I’m no baron.”

  “You are no baron!” shouted Loupe. “At least none worthy of the honor!”

  Raymond erupted to his feet, sending trenchers and cutlery flying. “I’ll hang that ratsbane tongue from this tower!”

  “That staff is already occupied by the Capetian oriflamme,” said Loupe. “You’d best dispatch your emissaries to Paris if you plan such bold action. I hear it takes weeks for that Spanish Jezebel to give you permission to wipe your ass.”

  “Death-courting knave! Your name I’ll have before your head!”

  Loupe was bent low by a hunger pang. “I am an Occitan who remembers when the Count of Toulouse would defend a faithful vassal!”

  Bollixed by the insolent intrusion, Raymond searched his knights for some hint as to her identity. When they shrugged in ignorance, he pinched her threadbare sleeve. “No vassal of mine tramps around like a mangy washwoman.”

  Loupe slung open the shutters to reveal the gruel lines in the streets below. “I’m well-heeled compared to many who languish in your land.”

  Raymond reached for his dagger, but Loupe stole it and took aim at his crotch. Slowed by the wine, the baron was staggered by her quickness. The knights moved to his aid until she warned them off with a twist of the blade. “Mayhaps I should hasten Blanche’s rights under that feckless treaty you signed.”

  The Count’s eyes dilated in recognition. “Christ’s blood.”

  Loupe produced the scrip she had kept hidden in her belt pouch. Raymond read Esclarmonde’s message while glancing nervously at a long-eared Dominican prelate who watched their confrontation from the corner. “Monseigneur, would you excuse us?”

  The prelate’s brow narrowed with suspicion. “God’s ears are all hearing.”

  “Yes, but we must not try His patience on petty matters of local governance.”

  The prelate grudgingly departed, but not before burning Loupe’s face into his memory. Raymond signaled for his knights to retract their swords. Loupe reciprocated by releasing the baron from the threat of the dagger.

  Raymond offered Loupe a slice of meat. Finding her hesitant, he insisted, “Your abstinence will not ease your family’s plight.”

  Loupe chewed the collop of lamb, but she could not keep it down. She was helped to a chair and brought a cup of spiced hippocras. Recovering her strength, she said, “The French have built an engine on the summit.”

  Raymond walked to the hearth and dispatched Esclarmonde’s letter to the flames. “The Dominicans must not discover that your aunt is alive.”

  “Why haven’t you responded to our signals to Roquefixade?”

  Raymond shared a guilt-ridden glance with his knights. “My position here is complicated. The cleric is my papal watchdog. He also reports to Blanche.”

  Loupe was incensed that her family’s suffering had been prolonged merely because of this puerile baron’s fear of his aunt. She threw the wine
goblet at the wall, dousing several of the men. “Drive these meddling monks from your court! The people will rise up and support you as they did against de Montfort.”

  Burdened by a dilemma, Raymond paced the chamber with his head slung low. “I have petitioned the Holy Father to rescind my excommunication.”

  “The Church holds your soul hostage?” she asked, incredulous.

  “If I send aid to Montsegur, all hope for the restoration of my title and lands will be forfeited. I must think of my future heir.”

  “Are you that blind? Blanche contrives to deny you of another child!”

  “The Queen Mother is my kinswoman and benefactor.”

  “The woman cares not a whit about your common blood! She seeks only to expand her son’s kingdom! There is only one way to restore the rightful governance of your forefathers. You must strike at once!”

  Raymond took refuge in his high-backed chair and slumped in a pose of heavy-eyed lassitude. “We will never be rid of the French.”

  Loupe knelt on one knee before him and grasped his chair arms. “Where is the man I saw stand before all Rome and declare he would never submit?”

  Raymond sipped his wine slowly, allowing its soporific effect to wash over his cares. After draining the cup, he stared into the dregs as if attempting to divine an oracle. “I have come to understand my father.”

  “Have they flogged every drop of Occitan blood from your veins?”

  Raymond’s sotted gaze was focused inward. “I was forced to watch his body rot in those streets out there. I’ll not suffer the same fate.”

  “My own father’s bones lay scattered on fallow ground,” said Loupe. “You seek to appease a church that murders the true followers of Christ.” She turned to the knights in his court, many of whom had fought with her during the de Montfort wars. “If Montsegur is allowed to fall, all Occitania is doomed.”

  A blond, gap-toothed squire, no more than fourteen years of age, parted the ranks of the knights and stepped forward. “Is it true what the troubadours say? That the Grail is kept in the chateau on that mount?”

  “Be still with your foolishness,” ordered Raymond.

  The men laughed and ridiculed the lad, but Loupe found a glimmer of hope in his innocent question. “The temple protects a treasure far more precious than a cup. A miraculous Light that appears differently to each seeker.”

  “Have you seen this Light?” asked the squire.

  The knights ceased in their raillery and drew closer, intrigued by Loupe’s revelation. She limped to the embrasure and studied the dust motes in the rays that had broken through the rain clouds. “I was too blinded by pride to see it. But my aunt has devoted her life to unlocking its mystery.”

  “Did she describe this miraculous radiance?” asked the squire.

  Loupe now regretted never listening to Esclarmonde’s teaching, having always dismissed it as nonsense. She scoured her fatigued mind to remember something in her life that made no sense and yet was beyond doubt. Bernard’s face came to her mind’s eye. “Is there a maiden who captures your heart?”

  The boy blushed. “Yes ... but I haven’t the courage to tell her.”

  “Why her, above all others?”

  He pondered the question. “I don’t know.”

  “Then it is beyond your understanding, this quest for her?”

  “Everyone says my love is doomed,” he said. “She comes from a higher station and is nothing like me.”

  Loupe circled the knights on her crutch to chase their smirks. “You make jest of the lad, but you were all once devoted to such a passion before you became inured to the possibilities of lost youth. The holy ones on Montsegur seek this mystical Light with the same fervor that you held for an exalted lady. The perfects cannot explain their faith in the logic of this world, just as this squire cannot explain his star-crossed passion. Yet the troubadours say his love and my aunt’s quest for this spiritual radiance share a sacred impulse.”

  A hush of sad nostalgia and shame fell over the chamber. The squire knelt before Loupe and said, “I will help you save your people.” Inspired by his selfless example, several knights stepped forward to join the offer.

  Loupe beseeched Raymond to ride at the head of a relief army. “Strike with the fury of your forefathers, my lord! Become the savior of Occitania!”

  Surrounded by hopeful gazes, Raymond sought courage in another long draught of wine. He stood unsteadily and studied the sword of his crusader grandfather that was displayed above the hearth. His paunched eyes swam in tears as he looked back into a time when Toulouse was a kingdom as glorious as England and France. He took the blade down from its moorings and strapped it to his belt. Blazoned with the heraldry of the House of Toulouse—a twelve-pointed cross spangled with bobbles—the bejeweled hilt that once crossed the ramparts of Jerusalem and Acre slowly lifted from the scabbard.

  Halfway up, the blade halted and slid back into its caitiff repose.

  And the Knights of the Grail knelt lowly,

  And for help to the Grail they prayed,

  And behold the mystic writing,

  And the promise it brought of aid.

  - Wolfram von Eschenbach

  XXXIX

  Montsegur

  March 1244

  Punished by a scudding gale that sliced at exposed skin, the Occitans huddled together inside the temple to hoard what little warmth they could raise over the wounded and dying. Guilhelm had refused to abide Esclarmonde’s order to have her body delivered to the Dominicans. Instead, on the previous night—the 2nd of March—he had strapped her shrouded corpse to his back and, in a last-ditch attempt to break past the French lines, led what remained of the garrison down the western face of the crag. He and his men were thrown back with grievous losses, including a severe thigh wound to Raymond de Perella. Unwilling to prolong the suffering, the Cathars asked to be handed over to the Dominicans in exchange for a promise of clemency for the soldiers.

  At dawn, Guilhelm and Pierre-Roger walked out with their hands raised. Suspecting a ruse, the French sergeant confronted them from behind the palisade and ordered his bowmen to take close aim. When the two Occitans came beyond the range of the enemy bows, the French officer drove a fist into Guilhelm’s gut. “That little sortie last night cost me twenty men.”

  Guilhelm and Pierre-Roger were heckled and prodded to the Seneschal’s pavilion on the far end of the eastern spine. There Otto recognized Guilhelm as the friar who had tricked him with the disguised penitents. “I should have you thrown from these cliffs.”

  “Harm us under a flag of parlay,” Guilhelm warned with level eyes, “and you will spend another summer on this rock.”

  The Seneschal burned Guilhelm with a minatory glare. “Well? Did you come out for a stroll? Or do you have something of interest to say to me?”

  “The fortress will be abandoned and all weapons left inside,” said Pierre-Roger. “In return, my men will be allowed to return to their homes. We have no trade with the religion of these cloggers.”

  “And the heretics?” asked Otto.

  Before Pierre-Roger could answer, Guilhelm interjected, “They must be taken before the tribunal in Toulouse to plead their cases.”

  Pierre-Roger turned on Guilhelm with a questioning look. He had not been told of the Templar’s intent to include that condition.

  Otto carefully studied Guilhelm. “Does Esclarmonde de Foix still live?”

  Guilhelm replied obliquely, “Why do you think these people have been resisting so fiercely?”

  “I must have proof,” said Otto. “Show her face on the walls.”

  “I will do you one better.” Guilhelm produced a rolled ribbon of cloth that he had found in the chapel. On it Esclarmonde had written a message begging mercy for her flock and telling Otto of her love for him.

  Otto began to read her words aloud, “To my dearest son—” He flushed as he pored over the remainder of the message in silence; it was dated and contained intimacies about Folques and Jourda
ine that only his mother could have known. He ripped the ribbon to shreds. “Rantings of a deranged witch.”

  “To her son?” asked the Seneschal. “Why would she—”

  “These cloggers address everyone as sons and daughters,” dissembled Otto. “A quaint example of their incestuous barbarities.”

  “Is it from the woman or not?” demanded the Seneschal.

  “She’s in there,” said Otto. “The rebels are yours to do with what you wish. I want that pagan poseur and her heretics.”

  “There is one more condition,” insisted Guilhelm.

  “You are in no position to make demands,” reminded Otto.

  “The surrender must be delayed until the sixteenth,” said Guilhelm. “The Cathars will be allowed to remain in the temple with food and water.”

  “You take us for fools?” scoffed Otto. “You are playing for time until you regain strength to attempt another escape.”

  “The spring solstice is a holy day for them,” said Guilhelm. “They wish to perform a ceremony before offering themselves up.”

  “I’ll not be an accessory to Satan’s ritual,” said Otto.

  Guilhelm searched the monk’s clammy features but could find no hint of Esclarmonde in them. How could such a shadow of evil have emerged from her womb? With one lunge, he could throw this viper over the cliff to join his father in Hell—but no, he had committed to seeing her last directive fulfilled. He swallowed his rising anger and calmly asked, “Have you heard of the Endura?”

  “Enlighten me,” said Otto, haughtily.

  “The dualists are permitted to commit suicide to avoid denying their faith,” said Guilhelm. “If you reject these terms, the viscountess is prepared to take her own life before you lay a hand on her.”

  Otto affected indifference with a casual inspection of his fingernails. Would a woman who held to a pacifist creed truly have the mettle to follow through on such a threat? He could not risk that possibility. It was imperative that he interrogate her to extract the secret that Folques had tried to reveal. He would draw her out in confidence as only a prodigal son could. Blanche was the most cunning woman he had ever encountered, but even she had failed to match him in wits. Armed with his mother’s capitulation, he would hasten to Rome and personally submit her confession to the Pope before his departure was even reported to Paris. His guerdon from the Church would be a position in the Apostolic Chancery, perhaps even the red cassock of a cardinal. He would be heralded as the monk who had finally crushed the heretics, succeeding where Folques and Almaric had failed. How long he had dreamt of following Dominic’s example by forming a new monastic order. His name would be spoken in the same breath with the venerable fathers from Assisi and Clairvaux. He tested the Templar’s obstinacy by walking away, but when Guilhelm did not move from the demand, he turned and relented, “The terms are accepted.”