The Fire and the Light

by Glen Craney

  He made a final check of their precious baggage. Each of his three volunteers would carry one of the relics. The Keramion was hidden inside a water skin, half-filled to conceal its weight. The Mandylion was concealed in the doubled lining of a cloak. The gospel scroll had been meticulously rolled and smoothed around the wooden canister of a quiver, then wrapped in leather. He would be the one most under the greatest suspicion if captured, so he bore on his own person a spurious inventory of bullion and jewels, inscribed on the back of the map brought by the Aragon engineer. Signed by Marti, the document was contrived with enough detail and cleverness to seduce even the most skeptical of the French into believing it to be the reason for their escape attempt.

  He had always prided himself on keeping his emotions under restraint, for a cool head and a cold heart had kept him alive on many a field of battle. But now, gazing down one last time at the Cathars, he was sapped by an overwhelming wave of despair. He had always condemned their ways as folly. Yet they were the only ones who had ever truly loved him. With a huff of bitterness, he turned from their outpouring of farewells and slid down the rope with his three compatriots. The rising night wind suffused the darkness with an unearthly chorus of rustles and whispers. As he hurried in stealth along the cliff’s edge rehearsing its clefts and chins from memory, he pondered the strange beliefs that Esclarmonde had espoused: If she were proven right, he would never again see those people, for they would reside in the realm of the Light and he would be incarnated again into this world.

  He could still turn back and take the Consolamentum. What did it matter if he spoke a few inconsequential words that he did not believe? He pivoted to return to the temple—and rammed his shin into something hard.

  He bit off a muffled curse and looked down to find the culprit. Searing fatigue and the night’s shadows blunted his perceptions. Several disoriented moments passed before he discovered that he had stumbled over a small boulder surrounded by blooming flowers. Why did this place look so familiar? He passed his hand across the dolmen’s smooth face. His legs buckled in sudden recognition. A hoot howl screeched, chilling him to the bone, and a spate of barking by wild dogs ignited in the vale below. Were the avenging angels assigned to his perpetual torment laughing at him again? He thought it nigh impossible that fifty years could have passed since he had sat with Esclarmonde on this rock. His heart thudded in his chest. He felt a light rain beginning to fall. Raising his good hand to his mouth to stifle a raw cough of regret, he realized that his convulsing face alone was wet.

  Damn this blighted mount!

  The other climbers stood waiting for him. With a surge of anger, he shoved the small boulder over the cliff and resumed his descent without returning to take the rite. He would never again bow in worship to any god, Cathar or Catholic, who stood by and watched the best of this world die so ignobly.

  Whosoever is close to me is close to the fire.

  - The Gospel of Thomas

  XL

  Montsegur

  March 16, 1244

  Dawn’s red tendrils burned off the last wisps of fog as the temple’s west gate screeched open on its rusted hinges. Covering their mouths with bandanas, the Seneschal and his French troops led the Dominicans into the ashlar mausoleum and were stopped short by what met their eyes. These hard-bitten veterans of the heretic wars had seen the entrails of many a besieged castle, but nothing so stomach-churning as this farrago of squalor and misery.

  “Christ on the Cross,” muttered the Seneschal.

  Those Cathars who could summon the strength struggled to their pustuled feet. They resembled skulls set on black-swathed stilts as they clustered in an oscillation of misery, shivering uncontrollably from the effects of the flux. Their faces were white as curdled whey and their protruding Adam’s apples moiled above the fleshless hollows of their throats. The infirm lay contorted in agony, some curled into balls, others splayed in the muck with lips scabbed and limbs gangrenous from frostbite. A makeshift morgue had been built atop poles at the south end of the bailey and in one corner a fetid privy was draped with shredded robes to provide what little modesty could be had. The sluice rut, clogged with offal and runoff, had turned the ground into a festering mire.

  Otto quavered with the nervousness of a novice as he threaded the ranks of the downcast perfectas and searched for features that reflected his own. “Where is Esclarmonde de Foix?”

  After a fractured silence, Chandelle stepped forward from the frightened cadre of women. “I am Esclarmonde.”

  Otto stared at Chandelle without comprehension. Suddenly, dark recognition registered on his face. She was the slippery miniken he had interrogated at Avignonet. He buckled her with a punishing slap. “Deceiving bitch! I know who you are!”

  Raymond tried to crawl to his daughter’s defense, but the Northern soldiers kicked at his splinted leg to drive him back. “Bastard! Touch her again and—” The butt end of a pike hammered against his jaw.

  Blood trickled from Chandelle’s sliced lip as she recovered to her feet. She held Otto prisoner in her blind glare. “And we know who you are.”

  “Silence!” demanded Otto. “You will speak only when permitted.”

  The aged Archbishop of Narbonne cupped a hand to his ear to aid his poor hearing. “What did the woman say?”

  “This monk is the son of the woman he seeks to destroy,” said Chandelle.

  “These heretics will spout any lie to save themselves!” said Otto.

  “His veins run with the same blood as ours,” said Chandelle. “Take us to the tribunal and we’ll prove it.”

  After another transit around the bailey, Otto realized that he had been deceived about Esclarmonde’s presence. He slung Chandelle toward the gate before she could utter more damning charges. “Take them all down!”

  The Archbishop stared at Otto for a hazardous moment, but he chose not to act on his suspicion, having no desire to return to Paris and explain his interference with Blanche’s orders. With a shrug of indifference, he hurried from the stinking heretic den, eager to return to Narbonne and be done with this noxious business. At the Seneschal’s signal, the French soldiers shackled the Cathars to a long chain. The Marquessa was not spared the indignity; unable to raise herself, she was hoisted roughly. Herded to one end of the temple, the Occitan soldiers made a move toward their stacked weapons, but their insurgency was quickly thwarted by the prod of pikes.

  When the Occitan knights had been culled from the heretics, Otto advised Raymond, “You and your men will be taken to Carcassonne for questioning.”

  “Allow my family to accompany me,” begged Raymond.

  “The cloggers will be given the opportunity to recant.” As the Occitan soldiers were led away, Otto found Bernard and twenty of his comrades holding back. He smirked in grim amusement at their misguided chivalry. “As I suspected, some in your ranks have succumbed to Satan’s wiles.” He ordered a sergeant, “Bind them with the heretics.”

  The Cathars and lapsed soldiers were shoved through the west gate and required to reveal their names to a deacon who sat at a scrivener’s table. Those who tried to speak Occitan were beaten until they answered in French. The Seneschal picked out the healthiest among the captives and forced them to the front of the chained line. The descent would be arduous and his men were in no mood to carry the lame down the pog. The Dominicans chanted Te Deums as the Northerners lashed the wretched train to a brutal exodus across the rocks and bramble, dragging those unable to keep up. When the last of the perfects had been banished from the temple, Otto turned to his deacon for the head count.

  “Two hundred and five heretics,” said the scribe. “Forty-two men at arms.”

  The Seneschal and his officers lingered at the gate, eager to search the premises for the gold that they were convinced had been hoarded by the Cathars from thefts and familial bequests.

  Otto ordered them, “Give me leave here.”

  “This fastness is the King’s property,” insisted the Seneschal.

&nbs
p; “The King holds it in tenancy for God,” Otto said. “I must first exorcise the demonic influences within these walls. On the morrow, you will be allowed to requisition the materiel and possessions.” When the Seneschal took a defiant step in anger, Otto brought him to a halt. “You wish me to report to Paris that I was prevented from performing my sacramental obligations?”

  The Seneschal was sorely tempted to smite this arrogant monk who had been a thorn in his side for nine long months, but he had even less stomach than the Archbishop for answering to the tempestuous Queen Mother. He burned Otto with a probing glare and tried to divine the true purpose for his insistence to be left alone in the chateau. He had come to know this tonsured viper well enough to be certain that the reason had nothing to do with piety. Finally, he waved off the confrontation and departed with his officers.

  Alone inside the temple, Otto slid the gate bolt into place. The sanctuary was eerily still, a confirmation that Satan’s dominions were lurking. He tried the chapel door and discovered it locked. He smiled with anticipation, certain that the heretic cache was just beyond the threshold. He found an abandoned ax and hacked at the planks until they caved in.

  The small nave of the chapel held only a slab that had served as an altar. The cloggers had swept the room bare of every pebble and speck of dirt except for a small pyramid of ashes in the hearth, still warm. Had they burned their scurrilous writings at the last moment? He rifled through the embers hoping to find a revealing curl of parchment, but the heretics had been thorough in their destruction. He grew more agitated as he searched in vain for hidden niches. Denied his due reward, he rushed back into the bailey and inspected the grounds for evidence of diggings. This scrabbled enclosure of rock and hardpan resembled more an abandoned quarry than a place of devil worship.

  Smudged graffiti on the eastern rampart caught his eye. Had the heretics tried to erase these markings? The etching appeared to be an outline of a cross with three beams. He scurried along the inner perimeter and discovered the same symbol on the opposite curtain wall. Their placement appeared haphazard. The crass superstitions of these cloggers were beyond his understanding. Yet he could not shake the gnawing instinct that the markings were of great significance. Where before had he seen such a strange crucifix?

  Montanhagol.

  He rushed from the temple and ran down the path, ripping his robe skirt on the thick furze in his haste. Panting from the exertion, he reached the base of the pog and found the Cathars crumpled in a pitiful heap, bloodied and torn from their forced descent. The soldiers had brought them into a small clearing near the mouth of the shepherd’s path where a stockade of freshly cut poles had been filled with faggots. He walked before the apostate soldiers and examined each face closely. “The impostor friar ... where is he?”

  When the Occitans refused to speak, Otto spun and slapped Corba to the ground. He came next to Chandelle, who swiveled her head, unable to make sense of the groans and shouts of promised retaliation. He knew from her interrogation at Avignonet that she would not be broken by threats to her own life. This time, he would try a different tactic. He raised Corba to her feet and cuffed her again, then whispered into Chandelle’s ear, “Did they tell you what we did to that swineherd you favored?” He grinned, having gained the paled reaction he sought. “I will offer you one last chance.”

  Chandelle fought the urge to spit in his face. She steeled her nerves and waited to hear another punishing blow, trying not to succumb.

  Otto had learned from Folques the true weakness of these people; they cared nothing for themselves, but could not bear to see their fellow sinners suffer. He demanded again, “Where have the anchoress and the Templar absconded?”

  Chandelle heard a sickening thud against her mother’s skull. Denied by her faith the right to speak a lie, she struggled to remain mute.

  “Damn you, monk!” Raymond tried to claw toward Otto, but the crusaders kicked him to a bloodied submission. “I’ll find you in Hell!”

  “Tell them nothing!” Corba heaved and coughed, her eyes now swollen slits. She jutted out her battered jaw in defiance. Some of the Cathars rose painfully to their feet, their only means of sharing in Corba’s ordeal.

  “What did they take with them?” Finding the shivering perfects still clinging to their conspiracy of silence, Otto hammered Corba again and again until she was nearly unconscious. When still none would answer him, he wheeled crimson-faced toward the Seneschal and ordered, “Burn them!”

  Raymond fought against the soldiers’ restraint. “You promised a tribunal! By the Church’s word!”

  “They shall have their day of judgment,” said Otto, his lips quivering from cold fury. “Before God at the gates of perdition.”

  The Archbishop was taken aback by Otto’s treacherous dismissal of the negotiated conditions for the surrender. “You must afford them the opportunity to recant. Canon law requires it.”

  “That shall be no impediment!” Otto hoisted a crucifix over the Cathars and tried to force them to look upon the tortured Christ, but they averted their eyes from the despised symbol. “Do you renounce your sins and accept the Holy Roman Church as the true arbiter of faith on earth?”

  “They are but words, Corba!” cried Raymond. “Say them!”

  Chandelle clutched her mother’s hands to infuse her with strength. Corba turned away, unable to look at Raymond for fear of losing resolve.

  The perfects recited the Cathar Pater Noster while Otto repeatedly cut the air over them with the sign of the Roman Cross. “By authority vested in me by the Holy Father, I commend your souls to the fires of God’s justice!”

  When the French soldiers could not decide which of the Cathars to burn first, Otto cut the leather bindings that held the Marquessa’s wrist and dragged her toward the stockade. “Give the oldest the honor!”

  “Wait!” shouted Chandelle.

  Otto hurried to the blind perfecta, certain that she had finally broken. If she recanted, the others would follow. Chandelle extended her strapped hands to be untied. With a sloe-eyed grin of conquest, Otto ordered the soldiers to cut the blind perfecta free.

  “My mother and grandmother, as well,” said Chandelle.

  Bertrand Marti and the other Cathars cried softly and hung their heads in defeat, undone by Chandelle’s betrayal of the faith to save her family.

  “Who else wishes to return to Holy Mother Church?” asked Otto. When none stepped forward, he said, “Perhaps they need some inducement.” He signaled for the soldiers to drag the first contingent of the damned into the stockade. “Twelve ... in honor of the Apostles.”

  The soldiers chose a dozen victims at random. They shoved the Cathars into the faggots and threw the firebrands over the palisades. Soon a great swirl of sizzling air arose, punctuated by a sharp crackling. The recitations of the Pater Noster grew more frantic. Those Cathars awaiting their turn knelt in grief.

  Otto turned to offer Chandelle reassurance. “You have made a wise choice. Now, tell me what I wish to know.”

  As a second condemned group was dragged to the stockade, Chandelle found her mother’s shaking hand. She mouthed a silent word to her father, who was on his knees, sobbing in relief that she and Corba had chosen to live. She captured Otto’s face and kissed him forcefully on the lips, then whispered, “I will tell you what you need to know. Your mother loved you.” Before Otto could comprehend what she meant, Chandelle leaned down and braced the prostrate Marquessa with a hand to her elbow. “Grandma, we must walk a few steps.”

  Otto broke a wide smile in preening victory. The blind heretic was bringing the others with her to the stern mercy of Holy Mother Church.

  The Marquessa squeezed Chandelle’s hand to confirm that she was prepared to make the effort. Miraculously, the matriarch, who had not taken a step in years, found the strength to stand. Arm-in-arm, the three women looked up at Esclarmonde’s temple and saw the sun’s rays strike the pinnacle of the chapel. Blessed with that sign of beckoning, the women turned from Otto and wal
ked toward the burning stockade.

  A shadow crossed Raymond’s face. “No!”

  The three generations of women clutched hands as they staggered closer to the churning conflagration. Corba glanced toward the west and saw a trail of black smoke curled from the mountain fastness of Usson, twenty leagues away. Eyes brimming with hot tears, she whispered, “Guilhelm has made it.”

  Chandelle whispered a prayer in gratitude that the relics had been saved. As they neared the flames, the heat became so searing that she feared she would lose fortitude. “How much farther?”

  Corba bit her bruised lip, drawing a trickle of blood. “A few steps more.”

  Chandelle could hear the prayers of the dying perfects above the fire wind. In birth, there is no turning back. Only in death can we defy the Lords of Darkness by choosing the moment and manner to leave this world of injustice and suffering. She then remembered Esclarmonde’s warning: The opportunity to escape reincarnation will be fleeting. If the passing is met with fear, the doors of salvation will be closed. She whispered hoarsely, “We are going home.”

  The Marquessa embraced her daughter and granddaughter for the last time.

  Together, they dived into the stockade.

  Engulfed in the vortex of incandescent tongues, Chandelle’s breath was sucked from her throat. She reached under her robe and clutched Jean’s etching stone. “Watch for the Light!” she cried, barely able to force a sound. “Watch for the Light!” The spitting flames swirled around her. A deafening wind howled in her ears. The first Station was coming. Be brave. Watch for the flash. Her body oozed as if lathered in scalding oil. Is that blood? Do not think of it. Be as resolved as the martyrs before the beasts. My God, why am I so cold?