The Fire and the Light Page 5

  “That treacherous monk will guard your heart with the same dereliction.”

  She slapped him. “Base indictment from a man who has never raised a sword in the defense of person or principle!”

  Folques clenched his fist but held back from striking. Instead, he took satisfaction at having elicited some emotion from the woman he loved. He captured her shoulders and pulled her closer, lusting to taste her lips.

  She looked up at the Blessed Mother to remind him that he stood in a house of God. “I pray one day you’ll find a use for your talent in a cause more noble than slandering those who exceed you in chivalry.”

  Heaving with anger and arousal, Folques drove her against the wall and tongued her ear in a taunt. “You’ll never have him,” he whispered hotly. “You may be the most beautiful woman in all the Languedoc, but you stand no chance of winning that Templar from God. Mark me, one day you’ll know the agony I now endure.”

  She fought off his clutches and rushed crying from the chapel.

  Folques staggered to his knees and slumped in self-loathing. He gazed at the icon of the Virgin and begged, “Why am I afflicted with this fever?”

  The Blessed Mother’s eyes remained cold. She too had abandoned him. Resigned to his wretchedness, he arose and turned to leave when he saw the breviary on the altar. He examined the page that had so intrigued Esclarmonde:

  A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country ...

  That passage had not been meant for her! No, the Almighty had left it for him! What was a troubadour if not a prophet? He had been rejected by his fellow Occitans just as the biblical visionaries had been shunned by the Israelites. The divine message was clear: He must renounce his profligate ways to regain his good name. But what profession would have a ruined man with no skill but the clever crafting of words? He looked up at another icon above the altar: Jehovah, the God of Judgment, was calling to him.

  “My life for an answer!” he cried. “Why does this disease burn in me?”

  He pressed a coin between the Scripture’s bindings as an offering for the oracle, then he opened to the page chosen by the Almighty. Before him appeared a verse from the Song of Songs:

  Set me as a seal upon your heart,

  As a ring upon your arm;

  For love is strong as death,

  Jealousy is cruel as the grave,

  Its flashes are flashes of fire,

  A flame of the Eternal.

  He was shattered by this revelation. His best years, he realized, had been wasted in frivolous versifying. With the sneer of a jilted lover, he cursed the Virgin, “Inconstant woman! I sang your praise! And you turned against me! I am forever finished with you!” He looked to the towering Jehovah for sustenance. “To you, Father, I now devote my life. In Your name, I will cleanse this pernicious land of the Serpent’s harlotry.”

  Many set out from the very spot where the object of their quest is to be found.

  - Jalaoddin Rumi

  IV

  Foix

  May 1194

  The Marquessa angrily ripped the blanket from Esclarmonde’s bed and exposed her legs to the frigid morning air. “Your brother returned last night in a frightful rage!”

  Corba peeked out from behind her mother’s gown. “He vowed to have you married off by Michaelmas!”

  Esclarmonde abandoned her feigned sleep. “He cannot do that!”

  The Marquessa latched the door to avoid waking Roger, who was slumbering from a hangover in the solar. “Corba told me of this business in the cave.”

  Esclarmonde took a swipe at Corba, but missed. “Traitor!”

  Corba remained at a safe distance. “Where did you go last night?”

  “To Vespers.”

  “You never attend the chant,” said Corba, suspicious.

  “You both will be severely disciplined!” Finding Esclarmonde tearing up, the Marquessa regretted her strident tone and stroked her goddaughter’s hair in a plea for forgiveness. “My love, you do not understand the gravity of this encounter. There are things from which you have been sheltered.”

  “It would not be the first time! You and Roger tell me nothing of what goes on here!”

  The Marquessa retreated to the window and studied the signal tower atop Roquefixade, several leagues away. She remained there in tortured contemplation for several minutes, occupying herself by stirring the brazier embers. At last, she drew a constricted breath and revealed, “I have kept something from you for much too long ... Your mother did not die during your birth.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Esclarmonde.

  “After Roger was born, Cecille was told she could never again bear children. The news cast her into a despond. She so desperately wanted a daughter.”

  “Why don’t I remember her?”

  “Child, allow me to finish,” pleaded the Marquessa. “One morning, she and I were climbing Montsegur. That tor was her favorite place. On its summit, an itinerant holy man appeared from behind the rocks and offered to cure her of the barrenness. Only your father and I knew of her condition.”

  “This hermit,” said Esclarmonde. “What did he look like?”

  “He wore a black robe,” said the Marquessa. “And his eyes burned hot like coals. I will never forget the chills I felt looking into them.”

  “Did you run?” asked Corba.

  “I tried, but Cecille insisted on speaking to him. The monk placed one hand on her womb and the other toward the sky as if calling down God’s grace. He promised that she would give birth to an angel who would fly to Heaven from that mount.” The Marquessa brushed lint from Esclarmonde’s nightgown in a play for time to gather courage. “A year later, you arrived, my love. Cecille insisted on returning to Montsegur to thank the monk for the miracle.”

  “Did she find him?” asked Esclarmonde.

  “I was too afraid to go with her.” The Marquessa turned aside with her smoky eyes hooded in shame. “I never saw her again.”

  Esclarmonde stole an interrogating glance at Corba. Fortunately, Corba seemed not to have made the possible connection between the old Cathar in Lombrives and the hermit who had healed her mother years ago.

  The Marquessa sought comfort from the wall crucifix. “Your father was convinced that Cecille had been seduced into the heretic fold. He scoured the mountains, but she had vanished. After that, he exiled the cloggers from the villages. There were rumors ...” She debated the wisdom of finishing her confession.

  “Tell me!”

  The Marquessa spoke rapidly to release a heavy burden from her soul. “Two years after Cecille disappeared, a tinker reported seeing a woman among the prisoners at Carcassonne who bore a striking resemblance to your mother.”

  “Does Roger know of this?”

  “Your father made him promise never to tell you. The Count feared you would try to find her. You must forego all contact with these heretics.”

  “But if they healed her, why not—”

  “Speak no further of this!” ordered the Marquessa. “The clerics in Toulouse already suspect us of giving sanctuary to the false believers. Your brother has tried to remove the suspicion by allowing our county to be searched.”

  Esclarmonde now understood why Roger harbored such deep resentment toward her. He no doubt blamed her birth for their mother’s disappearance and the troubles it had spawned.

  The Marquessa loosened the calyx of her necking and drew forth a small medallion that hung on a chain. “The hermit gave this to Cecille. I found it on the mount years later. She would have wanted you to have it.”

  Esclarmonde inspected the talisman. She was struck by its resemblance to the pax tablets worn by priests and kissed by worshippers when offered the blessing of peace. Engraved on one side were two robed figures in an embrace, accompanied by markings of an esoteric alphabet. The reverse side held a triple cross—the same symbol she had seen etched over the skeletons in the cave.

  “Stay in your room and make no more trouble for your brother,” warned
the Marquessa. “This is no time to test his patience.”

  The slumbering guard at the chateau’s gate was awakened by the pounding of hooves. Alerted, he jumped to attention. “My liege, I was not told you would be practicing today.”

  Accoutred in his jerkin and tilting helmet, Count Roger cantered his jaunty Arabian from the stables and dug his heels into the mare’s flanks. He barely afforded the guard time to crank up the portcullis.

  Two leagues beyond the walls, the Count reined up on seeing another knight on the horizon. Wisps of low fog impeded his view. He identified himself as suzerain of the domain by brandishing his shield with the Foix heraldry, a golden wolf clawing at a thunderbolt. When the distant knight circled, Roger lifted his shield a second time for good measure. The rider spurred to a rowelled gallop, rising and sinking across the valley. Roger nodded with satisfaction at finding the man hurrying forth to offer homage. Yet when the stranger neared, he did not abate his pace but angled low in the saddle and aimed his lance. Roger tried to swerve aside, but his Arabian was trained to dig in against such onslaughts. A few paces from the collision, he ripped off his helmet.

  Esclarmonde—disguised in her brother’s armor—sat on the Arabian.

  The charging stallion skidded to a joint-locked halt and vaulted its rider airborne. The knight landed with a thud on his sacrum and lay sprawled on the ground for several seconds until a groan came from his helmet. Thrashing and picking sod from his ocularum, he resembled a silver beetle upturned.

  Esclarmonde cantered over to him. “Are you bereft of all good sense, sir? Or do you always bear down on travelers like a brigand?”

  Her accusation so flummoxed the knight that he lost his balance and fell again. He finally lurched to his knees and threw off his helmet. “Am I bereft?”

  The Templar.

  Esclarmonde patted her mare to calm its skittishness and gain time to dissemble her own blush of surprise. Delighted by this unexpected meeting, she opted to keep him on the defensive. “You needn’t raise your voice to me. I’m not one of your pew mates rendered hard of hearing by too much chanting.” From her high vantage, he appeared less gallant than he had in the court. She stifled a laugh while watching him roll from side to side in a frenzied effort to stand. “You truly give new meaning to the appellation ‘Poor Knight of Christ.’”

  The Templar leveraged up and angrily dusted his breeches. “Why in God’s name did you raise your shield?” He only then recognized the absurdity of the question. “Why are you even carrying a shield?”

  She affected hurt by daubing her eyes. “Can you not see that I am shaken by this barbaric assault?”

  “If you insist on parading across the countryside, you’d best learn the rules of encounter. Why are you in battle gear?”

  “That is none of your concern.”

  The Templar shook his head in exasperation. “First you dispute with churchmen. Now you ride about like Lancelot seeking the Grail. What could possibly be next? A one-woman crusade?”

  It occurred to Esclarmonde that by now Roger would have discovered her theft of his livery. Having the Templar at her side when she was apprehended might prove beneficial. Not even her brother would suspect her of searching for the heretics if she were accompanied by the monk. She cast her hand to her forehead. “I am so weakened from the shock, I must petition your escort.”

  The Templar was blindsided by her audacity. “The rules of my order do not allow me to travel alone with a woman.”

  “So much for that promise of protection at the court! I do wonder what your brothers-in-arms will say when they learn that you were unhorsed by a lady?”

  The Templar bolted upright. “You wouldn’t.”

  She circled him as if addressing an audience in the round. “Saladin’s princesses will no doubt sing of it to give their men courage. What shall we call it? ‘The Quest of Esclarmonde?’ No, perhaps ‘The Unseating of Montanhagol.’”

  The Templar could not deny a grudging smile at this infuriating creature. “I trust you are not intent on Jerusalem.”

  She swung a leg over the saddle to dismount and accept his apology, but she forgot the weight of the hauberk and tumbled to the grass. Immobilized on her back, she found the Templar standing astride her with a punishing smirk. She presented her hand to him for assistance. “Are you going to just stand there like an imbecile?”

  The Templar milked this agreeable turn of fortune. “Perhaps the minstrels will instead sing of the Amazon from Foix who was buried in her brother’s breastplate.” She doubled her efforts without success, but he refused his assistance until she answered him. “Where are we going?”

  “I will tell you then!”

  He pulled her halfway off the ground and withheld his full leverage until she complied with the demand.

  “To Montsegur.”

  Informed of her intent to visit the notorious heretic lair, he released her hand and crossed his arms, sending her plummeting to the grass again.

  She cursed like a washerwoman as she wiggled out from under the hauberk like a butterfly shedding a cocoon. Gaining her feet, she bent over and shook the dry leaves from her hair. She turned to find the Templar gazing at her derrière, revealed by the tight cut of her riding breeches. In all likelihood, he had never seen a woman without the modesty of robes. She decided to take advantage of his sheltered existence. “What use would you be to me anyway? You’re obviously too blind to tell a knight from a lady.” She stole a sideways glance to confirm that her verbal cut had landed, then raised herself to the saddle, ensuring that he had clear view of her ascent. Before he could protest, she kicked the Arabian into a loping run.

  Minutes later, the Templar charged past her and eased into a plodding gait, two lengths ahead. Does he think me an invalid? She had no intention of being led on a slow procession like some wizened nun on a pilgrimage. Yet each time she tried to sidle up to him, his stallion thwarted the attempt. “Has your horse also taken a vow of chastity?”

  The Templar ignored her taunt and rode on.

  The Templar’s contemplative silence allowed her to ponder a vexing question: Why had he first refused to accompany her, only to acquiesce so quickly? She would solve that riddle in due course. The more pressing task at hand was to educate him on the consequences of ignoring a lady, even for the call of God. She spurred to a gallop and gained ten lengths on him before he was wrenched from his meditation. She lashed her mare down into the blue-green valley toward the crest of a massif formed by the first eruptions of the Pyrenees. She looked back and, for the first time, saw him laughing.

  Not even the descriptions of the holy places in the Bible could have prepared her for the dissonant sight. The towering crag of Montsegur was an alien eruption amid rolling sheep fields and sporadic oak groves. The mount looked as if the gray head of a giant dragon had long ago broken through the earth and turned to stone. The summit of the pog was not sharp like the surrounding Pyrenean caps but rounded off like a thimble, and the pitch on three of its sides was so severe that no vegetation could survive there. The east approach alone looked passable; its steepness was alleviated by a green finger of land that swept halfway up the limestone face. A winding shepherd’s path split the crag and disappeared on its ascent into tufts of shrubby trees. Had Noah known of this place, he might well have chosen it over Mount Tabor as the site best suited to build his ark.

  The Templar finally caught up. He was about to chastise her for extending the horses when he caught his first glimpse of the mount. “Impregnable.”

  Esclarmonde was astonished at how a man could view the world so differently. It had never occurred to her that such a place should hold a fortification. “We should get started if we’re going to make the top before sundown.”

  The Templar blinked hard. “You don’t intend to scale it?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “I would attempt the walls of Acre first,” he protested.

  She dismounted and tethered her horse to a tree. “Come. Whilst we climb
, you can tell me about your many deeds of valor in Palestine.”

  The Templar sat in the saddle muttering Arabic-laced curses. Finally, he removed his mantle and slung the scabbard over his brocaded shoulders, framed even more prominently by his slender waist and lean legs. Bared for the first time, his muscular arms appeared pale next to Esclarmonde’s copper complexion. In times past, his fellow brothers had refused to expose their skin, even under the deadliest desert sun. Only after scores had died from heat prostration did St. Michael appear to the Grand Master of the Order in a dream and order the rule be rescinded.

  Esclarmonde followed him up the switchback and wondered anew why he was submitting so meekly. Perhaps he had been taught to obey without questioning. All men would do well to spend time in such training. When the climb became more arduous, she extended her hand for assistance. “Guilhelm.” She had never addressed him by his first name. He hesitated and cast his eyes down, but accepted her reach. His fingers trembled slightly as he pulled her up the precipice. Having won this hard-fought prize, she was not about to relinquish it. “I’ve not thanked you for coming to my aid at the court.”

  He huffed with derision. “Someone needed to silence that inane warbler.”

  “It was not I who inspired you?” she asked flirtatiously.

  “My lady—”

  “Will you not call me Esclarmonde? Combatants should be on less formal terms, no?”

  He increased the pace of their climb, uncomfortable with the intimate direction of the conversation. “We’ve twice locked shields in the short time I’ve known you. And I always seem to get the worst of it.”

  So, he has been thinking of me. She risked his withdrawal by closing the space between them. “Do you know that you are a poet?” She sensed his flinch at her forwardness. “Your words are simple and direct, but they find the heart. Promise me you’ll pursue your gift.”