CHAPTER 70
‘Monsieur Baillard, I — ’
Audric held up his hand. ‘Benlèu,’ he said, walking back to the table and picking up the threads of the story as if there had been no interruption. ‘I will tell you everything you need to know, I give you my word of that.’
She opened her mouth, then closed it again.
‘It was crowded in the citadel,’ he said, ‘but for all that, it was a happy time. For the first time in many years, Alaïs felt safe. Bertrande, now nearly ten years old, was popular with the many children who lived in and around the fortress. Harif, although old and frail, was also in good spirits. He had plenty of company: Bertrande to charm him, parfaits to argue with about the nature of God and the world. Sajhë was there at her side for much of the time. Alaïs was happy.’
Alice closed her eyes and let the past come to life in her mind.
‘It was a good existence and might have continued so but for one, reckless act of vengeance. On the twenty-eighth of May I242, Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix received word that four Inquisitors had arrived in the town of Avignonet. The result would be more parfaits and credentes imprisoned or sent to the stake. He decided to act. Against the advice of his sergeants, including Sajhë, he assembled a troop of eighty-five knights from the Montségur garrison, their numbers swelled by others who joined en route.
‘They walked fifty miles to Avignonet, arriving the following day. Shortly after the Inquisitor Guillaume Arnaud and his three colleagues had gone to bed, someone within the house opened the locked door and admitted them. The doors to their bedrooms were smashed open and the four Inquisitors and their entourage were hacked to death. Seven different chevaliers claimed to have struck the first blows. It is said that Guillaume Arnaud died with the Te Deum on his lips. What is certain is that his Inquisitorial records were carried away and destroyed.’
‘That was a good thing, surely.’
‘It was the final act of provocation. The massacre brought a swift response. The King decreed that Montségur was to be destroyed, once and for all. An army comprised of northern barons, Catholic inquisitors and mercenaries and collaborators set camp at the foot of the mountain. The siege started, but yet men and women from the Citadel still came and went as they pleased. After five months, the garrison had lost only three men and it seemed the siege would fail.
‘The Crusaders hired a platoon of Basque mercenaries, who clambered up and pitched camp a stone’s throw from the castle walls just as the bitter mountain winter was setting in. There was no imminent danger, but Pierre-Roger decided to withdraw his men from the outworks on the vulnerable eastern side. It was a costly mistake. Armed with information from local collaborators, the mercenaries succeeded in scaling the vertiginous slope on the southeastern side of the mountain. Knifing the sentinels, they took possession of the Roc de la Tour, a spike of stone rising up on the easternmost point of the summit ridge of Montségur. They could only watch, helpless, as the catapults and mangomels were winched up to the Roc. At the same time, on the eastern side of the mountain, a powerful trébuchet started to inflict damage on the eastern barbican.
‘At Christmas 1243, the French took the barbican. Now they were within only a few dozen yards of the fortress. They installed a new siege engine. The southern and eastern walls of the citadel were both within range.’
He was turning the ring round and round on his thumb as he talked.
Alice watched and, as she did so, the memory of another man, turning such a ring as he told her stories, floated into her mind.
‘For the first time,’ Audric continued, ‘they had to face the possibility that Montségur would fall.
‘In the valley below, the standards and banners of the Catholic Church and the fleur-de-lys of the French King – although tattered and faded after ten months of first heat, then rain, then snow – were still flying. The Crusader army, led by the Seneschal of Carcassona, Hugues des Arcis, numbered between six and ten thousand. Inside were no more than a hundred fighting men.
‘Alaïs wanted to . . .’ he stopped. ‘A meeting was held with the leaders of the Cathar church, Bishop Bertrand Marty and Raymond Aiguilher.’
‘The Cathar treasure. That’s true, then? It existed?’
Baillard nodded. ‘Two credentes, Matheus and Peter Bonnet, were chosen for the task. Wrapped up against the bitter cold of the new year, they strapped the treasure to their backs and stole away out of the castle under cover of night. They avoided the sentries posted on the passable roads that led down from the mountain through the village, and made their way south into the Sabarthès Mountains.’
Alice’s eyes flared wide. ‘To the Pic de Soularac.’
Again, he nodded. ‘From there, to be taken on by others. The passes to Aragon and Navarre were snow-bound. Instead they headed for the ports and from there sailed to Lombardy in northern Italy, where there was a thriving, less persecuted community of Bons Homes.’
What of the Bonnet brothers?’
‘Matheus arrived back alone at the end of janvier. The sentries posted on the road this time were local men, from Camon sur l’Hers, near Mirepoix, and they let him pass. Matheus talked of reinforcements. How there were rumours that the new King of Aragon would come in the spring. But, they were brave words only. By now the siege was too tightly drawn for reinforcements to break through.’
Baillard raised his amber eyes and looked at Alice. We heard rumour too that Oriane was travelling south, accompanied by her son and husband, to provide reinforcements for the siege. This could only mean one thing. That after all the years of running and hiding, finally she had discovered that Alaïs was alive. She wanted the Book of Words.’
‘Surely Alaïs did not have it with her?’
Audric did not answer. ‘In mid-February, the attackers pushed forward yet again. On the first of March 1244, after a final attempt to dislodge the Basques from the Roc de la Tour, a single horn sounded on the ramparts of the ravaged stronghold.’ He swallowed hard. ‘Raymond de Péreille, the Seigneur of Montségur, and Pierre-Roger of Mirepoix, commander of the garrison, walked out of the Great Gate and surrendered to Hugues des Arcis. The battle was over. Montségur, the final stronghold, had fallen.’
Alice leaned back in her chair, wishing it had ended otherwise.
‘It had been a harsh and freezing winter on the rocky mountainside and in the valley below. Both sides were exhausted. Negotiations were short. The Act of Surrender was signed the following day by Peter Amiel, the Archbishop of Narbonne.
‘The terms were generous. Unprecedented, some would say. The fortress would become the property of the Catholic Church and the French crown, but every inhabitant of the fortress would be pardoned for his past crimes. Even the murderers of the Inquisitors at Avignonet were to receive pardon. The men-at-arms would be set free with only light penances, once their crimes had been confessed to the Inquisitorial registers. All those who abjured their heretical beliefs would be allowed to walk free, punished only by the obligation to wear a cross on their clothes.’
‘And those who would not?’ said Alice.
‘Those who would not recant were to be burned at the stake as heretics.’
Baillard took another sip of wine.
‘It was usual, at the conclusion of a siege, to seal a bargain by handing over hostages. They included Bishop Bertrand’s brother, Raymond, the old chevalier, Arnald-Roger de Mirepoix and Raymond de Péreille’s young son.’ Baillard paused. ‘What was not usual,’ he said carefully, ‘was the granting of a period of two weeks’ grace. The Cathar leadership asked to be allowed to stay within Montségur for two weeks before they came down from the mountain. The request was granted.’
Her heart started to beat faster. Why?’
Audric smiled. ‘Historians and theologians have argued for hundreds of years about why the Cathars requested this stay of execution. What needed to be done that had not already been done? The treasure was safe. What was so important as to make the Cathars stay in that damaged and cold mountain fortress a little longer, after all they had suffered already?’
‘And why did they?’
‘Because Alaïs was with them,’ he said. ‘She needed time. Oriane and her men were waiting for her at the foot of the mountain. Harif was within the Citadel, Sajhë also, and her daughter. It was too great a risk. If they were captured, the sacrifices made by Simeon and her father and Esclarmonde to safeguard the secret would have been for nothing.’
At last, every part of the jigsaw was in place and Alice could see the full picture, clear and vivid and bright, even though she could hardly believe it was true.
Alice looked out of the window at the unchanging, enduring landscape. It was much as it had been in the days when Alaïs lived here. The same sun, the same rain, the same skies.
‘Tell me the truth of the Grail,’ she said quietly.