Stigmata (30 page)

‘The man who did this is Baron Philip de Vercy,’ Gilles hissed. ‘We know this by the device on his shield. God rot his eyes and his balls! He attacked my crusaders not once,
but twice!’

‘We will inform the Pontiff and he will have him excommunicated,’ Father Ortiz assured him.

‘He will die by degrees. That good man there is my brother-in-law!’

They had joined the Host just as the city had negotiated its surrender. Gilles had been piqued that he had missed the fight. His good humour was not served any better a few days later when his
force of knights and their men-at-arms arrived at Carcassonne with a score missing from their original number and Hugues de Breton slumped over his horse with one leg ruined.

The arrow wound had shattered his knee joint but it was the open wound to his lower leg that had become infected. The bonesetter had realigned the ankle only with difficulty and in the heat the
wound had become putrid and now the infection had spread to the rest of his body. He was rotting in front of them.

Simon thought it a just punishment but said nothing.

‘His soul will fly straight to heaven,’ Father Ortiz said to Gilles.

‘I hope so, Father, for this last week he has surely tasted enough of purgatory.’

‘His sacrifice is for God.’

‘Did he make his confession?’

‘His soul is pure,’ he said diplomatically.

Gilles could not stand to watch this any longer. He went to the window, stared across the roofs of the Saint-Nazaire cathedral and the Bishop’s palace to the churning confluence of the
Aude.

‘You have heard the news? The Count of Nevers is leaving and the Duke of Burgundy won’t be far behind him. They say they have served God’s army their forty days and it is time
to go home.’

‘What about you, my lord?’ Father Ortiz said. ‘You will not abandon our great crusade as well?’

‘I shall stay a little longer. To serve God.’

Or is it because you haven’t had your share of the loot yet? Simon wondered. Another thought best kept to himself.

‘We have orders from de Montfort,’ Gilles said. ‘While he purges the Toulousain we are to join an advance force that is to strike north into the Montagne Noir. I shall be at
the head of this small army. We shall take a trebuchet and twenty knights and take Montaillet and then Cabaret. May God lend favour to all our efforts.’

‘I am sure He shall. God has so far blessed us with one miracle after another.’

‘I don’t think Hugues would share your opinion, Father,’ Gilles said and stalked out.

P
HILIP KNEW BY
the comings and goings of Trencavel’s soldiers that something had happened. Finally Raimon scrambled
on to the rock at the mouth of the cave and called for their attention.

‘I have important news for you all,’ he said and a hush fell over the cave. ‘The
crosatz
have sent an expedition into the mountains against our castles at Montaillet and
Cabaret. If we stay here, we risk being discovered by their raiders. Everyone knows of these caves. We may be betrayed.’

‘Then where shall we go?’ someone called out.

‘There is only one place you can go and that is to the fortress at Montaillet. I have been ordered to ride there immediately with my soldiers. Those of you who come with us will have our
protection.’

‘But how shall we get there?’

‘You will have to follow us on foot across the mountains.’

‘How far is it?’

‘Five leagues. It is a long way but you have no choice. If you have carts you will have to leave them behind. Just take what you can carry.’

When Raimon finished speaking, a sigh passed around the cave. Another march, more of their precious possessions left behind, the future even more uncertain. But, as Raimon said, what choice was
there? Besides, it was what they had all been expecting. It had only been a matter of time before the
crosatz
turned north.

Father Marty’s eyes blinked open. ‘Leave me here,’ he said to Fabricia. ‘I’ll be in one heaven or another very soon. You owe me nothing. If you
stay, it’s just another sin on my head.’

She moved away. A shadow blocked the light from the mouth of the cave. It was Philip.

‘What did he say?’

‘He wants me to leave him behind.’

‘But you won’t, will you?’

‘There’s an old woman over there called Bruna. She was a friend of my mother’s. I used to play with her little boy when I was a child. She’s too sick to move as well. I
cannot leave either of them.’

‘I thought that was what you would say.’ He sat down beside her. ‘If the
crosatz
find you, you know what they will do to you? Would you stay here undefended?’

‘I have no choice.’

He shook his head. ‘Did Father Marty ever show you kindness? Or anyone? Didn’t he try to rape you once? And now you want to help him?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s not about his conscience, this is about mine.’

Philip shook his head and walked away. Raimon saw him talking to her and, taking him by the arm, led him outside the cave. Father Vital was there, with his
socius
.

‘What will you do now, seigneur? You should come with us. It is too dangerous for you to ride alone across the Albigeois until this war has ended. You can winter at Montaillet. Besides, we
could do with another good soldier if the
crosatz
come that far.’

Philip shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

‘What will you do then?’

‘I intend to stay here with her.’

‘Are you mad?’

‘If I am, or if I am not, it is no business of yours. Do not presume to question me.’

Raimon squeezed his arm tighter. ‘I have seen the way you look at her.’

Philip shook him off. ‘You forget yourself. Do not lay a hand on a seigneur unless you wish for another navel.’

‘She makes those wounds herself, you know,’ Father Vital said. ‘Someone saw her. She has a knife and she does it secretly. She is a witch and half-mad. It’s in her
eyes.’

‘Did you see her yourself make these wounds?’

‘I trust the man who told me.’

‘So you didn’t see her.’ He turned to Raimon. ‘What do you think?’

Raimon shook his head. ‘I do not know.’

‘You were the one who brought me to her, you were the one who said that she had healed me.’

‘Perhaps you would have got better anyway. The father may be right, it could be a trick. I don’t know, seigneur, I want to believe.’

‘Be careful of her,’ Father Vital said.

Philip shook his head in disgust and walked away.

Like ghosts, grey and sad, they shuffled towards the mouth of the cave. Some grumbled for leaving, but mostly they were silent. The smaller children whimpered at this early
interruption of their sleep. She saw one burgher carring his ledgers under his arm, struggling with his load, a servant behind him carrying scales and some rolls of parchment. Eventually, Fabricia
supposed, he would have to surrender his creditors and his old life.

But it seemed he was not ready just yet.

Some of them stopped and knelt down and murmured thanks and left her something: food, a few coins; one merchant left her a ring. Others ignored her, or hissed curses.

They filed out until the last of the refugees were gone, and the cave fell silent. The carts and bundles they had left behind littered the sandy floor of the cave. Now there was just the three
of them. Father Marty snored in his sleep. Old Bruna was so silent she thought she was already dead.

As the light grew stronger Fabricia saw a man silhouetted against the mouth of the cave. ‘You have come to say goodbye?’

‘I should, if I were leaving. But I have decided to stay.’

Fabricia choked a sob of relief. She had hoped that he would have sense enough to leave but prayed that he would not. ‘I have wished both my patients dead in the night. Do you still think
me a saint?’

‘I never thought you a saint.’

‘Why do you stay then, seigneur? Why does a man with a castle feel such attachment to a cave?’

‘I have asked myself that question every day since I came here. I still don’t have an answer.’

‘But you will die if you stay here.’

‘Perhaps I will die, perhaps I won’t. This morning, when I woke, it was clear to me. In the forest, when I rode against the men who killed my young squire – that was when I
died. My body survived but it was death just the same, for in that moment I renounced everything I had in this world and with it I bought my freedom. I am a ghost now. I can do as I wish and the
world no longer sees me. I am between one life and the next, and quite reconciled to it. What about you?’

Raimon appeared, helmet under his arm, in full armour. ‘This is your last chance to change your mind,’ he said to Philip.

‘I am staying,’ Philip said.

‘Very well. But if the
crosatz
find you, do the woman a favour and kill her first.’ He left.

Philip knelt down beside her. Oh, look at him, she thought. A killer, all long-boned menace with a merry smile that hides his assassin’s eyes. What does he want of you – and what do
you want of him? Such compassion in him, but look at the sword he carries – paid good money for it from one of Trencavel’s soldiers, she had been told, for he could not bear to go
unarmed even among refugees in a cave. And yet he is here, this morning, vowing to protect me for no good reason I can think of. If he was so full of violence and self-interest he would have
slipped away long ago. I cannot understand this man.

‘Would you do it?’ she said. ‘Would you kill me first if the crusaders find us?’

‘Let us pray it does not come to that.’

‘Yes, I will pray. Are you a good man, Philip?’

‘I have tried to be.’

‘Then in the next few days you will see just how good you are.’

He smiled. ‘You also.’ He stood up. ‘I should tend to my horse.’ He turned at the mouth of the cave, nodding towards Father Marty. ‘How long?’

‘A day. Perhaps two.’

‘Let us hope it is not longer.’

I
N THE ABBEY
, in the hush of the scriptorium, it had been easier to contemplate the sin of heresy. Here in the mountains,
where the
bons òmes
lived and worked and had done so much mischief, it was not as simple to feel the presence of holiness, and the certainty of God’s protection.

The geography of the Toulousain was like heaven; it was flat and honest and a man might see where he was headed for there were no shadowed places. But as they headed into the Montagne Noir, and
the forests and gullies crowded in and narrowed the way, Simon experienced a chill of doubt. Clusters of pines and oaks threw deep shadows over the morning. The road ahead coiled around vine-clad
hills, and above them were rock-strewn gorges and brooding peaks.

He looked back at their ragged army: scarce a dozen knights and two lumbering trebuchets, a bitter remnant of the mighty Host that had collected before Carcassonne a few weeks before. Gilles
rode at the vanguard, the three eagles at the forefront of the cluster of gold crosses and gilt-edged pennants of other noble houses; blue wolves and black bears, burgundy-red stripes on virgin
white, the yellow of Champagne.

Behind the barons and the knights and the bishops came the host of lesser souls; chevaliers, sergeants and squires, then the foot soldiers and auxiliaries, crossbow-men and longbow archers,
sappers and siege engineers.

A pitiful few, or so it seemed to his untrained eye. So few fighting men, so many camp followers! He had never been to war before, had not realized how many men it took to keep even a small army
in the field even for a day. Lumbering along behind them there was even a cart with an iron-banded wooden chest containing the holy relics that had been sent to bless the expedition: a finger of
John, an ear bone of Paul. Behind this, a finely dressed, long-nosed lady in a wimple with a boy barely able to walk, never mind ride; for one nobleman from Picardy had chosen to bring along his
wife and son to the crusade, as if it were a jousting tournament.

And then came the long line of baggage trains: lumbering wagons loaded with weapons and supplies and armour, the rounceys and mules, sway-backed and overloaded, chased by the horse boys and
muleteers with their long sticks. And still more to follow: farriers, blacksmiths, butchers, notaries, cooks, carpenters, servants, armourers.

And at the last, following along like ducklings who have toppled carelessly into a drain, a gaggle of malcontents and leeches, the dregs of Europe: first, a tattered band of Gascon mercenaries
in ramshackle armour who frightened Simon more than any heretic; some jongleurs; then a small army of pilgrims whose purpose it seemed was to sing hymns as the battle was joined and then strip the
bodies for loot afterwards. Even as they marched they sang the
Veni Creator Spiritus
: ‘Veni Creator Spiritus, Mentes tuorum visita
. . .
’ He doubted a single one of them
knew what the words meant.

And at the very rear, the crowning glory of their holy expedition, a House of Venus on four wheels, the prostitutes running along behind it.

All for the glory of God.

He imagined the cloud of dust raised by their hooves and feet and wheels could be seen in Paris.

And what have we so far achieved? he thought. We have butchered a handful of Trencavel’s soldiers and hanged another; we have burned a village and hunted down its inhabitants like dogs; we
have lost five knights and two score of men to some minor skirmishes that seemed to serve no apparent purpose. And in all that time he himself had seen not one heretic converted or otherwise
despatched to hell.

What am I doing here? Is this really God’s intention for me?

O
N A SUMMER
morning in the Pays d’Oc it is sometimes possible to see the wind. Looking down from the caves high on
the ridge down to the valley floor, Philip could make out the currents and eddies in the breeze from ripples in the dawn haze.

His wife stood beside him, rubbing the gooseflesh on her arms, as if she were still a mortal soul. ‘What’s done is done,’ she said.