Angel City (2 page)

In my ears are the cries of the stricken; and I can see, as I have seen in the past, all the marring and mangling of the sweet, beautiful flesh, and the souls torn with violence from proud bodies and hurled to God.

JACK LONDON

The Iron Heel

IN ÆTERNUS
FORTRESS MONTSÉGUR, OCCITANIA, MARCH 15, 1244

W
HEN THE KNIGHT REACHED THE STONE STEPS TO THE
ramparts,
he realized he was walking in circles. He stopped, looked around the courtyard. Till then there had only been the sensation of a staggering, forward motion; now came an awareness of the world around him. It was the tower he recognized at first, rising like some singular presence against the late afternoon sky. It was badly damaged during the bombardment, as were the battlements. In the early days, when French catapults were still halfway down the mountain at Roc de la Tour, the stone missiles did no more than bounce off the outer walls of the fortress. The knight made sport of collecting the stones, calling them “the Pope's turds” and bringing them into the courtyard where the fighters of Montségur built their own catapult. After writing curses on the stones, the fighters returned them down the mountain from where they had come. But in February the French broke through the lower defenses and scaled the cliffs, securing a foothold on the summit. Their catapults found their range and the final assault began. They leveled the terraced village on the north cliff in three days, forcing the folk who lived there to seek refuge within the fortress. Still, the fighters of Montségur would not surrender. The French adjusted their targeting and launched stones, a hundredweight each, into the courtyard.

Just now, seeing the crumpled shelters in the courtyard and the pools of blood on the ground, terrible images came to the knight's eyes. There was no defense from the bombardment, not even in the lower chambers of the tower. Fighters and folk were crushed to death. The French then attacked with infantry and captured the barbican a mere thirty chains from the fortress gates. It was Montségur's last line of defense. All was lost unless the Crusaders could be repelled.

The knight felt a cold wind at his back.

He turned to the smashed open gates, and for a moment he was confused. He couldn't remember what had happened next. But as he felt the wind on his face, more images came to his mind. He saw the fighters of Montségur mustering in the courtyard at evening, preparing for the last battle. Two young boys stood nearby, holding torches so the fighters could see as they dressed in chain mail, coifs, and helmets. There were but a handful left now: nineteen knights with swords and shields, five crossbowmen and archers, twenty sergeants and infantrymen with lances and war hammers, a few Basque mercenaries with axes and cudgels. The knight remembered the fighters speaking quietly among themselves.

“What is the day?” one said.

“Why should you care?” another answered.

“Because I should like to know the day of my death, if this is to be the day of my death.”

“Then, it is a Tuesday, I think.”

Such fateful words were a soldier's words, the knight remembered thinking. And he remembered how he, too, tried to recall the day just in case this would be the day of his own death. The fighter was correct, it was a Tuesday; first day of March. The day was named after the Norse god of war, Tiw; the month was named after the Roman god of war.

“Not a bad day to die, then,” the knight said to the fighters, fitting his helmet to his head and securing the chin strap. The fighters laughed.

About the courtyard, the three hundred folk seeking refuge within the fortress had gathered to watch the preparations for battle. Farmers and shepherds from the surrounding valleys, craftsmen and merchants from nearby towns, dispossessed nobles from Languedoc. Many of them credents to the Cathar faith, all of them sympathetic to the cause of the Cathars. The leaders of the faith watched, too; the ones who called themselves “the good men.” They stood at the entrance of the tower, somber and silent in their black robes. The knight could see their lips forming words of silent prayer as was their manner.

The knight bowed to them, the good men continued to pray.

The knight turned to the fighters, the fighters fell quiet.

“Brothers in battle, I salute you this fine evening. For ten months, we have held an army of ten thousand soldiers at bay. Not just any soldiers, but soldiers of France. At our greatest strength, we were two hundred fifty fighters. I ask you to think on it. Outnumbered more than sixty to one, yet we have not been shaken from this rock. We are told, tonight, there is a full company of infantry at the barbican awaiting our surrender. We are told two more companies are making their way up the mountain and will be here by the dawn. They say Louis IX—”

Some of the fighters cursed, the rest of them spit.

“They say that Capetian donkey, then—”

The fighters laughed.

“—they say he commands us to kneel and swear an oath of fealty to France. But I say as we live and breathe, this rock beneath our feet is all that is left of Occitania. It is our land, and I say free men do not kneel on their own land. And His Holiness the Pope—”

More curses and spit.

“I mean that evil son of Satan—”

Laughter.

“—has blessed the French soldiers, calling them Crusaders, warriors of Christ. He has decreed these Crusaders to be doing God's work in slaying the Cathars.”

The knight pointed to the folk.

“His Holiness therefore orders us to surrender these men and women to the Inquisition, that they may be investigated for the crime of heresy. But I say these folk have fed us, tended our wounds, washed our braies and leggings, kept our worn shoes bound together with scraps of cloth torn from their own tunics. I say these folk have done all in the defense of Occitania but wield a weapon.”

He nodded to the good men at the tower.

“More, we are ordered to surrender the leaders of the faith to be burned at the stake unless they repent. But I say these good men have prayed for us, offered our dying brothers the sacrament of Consolamentum. I say we are bound to these good men and them to us. I say we will not surrender one pure soul to the tyranny of a corrupt and sinful Church.”

The fighters agreed with grunts and snorts.

“Brothers in battle, mark my words well: This alliance of Pope and King howling at the gates craves more than our lands to make them France. Pope and King crave our absolute destruction so that all memory of this place, all memory of us, will be wiped from the face of the Earth.”

The knight pulled his sword from its sheath. He could see the chinks and nicks of battle on the blade. He admired the markings by torchlight.

“So, with apologies to the good men for my foul tongue, I say we tell Pope and King to go fuck themselves in the arse.”

There was no laughter this time; only the sound of weapons being drawn and raised. The folk in the courtyard parted to let the fighters pass. The boys, bearing torches high, led the way to the north gate. As the fighters had arranged themselves in formation, the knight nodded to the boys.

“Douse the fires. Get you both to the tower.”

The boys lowered the torches to the soggy ground. The fires sizzled out, the boys dashed away. The knight stood quietly, watching the sky, waiting for his eyes to open to the stars. There was the Great Plough of the heavens, there was Polaris. There was Draco and Cassiopeia. A voice whispered to him from behind:

“And what have to offer the stars this fine evening, Oh noble knight?”

It was Jean de Combel, crossbowman from Laurac. Always good with a mocking word before battle to cheer the men. The knight turned back to him, touched the flat of his sword to the crossbowman's shoulder.

“I pray, ‘Whatever you do, let me live one day longer than that ugly bastard de Combel.'”

The crossbowman laughed.

“Then you shall live forever, knight, for I will never die.”

The knight nodded.

“Done. Now open the gate, de Combel, and let's put the bargain to the test.”

Jean de Combel stepped forward with his archers. They lifted the cross brace, set it aside. The doors moaned and creaked open on iron hinges. The knight stared ahead, imagining . . .

If they could retake the barbican and dislodge the forward company of French Crusaders, drive them over the cliffs, the fighters could capture the catapults. The machines could be turned around, used against the enemy soldiers scaling the mountain, and those encamped at Roc de la Tour. Two more catapults stood there. And in capturing those, the fighters would have enough firepower to break the siege. The folk could descend along hidden trails and disappear into the shelter of the Pyrenees, then over the peaks into Catalonia. But the French were dug in too well, and when the King's crossbows opened at the flanks, the fighters of Montségur were caught in crossfire.

The knight winced, remembering a long bolt howling through the battle. He remembered hearing the killing thing before it hit him. Knowing the moment he heard its voice, it was meant for him. The bolt hit with the force of a war hammer, the tiny blades cutting through his chain mail, digging into his chest. He saw himself dropping his sword and shield, falling to the ground. He lay amid the battle tasting his own blood in his mouth, knowing the blade had missed his heart but pierced his lung. The attack withered, the fighters fell back. Jean de Combel picked up the knight's sword, pulled the knight's arm around his own neck, lifted the knight to his feet. They hurried to the fortress. The knight pulled away from de Combel, fell against the stone arch of the gate.

“My sword! Give me my sword!”

Jean de Combel handed it to him.

“Va be, esta be!”
the knight cried. “This is it! Stand at the forecourt! The bastards must not enter the fortress or the folk will be slaughtered!”

The fighters formed a line at the gate, drawing the French soldiers onto the narrow strip of land between the fortress and the sheer cliffs. There was little room to maneuver, and when the French pressed at the gate, the fighters forced them back with lances. The knight heard the screams of King's men at the rear falling to their deaths. He raised his sword and cried again:

“Va be, esta be!”

Then he collapsed again to his knees and could not rise. Folk appeared in the courtyard to drag away wounded. Two folk grabbed the knight.

“No, I will stay!”

Jean de Combel turned quickly. “You are finished here, we will hold. Take him!”

The folk carried the knight to the infirmary below the tower cellar. A dank and hellish place stinking of blood and pus. Torches formed a pool of light around two wooden tables. One table was empty, dripping with blood; a fighter was strapped to the second table, screaming through the leather strap clenched between his teeth. The screams became shrieks as a surgeon, a barber from Carcassonne, sawed off the fighter's leg. A boy working with the barber removed an iron rod from white coals and cauterized the bloody stump. The boy had done it many times and he was good at it.

The barber saw the knight, nodded to the folk.

“On the table. Remove his chain mail and gambeson,” the barber said.

The folk did it quickly. The barber wiped his filthy hands on his tunic, hurried to the table. He tore open the knight's linen shirt, probed the wound.

“It's a three-sided blade,” the barber said. “I'll try to dig it out, but you will not live, I think. Do you wish to receive Consolamentum?”

The knight looked around the infirmary. More wounded coming in.

“Tell the good men to see to my brothers first.”

“As you wish.”

The barber turned to collect his knives.

The knight felt dizzy. The flame and smoke of the torches seemed to slow and take strange shapes. His eyes began to lose focus and close . . . He felt an arm slip under his neck, raise his head. The knight opened his eyes, saw a fighter in chain mail and coif emerge. The fighter held a clay cup to the knight's mouth.

“Quickly, drink of this.”

The knight looked at the fighter's armor. It bore no coat of arms, and the chain mail was stained with blackish blood.

“Who . . . who are you? Bring your face into the light that I may see you.”

The fighter leaned forward. The knight saw a battle-hardened face, oddly painted with streaks of mud.

“I do not know you. Have reinforcements broken through? Are we saved?”

“There are no reinforcements, and there will be none.”

“Then . . . who are you?”

“Someone who's been at your side these ten months, fighting the evil that surrounds this sacred ground.”

“What evil do you speak of?”

“The enemies of light, the devourers of souls. They know I'm here, they're hunting for me.”

“Your words are strange.”

“Drink of this cup and sleep. When you wake, you'll understand.”

The knight felt his consciousness slipping, then a flash of fear . . . He tried to raise himself.

“No, this is a trick, you are a poisoner.”

The fighter held him down.

“You are mortally wounded and already falling into death; but you must live for one hundred more days. Look into my eyes, listen to my voice. It cannot end here; it must not end here.”