Paradise Red (16 page)

Now Raimon's fingers grip Cador's shoulders hard enough to bruise. The boy forgets his nose as Raimon shakes him. “Remember what Sir Parsifal said just before he died?”

“He said we should live for the Flame, the Amouroix, the Occitan, and for love,” Cador gurgles.

“And then he asked a question. He asked which was the most important, and what was the answer?” Raimon draws their faces very close.

“ ‘Love,' Sir Raimon, that was the answer.” Their eyes lock together.

“And isn't trust part of love?” Raimon asks.

“I've always thought so.” Cador hiccups.

“And do you doubt that I love you as a knight should love a squire?”

“Not until now.”

“Now's not a time to doubt, Cador.” Their eyes are still locked. “Not for a minute. It's because I trust you absolutely that you must do as I ask.” Raimon lets go of the boy's shoulders and, with sudden determination, slips off the baldric. “Take Unbent,” he says, “and wait for me. You won't know where or when I'm coming, but I am coming. Do you understand?”

There is no veil between them now. Neither moves. When, eventually, Raimon opens his mouth again, Cador puts his finger to his lips. He needs nothing more. Without another word, he hitches Unbent over his shoulder and begins to lead the horses down the hill. They take their time, for the way is rough, and though he does not look back, Raimon guesses rightly that for the first time in weeks, though his squire's eyes are wet with tears, they are shining.

After another hour, the fortress frowns directly above those climbing toward it, with the great keep to their left and the bailey to their right. Already they can hear the rumble of life within, and not only within. Beneath the walls, like a brood of chicks under a mother hen, lurks a collection of wooden huts, built and inhabited by those Cathars with monkish pretensions. However, faced with the threat of Louis's approaching army, prayer is not the only thing on their minds. Between every second hut stone slings have been erected with piles of hefty rocks beside them. Even these men of God will not be taken without a fight.

The main protection, however, bears no relation to either barbican or sling. Apart from the southwesterly path up which the visitors have just climbed, all the faces of the pog are either so sheer and unstable or so deeply and unevenly ridged that it
would be physically impossible for an enemy force of any size to gain a firm hold. There is no need, therefore, for a bank of sentries, which is why Sir Roger's company is greeted by only four men standing on the wooden platform balanced on stilts in front of the fortress's gate. Their swords are unsheathed, but, despite the earlier shower of arrows, they do not look alarmed.

“We're here to help defend the Flame,” Aimery calls up.

“Aren't you Count Aimery of Castelneuf?”

“Yes, that's me!”

The four men all peer down. “Last we heard,” the tallest declares, tapping his sword on the railing, “you wanted the Flame delivered to the King of France.” He twists his head. “Cut the noise in there! We can't hear a thing.” The order is fired back. The noise subsides slightly.

“You heard right,” Aimery calls back, “but perhaps you haven't heard that the king repaid me by setting fire to my chateau and burning my villages. I owe no allegiance to him now.”

The men consult.

Sir Roger, who has needed two supporting shoulders to make the last bit of the climb, now catches his breath. “Is one of you Raymond de Perella?” he asks.

“No. I am.” A man with a face that has seen better days pushes through from behind. “I control who comes in and out.” It seems an unnecessary statement, and Raimon at once senses that there is tension up here. The White Wolf, no doubt, has put himself in charge.

Sir Roger plants his feet more firmly. “We wish to come in.”

There is a pause. De Perella inspects the visitors and dwells
on Aimery's banner. At last, he twitches impatiently. He is always impatient these days. “Who vouches for Sir Aimery of Amouroix?”

“Oh, I do,” Sir Roger says in a slight fluster. He feels he should have made this clear without being asked. He is still thinking of Metta. He pulls himself together. “The count provided hospitality when we were caught in the snow in the Amouroix and has traveled here with my blessing.”

“But he's a Catholic.”

“Was,” corrects Aimery, elbowing Sir Roger aside. “But as I say, the burning of my chateau by the French king taught me better.”

De Perella scrutinizes him for a moment, then watches the procession slowly catching up with the leaders. The warhorses are wandering downhill, lipping the shoots lurking under last year's dead growth. Relaxed and unthreatening, they seem to offer reassurance. “Wait there,” he orders.

“Not too long, I hope,” Aimery joshes. “I hear Hugh des Arcis has already set out, and we don't want to be caught on the wrong side of the wall.”

Nobody smiles but without much further ado, a small gate underneath the platform is opened and hands flap their willingness to draw the travelers in. This is the last possible moment. Sir Roger finds his daughter rosy with the unaccustomed exercise. “Metta,” he says, catching her hands. “Metta.”

“Come, father,” she says, smiling directly at him. “Journey's end.” He cannot make her stop, and Raimon does not try. When she enters the fortress, the hearts of both men twinge.

It may seem odd to speak of claustrophobia when we are
on the top of a hill where the wind is never still and where, from the ramparts, the vista spreads almost without limit, yet after an hour in the courtyard, Raimon can hardly breathe. The place is not just full, it is heaving with people, more people than the fortress was ever designed to hold, and hemmed in by the high walls, the trapped air is overused and sour.

Like animals in a corral, men and women shuffle about, children playing between their legs and between the legs of three cows tethered next to two overflowing water cisterns. From makeshift lines, gray laundry hangs in dispirited flags, and beneath the laundry lie several tightly swaddled babies shrieking their own complaints into the din. It feels more like a camp for refugees than a mustering ground for knights preparing for a final stand.

“For the love of God,” says Aimery, genuinely horrified. “Let's hope we don't have to spend long in this pigpen.” Raimon cannot disagree.

The kitchens, banished to the perimeter to diminish the threat of fire, are shacks, with corn spilling from sacks lodged in doorways. Piles of half-uncovered and fly-ridden cheeses add to the general stink. Yet their particular stink offers some consolation: at least there is no shortage of food. The villagers at the bottom of the pog are clearly making good money keeping the garrison supplied.

Despite this, the atmosphere is febrile. Arguments flare over the tiniest things: disputed ownership of an egg, a stamped-on toe, an upturned bench over which somebody has tripped. Through this swirl, the new arrivals tread softly and though, as fellow Cathars and Occitanians, they are greeted ostensibly with joy, greetings are swiftly followed by clear reinforcements
of small personal boundaries. “I sleep there, and my wife beside me, so better to find somewhere else,” or, “Sorry we've been using that dip in the wall to store our clothes and armor, so can you find another slot?” The apologies are copious and some genuinely meant. Everybody is simply trying to live as best as they can.

Only the keep, rising blackly on the opposite side to the kitchens with its bottom door firmly closed, is set apart from the general hum. Even the barbican tower seems friendly in comparison. “The Flame's in the keep,” Aimery murmurs to Raimon. “Sure as you're not a Cathar.”

It is against the bottom of the keep, in a corner that has never, since building on the pog first began, been touched by the sun, that the household of Sir Roger de Salas eventually finds itself crammed. A few yellowing weeds are all that has ever flourished here and all that ever will.

Metta takes charge. “We're lucky,” she announces cheerfully. “At least we'll be sheltered from the wind.”

The knights look around. Wind? Only above the walls. They would welcome it down here. At least it would disperse the smell. “And we're all together.” All together? In this discomfort, of what comfort is that? Despite her best efforts, they crack, angry and complaining. “They don't need us here! There's no room! We shouldn't have come.”

Sir Roger loses his temper. “What did you imagine it would be like?” he shouts, shoving himself between two daggers drawn over a disputed inch of earth. “We do this for the Flame and the Occitan.”

The knights grumble more quietly.

Hours later, when the company has scrimped and squeezed
and grudgingly bedded down, Raimon stands in the shadows, his head stretched back and his eyes glued upward. Aimery is right. Though he can see nothing but a series of dark window slits outlining each floor, and the bottom door appears to be locked from the inside, the Flame must be in the keep. Nobody sleeps much. Raimon does not sleep at all.

There is a sudden buzz the following morning when de Perella's sons-in-law call everybody together. It seems that they are going to be addressed, and judging by the muted excitement, this is unusual. Nobody can really move very far, but eyes strain toward the wide wooden balcony that has been raised inside the curtain wall above the main gate. A narrow duckboard walkway leads straight to an upper door in the keep that Raimon had not noticed. The door at ground level must, Raimon thinks, be used for servicing domestic needs.

They are not kept waiting long. A man appears and at his appearance, Raimon's every pore prickles.

The White Wolf is just how he remembers him, his hair and beard still white as swansdown and his manner unassuming. However, he is no longer wearing the clothes of a weaver as he was when he first appeared from Raimon's father's workshop. Now he wears a long black, hooded robe like an Old Testament prophet. Nor is he alone. There must be two hundred perfecti behind him, women as well as men, all dressed exactly the same, with sandaled feet protruding from rough hems. As the perfecti process, everybody bows low, as is the custom, Aimery with a particular flourish. Raimon cannot bring himself to bow, so he crouches as the cry “Pray God to make a good Christian of me, and bring me to a good end!” clearly well practiced, goes up, and for a moment, all petty acrimony is submerged under a tide of devotion. The White Wolf stands
as though he holds the key of heaven, and nobody questions or mutters, because nobody wants to waste a second of the fix of hope he seems to offer.

“Cheat for not bowing!” Aimery hisses as Raimon rises again. Raimon does not answer.

The White Wolf is quietly accepting of all the adulation, and when at last he speaks, he dominates this pulsating mass with the same soft voice that Raimon hears in nightmares.

“Good people,” the White Wolf says, and watches his words settle like honey. “How happy we are, here on this hilltop. God has placed the Blue Flame into our hands as proof that we are his chosen ones.” He spreads his arms in a general embrace. “Though our travails will be hard, there is no need to fear because we are the blessed. Here, at Montségur, we are writing the last and best chapter in the history of the Occitan.” He smiles a smile of blessing. “Is anybody afraid?”

The quality of the silence changes. The truth is that they are all afraid.

“Is there no honesty here?” His voice is gently teasing.

“I'm afraid!” a woman calls out. “I'm afraid for my children.”

“Yes, I'm afraid too!” cries another.

The White Wolf laughs. “It takes a woman,” he says, and everybody laughs until the White Wolf stops and at once the laughter is stifled. “Do not fear,” he says, loudly for him. “Fear is the enemy of the Flame. Remember that, my friends. Good men have no fear because they have no need of it, nor good women either.”

The honest women at the back shrink, duly chastised.

Metta squeezes in beside Raimon. “I'm not frightened because you're here,” she says.

“Metta—”

“Shh! He's not finished.”

The White Wolf grips the railing. “Good people,” he says. “I'm speaking today because we learn that the army headed by Sir Hugh des Arcis approaches, pitting the red oriflamme of the French king against the blue of our Flame. Very soon we are to be tested.” A groan arises. The White Wolf allows it to heighten before raising his hand. At once it diminishes. “Now, I'm aware that though Sir Hugh carries the oriflamme in full sight of his troops, many of you have never seen the Flame, the symbol of the faith you have come so nobly to defend. Well, now it is time.” He moves to the side and there is a collective gasp from the crowd. Metta claps her hands over her mouth.

And there it is, in the hands of a black-robed acolyte, the tattered box that Raimon knows so well with the Flame burning inside. The White Wolf takes the box and strokes it. Now his whole face glitters. He holds it up. The crowd sways and utters small ejaculations of praise. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, the Flame is being passed quickly from perfectus to perfectus until it vanishes back into the keep.

Like everybody else, Raimon watches it until the last moment, feeling its color wash up behind his eyelids, into his head, and through his veins. The relief at just seeing it is intense. He has been right to come. The Flame of the Occitan does not belong here. This is not how it must be remembered.

The spell is broken by a question, and this time the White Wolf's voice is less gentle. He has been scrutinizing the crowd and is amazed by what he has seen. “You have gained entry here, Aimery of Amouroix?” he asks. “
You?
I can hardly believe it.”

Aimery clears his throat. “Can't a man see the light?”

“A man might see the light,” the White Wolf counters, “but seldom such a man as you.”