Fifth Gospel(3)

‘I would have drunk the wine from those skulls,’ Roger boasted. ‘Had they not been smashed to pieces!’

Oh, I was very fearful for the people of our faith! Not only for those who lived here at the pog but also for those on the outside who would bear the coming wrath of the Catholics and their Pope. Gone was the heavenly Jerusalem and come again was a vision of the beast rising up out of the waters.

I told him I could not sanction his bloody actions. ‘One should suffer for one’s beliefs, Pierre, not kill for them!’ I reminded him.

But he did not listen. He waved a hand at me and said, ‘That is why I am no perfect, pairé, but as imperfect as any man might be, so that I can do the bloody deeds that are necessary! Besides, the young count has promised to come to our aid with the help of Aragon, and soon we will take back our paratge...Think on it, pairé! How free were our people before these troubles!’

Yes, our paratge! Our way of life, our right to worship and live as we pleased! I did not share his hopefulness. I had seen the ire of the Roman Church before, and the pyres that had blackened the skies for near forty years. I also knew the temper of our vacillating Count of Toulouse who, like his father before him, could not decide which side to take. And so that evening, when there was great rejoicing in the fortress, food and wine and merry-making, I was alone with my prayers in the room at the top of the keep.

But the merriment did not last, for soon a shiver ran through the spine of the mountains warning of the gathering up of the French army and not long after that, the army itself arrived: ten thousand men singing Crusading songs were pitching their tents and bivouacs, and assembling their catapults and mangonels on the Col du Tremblement below us.

That, you see, was the beginning of the siege of Montségur, of which you may know something in your time, and the end of our paratge.

The protracted siege continued, through the summer and the dry season, but we southern people have grown used to hardship and so we managed to survive cooped up in our small fortress. Each day when I walked about the inner court it seemed to me that it was more and more crowded with knights and noble ladies and men at arms. Three hundred were now living on this little patch of rock blown by the wind and battered by rain. Many had come by way of the secret eastern path to offer their skills to the garrison or to help defend their friends and if necessary, to die with them. I wondered how long our food would last and more than once mentioned it to Pierre Roger. He took it lightly and said that it would soon be over, for the French were weak and not used to discomfort. They would not countenance one of our winters, frozen to the bone under flea-ridden blankets!

Even so, whenever I went to the ramparts to take a look at the encampment below, it seemed to me grown with more soldiers and tents and siege engines. No, I told myself, the French had not come for a season. They had come for as long as it would take to bring down this fortress, the last bastion of our faith, a faith that the Roman Church had declared heretical.

Autumn had not passed quickly and those messages of support that came now and again from the Count of Toulouse were a welcome diversion. I kept my uncertainty to myself. I feared that these messages falsely raised the hopes of the people of the fortress and waited to see what would happen. The messages came to Raimon de Parella by way of his brother, the Templar Preceptor of Montsaunes, whose preceptory formed part of a network of secret messengers created during the early years of the war. Through these, news came and went by way of troubadours, and ours was a man called Matteu.

I owe much to Matteu, a man I have known for a long time. If I am honest, I must say I have always envied him a little, God forgive me, because for him it was possible to live life to the full while possessing a willingness to die without a fear in the heart. This has lent a certain poignant tenor to his songs; songs of journeys to far off places, and of unimagined adventures, which greatly entertained the old people, brought a blush to the faces of the young girls, and fired up the courage of the lads, who for days afterwards repeated his tales, acting out those parts, which amused them.

Sometimes he sang of something called the Grail – a stone struck from Lucifer’s crown, a stone of the greatest beauty and purity that had the power to bestow eternal life. At other times he sang of the bleeding Spear of Longinus, the spear that had pierced the side of Christ and was said to make any man who held it a king. I considered songs that spoke of eternal life and kingship contrary to our faith, and often told Matteu so.

But what is our faith?

Looking back now I realise that we are no better than our enemies. Like them we have only known one half of the truth, though we have defended it differently: we have been willing to die for ours while they have been willing to kill for theirs.