James drifted off to sleep, thinking these things with a smile on his face. And he was still smiling for these rewards when he woke up, though he remembered nothing of the voice, or of its portents.
Chapter 39
NIGHT SUN
The night the French took the Eastern Barbican the fortress was thrown into a panic. There were perfects coming through the gates holding their belongings, followed by archers and knights who locked the gates behind them. The rest of the fortress came out into the starless night to see what all the fuss was about and found themselves gathering up what weapons were spare to help the knights on the ramparts.
The Barbican had been stormed by surprise. The French had come not by way of the well-defended path that separated the narrow ledge from the fortress, but by way of our trail cut out of the eastern rock face. The Basque shepherds had discovered our secret path and this meant two things – the French were only a few paces from our walls and we were cut off from the outside world. Soon we would have to make a decision, starve or surrender.
Heavy was my heart when Lea came again to the room at the top of the spiral stairs. I told her things did not look good for us and she looked at it with a nod and said,
‘No, that is certain.’
‘You say that lightly, but many will die!’
‘For every action there is a compensation, pairé, as Jesus has said.’
A memory surfaced unbidden. ‘At Beziers the French came after the dirty work was done,’ I told Lea. ‘In the end they burnt the church and all the people in it, thousands of them, both Catholics and Cathars, were kneeling at the altar praying! My mother and father and sisters perished with the others. I only survived because a dream woman like you took me from my bed and told me I must go into the woods. She saved my life. Many years later I heard that the Bishop of Citeaux had told the Crusaders to kill them all, for God would recognise his own in heaven. Tell me Lea…how can a war of religion not care for its faithful?’
She gave this her patient attention. ‘You should know that when an army enters into a city, faith soon leads to murder.’
‘Should I? Why should it be so? I have no idea!’
‘Think of it pairé, what you call faith is not really faith at all. It is only religion. Religion is only a short step from zeal, and zeal only a margin away from fervour, which is only a hair’s breadth from frenzy – the cradle of hate and murder. The truth is, pairé, that evil and good share the same small space in the soul.’
‘What makes one man evil and another good, then?’
‘How close or distant one is to the good gods.’
‘And what is the compensation for the atrocities committed against innocent people, against innocent children for God’s sake!’ I said with vehemence, for the memory of Bezier’s had come unbidden and was stirring up an anger I had not let myself feel all these years.
She sighed. ‘There is another way to look at it, pairé. It could be that destiny has brought these souls together to a place where they can suffer in order that in the future they can return again, together, for a good cause…’
This did not ease my heart. ‘I know we must suffer fro our sins, but why has God turned away from the innocent?’
‘God is just,’ she said.
‘But is that all he is? What of love?’
‘God is Love, and His wrath is also His love.’
‘How can wrath be love?’
‘Do you remember what Buddha said to Jesus? Suffering leads to Compassion. When God spills out his wrath it causes suffering, this suffering not only leads to a cleansing of sin but it also gives us wisdom, it allows us to recognise the suffering of others. It is the memory of our own suffering that brings about the understanding that helps us to forgive those who have done some wrong to us…this is true love pairé. Wrath seen from the other side is true love; a Love that cancels out sin.’
I looked out of the window to the hard snow drifting over the crests and peaks and valleys and chasms of our mountains. I realised more than ever how far I was from perfection. If she saw my despondency, Lea did not show it. True to her nature she began to speak calmly of the road to Capernaum and I let myself fall into her words, for what good was there to dwell on bitterness?
Here pictures healed my heart; pictures of that woman I had grown so fond of, that highly spirited Roman woman, the wife of Pontius Pilate. I could see her sitting proudly in her chariot and I could hear the thoughts of that near blind Centurion, who rode ahead of the small retinue…
‡
Gaius Cassius was gladdened to leave the confines and tedium of Jerusalem, to travel the wide-open spaces of the land. He was happy to feel the chaffing of his greaves and to suffer the aches in his spine, legs and buttocks, from being in the saddle. For it made him feel less like an old man, which he was, nearing sixty springs, and more like a soldier.