Labyrinth

CHAPTER 69

Alice was dozing in the shade under the trees when Audric reappeared a couple of hours later.

“I’ve prepared us a meal,” he said.

He looked better for his sleep. His skin had lost its waxy, tight appearance and his eyes shone bright.

Alice gathered her things and followed him back inside. Goat’s cheese, olives, tomatoes, peaches and a jug of wine were laid out on the table.

“Please. Take what you need.”

As soon as they were seated, Alice launched into the questions she’d been rehearsing in her head. She noticed he ate little, although he drank some of the wine.

“Did Alais try to regain the two books stolen by her sister and husband?”

“To reunite the Labyrinth Trilogy had been Harif’s intention as soon as the threat of war first cast its shadow over the Pays d’Oc,” he said. “Thanks to her sister, Oriane, there was a price on Alais’ head. It made it hard for her to travel. On the rare occasions she came down from the village, she went in disguise. To attempt a journey north would have been madness. Sajhe made several plans to get to Chartres. None of them was successful.”

“For Alais?”

“In part, but also for the sake of his grandmother, Esclarmonde. He felt a responsibility to the Noublesso de los Seres, as Alais did on behalf of her father.”

“What happened to Esclarmonde?”

“Many Bons Homes went to northern Italy. Esclarmonde was not well to travel so far. Instead, she was taken by Gaston and his brother to a small community in Navarre, where she remained until her death a few years later. Sajhe visited her whenever he could.” He paused. “It was a source of great sadness to Alais that they never saw one another again.”

“And what of Oriane?” asked Alice, after a while. “Did Alais receive news of her too?”

“Very little. Of more interest was the labyrinth built in the cathedral church of Notre Dame in Chartres. Nobody knew on whose authority it had been built or what it might mean. It was, in part, why Evreux and Oriane based themselves there, rather than return to his estates further north.”

“And the books themselves had been made in Chartres.”

“In truth, it was constructed to draw attention away from the labyrinth cave in the south.”

“I saw it yesterday,” said Alice.

2›Was it only yesterday? 2›

“I felt nothing. I mean, it was very beautiful, very impressive, but nothing else.”

Audric nodded. “Oriane got what she wanted. Guy d’Evreux took her north as his wife. In exchange, she gave him the Book of Potions and the Book of Numbers and the pledge to keep searching for the Book of Words.”

“His wife?” Alice frowned. “But what of-”

“Jehan Congost? He was a good man. Pedantic, jealous, humourless, perhaps, but a loyal servant. Francois killed him on Oriane’s orders.” He paused. “Francois deserved to die. It was a bad end, but he deserved no better.”

Alice shook her head. “I was going to say Guilhem,” she said.

“He remained in the Midi.”

“But did he not have expectations of Oriane?”

“He was tireless in his efforts to drive the Crusaders out. As the years passed, he built up a large following in the mountains. At first, he offered his sword to Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix. Later, when Viscount Trencavel’s son attempted to regain the lands stolen from his father, Guilhem fought for him.”

“He changed sides?” said Alice, bewildered.

“No, he…” Baillard sighed. “No. Guilhem du Mas never betrayed Viscount Trencavel. He was a fool, certainly, but not, in the end, a traitor. Oriane had used him. He was taken prisoner at the same time as Raymond-Roger Trencavel when Carcassona fell. Unlike the viscount, Guilhem managed to escape.” Audric took a deep breath, as if it pained him to admit it. “He was not a traitor.”

“But Alais believed him to be one,” she said quietly.

“He was the architect of his own misfortune.”

“Yes, I know, but even so… to live with such regret, knowing Alais thought he was as bad as-”

“Guilhem does not deserve sympathy,” Baillard said sharply. “He betrayed Alais, he broke his wedding vows, he humiliated her. Yet even so, she…” He broke off. “Forgive me. It is sometimes hard to be objective.”

2›Why does it upset him so much? 2›

“He never attempted to see Alais?”

“He loved her,” Audric said simply. “He would not have risked leading the French to her.”

“And she, too, made no attempt to see him?”

Audric slowly shook his head. Would you have done, in her position?“ he asked softly.

Alice thought for a moment. “I don’t know. If she loved him, despite what he’d done…”

“News of Guilhem’s campaigns reached the village from time to time. Alais made no comment, but she was proud of the man he had become.”

Alice shifted in her chair. Audric seemed to sense her impatience, for he started to talk more briskly.

“For five years after Sajhe returned to the village,” he continued, “the uneasy peace reigned. He, Alais and Harif lived well. Others from Carcassona lived in the mountains, including Alais’ former servant, Rixende, who settled in the village. It was a simple life, but a good one.” Baillard paused.

“In 1226, everything changed. A new king came to the French throne. Saint-Louis was a zealous man of strong religious conviction. The continuing heresy sickened him. Despite the years of oppression and persecution in the Midi, the Cathar church still rivaled the Catholic Church in authority and influence. The five Cathar bishoprics – Tolosa, Albi, Carcassona, Agen, Razes – were more respected, more influential in many places than their Catholic counterparts.

“At first, none of this affected Alais and Sajhe. They carried on much as before. In the winter, Sajhe travelled to Spain to raise money and arms to fund the resistance. Alais remained behind. She was a skilled rider, quick her bow and sword and had great courage, taking messages to the of the resistance in the Ariege and throughout the Sabarthes Mountains. She provided refuge for parfaits and parfaites, organising food shelter and information about where and when services would take place. The patfaits were itinerant preachers for the most part, living by their own manual labour. Carding, making bread, spinning wool. They travelled in pairs, a more experienced teacher with a younger initiate. Usually two men, of course, but sometimes women.” Audric smiled. “It was much as Esclarmonde, her friend and mentor, had once done in Carcassona.

“Excommunications, indulgences for Crusaders, the new campaign to eradicate the heresy, as they called it, might have continued much as before, were it not for the fact that there was a new Pope. Pope Gregoire IX. He was no longer prepared to wait. In 1233, he set up the Holy Inquisition under his direct control. Its task was to seek out and eradicate heretics, wherever and by whatever means. He chose the Dominicans, the Black Friars, as his agents.”

“I thought the Inquisition came into being in Spain? You always hear of it in that context.”

“A common mistake,” he said. “No, the Inquisition was founded to extirpate the Cathars. The terror began. Inquisitors roamed from town to town as they pleased, accusing, denouncing and condemning. There were spies everywhere. There were exhumations, so corpses buried in holy ground could be burned as heretics. By comparing confessions and half confessions, the Inquisitors began to map the path of Catharism from village, to town, to city. The Pay d’Oc began to sink beneath a vicious tide of judicial murder. Good, honest people were condemned. Neighbour turned, in fear, against neighbour. Every major city had an Inquisitional Court, from Tolosa to Carcassona. Once condemned, the Inquisitors turned their victims over to the secular authorities to be imprisoned, beaten, mutilated or burned. They kept their hands clean. Few were acquitted. Even those who were released were forced to wear a yellow cross on their clothing to brand them as heretics.”

Alice had a flicker of memory. Of running through the woods to escape the hunters. Of falling. Of a fragment of material, the colour of an autumn leaf, floating away from her into the air.

2›Did I dream it? 2›

Alice looked into Audric’s face and saw such distress written there that it turned her heart over.

“In May 1234, the Inquisitors arrived in the town of Limoux. By ill fate, Alais had travelled there with Rixende. In the confusion – perhaps they were mistaken for parfaites, two women travelling together – they were arrested also and taken to Tolosa.”

This is what I have been dreading.

“They did not give their true names, so it was several days before Sajhe” heard what had happened. He followed straight away, not caring for his own safety. Even then, luck was not on his side. The Inquisitional hearings were mostly held in the cathedral of Sant-Sernin, so he went there to find her. Alais and Rixende, however, had been taken to the cloisters of Sant-Etienne.“

Alice caught her breath, remembering the ghost-woman as she was dragged away by the black-robed monks.

“I have been there,” she managed to say.

“Conditions were terrible. Dirty, brutal, demeaning. Prisoners were kept without light, without warmth, with only the screams of other prisoners to distinguish night from day. Many died within the walls awaiting trial.”

Alice tried to speak, but her mouth was too dry.

“Did she…” she stopped, unable to go on.

“The human spirit can withstand much, but once broken, it crumbles like dust. That is what the Inquisitors did. They broke our spirit, as surely as the torturers split skin and bone, until we no longer knew who we were.”

“Tell me,” she said quickly.

“Sajhe was too late,” he said in a level voice. “But Guilhem was not. He had heard that a healer, a mountain woman, had been brought from the mountains for interrogation and, somehow, he guessed it was Alais, even though her name did not appear on the register. He bribed the guards to let him through – bribed or threatened, I know not. He found Alais. She and Rixende were being held separately from everyone else, which gave him the chance he needed to smuggle her away from Sant-Etienne and out of Tolosa before the Inquisitors realised she had gone.”

“But…”

“Alais always believed that it was Oriane who had ordered her to be imprisoned. Certainly, they did not interrogate her.”

Alice felt tears in her eyes. “Did Guilhem bring her back to the village?” she said quickly, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “She did come home again?

Baillard nodded. Eventually. She returned in agost, shortly before the Day of the Assumption, bringing Rixende with her.“ The words came out in a rush.

“Guilhem did not travel with them?”

“He did not,” he said. “Nor did they meet again until…” He paused. Alice sensed, rather than heard, him draw in his breath. “Her daughter six months later. Alais called her Bertrande, in memory of her father Bertrand Pelletier.”

Audrie’s words seem to hang between them.

Another piece of the jigsaw.

“Guilhem and Alais,” she whispered to herself. In her mind’s eye she could see the Family Tree spread out on Grace’s bedroom floor in Salleles d’Aude. The name ALAIS PELLETIER-DU MAS (1193-) picked out in red ink. When she had looked before she hadn’t been able to read the name next to it, only Sajhe’s name, written in green ink on the line below and to the side.

“Alais and Guilhem,” she said again.

A direct line of descent running from them to me.

Alice was desperate to know what had happened in those three months that Guilhem and Alais were together. Why had they parted again? She wanted to know why the labyrinth symbol appeared beside Alais’ name and Sajhe’s name.

And my own.

She looked up, excitement building inside her. She was on the verge of letting loose a stream of questions when the look on Audric’s face stopped her. Instinctively, she knew he had dwelt long enough on Guilhem.

“What happened after that?” she asked quietly. “Did Alais and her daughter stay in Los Seres with Sajhe and Harif?”

From the fleeting smile that appeared briefly on Audric’s face, Alice knew he was grateful for the change of subject.

“She was a beautiful child,” he said. “Good natured, fair, always laughing, singing. Everybody adored her, Harif in particular. Bertrande sat with him for hours listening to his stories about the Holy Land and about her grandfather, Bertrand Pelletier. As she grew older, she did errands for him. When she was six, he even started to teach her to play chess.”

Audric stopped. His face grew sombre again. “However, all the time the black hand of the Inquisition was spreading its reach. Having defeated the plains, the Crusaders finally turned their attention to the unconquered strongholds of the Pyrenees and Sabarthes. Trencavel’s son, Raymond, returned from exile in 1240 with a contingent of chevaliers and was joined by most of the nobility of the Corbieres. He had no trouble regaining most of the towns between Limoux and the Montagne Noire. The whole country was mobilised: Saissac, Azille, Laure, the chateaux of Queribus, Peyrepertuse, Aguilar. But after nearly a month of fighting, he failed to retake Carcassona. In October, he pulled back to Montreal. No one came to his aid. In the end, he was forced to withdraw to Aragon.”

Audric paused. “The terror began immediately. Montreal was razed to the ground, Montolieu too. Limoux and Alet surrendered. It was clear to Alais, to us all, that the people would pay the price for the failure of the rebellion.”

Baillard suddenly stopped and looked up. “Have you been to Montsegur, Madomaisela Alice?” She shook her head. “It is an extraordinary place. A sacred place perhaps. Even now, the spirits linger. It is hewn out of three sides of the mountain. God’s temple in the sky.”

“The safe mountain,” she said without thinking, then blushed to realise she was quoting Baillard’s own words back at him.

“Many years earlier, before the beginning of the Crusade, the leaders of the Cathar church had asked the seigneur of Montsegur, Raymond de Pereille, to rebuild the crumbling castellum and strengthen its fortifications. By 1243, Pierre-Roger de Mirepoix, in whose household Sajhe had trained, was in command of the garrison. Fearing for Bertrande and Harif, Alais felt they could no longer stay in Los Seres, so Sajhe offered his service and they joined the exodus to Montsegur.”

Audric nodded. “But they became visible when they travelled. Perhaps they should have separated. Alais’ name was now on an Inquisitional list.”

Was Alais a Cathar?“ she asked suddenly, realising that, even now, she was not sure.

He paused. “The Cathars believed that the world we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch was created by the Devil. They believed the Devil had tricked pure spirits into fleeing God’s kingdom and imprisoned them in tunics of flesh here on Earth. They believed if they lived a good enough life and ”made a good end“ their souls would be released from bondage and return to God in the glory of Heaven. If not, within four days they would be reincarnated on Earth to start the cycle anew.”

Alice remembered the words in Grace’s bible.

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

Audric nodded. What you must understand is that the Bons Homes were loved by the people they served. They didn’t charge for officiating at marriages, naming children or burying the dead. They extracted no taxes, demanded no tithes. There’s a story of a parfait coming across a farmer in the corner of his field: “What are you doing?” he asked the “Giving thanks to God for bringing forth this fine crop,” the farmer replied. The parfait smiled and helped the man to his feet: This isn’t God’s work, but your own. For it was your hand that dug the soil in the spring, who tended it“.” He raised his eyes to Alice. “You understand?”

“I think so,” she said tentatively. They believed individuals had control of their own lives.“

“Within the constraints and limitations of the times and place in which you were born, yes.”

“But did Alais subscribe to this way of thinking?” she persisted.

“Alais was like them. She helped people, put the needs of others before her own. She did what she thought was right, regardless of what tradition or custom dictated.” He smiled. “Like them she believed there would be no last judgement. She believed that the evil she saw around her could not be of God’s making, but, in the end, no. She was not. Alais was a woman who believed in the world she could touch and see.”

“What about Sajhe?”

Audric did not answer directly. “Although the term Cathar is in common usage now, in Alais’ time believers called themselves Bons Homes. The Inquisitional Latin texts refer to them as albigenses or heretici.

“So where does the term Cathar come from?”

“Ah, well, we cannot let the victors write our stories for us,” he said. “It is a term that I and others…” He stopped, smiling, as if sharing a joke with himself. There are many different explanations. Perhaps that the word catar in Occitan – cathare in French – came from the Greek katharos, meaning pure. Who can say what was intended?“

Alice frowned, realising she was missing something, but didn’t know what.

“Well, what of the religion itself then? Where did that originate? Not France originally?”

“The origins of European Catharism lie in Bogomilism, a dualist faith that flourished in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Dalmatia from the tenth century onwards. It was linked with older religious beliefs – such as Zoroastrianism in Persia or Manicheism. They believed in reincarnation.”

An idea started to take shape in her mind. The link between everything Audric was telling her and what she already knew.

Wait and it will find you. Be patient.

“In the Palais des Arts in Lyon,” he continued, “there is a manuscript copy of a Cathar text of St John’s Gospel, one of very few documents to escape destruction by the Inquisition. It is written in the langue d’Oc, possession of which in those days was considered a heretical, punishable act. Of all the texts sacred to the Bons Homes, the Gospel of John was the most important. It is the one which lays most stress on personal, individual enlightenment through knowledge – gnosis. Bons Homes refused to worship idols, crosses or altars – carved from the rocks and trees of the Devil’s base creation – they held the word of God in the very highest esteem.”

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

“Reincarnation,” she said slowly, thinking aloud. “How could this possibly be reconciled with orthodox Christian theology?”

“Central to the Christian covenant is the gift of everlasting life to those who believe in Christ and are redeemed through his sacrifice on the Cross. Reincarnation is also a form of eternal life.”

The labyrinth. The path to eternal life.

Audric stood up and walked over to the open window. As Alice stared at Baillard’s thin, upright back, she sensed a determination in him that had not been there before.

“Tell me, Madomaisela Tanner,” he said, turning to face her. “Do you believe in destiny? Or is it the path we choose to follow that makes us who we are?”

“I-” she started, then stopped. She was no longer sure what she thought. Here in the timeless mountains, high up in the clouds, the everyday world and values did not seem to matter. “I believe in my dreams,” she said in the end.

“Do you believe you can change your destiny?” he said, seeking an answer.

Alice found herself nodding. “Otherwise, what’s the point? If we are simply walking a path preordained, then all the experiences that make us who we are – love, grief, joy, learning, changing – would count for nothing.”

“And you would not stop another from making his own choices?”

“It would depend on the circumstances,” she said slowly, nervous now. “Why?”

“I ask you to remember it,” he said softly. “That is all. When the time comes, I ask you to remember this. Si es atal es atal.”

His words stirred something in her. Alice was sure she had heard them before. She shook her head, but the memory refused to come.

“Things will be as they will be,” he said softly.