A Dark Night Hidden (27 page)

‘Yes, I would have done.’ De Gifford’s expression was indulgent.

Josse shook his head in puzzlement. ‘But she has broken the law. All of them have.’

‘They have broken the Church’s law,’ de Gifford corrected. ‘They dare to worship God in a different guise from that ordained by the men of the Church. Yet these clerics are but men, no better qualified than any other men to say that the deity is this, or that, and no other. These matters are for each man’s conscience, are they not?’

‘I – I don’t know. No priest would agree with that, for sure.’

De Gifford shrugged. ‘So? How speaks
your
conscience, Sir Josse? Do you follow without question when your priest orders you? Would you betray a fellow man to the Church for punishment because he had another faith?’

After a moment Josse said, ‘No. I would not. I
have
not, indeed, for I am well aware that a heretic woman lies even now in Hawkenlye Abbey.’

‘Yes. There is no need for you to prove yourself to me. I would not do so, either. Sir Josse, when I began my investigation into the death of Father Micah, I already knew about the band of heretics and I suspected that his death might in some way be linked to them. I do not believe necessarily that they killed him but, even were that so, I should keep an open mind over whether it was murder or self-defence.’

‘Self-defence?’

‘Father Micah threatened to kill them. If a man tries to kill you, Sir Josse, do you not hit back and try to prevent him?’

‘But he is – he was a priest!’

‘A vicious and over-zealous priest who belonged to a faith in which the heretics did not believe.’

Josse thought about it. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I understand. Take away the religious context and it’s just a man threatening to kill another and the victim hitting back.’

With a calm smile de Gifford said, ‘Precisely.’

Josse sat in thought for some moments. It was, he was discovering, one thing to suspect that an urbane and worldly man of the law might be less than totally committed to the faith of his homeland. It was quite another matter to have had that suspicion confirmed.

After a while, he looked up at de Gifford and said, ‘Where do you think they are?’

‘The heretics?’ De Gifford shrugged. ‘I have no idea. There are many places out in the forest and the wild where they might be hiding, although I doubt if they would have survived the bitter weather unless they found some sort of shelter and were able to build themselves a fire. And it is unlikely that any household has taken them in for, were they to be discovered, the house would be destroyed. That particular clause of the Assize of Clarendon is, I believe, quite widely known.’

‘Might they not have left England and returned to wherever it was they came from?’

‘I have asked myself that question. But I do not think that they would leave Aurelia behind. Somebody obviously cares deeply for her, to have taken the risk of formulating the plan to bring her to Hawkenlye. Had the big man who carried her there stayed after delivering her to the nuns, no doubt someone within the Abbey would have insisted he be put under guard until the matter could be investigated.’

‘Aye, someone did,’ Josse said grimly.

De Gifford gave him a sympathetic glance. ‘I see.’

There was something Josse wanted to return to, something that de Gifford had said earlier. ‘When you looked at the manuscript you said it was written in the
langue d’oc
and was a – what was the word you used?’

‘Cather. Yes, I said that I believed it is a Cathar tract.’

‘And the Cathars are heretics?’

‘Oh, yes. They are probably the biggest thorns in the Church’s side that all those great spiritual lords have ever experienced.’

‘I know nothing about them,’ Josse confessed. ‘Will you tell me?’

‘Of course,’ de Gifford replied. ‘Catharism is a dualist faith, and its followers believe that we are here in our earthly existence under sufferance, having been torn away from our spiritual entities in the heavens against our will. The most fervent wish of a Cathar is to be reunited with his or her spirit, which is why they view their life on earth with such indifference and why they go so willingly to the stake. It is also, incidentally, why they do not recognise marriage, since to procreate means that they have separated yet another soul from its spirit and brought it down to endure life on earth.’

‘If they do not marry and bear children,’ Josse asked, ‘how can the sect hope to continue?’

De Gifford smiled. ‘I do not think that continuance on earth concerns them much. But in fact quite a lot of them have been married and had children before they become
Parfaits
.’

‘
Parfaits
?’

‘Perfects. Pure Ones. Men and women who refrain from sexual intercourse, who eat neither meat nor any animal products, nothing that is brought into being by progeniture or coitus. They do not kill either man or beast. They take a vow to honour all these obligations and that is called the Consolamentum. When the vow has been sworn, the man or woman becomes a Perfect.’

‘So it’s possible to believe in the faith without making the vow?’

‘Yes. People who do that are referred to as adherents. They are accepted as such by the Perfects and they may take the Consolamentum when they are ready. It is, I understand, quite common for married couples to live as adherents until religious fervour overtakes bodily passion, at which point they forswear the pleasures of the flesh and take the vow.’

Josse, trying to absorb all that de Gifford had just told him, sat slowly shaking his head. Then he said tentatively, ‘Are they – do you think that they are
good
people?’

‘An interesting question,’ de Gifford observed. ‘Yes, I do. So, I might add, do some of the most powerful prelates of the Catholic Church. The Cathars lead pure lives devoid of violence and hypocrisy, working hard and caring for each other with tenderness and diligence, which is more than can be said for many Christians.’ He shot Josse a glance. ‘Even many of the clergy.’

‘Hm.’ There was one more thing that Josse wanted to know. He said, ‘Why did they come to England? What persuaded these seven people – whether or not they are Cathars – to come to an unknown land, unsure of their welcome, in the middle of winter?’

‘They came as evangelists,’ de Gifford said. ‘And I think that we can indeed assume that they are Cathars. The sect has been attracting many converts in the countries across the Channel and I imagine that they hoped to do the same here.’

‘No wonder Father Micah dealt so harshly with them,’ Josse said.

‘He was afraid,’ de Gifford said simply. ‘He had doubtless been informed by his superiors of the situation in the Low Countries, in Germany and in France. Despite reparations – many Cathars have already died in the fires – the sect is gaining more followers by the days.’

‘Will they win?’ Josse found he had put his question in military terms, as if he and de Gifford were speaking of a war.

‘I do not know.’ De Gifford looked thoughtful. ‘They are not winning, to use your word, in the north of Europe. But matters are very different in the south. The relaxed and colourful culture of the Midi is perfectly adapted for the Cathar faith, and indeed many members of the sect are flocking down to the Languedoc because it is the one place where they can be sure of a good reception.’

‘You said that one of our seven was from the Midi.’

‘Yes. Two, in fact. Guiscard and Aurelia. I imagine that they were sent to the countries of the north to spread the word among existing Cathars that they should head south, and to try to persuade others to convert and go too.’

‘Their mission here has not been a success,’ Josse remarked soberly. ‘It was their misfortune to encounter Father Micah. You said that they would not leave without Aurelia,’ he reminded de Gifford. ‘Do you think to put a watch over her and apprehend them when they come for her?’

De Gifford gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Sir Josse, for a man of your quality you can be exceedingly slow,’ he said tartly. ‘Far from apprehending them, as you put it, I shall be helping them on their way.’

‘You – but why?’

‘Because, as you so accurately observed a little while ago, I am bound by no vow of obedience to the Church and I make up my own mind. I have much admiration for the Cathar sect and I would not see any of its men and women put to the flames for their faith. If I take them under guard, they may not suffer that fate; I do not know. But all the time that it remains a possibility, I will do nothing that might lead to it.’

He sat for some moments regarding Josse, as if deciding whether or not to speak his mind. Eventually, apparently coming to a decision, he said, ‘Sir Josse, I intend to do all that I can to get them away across the Channel and on their way to what safety they can find in the south. Will you help me?’

Through Josse’s mind flashed an image of another, earlier allegiance. He saw the Abbess, distressed, her face flushed from the passion of her convictions.

Addressing her silently he said, Helewise, my dear friend, in this instance I believe you to be wrong. If ever you discover what I am about to undertake, I hope that you will forgive me for the hurt it must cause you.

Then, turning to de Gifford, he said, ‘Aye. I will.’

As Josse rode back up the long, sloping flank of the hillside to Hawkenlye, it began to snow. At first it was nothing much; a flurry of light flakes swirling on the air and barely settling. But the afternoon was very cold and it was likely that this initial fall presaged something worse to come before dark. Josse longed for the simple comfort of the monks’ quarters in the Vale and a warm hearth to sit by. He did not envy any lost souls who were wandering out in the wild when night came.

Lost souls. His mind must subconsciously have been puzzling over the mystery of Father Micah’s death, for those were the words that the priest had used. When he died, he had been preoccupied with a noble lord who had forgotten God’s law – well, Josse knew now who that was; it was the Lord of the High Weald in his stronghold at Saxonbury – and with some lost souls who were to be condemned to the eternal fires.

Undoubtedly Father Micah had been referring to the Cathars. It seemed likely, in the light of all that Josse knew about him, that he had been thinking of an earthly version of hellfire to see the group on their way.

Where were they?

Pondering the question as, head down, he rode on up the track, Josse thought that de Gifford was probably right in assuming that they were still in the area. One of their number still lay sick at Hawkenlye, and all that Josse had just learned about the ways of the Cathars made him support de Gifford’s view that the others would not simply slip away and abandon her.

‘Arnulf, Alexius, Guiscard,’ Josse said aloud, ‘Benedetto who carried Aurelia to the Abbey, Frieda who died in the gaol. Who else? Oh, yes, Utta. About whose movements we know even less that we do about those of the rest of them.’

If they are waiting for Aurelia to be well enough to travel before coming to fetch her, he reasoned, then they must surely be fairly close at hand. They will have to find out how she fares, whether she’s recovering her strength, how soon she will be fit to travel. How will they do that?

He was very aware of the great forest, a silent, dark and brooding presence beside him as he rode. There were places within its secret heart where men – and women – had camped. Some people lived there permanently. Mag Hobson had done so, in her neat little hut with its herb garden and its fresh stream. The Forest Folk lived there too, although from the little that Josse knew about their life and their ways, he was pretty sure that they were constantly on the move, never staying in one location for more than a week or two.

Was that where the Cathars were hiding?

God help them, Josse thought with feeling, if so.

As Horace plodded on up the rise, Josse felt his mind wander. He felt, as he so often did, that there were unseen eyes within the forest watching him. He remembered suddenly standing with the Lord of the High Weald in his courtyard, knowing with some sense beyond sight that he was being closely observed.

Aye, it had been an unsettling place, Saxonbury. Out there on top of the ridge, ancient paths and earthworks all around it; hardly any wonder, really, Josse reflected, that he had been unnerved. And that was before the Lord had begun plying him so generously and enthusiastically with ale.

His vagrant attention suddenly entered an area of his mind that he had forgotten about. It was another memory of that visit to Saxonbury and it was also, Josse realised triumphantly, the little niggling thought that he had been trying without success to locate.

Until now.

He had remembered the voices. That voice speaking in a foreign language, the one that he had presumed belonged to the Lord’s Turkish wife, suffering pain, addressing her women. He had known there was something not quite right in his memory, and now he knew what it was.

There had been a man’s voice speaking that foreign language too.

Aye, Josse thought, kicking Horace and upping his pace, it might be that one of the Lord’s sons speaks his mother’s tongue. But it might just as well not be.

As he was contemplating the implications of his revelation, another one hit him with equal, if not greater, force. They had all been assuming that Father Micah had been referring to two different missions.

What if they had been one and the same?

He glanced up at the sky. It looked as if the snow clouds would bring darkness prematurely but, even so, surely he had time to get up to Saxonbury and back to Hawkenlye by nightfall. It was not very far. He kicked Horace again as they reached the top of the long climb, and the big horse broke into a canter. The ground was hard and the track now ran straight and level; if they hurried, they ought to be all right.