The de Montfort Histories - The Dove and the Devil (4 page)

There were loud protests from both the boys as Simon pushed them towards
Guy’s nurse. He had seen Walter, who was just about to go into the tent of one
of the armourers. “You may spend the next hour or so looking around and then
you must return to the chateau. Do you both understand that? You must stay with
Nurse and do as she tells you.”

Amaury was about to argue but thought better of it. His father clearly
had business to attend to which was of no concern to the boys. Besides, there
were some very exiting sights to see—the stilt walkers, for one thing,
and the wrestlers for another. An hour was such a short time to take everything
in! This was an excellent tournament and Amaury was impressed. He certainly
didn’t want to cause any trouble in case he should be forbidden some of the
delights that were simply begging to be sampled.

Chapter Two

Occitania, South of France

1199 AD

The Occitanians

The air was filled with the moans of the young woman lying on the
blood-soiled bed. She had laboured for two days to give birth to her child.
Huge eyes, like those of a frightened doe, beseeched the attending sage-femme
to end her misery. The midwife could only shake her head. This was a difficult
one, no doubt about that. She could see clearly that the babe was far too big
to be born nature’s way. Something must be done and quickly if both mother and
child were to survive.

She went out of the foetid-smelling room to where the young woman’s
husband paced the floor, as he had done for hours. His haggard face wore the
lines of exhaustion. Upon seeing the midwife he looked up expectantly, but his
hope soon died, for he could read in the old woman’s face what she was about to
say.

“It’s a case of one or the other,” she said flatly. “There’s been far
too much blood lost. I’d say you’ve the best chance of saving the baby.”

“What has happened?” he said, grabbing her by the arm.” Why have you let
things go this far?” His voice sharpened as he struggled to comprehend what was
happening. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? We could have done something. We
could have found a physician!”

He looked stricken. He and his wife had both looked forward to their
first child. Although her pregnancy had been fraught with illness throughout
the nine months, they had hoped she would recover her old self after the birth
of the baby. He had watched over her carefully—as solicitous as a mother
hen with a chick—but had noticed her almost daily decline from
rosy-cheeked young woman to someone whom he hardly recognized.

The old woman gazed at him. In an effort to hide her own emotion, she
spoke louder than she intended. “Make a decision now; otherwise both will die.”
A low-pitched sound from the bedroom interrupted her. “What is it, my dear?”
she called gently.

The girl’s body writhed as another enormous contraction wracked her
body. “Please save my baby. I heard what you were saying to Arnaud, and I beg
you to save the baby.” Exhausted, she lay back, her white face even paler than
the sheets.

“Now, now, don’t you fret.” The midwife’s face softened as she looked at
the girl, barely nineteen, whose life hung so perilously in the balance. “One
more big push should do it.” She watched the young woman, who looked as though
she barely had strength to lift her hand, let alone endure the cataclysm of the
final hour of childbirth. Hurrying out of the room she spoke urgently to
Arnaud. “Fetch the priest now.”

I can’t go now! She needs me,” he said, twisting his hands together in
the agony of indecision. Pushing her aside, he crept into the darkened
bedchamber where his wife lay like a shadow on the bed.

  
She beckoned him
over and whispered to him. “I don’t want a priest. You promised. Fetch
Bertrand. You know why. I want to make a good end. You promised!” Her frail
hands picked at the embroidered coverlet on the bed. She had been so proud when
she had finished sewing it. Was it really so few months ago? Worn out with the
effort of talking, her eyelids fluttered closed.

Torn between wanting to take her in his arms to comfort her with his
physical presence and doing as she had asked him, Arnaud hesitated.

“What are you waiting for?” the midwife asked. “Go and fetch the
priest.”

Sighing, the girl lay back, the tension leaving her body.

“Don’t give up now,” the midwife begged. “One more push will do it.” She
kneaded the hugely swollen belly and the girl’s body arched in a final
convulsion.

The midwife muttered a quick “Hail Mary” as she swiftly bundled the baby
into the swaddling bands that were already prepared. The baby, a girl, was
already registering her displeasure at the arduous trip she had made coming
into the world. The mother’s eyes flickered open and a smile touched her lips
briefly as the baby was placed next to her, the tiny pulse at the young wife’s
neck the only indication that she still lived.

The sound of footsteps stirred the young mother and her face lit up with
joy when she recognized Arnaud, her husband, and his companion, Bertrand Arsen.

 
Arnaud looked at the
midwife and asked her to take the baby into the next room. He and his wife
wished to speak to speak privately with Bertrand..

“But where is the priest?” the midwife stammered. “We don’t have much
time,” she whispered, pointing to the telltale signs of bright red blood.

“Please go and stoke up the fire. The baby will need warmth tonight when
the sun sets.”

Looking somewhat churlish at being so expeditiously dismissed from the
room, the midwife gathered up the baby and left.

“Can you hear me?” Bertand’s voice was soft and low. The girl indicated
with a flutter of her fingers that she could. Bertrand gently laid his hands on
her head and the Holy Book on her breast. As the words of the consolamentum for
the dying swept over her, she felt certain that she was pure enough to be
reincarnated as a vessel worthy to be chosen by God. With a faint smile still playing
around her mouth, she took her final breath as Arnaud’s wife.

Gently closing the girl’s eyes and kissing her on her now blue lips, the
young man straightened up from where he had been leaning over the bed.

“Thank you, my friend.” His pain was clearly evident as he tried to hide
the waves of grief that swept over him. “Although I am not one of you, my wife
was a believer, a
 
faithful Cathar,
and it meant much for her to have you here. Long ago, at our marriage, I made
her a promise that if we were ever blessed with children, they should grow up
in your faith. I intend to keep that promise, and so
 
now I ask you
 
if you know of any young mothers among
 
your flock who might take on the nurture of my daughter. It
would be a long-term affair.

There are things I must do, and I cannot do them and have the care of a
small baby. In any event, I could not teach her all that she needs to know of
her mother’s beliefs. I will be able to pay well enough if you could recommend
someone.”

“I don’t know of anyone here in the village, but I am sure there must be
one or more in Lavaur. There is a growing population of believers there, and
Bruna Domergue and Saissa Boutarra were both due to be brought to bed about
now. I don’t know if they’ve given birth yet, but I can find out. In the
meantime, perhaps you can find a wet nurse here in the village. Both of the
women I mentioned are very clean in their habits and their own children are
well clothed and fed, so you would not need to worry about the baby’s health.
I’m sure our friend here,” he said, flinging open the door to find a red-faced
midwife with her ear to the keyhole, “would know of someone who could oblige
here in the village for a few days.”

Clearly somewhat discomfited, the midwife looked up and nodded. “My own
daughter gave birth not three months ago and she has enough milk for six. I’m
sure she would oblige.”

Arnaud was relieved. Although he had looked forward to this baby, he had
not a clue what to do with her and wished to be left alone to grieve as he
wanted. He dare not think what his wife’s family would say. They had objected
to their union at the outset because they had not wanted their daughter to
marry a non-believer. Only the thought that she might convert him to their way
of believing had softened the blow for them when she told them she would have
Arnaud and no other.

The believers, or
credentes
as
they were sometimes called, did not believe in the sacrament of marriage and
had therefore not attended when their daughter took her vows with him. Their
beliefs were simple:
 
they rejected
the Church of Rome and all its sacraments, including mass, baptism, marriage
and the last rites. They had no churches or cathedrals but prayed together in
each other’s houses. Sometimes they prayed outside, in the woodlands or on a
mountain top. Their most abhorrent belief as far as the Catholic Church was
concerned was that of reincarnation. The whole of society could be turned on
its head by such a belief, which taught that a noble might well be reincarnated
as a serf or a serf as a noble! This was too much for the Catholic Church and
the civil authorities to swallow.

Set atop a gently rising hill overlooking the River Agout sat the small
village of Ambres. It consisted of a line of smallish, rose-coloured houses set
along the one main route. One direction led to Gaillac; the other direction led
to the thriving town of Lavaur. On this late November afternoon—the first
week in Advent, for Catholics—the smoke from the chimneys of the houses
in Ambres rose in lazy curls. The warmth of the winter sun was dissipating
quickly as shadows began to fall over the sleepy little village. Farmers and
wine sellers, artisans and woodsmen, had all returned by five in the afternoon
when the daylight had faded too far to see anything. Only the shepherds were
left out on the lonely hills above the village, tending their sheep and
ensuring no wolves came near.

The people of Ambres led a largely comfortable life, living as they did
on very fertile soil that could grow almost anything they cared to plant. The
chalky hillsides nearby were perfect for growing the excellent vines that the
Romans had brought in times past. Sunflowers were gathered for their seeds and
their oil. Mushrooms grew in abundance. There were plenty of fish in the nearby
streams, and the pheasants were so plentiful they begged to be caught. No one
need go hungry in Ambres.

Just a few miles away, the town of Lavaur was a burgeoning centre of
excellence for potters. People came from far and wide to buy as much as the
skilled workers could produce. Several astute nobles in the area had begun to
raise silk worms to feed on the local mulberry trees. They had foreseen the
growing use for silk, the material made popular by soldiers returning from
earlier Crusades. It seemed there was no end to the demand for this luxurious
fabric. The local people had also begun to produce a strong blue dye, which was
very popular amongst the nobility. It came from a plant that loved the soil and
the growing conditions in the countryside around where Arnaud lived.

All in all, the people of Lavaur and its surrounding villages were very
content with their lives.

Even though to an outsider the small village of Ambres appeared to be
locked up for the evening, the gossip still managed to spread from house to house.
Everyone sympathised with Arnaud’s great loss, knowing as they all did of the
young couple’s regard for each other—a situation all too uncommon, as it
was more usual for a man to beat his wife than to love her! All the women had a
story to tell about the fears they had had for the young woman’s life…how pale
she had grown…how large the baby had seemed.

There was also some discussion about why no priest had been summoned to
give the last rites of the Catholic Church. They knew Bertrand Arsen had been present,
and while they willingly accepted that the elders of the heretics’
church—the
perfecti
, as they
were called—lived amongst them and did no harm, they could not accept
that they were able to absolve people of their sins as a priest could. However,
the inhabitants of this commune, together with most of the population of
Occitania, were extremely tolerant of the heretics, just as they were of other
religions. If there were only a few believers in the little community of
Ambres, there were certainly many more in the nearby larger towns, particularly
Lavaur.

The
perfecti—
or
perfectae,
for both sexes could become
elders in what was becoming known as the Cathar church, led what could only be
called exemplary lives, abjuring as they did all sexual contact with anyone and
allowing no food that needed to reproduce sexually to pass their lips. The
ordinary believers, the
croyants
or
credentes—
people such as Arnaud’s
wife—were allowed to live normally, and, indeed, because the sacrament of
marriage was not recognized, often took other sexual partners; however, the
elders—the
perfecti—
lived
lives of extreme self-deprivation.

Most of the villagers thought the
perfecti
were mad; nonetheless, a strong attitude of “live and let live” prevailed in
most Occitanian communities. The Cathars were strong, hard-working people,
whose leaders owned no property of their own, having given it to the church
when they became
perfecti.
These
perfect ones, for so they were judged by their followers, lived anywhere they
could lay their heads, almost always in the houses of other believers. They
walked the hills and valleys relentlessly, no matter what the weather, to bring
their message to those who would be converted.

The midwife’s daughter had readily agreed to take on the task of feeding
Maurina, the name Arnaud had given to his daughter. While Maurina’s mother had
sickened and died, the baby appeared to be thriving when she arrived at the
house of her surrogate mother, sucking hard on the piece of linen dipped in
milk and honey that she had been given to appease her when she had begun to cry
for food. Even so, she grasped greedily at the plump, milk-engorged breast
offered to her by the midwife’s daughter.