The journey north on the mud-slogged road to Toulousia was proving as taxing as Roger had warned it would be. But Esclarmonde would not hear of missing the christening of the infant Raymond VII, the future count of Toulouse, an eagerly awaited ceremony that promised to be one of the most memorable in Occitan history. Richard the Lionhearted, recently ransomed from an Austrian prison, would stand as godfather for the child of his sister, Johanna, thus bringing together the kings of England, France, and Aragon for the first time in a decade. Those three irascible monarchs shared but one trait—a hatred for the other two.
As an escort led the Foix contingent from Carcassonne, Esclarmonde studied her brother in the vanguard and wondered why he had surrendered so quickly to her demand that she and Corba attend the baptism. Could he be up to some intrigue? More likely he didn’t trust her to remain in Foix unsupervised.
Raymond de Perella doubled back and captured Corba’s bridle to ease her gelding into its pace. “Another day’s ride, my dear, and you shall have a rest.”
Corba stole back the reins in a tease. “We’re not fragile dolls!”
“Yes, Raymond,” chided Esclarmonde. “Do you mistake us for Northern ladies who insist on being carried about in palanquins?”
Raymond arched with laughter. “I truly pity those Parisian damsels. They are soon to find themselves eclipsed in beauty and endurance.” Before returning to the van, he and Corba shared a glance pregnant with a secret.
When out of his earshot, Corba found Esclarmonde locked on her with an insistent glare. Finally, she broke under the silent inquisition. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. But you must promise to keep it between us.”
Hurt by the implication that she was a gossip, Esclarmonde placed her hand over her heart and vowed, “By all I hold dear.”
After a hesitation, Corba whispered, “Raymond has proposed.”
Esclarmonde screamed with delight, throwing the column into disarray. She dismounted and pulled Corba from the saddle to smother her with a hug. “We must prepare the banns and announcements!”
The men rushed up on hearing the shouts. Finding the women frolicking, Roger was about to chastise them when Esclarmonde left him speechless.
“Raymond and Corba are engaged!”
“Esclarmonde!” cried Corba in horror. “I just asked you not to—”
Roger grasped Raymond’s hand in congratulations. “Nary a word to me?”
Corba could only shrug at Raymond’s look of utter dismay.
“Bring the goblets and the best wine from the pack!” Esclarmonde led the foursome to seats on a limestone curb that overlooked the lush vineyards of the Argot valley. When all had gathered, she offered up a toast: “To Love, and to this Paradise in which we are blessed by God to live.”
Raymond clanked his goblet against hers. “Esclarmonde, it is a state of bliss that I dare say you will soon enjoy yourself.”
Esclarmonde saw Corba furtively tug at Raymond’s sleeve in a signal to avoid that subject. Her instincts told her something was amiss, for Roger had acknowledged the prediction with a troubling smirk. Yet she dared not challenge him before they arrived in Toulouse. There was a restraint in Corba’s expression of joy. Perhaps they were all sensitive to the fact that, at eighteen, she herself had passed the age when ladies were considered desirable for marriage. She had entertained no suitors since her public humiliation of Folques, and Roger incessantly threatened to take matters into his own hands. When he confronted her with the growing necessity of an arrangement, she would lash back by reminding him that he himself had yet to take a wife and produce an heir. A sudden wave of sadness swept over her. Who would have thought that Corba would be the first to marry? She knew it to be divine retribution for the many times she had lorded about her own throng of admirers.
Corba took Esclarmonde’s hand and walked her away from the men. “You are thinking of him again.”
“I cannot help it.” During these past five years, she had tried to wean her thoughts from Guilhelm, but his face still came to her, flashing that laugh on the day she had raced past his steed for Montsegur. She had only herself to blame; he was a man who needed be told only once to avoid a lady’s presence. Perhaps it was just as well. The notion of a betrothal to a Templar was as senseless as a desire to flatten the mountains.
“I can ask Raymond if he has heard news.”
“It’s best I not know.”
“Raymond said Guilhelm was ordered to search for the heretics.”
“You told Raymond of our quarrel?” snapped Esclarmonde.
“He is to be my husband. And who are you to talk of indiscretions?”
“I suppose he’ll hand me over to the tribunal like he did that heretic girl!”
“What in God’s name has come over you?” demanded Corba.
Esclarmonde turned away, repelled by her own outburst. “Guilhelm has this hold on me. I cannot shake it.”
Corba stroked her hand. “You will find someone else. I am certain—”
Esclarmonde flinched from a report that sounded like the crack of lightning. A shimmering orb of gold suddenly appeared over Corba’s shoulder, radiating with a centrifugal illumination unlike any she had seen, paradoxically both distant and within reach. She was struck with the inexplicable conviction that the vision was not formed by her corporeal eyes. She blinked repeatedly to chase the phantasm away, but its swirling grew more brilliant as it spun toward her. “Do you not see it?”
Corba turned. “See what?”
Esclarmonde collapsed in a spasm. Pulsations coursed down her spine and she heard words only dimly, as if submerged in water. The alarmed faces of Corba and the men hovered over her, blurred as if looking through a gauze. A balm of calming ecstasy suddenly dissolved her fear—she sank into what felt like a hidden chamber of her own flesh, enveloped by an emotion stronger than any she had ever experienced, painful as it was rapturous. The golden ball of light split into two serpents, one black and one white. They hissed and intertwined in a desperate struggle to swallow each other. The black serpent subdued its opponent but then choked on its conquest. A white dove flew from the mouth of the dead serpent and transformed into the orb that had given birth to the vision.
This is the Star followed by the Magi.
She was hearing the Voice that had spoken to her in the court of love.
Follow this Light, even unto the mouth of the Serpent.
Esclarmonde came to consciousness strapped to a stretcher. Her head pounded and her limbs ached horribly. An elderly woman with dark skin knelt over her, accompanied by a heavyset knight with bushy side whiskers. The woman pressed a wet compress to Esclarmonde’s heated forehead. “I am Giraude, the chatelaine of Lavaur. This is my brother, Aimery. We have no physic here, so I tend to the ill ... Can you hear me?”
Still disoriented, Esclarmonde nodded her head.
“She suffered a seizure,” said Roger.
Giraude drew water from a well located in the center of the small village and brought the ladle to Esclarmonde’s lips.
“There was a sun, but it was not like the real sun,” said Esclarmonde. “And two snakes became entangled in a fight.”
“It must have been the wine,” said Corba.
“Perhaps sunstroke,” said Aimery.
Giraude frowned knowingly on hearing Esclarmonde’s mention of the serpents. The chatelaine monitored the reaction of the others, but to her relief, they remained perplexed. She ordered the men to carry Esclarmonde into her small chateau. When the others had departed, Giraude bolted the latch. She poured several pinches of crushed herbs into a cup, then stirred up a thick concoction and brought the tonic to Esclarmonde’s tongue. “A posset of vernain and sorrel. It will aid the blood humour.” She waited until Esclarmonde regained strength, then asked, “This scintillation of light you saw ... Did it speak to you?”
Esclarmonde nearly spilled the drink. “How did you know?”
“You are the daughter of Count Bernard-Roger of Foix?”
“Yes, but—”
“I knew your mother.”
Esclarmonde tried to arise, but she fell back from dizziness. “Do you know what happened to her?”
Giraude battened the oiled linen coverings over the windows to prevent anyone outside from overhearing. “Your mother and my sister, Blanche of Laurac, were ordained perfectas in this room.”
“You’re a Cathar?”
Giraude examined the necklace at Esclarmonde’s breast and found its talisman. She pulled a stone from the wall and produced a small pyx chest, which when opened revealed an identical medallion. “They are called merels. We wear them to identify those of our faith. The twin riders represent the Rule of Two. Perfectas are attached to travel and live together in pairs. Your mother and my sister were such companions.”
“Then if I find—”
“My sister was burned at Carcassonne.”
Esclarmonde sank with despond. If her mother and this woman’s sister were inseparable, they would have suffered the same end.
“You have been led to me for a purpose,” said Giraude. “What I am about to impart to you must be kept in confidence until the day when another will be brought to you for initiation into the gnosis.”
“How will I know?”
“You will know, as I know now.” Giraude bathed Esclarmonde’s fevered cheeks with the cool cloth. “You have heard of the Magdalene?”
“Mary, the repentant whore?”
Giraude muttered a curse under her breath. “That lie is what the priests wish you to believe. The Magdalene was trained in the temple arts. It was she who initiated Our Lord into the mysteries of the Light. After His death, she and the Master’s brother, the one called James the Just, attempted to preserve the teachings by forming an order of believers known as the Nasoreans. But Saul of Tarsus, the Teacher of Darkness, conspired to alter the arcana and spread falsehoods to the uninformed.”
Esclarmonde had discarded to distant memory her discovery on the night that Folques had accosted her in St. Volusien’s chapel. Now the details of that quest came flooding back to her. “Yes, I’ve heard of this brother.”
“He was exiled from Jerusalem with the Magdalene.”
“Why?”
“He knew the Master Jesus too well.”
“But he is mentioned in the Gospels.”
“The usurpers could not deny James’s existence,” said Giraude. “Too many in Jerusalem remembered him. So they committed a more devious act. They diminished his importance.”
“What happened to the Magdalene?”
“That well outside was blessed by her hand. She and her brother Lazarus—”
“The one raised from the dead?”
“He was in a meditative trance, called back by the Master from his ascent to the Light realms. When the Tarsian imposter purged the Nasoreans, Lazarus fled Jerusalem with his sister and together they found refuge at Marseille. The Magdalene preached the true teachings of the Master throughout Provence. She spent her final years in a cave not far from here.”
“Tell me of these teachings.”
“They are given only when the aspirant is ready.”
“How did you come by them?”
“Before converting to the Christian faith of my father, my mother was raised in a Persian mystery sect called Qadiriyyah. Her people quested for the same sacred emanations that came to you today. The Magdalene studied the mysteries of this Light with the priests in Egypt. She returned to Galilee and Judea to show her Nasorean disciples how to find its salvation.”
“These Arab mystics. Are they connected to your Cathar faith?”
“They are streams that flow from the same river,” said Giraude. “Do not be led astray by names. The true ones of the hidden Church of Love are to be found in all faiths. You must look beyond the outer trappings to sift the essence of the teachings.” She retreated to a closet and returned wearing a white robe gathered at the waist with a red silk sash. She closed her eyes and began turning, slowly at first, then faster. Soon she was whirling with such abandon that she seemed propelled by an invisible force. Esclarmonde thought she saw the faint outline of a halo around Giraude’s head. Had she fallen into the hands of a madwoman?
“This is the door to the Peace that passeth understanding,” said Giraude as she whirled. “When the Sun at Midnight comes to you again, you must not fear it. Dance and merge with it. The Nasoreans called it the Jesus Dance. The Lords of Darkness have long schemed to suppress its power.”
“Why?
“Because it releases us from the chains of our senses.”
Esclarmonde arose from the bed and tried to imitate Giraude’s spinning. Within minutes, her normal thoughts were obliterated by a tingling that ignited at the center of her breastbone. “What is this warmth I feel?”
“It cannot be named,” said Giraude. “Nor sold by a church. The seductions of the flesh impede its gifts.”
“How then am I to describe it?”
“By stories and song, and by the example of your life,” said Giraude. “Did you truly think that the troubadours were only simple-headed minstrels? They spread the secret words that open the heart and channel the Light ... Now, tell me of this man you love.”
Esclarmonde lost her balance, astonished by the woman’s clairvoyance.
“The heart has its own eyes,” said Giraude with a knowing smile.
“He is a Templar.”
Giraude nodded. “Why am I not surprised?”
“He’s nothing like me.”
“I doubt that. Two souls with a common destiny are drawn together on the same ray. Your monk has not revealed to you all he knows.”
“But he hunts down the adherents of your faith.”
“He hunts no mortal prey. The Temple set its headquarters in the bowels of the Jerusalem Temple for good reason. The monks discovered that the secrets of the gnosis were guarded there long ago. If your Templar has the inner sight, he will know that you have been transfigured when next you meet.”
Esclarmonde averted her eyes in shame. “I fear there will not be a next time ... I ordered him never to speak to me again.”
Giraude bolstered Esclarmonde’s flagging spirits with an embrace. “This is your first lesson of the Light. Listen well. Once, a maiden came to her Beloved’s door and knocked. ‘Who is there?’ asked a voice from within. The maiden answered, ‘It is I.’ But the voice replied, ‘There is not enough room here for you and me.’ The distraught maiden retreated to the desert. After spending a year in solitary prayer, she returned to the door and knocked again. ‘Who is there?’ the voice asked again. This time, the maiden replied, ‘It is thyself.’ And the door was opened.”
Esclarmonde felt a surge of joy at the thought that Guilhelm could be her twin soul. But she quickly dismissed the possibility of their being together as man and wife. “He is vowed to God.”
“There are two grades of women in this world,” said Giraude. “There are the many who, by force of past actions, must reincarnate and give physical birth. And then there are the few who are placed on this earth to procreate in another way.”
“What other way is there?”
“The way of the Magdalene, who gave birth to the Light. The Vessel that follows this path must sacrifice its womb to the Higher Wisdom.”
“I’m trying to listen with my heart, but I still don’t understand.”
“Understanding will come,” said Giraude. “Just know for now that, on this day, the seed of a new life has quickened within you.”
Drowsy, Esclarmonde retreated to the bed. As she slipped into a deep sleep, she heard Giraude offer another admonition. “One thing more you must never forget. Every birth requires a sacrifice. It is the Way of the Light.”