Cooled by a pleasant summer zephyr, Esclarmonde sat on a bench atop the observation terrace of Foix castle and tutored Loupe and Chandelle on their Latin grammar assignments. The two girls reminded her of a yoked pair of mismatched carriage rakkers. One was high-strung, quick-gated, and easily distracted; the other tranquil, even-tempered, and inwardly focused. Each had learned to compensate for the other’s contrary tendencies.
Loupe kept one eye on the board and the other on the persistent flurry of birds that circled the tower, an activity that interested her a great deal more than the Latin. After several unsuccessful attempts to decipher a sentence, she tossed her writing board aside in frustration. “This is boring!”
Chandelle was startled by the loud report. Assured that it was only one of Loupe’s tantrums, the blind child returned to her task of pressing the stylus with precision into the wax and running her fingers across the surface to make certain that the letters were formed correctly. She fastidiously blew away the shavings, collecting them in her free hand to rework them into the board.
“You mustn’t neglect the punctuation,” reminded Esclarmonde.
Shamed at being outdone, Loupe grudgingly retrieved her board. “Papa says Oc is the only language anyone needs to know.”
Esclarmonde was wise to Loupe’s strategy of pitting her against Roger. “I’ll remind him of that next time he asks me to translate a letter.”
“He also said that knights don’t marry ladies who are too smart for their own good,” said Loupe.
“He married your mother. And she’s smarter than him by the length of a church aisle. He doesn’t seem to mind, does he?”
“Maybe he doesn’t know,” chirped Chandelle.
The three shared a chuckle to celebrate their secret: As the women of the chateau, they wielded an ulterior power over the lone man in residence. Phillipa and Corba had coaxed Esclarmonde into helping with the girls’ education, an assignment that provided a welcome respite from the demands of her new notoriety. Montsegur was being besieged weekly with appeals for her to preach in lands as far away as Italy, but Castres rejected them all, citing the dangers of travel. His real reason, she suspected, was that he could not bear the thought of losing her companionship and assistance. The disputation at Pamiers two months earlier had taken a heavy toll on him in both body and spirit.
“Latin is the language of lovers.” Chandelle carefully enunciated each word as she pressed the letters into the wax.
“Is not!” said Loupe. “Troubadours sing in Oc.”
A natural diplomat, Chandelle chose not to embarrass Loupe with a correction. Instead, she would ask a question whose answer she already knew. “Did the Romans have troubadours, Aunt Essy?”
Esclarmonde stroked Chandelle’s hair in approval of her subtle method for handling Loupe. “Yes, they did. Ovid was a Roman bard who knew all the secrets for pleasing ladies. But he wrote in Latin, so Loupe probably doesn’t want to hear about him.”
Loupe wrestled with the dilemma. “Just this once.”
Esclarmonde caressed Chandelle’s arm to confirm that their conspiracy had succeeded. As the girls nuzzled closer to her, Esclarmonde opened a small book and began by reading its title, “De Arte Honeste Amandi.”
“What does that mean?” asked Loupe.
Esclarmonde required a moment; hearing those words again brought up a torrent of memories. Here was the book written by Andreas Capellanus on Ovid’s maxims, the same tome that she and Corba had studied for their initiation into the court of love. Recovering her voice, she explained, “It means ‘The Art of Honest Loving.’ As I recall, there are three sections of prescriptions. The first advises men on how to win a lady. The second instructs how to keep her happy. And the third suggests strategies for a lady to win the heart of a man.”
“Is there a section that tells how to keep boys away?” asked Loupe.
Esclarmonde noticed that Chandelle had become oddly silent. “Chandy, where should we start?”
“No knight will ever wish to court me,” said the blind girl. “I needn’t learn these rules, I think.”
Fighting back tears, Esclarmonde resolved to instill the blessed child with the requisite amour-proper. “You possess a great advantage, my love. When the gentlemen discover that you care only for their gallantry and goodness of soul, they will flock to you in droves. Now, listen closely while Loupe reads us the first rule.”
With that promise, Chandelle’s melancholy sailed with the clouds.
Loupe stumbled on the Latin translation. “Let it be your concern to know the handmaid of the lady who is to be won. She will faculate—”
“Fa-cil-i-tate,” corrected Esclarmonde.
“Facilitate your approaches,” continued Loupe. “Make sure she is the one nearest to the deliberations of the lady and is an entirely trustworthy confidante in your secret games.”
“What does that mean?” asked Chandelle.
Esclarmonde was about to explain the time-honored tactic when she saw Loupe distracted by a freckle-faced boy who was hiding behind the stairhead. Loupe flexed like a cat about to pounce on a bug—until Esclarmonde tapped her arm to regain her attention. Denied her raid, Loupe was forced to settle for sticking out her tongue at Bernard Saint-Martin, the son of Roger’s castellan at Laurac. She held an ominous glare on the twelve-year-old lad while she answered Chandelle’s question. “It means that if a boy likes me, he’ll get friendly with you so you’ll tell me how nice he is.”
“Would a boy really do that, Aunt Essy?” asked Chandelle.
“It has been known to happen.” Esclarmonde monitored the developing drama with a latent smile. “Let’s read on.”
“‘The pleasure that comes in safety is less prized,’” read Loupe. “‘Invent a fear, even if you are safer than Thais.’”
“Who is Thais?” asked Chandelle.
“She was Alexander the Great’s lover,” said Esclarmonde. “When Thais became tired of men, she walled herself inside a cell.”
“Maybe Loupe should try that with Bernard,” quipped Chandelle.
Loupe sprang to her feet. “You promised not to tell!”
His lurking exposed, Bernard scampered down the stairs and nearly careened into Phillipa, who had been listening to the lesson from afar.
Esclarmonde winked at Phillipa. “Has a young knight been calling on you, Loupe?”
“He keeps singing annoying songs to me.”
“Oh, well. I’m afraid you may have to suffer many a shrill note before finding the one sweet melody.”
“I don’t think this Ovid knew what he was talking about,” said Loupe.
“Let’s keep reading and find out.”
Loupe continued, “‘Love is a species of war. Night and winter and long roads and terrible sorrows and every hardship are native to this gentle camp.’”
“Being in love doesn’t sound like much fun,” said Chandelle.
Esclarmonde had not heard that last observation, lost as she was in her thoughts about Guilhelm. How strange. The two of them had indeed been like warriors. Why had their few moments together always been heightened by conflict? She had heard nothing from him since that night in L’Isle. Folques would have spared no effort in bringing him to trial for Jourdaine’s death. If Guilhelm had survived, he would have found a way to get a message to her by now. Still, she could not bring herself to accept that he—
Chandelle, ever intuitive, kissed Esclarmonde to chase her dark thoughts.
Phillipa seized the moment to interrupt their lesson. “Girls, go put on your best dresses. We have visitors.”
Esclarmonde interrogated Phillipa with a questioning look, but she was given not even a hint about the arrivals. Intrigued, she rushed down the steps into the great hall and gasped with delight. She was embraced by Lady Giraude and her brother, Aimery, her benefactors from Lavaur whom she had not seen since the dedication of the temple. The Marquessa and Castres hurried in from a side door and hugged their unexpected guests in a gushing reunion.
Giraude lavished Esclarmonde with kisses. “How I wish I’d been at Pamiers! You are all the people talk about now.”
“You are all my sister can talk about, that is for certes,” Aimery genuflected three times in courtesy. “She lords it over every man in Lavaur as evidence of the superiority of the female mind. I have become somewhat of a pariah.”
Esclarmonde blushed at the report of her fame. “It was Father Castres who carried the day.”
“False modesty is the wife of willful pride,” said Castres. “And let us not forget that we lost the decision.”
“I warned you about that Janus-faced Waldensian,” said Giraude. “His judgment has been the object of much mockery.” Turning solemn, she took Esclarmonde by the arm for insistence. “The Bishop has something to tell you.”
Esclarmonde’s expectant look drove Castres to a difficult admission. “It is time, child.”
Giraude gave the Bishop no chance to reconsider the decision that she had extracted only after much persuasion. “The Cistercians have launched another preaching campaign,” she said. “They harass our perfects in the villages. We have no universities. We need you there.”
Nothing terrified Esclarmonde more than the thought of leaving Foix again. Her escape from Gascony had been nothing less than a miraculous reprieve, one that had cost her Guilhelm. Yet she knew her Cathar vows required her to travel to those in need of ministry. “I’ve never preached.”
“You more than held your own against Folques and the Castilian,” reminded Giraude. “The people are clamoring to hear you. It will be a grand tour. Marseille, Nimes, Perpignan. But first, Beziers. In the county of our young friend Trencavel.”
“What would I say?”
“You’ll speak from your heart,” said Giraude.
“Allow Phillipa to go with me, at least.”
“She must tend to our houses in Carcassonne,” said Castres. “I will accompany you to Beziers. We will leave in the morning.”
Esclarmonde silently begged Phillipa for support in her attempt to avoid their call to service, but she saw that her friend was resolved to do her duty.
The girls came running into the chamber. Phillipa gathered Loupe into her arms. “I have wonderful news, love. Corba is going to take care of you for a few weeks. You’ll get to stay with Chandy even longer.”
“You’re going away?” asked Loupe.
“Aunt Essy and I must go help others.”
“I don’t want you to go!” screamed Loupe. “Aunt Essy, tell her not to go!”
Esclarmonde smothered Loupe with kisses, dousing the looming conflagration of the child’s explosive temper with the loving wetness of her lips. “You must be brave. When your mother and I return, we’ll throw a birthday fete for you. And you mustn’t marry Bernard until I get back.”
“I’ll never marry Bernard!”
Esclarmonde found Chandelle’s head dipped in sadness. She picked up the blind child and gave her a hug. “Love, say a prayer for me each night.”
Chandelle’s drained face held a look of terror. In a voice repressed of emotion, she said, “You shouldn’t go. But I will pray for you.”
Esclarmonde was unnerved by the child’s strange warning.
Phillipa squeezed Esclarmonde’s hand in reassurance. “We’ll be back before the leaves fall. Have I ever failed to keep a promise?”
The citizens of Beziers came rushing down from their terraced houses above the Orb, a trout-teeming river that slithered through checkered squares of vineyards and sloping fields awash in sunflowers and lavender. The local Cathars lined the Pont Vieux to ask for Esclarmonde’s transmission of the Light. Their Catholic neighbors had also turned out to see the heretic woman who was emptying their churches.
Esclarmonde crossed the stone span and was inspired by the breathtaking view of St. Nazaire. The cathedral’s famous towers, built with pale limestone that had been scavenged from Roman ruins, sat atop an acropolis that once had served as a Gallic fortress. The cobbled road that she and Castres had walked from Foix ran only three leagues inland from the Mediterranean, and the trade winds from the nearby chain of lagoons and dunes mixed their sea salt with the kitchen aromas of mushroom fricassees and crayfish stews to form a wondrous olfactory welcome. She could well understand why the twenty thousand inhabitants here claimed that the Greek gods had fashioned their city as a winter retreat when Mount Olympus became too cold.
She climbed the cathedral’s steps and stood under the dazzling rays that streamed from its rose window, a marvel of lead and alchemy excelled in magnificence only by the stained glass of Chartres. The local Cathar perfects carried up their sick and crippled family members to gain her blessing. Among the infirm lay a man marred by leprosy, too ashamed of his sinful condition to meet her eyes. She placed her palm against his festered forehead and prayed, “The God of Light has not forgotten you.”
In the crowd stood the stooped, white-haired priest who had taken care of the cathedral for thirty years. He raised his folded hands to her in hospitality. The magnanimous gesture instilled her with the courage to walk among the petitioners and listen to their heartbreaking stories of suffering. “Your pain is not a judgment cast down by the God of Light,” she assured them. “He seeks to cleanse you of your sickness, as did the Master Jesus. The radiance that flows through me is from the same spiritual Sun that Our Lord drew upon to offer His healing powers. All of you, man or woman, may transmit this touch of Light to your brothers and sisters. The work of God does not require the sanction of the Church or the Pope.”
An old woman with desiccated legs struggled to her elbows. “The priests tell us to accept our suffering as punishment for our sins.”
“Your priests mean well, but they are misguided,” said Esclarmonde. “They preach only what their bishops mandate. Did Our Lord abandon the lame when the Pharisees declared them unclean?”
“No!” shouted several voices.
“He called the sick to Him and drove out the impurities from their bodies. The Church of Rome forfeited the gift of healing because it has rejected the Master’s true teachings. The Pope orders you to accept your plight and give thanks to God for the opportunity to share in Christ’s agony on the Cross. I tell you that Jesus wished no one to endure torment. Suffering was not the Father’s plan for his Son. Nor is it the Father’s plan for us.”
The elderly priest shuffled to the fore of his parishioners. “How then would you have us overcome our failings of the flesh?”
“Disease is a deception perpetrated by the Demiurge,” she said. “The world of matter is an illusion. We must refuse its seductions. Only then can the Light transform the flesh and permit the spirit to escape the cycles of imprisonment.”
The old priest pondered her explanation. “That is not unlike what I preach of God’s grace.”
“My faith does not teach that salvation can be purchased with indulgences and extortions,” she said.
“The Lord interceded for others,” reminded the priest.
“Not in exchange for tithes or compensation. He sought to show us how to fish the spiritual waters for our own sustenance. We wish to teach people to live in His example, to meditate and fast, to do no violence even if attacked. And we allow all to follow their own conscience.”
The elderly priest climbed the steps with difficulty and offered his faltering hand to Esclarmonde in goodwill. “I have little learning. I know not if what you say about the Scriptures is true, but I believe you to be a good woman. You are welcome in my— ” A low rumbling shook the hillside.
Roger Trencavel and the city’s Catholic bishop, Reynaud de Montpeyroux, led an entourage of knights across the bridge. Both Catholics and Cathars shouted huzzahs at the sight of their youthful viscount who had been away for months. Trencavel had taken a wife, but his boyish charm still drew the unabashed admiration of the ladies. Favoring the shoulder wound suffered from de Montfort’s lance in Toulouse, he dismounted and genuflected to Esclarmonde, a courtesy that drew a scowl from the Catholic bishop. Trencavel ignored the cleric’s disapproval and pressed a kiss to her hand. “My lady, accept my apologies for not having been present at your arrival.”
Esclarmonde broke a glowing smile as she lifted her former champion to his feet. “You’ve become a man.”
Trencavel stood taller to merit the observation. “Not soon enough, I fear, to have prevented a gross injustice.” They shared a moment of silence while recalling that tragic day when she had been forced to betroth Jourdaine. “Lady Phillipa is well, I trust?”
“She travels to Carcassonne.” Esclarmonde saw that Trencavel’s eyes had gloomed over with the mention of his capital city. “And you, my lord? Do I detect a chink in that armor of high spirits?”
Trencavel surveyed the city’s ramparts with a sullen look of gravity. “I’ve just come from an acrimonious parlay with the Abbot of Citeaux. He and the Bishop of Toulouse lead an army of twenty thousand against us from Nimes. My uncle has deserted to their ranks.” Met with cries of alarm, Trencavel put up a brave front. “These walls are strong! You shall be defended!”
The Catholic bishop produced a document to contradict that hope. “I come bearing a generous offer from the Abbot. Deliver up the heretics in your midst and you will be spared.” He glared menacingly at Esclarmonde. “Your name, woman, is on this roll.”
The citizens of Beziers argued over whether they should accept the offer. One of the burghers called for silence and asked Trencavel, “My lord, would you have us betray our own neighbors?”
“I’d not condemn some of my subjects to save the others,” said Trencavel. “Whatever name you give to the god of your faith, remember that you are all Occitans, lovers of freedom!”
“We’ll follow you into the bowels of Hell!” cried another man.
“Hell will be the preferred venue if you reject this condition,” warned the Catholic bishop. “Be advised that routiers accompany this army.”
A collective gasp sucked the air. Routiers were roving bands of prison rejects, thieves, and beggars who lusted for rape and plunder. The Northern barons found the wretches useful as human fodder, sousing them with cheap wine and whipping them into a frenzy before throwing them against the walls of a besieged city to waste the defenders’ missiles. That these depraved creatures laughed in death’s face was no surprise; eternal damnation could be no worse than their squalid existence. They were so loathed that Rome had forbidden Christian monarchs from recruiting their services. Now Innocent III and his henchmen found their employment to be advantageous.
Trencavel maintained a steadied front. “Stand fast! I implore you! Don’t allow these monks from foreign soil to destroy our tolerance of creed!”
The frightened populace looked to their pastor for guidance.
The local priest bowed his head in deference to his superior. “I disagree with those who profess the existence of two gods. But this woman and her flock have never harmed us. I believe Christ’s mercy begs their protection.”
The Bishop glowered at the priest with a promise of retribution. “Have you forgotten what happened to Constantinople?”
Trencavel stole the condemnation list from the Bishop’s grasp and threw the parchment to his subjects, who shredded it in a frenzy of patriotism. The Viscount ordered up the Bishop’s horse to indicate that his presence was no longer welcome. “You have your answer.”
“May God have mercy on your souls!” snarled de Montpeyroux.
When the cleric had been hounded off across the bridge, Trencavel turned to Esclarmonde and advised, “Gather your perfects. I will provide as many mounts as I can spare for those who cannot walk.”
Esclarmonde was riven by indecision. Had she not just preached the need to refuse the seductions and illusions of the material world? If she fled to safety while others stayed in harm’s way, she would be exposed as a hypocrite. “I can’t abandon these people.”
Trencavel drew her aside. “You are here because I asked you to come and preach. I won’t allow you to remain in danger.”
“Your Catholic subjects have agreed to risk their lives to save my followers.” Pressing his hand for reassurance, she turned and walked among her Cathars. “If any of you wish to go to Carcassonne, no judgment will be held against you.” When none of the Cathars stepped forward to accept Trencavel’s offer of escort, she brought the tottering Castres to the Viscount’s side. “Father, I have followed your guidance for many years. Now you must follow mine. Go to Phillipa. She must be warned to turn back for Foix.”
Castres hung his head in surrender to her order.
Trencavel climbed to the highest step and shouted, “I leave to prepare the defenses of Carcassonne! You will be in the trusted hands of my seneschal! Provisions are stockpiled and the moats will be strengthened!”
Esclarmonde saw a blind rabbi huddled with his terrified congregation beyond the border of the cathedral grounds. The Jews had retrieved their precious scrolls from the city’s synagogue and were clutching them to their chests. She feared they would fall victim to a pogrom, as had their grandfathers when the crusader armies passed through the Languedoc in past times to embark from Marseille. She pleaded with Trencavel, “Take the Jews away from here.”
A younger rabbi translated her intercession into Hebrew for his blind elder. The aged rabbi bowed to her in heartfelt gratitude.
Abiding her request, Trencavel detached a small contingent to escort the Jews on their exodus west. Assured that his orders for the preparations had been understood, he mounted and took a last look at his adoring subjects. “Citizens of Beziers! You are my Thermopylae! God be with you!”
Thousands ran after the Viscount and dampened his dust with their tears.
For two days and nights, the Occitans deepened the ditches around Beziers with picks and shovels. The seneschal of the garrison, Bernard de Servian, led raiding parties into the countryside to burn the crops and salt the wells while Esclarmonde helped organize a hospital in St. Nazaire to ease the suffering of the refugees who were straggling in by the hundreds from neighboring towns.
On the morning before the feast of St. Magdalene’s Day, a piercing cry came from the ramparts: “They are on us!”
So many citizens rushed to the allures that Esclarmonde feared the scaffolding would collapse. When she reached the crenelations, her heart sank. The far banks of the Orb were filled with a horde more vast than the Roman legions that she had read about in the Annals of Tacitus. The Northern army paraded across the valley with banners from Auvergne, Burgundy, Limousin, even Germany. A golden rampant lion on a red field—Simon de Montfort’s herald—led up the Cistercians and their towering crucifixes. Behind the main army came the routiers, roistering down the hills like savages and diving naked into the water with no regard for modesty. She pleaded with Servian to avoid a violent confrontation. “Perhaps if I speak to the Abbot.”
“That would be taken as a sign of weakness,” warned Servian. “Let them batter their heads against these stones. They’ll soon tire of their folly.”
During the night, the Occitan garrison monitored the crusader campfires for suspicious movements. Informed by his scouts that the French sappers were testing the foundations, Servian ordered vats of boiling pitch be poured over the ramparts, a tactic that drew screams from the darkness below.
By dawn, the besieged Occitans had worked themselves into such a frenetic expectation of attack that their nerves could no longer hold. A mob of three thousand— mostly barefoot peasants armed with clubs and pitchforks— converged on the gate and demanded to be let out to fight the invaders.
Esclarmonde tried to stop them. “Heed the orders! I beg you!”
“Our knights cower behind these walls like Saracens!” cried one manic-eyed farmer. “Those filthy Northerners laid waste to my village at Bedarius!”
The mob unleashed an inhuman bray as it pushed past her. The Occitans hemorrhaged through the gate and hurdled down the embankment toward the bridge. Halfway across the river, they halted to shout goading curses at the Franks who were sleeping on the far banks.
The routiers roused and regarded the Occitan rabble with hectoring amusement. A giant Northerner with a face like pounded dough strode onto the bridge and shook his beefy fist. “Who wants it first?”
The Occitans swarmed the foolhardy Goliath and lifted him aloft like ants stealing a crust of bread. With a collective heave, they threw him to the treacherous rapids. Enraged, his fellow mercenaries erupted from their bed sacks and attacked the bridge en masse with cudgels and tree limbs. The first light of dawn was greeted by an unworldly screech as the two hordes collided. Those wretches in the van of both gangs were propelled into the river by the crush.
Awakened by the alarums, Almaric and Folques came running up in their nightshirts. They found the Count de Nevers watching the skirmish while spitting the night’s dryness from his mouth with vinegar wine. The other barons stumbled cursing from their tents. They relieved their bladders and bowels with a concatenation of hissing arcs of urine and detonating farts.
“Shouldn’t you disperse them?” asked Almaric.
“My knights won’t go near that scum,” said Nevers, gargling loudly. “Let the devils exhaust themselves. It’ll save us the trouble of having to hang a few for general mischief.” When he and his fellow barons prepared to retire in search of breakfast, they found Simon de Montfort strapping on his armor.
“What are you doing?” asked Folques.
Simon squinted repeatedly in an attempt to monitor the progress of the fight. “Opportunity gestates in this melee.”
Nevers and the other barons laughed at the nearsighted Norman. “You can’t even see your own hand in broad daylight. There on the bridge, de Montfort! The Lionhearted rides to meet you! Your day of fame awaits!”
Simon strode with grim determination toward his horse. “With your superb eyesight, Nevers, you can watch me gain glory from afar, as is your custom.”
Before Nevers could counter that slander, de Montfort saddled and took his position on the crest of the hill that overlooked the bridge. One by one, the crusaders reconsidered their bluster and began following his lead. Soon the horizon was lined with knights mounted and at the ready. Simon drew his sword as the Beziers peasants began getting the worst of the scuffle. When the Occitans broke into a retreat, the Norman baron spurred to the charge. His advance on the river was so swift that the yeoman bringing up the siege engines abandoned their stations to avoid being left behind for the looting.
On the ramparts, Servian rang the tocsins for his garrison spread throughout the city to converge on the gate. “Don’t allow the damn fools back in!”
His knights were too slow in ramming the planks into the gate slots. The bloodied Occitan horde debouched through the portal and eddied back into the city, swallowing all who came within its panicked undertow. Montfort galloped across the bridge at the head of his Northern knights and cut an indiscriminate swath through the laggards. The routiers running alongside him overwhelmed Servian’s garrison at the gate and poured into the burgh like the demon-possessed swine sent by Christ over the Galilean cliffs. De Montfort and the crusaders were so stunned by their ease of entry that they were forced to fight a second battle with their own thugs for control of the narrow streets.
On the tower, Esclarmonde stood immobilized. The Northerners were dragging half-naked women from the houses and throwing infants from the windows. The cathedral priest knelt down before the onslaught with his crucifix raised to remind them of Christ’s pacifism. A routier armed with an ax sliced the priest’s scalp and the icon with one stroke.
Entrapped by the mash of his own men, de Montfort reared his charger to kick open a path. He looked up to the walls in discovery and rubbed the soot from his blurred eyes to confirm that they were not deceiving him. “Ten gold pieces to the man who brings me that black-shrouded minx!”
Dozens of routiers clambered up the hoarding like monkeys. Esclarmonde could not comprehend what was happening. The hellish phantasmagoria was playing out in slowed time—her body seemed to float above the screams and blood-spurting churn of heads and limbs. An Occitan knight shook her back to her senses and dragged her across the allures. They had nearly reached the next tower when her protector straightened from an arrow in his back. With his last breath, he ordered her, “To the cathedral!”
A frantic pealing of bells called the survivors toward the protection of the city’s two churches. Esclarmonde leapt from the allures and was swept into the whirlpool of mayhem. She saw the spires of St. Nazaire above the smoke and ran for its doors, but so many Occitans had pushed their way inside that corpses were being thrown from its towers. A perfect reached a hand out to pull her to safety. She neared his grasp—and was dragged back.
“I am a nun!”
A routier with half an ear ripped at her robe. “I fulken know who you are! A little romp and then ten shillings from—” His head snapped back violently. A crusader in black armor circled his horse around her attacker. Eyes glutinous as oysters, the routier bared his canine incisors and lunged for the reins. “Getch yer own!”
Denied a full arc for his sword, the crusader pommeled the routier’s scalp with the knob of his hilt. Tusks of blood drooled down the corners of the wretch’s mouth as he hung on and dragged the knight’s horse down with him. The knight cried out in anguish—his leg was pinned under the steed’s flanks.
Freed, Esclarmonde staggered on hands and knees toward the cathedral. The crusaders charged past her and funneled through the splintered door planks, hacking away as if cutting through bramble. Curdling screams echoed from the nave. Rivulets of blood oozed down the steps. The church reeked from an effluvium of urine, vomit, and evacuated bowels. The local Catholics made the sign of the cross and recited the Apostles’ Creed, to no avail. Some climbed the pillars only to tire and fall like spitted salmon on waiting spears. Those who escaped into the murk of the crypt were smothered in heaped piles. The Cathars in their black robes were easily spotted; their limbs were sliced off one by one to prolong their suffering. Old men, women, children, invalids —none were spared by the French knights who high-stepped through the muck bashing skulls and cutting gold fillings from teeth.
Esclarmonde crawled across the corpses on the outer portico. Her hair was yanked back to expose her windpipe for the knife.
I commit my soul.
A viscous wetness splashed across her face. She opened her eyes in horror— she had been splattered by the routier’s brains. She stumbled to her feet and was concussed by an onrushing horse. The crusader who had skulled the routier was hoisting her to his saddle. The last sounds she heard before passing out were the screams of Occitans jumping to their deaths from the cathedral’s tower.
A detachment of mounted crusaders led Almaric and Folques through the carnage-strewn city toward the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, where the last of the Occitan survivors had barricaded themselves. The Northern barons and their exhausted men sat near a battering ram at the front doors of the looming brick edifice that was winged with flying buttresses and protected by thick walls constructed like those of a fortress.
“Why haven’t you taken it?” asked Folques.
“The beams are too stout,” said de Montfort.
Nevers sat peeling an apple with his dagger. “We can wait and starve them out. There’s plenty of gold still to be found in the city.”
Almaric studied the thick oak planks that framed the church’s bell tower. “Will the roof take a flame?”
The barons turned on the Abbot in disbelief. There were ten thousand people crammed inside the church, most loyal Catholics.
“I don’t intend to spend the summer laying sieges to these heretic nests,” said Almaric. “An example needs to be made.”
“There is precious treasure within those confines,” said de Montfort with a percipient grin. “You may wish to recover it first.”
“I have enough chalices,” said the Abbot.
“I’m talking about a vessel more valuable than gold ... I saw the Count of Foix’s sister running down that street.”
Nevers laughed and tossed his apple core at de Montfort’s boots to dismiss the absurd claim. “What would she be doing this far east? Besides, you couldn’t tell a fox from a chicken if both were hung on your nose.”
Folques broke the two scrapping knights apart. Shaken by the possibility that Esclarmonde was trapped inside the church, he suggested, “Perhaps we should take the viscountess alive to make a spectacle of her capture.”
Almaric chastised his protege with a peremptory glare, suspecting him of harboring a more personal motive. “The woman can burn now or burn later.” He glowered with intimidation. “I am certain the Bishop of Toulouse agrees.”
Folques gave up a reluctant half-nod.
“What about our own believers?” asked Nevers. “There are more of them in there than the cloggers.”
Almaric meditated on the jeweled crucifix at his breast. After nearly a minute of prayer, he made the sign of the Cross on the church doors as if dispensing the sacrament of penance. With his face shuttered in cold indifference, he turned to the barons and ordered, “Kill them all.”
The crusaders traded startled glances, uncertain if they had heard the Abbot correctly. De Montfort reminded him, “There are innocent—”
“God will know his own,” said Almaric.
De Montfort shrugged at the inscrutability of the Almighty’s ways and ordered his men to jam the doors with wooden wedges. His archers swabbed their arrows with oiled rags and shot the flaming missiles to the roof timbers. Within minutes, black smoke churned from the embrasures in the cathedral’s walls and screams could be heard above the crackling firestorm inside. The doors rumbled from the violent pounding of bodies and fists.
Folques could not bear the agony that Esclarmonde was now enduring in the inferno. In a reflex of pathos, he risked the Abbot’s censure by rushing to the barred portal, but the scorching flames leapt at him like Hell’s salamanders and drove him back. The buttresses crumbled and the rose window exploded. Shards of glass rained down on him as he crawled for cover. With a groaning heave, the church’s brick walls imploded in a billowing cloud of black smoke and debris. He reached the nearest awning seconds before streams of hot cinders shot onto the thatched roofs of the surrounding buildings.
De Montfort and the barons cursed the unforeseen catastrophe and whipped the routiers to the task of forming bucket brigades to douse the shingles before the flames could spread. But the mercenaries were so embittered at being denied a share of the booty that they began fanning the embers with their rags, laughing and dancing like demented fools as the afternoon winds stoked the conflagration.
That night, after the burned city had cooled, Almaric and Folques were carried in a baroche around the smoldering battlements to inspect the results of the holocaust. Satisfied with their work, the Abbot ordered a report be sent to Rome expressing gratitude that fifteen thousand Occitan souls had been sent to the Almighty’s righteous judgment.