The de Montfort Histories - The Dove and the Devil (14 page)

Nevertheless, while riding along he attempted to sing to himself some of
the songs he had picked up. He thought the life of a troubadour would suit him
very well. Those he had spoken to had told him tales of their journeys and
adventures, and although he was something of a seasoned traveller himself, he
thought that moving about in this part of France, with its equitable climate,
clear skies, beautiful wildflowers and a population that seemed to welcome them
wherever they went, would be very agreeable indeed. He thought he would just
mention this to his papa when a suitable occasion arose. Guy, his younger brother,
could take care of the estate while he, Amaury, was away singing!

Amaury had never seen his father so relaxed. Gone was the thunderous
face of the would-be Crusader. He guessed the thought of seeing his old friend
had raised Simon’s spirits. His father could be charming when he
wished—and when things were going his way. Amaury wondered if this would
be the right moment to tell him about his dream of becoming a troubadour. After
all, many troubadours were noblemen and it was a respected thing to do. Even
though he couldn’t see why there would be any objections to his wishes,
something pricked in the back of his mind and he had distinct reservations
about broaching the subject.

Knowing that Simon would not wish to be bothered with him the next day,
after they had
 
arrived
 
at Foix where the Count de Comminges
was staying, Amaury gathered up his courage and approached his father.
Unfortunately his instincts had been correct. Simon was not pleased by his
older son’s revelation. It was not that Simon considered the troubadours to be
somewhat effeminate, nor was it the fact that no one in Simon’s family had ever
thought to sing for a living. They were all soldiers—had been for
centuries—and Simon had no wish to see his heir change that state of affairs.
What upset Simon the most was the fact that his son should even entertain a
notion as ridiculous as becoming a musician! He had ensured that Amaury begin
his training as a knight as early as possible, and had arranged matters so that
the boy could see things that many twelve-year-old boys would never experience.

Truth to tell, Simon was disappointed in the boy. His hopes for
enlarging his estates lay with his sons as well as with himself. The abortive
Crusade had just lost him, and many like him, the chance to add to his coffers.
Although the thought of the money to be made had never entered Simon’s head at
the outset of the venture, it was a known fact that few Crusaders ever returned
home out-of-pocket. Therefore, sadly, Simon would never countenance his son’s whim,
which was how he regarded Amaury’s idea.

That evening, poor Amaury went to bed feeling crushed and more wretched
than he had ever felt in his life. All his brilliant plans for an exiting
future had been wiped out by his father’s few scathing remarks. He adored his
father and certainly wished to do nothing to displease him. As he mulled over
their conversation in his mind, he began to see the sense in what Simon had
said. He was, after all, the heir to a large estate, one which would inevitably
become larger with other conquests and marriages. In order to make those
conquests, one had to fight, and in order to fight, a boy of his rank must earn
his knighthood. Besides, he told himself, he liked fighting. There was no doubt
about that. He could see that there was nothing for him to do but forget what
was merely a fanciful dream and get on with the business at hand, which was to
earn the right to become a squire.

Just before falling asleep, he made up his mind to go to his papa the
next day and tell him what he had decided. With that thought comforting him, he
knew he would soon be back in Simon’s good graces.

Chapter Nine

Occitania, South of France

1201 AD - 1204 AD

Arnaud

Arnaud’s new life began with a trip to Fanjeaux where there was a large
Cathar seminary. It was a part of the country he would come to know well. Some
distance from Lavaur, it lay within the domain of Count Raymond-Roger
Trencavel. Although he was not a Cathar himself, Raymond-Roger was known to be
very tolerant towards those who were, and counted many elders, including
Bertrand, amongst his friends. It was common knowledge that he had aided the
Cathars in the past by concealing them or, when necessary, negotiating on their
behalf with the Catholic Church.

At first, Arnaud found the rigors of his new life hard to sustain.
Although he had expected this to be the case, it didn’t make the changes any
easier to bear. In the beginning, he frequently asked himself why he was there
at all. And then the memories would come flooding back to him and he would know
with certainty that he was pursuing the right path. He first had to learn to
live entirely without meat and depend wholly on raw vegetables or fruit to
sustain him in his daily work. To a young man in the prime of his life, unused as
he was to the type of labouring work he was now called upon to do, each day was
a trial.

All the newcomers—postulants they were called—had to divide
their time between meditation and doing good works, and earning a living with
their hands. Seeing how hard these young men and women worked was an education
to the rest of the population labouring in the fields, for whatever their
former rank in society, the Cathars worked alongside the peasants with cheerful
determination. Any money they earned was turned over to their religious
community. Women postulants stayed in the communal houses and cooked and looked
after the children of penniless nobles who had left their offspring there to be
taught the ways of the believers. In fact, the seminary where Arnaud lived had
been set up by a woman named Esclarmonde, sister of the Count of Foix. It was
here that Arnaud hoped one day to bring Maurina.

If life was exhausting, it was also satisfying to Arnaud, who had not
realized before how much being able to ask and answer questions about God and
Jesus Christ had meant to him. As a Catholic he had relied on his priest for
interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, since everything was written in Latin
and the texts themselves were few and far between. It was a fact, he learned,
that many priests had never even seen a written copy of the Bible except in the
seminaries where they had studied, and few could remember with any certainty
what they had been taught as young men.

His evenings passed rapidly enough as he listened to the preaching of
those already ordained by the Cathar church as
perfecti
, or
perfectae
.
These men and women had already received the consolamentum and were considered
to be perfect beings, ready to be accepted at once into God’s realm at their
deaths. They would not need to undergo reincarnation as ordinary beings would.
For the
perfecti
, the road to
salvation was a very narrow and difficult path to tread.

Eventually, if he were thought worthy, Arnaud would receive not the
“consolamentum of the dying,” which his wife had received, but the
“consolamentum of the living,”
the
entry of the Holy Spirit into his living body. He would then become a
perfectus
. But first he would have to
satisfy the
perfecti
that his sense
of vocation was pure and that his powers of endurance were strong. In order to
do this, he would follow a strict regime of fasting and self-denial. Every day
he would go out into the community to share the daily labours of the people. He
would join other
perfecti
in the
fields, helping with the reaping, or gleaning. Many of the elders had taken up
the trade of weaving so were often in someone’s house working with a loom.
Their lives were seen by everyone to be harder than the lives of even the
poorest of the peasants. Arnaud, whose former life had not been particularly
easy, found in himself new strengths, and it wasn’t long before all the fat of
his former life dropped away to reveal a man tempered to a fine steel by
abstinence and a complete disregard for his own wellbeing.

For all its difficulty, Arnaud felt an abiding peace in the life he had
chosen, or, as he had now come to believe, the life that had chosen him. He did
not mind the days devoted to prayer. In fact, he avidly welcomed them and
studied the Church’s teachings far into the night. His energy was inexhaustible
and the
perfecti
from whom he learned
often left the room exhausted themselves after a bout of Arnaud’s questions.

As well as teaching from the gospels, the elders promoted the equality
of women and serfs. They did not believe in the feudal hierarchy, nor would
they swear an oath or obey the laws of the land. This was where Arnaud had the
most difficulty. He was expected to ignore laws that he had understood and
obeyed the whole of his life. To him, the world seemed to be turning on its
head, and it took him several months of praying and meditation before he could
understand the need to dispose of man’s law in favour of the law of God.

If at first Arnaud found the way hard going and wondered if he were
truly called, the elders of the church were delighted with his spiritual
progress. It was only a little more than a year later when he was presented to
the community of
perfecti
who would
be responsible for electing him to their numbers. Then began a period of
extreme fasting and self-denigration, vigils and prayer until the day he was
received into the true Church.

Arnaud’s acceptance into the Cathar Church took place just after dawn on
a perfect summer’s day. He had spent the weeks immediately before the event in
constant prayer and self-questioning. Time and again he had agonised over his
decision, praying for guidance and for the courage to accept what he now
believed was God’s holy will. The ceremony that would see his life change
forever took place in a small grotto where a table had been set up and covered
with a spotless white cloth upon which rested an equally spotless pile of white
napkins. White candles symbolizing the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost
upon the Apostles were lit and a basin and ewer containing water for the
washing of the minister’s hands stood ready.

Arnaud had invited his parents-in-law and the Boutarras and one or two
other friends to witness his baptism and elevation to the status of
perfectus
. But by far the largest
contingent present were other
perfecti
and
perfectae
. The ceremony lasted
the best part of the day and at its close, Arnaud was invested with a long
black robe and a cord that symbolised his withdrawal from the world and its
pleasures. He was given the kiss of peace by the bishop who had officiated at
the ceremony, and Arnaud himself turned to kiss a member of the congregation
who was nearest him. That it was Pierre Boutarra who received his kiss was a
happy coincidence. With misty eyes that he tried hard to conceal, Pierre turned
to pass on the kiss to his neighbour.

Henceforth, Arnaud would be committed to a life of wandering the towns
and countryside, preaching, praying and fasting, and doing whatever good works
he might be called upon to do.

One year lapsed into two, and two into three, during which time Arnaud
did not see Maurina. He had been called upon by Bertrand towards the end of the
third year to attend a conference with him in Carcassonne. Their journey to
that city would take them close by the town of Lavaur while en route south from
Montauban where they had been preaching. It seemed a perfect
opportunity—one too good to be missed— for Arnaud to pay a short
visit to his daughter, so he sought the permission of Bertrand to stop by the
little cottage in Lavaur where she lived. Would she remember him? He doubted
it. She had been less than a year old when he had left. He wondered if she
still had the little dove he had carved for her. His heart began to race,
making him feel somewhat uncomfortable. After all, he told himself, he had given
up everything to serve as God had demanded. Why was the thought of one little
girl affecting him this way?

It was the Boutarras’ greeting that finally made him realise that
everything in his life had changed irrevocably. Of course, they would be respectful
to a
perfectus,
and Arnaud had grown
to accept the prayerful greetings of other believers. But it was their greeting
that finally demonstrated to him that he was indeed someone other than their
former friend. The easy camaraderie that had previously existed was gone and
this, if nothing else, made him aware of his changed status

“Come, Maurina, say hello to your papa.” Saissa Boutarra pushed the
little girl towards the tall dark man wearing a long black cloak.

Maurina stuck her thumb firmly in her mouth and regarded this stranger
with the fixed look of a four-year-old. This wasn’t her papa. Pierre was her
papa. It was to Pierre that she always ran when she needed comforting, when she
had stumbled or when one of the other children had been spiteful to her. She
stood in silence as the tall man bent down to speak to her.

“I must go away and I’ll be gone for a long time. I just wanted to say
goodbye.”

 
Maurina turned to Saissa.
“I don’t want to say goodbye. I want to play with the others. Please can I play
with the others?” She looked longingly at where a group of children were
playing in the neighbouring garden.