Siege Perilous Read online

  CHAPTER 12:

  THE ANGEL IN THE WINDOW

  Before retiring, Peire-Roger called for a volunteer to take a message to the Count of Toulouse before dawn. Ocyrhoe instantly put herself forward. Something about the new arrival unnerved her, and she wanted to get away from him.

  As usual, she took the cup with her. Privately she believed the ineffable strangeness of it protected her from being caught—although she had not had it with her on patrol the night before, and nothing ill had come of it. Rixenda, who like all Cathars did not believe in talismans, found it a strange and cumbersome talisman indeed but had ceased to comment on it many months ago.

  By the time the sun rose the next morning to singe the frost, Ocyrhoe was down the mountain and miles north of the army camp. Her errand took her not into Toulouse itself, but to an outlying village halfway between Montségur and the walls of the city. Here she would meet with a Credent, to exchange information between the Count of Toulouse and Peire-Roger.

  Peire-Roger was waiting for the Count to send men to Montségur (although where they would sleep, Ocyrhoe could not imagine; it was tight enough quarters already). The Count could not openly send men to defend the fortress, as he had been forced to swear to the King of France that he would send men to attack the fortress. He had made this oath both in order to keep his title and to have the curse of excommunication lifted from his soul. He retained his title, but until he actually showed up with troops to destroy the heretics, he was going to remain an excommunicate.

  There was virtually no need for subterfuge in this meeting. Almost everyone in the village was sympathetic to the Cathar cause, and the few who weren’t had left to fight with the King of France, hoping they would eventually be rewarded with their heretical neighbors’ farms and properties.

  Her contact was the nondescript wife of a toothless, grinning ironsmith. He was a very savvy man who came across as witless, a quality Ocyrhoe admired greatly and even enjoyed. The visit was brief, with no real news on either side. The Count had heard a rumor that Pope Innocent was going to reprieve his excommunication; Peire-Roger would appreciate as much charcoal as could be spirited up the mountain, and he recommended the tunnels as the best means of transport.

  There were natural tunnels curving and meandering all through the limestone mountain range. Several of these led from the eastern edge of Montségur up to the fortress. The smallest—so small only Ocyrhoe could navigate it—led up from the south side of the mountain. Any tunnel trek was a long, damp, unpleasant trip, and required lots of candles; any other light source caused so much smoke it choked whoever was trying to ascend. Ocyrhoe, having a very bad association with tunnels from her days in Rome, avoided these when possible, even when the gods sent sleet.

  She was fed a lunch of bread and stewed mutton, the mutton being an extraordinary indulgence and a strong incentive to offer to run this errand. She accepted a new, woolen wrap from the wife, intending to wear it for the trip home but then give it to Rixenda for warmth. The days were very short now and there was no moon, but Ocyrhoe planned her trip so that she would arrive at the foot of Montségur just as the sun was setting.

  On the way she passed by several villages and farmsteads. Most people either took no notice of her or knew who she was—she had been in the area two years now and been a regular messenger for his lordship since before the siege began in May. So, generally, she traveled with a simple indifference to whomever she met, at least this far from the camp.

  Today, however, something felt different. She was thirsty and near a farmstead she knew, so decided she would stop in to pay her respects, fill her waterskin, and see if there was any useful gossip to bring back to the fortress.

  As she approached the simple hut that was the central farmhouse, she heard voices and saw figures moving in agitation through the open door. She paused. Perhaps it would be better to listen for a moment before making her presence known. She slipped over to the right side of the building, where a small window was covered with vellum, and listened.

  “We know there is a secret path,” said a voice with a local accent. The speaker sounded reasonable, but forceful. “This standoff will last forever if something does not change.”

  “It won’t last forever. Winter’s coming and eventually the damned French will have to pack up and go home,” said a voice. Ocyrhoe grinned despite herself—it was Ferrer, the older of the two men who had nabbed her as a supposed spy two years ago and had brought her to Montségur. “We are happy to replenish the fortress, while the army has no easy way to replenish itself.”

  “That’s my very point,” said the stranger. “We all have loved ones up in Montségur. All of us. Every local man in the army here knows somebody up there. None of us want to be here, and none of us want the French whoresons to win.”

  “Then desert!” said another voice—Ferrer’s young friend Artal.

  “And be hanged?” said the stranger. “And leave my children fatherless? What does that accomplish? It is much easier to give those bastards my forty days of service, sitting around scratching my arse in the camp, and then pack up and go home. But there were others here before me, and others will come to take my place. The army is not going to give up and go home. The French king has too much riding on this siege.”

  “It’s one fucking mountain fortress,” said another voice, irritably. “There’s about a hundred men-at-arms in there. How could it possibly be worth the amount of energy and manpower he is wasting on it?”

  “It stands for far more than that,” said Ferrer. “I do understand that. But because it does, I cannot believe you are exhorting us, Vidal, to betray our people.”

  “It would end the siege. There would be a short battle, and then surrender, and this nightmare would be over.”

  “And our loved ones destroyed,” said Ferrer.

  “Far more than that will be destroyed if you don’t give them up,” Vidal warned sharply. “Do you think the King of France is going to provide for his troops by sending food all the way from Isle de France? When his troops are surrounded by fruitful farmland? If this siege does not end by Christmas, I warn you: The army, even conscripted men like me, will be raiding storage barns and taking livestock for many days’ ride in all directions. There has already been pillaging.”

  At this, a loud chorus of annoyed agreement; the room was full of men.

  “And so,” Vidal continued, “I am begging you, as your countryman, for the collective good: Help us to get up there. Reveal the path, or the tunnel. Guide us. Betray the few to save the many. Your children’s children will still be suffering if this is not resolved soon.”

  “It is dishonorable to betray their trust,” said Ferrer.

  “It’s more dishonorable to starve the families who are not hiding up there, living off our largesse,” said another voice. “Before the siege, I gave Peire-Roger my forty days of service, but since May there has not been one single day where some of my efforts have not gone to helping a few hundred heretics up on that hill. I’ve given far more than forty days to him. I am suffering here on my own farm more than he is in that fortress.”

  Hearty agreement on that. Ocyrhoe felt her heart thudding. Her fingers, resting against the mud wall of the building, trembled briefly from more than mere cold. She recognized the voices of many within. All of them knew the hidden ways up the mountain. Even if she fled home now and warned Peire-Roger of the danger—even if every possible entrance was shored up against invasion—how would they ever get new supplies in? How would they ever know if the reliable farmer was still the reliable farmer, or the latest informant? Please, she prayed, please let these men choose wisely.

  For a few moments, everyone inside seemed to be talking at once. There was loud disagreement, which gradually turned to a grudging consensus. The one holdout was Ferrer, who insisted they were disgraceful.

  “I promise you,” Vidal said, above the hubbub, which qu
ieted to hear him. “I promise you that if help us to get into the fortress, we will keep violence to a minimum, and only among the men-at-arms. All women and children will be spared, and all Good Ones will be allowed to leave the area unharmed and to practice elsewhere.”

  “Why should we believe you, when for decades…”

  “This is different,” Vidal insisted. “We are you. We are your kinsmen. We will do this without the French king or the archbishop even knowing. It is a local militia I come to represent, not Hugue de Arcis or Pierre Amelii. You all know me. You know my father and my brothers and my sons. And I know yours. We will go into the fortress. We will get everyone out of there. And then—only then—will we alert the army that there is victory. If it happens in any other manner, you may tear me limb from limb with your own hands.”

  There was a rumble of supportive grunts; Ocyrhoe’s fingers were so tense they started cramping. These men were about to march out of this building straight along her path of travel and show Vidal how to get into the fortress. She had no idea if Vidal was an honorable man or not, but the tribal loyalty she’d developed over the last two years made it impossible for her to stay mute.

  An impulse overwhelmed her, born of fear. Without thinking about what she was doing, she reached into her satchel and grabbed the cup. It was glowing, more brightly than usual, as if it fed off of her desperation. With an agility that surprised her, she hefted herself up onto the narrow external sill, and then hurled herself against the vellum that was nailed over the window.

  The men in the room yelled in shock as suddenly the window-covering imploded inward, bringing light, cold, and a small ferocious figure brandishing a mysterious light source. They instinctively herded together at one end of the room. Ocyrhoe knew the power of a mob, however small: she had no more than a heartbeat to convince them not to attack her.

  “Men of Toulouse!” she shouted, shaking her left fist high in the air at them. Immediately the room silenced and all eyes in the room went to her fist. They were staring at the cup. She wondered what they saw as they were looking at it. She thought of Father Rodrigo, wielding the cup outside the ruin of the Coliseum in Rome, and prayed she was not about to succumb to his madness. “You must not betray the Good Ones. They are the symbol of who you are as a people! Already this land has survived decades of rape and pillage, of crops being destroyed and livestock slaughtered, or vineyards torn up and orchards despoiled. Your father and your grandfathers survived all of that and never thought of giving in—that is why you are here today, proud strong men that you are! And will you, now, at the moment that the Good Ones need you most, will you throw that heritage away to avoid one measly winter’s worth of inconvenience? What would the rightful lords of Carcassonne say if they knew you were doing anything to help the French imposter in power there now? Do! Not! Betray! Your! People!”

  By now her eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the room; the window vellum was ripped open behind her and low-slanting, afternoon sunlight was spilling onto the faces of the half-score men she was scolding. They could not see her face, as she was backlit by the sun-filled window, so she could examine them as she spoke. Their faces were uniformly astounded. All of them were familiar to her except one fair-haired man dressed as a soldier. This must be Vidal.

  “And you!” she said fiercely, pointing the cup accusingly at him. “You are the greatest sinner in here! How dare you exhort your countrymen to turn on their own! You do not deserve to be considered a citizen by any of these men! They should foreswear you as a kinsman and a neighbor. If you truly believe you are helping anyone but the French with this plan, then the French have made an ass of you. Is your kinswoman not among the Credents up there?” That was a wild guess but his alarmed face revealed she had hit the mark. “You say that they will all be released to safety, but what do you really think will happen to them? What future is there for the young women other than to be married off to one of those brutish French soldiers as a war prize? You are a disgrace to this land. You should desert the army and offer up your limp sword, for whatever good it’s worth, to the service of the Good Ones of Montségur!”

  She had started with no plan, and she did not know what to do next. She shook the cup again, and then with a prayer to the gods of acrobatics, she turned around, jumped up into the small open space of the window, fell to the ground, and quickly rolled around to the back of the small building. She knew this property well enough. From here it was a quick dash to the chicken coop—no, that would not work; the hens would raise a fuss. Same with the horses in the stables, although horses sometimes listened to her. She darted past the chicken coop and threw herself face forward onto the ground, sliding under the lower rail of the gate.

  The stable was empty; the men’s horses were all ground-tied outside on the other side of the building. They snorted when the dust kicked up from her unnecessarily dramatic move, but otherwise, they ignored her.

  She caught her breath and looked at the cup. It was not glowing. It was just a tarnished silver cup. “That was interesting,” she muttered, and put it back into the satchel at her waist.

  Nobody came near the stable. If there was argument in the house, or even discussion, she could not hear it over the pounding of her pulse in her ears. Finally, after a wait long enough to count to 500, she stood up and looked over the upper rails of the stable. The men were outside of the house, walking stupidly about looking up into the sky and sometimes toward the horizon. Not one of them was glancing toward the stable. Not one of them seemed to think the strange interloper might be on the premises.

  How annoying. She might have been able to leave on foot and never be noticed.

  After a few moments, Ferrer called them all together, and they went back inside to confer. Once they were safely out of sight, she climbed over the stable-railing. She briefly considered taking one of the horses, but if they thought she was angelic, it was best not to ruin the impression. She took off at a jog back toward Montségur.

  Because of her own role in what had just happened—no, because of the cup’s role—she could not tell anyone about it. She trusted that Ferrer, who was an alarmist, would alert Peire-Roger if he felt there was any lurking danger.

  Ocyrhoe avoided the new knight. She was glad he was there—indeed she felt some pride for having found him and brought him home. But the earnest glow of his handsome face alarmed her. The light in his eyes reminded her of Father Rodrigo when his madness was upon him. Not that there was anything about Percival that implied a lack of reason. He was more civilized in his demeanor than almost anyone else in the fortress, lords and ladies included.

  But even that was strange, given the vague references to his past. He had traveled all the way to the land of the Mongols’ leader and come back to speak of it. He had traveled through the ruins of the worst of the Mongols’ atrocities closer to home. He lived in the wild and killed without conscience, for he believed with a gentle simplicity that the world was made of Good and Bad, and since he was Good, whoever he brought down was Bad.

  Or something like that. Because she kept a distance from him, she was not sure of the details. Once or twice she eavesdropped on his conversation at dinner—he was usually surrounded by the more properly raised female denizens, who all were moonishly attracted to him. They did not have the common sense to be wary of that gleam in his eye.

  Two days after the farmhouse adventure, Ocyrhoe and Rixenda were helping the Goodmen tidy the smithy in the eastern end of the courtyard; the smiths were eagerly awaiting the large delivery of charcoal they had been promised from the Count of Toulouse. Scouts on the tower had seen a transport coming from the north, disappearing into a nearby valley which had entry to one of the tunnels. It would be close to an hour before whatever was in the transport made it up to the fortress. Ocryhoe made a mental note of that and then forgot about it.

  Until she heard Rixenda shouting.

  On impulse she ducked around the corner of t
he smithy, and stared nervously toward the northern gate. There was a group of men, red-faced and breathing hard from exertion, all holding bundles of charcoal in their arms; there also was Rixenda, her arms clasped around Vidal.

  Civilians came to the door of the keep and then began pouring into the yard to great the charcoal-bearers. Percival, just relieved from garrison duty on the wall, came down into the increasingly crowded courtyard. He was tall enough to see the newcomers over the crowd, and he remained apart, watching. Behind the wave of women and children, Peire-Roger rushed out of the donjon, his face as angry and suspicious as ever.

  Rixenda’s face glistened with tears. “This is my nephew!” she called out to Peire-Roger as he approached. “He has deserted the French army to join us!”

  Peire-Roger cleared his throat, which he had the ability to do very loudly and unattractively in a manner that commanded the immediate attention of the entire courtyard.

  “Fellow,” he said.

  Vidal bowed briefly. Then he went down on one knee and bowed his head. He still wore his soldier’s uniform, and his left hand moved to his empty sword-belt, unaccustomed to being unarmed. “My lord,” he said.

  “What am I to make of this change of heart? It seems a suspiciously convenient way to…”

  “My nephew would not do that!” Rixenda interrupted.

  “My lord, I asked to be blindfolded to come up here,” Vidal said peaceably, head still bowed. “I cannot get in or out of this place on my own. I do not wish to. There was an angel came to the valley and showed me the error of my ways.”

  Good Heavens, thought Ocyrhoe, and took a few cautious steps into the courtyard. She felt exposed, although she knew he could not possibly have seen the features of her face with the light in the window behind her.