‘Heretics?’ Father Gilbert looked surprised. ‘I suppose so, yes, although I did not know that we had any in our area. Although, now I come to think of it, there was a rumour. . Oh, dear, that blow to the head has left me feeling rather confused. Heretics, eh? Why do you ask, my lady Abbess?’
‘Oh,’ — she had prepared the explanation, but still it felt awkward and clumsy on her tongue and she felt sure he must surely be suspicious — ‘oh, there is some talk of a group of heretics visiting England. Some were apprehended, I believe, to the north of Tonbridge. I know a little of heresy, that its followers believe there to be two worlds, one good and one evil, and that-’
Father Gilbert interrupted. ‘You speak of only one heresy, my lady,’ he said, ‘that of the dualists, whereas in fact there are many, although the majority are based on dualist misconceptions. Let me see, now — the Arians challenged the divinity of Christ, the Manichaeans said that man was evil but possessed a divine spark that could be brought alight through strict religious observance, the followers of Zoroaster believed in Ahura Mazda, the Divine Light. The Romans’ Mithras was a variant, you know.’ He gave her a little nod, as if in confirmation of his own words. ‘Then there are the Bogomils, of course. Now they are classic dualists, utterly believing in the creed of a good and an evil god.’ He smiled up at her. ‘Have I answered your concerns adequately?’
She returned his smile. ‘Well yes, in a way, Father. But I was also wondering what a good Christian ought to do if-’
‘I forgot to mention the Cathars!’ he exclaimed, interrupting her. ‘Which was remiss of me since they are a sect causing much distress within the Church just at present.’ He shifted in his bed, rearranging his weight more comfortably. ‘The Cathar heresy is spreading rather wildly,’ he said in a low tone, as if crowds of fascinated Christians on the brink of apostasy were gathered outside trying to listen. ‘They call themselves the Pure Ones — kataros is Greek for pure one — and theirs is a particularly pessimistic view of the dualist world. They are often referred to as Manichaeans; it is my own view that the two terms are used fairly indiscriminately.’ He looked slightly annoyed, as if such scholarly inexactitude were inexcusable. ‘The Church has been aware of them for some time — oh, more than a century, I imagine. Measures have been taken against them for almost as long. To begin with, the authorities strove hard to bring the faithless back into the fold, threatening them with excommunication if they persisted in their wrongdoing.’
‘But if they were heretics, followers of a different faith, then surely they would not take such a threat very seriously?’ Helewise asked.
‘Indeed they did not.’ Father Gilbert gave her a glance of approval. ‘Sterner measures were taken and some of the heretics abjured their faith under threat of such things as trial by water. Then a strange thing happened: in Cologne, where some heretics were on trial, the common people decided that the Church authorities were being too lenient. They grabbed the heretics and burned them at the stake.’
‘How did the Church react to that?’
‘At first the extremity of the violence was condemned outright,’ Father Gilbert said. ‘After all, back then — and I speak of a time almost fifty years ago — the vast majority of the populace, throughout Europe, were faithful to the one true Church. Except, of course, down in the south, in the lands that I believe men call the Midi. Provence and the Languedoc were the breeding ground of Catharism, and in the end the Church realised it.’
‘The Midi.’ She tried to remember. ‘Father, is there a town called Albi in the Midi? Or one called Toulouse?’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, waving away her question as if impatient to return to his narrative. ‘The Cathars are also referred to as the Albigensians because Albi is one of their strongholds. Where was I? Oh, yes. In 1179, the Church held a council at which measures against the Cathars were outlined. The duty of the faithful was henceforth to hunt them down, and the treatment that the heretics had received in places such as Cologne, Liege and Strasbourg began to be more widespread.’
She sat stunned. What had until then been a very personal problem — what to do about a heretic woman lying in Hawkenlye’s infirmary — had just been revealed to be part of something infinitely greater.
Something that, if Father Gilbert were not exaggerating, was setting all of Europe alight. .
He was still talking, speaking now of this Council and that pronouncement, of papal involvement and the possible interest of the King of France in a crusade to the south. But she was no longer listening.
Getting up, she said, ‘Excuse me, Father, if I interrupt your most interesting instruction, but it is time for me to go.’
‘Ah, yes indeed, duty calls you.’ He smiled affectionately at her. ‘As always.’
She spent a few moments checking that he was comfortable — she built up the fire and refilled his mug from the pot simmering beside the hearth — and then took her leave.
Mounting Honey, she rode back to Hawkenlye.
De Gifford had told Josse — who had related it to her — that two of the group of seven came from the south. From either Toulouse or Albi. It was beginning to look very much as if the members of the group were Albigensians, also known as Cathars.
One of the fastest growing and most threatening heresies that the Church had ever known.
Kicking her heels into Honey’s sides and feeling the mare spring off in an eager canter, Helewise thought grimly that this fact rather altered the way in which she must treat Hawkenlye infirmary’s heretic woman.
16
Josse was aware of the alien manuscript all the time. Although it was quite invisible to others, hidden in its wrappings inside his tunic, he felt that everyone at Hawkenlye must know what he carried.
The script had taken on the mysteriously charismatic qualities of the forbidden.
Trying to think sensibly about it, he realised that the first step was to ask the opinion of some learned, cultured person who might be able to tell him what it was. The document might not be as dangerous as he thought; simply because he did not understand the words was no reason automatically to assume that they were heretical.
Despite those strange, disturbing paintings. .
There were some erudite women within the Hawkenlye community. Sister Emanuel, for example, whose main duty was the care of the elderly monks and nuns living out their lives in the Abbey’s retirement home, had an air of scholarly competence about her. She assisted the Abbess in maintaining the Abbey’s great ledgers and was reputed to be even more learned than her superior. There was also Sister Bernadine, who probably knew more about manuscripts than anyone else in the Abbey. Josse would have loved to show the manuscript to either — or, even better, both — of them.
But it would not be right. They were nuns before they were scholars and they were vowed to obedience. If Josse asked them about the script, they would, if it proved to be anything inflammatory, have to go straight to the Abbess to report it. He knew he was not ready to let her see it; he might, he realised sadly, never be ready. Not if there remained any danger of her ordering it destroyed.
Pondering the matter, Josse thought of his Lewes chess opponent, Father Edgar. The two of them had enjoyed some lively and wide-ranging discussions and the Father had demonstrated a good grasp of both the contemporary scene and the history of the land; he would be sure to shed at least a small ray of light on the provenance of the manuscript.
But, Josse thought, the same stricture applied to Father Edgar as to the Abbess Helewise; Father Edgar was a man of the Church and therefore answerable to a higher authority. It was quite inconceivable that he would say, ‘Ah, yes, a heretical tract, beautifully written and illustrated; let’s put it on display.’ No. He, too, would cast it into the nearest fire.