Nobody in the Midi knew who he was. He had long ago realized that he was no longer being followed, and much of his former life back in England now seemed like a dream. His French had improved rapidly as he had journeyed, although down in the south they spoke a different tongue. He had already picked up a few useful words and phrases and, whenever he could, he struck up conversations with people, trying to discover what was happening.
The first time he plucked up sufficient courage to mention the name of the person he sought was almost the last. He was in a tavern, eating a large dish of a tasty bean and pork dish that the locals called cassoulet, and the man he was talking to grabbed him by the neck of his tunic and dragged him outside while he still had a mouthful of food.
The man had an arm round Ninian’s neck. With his other hand, he pressed a dagger into the exposed skin beneath Ninian’s ear. ‘How do you know that name, stranger?’ he hissed.
They were in a dark alleyway that stank of urine and bad meat. There was nobody around. Ninian tried to wriggle free, but instantly the knife point dug into his flesh. ‘Talk!’ the man said.
‘I have come from England,’ Ninian began. ‘The name was given to me by someone close to the man I call father. The person told me to come here. I have news of him, and of his wife and children.’
There was dead silence. Ninian thought the pressure on his throat had lessened a little.
Then the man whispered, ‘Give me their names.’
Ninian felt there could be no harm in complying. He spoke five names. ‘The girl is named for her grandmother,’ he added.
He heard the man give a quiet laugh. Abruptly, he let go of Ninian, who almost fell. The man grabbed at him, still laughing. ‘You are either a very clever spy, or you speak the truth,’ he said, looking intently at Ninian. He was tall, broad, dark-haired and swarthy-skinned. ‘Go and finish your dinner.’
Amazing for such a large man, he vanished as swiftly as if he had been swallowed up by the air. Ninian, eventually getting over the shock and returning to the cassoulet, thought he was lucky to have got off so lightly. He wolfed down the rest of his meal, drained his mug and was just vowing to himself that, next time he questioned someone, he would make sure they were nearer his own size, when the dark man came back.
He said simply, ‘Come with me.’
Ninian barely paused to think about it before he stood up, put some coins on the dirty table to pay for his meal and obeyed.
The dark man was called Peter Roger. He rode a bay mare that, although smaller than Garnet, could easily match him for pace, and he led Ninian through the night on roads that gradually turned from wide, well-paved thoroughfares to tracks and paths which, climbing steadily, finally grew so hazardous that Ninian was forced to dismount. Peter Roger, on his sure-footed little mare, turned and grinned at him as he laboured ever upwards. From time to time Ninian caught the flash of white teeth in the moonlight.
They stopped just before dawn. Ninian had no idea where they were. He did not much care. He was desperate for rest and fell asleep almost as soon as he was wrapped in his cloak and blanket.
He woke to the smell of new bread. Peter Roger offered him a generous chunk off the end of a loaf, spread with butter and honey. Ninian could not begin to imagine where he had acquired it. They seemed to be miles from anywhere.
As he ate, he looked around. They were high up in a long line of mountains, with green slopes falling away below and, behind them, tall, craggy peaks crowned with snow. They seemed to go on for ever, rising ever higher until their distant summits were lost in the hazy cloud.
Peter Roger noticed him staring. ‘The Pyrenees,’ he said. ‘These mountains have always been a refuge. Few men know all their secrets, and that’s the way we like it.’
‘You — you’re in hiding?’ Everything began to fall into place. Ninian, kicking himself for not having realized earlier what now seemed so obvious, said, ‘You’re a Cathar, aren’t you?’
The man grinned. ‘I am,’ he said happily. ‘It’s safe enough to tell you now, when it’s only you and me, especially when I’m so much bigger than you.’
Ninian joined in the laughter. ‘I know a little about your faith,’ he said cautiously.
‘You do?’ The man seemed surprised. He smiled indulgently. ‘Go on, then.’
Ninian gathered his thoughts and began to speak. ‘You believe there are two gods: one who is evil and rules the earth and everything in it, and one who is good and rules the spirit world. You think you were once angels in the blessed realm, forced out of that existence to live in human bodies until the time comes for your death, when you go back to your heavenly forms.’ He paused, trying to remember. ‘You live simple, good lives. You don’t eat meat or anything else that comes from animals. When you are ready, you undertake a special ceremony and after that you live as pure ones, without — er, without sharing a bed with a woman.’ He thought he heard Peter Roger give a quiet chuckle. ‘You don’t have priests or a mother church, and you believe that everyone may speak to God directly without the intercession of the clergy.’ He stopped. ‘Er — that’s all I know.’
‘How do you come by your knowledge?’ Peter Roger had got to his feet and was packing away his belongings.
‘Where I come from, there was once a group of people who believe what you do. My mother helped them, as did my adopted father.’ Ninian fastened his pack behind Garnet’s saddle. ‘I wasn’t there when it happened, but my father remembers the people with affection. He says you shouldn’t judge a man by what he believes, only by what he does. He also says nobody has the right to tell anyone else that his idea of God is any more valid than theirs.’
‘Your father is a wise man,’ Peter Roger pronounced. He took a scarf out from inside his tunic. ‘Now, although I like you and I begin to trust you, I cannot disregard the rules of my people. You have to be blindfolded.’
Ninian only saw the terrifying heights to which he had climbed once the ascent was safely over. The scarf was removed from his eyes, and he found himself in an open space — perhaps a tiny village square — with modest buildings on three sides and, on the fourth, a low wall. Beyond the buildings, the mountains soared even higher and, immediately behind the little hamlet, a domed peak rose up shaped like an upturned cup. Beyond the wall, the ground fell away in an almost sheer drop to the valley far, far below. Whichever way Peter Roger had just brought them up here, Ninian thought, swallowing the nausea, they certainly hadn’t climbed those dreadful, awesome slopes.
He was given little time to recover and was still feeling horribly vertiginous when Peter Roger, in the company of another man built on similar lines who had emerged to meet them, slung Ninian’s pack over one shoulder and led him away across an open space and into a small dwelling. Within, a pale-faced woman dressed in black sat on an elaborate wooden chair before a hearth in which a fire blazed; it was very cold at that height.
Peter Roger pushed Ninian forward. As he approached her, the woman rose elegantly to her feet.
She smiled at him. ‘I am Alazais de Saint Gilles, known in my previous life as de Gifford,’ she said in a low, melodious voice. ‘I am told that you bring news of my son.’
The details of that first extraordinary day in Alazais’s little house stayed with Ninian for a long time. Peter Roger and his companion remained with them only for a short time. Ninian thought afterwards that Alazais had submitted him to some test, so subtle that he had no idea what it was, and, when he had passed it, the two men had felt it safe to leave.