Fascinated despite himself, Josse breathed, ‘What was the thought?’
‘She was in dire need of a certain object, whose whereabouts she was aware were known to me. She wanted me to locate it and send it to her.’
‘A magical object?’ Josse asked. ‘A weapon? Something to help them in their struggle to defend themselves?’
Gervase shrugged. ‘I do not know. I do not think so, unless this thing has powers that it keeps hidden.’ He turned to Josse. ‘But you know of it. You tell me.’
‘I know of it? But-’
Then he remembered.
He recalled how, long ago, a worried young nun had brought to him an object of mysterious origin that she had found somewhere it had no place to be. He recalled looking at it with her, both of them full of wonder. And he remembered what had happened to that object.
And memory swiftly brought another realization.
‘There is no band of robbers, is there, Gervase?’ he asked softly. ‘You requested the meeting with Dominic because you thought the thing you sought so urgently was still at New Winnowlands, where I told you I had hidden it. Having somehow ascertained from him that his valuable possessions included no such thing, you turned to me. When did you take it from its hiding place? When you pretended to hear voices and sent me hurrying off?’
Gervase made himself meet Josse’s eyes. His were full of shame. ‘Yes.’
Slowly, Josse shook his head. ‘Did it matter so very much, Gervase, that you had to lie to me and trick me?’
‘I am sorry, Josse, but it did. And, before you ask, I could not take you into my confidence, for already I suspected that Ninian might have to flee because of the crime he was accused of. Had I revealed the secret to you, you’d have known why I suggested my mother’s house as a destination for Ninian and you would have protested.’
‘I wouldn’t if I-’
‘You would, Josse. You would have said, quite rightly, that I was using Ninian’s desperation for my own ends, making use of the fact that he had to run for his life to get this precious book to my mother.’
Gervase was right, and Josse knew it.
After some time, Josse said, ‘Why does your mother want the book?’
‘I asked myself the same question to begin with,’ Gervase replied, ‘before the full message reached me. Once I had her written words, I began to understand.’
‘She wrote to you?’ Josse could scarcely believe it. ‘Did she not fear to put you and your family in danger? This war against the Cathars may well spread, and if you were known to be sympathizers-’
Gervase laid a hand on his arm. ‘She wrote in code, Josse. I would be surprised if anyone not knowing the key would ever break it.’
‘I see. Go on, then. Tell me about this book.’
Gervase looked up into the pale blue sky, as if searching for inspiration. ‘It — as far as I understand it, the Cathars believe they were brought to earth out of their spiritual existence, and that they will return to that paradise when they die. They try to recall what it was like to live in spirit, but it is difficult. Some of them claim to remember a magical, heavenly strain of music, which they say is the sound of angel song. One or two men with a rare ability wrote down this music, just as a monk writes down plainsong.’
‘And that — that music — was in the book?’
Slowly, Gervase nodded.
Josse was confounded. ‘But I still do not comprehend the importance of it!’ he protested. ‘What difference can a snatch of music make to people who face being hunted out of existence?’
Gervase’s face worked, but he kept himself under control. Belatedly aware how tactlessly he had spoken — Gervase’s mother was one of those preparing for a terrible fate! — he began to apologize.
‘No, Josse, you speak the truth,’ Gervase said heavily. ‘As to why the music means so much, can you not guess?’
Josse thought hard, but he could not. ‘No,’ he said shortly.
‘They are probably going to die,’ Gervase murmured. ‘Perhaps it is simply that they wish to remind themselves that, beyond the sword, or the flames, a beautiful, perfect world is waiting for them.’
Josse put a hand to his face and rubbed hard at his eyes. Then, clearing his throat a couple of times, he said, ‘Ninian agreed, then, to take the book?’
‘He doesn’t know he bears it. That day I came to warn you that the king had ordered me to hunt for Ninian, I spoke to you in private outside and then I went into the stables alone to fetch my horse. Ninian’s pack stood ready, as you had told me it did, and I slipped the book right down into the bottom of it.’
‘If he doesn’t know he carries it, how will he be able to give it to your mother?’ Josse demanded.
Gervase smiled. ‘She will know he has it, even if he does not. Besides — ’ he lowered his voice until it seemed to Josse he was speaking more to himself — ‘the book wants to go home.’
Alys Clare
The Rose of the World
Postscript
Deep winter 1210-1211
N inian was fast becoming a mountain man. The snows were deep in the Pyrenees, and the fugitive population had consequently relaxed a little. Not entirely — never that — but enough to spend the short days out in the open air, speaking to each other in normal voices rather than skulking in corners and whispering, always afraid that enemy eyes and enemy ears were near.
The village, like all the mountain villages, was cut off and would remain so until the snows melted in the spring. Simon de Montfort’s army was far away, and it was very unlikely that even the most fanatical of his spies would find a way up the treacherous slopes.
Ninian had done his best to put his homesickness and his yearning for his loved ones aside. It was easier here than it had been on the road, for many of his new companions were also far from those they loved. Many were separated from their parents, spouses and children by something far more permanent than mere distance, for so many had already been killed that most households mourned at least one kinsman.
These Cathars were good people; there was really no other word that described them better. Their lives were hard, and they worked long hours; many of them were weavers, working at looms set up in their own tiny homes. There were few luxuries, and the winter was cold and deep, but Ninian never heard anyone complain. Far from it, for the people in the main were light-hearted and quick to laugh.
Their faith was clearly a fundamental part of them. It filled them with a quiet joy and gave them the strength to put up with hardship. He did not understand the nature of the book he had brought with him, and he was at a loss to understand how it had got into his bag. Had Josse put it there? He did not know. What he did know, because Alazais had told him, was that it somehow reminded them of the bliss from which they had come and to which they yearned to return. In that time of danger, when all their lives were under threat, he thought he could begin to appreciate what that meant.
Despite their eagerness to answer his questions, nobody tried to make him join them. Not all of them were what they called Perfects, by which they meant those ‘pure ones’ who had taken the ultimate vow. Many referred to themselves as adherents, which seemed to mean people sympathetic to the Cathar faith who did not yet feel ready to give up the earthly things of the flesh.
Ninian was fast growing to respect the Cathars. Some of them he thought he loved. Alazais continued to treat him like a son, and, lonely for his own kin, he responded. And there were others to whom he swiftly grew close because they had known Josse. One of them, a woman, had even known Ninian’s mother.
He met her one day when she made the difficult journey through the snow to Alazais’s village specially to meet him. Pointing to a barely visible scar on her forehead, she told him that Joanna had rescued her from an unspeakable fate and, at grave risk to herself and to her little girl — Meggie, Ninian realized with a pang — had cared for her and helped her to safety. He thought the woman said that Joanna had even killed a man to save her, but the woman spoke the language with a strong accent and he might have been mistaken.