Blue Flame Read online

  Raimon stood for what seemed an eternity without moving a muscle, trying to cling to the color, but though he could still feel it, it became harder and harder to imagine. He tried not to breathe and only when he knew, finally, that it was completely gone did he wipe his eyes and look around. The sheep were eating as if nothing had happened. Peter, though, was nowhere to be seen. Raimon looked to the horizon again. It was empty.

  With the instincts of a shepherd who senses danger in the wind, Raimon went to the lake, gathered up the sheep, and drove them before him to corrals by the river near the town cemeteries. Though he hurried, it took him well over an hour, and in that hour, though he imagined the whole world would have changed, he saw nothing unusual, except that those who had been sleeping were awake. Through the clarity of the early morning air, he could hear shouts and exclamations where there was usually silence. The chateau, however, looked exactly the same; no strange knights came hurrying through, the sun was rising as usual, and though he wondered if he might bump into him again, the Knight Magician of the Breeze was nowhere to be seen. When the sheep were safe, Raimon went back to the hill to see if he could discover any trace of the Flame, but found he couldn’t quite remember where it had been. Others joined him. Perhaps it had been miles away. Perhaps it had been very near. It was impossible to say.

  It was noon before they gave up and returned to Castelneuf. The sheep were still corraled by the cemeteries and Peter was back with them. He’d attracted quite a crowd, telling them that the Flame had brought the sheep home and everyone was disappointed, or said they were, to find that it had in fact been Raimon. They exchanged nervous banter, then Raimon crossed the bridge and made his way up through the narrow alleys toward his father’s door.

  Those people who had remained in the town were huddled about. In their songs and carnivals, when they often made replicas of the Flame—either of turned wood or painted parchment—it was assumed that a dawn such as the one they had witnessed would be greeted with unadulterated joy. But now the initial amazement was giving way to something more edgy. Why here? Why now?

  Many were glad when the ordinary tasks of the day reminded them that however blue the dawn, the animals still needed tending, the roster for the mill needed organizing, and the crops needed weeding. It was a relief to hear the babies still crying and the old grumbling, and when skeptics began to put it about that the blue had just been a trick of the light, they were not shouted down. In the privacy of their homes, husbands whispered to wives and wives to husbands that perhaps the Flame was best when in a song and not actually in the neighborhood. If it was here, they might have to do something and the Amouroix had never required them to stir themselves. Battles were fought elsewhere. Decisions were made by others. My people took their lead from the count, they defied the French in song, then minded their own business and got on with living. That was how it was, how it had always been, and how they wanted it to be. When Nan Roquefort, the oldest inhabitant of Castelneuf, told them that if the Flame had come, it had now gone, they were quite happy to believe her.

  5

  The White Wolf Descends

  Adela was outside carrying water when Raimon reached the door. She dropped her buckets and seized his arm. “Raimon! Stop! We didn’t expect you.”

  He shook her off. His mood had changed many times since the dawn and although he was not sure what it was anymore, he knew he was not in the mood for her. He just wanted to see his mother.

  “You don’t have to expect me,” he said, pushing at the door. It was barred against him, so he banged on it loudly. There was a brisk scraping of chairs and a murmuring before Sicart’s face appeared through a crack.

  “Raimon.” He spoke his son’s name without warmth. “Has someone sent you?”

  “Of course not.” Raimon bent his head and barged into the house.

  Like the chateau hall, the kitchen was dark, but as far as Raimon could see, it looked quite normal. Neatly stacked cooking pots reflected the flames from the hearth and two large hams were hanging from the rafters over the table. One thing, however, was quite different. His mother’s chair, which always sat next to the hearth, had been exchanged for a pallet bed and there was no telltale smell of early baking. His mother had not been up.

  He approached the bed and stretched up for the lamp on the shelf. His mother murmured and tried to shade her eyes as though the lantern, though barely glowing, was too bright. Raimon shaded it with his hand but could still see that her skin was dewy with sweat and the color of unwashed fleece.

  He turned to find his father and Adela standing tautly, as if he were the doctor who would pronounce the final verdict. “She’s much worse,” he said.

  Sicart had his back against the door to the street. “If you’ve come for a clean shirt, Raimon, take one and go,” he said. His cheeks were sunken and unshaven.

  Raimon stared at him. “Didn’t you see the Flame?”

  “Get him a shirt, Adela,” Sicart said abruptly, “and cut the boy some ham. Then go, Raimon.”

  “You must have seen the Flame!”

  “Do you think we’ve been outside? Do you think we’ve been thinking about anything?” Adela, standing on a stool, dropped one of the hams onto the table with a thump. It rolled a little, then came to a halt. She got down and without another word began to unwrap it. Raimon went to the bed. His mother’s eyes were closed and he dropped to his knees beside her. “Mother, it’s me.”

  Her eyes fluttered. “Raimon!”

  “Shh! Don’t talk. Did you see the Flame? Did they lift you up to see it? Just squeeze my hand.” A tiny squeeze. He bent close and began to whisper.

  Adela interrupted, “She doesn’t want to hear your whispering now.” He ignored her until it became distressingly clear that Adela was actually right. His mother was not really listening. He thought she was tired, and though he was disappointed because he had so much to say, he stood up again. But his mother seemed less tired than expectant. Her eyes rolled beyond him as if she was searching for something.

  “What is it?’ he asked her, and then asked his father and sister. “What is it?”

  Neither of them moved. He was suddenly filled with suspicion. “What’s the great secret here? You’re hiding something.” His father’s eyes flickered toward the weaving shed. “Or someone.” Raimon bolted in front of the fireplace, toward the corner where the door to the shed was tightly shut. He thought at once of the Knight Magician. He must have been right. The man was no magician; he had come for a more sinister purpose.

  Sicart was there before him and would not let him pass. “Please leave, Raimon.”

  “I won’t.”

  Adela threw a parcel of ham in his direction. “Do as Father says.”

  Raimon let the parcel fall to the ground. “I came to see Mother,” he said.

  “You’ve seen her. Now go.”

  Raimon was filled with angry panic. “How dare you order me out? I’m just as much a member of this family as you are.”

  “Are you?” Adela picked up the parcel and threw it back onto the table. “I doubt that.”

  “What on earth do you mean?”

  “Can’t you understand, Raimon? You’re not one of us.”

  He turned back to his father. “One of us? One of us, Father?”

  “What Adela means is that you don’t believe what we believe.”

  “I believe in the Flame. Didn’t you see it? I can’t believe you didn’t.”

  “Of course we did. That’s why you’ve got to go.” His father’s lips had a white dryness about them. He came over to his son. “Can’t you see how things are changing? Don’t you understand, Raimon? Do I really have to say it?” Raimon looked completely baffled.

  “Tell him, Father.” Adela’s voice was imperious.

  “Be quiet, Adela. Look, I wish you hadn’t come back, but as you’re here, I must tell you that though you’ll always be my son, you aren’t really one of us anymore.” He took a deep breath. “Now is the time of the Cathars,
Raimon, and you don’t believe.”

  Raimon almost laughed. “You think the Flame has come just for Cathars? It hasn’t come for you or for the Catholics or even for Castelneuf or for Amouroix. It’s come for the whole of the Occitan, for all of us. We can’t divide off into little groups. If King Louis really is coming, if that’s what the Flame appearing means, we’ve all got to fight together.”

  Adela opened her mouth, but the voice that emerged was not hers. “If only it were so simple.” From behind Sicart the shed door had opened and a man appeared. He was not the Knight Magician. He was much taller, with eyes the color of slate under eyebrows that met in the middle. A pelt of prematurely white hair spread from his forehead to the nape of his neck and was finely complemented by a similarly white beard. Only his skin betrayed his age and his constant exposure to the weather. It was tinted and leathery, like the seat of a well-used saddle. Fit rather than thin, his lips were curled naturally into the kind of smile that invites you to smile back, and he was dressed just like Raimon’s father, in a buff-colored tunic and leggings, a thick belt full of weavers’ tools around his waist, and sturdy shoes on his feet. His demeanor was that of a friendly uncle; he was slightly past middle age, but looked like he might still outpace you over a mountain pass. Sicart and Adela bowed deeply from the waist. Raimon remained upright.

  The man acknowledged Sicart and Adela, then turned his attention to Raimon. “Shall I introduce myself?” he asked easily. “We should not be strangers, you and I. My name is Perfectus Prades Rives but I’m always known as the White Wolf.” He laughed, as if this nickname was the warmest in the world.

  Raimon’s father gave a low growl, although his tone was respectful. “I thought we agreed that you would stay in the back when we had visitors.”

  The White Wolf inclined his head. “So we did, Sicart, but your son is hardly a visitor.” He turned back to Raimon. “I’ve come to this house not because of the Flame, although it would seem that my arrival is more than timely, but because your mother wants to receive from my hands the blessed consolation that a perfectus can offer. We must make her ready to take her place at God’s side in heaven.”

  “She’s not dying.”

  There was silence.

  “As I say, Raimon, I’ve come at her request to give her the blessed consolation—”

  “She’s not dying, I tell you. Where’s the apothecary? What does he say?” Raimon addressed his father.

  The White Wolf noted everything. “You’re angry that your mother is leaving you, Raimon,” he said with careful sympathy, “but that is selfish and wrong. Soon she’ll be a spirit, far away from the material world that is nothing but filth and evil. Do you begrudge her that?” His words fell like petals. They always did, for that was his great gift, to make everything he said seem like a garden of flowers. It was hard to argue with flowers.

  “She wants to get better,” Raimon said with some desperation. “She doesn’t want to leave us.” The White Wolf simply smiled. Raimon turned to his father. “Don’t you want her to get better, Father? Or would you prefer just to let her die?”

  It was the White Wolf who answered. “I repeat, I am here at the request of your mother, Raimon, and I never refuse a request. You should be glad, for a perfectus does his job without calculating the quality of his consolation or the amount of money slipped into his palm. I would have thought you would appreciate that, for you have a look of honor about you.” Raimon was suspicious of the compliment, but Adela seemed to appreciate the pointed reference to Simon Crampcross, who would barely lift his hands to grant the Catholic dying the Last Rites without the flash of a silver sou.

  Raimon went back to his mother’s bed. She was calmer now that she could hear the White Wolf’s voice. It was very hard for him to watch the man take both her hands and Felippa begin to whisper to him. She’d said not a word before. The perfectus beckoned to them all. “I think we are ready. Come. Stand beside the bed. Felippa would like you all here.”

  Raimon moved back.

  The White Wolf was calm as calm. “Have you seen a Cathar consolation before, Raimon?” he asked. He was greeted with silence. “Then I’ll explain. It’s very simple. I shall ask if Felippa has ever done anything to harm our church, then I’ll spread out my cloth and place a copy of the Gospels on her head. If you want your mother to pass over without pain, you should place your hands on her head, along with the rest of us. If you don’t, then stay back. It’s entirely up to you.” He now turned and smiled his silken smile, then concentrated entirely on Felippa. When she had answered his list of questions satisfactorily, he placed a black cloth beside her, rested a small copy of the Gospels over her eyes, and gestured. Adela and Sicart placed their hands on the book without hesitation. Raimon never moved.

  The White Wolf turned with an inviting smile. “Can you really not join us?”

  “No.”

  The White Wolf shrugged, but did not press him.

  A prayer was said, then the Gospels were removed. The consolation was over. Felippa murmured something and the White Wolf shook his head. With an enormous effort, the fading woman pulled herself up. Sicart and Adela held her, for though she was frail enough to break, she was determined.

  “Come, come,” Sicart gestured to Raimon. “Can’t you see your mother’s trying to speak to you? Come nearer!”

  Raimon wanted more than anything to hear his mother’s voice but now he dreaded what she might say. Nevertheless, he edged forward. How could he not? “Raimon, dearest Raimon!” she whispered to him, the muscles around her lips straining to form the words. “Just put your hands on my head with the perfectus, then I can die happy. Please, Raimon. It’s such a small thing.”

  Adela began to cry. She loved her mother too. “For goodness’ sake, Raimon. It’s our mother’s dying request. How can you be so cruel?”

  “Your brother doesn’t mean to be cruel.” The White Wolf was the steady voice of reason. “He just cannot see what we see.”

  Adela turned on him. “Won’t see, more likely.”

  Felippa groaned, and in her desperation Adela seized her brother’s hand and tried to force it onto the Gospel book still lying on the bed. “It’s that girl, isn’t it?” she hissed as they tussled. “That girl of yours has turned you into a Catholic. Count Berengar’s daughter means more to you than your own mother.”

  Raimon hated Adela’s grasping fingers. “This has nothing to do with Yolanda.”

  “Hasn’t it?” She was almost beating Raimon.

  “Adela, stop it.” Sicart tried to intervene. “Show some respect.”

  “Don’t accuse me of disrespect, Father. I know just where respect is due. It’s Raimon who needs a lesson.” Raimon shielded his head from her blows.

  “Gently, gently, Adela,” the White Wolf broke in.

  “Don’t defend him, Perfectus.” Adela could see tears falling from her mother’s eyelids. “Do you want her to die crying, Raimon? Do you?”

  “Of course not, but you know I don’t believe, Adela.” Everything was happening too fast. His mother couldn’t be dying. Only yesterday he’d been a silver dagger in the stream and Yolanda had been planning her party.

  “Oh, you and your beliefs. Just remind me what they are.”

  Now Raimon was silent. To say that he only really believed in the smell of the Occitanian soil and the way its music soaked into his skin didn’t seem enough.

  In the silence, Sicart saw his chance. He was sponging his wife’s face and could see her lips moving. He wished he were better with words, but he must try, for her sake. “Look, my son, you must grow up a little. You know that King Louis is on the move, that the Amouroix can’t stand apart any longer, and you must also know that for all your talk of Occitanians fighting against him together, in the days to come you’ll have to be either a Catholic or a Cathar. There’s no room for anything else.”

  “But we’re one people! The Occitan may have many parts, but it’s just one place.”

  “Oh, come on, Raim
on!” Adela interrupted. “You know perfectly well that the idea of Catholics and Cathars in Amouroix all living happily together is false. Under all the friendliness, the Catholics are always waiting for a chance to burn us and if they get the Flame, that’s just what they’ll do. Do you think, for all his ‘good mornings,’ Simon Crampcross would hesitate to light the Castelneuf pyres himself? But they haven’t got the Flame yet. This is our chance, don’t you see? The Flame’s come for us and once we’ve got it, we can rid the Occitan of King Louis and the Catholics all at once.”

  “But Catholics are Occitanians too!”

  “No, they’re not. Not really,” Adela insisted. She could feel her mother’s pain. How could Raimon argue like this?

  “They are! Count Berengar has never handed over Cathars to the inquisitors. We’ve never even had an inquisitor here.”

  “Look,” Sicart said. “Why do you think the Flame has returned? It must be for us.”

  “Why on earth should that be so?”

  “The perfectus has told us,” Sicart said.

  Raimon turned on the White Wolf. “You said you came for my mother.”

  “And so I did, but I think it not a coincidence that the Flame came at the same time.” Adela began to berate Raimon again, and the White Wolf put up his hand. “Adela, Adela, quietly please. Let’s not get so excited. It’s right that your brother says what he feels. There are too many who don’t. I admire him.” Adela shook her head. “Go back to your mother.” Adela, breathing heavily, bowed to his authority.

  The White Wolf sat on the chest where oats were stored. A half-eaten garlic pie was warming and he picked at it, as though it was his right. After he had eaten, he wiped his fingers delicately on the fine linen cloth that he kept tucked at his waist and only when he was satisfied that he was entirely clean did he speak again. “You must make up your own mind about what you believe, Raimon, but you might remember this: that while all Cathars are good Occitanians, the same cannot be said of all Catholics. They have other allegiances; to the pope and even,” he paused, “to King Louis himself. So your father is right. In the troubles to come, there can be no middle ground. You will be either a Cathar or a Catholic, a full Occitanian or something rather less. Everyone will have to choose.” He returned to Felippa and took her hand. “Which you choose is, naturally, entirely up to you.”