The de Montfort Histories - The Dove and the Devil by Gradyn Bell Page B

had been
stooping next to Arnaud, patted him on the shoulder and left the way he had
arrived.     
    Arnaud’s trip back into Lavaur where the Boutarras lived took him the
best part of the day. He found the baby Maurina was already well ensconced,
surrounded as she was by three older children of the family who were delighted
with the new arrival. The girls had quarrelled bitterly over taking care of
Braida, their own new baby sister. Now they had another baby to share!
    “Have you eaten to-day?” asked Saissa. “By the looks of you I should say
you haven’t!”
    “Come, sit down near the fire and join us. We were just about to eat.”
Pierre motioned him towards the table.
    Arnaud had not noticed the darkening sky or the passing of time, nor had
he realised how hungry he was. Thinking about it, he could not remember the
last time he had eaten anything substantial. It must have been before the baby
was born.
    “Thank you, Pierre.” Arnaud sat down on the bench that ran the length of
the large room. Although the food was not rich, there was lots of it. Saissa
could make a banquet out of a lettuce leaf and a stick of celery, Pierre had
often said to anyone who would listen. The bread she made was white and of good
quality, too, witness to the fine flour that he brought home from the mill
where he worked.
    “I am to leave tomorrow morning with Bertrand,” Arnaud began. “We are
going to Taulat with one of his friends.”
    What Arnaud had no way of knowing at that time was that this “friend”
was Bertrand’s assistant and an elder or bishop in the Cathar church. Indeed,
at Bertrand’s death, the “friend” would move up to become a bishop in
Bertrand’s place. What Arnaud had also not realized was that on the trip, no
meat would pass his companions’ lips, as the two of them were perfecti , or “perfects” who had received
the consolamentum of the living and were now expected to lead perfect lives as
judged by Cathar belief. They would therefore touch no food that they judged to
be contaminated by any sexual act in its production.
    Saissa exchanged a glance with Pierre. Being believers, but not perfecti , both of them knew that a
hungry trip lay ahead for Arnaud.
    “Eat up. Here, have some more,” Pierre said, passing the steaming pot to
Arnaud.
    Regretfully, Arnaud had to decline. His stomach was already distended
from the amount he had eaten and he could eat no more.
    “I shall make you something to eat on the trip. Perhaps a nice sausage
or some cheese,” Saissa said. Arnaud tried to protest but finally gave up when
he saw she was intent on doing what she had said.    
    Dawn the next day appeared only too quickly. Arnaud felt he could sleep
forever but reluctantly pulled himself from the palliasse in front of the fire
where he had spent the night in the Boutarras’ house. Tiptoeing over to the
baby Maurina who was sleeping the untroubled sleep of a newborn, he kissed her
lightly on her forehead before letting himself out the door. As he set out
towards the southern gate of Lavaur to meet the others, the sun was just
beginning to show its face on the eastern horizon.
    It was not long before he saw the two people he was to meet. He was
surprised to see them both dressed in the dark cloak and tunic of the Cathars.
Although he knew little of his wife’s religion, he knew enough to recognize
that these were more than ordinary believers. They had asceticism about them
that the everyday credentes did not.
He had heard that the goodmen, as the perfecti were called by the non-believers, were so pure they never even went near a
female unless it was to give the consolamentum for the dying. He did not know
how true this was; it might have been merely gossip. It certainly seemed
strange to him that a man ,unless he had taken a vow of chastity as the priests
he knew did, would elect to live his life apart from a woman. Still, it takes all sorts to make the world ,
he thought as he went forward to greet the