Sneak Preview of First Chapter of Fifth Gospel

1

MEETING LEA

Montségur, 1244

I AM not a troubadour and yet I sing. I am a bishop and yet I do not belong to any church. I have come by what I know by way of ignorance, and what I possess is mine because I am dispossessed. That is how I have arrived at who I am – by sacrificing certainty.

But who am I?

I am old. I do not imagine myself old, no, but when I look at my hands I see they are veined, when I feel my face I know it is full of creases, and when I walk I am reminded that my joints are not always prepared to follow. Alas! I have lived long enough, near fifty years without mishap, and I dare say I should have lived many more had destiny allowed it, but it has not, it has set me upon this difficult path and it will lead me on it until I reach that place which you shall know in the end.

Yes, I am old, and growing old means I have had to watch my friends die one by one, the foremost of them being my socio, Guilhabert de Castres. Oh…I miss him as I would miss a leg or an arm! I can still see him so vividly: a short man with small hands and feet, a rounded face that wrinkled when he smiled, close, sharp eyes that saw only the goodness in everything, and a jaw that jutted out as if it were made of steel, a signal of his strong will. A will so determined that even in his later years when I travelled with him all over Languedoc, on our nocturnal rides to secret meetings or on journeys from one village to another, he never tired. He walked always with a certain rhythm, his back as straight as a rod and his head pointing the way. In those days I was tall and muscular, and yet I was ever amazed to see him climb the steep and arduous path to the pog of Montségur with ease, smiling and joyful to arrive at the top, while I puffed and grumbled with every step and trailed behind him, red faced and fatigued.

I think now as I descend that same path, keeping my mortal appointment with God, how fitting it is that Guilhabert has missed this end of ends! When I think of it, tears fall from my eyes. They are falling now and I wipe them with a hand as I pause to look up. The sky is yet dark and I am looking for the sign. It should come from the summit of Bidorta if all goes well. Indeed…if all goes well! I feel a pang in my heart to think on the alternative when the bee that has been buzzing around me for some days comes again to cheer my spirit. That little sun creature leads the way that descends and winds over the frost covered stones. It reminds me of my promise and helps me to sew into my soul the happenings of those days and to weave everything into a song; a song which you shall only know after I have died and returned again to sing it.