Chapter 1
The Black Mountains of the High Languedoc,
Summer 1207

Bridget knew her mother was dying. The golden life force that should have shone steadily within and around Magda’s body was a pale flicker, nor did her injuries respond to the surge of healing energy from Bridget’s hands.

Outside the mountain cave in which they were sheltering, a summer storm raged across the High Languedoc. Bridget felt the lightning within herself and saw its vivid flicker through her hot, tired lids. She had been born during just such a storm, and the power of the lightning was in her veins. It was a sacred life-gift, a manifestation of the forces of the One Light. But tonight it came to take her mother.‘Don’t leave me,’ Bridget whispered in a tear-choked voice. ‘Please don’t go; I’m so afraid.’ She bent her cheek to her mother’s hand. The fingertips were crusted with blood, only raw flesh where trimmed pink nails had recently been. The slender wrists wore weeping red bracelets where manacles had abraded the skin. Those wounds would have healed in time, but not the one upon Magda’s forehead where the priests had branded her to the bone with the sign of the cross she had refused to kiss. Witch and heretic, they had called her; foul devil’s whore. Her poor mother, who had never done or wished anyone harm in her life.Her mother’s eyelids fluttered and lifted. ‘You have many years to live,’ she whispered, ‘and a duty to fulfil; you are the last of my line.’ Her throat moved as she struggled to swallow. Bridget helped her to sip from a small wooden cup filled with water from the spring at the back of the cave.Magda sipped, although most of the liquid dribbled down her chin. Her grey eyes were wide and bright, all her remaining life force concentrated in their gaze. ‘You must find a consort when the moon time is right to seed your womb. That is the way it has been since the great stone circles were raised, before the holy thorn was planted.’‘But Uncle Chretien…’ Bridget started to say, and cast an involuntary glance over her shoulder toward the dark cave mouth.‘Your uncle will not stand in your way. He is a Cathar, and for him it is necessary to be celibate; but he knows it will not be that way for you.’

Bridget listened for the sound of footsteps outside, but heard only the wind hissing through the stunted trees on the mountainside and the lash of the rain. Her uncle Chretien and his companion Matthias had gone to find shelter for the horses. There was no room in the cave, but Matthias had noticed a derelict goat shed lower down the slope. Although it was closer to the village, no one was likely to be abroad to see them in this weather.The fire she had kindled earlier was dying, and her mother’s hand resting in hers was icy. Bridget set more firewood on the embers. Closing her eyes, she reached down inside herself and drew forth her life energy in a lightning-bright thread. Flames surged beneath the outspread hand she passed over the fire, leaping as if on strings to her command. The strange animal paintings on the cave walls rippled with an illusion of life in the clambering flare of light and contrast of shadow. Bridget knew if she sank deeper into her trance, she would see small, olive-skinned men marking the walls with fire-blackened sticks, painting pictures of their prey to invoke success in the hunt. She would hear their sacred chant and taste the smoke of their fire, burning where hers now burned.Flame to flame, she felt the connection before she withdrew her hand and turned once more to her mother. ‘It is so difficult to bear,’ she said softly, and heard her own voice echo off the walls with the forlorn note of a lost child.Magda lay more motionless than the paintings. Although her mother’s lips did not move, words entered Bridget’s mind with precise clarity. ‘The path of our bloodline has never been otherwise. Always you will find stones cast in your path, but if you turn them over, you will find the love and courage to endure.’A tremendous flash of lightning sundered the night, shaking stones loose and rattling them down the mountainside. Thunder crashed overhead, and as the echoes surged around the cave, Bridget felt the warmth of a kiss upon her cheek and then on her brow in tender blessing.‘Mother!’ Bridget’s anguished cry mingled with the tail of the thunder and outlasted it, but Magda did not respond. Her abused, exhausted body was slack and lifeless – an abandoned shell. Bridget whimpered then stifled the sound behind compressed lips. Her mother was with the One Light now, was free of pain and persecution. The only reason to weep was for herself.She kissed the bruised, hollow cheek and gently removed a silver amulet from around her mother’s neck, hanging it around her own where it clinked softly against an identical token – an incised design of a six-pointed star within which a dove rose out of a chalice.

At the cave entrance, she heard masculine voices raised against the storm. One was rich, deep and confident. The other, lighter voice bore the exotic tones of Outremer. Soaked to the skin, the two men stooped under the low overhang at the cave entrance and entered within. Their conversation ceased as their eyes fell upon Bridget. Her uncle Chretien sucked in his breath as his gaze went from her to the still form by the fire.‘May she walk in the light,’ he said compassionately. ‘She had a perfect spirit.’His smaller, grey-bearded companion approached Magda’s body and crouched on his heels. His right hand was badly mutilated, missing two fingers and a thumb, the stumps a puckered, angry red. He touched Magda’s glossy black braid with his remaining fingers.‘She was still so young,’ he said in a voice that was close to breaking. ‘They should have taken me instead.’‘They would take us all if given the opportunity.’ A deep weariness in his eyes, Chretien opened his arms to Bridget, and with a small, wounded cry, she ran into them, pressing herself against him, uncaring that he was drenched from the storm. She had always known the path she trod was lonely and dangerous, but never had she felt it so keenly as now.Later, after she had washed and prepared her mother’s body for burial, Bridget sat before the fire, a cup of fortified wine between her hands, and looked through the smoke at the two men who were now her only family – Matthias the scholar and Chretien, her father’s younger brother. For six years she and her mother had been travelling with them, visiting the villages to preach the Cathar way and offer healing and comfort to the sick. As their fame had grown, so had the hostility of the Roman church, to whom Catharism was a cancerous heresy to be excised at all costs.Her father had been of the Cathar persuasion. He had died of a fever when Bridget was ten years old, but at least in his bed and unpersecuted. Cathars had been able to move openly then, without fear of being harried by the Church of Rome. Now it was a different matter. Her gaze flickered to the body of her mother, shrouded in a threadbare blanket. When the songbird was gone, all that remained was an empty cage.‘When the storm has passed we must leave,’ she said to the men. ‘There is nothing for us here.’Chretien looked troubled. ‘Where will we go? Only the remote high places such as Roquefixade and Montségur are safe these days.’As he said “Montségur”, a vision of a castle engulfed by fire flickered across Bridget’s inner eye. She saw a night sky crowned in lightning and heard the cries of hundreds of people raised in suffering. ‘No, not Montségur,’ she replied with a swift shake of her head. ‘We still have many friends who will give us shelter and protection.’‘And I must obtain fresh parchment and quills,’ Matthias said. Unconsciously he rubbed his mutilated right hand with the fingertips of his left.Chretien nodded, but his frown remained. ‘Niece, I would be happier if you stayed in the mountains. There are too many prying eyes in the towns of the plain.’‘No,’ Bridget answered with resolution. ‘It is not yet time. If I retreat from the world now, I will not find the father of my child and it was my mother’s dying wish that I take a mate.’

Chretien looked into the fire without speaking although his jaw tightened. Bridget sighed softly. To Cathars such as her uncle, begetting a child was the trapping of an immortal spirit in sullied flesh. To her mother’s more ancient religion, it was a sacrament. She knew that while Chretien disapproved, he would not press her to change. In equal respect she did not seek to persuade him of the necessity of her cause.In the lingering silence, another image blinked across her mind – of a vigorous, sturdy woman in her middle years, red-cheeked with heavy braids of iron-grey hair and a huge, toothy smile. ‘We will go to the lady Geralda at Lavaur,’ she said with quiet decision. ‘She is a staunch Cathar and she will succour us for the moment.’Chretien raised his hand to rub the heat of the fire from his face. ‘If you will not go into the hills, then Lavaur is perhaps the next best alternative,’ he said with a reluctant nod. ‘Matthias?’Bridget heard Matthias’s hesitant agreement, and knew that with or without the men’s approval, she was going to Lavaur. The town itself was not important; she had grasped nothing of its essence in her vision, but the road leading there was. A feeling tugged at her core, twisting and tightening her soft inner organs as if the child her mother desired her to bear were already kicking in her womb. As she pressed her hands to her flat stomach, the feeling vanished, but not the certainty that the decisions taken now, were all-important to the future.

Chapter 2

Displaying prudence beyond his twenty-one years, Raoul de Montvallant covered the Venetian goblet with his palm and shook his head at the squire who leaned to replenish it. It was not that he disliked the wine; indeed, on a different occasion he would have drunk as deeply as every other young man present, but tonight he had good reason for remaining sober.

He slid a restless glance at that reason – his bride, Claire, to whom he had been betrothed since childhood. He had last seen her when she had a gappy smile and mud upon the hem of her gown from splashing in the bailey puddles after a summer rainstorm. Her smile today was dazzling and complete. The hem of her gown was embroidered not with mud, but with lozenges of gold thread glittering against a background of sumptuous green samite. Her hair, brushed down to proclaim her virginity, glowed like silk on fire, and Raoul wanted to run his fingers through its ripples to discover if it was as soft as it looked. She kept darting him swift glances, her eyes the rich brown of woodland honey. Raoul tried to think of something to say that would not seem trite or banal, but found himself at a loss. The beautiful creature at his side bore no resemblance to the skinny girl he remembered. The knowledge they would soon be alone together, in bed and naked, robbed him of all coherent thought.Although he had no vast experience of women, Raoul had sometimes visited the maisons lupanardes of Toulouse, where one of the whores had taken a fancy to teach him that there was more to pleasure than the brief, rough simplicity of his first encounters. Claire, however, was innocent, a virgin, unlikely to help him if he fumbled. She was also very desirable, and he was hot for her to the point where he doubted his own control. He reached for his cup, remembered it was empty for that very reason, and rested his hand flat on the table instead.‘Champing at the bit, eh?’ laughed Father Otho, the priest who had officiated at their marriage in the castle’s dusty, neglected chapel. ‘I don’t blame you – I wouldn’t mind saddling her up myself!’ He bit into an apple comfit and chewed lasciviously.Raoul clenched his fist and thought about punching it into the priest’s overfed face. Father Otho was a lecherous glutton, caring for his own pocket and pleasure above the needs of his flock, who, through his slovenly mismanagement, were few and indifferent. ‘Then it is a good thing you are sworn to celibacy,’ Raoul snapped.The priest belched. ‘There’s always room for interpretation I say. To know sin, you have to wrestle with it first.’ That’s it, boy, fill it up, fill it up!’ He gestured imperatively to the squire, then raised his brimming goblet and leaned toward Raoul’s father. ‘A magnificent cellar you keep, my lord!’Berenger de Montvallant gave Otho a tepid smile that didn’t reach his eyes.‘And he’ll drink it dry before the night is out,’ Raoul muttered to his father as the cleric’s attention settled on a pretty maidservant attending the bride.‘If he weren’t my second cousin and I hadn’t promised his father I’d give him a living here, I’d have turned him off long ago.’ Berenger said with a grimace. ‘Is it any cause for wonder that the Cathars flourish among us when lard-tubs like him rule the clergy?’Raoul watched Otho’s pudgy hand crawl over a dish of sugared almonds, grasp, convey to wet lips and cram into greedy mouth. His gorge rose and he looked away. Three pilgrims had just arrived in the hall, their cloaks and broad-brimmed hats dusty with travel. Alein, his father’s usher, found them a place to sit among the crowded trestles near the door. There were two men, one in his forties, the other about ten years older. Seating herself between them and thanking Alein with a warm smile was a young woman. The bones of her face were too strong for beauty, but there was something beyond her looks that was totally arresting. Filled with curiosity, Raoul studied her, wondering where she had come from and where she was going. Pilgrims occasionally stopped at Montvallant on their way to Toulouse, but usually they claimed hospitality at the church in Villemur. A serving maid leaned across the trestle to dish out bread and wine, hiding the young woman from Raoul’s sight. He craned his neck, trying to keep her in view. The musicians who had been playing softly through the various courses of the feast changed their tempo, and the lively strains of a traditional jig filled the hall. His father nudged him.‘Are you not going to dance with your bride?’ Berenger teased. ‘People are waiting for you to lead her out.’Raoul became aware of the expectant stares of the wedding guests. Flushing with chagrin, he hastily rose, and, turning to Claire, extended his hand to assist her to her feet. Blushing, she placed her slender fingers in his. The new gold of her wedding ring shone like a promise. Raoul forgot the pilgrim woman as he led his bride to the cleared space on the floor, forgot everything but the feel of her supple body lightly touching and leaving his as they stepped and turned in the age-old patterns of celebration.

‘More bread, Bridget?’ Chretien, offered his niece the basket of small loaves.She smiled a refusal. ‘I couldn’t eat another morsel.’ Leaning her elbows upon the trestle, she watched the dancers with wistful eyes. Theirs was another world, one that she could glimpse but never dwell within. Part of her longed for the colours, the revelry and carefree exuberance that cared for nothing beyond the moment. Sometimes it was very hard to be who and what she was.The dancers swirled toward her, the young bridegroom trapped in a group of other young men. He was laughing as he tried without any great effort to escape their clutches. Bridget’s breath caught at this closer sight of him. She felt the magnetism of his vigorous young body and the joy surging through him. Her own body responded like a plucked harp string. She lowered her gaze to the board and stared at a dark wine stain on the wood, her heart quickening and her skin tingling with sensation. The hall erupted with cheers and shouts, approving whistles, and cries of encouragement as the groom was borne toward the tower stairs.‘What’s happening?’ Bridget asked a woman sitting at her trestle.‘What’s going to happen, you mean!’ the woman chuckled. ‘Time for Lord Raoul and his bride to be put to bed to do their duty!’‘Ah.’ Bridget said. That was why she had felt his vigor just now, but tonight it already had its focus. The new wife, surrounded by her women, was being led from the dais to a different set of stairs. She had the graceful gait of a doe, the same shy, startled manner.Silently, Bridget wished the couple well.

‘Niece?’ Chretien leaned toward her, a look of concern on his face. ‘What is wrong?’Bridget forced a smile. How could she say that her body was tingling with the desire to be in the bride’s place tonight? ‘I am overfaced by all this bounty,’ she said, ‘and very tired. It is past time I sought my pallet…No, finish your wine. I would like a little space alone first.’She pressed his arm, and absented herself from her uncle’s shrewd scrutiny.Outside, the warm evening air bore the scent of hot charcoal and cooked meat from the extra braziers burning in the courtyard. The sound of lute and pipe, the thrusting beat of tabors, followed Bridget relentlessly, pounding through her groin in dull waves of longing. She stopped to lean her forehead against the cool stone of the castle wall, and breathed deeply, seeking to be calm.

‘Bridget? Bridget my dear?’She looked up to see a tall woman hurrying toward her. ‘Geralda?’ Bridget took a step forward and was engulfed in a strong, maternal hug.‘I have just seen Chretien and Matthias in the hall, and they told me I would find you out here. Let me look at you!’ Still holding Bridget by the shoulders, Geralda of Lavaur examined her thoroughly. ‘So much like your mother.’ Tears shimmered in her dark hazel eyes.

‘Chretien told me she had been killed. I’m so sorry.’‘She is one with the Light.’ Bridget blinked on tears of her own. ‘She was caught healing a sick woman in one of the hill villages by two travelling friars and put to the torture.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I miss her so much.’Geralda’s embrace closed around her again and Bridget shuddered within it, giving vent to a storm of grief and tears while Geralda held and soothed her like a child. Finally, drawing herself together, Bridget made a determined effort and pulled away.‘Did my uncle tell you we were on our way to you at Lavaur?’‘Indeed he did, and you are most welcome to stay. I have some new manuscripts I want Matthias to look at. The people will want to hear Chretien preach and visit you for healing. The friars will not dare to interfere with me!’ Her eyes glittered with ferocity.Bridget knew Geralda had every right to be confident. Her brother, Aimery, was one of the foremost warriors in the South. Every right, and yet the flickering torchlight made dark hollows beneath Geralda’s cheekbones and deepened her orbits with shadow, until her face became a skull.

Shivering, Bridget started to walk toward the small shelter that she and her guardians had pitched against the bailey wall near the main gates. Her feeling of foreboding increased as she and Geralda walked past the well housing. In a moment Bridge knew that if she allowed it, the vision would come with dreadful clarity and show her what she did not wish to see. She closed her mind, pushing the premonition away, squeezing it from existence. As a distraction, she asked about the wedding.Geralda was only too pleased to hold forth. ‘I’ve known Raoul since he was a babe in arms,’ she said fondly. He’s my godson, you know…or he was when I was of the church of Rome. He and Claire have been betrothed since they were little – they seem well suited, don’t you think?’Bridget murmured that they did indeed. Her inner eye would not be denied and filled with another image and she saw Raoul de Montvallant and his bride, limbs entwined upon cool linen sheets. Feverish body heat. As Geralda continued to gossip, Bridget watched the moon rise above the castle walls, haloing the sky with silver, and saw a man and a woman, saw light and darkness and fire.