The Black Garden

By John McFarland

The year is 1882, and Perdita Badon-Reed, a sheltered Boston esthete, has just made the most momentous decision of her life. Having spurned a respectable suitor, she finds herself on the Mississippi River, steaming toward the French Colonial village of Ste. Odile to accept a teaching position at a girls’ academy and pursue her dream of becoming a stone sculptor. Of the many hardships that await her, the one she least expects looms in the form of Orien Bastide, an incubus who has conducted his seductive and parasitic existence for two millennia. Perdita soon realizes the full horror of Bastide’s intentions, and that she alone has the will to stop him. In order to defeat the treacherous Bastide and save future generations from his advances, Perdita must abandon her personal ambitions, and perhaps her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John McFarland
• Release date: Dec 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301768370

John McFarland

John McFarland's horror fiction has appeared in The Twilight Zone magazine, Eldritch Tales, Charon and in the anthology A Treasury of American Horror Stories, along with work by Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft and Richard Matheson. He has published mainstream fiction in numerous literary journals and has been a guest lecturer in fiction at Washington University in St. Louis. McFarland also has written extensively on historical subjects ranging from Jack the Ripper to hollow-earth theory to early 20th century spiritualism. He lives in St. Louis.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

LaRochelle, 13 April, 1656

Medullinus, whom I was,

Palimpsest of these centuries

On whose page the

Heretical years rewrote

In an ever refining hand,

Deft and complacent savageries…

Fragment rediscovered, Montsegur, 1882

Night was like a heavy mantle threatening to suffocate her. It surrounded her, walled her off from the rest of the world, and left her vulnerable, without any chance of help or salvation. Claire tried to comfort herself in the darkness, in these dead hours, by thinking of a time twenty or thirty years in the future when she, as a middle-aged woman, would have no night fear greater than of insomnia brought on by too many household responsibilities.

You are exhausted, Madame, Estelle, her maidservant had said. "If you could just rest you could see your fears are groundless."

Claire became convinced if she could envision herself still alive in twenty years, it would happen. Surely, in a few months, or a year, all of this would be over. Her husband had promised to take her to Paris late in the summer to meet Bartholdi, who was creating the great statue to be erected in New York harbor, and there were promised trips to America and the Middle East, and a honeymoon delayed by business, to Italy. She was giddy with excitement when her husband, her Guibord, had described all of the places he wanted to show his new wife. And it would begin soon, as soon as his business allowed. But each individual night until then, until these night terrors faded away and her usual life resumed, had to be faced.

Claire told herself, as she did each night, if she could make it until dawn, she could survive. Although it was well after two o’clock, she was wide awake, though exhausted. She lay on her left side watching Estelle, sleeping restlessly on the chaise in the moonlight. Tonight was the fifth night Estelle had slept there, and Claire took great comfort in it, although she still had no idea of going to sleep herself.

Each night in the beginning, before she’d settled upon a self-imposed insomnia, as the nightmare returned and became more terrifying, palpable and suffocating, she could not convince herself it was a dream, as she’d been able to do in the past with lesser night terrors. It couldn’t be a dream. The smells, the sounds, the sights were unquestionably real. Yet, they were of a place and time she couldn’t dredge from any part of her own mind and experience, as she could her other dreams. And she had come closer to the terrible end each of the last four nights. She’d come to know somehow she had to make it to sunrise, that the gray dawn would evaporate the terrors, and later in the unequivocal sunlight of Languedoc, she could safely recover and get the rest she needed. But she soon discovered sleep in the daytime was also difficult if not impossible without sleeping draughts from Dr. Valle, which she dared not take. She could not risk taking a drug which would make it impossible to awaken and extract herself from the mortal dangers of the nightmare.

And what part did Bastide play in all of this? Why did Orien Bastide, the strange American who seemed more French than even her own husband and father, appear in each of the nightmares? It seemed it was her connection to him that was causing this. Guilt for betraying her husband, perhaps. Betraying him in the sense she had given to Bastide a part of her self, her thoughts and ideas, which she had never given to Guibord, only because he had never sought them.

The suffering and horror of the images she saw every night, and which she knew would soon engulf her, suited Bastide more than herself. Knowledge of such things could be found in his face. He seemed to carry the burden of such knowledge sadly on his slightly misshapen shoulders. In some way he’d made these things hers.

She never intended to betray Guibord, not in her thoughts, or with her body. He had rescued her and her family from a life of decorous poverty back at Carcasonne. Her father, like so many of his friends, had lost his fortune in Mexico in the days of the Second Empire. Guibord had re-established it after their marriage, by allowing her father to manage his business interests in the ancient town, limited though they were.

Guibord brought her back with him to his village of Montsegur, to a new house he’d had built for her out of the white limestone quarried from the mountains surrounding them, and had given her a better life than she’d come to expect. It was a practical match, beneficial to her family. She loved him enough to be satisfied with her situation. She never intended to betray him.

She hadn’t really succumbed to Bastide. She was overwhelmed by him. By the time she’d come to the village, he was already there, and had been in France for nearly fifteen years. He’d taken the medieval chateau built by Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse. The great house stood at the edge of the meadow called Prat dels Crematz , the Field of the Burned, at the base of the mountain citadel where a band of heretic Cathars made a last stand in 1244. The citadel, a ruined castle atop a 500-foot pinnacle of rock, held the last orange rays of the sun at dusk long after the village below was lost in darkness. That was how Claire remembered it from her first visit to Bastide.

Guibord was a man without suspicion or reproach, and he had encouraged the friendship. He wanted a friend and companion for Claire when he was away on his frequent business trips to Toulouse and Marseilles. Bastide had been a guest in their house many times since her arrival in the town. She’d been a little startled by his appearance at first. His face was lifeless, without expression or personality, and framed by a shock of gray hair. Her first impression was that it was a face which had no more evidence of a soul behind it than the glazed, milky eye of a long dead goldfish she’d buried as a child. This effect was conveyed, she soon realized, by a wax prosthesis, formed pieces of a face which he wore on the rare occasions when he ventured outside his chateau. He’d noticed her surprise at first seeing him, and had explained he’d been diagnosed by a physician in Berne who specialized in degenerative and deforming diseases of the muscles and bones, as having an incurable condition which would one day at the least, leave him in Bastide’s words, as twisted as one of St. Anthony’s fiends, and at the worst, kill him.

Claire was a little surprised by Guibord’s obvious and immediate liking of Bastide. Bastide was a person of refinement and some intellect, and unlike anyone else of her husband’s acquaintance. Guibord had invited his new friend to dinner twice. On the second evening Bastide had felt at ease enough to remove the lower part of his prosthesis in order to eat his meal more easily. Bastide told many stories from ancient and medival history in detail so amazing it seemed to Claire he must be enlarging upon the facts with his own imagination. He made a diligent and obvious effort to include her in the conversation, in which Guibord himself was barely a participant.

When the men moved into the front parlor for brandy, Claire was surprised at Bastide’s insistence that she join them. Guibord seemed a bit mortified and apologetic that he hadn’t thought of this himself. Although he generally observed convention without question, he was by no means closed to the possibilities of looking at familiar things in new ways. The men had their brandy. Claire preferred a white Burgundy, and took her usual seat closest to the fire. Bastide was intent on continuing a conversation he had started about the causes of the Revolution. Claire watched the fire, as was her habit, glancing occasionally at Bastide and then at Guibord whose eyelids, she saw, were becoming heavy. Bastide was always aware of her and her reactions to his observations, and he seemed increasingly determined to draw her more fully into the discussion. She was an educated woman, but this made her ill at ease at first, as though something were expected of her which she could not quite provide. Eventually, though, as Guibord nodded off, she began to give her guest her ideas, ones she was formulating on the spot, about how the concepts of liberty and fraternity might have affected women and family life in those heady days of change and terror.

After a second brandy, Bastide left, graciously thanking Claire for an elegant and engaging evening. And as she helped her husband out of his chair and up the front stairs, she had a confused sensation of well being and unease. After she put Guibord to bed, she went back to the parlor and had another glass of Burgundy.

It was an evening near midsummer when Bastide first invited her to his chateau for a light Provencal supper. Guibord was in Marseilles personally checking vegetable dye lots from Guiana on samples of his woolen goods before accepting them for shipment to his weavers in Carcassonne.

The chateau was a huge Romanesque structure which had been left intact by the French crown after the Albigensian Crusade and the disgrace of the Count of Tolouse in aiding the Cathar heretics. The large oaken door was opened by Bastide’s tall Haitian manservant, Tertius, and as she crossed the ancient threshold, Claire felt an instantaneous and unaccountable sensation of loss and of the brevity of everything material and spiritual that she owned, and a perverse desire to destroy it all.

Tertius brought her into the library to wait for her host. Monsieur Bastide is in the conservatory. Tertius’ voice, a deep, refined growl of perfect enunciation, filled the room. There is a repotting situation. He smiled vaguely and started toward the door. He stopped for a moment just inside the room and turned back to face her. He smiled slightly once more. Madame, he said quietly, almost informally, Monsieur Bastide relishes company and conversation. So much so that his sense of generosity is often incited by an evening’s companionship. He may wish to offer you some token of friendship before you leave tonight, some gift. An old Roman coin, for example, a silver denar, or even a gold aureus are usual. Forgive me, but by no means accept this gift. He paused for a moment. His voice became more formal again. These gifts to married ladies are improper, and have caused talk in the past. Please accept no token from him of any kind. Pardon my intrusion… His voice trailed off, and he turned away before Claire could answer. He closed the door silently as he left.

The room was of an enormous size. Ceiling-high bookshelves on every wall were filled with thousands of volumes, and the last indirect rays of the orange sunset crossed the room through narrow, stone – edged windows, illuminating the cracked leather bindings of Malleus Malefacarum, The Origin of Species, and Sinistrari’s Demonality, as well as many other titles she could make out on sacred and scientific subjects. On shelves of dark wood beneath these, as well as on several large tables placed in the center of the room, were scattered the bones of oxen, birds, wolves, cats and other creatures, including what Claire took to be the enormous skull of a hippopotamus. There were also many lidded jars scattered about filled with murky liquid in which floated grotesque and pallid specimens of fish, rays, and various fetal mammals. Elsewhere around the room as well as in the great entry hall through which she had just been led, were many objects of antiquity, including fragments of classical, Egyptian and Assyrian statuary, medieval limestone saints and painted icons of Christ and the Holy Family.

On a cluttered table near her lay a thick, leather-bound journal held open by a stone which held the fossil impression of some large type of snail. The day’s entry seemed to be half finished in an expansive, nervous hand: "Large specimen dead leaf mantis, Gongulus Gongyledes, described by J. Loten, arrived from Ceylon, as well as Scorpionfish, Scoroena Patiriarcha, in good condition…" This entry was written about three quarters of the way through the enormous book. Claire began to casually leaf backwards through it, noting many hand-drawn sketches of exotic creatures and rough maps of strange landscapes, some with notes and observations scribbled across them and in the margins of the pages. Near the beginning of the book, written in brown, faded ink, a scrap of what appeared to be a poem or song caught her attention:

LaRochelle, 13 April, 1656

Medullinus whom I was,

Palimpsest of these centuries

On whose page

The heretical years rewrote

In an ever refining hand

Many deft, complacent savageries…

She heard a footstep in the hallway and quickly closed the book. Bastide threw open the heavy library door as if it were a sheer curtain.

I’ve never seen such a collection outside a museum, she said, somewhat insipidly. She had determined not to say anything vacuous on first seeing him as she had on their few brief meetings previously, but she had failed herself. She felt superficial and silly in his presence, even though she sensed an effort on his part to allay those feelings.

There is nothing more valuable than time, Bastide said didactically. We’ve been given so little of it in which to learn about, to know the world. Anything worthy of human investigation is of interest to me; high-toned as that sounds, it’s true. He was drying his hands on a linen towel, hands that reminded Claire of the tangled visible roots of ancient trees pushing out of the ground, or overhanging a riverbank. He was not wearing his prosthesis, an indulgence he had asked of her in his invitation to supper. One other time she had seen him completely without them, and she’d tried to prepare herself for this encounter. He looked puzzled for a moment, although she had found it difficult to read his expressions because of the downward twist of his mouth, the slight, bony prominence of his brow and forehead, and the mystery of his large, round, watery eyes. The first time Claire had seen his face complete, she had been aghast to realize that the startling, round look of his eyes was caused by the lids being held open by small wires, owing to the degenerative effect of his disease. Every so often he had to place drops of fluid in his eyes from a small vial he always carried with him, to restore their moisture. Did it sound high-toned? He dropped the towel on a chair.

No. Although his accent was flawless for Languedoc, he was in the habit of using phrases like that, Americanisms, she imagined, which confused her.

I certainly don’t claim everything is understandable. It’s the pursuit, the effort that matters, isn’t it? He shook her hand graciously. Through his slight smile she could see the glint of his narrow teeth. They looked unnaturally long, or abnormally exposed, perhaps, from the receeding of the gums. His grasp was gentle, but warm, almost feverish. But I suppose none of this would do for your house? Claire could see no tactful way to answer the question. And he was looking at her in a way that made her ill at ease, made her struggle for words. To make small talk seemed like a ridiculous waste of time. Often, in his presence, she found herself dismissing her life as bourgeois and ridiculous, and concluding that her education must have been a farce.

His eyes appeared to take in all of her at once, darting up and down and from side to side at a rapid pace until they settled on her own eyes. It was a gaze she could not return for long. In that light she noticed, as she had once before in another advancing dusk, that his eyes appeared almost amber. He quickly averted them in a way that was almost apologetic.

Excuse me, he laughed, for asking such an impossible question!

My house is the house of a merchant and his wife, you see? This is the house of a…naturalist. An historian… Claire felt she had made a satisfactory response.

An industrialist and a dabbler, a dilettante on all counts. Particularly the industrialist. But my good fortune in inheriting American lead mines without the bother of having to run them myself, has permitted the great indulgence you see around you.

Who does run them for you?

Mr. Morisot. A very clever and resourceful Creole fellow from Martinique by way of New Orleans. He takes care of it all.

He must be very trustworthy.

I trust him with everything. He and Tertius. They have a discretion which I’ve found to be essential over the years. I’ll be seeing Morisot next month. I’m going back to Ste. Odile. And it will be good to see my old house again. I actually think it may be the oldest house west of the Mississippi. Construction was begun in…1694 or was it 1699, by another Orien Bastide, the first of my line to be named for a prince of Hell! Such a long time ago. The local people call it the Jardin Noir. Tertius refilled Bastide’s glass with the aromatic Burgundy they had been drinking. Bastide quickly drained the glass. He seemed to take no pleasure in the act. It reminded Claire of the manner in which her father used to drink after his fortune had been lost.

I am familiar with that name, Ste. Odile. It is an amazing coincidence, don’t you think? Out of all the towns in America, we would both have a connection to that one?

How do you know of it?

My brother, Prosper, lives in Boston. He has since he was a boy. My father wanted him educated in the new land with its new ideas, you see? She smiled. We saw each other only for a few weeks in the summers as we were growing up. He was my mentor and my example. I miss him so! His fiancee has taken a post in Ste. Odile, teaching at a female seminary. I assume he’ll follow her there, though he was unclear on that point. Her name is Perdita, as in Shakespeare. I’d love to see the Mississippi some day myself. I’ve read about it in Chateaubriand. Is it still a great wilderness?

Bastide laughed. It is nothing like that. There are steamboats up and down the river every day. The riverbanks are denuded to feed the boilers. Americans are in love with new machines and how they enhance commerce. They will sacrifice the beauty of a landscape or the peace of a countryside, if they can find a way to mow their grain faster or get their pigs to market sooner. In a land whose history looks back only a couple of hundred years, novelty and newness are ends in themselves. He emptied another glass. Except for our village. Our Ste. Odile. The progress of this frantic century has hardly touched it. There was a great earthquake in 1811. It was like the world was ending. The course of the river was changed, shifted east. The main body of the river, and the traffic and commerce and progress it carries, is now to the east of de Castres Island, leaving only a shallow channel to flow past Ste. Odile. Our town can hardly be seen beyond the island by the passengers on those elegant boats. At any rate, Ste. Odile was always more French than American. A relic of our presence in the Mississippi Valley. A two hundred year old…oddity.

Are there Indians?

Most are gone. There are still a few Sac and Fox and even the occasional Osage to be seen. There is still an old mission there for them built when the village was a few years old, and the female seminary you mentioned, attached to it to educate their daughters, and now those of freed slaves.

Jesuits?

At first. Then Franciscan Recollects. Since 1780, the Sisters of Perpetua.

An hour or so later, after an aperitif and discourse about whether or not Claudius should be considered to be homologous with the later good emperors, Tertius announced dinner.

Surely no emperor could be called good, who allowed gladiatorial games and the persecution of Christians, Claire said, as they moved into the large but rather shabby dining room. Bastide held her chair for her and then seated himself at the head of the enormous oak dining table.

The gladiatorial games were mere entertainment, Bastide noted, presenting little or no moral dilemma to most Romans. And the Christians had scarcely been noticed at that time. When they were noticed, they were seen as barbarous, heretical and blasphemous. But really more a threat to order than religion.

Blasphemous! What did pagan Romans who murdered people by the thousands for the sake of entertainment know about religious… she searched for the right word, …propriety?

Bastide looked at her for a moment, and leaned toward her. They had only to consider the nature of evil. And its emissaries. Celsus asked: in a universe which operates according to the will of God, is it not blasphemous to suggest there would exist adversaries with the power to constrain His capacity to do good? Claire considered a response, a repetition of her catechism about free will and the need for temptation to prove our worthiness to God, but the subject had seemed to agitate her host, so she said nothing.

Conversation continued through four courses, arousing Claire’s imagination in a way that again surprised her, as it had done on that previous evening in her home. Subjects ranging from history to the arts to the natural sciences eddied and pooled around game hens, salads and assorted fruits, and extended into a large salon before a limestone fireplace, with brandys and more liqueurs, late into the night.

Throughout the evening, Claire found herself noting Tertius in his comings and goings with trays and decanters, glancing at her sometimes indifferently, sometimes catching her glance instantly with a trace of some inference in his eye she could not quite read. Once she would see something empathetic in it, once something that seemed intended to communicate some secret knowledge or admonition.

Just after midnight she walked home alone, cordially refusing Bastide’s surprisingly insistent and concerned offer to accompany her. He extended his hand to her as she stood at his door. She noticed Tertius stop with his tray behind him. He looked at her with an expression she could not fathom, as she took Bastide’s hand. In his hand Bastide had hidden an old gold coin which he passed to her. I would like you to accept this small gift. A remembrance of this pleasant evening we have passed together. Will you accept it?

Claire looked at the coin. A Roman aureus. It was heavy, thick and worn, but still brilliant after two thousand years. Claire could see no harm in accepting the gift. To refuse might be seen as an insult. She knew Tertius was paused behind her host to see if she would honor his request to her and refuse the gift. His comments seemed presumptuous now and out of place. She hesitated a moment, then smiled at Bastide and nodded. Tertius returned his attention to his duties, and disappeared into the library. Bastide’s hand was warm, as it was the first time she’d taken it. Again she felt the sensation of loss she’d noted before, and the same perverse desire to bring it all about quickly. This time, the sensation seemed specifically to be connected to Bastide somehow, as if taking his gift had sealed some unspoken bargain between them.

She’d never had an evening like this one, one devoted solely to her, to challenging her mind and ideas. She’d never known a man like Bastide. He was superficially repulsive, but his mind was keen, active and hungry in a way unknown in her small circle of family and merchants. She scarcely noted the houses and familiar streets in town as she passed them. As she walked she slowly became aware of subtle movement in the hedges along the street. A low, chittering growl, punctuated by short barking sounds, could barely be heard. In an instant, in liquid blur of violent movement, a small, hunched shape darted, or more accurately, flowed, from the hedge across the dark path in front of her, followed by a second, apparently identical creature. In the darkness she could make out no details or features. She could only assume they were small wild dogs or perhaps martens or sables of some kind, although her impression was that they were unlikely to be any of these. She stared into the dark undergrowth for a long time, but saw no further sign of the creatures. She decided to hurry her pace down the hillside.

Suddenly she found herself at her own iron gate. Glancing back along the route she’d just walked, she could see the pinnacle and its castle black against the stars, and could picture Bastide’s chateau in the darkness far below it. How was he regarding her now? Was the connection she felt to him now real? Was it mutual? She felt it must be. Some barrier had been crossed.

As she prepared herself for bed, the excitement of the evening faded a little, and this new connection began to frighten her. There was something about the way Tertius had looked at her as she was leaving that made her wish she’d taken his advice, although why he would disapprove of this simple act of friendship, she could not tell. And those strange impulses to throw off everything which had contented her up to this day, terrified her. She felt as she had as a child when she’d scarcely escaped falling from a high scaffold when she and her family were touring the restorations which were being done to the cathedral at Carcassone. It took several hours for her to empty her mind and fall asleep that night.

It was the first night she felt the presence. She slept in short, fitful stretches for a few hours. She dreamt of a room with whitewashed stone walls, a dungeon or castle, filled with people archaically dressed, some in black ceremonial robes, others in medieval jerkins and homespun skirts. All were sitting or standing quietly, calmly, as if they were all resigned to some great doom. There was a table, or altar, covered in white linen upon which lay several white napkins and a book of the Gospels. A minister, flanked by two assistants, was preaching to the crowd, instructing them about the sacredness of the sacrament, the consolamentum, which, under these special circumstances, they were all about to receive. Claire suddenly understood that the castle was the citadel of Montsegur. And these people, of whom she appeared to be one, were the heretic Cathars. The minister, called the perfectus, assured the people that by accepting the sacrament, and therefore death at the stake, they had chosen the right course, and that soon the dual nature of God would be apparent to them.

Claire found herself suddenly awake. She realized she had awakened herself because she was aware of an odd sensation that someone must be near, watching her sleep. But the room was empty. A breeze lifted the curtains slightly, making a sound in the darkness like the rustling of clothes on a heavily draped figure. That must account for the sense of a presence near her, she thought. It was nothing. She thought about the images of the dream she’d been having, and was surprised she remembered them so well. She usually remembered little, if anything, of her dreams. But these images were as clear in her mind as if they had just happened. Her mouth was dry. She sat up and poured herself a drink of water from a carafe at her bedside. Exhausted, she settled back into bed and quickly fell asleep. Her dream seemed to continue in the same place she had left it. She was back in the citadel chamber with its whitewashed stone walls, surrounded by the doomed Cathar faithful.

In a far corner of the room, apart from the ceremony, another perfectus was giving hurried instructions to four men, the four who had been chosen to escape, to preserve the fortune and writings of the Cathars. She knew their names. They were Amiel Aicart and his companions Hugo and Poitevin. And Orien Bastide.

Claire began to rouse herself again from the dream. She knew nothing of the history of the region. Where did these images come from? She must have been stimulated by the evening’s conversation, and the proximity of the citadel. She seemed to drift in and out of sleep, and again felt a vague sensation of being watched. She slowly became aware of the fact that she could not move. Her breath became short and pressure from a great, inexorable weight on her chest and hips was increasingly painful as it was suffocating. A stinking waft of breath passed over her, but she could not open her eyes. She became conscious of a slow pressure on her inner thighs, a pressure she could not identify as warm or cold or gentle or rough, but a pressure she was horrified to realize was slowly pushing her thighs apart. She had too little breath left to cry out, but she managed a small, growled No, and freed her body slightly from the pressure by twisting toward her right side. Suddenly, the pressure was gone, and as she opened her eyes, she thought she saw a dark form disappearing through her doorway, its features half-seen. It appeared to her to move fluidly from one point in space to another, rather than to physically walk or run. If it had been real at all.

Claire sat up in bed and lighted her lamp. She could find no mark or bruise on herself, nor could her serving girl who examined her thoroughly the next morning.

By nightfall the next day she had decided the sensation of the presence, the shortness of breath, the images of the Cathars and Montsegur, had been parts of the same dream. She slept heavily that night with no dreams of any kind she could remember, and awoke the next morning in the same position in which she had first fallen asleep.

The next day she received an invitation to lunch from Bastide, including the promise of observing the rare blooming of an obscure type of orchid he’d received from Venezuela a year ago. She walked to the chateau late in the morning, and enjoyed the lunch and conversation immensely, although the hoped-for blooming did not occur.

But early in the afternoon she began to feel uneasy and distracted. She watched Bastide’s lips move as he talked, but heard little that he said. The dream she’d had two nights before and the terrifying presence afterward began to fill her thoughts. Why would she have such a dream? And why did Bastide, looking very different than he did now, but undoubtedly him, appear in it? What stimulus in her agitated mind had included him in such a vision? He seemed different to her today. There was something insincere about him, and almost guilty. And she imagined she could read on his face a possession of some knowledge that was vital to her wellbeing, but which he refused to share.

She refused the custard Tertius offered her. She soon felt faint and short of breath, and she gladly accepted Bastide’s offer to have Tertius drive her home in the carriage.

She recovered somewhat in the evening and was able to eat a small supper. She went to bed just before eleven, and slept well until the vision of Montsegur returned. This time, the consolementum was finished, and the congregation received a blessing and began to file out and down the mountain path towards the soldiers waiting for them. Bastide and his three companions were gone: through the fissure and tunnel to freedom. Claire could see the enormous pyre being prepared in the meadow hundreds of feet below them, upon which each of them would be burned, delivered at last from the evil of the world.

This time she believed if she could not extract herself from the dream, the nightmare would become real and she would die in the flames, die without the faith and resolve from which the Cathars took comfort. As the terror of this understanding took hold of her, she felt the return of the presence. Again she felt paralyzed and suffocated and could not open her eyes.The warmth radiating against her now sweating back and side must be coming from a body near her. She thought briefly about Guibord and how in some way this was a retribution for having sinned against him, however minutely. But it was Bastide that her mind fixed upon. This confusion, these night terrors, and even the strange creatures in the hedges, all drew her back to him, all seemed to proceed from him. And she had an urge to be with him now that defied her dread. Tomorrow she would see him again. She had to see if another meeting would resolve or allay her fears.

She gasped for breath as she felt her thighs being pushed apart. The pressure against her was more constant and irresistable than it had been before. And as she resisted she felt a stab of pain as if from barbs or claws that would only be relieved by yielding to the pressure. A scream choked in her throat as she tried to gulp air at the same time. An urgent and insistent pounding on her door broke the oppressive silence, and her lungs filled with air.

Madame…Fire!...Fire!

Claire opened her eyes. She caught a glimpse of something slipping past the curtains and over the balcony outside.

Madame! Fire! Can you hear me? It was Estelle. Claire slid off of her bed and onto the floor. She pulled herself along the carpet towards the door. She was too weak to stand and struggled for breath.

Yes, Estelle. I’m here. She knew her voice was too weak to be heard. Estelle was pulling futilely on the door handle.

Madame, can you hear me? The door is bolted.

I’m here, Estelle. Strength was returning to her voice.

Pull the bolt. I must get you out!

Claire found the bolt in the darkness and pulled on it with all the strength she could manage. Guibord always insisted the bolts be kept well oiled. It easily slid free. Claire fell against the door as Estelle pulled it open.

I didn’t lock the door, Claire whispered, as Estelle helped her to her feet, noticing spots of blood at the knees of her mistress’s nightgown. I didn’t lock it.

The fire was easily contained in the kitchen chimney where it had started, and the household was back to normal by midday the next day.

Claire felt increasingly nervous and sick through lunch and was unable to eat. Estelle tried to convince her that the wounds on her thighs must have been somehow self- inflicted during the dream. Claire struggled to accept this explanation, but could not convince herself.

If only Prosper were here, she mumbled. I need my brother here to help me through this. I’ll write to him. Yes, I’ll write to him and ask him to come as soon as he can. I know this would all pass if he were here to make me feel safe!

But, Madame, Estelle said diplomatically, You are a married woman now. Monseiur Guibord will be home soon, and together we will see to your needs until this bad time passes. Your brother is across an ocean. It would take him weeks to get here…

I will write to Prosper. I must write to him tonight.

As Claire stared at her lunch on its Limoges plate, at a small fish looking back at her like the one she had buried as a child, everything became suddenly clear to her. Neither her brother nor her husband could help or protect her. There was no more room for suspicion or fear. There was only certainty. "It is him! I’ve got to face him, she mumbled. Let him look me in the face and tell me none of this is his doing!"

Early in the afternoon, Claire, accompanied by Estelle, walked out of the village to Bastide’s chateau. The two of them pounded on the door for many minutes, but there was no answer.

Perhaps they’ve gone, Madame, Estelle said, scanning the windows for any signs of life. You said they were going to America.

No. Not so soon. Bastide said they weren’t going for a month. I know he’s here! Claire stepped back onto the drive, and, looking up at a small second story window, saw Tertius looking back at her. He watched her gravely for a moment and then disappeared. Claire threw herself against the door and began to pound on it frantically.

BASTIDE! You will see me! Claire’s hands were soon bruised and scratched.

He refuses to admit you. Estelle, startled by her mistress’s vehemence, tried to pull her back from the door.

He must say what is happening to me! He can stop it. You see?

No, he cannot stop it.

Yes he can. I have never been so certain of a thing. I can see it when he looks at me!

How can Monsieur Bastide have anything to do with…any of it? It isn’t sensible.

I know it is his doing. I don’t know how it is, but it is. He means to kill me. My dreams are telling me…

But what sense do dreams make? He has no power over…

I haven’t betrayed my husband, and I won’t!

Estelle enclosed Claire’s hands in her own strong hands and led her away from the door.

They will not admit us, Estelle said soothingly, seeing her mistress could not be reasoned with, only calmed. We should go home. I’ll sit with you tonight.

Estelle made her bed in the chaise near Claire’s window that night, but Claire could not close her eyes until dawn. Estelle returned the next night, and again Claire managed to remain awake, having rested fitfully in the afternoon.

On the fifth night of this arrangement, it seemed to Claire that she was forgetting her husband and her family and what it had meant to have a normal life with them. It seemed ages since she’d seen Guibord. He was expected back in two days, a length of time that now seemed intolerable. She decided to travel to Rennes to meet him.

Estelle huddled uncomfortably on her chaise. The ivory mantle thrown over her shoulders glowed in the moonlight washing through the casement. Claire smiled a little as she watched her sleep. Poor Estelle! As soon as Guibord was safely home, she could return to her room. Claire would give her a month’s paid holiday in Paris to reward her loyalty.

Staying awake had become much more difficult the last two nights. Resting during the day was a skill Claire had not yet mastered. Her mind raced day and night, but after midnight, exhaustion was taking the edge off her clarity and focus.

She lay on her left side, watching Estelle sleep for more than an hour. She began to feel more at peace and her mind began to wander. She wondered if Guibord’s trip had been a profitable one, and if her father had yet mastered the responsibilities her husband had given him. She marveled at the patience and kindness Guibord had shown him and her whole family. She thought of Estelle’s basic goodness and how this quality has managed to appear again and again in human history in spite of the persistence and inevitability of evil. The Cathars sought a goodness