Revelations

By George Davidson Greenly Jr.

Between the Fourth and Fifth Crusades there occurred a lesser known but important Crusade. The Albigensian Crusade, launched in 1209, was mounted to eliminate the heretical Christian Cathars of Occitania in the south of what is now modern-day France. It was a decades-long struggle to extirpate both the Cathars and the independence of southern France. Prior to the fall of Montsegur, the last bastion of the Cathars, on the 12th of March 1244, legend has it that Cathar treasure was spirited away from Montsegur. Was it gold, religious artifacts, or perhaps ancient documents of great significance to the Catholic Church? The physical efforts required in surreptitiously removing treasure from Montsegur, the mountain top fortress, during a siege by the Popes army, dictates documents! Questions scream from the corridors of time: What documents prompted a Crusade of Christians against Christians? Who wrote them? What revelations do they contain? What happened to them? And, why and by what means is the Roman Church now attempting to find the parchments? How and why does the trail lead from the Middle East to the Languedoc region of France, to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, to Oxford University in Great Britain, and finally to Rome where the documents are found in the Vaticans secret archives and translated. Executions of crimes including murder are revealed. Plans for additional murders are revealed and foiled. A plan to stop the probable distribution of the translated documents, if carried out successfully, will change everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Nov 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781458211866

George Davidson Greenly Jr.

George Davidson Greenly Jr. is a retired US Air Force officer and a member of the San Antonio Writers Guild. A graduate of the Long Ridge Writers Group courses “Breaking into Print” and “Shape, Write, and Sell Your Novel,” he lives with his wife and two cats in San Antonio, Texas.

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Prologue

Montségur Castle

Languedoc-Roussillon, France

March 15, 1244

Raymond de Perella, Cathar Parfait and lord of Montségur, took the hand of his beloved wife, Corba, and spoke in a quiet voice to his four children. My beloved children, our hearts are saddened by what we must tell you. We believe Montségur cannot hold out any longer against the evil one’s army. At dawn tomorrow I will surrender our home and refuge on our beloved Montségur to the pope’s forces.

Jordan, his eldest and only son, rose in protest. But the butcher will slaughter us.

Raymond raised his hand to stop his son’s protest. We, the Cathari of Montségur, will march through the open city gates with heads held high in full knowledge of what awaits us at the hands of the minions of the pope’s butcher, Simon de Montfort. We will not falter, nor will you in carrying out the task your mother and I are about to give you.

Do you wish me to draw a weapon against the butcher’s men? I will do so gladly.

No, Jordan! I ask you and your sisters for something far more important than mere martyrdom. Raymond de Perella retrieved four neatly wrapped packets from a secret compartment in the family’s armoire. He gave each of his children one of the packets.

Even though we have long since secreted away the monetary treasures of our faith, these packets contain a parchment worth more than all the gold and silver in the pope’s treasury.

Raymond gazed upon the quizzical expressions of his children, wondering with sadness if they would survive de Montfort’s forces any better than he and the Cathari he would lead through the gates at dawn. He sighed inwardly and thought, At least one of them must.

These packets contain identical parchments revealing the truth about the birth of the Roman church. They must not fall into the hands of the pope’s forces. Tonight at midnight, during our last services on this mountaintop, you and your sisters will, carrying these packets, descend by ropes already in place on the west cliff’s face.

Jordan reacted as if struck by his father. We are to run like cowards?

Raymond replied sternly. No, you will act like soldiers protecting this most important piece of Cathar treasure. Horses will be waiting for you at the base of our mountain; you will ride to the town of Ussat-les-Bains, where each of you will hide your packet in one of the caves of the Sabarthez above Ussat, our sacred mountain. He leaned forward and spoke softly but firmly.

Commit to memory exactly where you place it. Most importantly, you must not under any circumstances return to Montségur; however, you must find and inform a Cathar Perfecti of the packets’ hiding places. May God bless you and ensure the successful completion of your mission. He kissed each of his children on the forehead, knowing it would be for the last time. God have mercy upon your mission and all our souls.

Precisely at midnight, as the Cathar worship service began, Jordan and his sisters rappelled two by two the treacherous west cliff of Montségur. As their father had promised, they found the horses at the bottom of the cliff. Just as they mounted their horses, barking and shouting were heard close by. The butcher’s men were approaching rapidly on foot.

Ride like the wind and don’t look back! Jordan shouted to his sisters. We meet in Quillan in four days.

Taking his own advice, he spurred his horse forward and rode as hard and as fast as he could. Several hours later, approaching Ussat-les-Bains, he paused on the elevated ridge surrounding it. His heart sank at the vision before him. The area was alight with the campfires of the pope’s army. As fate would have it, the caves of the Sabarthez would not see the treasured parchments he and his sisters carried. Turning his horse toward the Northeast, he rode off quietly into the night, unsure of how to safeguard what he carried and execute his mission but determined to do so.

A cock crowing in a nearby village roused Jordan from his semiconscious slump in the saddle. Backtracking many times over two nights and a day to elude the ubiquitous hordes of soldiers, he had no idea where he was; however, he saw no signs of de Montfort’s army in or around the small hilltop village just above the trail he was on.

Soon, the sun would be full up and bring the village townsfolk with it. He spotted a small grotto next to a clearing just off the path and turned his horse toward it. Stopping just short of the clearing, he secured his horse to a small sapling and approached the grotto cautiously on foot. A rock slab in front of the grotto held a plaque indicating the townspeople of Rennes-le-Château had dedicated the area as a shrine to Mary Magdalene. The inscription told Jordan’s tired mind that here was the most perfect hiding place in the world for the parchment he carried.

This grotto would be easy to find again, and if the true nature of the Montségur escape plan were ever discovered, a shrine to Mary Magdalene would never be a suspected site for hiding a parchment revealing some truth regarding the Roman church. He emptied an old earthen grain jar he found in the grotto, placed the packet into it, and sealed the jar with the soft wax he carried in his saddlebags. After placing the jar deep within the grotto, he mounted his horse and began the ride to Quillan and the planned rendezvous with his sisters. He hoped they had been as successful as he had and that he would see them soon. He tried hard to suppress thoughts of his parents and their fate. Upon his arrival in Quillan Jordan found no sign of his sisters. That evening he asked many tavern and inn patrons about three young Cathar maidens traveling alone. No one had seen or heard of them. Unfortunately Jordan’s inquiries and movements did not go without notice. Simon de Montfort’s spies were everywhere, and during the night soldiers burst into Jordan’s room and arrested him.

He told them nothing, not even under the horrific torture they inflicted or when they described in excruciating detail how the maidens he sought had been captured, raped, hacked to pieces, and burned along with all their possessions. He closed his eyes and offered up a prayer of gratitude that God had allowed one parchment to be saved. As the smoke from his execution pyre and the stench of own burning flesh filled his nostrils, he regretted not being able to reveal to another Cathar the location of the parchment. He prayed God would one day lead a righteous man to it—and to the truth.

One

The US Military Academy

West Point, New York

March 12

Cadet Corps Commander Mathew Dwayne Jameson walked as fast as he could, stepping carefully so as not to slip on the ice and end up unceremoniously on his ass. As he made his way across the campus, his mood matched the leaden sky that was threatening more snow. What could the Man want to see him about? The e-mail said, See me ASAP. Did he want to tell him his thesis and distinguished graduate status were in serious trouble? That would not be an acceptable situation and outcome! DJ, as many called him informally, was expected to be a distinguished graduate (known as a DG) just like his father and grandfather had been.

Entering the building, he hurried down the long hall, and the horseshoe taps on his heels, allowed by virtue of his rank as cadet corps commander, echoed off the marble-lined passageway to his destination. He stopped at the last door on the left. The brass plate on the massive wooden door proclaimed it to be the office of Paul Brown, PhD, Col. USA Retired, and History Department Chairman. Just as he raised his fist to knock on the door, he was startled by Professor Brown’s booming voice. Come in, DJ.

DJ entered the large office, which was lined with bookshelves. The pungent, sweet smell of stale pipe tobacco greeted him as he crossed the room and stood at attention in front of the big mahogany desk strewn with opened books and papers.

Sir, I came as soon as I received your e-mail.

Tossing a manuscript onto his desk, the slightly balding retired colonel looked over the glasses perched on the end of his pointed nose and said, Be at ease, DJ. Pull up a chair and sit. Cracking his knuckles and rubbing his hands together lightly, he placed them palms down on his desk, leaned forward, and said, after a pregnant pause, "I’ve finished reading your thesis—The Albigensian Crusade? That wasn’t a true military force-on-force campaign. You know that. This is nothing like the abstract you turned in seeking approval to proceed with your research!"

Professor Brown rolled his chair back, stood up, turned his back on DJ, and stared out of the window at the Hudson River below, watching the snowflakes falling ever so slowly. DJ remained silent and waited; this was his fourth year at the academy, and he had been in Professor Brown’s office many times before. He knew the Man had more to say. He had visions of his DG status melting away like many of the snowflakes landing on the office windowpane Professor Brown was staring through.

Professor Brown sat back down. Picking up the manuscript and turning over a few pages, he said, Explain! Why is it so different from your proposal? And what in the world do the words ‘At the end of seven hundred years, the Laurel will be green once more’ sung by a thirteenth-century troubadour in your introduction have to do with the military orders of battle in the Crusades against the Muslims of the Middle East?

DJ squared his shoulders, came to attention in his seat, and replied, Sir, nothing, sir. However, more than two hundred male and female Cathar civilians, given the choice of being burned alive or renouncing their particular Gnostic understanding of Christianity and its relationship to humanity, do have meaning for me. That’s not only as a devout Catholic but also as a professional soldier trying to make sense out of the Catholic Christian Church’s military actions against a Christian populace. As for the song of the troubadour, I believe it probably meant it would take more than seven hundred years to erase the stain of the pope’s actions on the Christian world.

"That’s all well and good, DJ, but it adds nothing to a description of the military aspects of this particular crusade. Scrap it! I believe your grandfather would concur, don’t you?"

DJ’s paternal grandfather, retired US Army Lieutenant General Mathew Jameson and former history professor at West Point, had provided an endless storybook of military history for DJ’s formative years. Now about to graduate from the academy, hopefully with honors as a history major, DJ sure as hell didn’t want to screw it up.

DJ replied, Sir, yes, sir. I guess I got caught up in the melodrama of the historical facts. However, the pope ordering the extirpation of a Christian population because of their particular religious beliefs bothers me. DJ stood up. Visibly agitated, he began pacing back and forth in front of the large desk. "I didn’t put this in my paper, but according