“If you look at the first verse of the inscription, not only do the words ‘safe mountain’ make sense, but the first two lines probably describe the end of the siege itself: From the safe mountain truth did descend, Abandoned by all save the good.
“We talked a bit about this last night, remember? There were two general categories of Cathar. The priests were known as parfaits or perfecti, and the believers were called credentes, but what’s interesting is that neither of them called themselves Cathars. In fact, there are some suggestions that the name—it’s thought to derive from the Greek ‘Katharoi,’ meaning ‘the pure ones’—was only used by people outside the religion. The Cathars almost always referred to themselves as ‘Bons Hommes’ or ‘Bonnes Femmes’—good men or good women—so when Montségur finally fell, you really could say that it had been ‘abandoned by all save the good,’ because the parfaits never left—they were executed on the spot.”
“And the ‘truth’ that descended?” Bronson asked. “What the hell does that mean?”
Angela smiled at him. “I’ve got an idea about that, but there are a few other things you need to understand first.”
“OK, Professor. Let’s hear it.”
“Right, so I assumed that these verses did have something to do with the Cathars, and worked on that premise. I started at the beginning, with the title, the ‘GB PS DDDBE.’ You remember Jeremy thought these letters probably referred to an expression that would have been in common use in the fourteenth century or thereabouts, something as clear and obvious to people then as, say, ‘RIP’ is to us today?
“I wondered if the expression had been corrupted, its meaning altered or distorted, again like ‘RIP.’ Ask most people today what those letters stand for, and they’ll say ‘rest in peace,’ but they don’t. The initials refer to the Latin expression ‘requiescat in pace.’ ”
“But that means pretty much the same, doesn’t it?” Bronson asked.
“Yes—‘may he rest in peace’—but my point is that most people aren’t even aware that when they say ‘RIP’ they’re actually quoting a Latin expression, not an English one. So I wondered if this, too, was an old Latin expression that had been corrupted. But I was wrong. It wasn’t. It was pure Occitan, and pure Cathar.
“I started with the ‘GB,’ but that didn’t get me anywhere. Then I looked at the other initials, and particularly the last five, the ‘DDDBE.’ Once I made sense of those, the ‘PS’ was obvious, and then it was just a matter of finding out who ‘GB’ was, and that wasn’t too difficult once I’d decoded the other letters.”
“So those initials referred to a person?” Bronson asked.
Angela nodded. “I think ‘GB’ was Guillaume Be’libaste.”
“Never heard of him.”
“You wouldn’t have, unless you’ve studied the history of medieval France. Guillaume Bélibaste was the last known Cathar parfait, and he was burned alive in 1321. That was the method of execution preferred by the Vatican for dangerous heretics, which, in the Middle Ages, simply meant anyone who disagreed with the Pope.”
“So what does the title mean?”
“When any Cathar was about to die,” Angela replied, looking down at her notebook, “prayers were said, prayers that started with a particular Occitan expression: ‘Payre sant, Dieu dreiturier dels bons esperits. ’ The initial letters of that expression spell ‘PS DDDBE.’ That roughly translates as ‘Holy Father, true God of pure souls,’ somewhat analogous to the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Our Father, which art in heaven.’
“It was a common expression at the time, because you can still see it at several different locations in the Languedoc region of France. According to the books, there’s a particularly clear example carved on a stone at Minerve in Herault, where a group of Cathars took refuge after the massacre at Béziers, where about twenty thousand people were slaughtered by the crusaders. But it was only a temporary reprieve. In 1210 some one hundred and eighty parfaits were burned alive there by the advancing crusaders.”
“Is that what the Spanish called an auto-da-fé?”
“No. The execution of heretics never took place during the auto-da-fe’. The expression simply meant an ‘act of faith’ and was conducted by the Inquisition. It was a very public spectacle that lasted for hours, sometimes days, and often involved thousands of spectators. It began with a mass, then prayers, followed by a procession of those found guilty of heresy and a reading of their sentences. Punishment would only be administered after the auto-da-fe’ had finished.”
“Did people just come forward and confess, then?”
Angela laughed. “No, or not very often anyway. According to the records, most so-called heretics were snitched on by their neighbors, and it’s reasonably certain the arrival of the Inquisition offered a wonderful opportunity to settle old scores. The problem the accused faced was that they were in a no-win position. If they admitted to whatever charges the Inquisitors leveled at them, they could face death at the stake. If they denied the accusations, they’d be tortured until they did confess.
“As far as the Inquisitors were concerned, there was no question of an accused person being innocent—the fact that an accusation had been made was sufficient proof of guilt, and all they had to do then was obtain a signed confession from the heretic. That almost always involved prolonged and inventive torture and took place in private, in specially equipped torture chambers. The Inquisitors were forbidden to spill blood, during either questioning or execution, so they made liberal use of the rack and the strappado to dislocate joints. They also roasted limbs over slow fires, usually the feet because the heretic had to be able to sign a confession once it was all over.”
“Nice people,” Bronson observed drily.
“Their aim was to cause the maximum possible pain for prolonged periods of time, and they specialized in methods that involved little effort on the part of the interrogators, so they had plenty of time to pray for guidance. Lighting a fire, for example, or hauling a victim up using the strappado took just a few minutes, but the heretic would be in agony for hours or days.
“One of their favorites was the iron boot. They’d put the victim’s foot in an iron boot, then hammer wooden wedges all around the leg, crushing the shin and ankle. That was bad enough, but it was only the first stage. As a refinement, they’d pour water into the boot and leave the man overnight. The wooden wedges would absorb the water and expand, steadily increasing the pressure on the lower leg. After a few hours, while the interrogators were sleeping soundly or kneeling in prayer, the bones of the shin and ankle would be shattered, the muscles ripped to shreds, and for sure the man would never walk again.
“If execution was necessary, the only method approved by the Vatican was burning at the stake, again because that wouldn’t spill the victim’s blood, but even then there were refinements. Recanting at the last moment earned the condemned the mercy of being garrotted before the pyre was lit. Heretics who refused to do so would be made to suffer for even longer by the use of slow-burning wood. The executioners could also add fuel like wet or green wood that would generate choking fumes intended to kill the victims before the fire reached them—a small mercy. As a method of execution, burning offered considerable variety, and the Spanish and Portuguese were apparently very good at it. And they had plenty of victims to practice on.”
“And the French?”
“My guess is they just chained their victims to wooden posts, lit the fire and waited for the screaming to stop.”
Angela fell silent as the Renault Espace sped along the autoroute, heading southeast for the Italian border, with the back still full of the boxes they’d bought from B&Q.