All Things Are Lights | Page 3

to push himself upward. His limbs ached from clinging to the wall, but he could only inch his way up. He dared not look over his shoulder. Behind and below him, he knew, was black, empty space. Right hand up, right foot, left hand up, left foot, he crawled upward until at last the palm of his hand touched the blessed flatness of the top. He let out the breath he hadn't even been aware he was holding. He raised himself up a little further and slid both arms over the wall and hauled himself to lie flat along the top.
Now at last he could let himself look down into the chasm. Hundreds of fires flickered like stars in the crusaders' main camp at the base of the mountain. The dots of brightness wavered before his eyes. Dizziness swept over him. Fright made his heart thud like a stone-caster, and he gripped the wall under him so hard that his fingernails broke. He had to use all his remaining strength to force himself up to a kneeling position. He made no effort to conceal himself.
He heard at once a shrill cry of alarm from the darkness within the wall. A woman's voice. He could just barely see a wooden platform about four feet below. He dropped to it and raised his empty hands as three dark figures approached.
"I am one man, not the crusader army, Madame," he called. "I come in amity."
He heard a murmur of women's voices and strained to look about him, but the only light came from a vertical slit in a stone building some distance away. A shift in the breeze brought an animal stench that assaulted him. How these people have suffered, Roland thought, overwhelmed with pity even as the smell made him almost ill. Under siege for nearly a year, the Cathars could spare no water for bathing.
"May I come down?" Roland called to the huddled figures he could faintly descry in the darkness below.
"Drop your weapons to us and we will let you live a bit longer, at least," one of the women called.
Roland unbuckled and dangled the heavy weapons over the side of the platform. A slender figure stepped out of the shadows and caught the longsword's scabbard. Roland found a ladder and moved gingerly down it until his feet met flat paving stones. He turned and stood with his back to the wall, facing a row of low wooden buildings a few feet away.
Three gaunt women gathered around him. Two brought the points of their spears within inches of his face. Another aimed a crossbow at him. A twitch of her finger and that bolt would pierce him through as if his hauberk were no more than a cotton shirt. More danger here than clinging by his fingernails on the face of the mountain.
He stood very still, towering over the women, staring down at them. They looked aged, probably far beyond their years. Their eyes glittered with hate.
The crossbow woman spoke. "If you are a friend, why are you not out there fighting beside our men? Why are you wearing the sign of a crusader?" She hissed the last word.
"There is someone here whom I have come to rescue."
"Rescue? Nonsense," another said contemptuously. "We are going to die very soon now. Any among us who hoped for escape gave it up months ago. Death is our escape - from the power of the Evil One."
"Still, I want to try." Inwardly he reproached himself. He'd imagined they would welcome him like a hero. He should have anticipated how they would feel.
"Liar!" the second woman spat. "Spy!" Her spear point was almost at his right eye. He had to call on all his strength of will to keep from flinching back. Were all his pains to reach Diane going to end, absurdly, here?
"How can we know that you are telling the truth?" said the woman with the crossbow.
"Look within yourself," Roland said, keeping his voice calm, though inside he was in turmoil. "All things that are, are lights. The light shines in each man and each woman."
He noticed the spear points wavering a little, and a deep gratitude flowed from him to Diane. She had long ago taught him those sayings.
"Satan himself can quote the inspired word," the first woman said. "What do you know of the true meaning of what you are saying?"
Roland shrugged. "I know it expresses one of the deepest teachings of your faith."
"Is it not also your faith, then?" asked the woman. "Are you not one of us??
"If I were a liar and a spy as you think, I would claim to be one of you. But since I am an honest man and a friend, I tell you I was raised as a Catholic. I am Roland de