Always accompanied by a great sadness, I see how we are climbing up a quite steep hillside. I am walking alone, with the staff and no burden or maybe some kind of light basket I carry on my shoulder. I get tired easily, my bones hurt, it is cold. My shoes are simple sandals, similar to espadrilles, I would say. At the beginning there is a lot of light, but there are dark clouds getting near. The way is not too wide, the vegetation is scarce, like weeds at the sides of the road, but in general it is light-colored earth and stones. Scattered, I see a child, a woman, a mule... a cart with provisions and an old man or woman that can't walk.
At the end, I tried to place myself where the archway is and keep walking to see what there is beyond. I saw my second son waiting for me, he takes me by the arm and directs me inside, and then what I see is like a quadrangular enclosure, but irregular, with high walls. We settle where we can, with the commodities in a corner, places where we can make fire in another corner...
Suddenly I jumped to another moment. I am on my own, it seems I am exploring the stronghold. The wall is on my left, it seems a quite high place as if it were the parapet walk. The wall here has the height of a person or so, and I suddenly stumble upon two men that look like guards, oval helmet, with a flap to protect the nose, mailshirt. But their attitude towards me is derisive, even humiliating (so much I am going to omit this part). This scene seemed so strange to me that I stayed there for a while, wondering if this would be my imagination. They call me "heretic scum" or something like that and go away laughing. They know what we are, and clearly, they are not Cathar, but they obey their lord. I had the impression we have taken refuge here but the fortress is not ours, it is as if its owner were a supporter of Cathars, but perhaps he is not one. He lets us stay, but at the end I think either he betrays us and lets them come in and capture us, or he confronts them but he can't win and surrenders, handing us over to the Inquisition (or whoever they are). I am not sure if there was a fight or not, could be.
Anyway, that attitude saddens me even more. I lean out of the wall (there is a considerable height), I feel the wind in my hair. I have the intuition that more than one threw himself, avoiding other type of death, which we already thought inevitable. I also have the intuition part of the disputes among us is precisely for having come up here, perhaps some of us asked for that protection, but this is a mouse trap, and I wonder, "What are we doing here?"
During this regression the name of Puy has come to me constantly (though now I doubt if this is due to the castle of Puilarens). And the other day, between sleep and wakefulness, the name "Coulvert" or something similar came suddenly to me.
Los cátaros: problema religioso, pretexto político. (1998). Jesús Mestre Godes.
Chronicle according to Historia Albigensis.
Chronicle according to The Song of the Cathars.
But from both accounts, what most intrigued me was this part:
In the hope that it would help in persuading Raymond to agree, the Bishop further advised that the Marshal should take with him the Bishop of Carcassonne, who was with the army, because he was a native of the area and was known to the murderous lord of Termes; moreover the Bishop’s mother –a heretic of the worst sort– was in the castrum as was his brother William of Roquefort whom I have already mentioned. William was a most cruel man, who strove to excel others in hostility to the Church. The Bishop and the Marshal again approached Raymond. Arguments were succeeded by prayers, prayers by threats, as they strove energetically to persuade the tyrant to accept their advice and surrender himself to our Count, and indeed to God, on the basis I described above. Previously the Marshal had found Raymond obstinate and determined in his hostility; now the Bishop and the Marshal found him even more obstinate. He refused even to allow the Bishop to speak privately with his brother. With nothing achieved, the two returned to the Count.
But perhaps the most striking part of it all was when I searched images of Termes and found a video that makes my hair stand on end. Right at the start, the dirt road is just as what I described in one of my regressions, when we go climbing up to the fortress bearing the provisions. But, above all, the archway that turns up in the minute 2:21, is exactly what I saw from the beginning when my son is there waiting, and we arrive at night and it is raining. The only difference with the picture are those weeds in the middle of the road, and I would say I was a bit more on the right, and I saw the doorway a bit wider. Obviously, that doorway could be similar to one in any other castle (I suppose)... but something tells me this is the castle.