Free The Priest's Madonna by Amy Hassinger Page A

I offered timidly. “That people used to use as an escape route.”
    “Oh, there are all kinds of stories. Secret passageways, tunnels, hideouts. Hidden treasure. The kind of thing boys love.”
    “Not just boys.”
    He stopped his striding for a moment to regard me, an amused expression on his face. “Don’t tell me you’ve been searching, Marie?” My abashed silence gave him his answer, and he guffawed, as if at a clever joke. “Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “And have you found anything?”
    “No,” I admitted. Then, encouraged by his evident pleasure at my interest, I continued, “I’ve become very interested in the legends, though. I’ve been interested to hear, especially, about the Cathars—how they might have used an underground passageway to escape the crusaders.” I faltered, losing courage.
    Bérenger chuckled, “Yes, well. They’re intriguing, all those tales. Unreliable as anything.”
    Forcing myself to continue, I said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that, Monsieur le curé. About the Cathars and the Albigensian crusade. All the thousands of people who were slaughtered, burnt at the stake—by the Church. I’ve been, well, thinking about it …” I trailed off. He had stopped walking and had raised his head, casting his eyes to the distant hills.
    “By the Church’s army,” he said.
    “Yes.” I hesitated a moment longer. “I hope you’ll pardon me, Monsieur le curé, but I’ve been troubled by it. I can’t understand how the Pope could have ordered those men to kill all those people like he did.”
    Bérenger smiled sadly at the ground. “What have you been reading?” he asked.
    “Oh, history books. Father bought them for me in town.” I might have told him of my meetings with Mme Laporte, but his sudden change in demeanor unnerved me.
    “I didn’t know you were interested in history, Marie.”
    He squatted to examine a thistle, his thick fingers probing the spiny bulb beneath the washed-out purple flower. “The Marian thistle.” He picked it and handed it to me. “They’re supposed to protect one’s faith.”
    “Thank you,” I said.
    He began walking once more. “It’s not an easy thing, the question you’ve asked, Marie,” he said.
    “I know.”
    “The crusades were hundreds of years ago, of course. Things have changed.” His walking stick scraped against the stony path. “The Albigensian heresy was a great danger to the people. It was leading hundreds astray. You’ve read, I suppose, about their beliefs, what they claimed to be true?”
    I nodded.
    “It was heresy, pure and simple.” He sighed again. “You know the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal, Marie.” And when I didn’t respond, he began to narrate the story, enunciating the words emphatically, as he did in his sermons. “In Israel under King Ahab, there were hundreds of false prophets, men who worshipped Baal. One day, Elijah called all these prophets to the top of the mountain. There he proposed a test to prove to them who was the one true God. They would prepare two bulls for burnt offerings—one to be sacrificed to Baal, the other to the Lord. Then they would each call upon their God to light the fires. The God that sent down fire to burn the offering would have proven himself as the true God.
    “So they prepared the offerings and set them on two pyres, one next to the other. And the prophets of Baal called on their god to come and light their pyre. All morning and all afternoon they called. But Baal didn’t answer. Then Elijah stepped up to his pyre and commanded it to be drenched with water. And the people poured vessel after vessel of water on the offering until the bull and the wood were drenched, and the pyre stood in a pool of water. Then Elijah called on the Lord. And immediately God answered him with a searing flame that leapt from the sky and consumed the bull, the pyre, the stones it stood upon, even the pool of water beneath it. And the people, when they saw this