Brida

"How much time has passed? What day is it?"

"You've been asleep for three days," said Talbo.

She looked at Talbo and felt sorry for him. He was thinner, his face grimy, his skin dull. Not that any of this mattered--she loved him.

"I'm thirsty, Talbo."

"There's no water. The French found the secret passageway."

Again she heard the Voices inside her head. For a long time, she had hated those Voices. Her husband was a warrior, a mercenary, who spent most of the year away fighting, and she had always been afraid that the Voices would tell her that he had died in battle. She had found a way of keeping the Voices from speaking to her. She just had to concentrate her mind on an ancient tree near her village. The Voices stopped when she did that. Now, however, she was too weak, and the Voices had returned.

"You're going to die," said the Voices. "But he will be saved."

"But it rained, Talbo," she said. "I need water."

"It was only a few drops. Nothing like enough."

Loni again looked up at the clouds. They had been there all week, and had done nothing but block the sun, making the winter even colder and the castle even gloomier. Perhaps the French Catholics were right. Perhaps God was on their side.

A few mercenaries came over to them. Fires were burning everywhere, and Loni had the sudden feeling that she was in hell.

"The priests are gathering everyone together, sir," one of them said to Talbo.

"We were hired to fight, not to die," said another.

"The French have offered us terms of surrender," replied Talbo. "They say that those who convert back to the Catholic faith can leave unharmed."

"The Perfect Ones will not accept," the Voices whispered to Loni. She knew that. She knew the Perfect Ones well. They were the reason she was there and not at home, where she usually waited for Talbo to return from battle. The Perfect Ones had been besieged in that castle for four months, and during that time, the village women had used the secret passageway connecting village and castle to bring in food, clothes, and ammunition; during that time, they had been able to see their husbands, and it was because of them that the fighting had continued. Now, however, the secret passage had been discovered, and she could not go back to the village, nor could any of the other women.

She tried to sit up. Her foot didn't hurt anymore. The Voices were telling her that this was a bad sign.

"We have nothing to do with their God. We're not going to die over that, sir," said another soldier.

A gong began to sound inside the castle. Talbo got to his feet.

"Please, take me with you," she implored. Talbo looked at his companions and then at the woman who lay trembling before him. For a moment, he didn't know what to do. His men were accustomed to war, and they knew that warriors who were in love usually hid during battles.

"I'm going to die, Talbo. Take me with you, please."

One of the mercenaries glanced at Talbo.

"She shouldn't be left here alone," he said. "The French might start firing again."

Talbo pretended to agree. He knew that the French would do no such thing. A truce had been called in order to negotiate the surrender of Monsegur. But the mercenary understood what was going on in Talbo's heart; he, too, must be a man in love.

"He knows you're going to die," the Voices said to Loni while Talbo gently picked her up. Loni didn't want to listen to what the Voices were saying; she was remembering a day when they'd walked along together just like that, through a wheat field, on a summer afternoon. She had been thirsty then as well, and they had drunk water from a mountain stream.

A crowd of men, soldiers, women, and children were gathered round the great rock that formed part of the western wall of the fortress of Monsegur. An oppressive silence hung in the air, and Loni knew that this was not out of respect for the priests, but out of fear for what might happen.

The priests arrived. There were a great many of them, all wearing black cloaks, each embroidered with a huge yellow cross. They sat down on the rock, on the steps, on the ground at the foot of the tower. The last to arrive had white hair, and he climbed up to the highest part of the wall. His figure was lit by the flames from the fires, and the wind caught his black cloak.

Almost everyone present knelt down and, bending forward, hands pressed together in prayer, beat their head three times on the ground. Talbo and his mercenaries remained standing. They had only been hired to fight.

"We have been granted surrender," said the priest. "You are all free to leave."

A great sigh of relief came from the crowd.

"The souls belonging to the Other God will remain in the kingdom of this world. The souls belonging to the True God will return to his infinite mercy. The war will continue, but it is not an eternal war, because the Other God will be defeated in the end, even though some of the angels have already been corrupted by him. The Other God will be vanquished, but not destroyed; he will remain in hell for all eternity, along with the souls he managed to seduce."