“You are…” she said, looking at him almost lucidly. “You are… That is good…”

She groped feebly for his arm. Then for his hand. Her fingers and fingernails were now quite black. Her feet likewise.

“It is now time… Montségur…”

“What are you saying? Jutta?”

“Montségur… It still exists… Endura and consolamentum… I would like to… hear… a voice from there…”

Reynevan shook his head, looking at his friends enquiringly. Scharley spread his arms.

“Let me,” said Samson.

He knelt down beside Jutta and took her blackened hand.

“Benedicite,” he said softly. “Benedicite, parcite nobis.”

“Parcite nobis,” she whispered back. “For all my sins… I ask for forgiveness…”

“De Deu e de nos vos sian perdonatz,” said Samson. “E nos preguem Deu que les vos per do.”

Jutta appeared to be trying to smile, but a paroxysm of pain contorted her blue face into a ghastly grimace. Blood flowed from her nose and the corner of her mouth. Blood was now seeping through all the cloaks covering her.

“Reinmar,” said Samson, standing up. “It is time. Let it happen.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Jutta will go on suffering for at least a dozen hours before she dies,” said the giant in a lowered voice as he approached. “Will you permit it?”

“What are you saying? End her suffering? Samson… I am a doctor! I am a Christian… God forbids… Divine law—”

“A law that makes someone suffer? When we could end her suffering? You know nothing about God, laddie, you don’t know Him at all. Instead, you make of Him a cruel fanatic. You offend Him by so doing. It is unseemly.”

“But—”

“You are a physician. Treat her suffering.”

Scharley took Rixa by the arm and led her away. Tybald Raabe followed them.

Samson and Reynevan knelt down beside Jutta, Samson on her left, Reynevan on her right. Before they knelt down, Jutta had been unconscious but now she regained consciousness.

“Reinmar…”

“I love you,” he whispered with his mouth by her ear. “I love you, Jutta.”

“I love you, too. I am ready.”

“Pater sancte,” said Samson softly, “suscipe ancillam Tuam in Tua iusticia et mitte graciam Tuam e Spiritum Sanctum Tuum super eam.”

“Lux in tenebris lucet,” she whispered in a clear voice. “And the light shineth in darkness… And the darkness comprehended it not.”

And when she uttered that, the clouds suddenly parted. And the setting sun shone through them. And there was light.