“Jutta.” He decided to speak, raising himself up on an elbow. “I can’t bear to see you putting yourself at risk. Rumours about what you believe here are circulating—many people know what happens in this convent. I found out about it myself last winter, at the end of last year, so it’s no secret. Denunciations may already have reached the relevant people. You’re living in great danger. Maifreda of Pirovano was burned at the stake in Milan. Fifteen years later, in 1315, two and a half score Beguines were burned to death in Świdnica…”

And the Adamites in Bohemia, he suddenly thought. And the Picards, tortured and burned at the stake. The cause I’ve dedicated myself to persecutes dissidents no less cruelly than Rome…

“Every day,” he said, driving away the thought, “may be the day of your doom, Jutta. You could die—”

“You could, too,” she said, interrupting. “You could have fallen in battle. You’ve also taken risks.”

“Yes, but not for—”

“Chimeras, yes? Go on, say it out loud. Chimeras. Women’s fancies?”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“Yes, you did.”

They fell silent. Outside was the August night. And crickets.

“Jutta.”

“Yes, Reinmar.”

“Let’s go away. I love you. We love one another, and love… Let’s find the Kingdom of God within us. Inside us.”

“Should I believe you? That you’ll give up—”

“Believe me.”

“You are sacrificing much for me,” she said after a longer pause. “I value that. And love you all the more for it. But if we abandon our ideals… If you give up yours, and I mine… I can’t help thinking it would be like—”

“Like what?”

“Like endura. Without hope for consolamentum.”

“You sound like a Cathar.”

“Montségur lives on,” she whispered with her mouth right by his ear. “The Holy Grail hasn’t been found yet.”

She touched him, touched and stunned him with a gentle but thrilling caress. When she got up onto her knees, her eyes were burning in the darkness. When she leaned over him, she was slowly gentle, like a wave stroking the sand of a beach. Her breath was hot, hotter than her lips. Samson was right, came a thought, before the bliss snatched away his ability to think. Samson was right. This place is my Ogygia. And she is my Calypso.

“Montségur lives on.” A few moments passed before he heard her loud whisper. “And will endure. It won’t surrender and will never be taken.”

August 1428 was hot, a simply insufferable heatwave that lasted until the middle of the month, until the Assumption of Mary, called by the people the Feast of Our Lady of Herbs. September was also very warm. The weather only began to get slightly cooler after Saint Matthew’s Day. Rains fell on the twenty-third of September.

And old friends returned on the twenty-fourth.