The Omega Factor(10)
During Andre’s probationary period it was learned that, like so many other Cathars, the younger man had been born and raised Catholic, attending a regional parochial school in southern France. As a boy he’d been active in the Catholic Scouts, which was where he first met Father Louis Tallard who, over a twenty-year period, had managed to sexually abuse nearly thirty scouts, one of whom had been Andre Labelle. Complaints were filed and Tallard had long ago been relieved of his parish, but he had been allowed to return to active duty—working administratively—after he supposedly confessed his sins and repented. Incredibly, no criminal prosecutions were initially pressed. All of which illustrated the hypocrisy and arrogance of the modern Holy Roman Church. No other institution had systematically protected sexual predators to such an extent. Finally, three years ago, after much uproar, Tallard had been formally charged with multiple counts of sexual abuse and the rape of minors. Those cases remained pending, dragging through the courts with no resolution, all while Tallard continued to wear the white collar of a priest.
Bernat bypassed central Béziers and drove along a perimeter highway a few kilometers north, beyond the town, on a deeper foray into the ever-thickening forest. Finally, he turned off the highway onto a dirt path, rutted and dusty, lined with grassy ditches and tumbled-down wooden fences. The farmhouse he sought sat back, among the trees. Tallard had retreated there after being charged, trying to fade away, hoping to be forgotten.
He drove close to the small, shabby cube of a house and parked. Another vehicle was already there. He and Andre stepped out into the night. The moon peeked through racing clouds overhead. He led the way as they marched toward the front door across a layer of thin grass. A man waited. Short, stout, fair-skinned, bearded.
“Is he ready?” Bernat asked.
“Like a Christmas turkey.”
He nodded his appreciation and opened the door. Inside was a hodgepodge of décor, the place messy, made even more so by some overturned furniture and two broken lamps, all signs of a struggle. Louis Tallard lay on his back, sprawled across an oak table, his hands and arms tied to each of the table’s four legs, his head angled downward over the side. Tallard was fifty-nine years old, short, lean, wiry-limbed with lined features, sporting a beard and mustache. Tape blocked the mouth from speaking or breathing. A wild look filled the priest’s blue eyes. Good. He had every reason to be afraid.
“Wait outside,” he told the man, who left, closing the front door behind him.
That was the thing about paid help.
They did exactly as they were told.
He faced Louis Tallard, who cocked his head upward. The man wore a dirty sweatshirt and faded jeans. At least he was not dressed in a clerical suit or sporting a white collar.
“I am Bernat de Foix. I was born and raised in the Comté de Foix, as you would say in French, or the Comtat de Fois, as I would say in Occitan. My mother’s ancestors flourished there from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. The title of count was first assumed in 1064 by Roger of Foix, who inherited the town of Foix and the adjoining lands, passing them on to his heirs for generations. The town still stands, as does the castle, but the lands no longer belong to the de Foix family. They were lost long ago. Are you familiar with them?”
Tallard shook his head quickly back and forth indicating no.
“No matter. I thought it only fitting that you know your inquisitor. That was a courtesy your fellow priests once showed others.” He pointed. “Do you recognize this young man?”
Another violent shake of the head for no.
“This is Andre Labelle. Seventeen years ago you sexually molested him.”
More shakes of the head.
“You deny the allegation?” he asked, incredulous.
Tallard nodded yes.
“As is your right. So we must now determine the truth.”
The Albigensian Crusade lasted twenty years. Though billed as a religious war to root out heretics, it was nothing more than a land and power grab under the guise of religion.
And a slaughter.
Burnings, blindings, hangings, the rack, even corpses exhumed and defiled. No atrocity was too much. Hundreds of thousands were affected. In the end the Languedoc was politically realigned, bringing it solidly within the sphere of the French crown, diluting any influence from Spain. From 1209 to 1215 the crusaders experienced great success, capturing Cathar lands and perpetrating unspeakable acts of violence against civilians. From 1215 to 1225, a series of revolts allowed many of those lands to be regained by the local nobility. A renewed crusade resulted in the recapturing of the territory, driving Catharism underground by 1244. After the papal armies left something else arrived. Something equally as bad. An Inquisition. Sent to eliminate all remaining vestiges of Cathar belief left in the wake of the crusade. Most of the inquisitors, like Arnaud Amaury who’d led the crusaders, were Dominicans. In 1233 Pope Gregory IX charged the Inquisition with the absolute extirpation of the Cathars. Soon the Franciscans joined in the effort, but it was the Dominicans who left a legacy of bitterness that had endured right up until today.
“When your fellow priests came to town as part of the Inquisition,” he said to Tallard, “they would announce their arrival days in advance, and everyone was invited to confess their sins. If you owned up to relatively minor misdeeds, were prepared to swear fidelity to the church, and were willing to provide useful information about others, you were given a small penance and the matter was closed. But a failure to confess, or to provide useful information on your family or friends, was taken as a lack of commitment to the one true church. And dealt with accordingly. Most were burned at the stake. Horrible, wouldn’t you say?”