44. Isidora-10. Vidomir. Sleeping kings

The night was chilly and pitch-dark. But knowing every cavity, every unexpected turn, in the area, Esclarmonde confidently conducted the fugitives to the hospitable castle of Usson, where her anxious husband Bernard impatiently waited for them. The new-born Vidomir never woke up during their arduous journey. The poppy decoction which he had been given before the escape worked without a hitch and the child peacefully saw his first earthly dreams, unaware of the surrounding world. Esclarmonde moved gently trying not to disturb him. Her soul trembled, knowing that a part of Magdalene and Radomir reposed in her hands. It seemed to her that they approvingly smiled at her from their heights, as if sending their thanks and support...

Unexpectedly the branches crunched. Some unknown people blocked their way. Esclarmonde counted. They were seven of them... impudent and cruel, armed to the teeth crusaders.

She understood that they had no chance of surviving. The fugitives were extremely tired and hardly could hold a weapon. Firmly clasping the child to her chest with one arm and closing her eyes, Esclarmonde lifted her hand toward strangers...

– It’s the Witch, run! The Witch!!! – A crusader yelled.

But it was too late. They all fell on earth and became silent. It was hard to say whether Esclarmonde killed them or only put them to sleep, but obviously it required a lot of her forces. She heavily sat down on the soft earth and smiled, giving the fugitives to understand that everything was all right with her.

– We have to go, venerable... – Svetozar whispered, stumbling. – If this is an ambush, they knew about us. We have to go, Lady Esclarmonde.

On hearing how bitterly he sounded her name, she lifted her eyes in surprise. And then she understood! It was extremely hard for Svetozar to pronounce this name, knowing that his Esclarmonde was still alive out there!

– Call me Rada, – she whispered. – This is my real name.

Svetozar thankfully nodded. He indeed tried to address her as little as possible to avoid pronouncing her name. Obviously, the pain from the loss of his wife clouded the reality, and it was too much for him to bear to call another woman by her name. Esclarmonde understood.

She felt forces beginning to appear in her as if from nowhere. Was it Magdalena? Esclarmonde often felt this marvellous woman around her. She felt how she helped her and taught her how to survive.

Usson castle central staircase. 2009

– How could it be that nobody has heard about her, Sever?! How could it be that people know nothing about her?! – I exclaimed. Sever sadly smiled.

– Why do you think they don’t know? They do know... only not who she truly was. You repeat the same questions, my friend. It is Earth... and its laws are still the same.

At last they got to the castle and could calmly sit down and take a deep breath... Emaciated to the limit, three of them fell thankfully into a deep sleep right where they were. Only Svetozar looked into the emptiness with blind eyes, certainly trying to talk with his Esclarmonde while still there was time... He could not forgive himself that he had left her and she would die alone... He tried to give her his forces... at least what had remained of them.

The master of the castle did his best not to disturb Svetozar respecting his pain and understanding the hopelessness of his situation. He helped the best way he could, but that was not in his power…

Finally the frightful morning came. People gathered in the main hall and kept silence. Everybody had somebody in Montsegur. And now the only thing they were left was to bid the last farewell. And even that they could only do from a distance...

Esclarmonde looked into the distance, trying to think of those who did not let her to share their wicked fate and stay with them... her beloved uncle... her aunt Corba... her cousins... her friends. She came to them so many times, invigorating them with her words of support. And now they all went to their death... without her...

Suddenly she roused herself and sharply darted out of the door. Nobody stopped her. Nobody even tried. Everybody went through their personal pain...

Esclarmonde could not just watch... She wished to fight! She was not able to simply stand aside, seeing her friends off to death! The girl ran, gulping the moist and cold air. She ran like lightning feeling no tiredness in her feet. Her faithful Warrior soul yelled, expelling her pain. She would take her vengeance!!! She would take as many of them as she could!

And she ran... and ran...and ran...

Over some time the Woman-warrior stood on a high mountain right in front of Montsegur at the level of the fire of the convicted....

The sun peeked out for a minute and lit up her thick fair hair, shrouding her fragile figure with a blazing halo. The woman stood motionless, as if expecting something. And now people began to shout in pain. At the same time the singing began. The monks sang! In that moment a howl was heard from the distant ranks of the besieging army. Yes, yes! It was exactly a howl! It was Esclarmonde’s revenge. Having no right to die (being responsible for the life of Vidomir), she could not reconcile herself to the loss so simply. She exterminated crusaders by her magic... by her real force with which old kind Gods endowed her... The Crusaders never understood the mysterious way in which more than a thousand of them "went to their eternal peace" in terrible agony that day...

And Esclarmonde, hardening in her grief, looked at the frightful human torches, swearing in her heart that she would avenge every single one... that she would not know peace until the last guilty one died...

At the same time in the castle of Usson Vidomir woke up surrounded by unknown people. This was how his complicated and long life began at the will of fate. There was always somebody who worried for him and guarded him... as if he was destined to survive by all means... to fulfill by any means possible that which was so persistently predetermined for him...

Sever fell silent, going somewhere very far away, into closed and inaccessible, to my heart, expanses. What did he see in his recollections? What did his Soul, exhausted by losses, grieve over?

We became silent, each thinking of his own things, until, deeply breathing, Sever at last came back into his ordinary soft "presence".

The surrounding world was the same, joyless and cold, and only Isidora’s light face, she having been through the pain of frightful losses, warmed us like the warm pure sun...

– Tell me, Sever, – Isidora could not help asking with hope, – Did the Seignors of Usson survive? Were they able to escape the claws of the "holy" Inquisition, even for a few years?

Magic Occitania again. Strange male and female «statues» waiting for those who will never come back

– Seignor Usson was not. He was burned, for helping the Cathars, on the central square of Perpignan several years after the fall of Montsegur. He never saw his Esclarmonde again... and she remained to live for many many years. She is alive now...

– Alive???... Now!!! But how many years has she lived?! What is she like Sever? – Stella was shocked.

We were just children then, but even children could be well terrified on hearing this kind of thing...

– Don’t be frightened! – Sever smiled. – It’s not as scary as it seems on the face of it. A lot of KNOWING ones went to the future at that time. They were called "Sleeping Kings" and many of them still sleep.

I never saw the Sleeping Kings or Queens, but recently I succeeded in communicating mentally with one of them, when my husband, Nicolai Levashov, restored his body after many years of "hibernation".

Now I know seventeen of these outstanding people. Some of them crossed the border of time alone and some came with the whole family, including children... Regrettably, in a few tens of thousands of years, somebody found them by chance and threw them into a landfill like used materials. It’s true that not all of them succeeded in lasting to the the moment when a Knowing one, just like them, could awaken him or her... People are cruel and pitiless... and Earth is still merciless. Who will want to hear that somebody slept for several tens of thousands of years in order to wake up one day with only the aim of helping others? Who will want to know that this is possible? And what incredible sums of money will the rich pay to sleep a few thousand years?

Esclarmonde was one of these amazing "sleeping" ones. Regrettably she was found by the wrong people... The church came across her by chance, searching for a completely different thing. On declaring the cave of Massabielle and the city of Lourdes "holy", the church still tries to understand what they really found.

– Tell me, Sever, can we help these people in anything?! – Isidora sadly asked.

– No, Isidora. It was their choice...

Those were the last lines that Svetlana wrote on November 7, 2010. Several days after, on November 13, 2010 she was murdered...

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