Glen Craney: At first, I was stymied. I couldn’t make a connection between the Roman pontiffs and the mountain priestess. Then I stumbled upon a reference to a double cross with two traverse beams, the lower being longer than the one above it. It was called the Cross of Lorraine because it was carried by Godfrey of Lorraine, the leader of the Christian forces in the First Crusade. That’s when my research really turned interesting. The Lorraine cross was adopted by the French resistance in its fight for freedom against the Nazis. Today, the double cross can be seen painted on rocks and walls in southwestern France as one of the symbols for Occitan independence.

So, the double and triple crosses suggested to you some connection between Rome and the Occitan fight for freedom?

Glen Craney: Several months after the dream, I met Dr. Norma Lorre Goodrich, the now-deceased scholar of ancient religion and myth at Claremont College. In her book, The Holy Grail, she had identified the triple cross as a medieval watermark known as the “Catharist Cross” or the "Cross of Light." The Cathars, I learned, despised the Roman cross of the crucifixion as a symbol of torture, and this Cross of Light seemed to have no connection to the Roman cross. I traveled to southern France and walked the pog called Montsegur. The terrain there looked strikingly similar to the mountain in my dream. I also learned that the Cathars meditated to connect to a spiritual Light. And “Esclarmonde”—the name of my heroine—meant “Light of the World.” My dream began to make more sense.

Glen Craney: As far-fetched as it sounds, the story found me. One night, I awoke from a vivid dream of a robed priestess walking atop a mountain strewn with the ruins of a castle. The word “Crusade” kept repeating in my ear and crosses began sprouting around the priestess’s feet as if to indicate the location of graves. But these were no ordinary crosses; they shifted between having two and three horizontal beams. The priestess, surrounded by dazzling sunlight, walked toward me with beckoning arms and said, “Peace, child, let the Light.” The dream ended with the word “Mallorca” flashing below the scene.

The dream must have had quite an effect on you.

Glen Craney: I suspect such inexplicable inspirations happen to more writers than care to admit it. The next morning, I hurried to the library and discovered that the medieval papacy had adopted the triple cross as its insignia for reasons still shrouded in mystery. Perhaps it had to do with the Trinity, but I came across an estoric work called Meditations on the Tarot that said the triple cross symbolized respiration between the angelic and earthly realms. One who carries it is deemed the gatekeeper of spiritual ascent and descent.