Melisande de Pezenas is a bastard child of Raymond V, the current Count of Toulouse.  She followed him to the Holy Land during the last crusade and on her return, passed through Alexandria where she met a Bogomil trader who taught her about what she calls good Christianity.

She is a Perfect of the Cathars and wears a minimum of finery, doing nothing to improve her boyish physique.  She is 29 years old and perhaps looks older.  She makes her own clothes and cuts her own hair and she trades in cloth, travelling between Toulouse and Barcelona on a regular basis and to Marseille and beyond much less often.