William, Peter and Raymond waited in the cemetery of Ax. It was a pitch-dark night in late summer 1311, and it was raining. They had been there for some time. The men had just begun to talk amongst themselves when the guide they had been waiting for arrived, leading a man. ‘Well, here he is’, she said, ‘– go! … but don't take the Bath road; go by the Old Town so that no-one will see you.’

Taking her advice, the trio left with their charge. They journeyed on into the night, sleeping when they could go no further beneath the trees of a mountainside wood. The following day they travelled on once more, arriving at Coustassa late in the evening. They were tired from the journey, but their new companion stayed up in the room he had been given by their host and was visited by around six of the locals. The travellers did not have much time to rest that night. After midnight, they rose once more and begun the final leg of their journey to Arques, where they arrived as dawn was breaking. Their two-day journey had covered around sixty miles.

The three men each had different reasons for participating in this strange quest. William Escaunier – who had begun his journey alone – had come to seek out their charge, the good man Prades Tavernier. Prades had been summoned to administer the consolamentum to William's mother, Gaillarde, who was nearing death.