A Mortal Glamour (17 page)

On the farthest ladder, Seur Catant struggled with the largest of the enormous pots. The hoist, usually employed to aid the harvest of fruit in the orchard, wobbled precariously as raised the cauldron up a few more precious inches. “Seur Victoire,” she called down hoarsely, “more. I need more!"

"They aren't ready yet,” Seur Victoire answered. “Mère Léonie has...” She tried to explain, but she could not pull the ropes and talk at the same time. There were rope burns on her palms already and this effort distressed her.

"I fear they may try to come in through the stables, once the fire has caught hold,” Mère Léonie said with formidable presence of mind while she strove to stoke the fires with the scraps of wood taken from the orchard. “We will have to prepare for that.” There was an ugly bruise spreading beneath her injured brow, and the lid was swollen enough to droop badly, giving the Superior a raffish look.

"Oh, no!” Seur Lucille objected. “We haven't enough to keep us...” She clapped her hands. “I need more water. Seur Morgance, fetch it!"

"At once,” Seur Morgance said cheerfully, and though her blighted joints were twisted and painful, she hobbled to the well and began to draw up more buckets. “It will take time!"

"Hurry!” was the answer from Mère Léonie.

Another volley of rocks landed in the courtyard, one of them striking Seur Lucille in the back, so that she staggered forward. The hem of her habit brushed the flames, and in the next instant had started to smolder.

"Someone!” Mère Léonie ordered, pointing to Seur Lucille, who gazed in stupefaction at the fire. “Overturn the cauldron!"

One of the younger nuns rushed to do as instructed, and the largest of the vats, near boiling, was upset on Seur Lucille, who shrieked once in all-consuming pain and then fell unconscious in the steaming water.

The fire hissed, sputtered and started to go out.

"More wood!” Mère Léonie shouted, and this time she caught the attention of the nuns on the ladders. Seur Philomine, seeing the chaos below her, almost decided to climb down to aid the others, but she saw that the attackers were aware that something had gone amiss and were pressing their assault. Resolutely, she hung on, waiting for more hot water.

Seur Elvire, recovering herself, reached to keep the wood fueling the flames under the cauldron. She wanted to get away from the courtyard, from the burning smell and the distress and the constant reminder that hideous agony awaited her if the Flagellants should break through the door.

"A few of them have gone around to the hospice door!” Seur Fanchon shouted, bursting in from the hospice. “They have already broken one of the window-boards with their whips! They will climb in!"

Mère Léonie signaled to Seur Elvire. “Leave her. Go to the chapel and tell the nuns there that we need more than their prayers now. Tell them to get knives from the kitchen and anything else that they can use. Ladles, forks, anything that might hurt them."

Seur Elvire gave a garbled answer and fled, unable to bear the sight of Seur Lucille any longer. She had tried to pull back her habit to see how badly the nun was burned and had found patches of skin clinging to the fabric. “At once!” she sobbed, and slammed the inner door as she got through it.

"Seur Catant! What do you see?” Mère Léonie shouted up at her. “How many of them are there now?"

"More,” Seur Catant replied in despair. “There is another company, just approaching from the road, about the same number—between forty and fifty. I don't know what we may...” She stopped to cross herself and to signal for another pot of water. “As much as you have, even if it's a little."

"How many of them are still fighting, of the first lot?” Mère Léonie asked, giving no sign that this new information distressed her.

"Most of them, though some of them are badly burned. They don't ... care,” Seur Catant remarked, taking a moment to master the dread that revelation gave her. “You would think that they have nothing more to do but to stay here and die, so long as we are killed."

"That is the Devil, who cares nothing for their lives, or ours. God cares for our lives,” Père Guibert cried out as he heard this. He had been tending to one of the nuns whose arm had been broken by one of the rocks heaved over the wall. Now he felt himself spurred to action. “They are all that God is against. Dispatch them to the last, and la Virge and le Bon Dieu will sing your praises on high!"

The nuns nearest him turned toward him in surprise, as if they had forgotten he was with them at all. One or two of them crossed themselves and returned to their work, but Seur Tiennette, laboring to fill another enormous pot, glared at him. “You are not in chapel now, mon Père, and we need more than your assurances to give us strength. Rather than tell us of God's love, bring your arms over here and help fill this pot!"

At any other time, Père Guibert would have been affronted, but now he did not say a word against her. “If you will forgive me,” he excused himself from the injured nun and went to do as Seur Tiennette bade him.

Night was coming on, and it was increasingly difficult to see clearly in the courtyard. The fire, rekindling, cast wavering shadows along the walls but provided little steady light. Seur Lucille, dragged away from the fire to rest against the most protected wall, was scarcely more than a mound in darkness now that the long shadows fell over her.

"I will need someone to keep guard,” Mère Léonie announced. “And someone must tend to the stables. Seur Philomine! Come down from there. Another will take your place. Go to the stables and stop the fires. Seur Catant! Come down. Another will take your place. Go into the hospice and help them there!” Her light-blue eyes were hot as little sparks, and she went decisively from one ladder to another. “Quickly!"

The women moved to obey her, but she did not linger. “Mère Léonie,” Seur Catant began, and was waved away. “I do not want to die."

"Nor shall you,” Mère Léonie promised her. “Not here, not for these deluded men.” She hurried into the hall and went to the chapel. She had not been told how dreadful her face had become since the whip cut her, and so when the nuns saw her and once of them shrieked, she was perturbed by the reaction. “Come, my Sisters. Do not be cast down, not now. Darkness is coming, and we are the ones with the torches and lamps. I want all of them to shine brightly in our courtyard, so that we may fight on while the heretics wear themselves to tatters in the night."

Seur Aungelique was the first who moved. “What are we to do?"

"I want you on a ladder, ma Seur, pouring water on the men. I want you to burn all of them that come near. Seur Marguerite, I want you to help Père Guibert, who is too busy to tend to those of us who have been hurt. You see, none of us can expect to come through this ... unscathed.” She touched the flesh near her eye. “Seur Lucille has fared worst of all. She is in the greatest ... need. She must be given spirits for now, and later, it will be for us to tend her with medicament and prayers so that she may once again be ... whole.” The Superior paced toward the altar. “Those heretics thought that we would fall, as the church in Saunt-Vitre did, without opposition; they are not prepared to wait for their victory. That is an advantage for us, and every one of you must seize it. Our Lord has sent us this respite so that we may have a sweeter triumph in His Name when we are delivered from their hands."

"Ma Mère,” Seur Marguerite spoke up. “How have our Sisters come to be hurt at all, when we fight for the Glory of God? They are not true injuries in their flesh, are they? The Devil sends lies to us, to make us think that some are dead when they are not. If the wounds are suffered for God, how can such wounds give pain? If the death is the bosom of the Lord, it is not death at all, or so Our Lord has said. No one is dead, but waiting. Isn't that so?"

"So we are taught, Seur. You may do all that you can to remember that when you keep the nightwatches with your Sisters.” Mère Léonie stopped in front of the altar and swung around to address her nuns. “Each of you must set aside her fears and commend your souls and bodies to the Will of God."

"But how?” Seur Ranegonde wailed. Her head was throbbing already, and she knew that the weakness that was slowly claiming her would not let up its grip in exchange for a prayer or two.

"Through faith, ma Seur,” Mère Léonie reminded her. “You cannot falter now, for it is now all that you have to keep you from worse than the sickness that you endure so nobly."

"Anything to get them to fight, ma Mère?” Seur Aungelique taunted her. “Where is this ladder you want me to climb?” She sauntered up to Mère Léonie and smiled at her. “Show me. I will climb for you. Perhaps I will jump off it."

"If you wish to throw yourself to those monsters outside the walls, you may do it and know that you have given yourself to the Devil.” Mère Léonie became more stern with each word.

"The Devil is welcome to me, then, if he frees me,” Seur Aungelique mocked, but left the chapel more quickly than the others.

Père Guibert found Seur Catant huddled near Seur Lucille, her eyes staring hard at the flagging where the firelight was reflected in pools of standing water. “Ma Fille,” he said, attempting to discover what was wrong with her. He had found many of the nuns had been wounded without realizing the extent of their injuries, and it had impressed and repelled him to see them carry on their battle while flesh was swollen and blood ran.

"Stay back,” she warned him. “There are Devils in the land. They seek us. They find us."

One of the planks of the heavy door had broken near the top when an especially heavy rock had struck it a glancing blow, and now splintered wood lay all over the courtyard. Père Guibert brushed it away without thinking and knelt beside the terrified nun. “Come, Seur Catant. We will pray together and then God will give you the strength to go on in His Name."

"And what if the Devil comes instead? What if God does not hear, or does not answer in time? It is the Devil outside. He is nearer, and nothing can change that. We are not saved, no matter what we do."

"Then beg la Virge Saunt Marie to come to your rescue and pardon your sins, so that you may come innocent to God.” He heard another rock crash through the gaping hole in the door, taking more of the wood with it and causing several of the nuns to cry out in anger and despair. “You cannot remain here, ma Fille. It is too dangerous."

"But Seur Lucille is here. She is the oldest of us all, and she is a good Sister. Her burns are—Someone ought to be with her. Someone must take care of her. The wounds ... she is not able to—Someone has to watch over her.” She explained this with exaggerated precision, as if there had been an argument and she was eager to set her position out as clearly as possible. “I have to guard her. She is without any other protection. You see that."

Père Guibert did not attempt to contradict her. “Come into the chapel, ma Fille, and someone will attend to you there.” He strove to get the nun to her feet, but failed.

"I cannot leave her.” Seur Catant was weeping now. “It is as if she is dead."

"No, no, ma Fille,” Père Guibert said quickly. “She is alive. She breathes. Listen to her. You have to get yourself to safety. Then others will tend Seur Lucille.” He could think of nothing else to say. “Mère Léonie has ordered it."

Seur Catant sneered. “She is the one who brought us to this. She is the one who has lured the Devil here, and if she were not here, we would be living in peace, as God intended."

"But Seur Catant...” Père Guibert protested, trying to distract her from this tirade and to get her attention once again.

"She is the Devil, or his servant. She came to us to lead us into sin and bring ruin to the convent. She is ... she is vile and filled with wickedness."

"It is your Superior you call vile,” Père Guibert said shortly, and all but dragged Seur Catant away from Seur Lucille.

She made little resistance, but her very listlessness, coming so quickly on her ire, troubled Père Guibert, who could think of no reason that Seur Catant should make such accusations, but that she herself was the victim of the Devil. “And small wonder,” he said aloud as the next volley of stones struck the door.

"Come, Seur Catant,” Père Guibert said as he urged her on toward the corridor that would protect her until she could gather her wits.

"We are marked, that is what has happened. God has given us the Devil, as He has given so many before. We will be in his power and nothing will deliver us from that complete damnation, but the Last Judgment.” She made a strangled sob and permitted Père Guibert to leave her in the corridor where, once again, she sank down and huddled against the wall.

Since the upper part of the courtyard doors had started to splinter and break, few of the Flagellants had come around to the stables, and Seur Philomine worked as quickly as she could to release those animals that had not been too badly hurt. “There, there,” she said to one of the ewes that crouched, petrified with terror, in the far side of the sheepfold. “Come, pretty thing. I will get you out.” She sank her hands into the soft, curling wool and tugged, prodding the sheep with the toe of her wooden shoe as she did. The ewe bleated, then bolted for the gate, leading the last of the sheep out of the stable. All that remained now that she could reach were two donkeys, and they were in the farthest pen. They had stopped their braying when the battle began, as if too frightened to make a sound. They milled together, walking restlessly, their long ears laid flat back when they were not swiveling to catch the sounds of the battle or the crackle of fire. Seur Philomine knew that it was not safe to approach them directly, for they might lash out with their hooves and teeth; a sharp blow from a donkey's hoof could dash out her brains.

The fire was spreading in a slow, sullen way, eating its way through the wood and straw Seur Philomine had soaked with water when she first came into the stables. There was more smoke, and it grew thicker with each passing instant.

"Calmly, calmly,” Seur Philomine said as she tried to think of a way to get the donkeys out of the stable. Her eyes stung and her throat was sore; she coughed when she moved too quickly.