Between Two Fires (9781101611616) (19 page)

“You met this horse?”

“He was described to me, as I have described him to you, as it was described to him that sold it to me, and on backward to antiquity. Ride with this in your saddlebag, sir knight, and your horse will never
stumble in a river, nor throw a shoe save within thirty yards of a farrier. Also, you will never lose your way again, for Saint Christopher himself will lead your horse by the nose, even to the tavern door.”

Delphine had stood rapt throughout this pitch, but now the priest spoke up.

“Your stories are very pretty, but surely you see that only the child believes them. Good day to you.”

Thomas had already turned his back to walk away, and the priest now reached for Delphine’s hand. She withdrew it before he touched her and wove her limbs through the spokes of the cart’s wheel, looking at the priest like some feral St. Catherine.

“Let’s go, child,” the priest said.

“No!” she all but howled, and gripped the spokes tighter. “This is why we’re here! It’s here!”

“Nothing is here, girl, but old tools and donkey bones. I know this man’s sort. Now let’s go.”

“Perhaps you seek the vintner,” the pale little man said, his very green eyes twinkling significantly at Père Matthieu.

“What did you say?” asked the priest.

“There’s a vintner selling good wine from Auxerre just four stalls up the street. You want wine so badly you’re gray from it. Your upper lip is sweating.”

Thomas turned around now.

The priest opened his mouth to speak but closed it again because he had nothing to say. This man had seen right through him.

“You seem lost, brother. Perhaps you need something to point the way for you. Perhaps something very dear.”

“Like what?” Thomas said.

“Something others think they have in holy shrines, but which is in this humble cart. In my keeping. The only one that’s real.”

“What,” Thomas said, “the milk of the Virgin? The cocks of the magi?”

“Better.”

“Gabriel’s turd? God’s piss pot?”

“Oh, much better.”

So saying, he scrambled into his cart and tugged out a box of cedar with Greek letters on it. He passed his hands over it several times like a magician, then opened it to reveal a leaf-shaped shining spearhead worked with ivory, and also lettered in Greek.

“You’re not saying…” the priest said.

“I am.”

“Why is it inscribed in Greek when a Roman soldier pierced Our Lord with it?”

“It went to Alexandria for a time. Oliphants from the Afric continent gave their tusks for it.”

“Why should I think this greatest of all relics should be in the care of, forgive me, a man of such…”

“Poverty?” the little man suggested as the priest gestured impotently in search of an inoffensive word. “Humble means?”

“Something like that.”

Delphine spoke up from her wheel now, saying, “Did not Our Lord go humbly in His time? In sandals or on a donkey?”

“The child is wise,” said the relic seller. “Heavenly treasures and earthly ones are not the same.”

“It does look…quite credible,” said the priest.

“Do you hear your own words?” said Thomas, stepping closer. “This is no more the holy spear than this man is Christ’s wet nurse. He has bewitched you! Both of you. Let’s go.”

“Yes, perhaps you should go,” the relic seller said, shutting the box with a loud snap and fastening the latch. He looked anxiously past the priest and hastily began to pack his goods away. Thomas saw why, and then the priest turned and saw as well. A group of agitated men was bearing down on them, pointing at the relic seller.

One of them said the word “Jew.”

The
sergent
who had been arguing with the monkey seller was now being pushed along by the crowd, who seemed intent on making him do some duty or other regarding the little man and his cart.

“We have to get out of here,” Thomas said. “Now.”

The priest nodded, sweating now from more than want of wine, and tugged gently at the girl, who shook her head stubbornly and kept a tight grip on the wheel, shutting her eyes against the approaching group. She was frightened, too.

Thomas wasn’t having any. He shoved the priest out of the way and unwound her limbs from the wheel even though his grip hurt her and made her cry out.

“Goddamn it, you’ll come with me if I have to pull the whoring wheel off with you,” he said, and soon had her over his shoulder even though she cried and slapped at him. The priest had already gotten clear, and now Thomas stepped out of the way as the small mob reached the cart.

The relic seller had packed away his things, if sloppily, and was now pulling at the spars of the cart to get it going. Three or four men stepped in front of him, one of them bearing a table leg as a club. He tried to ignore them and move past them, but one of them put his hand on the man’s face and pushed him down. It wasn’t very hard to do.

A paunchy, middle-aged fellow with a beakish nose and ginger hair took off his straw hat and faced the
sergent
.

“I am Pierre Auteuil, pardoner, and I am the licensed seller of relics in this quarter. On my oath, I affirm that this man is a known Jew. And by royal decree, there are to be no Jews in the city of Paris.”

“I know him to be a Jew as well,” shouted an old fellow. “I have seen him at the Hot Fair in Troyes.”

The
sergent
, who saw far less harm in the little man than he had in the sick monkey, sighed and said, “How do you know this? He wears no yellow circle.”

“He was pointed out to me!”

“That’s no proof.”

“Ask him, then,” one said.

“Yes, ask him his name,” said another.

“What is your name?” said the
sergent
, not unkindly.

The perhaps-Jew said nothing.

“Tell me your name,” said the
sergent
, beginning to shed his benevolence.

The man said simply, “I am a Christian.”

Now the woodcarver and his wife had found Thomas, the priest, and the girl. They all stood transfixed by the scene developing on the rue Mont-Fetard, as did a number of others, many of whom forgot the danger of the plague and stood near one another to see.

“Christians have names,” said the
sergent
. “What is yours?”

“Look at his cock,” one said.

Now two fellows bulled to the front of the crowd and grabbed the man’s arms. The pardoner yanked his trousers and underthings down and pointed at his foreskinless member.

“Stop,” Delphine yelled, and was ignored.

“What more proof do we need?” said the pardoner.

“I’m a convert,” pleaded the man, and he began to say a
Pater Noster
but was shoved again to the ground. Now several kicks were aimed at him, but the
sergent
and his man interposed themselves.

“This will be done right, if it’s to be done. We’ll pillory him and I’ll send to the abbot to find out what he wants done with him.”

So saying, the lawman helped him up, pulled his pants up, and took him away, directing his man to stand guard over the cart. The crowd followed behind the Jew to where a pair of pillories stood in a little square. A spice merchant who had adulterated precious sacks of peppercorns with pellets of soot and clay stood bent over in one set, with his hands and head in the stocks and a brick on a rope around his neck. The Jew was put in the other, and a lock secured through a hasp.

And there he stayed.

Delphine seemed distracted all through dinner. She chewed birdy little bites of Annette’s roast pork and kept cutting her eyes toward the door.

“What has you, child?” the woodcarver’s wife said.

“What will they do with the Jew?”

“If he’s lucky, flog him out of the city. If he’s unlucky, hang him,” Jehan said.

Thomas ate wolfishly. The priest shared out his wine to the others, holding the bottle patiently while the last three drops fell into Jehan’s wooden cup.

“That is,” Jehan went on, “if they don’t leave him out all night. God help him if they do.” He crossed himself and pulled off a piece of the bread trencher he had been eating from, thumbing a stringy bit of pork on top of it and tucking it into his mouth.

Delphine looked at the door.

“Don’t even think about it,” Thomas said, even as she sprang out of her seat faster than seemed possible. Her little white hand was on the bolt and drawing it as Thomas shoved back the bench he shared with the priest so he could stand, spilling Père Matthieu, who, falling backward onto the packed dirt floor, held his cup of wine straight up and managed to save most of it.

The girl ran barefoot, her pattens and hose left in Annette’s room, and Thomas followed behind her, yelling “Stay here!” to the rest of them. His armor was off, piled in the corner of the workshop, so he was almost light enough in his gambeson to catch her at a sprint. Almost. His fingers wisped through her bouncing hair, of which he would have grabbed a fistful to stop her, but then he began to lose speed and the gap between them grew. He growled and huffed a string of oaths behind her, causing her to call back at him, “You shouldn’t swear like that.”

The streets were stiller and emptier than before as they made their way to the market in the twilight; no rats ran now, and not even a dog’s bark competed with the sound of Thomas’s panting. At length he slowed his run to a loping walk; the girl, who had been peeking back at him at intervals, slowed to a walk as well. Even winded and angry, it occurred to him to be glad for the boots that saved him from feeling the filth of the Parisian muck between his toes, as she doubtless was.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“To help the Jew,” she said, peeking again to make sure he hadn’t started running.

The light was failing, throwing the streets between the close buildings into yet more profound darkness.

“Help yourself. Something bad goes on here at night.”

“Go back if you’re scared.”

“Scared?”

“You heard me.”

“I should damned well turn around and let you go.”

“Maybe you should.”

He didn’t.

They kept on all the way to the rue Mont-Fetard, the small girl before, and the large man behind, even as the last of the shutters of the living closed on the sight of them.

Thomas never noticed the smell of juniper riding over the baser scents of the gutter.

“I know you,” the Jew said as he regarded the small girl before him. The pillories stood deserted in the square, not far from the relic cart, which had been completely picked over. The guard had stayed with it until as near dark as he dared, with no word back from the abbot and no orders from the
sergent
, and by the time he left for his house, nobody wanted to be burdened with the weight of the cart, which was heavier empty than it should have been full.

“How do you know me? From today?” she said.

“No.”

“Then how?”

“I just do.”

The spice seller was oblivious to her, tossing his head horsily against the pain of the hanging brick, until he felt its weight being lifted. She threw the brick into the muck past the platform. He opened his moist eyes and looked at her, saying, “You’re not supposed to do that.”

“I don’t care.”

Now the Jew called her over, saying, “Girl. Look at me. In the eyes.”

She did.

“Is it time?” he said.

She wasn’t sure why she said it, but she said, “Not yet,” and the Jew nodded, closing his eyes. He looked very old just then, and very tired.

Thomas arrived.

He was so nonplussed at how calmly she was standing there, talking to the men bent over in the stocks, that he did not scoop her over his shoulder or drag her by the arm, having weighed the merits of both actions as he stomped behind her. It was almost fully dark.

“Well, little witch, what now?”

“Will you break their locks?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I haven’t got a hammer.”

She looked sad.

Several streets away, the sound of knocking came.

“Get her home,” the Jew said. “Now.”

“Break my lock. Please,” whimpered the spice seller.

Thomas reached for her, but she moved away from him, and he only grabbed the back of her shirt, which ripped, and the ribbon around her neck, which broke. The key that had been at the end of it fell onto the wooden platform with a
tink
. She bent to grab it as Thomas grabbed her hips.

He hoisted her up as she held the key in her small fist, arching her body toward the locked hasp that held the Jew.

“No!” she yelled, “Let me try it!”

“Get her home!”

Something knocked, closer now.

“Please…” said the spice seller.

“Please,” said the girl, more softly.

“Goddamn it,” Thomas said, setting her down and taking the key from her. He was about to pitch it in the muck.

“Please,
sire
.
Sir
Thomas,” she whispered.

He spat, then shoved the key into the lock, “See? It doesn’t whoring fit!”

But it did.

He turned it.

The lock opened and the Jew stood up.

A man no more than two streets away yelled, “Let go! Let me go!”

“PLEASE!” shrieked the spice seller.

The girl took the key from Thomas, who didn’t try to keep it from her, and opened the other pillory. The dishonest merchant jerked straight and ran, tripping over the brick that had been around his neck and twisting his ankle. He limped off in the direction opposite the man’s scream, but faraway knocking came from that way, too. The night seemed to swallow him completely.

The Jew said, “You wanted something?”

“Yes,” she said. “But they got it…your cart.”

“They got the one I showed you. Not this one.”

He pulled a hemp rope from around his neck, dangling at its end a hinged wooden tube that came out of his shirt. It was about the size of a short flute case. He gave it to her. She kissed him.

Thomas hefted her and ran, even as she put the rope around her neck.

“When?” the Jew called after her.

But she did not answer.

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