Between Two Fires (9781101611616) (21 page)

St. Paul turned his stone head and looked squarely at Père Matthieu.
The priest felt an icy finger in his heart, and then his head exploded in pain as St. Paul assaulted him with a wordless shout:

DO YOU LIKE THIS BUGGER PRIEST WE DID THIS FOR YOU YOU FILTHY BUGGER SODOMITE DRUNK WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE FOOLING WOULD YOU LIKE TO CLIMB UP HERE WITH ME AND HOIST THOSE ROBES HOC EST ENIM VERGUM MEUM

The priest let drop the reins and put his hands over his ears, but it didn’t help. At the same time, a statue of St. Martin pointed his sword at Thomas and split his head with:

COWARD HAVE YOU RAPED THE GIRL YET BECAUSE YOU WILL WE WILL MAKE YOU RAPE HER IN THE ASS BUT NOT THE CUNT BECAUSE SHE WILL BE A VIRGIN WHEN YOU CUT HER THROAT FOR YOUR MASTER AND YOU KNOW WHO THAT IS DON’T YOU

St. Anne crouched as though she might leap at the girl and thought-screamed into her head:

EVERYONE YOU LOVE WILL DIE THIS PRIEST AND THIS KNIGHT BOTH OF THEM WILL DIE BECAUSE OF YOU WE WILL KILL THEM WE DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE BUT WE WILL FIND OUT EVEN IF WE HAVE TO CUT YOU OPEN AND THAT TOY WON’T HELP YOU

The cart wandered unguided as the three of them writhed under the words hurled at them. Then, beyond the buildings to the east and behind the clouds, the sun rose unseen and the voices stopped. The priest collapsed against the good weight of the knight and did something like sleeping.

Delphine, who had begun to feel nauseated and had a pain in her lower belly, comforted herself by leaning forward to stroke the priest’s hair.

Thomas took his chain mail gloves off his shaking hands and took up the reins.

The only sounds as they left the Latin Quarter were the clop of the mule’s hooves and, somewhere, the barking of a dog.

THIRTEEN

The rain started almost as soon as they went out the Port St. Bernard and left Paris behind, the girl thinking of the tale of Lot’s wife, telling herself not to look back at the dying city and then doing it anyway. A column of smoke above Paris bade them farewell, as another column of smoke had once greeted them; this one, however, was in the city, where the fire at the woodcarver’s would burn his whole block, sending the healthy into the streets, consuming the sick and the dead. The drops of cold rain that fell on Delphine’s face were the vanguard of the deluge that would save the Left Bank from burning but flood the marshy land on the Right Bank all the way to the Place de Grèves. Bells tolled in the Latin Quarter; there were enough hands, at least, to pull a rope or two. Delphine tried to picture the people ringing those bells; a lone Dominican monk or a paid ringer for the convent; another priest like Père Matthieu, too scared to minister to his flock but trying to save what was left of his soul by warning them about fire. Or were the dead ringing their own bells? If statues could walk, why not them? She felt more tears coming for Annette, and also for herself; when would
she feel a woman’s love again? Had Annette died because Delphine had wanted to stay with her? The words of the wicked statues rang in her head again, and she looked at the men in the front of the cart.

Please don’t let them die because of me, God.

And now the rain fell, and fell, and fell.

On the third day of it, and their second day without food, the priest saw a stone barn and a cottage and hoped they would be deserted. What had things come to when a man of God wished misfortune on a family because he coveted their roof?

The door to the cottage was open, but they made for the barn, as they would have more room for the mule, and none of them were in the mood to find bodies.

The barn was not deserted.

The priest walked in first and found a naked man on all fours, stuffing hay into his mouth. An abundance of hay and grasses were knotted into his white beard and hair. His ribs were showing, and he was grimed over and wet, whether with rain or the sweat of some fever was unclear. His eyes were wild, though. And he was not frail. He picked up a rusty scythe with a broken shaft from a pile of farming tools and started toward the priest.

Good God, he means to eat me.

Then Thomas and Delphine walked in, Thomas with his sword unsheathed, and the man bolted out the other door, falling when the edge of the scythe clipped the door frame and slipped from his hand, but scampering to his feet again almost instantly. He ran straight across the puddled field and kept running, his bare feet kicking up water all the way, disappearing not in the direction of the house, but toward the tree line past the field.

Thomas broke the silence that followed by saying, “So that’s what the reaper looks like without his robes.”

The priest laughed after a pause, but the girl just blinked rain out of her eyes and looked at them for an explanation.

“Death, girl. Death,” said the priest.

Now she laughed, too, and the sound of it was good in the barn.

*  *  *

They built a fire and took off as many of their clothes as decency allowed, hanging these on sticks to dry. When they had, they changed out of their underlinens and then hung them, putting the cozy, dry ones back on, glad for once not to be cold and soaked. The weather had changed, and where the days had been warm and the nights cool, now the days were cool and the nights cold. They agreed to stay in the barn until morning, then scout the fields for fruit or nut trees, or whatever they could find. In the meantime, they set out their cups and bowls, as well as Thomas’s helmet and thigh armor, to catch enough water to keep their bellies full, which somewhat eased the pain of their hunger.

“I wish we had music,” the priest said, poking at the glowing logs with the broken end of the scythe he was nearly killed with.

“I don’t. You might be tempted to sing,” Thomas said, inspecting his leg where the thing had hit him with her scepter. He suspected the bone of the shin was chipped; a truly ugly bruise had formed, and the flesh around his ankle was swollen and bruised as well. The damned thing had gotten him right where the horse had broken his leg at Crécy.

“Perhaps the girl will sing,” the priest said.

“I don’t feel like it,” she said in a nasal little mew. She was getting sick. She had no fever, but she sniffled and complained of an ache near her hips. She had been in enough cold and wet that neither man suspected her of plague. “But what kind of music would you like to hear if you could choose?” she asked Père Matthieu.

“Oh. A lute. Most certainly a lute. And you, sir knight?”

“A lute? That’s court music. That’s for troubadours to make wives spread their legs when their husbands are at war.”

“I find it very pretty. If the player is skillful. It takes more training to master the lute, don’t you agree?”

“Than what?”

“A drum, for example. Or a cornemuse.”

“That’s what I’d like to hear. A drum and a cornemuse.”

“Soldiers’ music. That’s for making husbands leave their wives behind for troubadours.”

“Ha!”

As night came on, they fell to telling stories to pass the time.

The priest began, telling the story of a knight who was actually a werewolf, but a very considerate one who removed himself into the forest to change his skin. His wife, however, betrayed him by hiding his clothes so he could not change back; in this way, her husband was thought to have disappeared and she was able to marry her lover.

“Go on,” Thomas said. “Finish it.”

“It is finished.”

“The hell it is.”

“Is it not?”

“No, it is not. You only told half of it.”

“It’s all I know.”

“What the hell kind of story is that? The adulterous wife wins out? The noble werewolf is deceived and banished?”

“Forgive me if I gave offense. Perhaps you should tell one now to instruct me in how these things are properly done.”

“Imagine it’s a sermon. A good story has a lesson. What’s the lesson here? Whores triumph?”

“I don’t know,” the priest said, fidgeting. “Maybe. Something about the deceiving nature of woman.”

Thomas stared intently at the priest in the firelight, and it was difficult for him to tell whether Thomas was being jocular or actually growing angry.

“That explains it, then,” he said. “They tell priests stories about how bad women are so they won’t fuck them.”

“It’s hardly working. I’m the only priest I know without an acknowledged mistress in his village.”

Now Thomas laughed and the priest relaxed.

“I know how the story ends,” the girl said.

“Oh?”

“Father used to tell it.”

“Well, let’s hear it,” said Thomas.

“The knight went into the woods as a beast,” Delphine said, and here she made the sound of a beast. “And one day the king and his hunting party found him. They were about to slay him, but then the big wolf bowed to the king.”

“I like it better already,” Thomas said, nudging the priest.

“Now the king decided to make a pet of him, and he took him home to the castle. Everyone came to marvel at the beast, who was so tame and courtly. Until one day the wife and the knight came…wait, I forgot something.”

“Are you sure you know this story?” the priest said, but Thomas nudged him again, a bit harder.

“Yes,” she said gravely, looking at Père Matthieu until he held his palms up in acquiescence. She sneezed, and started again.

“When the king found the beast, the knight who had married his wife was there, and the beast growled at him.”

She growled and gnashed her teeth, causing both men to laugh.

“They wanted to kill it, and that’s when it went up and licked the king’s hand. So, now we are back at the castle. And when the wife and the bad knight come in, the beast bites her nose…”

Delphine trailed off and the priest knew what she was beginning to remember, so he clapped his hands twice, startling her.

“The story, the story,” he said. She nodded and blinked her tears away, wiping at them with her sleeve and snuffling.

“It bites her. He bites her. The knight.”

“Yes, I think we have it.”

“And they want to kill it again, but the king’s wise counselor says not to.”

“Where do they find these wise counselors in stories?” Thomas said, “for I’ve never met a king who let one speak.”

“So they make the wife tell them why it bit her.”

“I definitely like this version better. Whore wife bitten and tortured,” Thomas said.

“And the king commands the bad knight to bring the good knight’s clothes. Wait…he’s wearing them. So he just takes them off.”

“Now he’s naked.”

“I guess so. Yes.”

“Is it cold in this castle?”

“Of course,” she said, very seriously. “All castles are cold.”

“Exactly how many castles have you been in?”

“I haven’t been in boats, but I know they have sails.”

“Ha! There’s your lawyer father. I knew he’d come visit.”

She sighed sharply in exasperation.

“Do you want to hear this?” she said.

“So we have a shivering knight with a shrinking
bitte
.”

Both of them looked reproachfully at Thomas.

“Do you want me to finish? Because I can’t when you keep interrupting me to show how clever you are.”

“Ooooooh,” Thomas said. “I stand rebuked. So the naked knight.”

“They give him a robe.”

“So the knight with the robe.”

“The knight is not important now.”

“So the unimportant knight.”

Delphine got up and walked away, folding her arms. Both men, giggling like boys at her irritation, now implored her to come back.

“Sweet Delphine, tell us the story!”

“Don’t take on so! The story, the story!”

At length she took her place again but pointed her small finger at Thomas. He put his hand over his mouth.

“So the king laid out the clothes for the beast, but it just sniffed them and sat down.”

Thomas removed his hand and said, “Did it…?” but she cut him off with a “Ssst!” and pointed her finger again. He replaced his hand.

“The wise counselor said that the knight was ashamed to change in front of them. So they put the beast in a bedroom with the clothes. He went in on four legs and came out on two.”

They both looked at her expectantly.