Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

The group continued on, the ailing monkey locking eyes with the priest and staring at him with disturbing intelligence.

Now the chants of food sellers came to them; hazelnuts, apples, pork pies in crusts. One stall was wild with hanging game, some of it none too fresh; the hunter, sweating in a hat made from no less than three foxes, was using a leafy branch to swat flies away from a deflated-looking rabbit.

“Wolf pelts!” he barked at them, now gesturing at an impressive stack of hides. “Winter isn’t so far away, you know. You’ll want good furs for the little girl.” The priest politely waved away the man’s solicitation, provoking something very like a silent snarl from him.

Next were the fishmongers, their carp and sturgeons and black bass laid out on wet straw, the sellers stinking of the river, wearing aprons brown with blood and glittering with scales. Thomas went to a large carp, but Jehan pulled him away.

“Not this stall,” he whispered. “They have a stall on the Right Bank as well, and whatever doesn’t sell there comes here. They redden them with pig’s blood.”

“Let the man look!” the fishmonger hissed.

Jehan made the sound of a pig snuffling.

“That’s a lie!” the man said.

“Since when is an oink a lie?”

“Leave it,” Annette said, as the fishmonger wiped a rusty filleting knife with his apron. A look from Thomas made him put it down.

The other fish stall was ropy with eels, and neither Thomas, the priest, nor the girl wanted any part of it. The butchers were next, and there were a good many cuts of meat to be had, though the prices were ruinously high. Annette debated with Jehan about a shoulder of pork, which he haggled for and got. Soon she found a bag of onions, leeks, and garlic. Then two fistfuls of hazelnuts; Annette was happier than she had been in many weeks, and she was going to cook a proper meal for their guests.

Thomas cheerfully munched a black pudding he found for a denier, sharing pieces of it with the priest, until his attention was called by the sound of a barrel rolling. He walked over to a table full of bright, new chain mail, though this was not for sale.

“Clean your armor, my lord?” sang out a man too old for the scalloped fripperies he wore as he turned a handle that turned a barrel full of sand and vinegar. “Ten minutes in here and your hauberk will shine like God’s teeth.” He had the air of a squire, perhaps one whose seigneur had died. When he saw that Thomas was hooked, he said, “Two deniers to make it like new, sire. You won’t find better or cheaper.”

Thomas had just begun stripping off his belt and surcoat when the girl yelled, “Père Matthieu! Please come!” with such urgency that he ran with one hand holding the belt closed and the other on the hilt of his sword.

The priest and Thomas arrived at the same time to find Delphine standing near a cart belonging to a seller of religious articles, a hunched, pale little man with very black hair who seemed to smile at everything, even the sight of Thomas stomping toward him.

“What in Christ’s name is it?” Thomas said.

“The oil!”

“What?”

“This is the oil that the Magdalene used to wash Jesus’ feet!” the girl said excitedly, bouncing a little on the balls of her own feet. She was pointing at a little clay vial stoppered with cork.

“Sure it is. And I’ll bet that’s the hammer that pounded in the nails,” he said, gesturing at a plain wooden mallet.

“No, actually,” the seller said, “it’s the hammer that fixed the axle of this cart. But…” he continued, producing a carpenter’s plane, “ this is the plane used by the carpenter Joseph, father of Our Lord; the very one sweet Jesu learned to use as a boy. It is said that any beam planed with this is proof against fire, and no two such beams might ever be separated. Imagine! A house that would never burn and never fall!”

“Do I look as though I build houses?”

“No, my lord, you look as though you knock them down and none can stop you. But surely you will want a fine house built one day, and you may lend the carpenter this holy thing.”

“I had one house. I will not have another.”

“A traveler! Then look upon this…” he said, fishing something out of a leather sack. “A lock of Saint Christopher’s hair in a reliquary of horse bone. The horse was Caesar Constantine’s horse, a stallion of white so fair he made snow look like coal ash.”

“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.”