Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

“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.”