Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

“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.

When they got to the door of the woodcarver’s house, Thomas had the good sense not to knock; he said, “Priest!” and then the girl said, “Annette! It’s me.” The bolt slid back and the door opened, the woodcarver motioning them in. The married couple and the priest were all pale with fear.

Jehan whispered into Thomas’s ear, “They’re here. In the quarter.”

“I know,” Thomas said.

“They’re close.”

The husband and wife stared at the shuttered windows and bolted doors, listening to the sounds of knocking, which were unmistakably drawing nearer. Thomas picked up his chain mail hauberk and began slithering into it. He put on his mail gloves as well. Annette said an Ave Maria , which her husband and the priest joined in, though the priest was watching the girl.

Delphine inclined near the wick in tallow, which was now a soupy graveyard for moths; moths lighted in her hair and flitted about her as she opened the tube the Jew had given her. Its hinges were tiny and delicate, but her small hands were made to open such things. The inside of the tube was cushioned with brown leather, upon which the mud-colored shaft of pitted iron was hardly visible. She took it in her hand. It was not what she expected; not leaf-bladed or triangular like a boar spear; rather, it was a thin rod that flared gently to a point at the end; more of a fire poker than a proper spear. She tested the point with her thumb and found it still sharp enough to make her gasp in a hitch of air. Had this piece of metal really been driven under one of His ribs? It seemed impossible that anything or anyone still in the world had actually touched Him. But it had. This was it. She kissed the spearhead and sealed it back in its case. The word pilum occurred to her, and she wondered if she had read it in her father’s books, or if it simply came to her as so many words had lately.

“What is that?” Père Matthieu said.

“You know what it is.”

None of them slept.

They stood around the table or sat against the wall.

Near dawn, something heavy brushed against the front of the building. Delphine held her breath, then nearly peed herself when the mule brayed next to her.

Now something scratched at the shuttered window.

“Please God, please angels, do not leave me alone,” she prayed.

The priest stood in front of her and put his hand on her chest. She grabbed his little finger, and felt that he was shaking. Thomas and Jehan had moved near the door, the knight with his sword behind him, ready to strike, the woodcarver holding a mallet. “Get back,” Jehan whispered to his wife, but she kept her place just behind him.

Whatever was outside tapped at the window. Delphine grabbed the priest’s finger so hard she would have hurt him if he had not been too agitated to feel it. It tapped again, more urgently. Everyone but Thomas and the girl made the sign of the cross.

“Come Saint Michael, come Saint Sebastian, do not leave us alone,” Delphine whispered, but she felt abandoned; they were going to be killed now by some wicked thing, and God would not or could not interfere.

The thing outside took two heavy steps and now banged on the door. Hard. Delphine squealed. Jehan put his free hand over his wife’s mouth to stop her from whimpering, but then he whimpered. Delphine heard Thomas breathing in and out like a bellows, preparing to fight; she knew that for all his faults, he would die before he let harm come to her. She felt safer.

Then it banged again so hard that a flake of daub fell off the wall and the building shook, rocking the several long-headed wooden saints and Virgins in the workshop. The mule brayed madly and shuffled from side to side, restless for room to move or kick. It knocked over its water bucket, and Delphine felt the water between her toes.

The banging continued, faster and faster. It was maddening. Thomas began to reach for the door, ready to have done with it, but Jehan pushed his arm down and shook his head, wide-eyed with fear and warning.

Now everything became quiet.

It stayed quiet for some time, but Delphine knew it wasn’t over. The grown-ups in the room were frozen like clockwork figures, and soon they would move again, urgently, as Hell came into the room. Waiting was so hard. The priest stroked her hair once, as he might have done to calm a dog. She heard his fast breathing and kissed his hand. His breathing slowed.

That was when they heard it.

A baby’s cry.

In the street just outside the door.

“Oh sweet God,” Annette said, moving toward the door.

Her husband pushed her back and shook his head, too scared to speak.