Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

He had never felt so ignorant, useless, or doubtful in his life.

His homily addressed the sin of wrath, and how much it displeased the Lord when neighbors bickered over the placement of fences or insults spoken in the alehouse.

“What do you think will happen in the alehouse? Will you make peace there? Or will you quarrel? I tell you, a devil loves no better hiding place than a bowl of beer.” He knew as soon as he said the words that he had stepped on dangerous ground; the whole village knew him for a tippler. He had more to say about alcohol making people fight, but decided to cut that short and get on to something about angels. People liked angels. But he was too late. As he cleared his throat to buy himself a moment, his most frequent sparring partner took advantage of his slip.

“If devils hide in beer, is that why you drink so much wine?” said Sylvan Bertier, the drover. Not everyone laughed, but enough of them so that he forced himself to smile rather than trying to rebuke the popular Bertier.

A drop of that awful, cold sweat ran down his left side.

“Yes. I know that I take more comfort than I should in wine; even God’s shepherds are not without sin. But which of you has seen it make me quarrelsome? Our drover here often has blacker eyes than his oxen.”

He glanced at the object, who was smiling now at his skillful riposte, then cut his eyes quickly away to make it look as though he were surveying all of them. For every time he sneaked a glance at Michel Hébert, he made himself look ten more parishioners in the face.

The rest of the homily went smoothly, if blandly, until the water clock told him half an hour had gone by and he began to wrap things up.

When Mass was over and he saw his congregation out, he made sure to turn his right side toward those who came to speak to him, especially Michel.

“You’re a clever man,” the younger Hébert said, and looked at Père Matthieu just long enough for him to notice the boy had a sort of black freckle in the hazel of his eye. His left eye.

“There are greater virtues,” the priest said, wishing Michel would clasp hands with him before he turned and left. He did not. Rather, he hurried on his pretty red legs to walk beside Mélisande Arnaut, a plump girl whose pretty face, just the color of cream, turned the heads of even those who liked their women lean.

He knew from the confessional that Michel had already fornicated with several girls, including his own half-sister, and fully expected Mélisande to be inventoried soon. He had also lately confessed to having impure thoughts about men. Whatever demon oversaw lust had his hooks deep in Michel Hébert and used him now to ensnare others.

If there were demons at all.

If that boy is Satan’s instrument, God, show me some sign. Let him look back at me.

But he wanted that backward glance so much that he couldn’t bear to attach wickedness to it, so he confounded himself.

Rather, let him look back at me if there are no devils in him.

The boy did look back over his shoulder at him. Just once, and only for an instant, but it was enough.

He would always think of it as having started that day.

Each night became a battle for Matthieu Hanicotte. He was in danger of losing his belief, if not his soul. Were there souls at all? Was there really a naked, invisible little version of himself hiding under his skin, so valuable to Heaven and Hell that each would send emissaries down to fight for it?

He started by telling himself he would not drink more than one cup of wine, then two, and then three, lest he should become drunk and give himself up to thinking about those red legs. In the end his head was reeling, he was spent, dry-mouthed from spitting in his hand, and he lay in his shame and guilt until the small hours of the morning.

The days were better; even though his parishioners began to ask after his health because he had lost weight and had bags under his eyes, he was far less miserable ministering to them than lying alone with his thoughts. It was better to counsel fat, bearded Sanson Bertier to apologize to his wife for menacing her with his billhook, and to smell the farts Bertier would gravely fan away with his straw hat; it was better to walk with his box of holies out to give last rites to Clement Fougière three times in one week only to have him get well; it was even better to be bitten by Fougière’s dog on the last visit and hear the old man laugh from his sickbed.

One night near the end of May, he went down to the river and walked along its banks, enjoying the pleasantly cool air and getting lost in the beauty of the sky, where the moon was veiling herself with gauzy, fast-moving clouds. She was not full, but she was bright enough to illuminate the river, sending cloud shadows racing over the water and the willows near this part of the bank.

It was near one of these willows that a bright swath of moonlight dragged itself over a set of cast-aside clothes. Père Matthieu could not resist peeking at the river, where he was sure he would spy a bather. He was not disappointed. In fact, there were two of them, and much closer than the clothes.

Seeing him, a girl inexpertly stifled a squeal, then thrashed out of the water, covering her breasts and running for her homespun dress. She was plump and pale. God help him, it was Mélisande.

He knew who was in the river.

The girl picked up her clothes and ran to where the trees got thicker before dressing and loping home. The other made no effort to run; he did not even leave the river; rather, he just crouched to hide all but his head and languidly oared the water around him with his arms.

He was looking directly at the priest, who stood there for a long moment, torn between turning and walking home and trying to find something to say. Nothing occurred to him. He could not see the freckle in the boy’s eye, but he imagined it. He imagined more than that. Cloud shadows moved across the water, now darkening the lad’s head, now letting the moon paint it silver.

“Come in,” the boy said, so quietly that Père Matthieu convinced himself he had not heard it. He just opened his mouth and closed it again, like a landed fish trying to breathe.

“Come in,” the object of his affection said again.

“I can’t.”

“Père Matthieu can’t.”

“No.”

“So shed him with your clothes, and put him back on when you leave.”

“No.”

“That’s the beauty of being nude in a river; you’re nobody. You’re anybody you want to be. It’s just a dream.”

You used the same words to get the girl in there.

The priest opened and closed his mouth.

“Come in,” the boy said again.

And he did.

The Great Death got close in June, and the bridge leading to Paris was burned on the seigneur’s command. Little groups of armed farmers hid in the woods and frightened off those coming overland from the other side; they soon found that the days off from farm labor were to their liking. They also found that, with no wives to nag them, they could drink all the beer and cider they cared to. They fashioned masks of river reeds and clay, raven’s feathers, and the teeth of foxes to make themselves terrifying, and also to remind them not to look anyone in the eyes—it was widely believed that the plague leapt from one man to another by means of a deadly beam from the eyes. They called themselves the Brotherhood of St. Martin’s Arse. They drank themselves into such a state of belligerence that even groups of strangers who agreed to turn around found themselves cudgeled so they would remember not to try again.

It was not long before they carried their antics back with them into town; Élise Planchette, the widow who ran the alehouse, soon learned to hate the hooting and boasts that announced the brotherhood’s return from patrol. Shutting the door was no good—they would keep at her until she opened it, then expect their drinks for free for their solemn work guarding the town from pestilence. Nearly every day they could be seen at the widow’s tables, dicing and carousing with their masks tipped back; those who watched by day came in the evening. Those who watched in the evening came by day. Their farms suffered as their wives and fathers took up the manuring and the weeding and the harrowing, but the men of the brotherhood had grown so fond of their newfound status as militiamen that there was no reasoning with them. The reeve could not make them work. The priest could not turn them away from their folly. Their number did shrink as some men, like Sanson Bertier, dropped out; but it grew again as bullies saw a way out of work.