Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

Although Rinaldo would never see the priest, the girl, or the knight again in this world—he would bid them farewell on the banks of the Saône as they embarked in the company of dangerous men—his hard-won reunion with his Caterina would be celebrated in a public feast for which half the town would gather; the couple’s embraces would inspire a local sculptor to carve an Apollo and Daphne so beautiful that Apollo’s fingers would be worn away with two centuries of women’s kisses.

“I told you to go to sleep,” Thomas whispered to the priest.

They stood in the front of the raft, watching the fat orange sun sink on their right.

“I can’t sleep. I’m too…agitated.”

“How are you going to keep watch tonight?”

“I don’t know.”

“For Christ’s love, Father…”

“Perhaps you should sleep now and keep watch later.”

“I should be awake when they are.”

Both men turned to look at the men on the rudders, who were moving them back and forth with their strong brown arms to add a little speed. The younger of the two was missing an ear.

A thief.

The captain sat atop the cabin, eating salted herring and drinking beer from a goatskin. He was a lanky, untrustworthy, but highly intelligent fellow with the most decisively separated walleyes Thomas had ever seen. While negotiating the outrageous price of passage with these river men, who were clearly more pirates than raftsmen, it had been difficult to figure out where the captain was resting his gaze. He had undoubtedly used this to his advantage in business as well as war, though he was clearly not half the warrior his first mate was.

The fourth man, the strong one, bent and cocked two more crossbows, his arms getting even thicker as he used his muscles to work the windlass. He had the look of a wrestler, the kind who fought for small purses at fairs. And won them. Once he had fitted the deadly, iron-tipped bolts into their grooves and propped the bows against the cabin, he removed the bolts from the cocked ones and discharged them.

“Resting the crosspiece,” Thomas said. The man knew his weapons.

“Some of them will have to sleep.”

“Yes, probably two while the others steer. I can watch all four of them at once. Can you?”

“Better than I can at night. I don’t see as well at night as I used to.”

Thomas threw up his hands and stepped over Delphine, who was sleeping soundly at their feet, using Thomas’s leather satchel as a pillow. She had made it her practice to sleep or sit on the satchel whenever possible, as it contained their remaining gold and silver coins, as well as a handful of rings and necklaces left over from the spoils of Thomas’s brigandage. The three of them would be in mortal danger if their hosts got a look in that bag, or if the men seemed to be guarding it.

The captain came up to the front now, leaning on his pole. He spoke to them for the first time since they came to terms at the docks.

“Tournus,” he said, pointing his long spear at a cluster of houses over which the two towers of a church peered. Two men with cloths around their noses unloaded three dead women and a Benedictine monk into the water. One of these used a pole to push them out into the current.

“Greetings, friends!” the captain shouted at them. “Is it not a merry day to feed the fish? Merrier still, for you feed them a fisher of men!”

The carters looked up, one of them twitching his arm as though he thought to make a rude gesture but reconsidered when he saw the yellow fish on red strung over the cabin; this was the sigil of the Guild of Simon Peter, the disarming name used by the ring of pirates that controlled the Saône all the way to Lyon.

“Merry enough,” one shouted back submissively, and they turned their backs and wheeled their cart away. The bodies floated near the raft for a short way, as though trying to keep up.

“Sad bastard dolphins we have to play in our wake,” the captain said, spittle flying from his lips. He turned to face his guests. “Have you been to the sea?”

As it was not possible to tell which one he was looking at, both men said, “No.”

“Too bad,” he said. “You may have missed your chance. There’s talk of the sea turning to gravel soon. Or was it glass? Or maybe it will just roll out and keep rolling and never come back. But that’s not all bad. I’d like to have a look at what’s on the bottom. Maybe come back with a mermaid’s ribs for a hat. Eh?”

Neither man responded.

“Eh?” he said again, more forcefully.

“As you say,” said the priest.

He nodded happily, satisfied. There was something weak in this man, Thomas thought. Something that needed to be told he was in charge, where stronger men just knew it. The one with the hammy arms would be captain soon, if he wanted it. Maybe he was more like Thomas had been, though. Happy to fight and take his share. Until he was given the wrong order.

“Captain,” one of the oarsmen said, “that plaguey geezer’s about to bump us.”

The captain turned his attention to where the monk floated on his back, as if at leisure, with his arms trailing beside him. His face, though waxy from the sickness, looked beautiful in the rippled orange water. The captain used his spear to push the dead man farther off.

“You would have liked to float with your arms outstretched like Our Lord, would you not? Float to glory like Our Lord? Maybe you weren’t such a good monk as you thought. Go and ask Saint Philibert, sad dolphin.” Now he called back at the oarsman, “It is Saint Philibert, that abbey?”

“It is,” the oarsman said.

“It’s important to know the names of things,” he said, as if to himself.

Thomas woke to the girl’s fingers pinching his nose. He slapped her hand away and reached for the hilt of his sword, but she held a finger to her lips, then pointed. It was just dawn. The river seemed a mirror of itself from the night before, just the same rose-orange light in the sky and reflected on the water, only now the red ball of the sun was on their left.

The river men were arming themselves.

Thomas kicked the priest, who sat up quickly with fish scales on his cheek, so startled he broke wind.

The raft was closing in on a larger vessel, a barge, riding low in the water with its cargo of stone from the quarries near Tournus. A half dozen stout fellows stood watching the raft approach; it was clear to Thomas that they didn’t know whether they should arm themselves and provoke a fight, or allow themselves to be boarded. Their inaction made the decision for them.

The captain came over to Thomas now, assaulting him with the oniony smell of his recently dyed yellow shirt, saying, “You’ll help us. I doubt it will come to blows, but stand with your sword ready as if you’re one of us.”

Thomas stood, giving his friends a reassuring look. He didn’t believe the bargemen had the stomach for a fight. Still, he traded his straw hat for his chain hood and helmet.

“You know who we are?” the captain shouted.

“Simon Peter’s Guild,” the captain of the other boat said.

“Where’s your banner?”

The bargeman said nothing.

“How am I to know you’ve paid tribute if you don’t fly the proper banner?”

“I haven’t paid.”

“No worries, friend. You can pay now.”

So saying, he grabbed up a pole-hook from the bow and pulled the raft snug up against the barge. The two oarsmen held crossbows now, and the captain, big-arms, and Thomas all stepped onto the other ship. The men suffered their boat to be completely looted, losing all their food, a cask of wine, and a small box of coins that the crew would later make impressed noises over, even though it was slightly less than Thomas and the priest together carried.