Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

Of the Tower and the Looted Church

An old tower stared down at them from a hill with its narrow windows; some minor seigneur’s keep inherited from Norman days, not unlike the one Thomas had left behind in Picardy. In better times a horseman might have ridden out from this one and charged them a toll for use of the road, but horse and horseman were likely in the bellies of the crows that cawed down at them from the battlements. The shadow of the tower crept down the hill of burnished grass toward them, and Thomas thought they might have three hours of light left.

“What’s this town called?” he asked the girl, fanning himself with his hat.

“Fleur-de-Roche,” she said. “Would you like to know my name as well?”

“No.”

“Is it because you don’t want to feel affection for me?”

“I don’t.”

“But you might if you knew my name and other things about me so I wasn’t just ‘girl.’ Is that why?”

“Shut up.”

It was a small town, but bigger than the one he had found the girl in. Down the hill from the tower, a stone church dominated a collection of shops and a few score houses. Blue jabs of chicory grew wild in a field lying fallow, while all around it untended barley and spelt waved in the warm breeze. The harvest festival of Lammas had come and gone uncelebrated here.

He looked back up at the tower. It would be useful to get up that hill and survey the road and the town. The tower was compelling, but risky. The heavy door seemed to be ajar. An invitation? It would be a delightful ambush spot if anybody had the inclination; nine chances in ten said it was empty—it was that tenth time that caused so much grief.

I’m not carrying anything worth robbing

The girl looked up at him, her hair more gold than flaxen now that it was dry, now that the sun shone on it.

Yes you are

Thomas left the girl near the road, handing her his straw hat. He fitted the conical helm that hung from his belt on top of his chain hood, then hiked up the hill to the foot of the tower, unsheathing his sword and yoking it over his shoulders.

He might have gone in to search the tower, but he didn’t want to pass the two dead scullery women sitting near the gate. The crows had been at them and they grinned black-eyed at him, their heads touching almost tenderly. He walked along the wall with the crows mocking him until he came to a point where he could see the road they had just traveled. He sat down in the shadow of the wall for several moments and watched the road, making sure nobody was following them.

It was unlikely that Jacquot had gotten loose so quickly. Thomas had found him stuffing his underpants with the gold chains from around Godefroy’s neck and the silver coins left in the fat one’s leather bag; another beating had followed, mitigated by the girl, but then Thomas had decided it would be fitting to leave Jacquot tied to the tree he had fetched the girl out of. He also posed a wooden sign around his neck, which the girl wrote upon in charcoal at Thomas’s instruction.

DO WITH ME

AS SEEMS RIGHT TO YOU

TO DO WITH THIEVES

That was what Thomas commanded her to write, at least. Knowing he could read, but not well, she translated this somewhat liberally.

WE THIEVES SHALL DO

THE SAME TO YOU

IF WE CATCH YOU

Jacquot’s crossbow had been hidden in the tree near him, hanging like evil fruit with the little sack of quarrels. He had bitched at them while Thomas bound his limbs with rope the girl got from the house, crying that it was too tight, that he wouldn’t live the night out, or that wild dogs would come and eat him.

“What dogs? They’re all dead. You’re more likely to be eaten by starving farmers.”

Then Jacquot had switched tactics and reminded Thomas what good times they’d had together dancing brawls and dansas at the Candlemas feast near Évreux.

“You passed out and I had to carry you back to camp. You’re the one who had the good time.”

He said three would be better than two if there was trouble.

“Not if one of those three causes the trouble.”

Then Thomas had turned his back.

“PLEASE!” Jacquot had yelled, causing the girl to stop.

“Mightn’t we…?” she had started, but he cut her off.

“If you go back, you’re his to take care of.”

She had hung her head and kept walking.

As the girl and Thomas were nearly out of earshot, Jacquot had finished by calling out nastily “God bless you both for this,” and then shouting until he was hoarse.

As they passed a house with a yellow-green, newly thatched roof, a woman coughed wetly from inside and then launched into a loud Pater Noster punctuated with more coughing. The girl went toward the window, but Thomas plucked her back by the sleeve.

“I know her,” the girl said. “She puts out a table on feast days and sells cakes with honey and walnuts. She’s nice.”

“The plague doesn’t care about nice. Stay away from there.”

“I can’t remember her name.”

“She doesn’t have one anymore.”

The girl looked as if she were about to cry, then crossed herself and they moved down toward the church.

“Do you know anyone else here?”

“The priest is Père Raoul. Papa brought me here to see mystery plays in the spring. It was Adam and Eve, and then Lot’s Wife. The players always invite the village priest to take part; Père Raoul played the serpent, and then the wicked man of Sodom, and then the devil. He had a pair of red horns. I think he liked being bad as long as it was for pretend.”

“Do you know where his house is?”

“No.”

“If we find him, I’m leaving you with him.”

Fresh graves pocked the churchyard, and just past that a big pit yawned with a heap of dirt near it. He knew what was in the pit. Every town had something similar. The first dead had been given Christian burials, and then the ones who had buried them needed burying, and then there were so many a pit was dug, and then there was nobody willing even to take them to the pit.

“Everyone’s dead here,” she said.

“Maybe. More likely that they’re hiding. I would hide from strangers, wouldn’t you?”

She shook her head no.

“No, I guess we know you don’t do that.”

Thomas pulled his scarf up over his nose and mouth as they passed the pit and went to look in the church. It was a simple church with a dirt floor. The cross and everything else of value had been taken from the altar.

“I think your priest is dead,” Thomas said, looking back at her.

The girl knitted her brow.

“He was so good. Why would God kill good priests?”

“The plague kills everything. Only the priests who won’t visit the sick have a chance of living.”

“Then he’s dead,” she said.

“Looks like I’m stuck with you for a while longer. We’ll sleep in the church. Maybe nobody died in here.”

During the night he heard the girl speaking, but not in French. Latin. He thought he heard her say “Avignon.” He thought about shaking her, but instead got up and went outside to walk in the cool air and look at the stars. A comet had appeared last week, near Cygnus, and he looked to see where it was moving. It would not be long before it cut the neck of the pretty swan in the east. He knew it was wicked, a plague token in a sick sky, but it was so beautiful he couldn’t stop looking at it. There had been others before it. Three at once had shared April’s sky, one so bright it washed out the stars near it; this was before the plague had come to Normandy, but it had already started spreading elsewhere, and everyone was talking about Judgment Day. He remembered the tales of the travelers they met, and often robbed; an earthquake in Italy, dwarfed by the earthquakes and freak storms that punished India; how the earth had cracked in the land of the Mongols, all the way down to Hell, and it was Hell that burped up this pestilence.