Christopher Buehlman - Between Two Fires

The plump one said they would help, and they did.

When the work was done, they made a fire in the barn and shared roasted chestnuts with her. They were warm and good.

In the morning, she left with them, riding her donkey as they walked around her.

The tall one walked nearest.

The one with the dark hair, just graying.

He wore a wide straw hat with a spoon through it.

She liked him very much.

It would be too bold to ask him on only a day’s acquaintance, but she prayed for some sign that she could trust him; her dearest and wildest hope was that this man would be a second father to her. She would need one.

He was not a learned man, as her father had been, but goodness shone from him as from an unseen sun.

“What is your name, good sir?” she said.

“Thomas. And not a ‘sir.’”

“May I ask where you come from?”

He turned a mirthful eye to her.

“A town.”

“Yes, but what is the town called?”

“Town.”

“No town is called town.”

“Mine is. Townville-sur-… Town.”

She laughed.

“Is it near a mountain, this town?”

“Givras,” he said. “I am from Givras.”

“Which rhymes with Thomas. Would you like to know my name?” she said.

“I already do.”

She smiled impishly.

She liked games.

“Then tell me.”

He bent toward her.

This would be a secret.

Little Moon.

The old friar mounted the road leading up to the tower’s gate. The guard called for and received permission to let him pass.

“The kitchens are that way.” He pointed, but the friar didn’t look up for directions. He just nodded at him and thanked him, making his way painfully around the west side of the keep, where a young boy in fine clothes waved a wooden sword at him. The friar mocked fear for the boy, making him giggle and gallop closer, pressing his attack.

“We don’t charge at men of God,” said a young nobleman. The lord of the castle, a minor seigneur. A big man, broad through the chest, fearsome in aspect, yet shod in the fashionable long-toed poulaines that had become the object of ridicule for older knights and a frequent subject of sermons. Perhaps he expected to receive one from the friar; his verdant gaze was wary, dismissive. Or perhaps he feared the itinerant might carry more than a begging bowl; the plague had returned, though not in its former strength. Only the lumps, not the blood-coughing. Villages were tithing a tenth of their number, not two-thirds, but the tenth it chose was especially hard. Some were already calling this the children’s plague. Carpenters all over France had grown skilled at making small coffins.

“The door’s there. Marie will fill your bowl. Prayers are welcome, but keep them short. And don’t touch anything.”

The friar waved that he understood and went to the kitchen.

Marie, a youngish, formless woman with teeth in only half her mouth, filled the friar’s bowl with soft turnips and leeks. She also filled his battered pewter mug with beer. She had seen him before, in town, though he had never come to the castle. She had seen him once, smiling a little through another friar’s sermon about Hell, saying after the other left that fear of Hell is one of many paths to it. Forget Hell and love one another. That is all He wants of you.

He was the only friar she had seen who meant the things he said.

“I’m expecting,” she said. “A prayer for the baby? And for the little ones at home?”

She placed his huge hand on her belly.

He smiled, then granted her a warm benediction.

“Father?” a chamber woman said from the kitchen door.

“Yes?”

“The lady of the house, my lord’s mother, craves a word.”

The friar blushed.

“She lives, then?”

The chamber woman laughed, then spoke low.

“Of course she lives! The reaper fears to bend his scythe on Lady Marguerite.”

He closed his eyes and nodded.

“Of course.”

The stairs were hard for him, but he followed his guide faithfully.

“Are you well, Father?”

“Ah. Yes. The injuries of spring are forgotten in the summer, but remembered in the winter.”

She looked back at him, noting again the pit in his cheek. Injuries, indeed. Probably an old soldier. He had the size, even if old age had stooped him.

The lady waited in her parlor, an open book next to her, yet the old woman had the eyes of the blind. An impression in a near cushion told the friar the chamber woman had been reading to her.

She did not see him duck just a little to enter the room.

Not with those milk-white eyes with just a hint of green.

“Leave us, Jacqueline,” she commanded.

The chamber woman left.

The friar entered the room alone. His nostrils flared as he filled his nose with familiar scents, bergamot chief among them. He glanced at the far door, which led to the bedchamber.

Now he looked at her.

“You wanted to speak with me, my lady?”

She tilted her head at the sound of his voice.

“I always ask those of Saint Francis’s order to come to me. Although I myself have fallen short of Christ’s example, I believe the cordeliers approach it quite closely. So I fill your bellies and solicit your prayers.”

“My prayers are no better than yours, though I will lend them as you ask.”

He waited. Her hands clenched gently in her lap, as though she wanted rosary beads, or a quill pen, or dice.

At length, she spoke.

“I do not want my grandson dead of this scourge.”

“I will pray for his safety.”

Silence.

“Would you like at least to know his name?”

“If you wish me to know it.”

She told him.

“His father, my son, spoke rudely to you in the tiltyard. I will inform him of my displeasure.”

“I did not find him rude, my lady.”

“Then your hearing is not as good as mine. He is not so wise or kind as he is brave. His voice is harsh, like his father’s before him. Did you know the lord of this place? My late husband?”

That head tilt.

The friar smiled.

“Scarcely. I knew the man’s face, but little more.”

Now the lady smiled.

“You have a kind voice, Father. Were you married, before you took orders?”

“Yes.”

“And your lady wife?”

Silence.

“She has gone to her reward.”

“Ah.”

Though the eyes were blind, they kept the habit of looking down.

She spoke again.

“Did you have children?”

The old man fidgeted.

Now his hands wanted something.

“A daughter. She lives. We were farmers, and worked where we could. I planned to follow Saint Francis after I saw her wed, but she, too, wed the church. We took orders the same month.”

Silence.

“Will you stay tonight, Father? I keep a comfortable room for men of God. You may pray unmolested.”

“I am yours to command, though I am on my way to see her. My daughter. I visit her at her convent in Amiens each month, as I can, and I do not wish to be late.”

“Then go in peace. She is lucky. To have such a father, I mean.”

“Do you believe in luck, my lady?”

“The dart of the Implacable One struck your wife and my husband, and spared my son and your daughter. What divides the four?”

“God’s will.”

“And if God’s mind is unknowable, how does His will differ from luck?”

“It is a question of faith. When I pray for the boy, shall I pray for luck?”

“I am a careful woman. I will pray for luck. You, good Father, pray for God’s benevolence. Between the two of us, perhaps the boy will live.”

“We are at common purpose, if our means differ.”

Silence.