The Crimson Heirlooms

by Hunter Dennis

  Taxes were high, however, and harvests continued to be poor. Strangely, the Winters were always bitterly cold these days, and lasted far longer than they should have. Jérémie, through no fault of his own, found himself in a position where he had enough seed to plant his fields in the Spring, but no coin, and nothing else left to eat. They thought they would still have the chestnuts.

  But that Winter, vagabonds were a locust plague. Jérémie fought them everywhere he could. He was strong and agile and could give them a thrashing regardless of their number, even if they picked up sticks and rocks. The whole village fought them, as best they could according to ability and courage. It was a war for survival: whether they won or not, only the chestnuts really mattered. Soon they were all gone, except for those on the highest branches.

  Lack of food brought starvation. Starvation, even if not fatal, could bring sickness and disease. Jérémie remembered why he was the last of his family, and the thought brought great consternation to him.

  One day after mass, Jérémie went to the parish council and requested guidance and help. There were only two choices before him, he explained. The first was to turn his remaining seed grain into bread, and have no future harvest. The second choice was to starve, plant the seeds, and hope they all somehow survived. The parish council was empathetic: Saint-Recipas suffered communally under the same conditions. The Royal Police also knew of their situation; being the oversight agency in charge of the harvest. Other agents of the Throne and Altar had been alerted to the dire situation of the village as well, and help was hopefully on the way. The council had no idea what to expect. Things were difficult everywhere.

  Unsatisfied, Jérémie went to see the Abbé, Father Eliphas. The Abbé had a strange habit. He would leave a visitor in the doorway, go fetch an apple, then return to usher the visitor inside his quarters. While he talked, he would take a bite of apple, then hand it to his company. After they took a bite, he would beckon for it back. He would take another bite, then hand it over to his guest once again. Once the apple was completely eaten, the meeting was ended.

  Jérémie took a bite of apple, and handed it back. He explained to the Abbé that he needed God’s intervention. Surely God did not want this for his family.

  “It is not for you to say what God wants, Jérémie,” Father Eliphas gently replied.

  Jérémie requested clarification.

  The Abbé obliged, “There are two things one must keep in mind. The first is the nature of man. The greatest gift the Lord bestowed upon us was free will. But free will allows us to create suffering for our brothers. Truthfully, even when there is enough to eat, we still somehow manage to torment ourselves. Secondly, we know God allows the devil to exist, therefore temptation and evil are part of our lives. One is left with only one conclusion: our worldly happiness is not important. God desires us to repent our sins, to return to him in love, and has designed a world to help us do this. God uses suffering to force us to confront our own selfishness, to beg his help in our quest for personal redemption. Suffering is a tool to find Christ, and he endured suffering himself, as a man, to achieve our redemption. If even our God died in terrible agony, by design of the Father, can we ask for an end to such a thing? Suffering is a gift from God.”

  “Is God then evil, to want us to suffer?”

  The Abbé smiled, “Every impulse for good in us comes from God. Sometimes we understand the greater purpose behind our pain, sometimes we do not. It does not matter. Our quest, only and always, lies within ourselves. With our will and God’s will in tandem, we enter grace.”

  “Why would God make me so happy, only to murder my family from want of food?”

  “When a baby is hungry, he cries to beckon. His mother hears and comes. But an infant has lived only a short time. And the time it takes for the mother to hear the baby cry, until she places her teat in his mouth, is significant, at least to the babe. Does the babe then curse the mother? When the babe lays in its own merde, does he curse his father for not changing his rags in that very instant? Such a thing would only be said in jest, for we are babes for just short years, and we easily forget the petty trials of our infancy, do we not?”

  “Yes, Abbé.”

  “We are on this earth but an eyeblink. Nothing here belongs to us, only to God. You will suffer, and you will die. Your only hope is to pray for the Lord’s help in finding peace, the simple joy that emanates from serenity. Serenity only comes from grace – the meaning of Christ and his suffering.”

  This was not helping. “That is my purpose then?”

  “Your purpose is to repent. Suffering is a gift to aid you in your purpose. Death is not a tragedy, it too is a gift. It frees us to be with our Creator for eternity. In heaven, you will forget the pain of your infancy here on earth. Give your suffering to God, understand that death is a release, know your true nature as a heavenly soul - but enjoy and appreciate the majesty of God’s creation, while on this short trip to the material world.”

  “But can you help me, Father?”

  The Abbé was quiet for a moment, then spoke softly and intensely, “Yes. I can tell you what to do. It is a simple task to explain, but one that is difficult to accomplish.”

  Jérémie found himself becoming excited. There was a chance, a small one, that the Abbé was about to tell him something that could actually be helpful. Perhaps he knew the location of hidden wild crops, or buried seed - a chestnut tree just inside a royal preserve that no one dared to harvest.

  Something. Anything.

  The Abbé finally spoke, “You must doubt your every intention with absolute humility, as if you are tempted in every thought by the devil himself. Do not have faith in anything of this earth, especially man and our own ideas. Wish for nothing but the grace of the Cross. Learn from your suffering, and give your pain to God. Pray for Him to help you change, for you cannot change your own nature without His help.”

  For Jérémie, the room became small. He looked at the Abbé, and saw nothing but an old man. He finished the apple and left.

  Jérémie decided, with his wife, to survive on charity and chestnuts, and keep the grain for Spring. They prayed and prayed and prayed.

  To everyone’s astonishment, their prayers were answered. From both the King and the Church came cart after cart loaded with rye flour. Unloaded in the village center, all was doled out in a fair and organized manner by the Royal Police. There were no dry eyes. Everyone cheered their King and God until their throats were hoarse. Jérémie managed to walk out of eyesight of his neighbors before he collapsed to his knees. He burst into sobs, “Lord God, Heavenly King, Almighty God and Father, I pledge myself to you. Use me in any way you wish, Lord. I am yours. Your will be done, forever and ever.”

  Jérémie hurried back with his family’s share of the charity. His wife and children were weak with hunger, so he baked their bread himself. He ate none of it. Rather, he put them to sleep with full stomachs, then went out to look for chestnuts. He found a few - enough for his meager needs.

  Over the next few days, he watched the blood return to his family’s cheeks. Tears of gratitude would streak his face on his lonely walks foraging for chestnuts. He would only see Father Eliphas, who had turned down the rye as well, giving his share to the community in favor of his apple tree, and the few remaining chestnuts he shared with Jérémie.

  One Monday, he did not see Father Eliphas. On Tuesday, a panting youth, Onfroi Dessein, delivered a note from Father Eliphas, and then ran off again without another word. Jérémie could not read, and decided that, in his straights, the message contained nothing that could not wait a few more days. He was surprised that the Abbé didn’t know he couldn’t read. To Jérémie, it implied there were other things Father Eliphas did not know. The thought worried him.

  On Wednesday, he returned home from his scrounging, opened his front door, and saw three of his children dead on the floor. The fourth was dead as well, only on her knees as Sitis garroted her from behind with the green silk ribbon. Sitis wa
s shaking, as if having a seizure. Her eyes were alive and burning, orange and contorted. Ominous redness and swelling were upon her joints. She looked up, saw Jérémie, and began to speak in an earnest tone, as if she had an important message to convey to him. Despite her effort, only disjointed words and gibberish escaped her lips.

  Jérémie stumbled out of his home, his mind unhinged, and ran to the village. He saw no living soul on his way to the church. He burst into Father Eliphas’s house, only to find it empty. He ran into the seemingly-deserted village shouting his name.

  Finally, a girl, Edmée Marquer, ran out and beckoned him. He went inside her home, and saw the Father tending to the Marquer family. All of them had the seizures and the red, swollen limbs. Jérémie, terrified, ran from the house as fast as he could. Father Eliphas followed after him. He could not keep up, but shouted so Jérémie could hear, “It is Saint Anthony’s Fire, a disease from the rye. It changes the mind, akin to drunkenness, only far worse. The limbs enflame and become gangrenous. It is on the rye, Jérémie! The rye!”

  Jérémie ran, but there was nowhere to go. He finally went home, having convinced himself that this was all a dream - none of it could have happened, it was simply too horrible to be a part of life.

  When he arrived home, he found his four children dead. Sitis had hanged herself, surrounded by the family rosaries and other Christian artifacts to ward against evil. Jérémie was destroyed in that moment. It is not often that mountains were leveled, but they were indeed and always have been.

  There was no cure for Saint Anthony’s Fire. It reared its head from time to time throughout history, killing high and low. Nearly all of those affected perished from gangrene while in the throes of full-blown hallucinations. Even the ones who survived usually did so after losing limbs. It was a frightening and terrible disease that was not fully understood. Extreme waking nightmares leading to terrible acts were rare, but certainly occurred.

  The Abbé and Jérémie’s surviving neighbors tried to console him, but to no avail. A change had come over Jérémie, a darkness. Jérémie was always considered to be a handsome man, but now his pale complexion, dark hair and black eyes did not lend themselves to the change. He assumed the countenance of a walking corpse. He was a ghost, a dead man who walked and spoke. Wherever he went, he scared children and adults looked away. But no one blamed him. In the gut-wrenching pain of the present, it is hard to accept an inscrutable plan, however divine in origin.

  One day, Jérémie disappeared from Saint-Recipas, and was never seen again. His former neighbors did not know it, but Jérémie never again used his real name, nor did he ever say, from that moment, where he was from, or who he had once loved - whether they were of heaven, or of earth.

  Several times, the broken man tried to throw himself from high places to end his life. He was stopped at every attempt, as if by an invisible hand. He drifted further away, down the Loire like human flotsam - a vagabond drifter, forgotten, lost and broken. He had become what he had once despised and fought against.

  The river finally brought Jérémie to the city of Tours. He crept in at night like a ghoul, and found himself in the ancient ruins of the gigantic Romanesque basilica of Saint Martin. He steeled himself, and climbed to the very top of what was called the Charlemagne tower, though the tower was much, much older than even the ancient king himself. He stood at the edge, at least fifty feet from the rubble on the ground. But, again, he could not force himself past the edge. He sat down, right where he stood, and buried his head into his hands.

  After a long while, he looked out over the fair, storied city. From his lofty perch he could see it all: the spires of its churches, the bridges over the Loire, the handsome trees and buildings on its banks. There were huge Lebanese cedars by the river, like those mentioned in the Bible, planted and nursed by monks long ago.

  Jérémie sighed and spoke to God, quietly and without rancor, “I do not understand. Why is my life so important that you would have me keep it? It is you who convinced me it is not. What destiny do you have for me that is so important that I must bear this pain?” There was no answer from God, only the sounds of the waking city, and the breathtaking view.

  Jérémie stayed in Tours. Somehow, he knew it was in his purpose to be there.

  Jake, 1832

  Chapter Four

  “Jake!” said a distant voice, barely carrying over the din of hundreds of rowdy Parisians. The currents of the human flood pushed Jake east on the narrow Rue Saint-Honoré, shadowed by modern townhomes of stone, and ancient medieval buildings of wood and plaster. Jake heard his voice screamed again, now from a different direction. Looking around, he saw no friendly or familiar faces. Jokers in the crowd were echoing the call in annoying tones. Jake had no idea where anyone was, and felt lost and alone in the tight, slow-moving crowd.

  The good people of Paris had stayed locked in their homes. Amongst those who followed Lamarque’s funeral cortege were revolutionaries, a few who loved and respected the man too much to stay home, and the vile king rat referred to as the mob, reeking of cheap wine and sweat. In the past, they were called Sans-Culotte because they wore work trousers instead of leggings. Sometimes they were the Poissard, because they spoke the language of the fishmonger; a grotesque, sing-song slang using contemptuous rhymes. Amongst them sauntered a good share of women who were, if anything, even more foul and intimidating than the men. They were certainly louder, their sneered leers of missing teeth vomiting profane Poissard rhymes, ready threats, and insults.

  Jake decided the Poissard needed to learn some respect before it ate his young troop for a late déjeuner. Jake, despite being an American, had never used a gun in his life. Now was to be the first time. He took out his pistol and fired once into the air. The sound was impossibly loud, leagues stronger than what Jake imagined a sound could achieve. His ears rang, the inside of his head hurt. His hands, arms, and face were covered with tiny bits of still-burning powder, and there was a pall of choking black smoke.

  When Jake’s mind landed back in his body, he noticed the blast had cleared a good space around him and quieted most of the nearby voices into scared, wide eyes. A few older men, walking past to his left, were yelling some sort of chastisement, but Jake still couldn’t hear anything. He screamed into the crowd, “Student Soldiers! Student Soldiers to me!”

  His voice sounded muted to his own ears, but soon Jake saw his fellow students converge on him. Thirty-two students had left Louis-le-Grand that morning in double-file line, looking to all the world as if they were going on a rare escorted outing. If all thirty-two weren’t here now, there seemed to be enough. He breathed a sigh of relief when Pascal, bathed in sweat, moved toward him carrying a fifteen-foot pole. Pascal had been sent to fetch the flag staff. He had found one, and must have come back at a run. “Is this sufficient?” he gasped between breaths.

  “Yes, hold it steady.” Jake said as he tied a Louis-le-Grand pennant to the staff, “Hold it high. Stick close to me.”

  Franck walked up with a smile on his face. “Utter madness this.”

  Jake shook his head, “I’m glad someone’s enjoying themselves.” Jake looked around, and saw the rest of his command struggling through the crowd. Three of the smaller boys were being jostled a bit too enthusiastically near the rear. Jake had enough sense to look around for soldiers this time, then lit off another round just over the heads of the tallest bully. Jake was disappointed to see his fellow students start the most from the sound. But the rowdy men of the mob were pacified, and stared stupidly at him.

  “Do you thwart the revolution?” Jake screamed. “Let them through!”

  They did, and the students made their way to Jake, who found himself staring into the scared faces of his command, “All right. Buck up, now. We have to force our way to the carriage now. Realize that we are the power behind the mob. We are the leaders of the revolution. This energy, this chaos, serves us, and our cause.” At that moment Jake saw a dark, balding man in his thirties wearing a blue cockade.
“Hey! You!” The man didn’t look up, but just quickened his pace. “Grab him.” Jake said to his command, and they did. The man looked frightened and pulled up sharply, but then saw their cockades and visibly relaxed. “Find out what language he speaks, make sure he knows he’s one of us now. He needs a proper cockade. Who has the extras?”

  Franck stepped forward, “Raymond, take the bag from me. Those who speak Italian, German, or Polish, don’t wait for orders. Start rounding up the blue cockades.”

  Good, good, thought Jake. The more people helping him move the herd of cats through the sandstorm, the better.

  A young, well-dressed man, wearing a green and white cockade, made his way against the direction of the mob and came toward Jake, “Hey, you there,” he shouted.

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “Did you hear the gunfire?”

  “I did, Citizen. Two shots.”

  “Do you know who is responsible?”

  “I have no idea, Commander.”

  “Dis tout! Very well. Keep a sharp eye out. If it’s one of us, tell them to stop straightaway. We don’t want anything to escalate until it suits us, yes?”

  “Yes, Citizen.”

  Jake watched the Senior Commander move upstream, further into the crowd. Franck smiled at him, “Crafty bastard.”

  “Let’s keep moving. How close are we anyway? I can’t see a thing.”

  Through the crowd, Jake caught sight of a stumbling drunk urinating against the side of a windowless stone building. The passing mob cheered, booed and joked. Suddenly he was attacked by two men wearing blue cockades and savagely beaten. A few in the passing crowd tried to intervene, but then more blue cockades piled in. Jake was bewildered, but then realized the wall belonged to the small-but-soaring dome of Our Mother of the Assumption - and the Polish-Catholic mission. They were nearly at Rue Cambon, a few blocks from Place Vendôme at best. The carriage bearing the body of Lamarque might already be inside the square. Perhaps some poor revolutionary screamed the signal, and had been arrested, all because the students responsible for hijacking the cart were nowhere to be seen.