Between Two Fires (9781101611616)

by Buehlman, Christopher

  “Ragazza,” he said, as if that explained everything, eliciting a chuckle from Thomas.

  “You could come with us,” the priest said at one point. “As far as Avignon, at least.” The Italian understood, and nodded slowly, considering.

  The sparrow was fluttering in Delphine’s chest now; she was enjoying herself so much mooning over her new infatuation that she wished it would go away, but it fluttered harder and harder until she spoke.

  “Please don’t come with us.”

  The Italian understood that.

  “Why…why you say this thing?”

  She just stared at him.

  He laughed.

  “What, you no like my face?”

  She answered him in rapid, perfect, Florentine Italian.

  Nobody else at the table could follow what the girl said, but his face went white, and he excused himself and went to bed.

  “What did you tell him?” the innkeeper asked, crossing himself.

  She looked into her empty soup bowl.

  “I don’t know.”

  The Italian came with them as far as Chalon-sur-Saône, walking beside the cart on his nimble young legs. He carried a bow and had six arrows left in his quiver, and, soon after their departure, agreed to accompany Thomas into a patch of woods to hunt. Thomas, stripping out of his armor near the cart, guessed from Rinaldo’s gestures that he intended to shoot one arrow, and that he would not shoot a second for any reason whatever. If that was what he said, he proved himself a liar.

  They moved as silently as they could in the brown leaves, following a sort of path in the undergrowth that less experienced hunters than the Italian might have missed. To his eye, the broken twigs, missing leaves and bent grass were as plain as a Roman highway; the trail led to a lush dip in the land where crabapple trees had been savaged for their fruit. He pointed and winked at Thomas, splaying his fingers over his head to suggest horns. As if this gesture summoned them, antler marks appeared on the bark of a chestnut tree, with little bits of velvet adhering.

  This would be a good place.

  The men crouched upwind, Thomas’s straw hat covered in branches, both of their faces darkened with mud; Thomas, having no bow, held his sword over his shoulders, knowing that his limited role encompassed only protecting Rinaldo, and, if they were lucky, hauling back their prize.

  They were just about to give up, having been out for two hours or more, their fear of being caught at night too close to Beaune and Chagny finally overcoming their hunger, when they saw the stag. It entered the woods before them at a kingly, slow walk, its coat the same reddish brown as the carpet of leaves below it. Its antlers were magnificent, a trophy Thomas would have loved to set on his hearth in Picardy, though he knew he could never take such a prize, as feeble as he was with the bow. Rinaldo drew his breath in and drew the fletching of the arrow halfway to his cheek; he would pull it all the way and release in the same motion as soon as the deer turned its side or back to them. He never got the chance, though.

  The deer heard something moving in the brush nearer to the two men and raised its head. Ten steps closer and Rinaldo would have loosed at its exposed chest, but at this distance he would have to shoot higher to account for the drop, and he didn’t want to strike its head or clip its nose, wounding the magnificent thing for no reason.

  The noise came again, a crackling of leaves, louder this time. The deer left, not at a run, but too quickly for the Italian to adjust for both its motion and the saplings it crossed behind. He grimaced with his mouth open, his breath steaming out between his clenched teeth, still tracking the stag in case it turned, but it did not seem likely to do so.

  He felt Thomas’s hand on his shoulder and reluctantly turned his head away from the disappearing red deer. Thomas was looking at him as if to say, Can you believe this?

  In a time of famine, when poaching laws were forgotten and men had all but emptied the woods of game, one magnificent trophy animal had been saved by a second.

  A wild boar snuffled in the brush, as yet unaware of the hunters.

  “Porca troia,” Rinaldo whispered, drawing the bow again and loosing.

  His arrow sank into the cheek of the wild boar, causing it to squeal and lash out in all directions with its tusked snout. He drew a second arrow, and that was when it locked its black little eyes on him and identified him as the source of its pain.

  It charged.

  He was now glad for the broad-shouldered Frenchman beside him, whom he had regarded as something of a hindrance on a deer hunt.

  This was a goddamned big boar.

  Rinaldo knew Thomas had stood up to a crouch and cocked his sword for a two-handed thrust, but he was too busy loosing his second arrow to see that Thomas was smiling like a little boy.

  And so it was that the four of them approached Chalon-sur-Saône with their bellies full, with a blanket full of cooked meat in the cart, and in possession of the boar skin that would keep Rinaldo Carbonelli warm on his long trek over the mountains, since the girl had told him he would surely die if he came with them to the river.

  He might have dismissed this warning had she not also told him that his wife, Caterina, prayed for him each night, looking out the window that gave on the Arno; that when she prayed, she held between her clasped hands the little figurine of an angel he had carved for her from the bones of the stag he brought her father on the day he asked to marry her.

  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.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Of the Fishers of Men

  “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 t
he 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.

  All the while, Thomas stood at the ready, though he was embarrassed enough to be back at his old vocation that he didn’t return the hateful glare of one of the young bargemen, who seemed to be working himself up to act foolishly.

  Instead, the massive armored man with the scarred cheek and broken nose looked mildly at the boy and said, “Don’t.”

  The boy didn’t.

  “Do we at least get our whoring banner so we don’t get robbed by the next lot?”

  The raft captain, taking up his long spear, said, “But you haven’t sold your stone yet! This was only half the necessary amount. You’ll have to settle accounts with the next boat. But, as a personal favor, I will allow you to keep your cargo.”

  “You sure, Captain?” one of the oarsmen said, chuckling a bully’s chuckle. “That’s some really nice granite. I could build a hell of a bridge with granite like that.”

  “No, Thierry. Fair is fair. Let them keep it.”

  “Thanks,” the barge captain said. “You’re a real friend.”

  The captain lost his wagging-dog look and his voice shed its false good humor.

  “I’m a better friend than you know, you fat, whoring slug. You’ve been very lucky today, and only because of my Christian spirit. If you’d like to remember me at Mass, my name is Carolus.”

  So saying, the walleyed pirate pushed off with the spear, leaving the granite barge to drift.

  The raft moved down the river without incident over the next days. The girl slept on the knight’s satchel by day and watched over Thomas and the priest when their sleeping hours overlapped, all the way to Lyon, where the Saône married the glacier-cooled Rhône and took its name. This was the biggest town on the river until Avignon, and the captain and both oarsmen were willing to take their chances with the plague to sample her remaining pleasures. Big-arms stayed on the raft.

  “You roll dice?” the pirate asked Thomas.

  “Every day I wake up in this world, the same as you.”

  Big-arms liked that, and took that as a yes, producing pig-knuckle dice.

  The two soldiers gambled for small coins, big-arms winning more often. When the others came they bore bad news about the whores but good news about the alehouse; they shared out generous bowlfuls of beer for everyone and joined in the dicing. The captain remarked, “I like your priest. He doesn’t waste his breath telling us what Christ would and wouldn’t like.”

  The priest looked down at his hands.

  Later, when the captain and the younger oarsman pissed over the side and the other oarsman went to fetch an instrument, big-arms leaned very close to Thomas.

  “You were there, weren’t you?” he said.

  “Where?”

  The man pointed at the pit in Thomas’s cheek.

  He nodded.

  “I was t
here,” big-arms said. “French crossbowmen mixed in with the Salamis. I’ve got one of those, too,” he said, pointing at the scar again, “but I won’t show you where.”

  Thomas laughed. They looked at each other for two heartbeats, then looked away. It occurred to Thomas that big-arms hadn’t brought up Crécy while the others were ashore because he hadn’t wanted to linger on that field too long. The man slapped Thomas on the back. There was nothing else to say about it.

  Now the older of the two oarsmen returned with his cornemuse and began to play it with some skill. The captain took off his leather shoes and beat time on the raft’s dirty floor, and soon the other oarsman and big-arms started dancing. Thomas joined them, imitating their raftsman’s dance, which involved a lot of heel stamping and sliding of the feet on the gritty boards, all done with the hands on the hips or linking arms.

  They called for the priest.

  “We’re only supposed to dance at Christmas. And the feasts of Saints Nicholas and Catherine.”

  Père Matthieu did sing, though, when the piper left his raftsman’s dances and played a Norman harvest song. The girl sang, too, joining in on the second verse.

  For soon the winter’s breath shall breathe

  the summer’s greens away-O

  but what care we with bread enough

  and instruments to play-O

  Jean will cut us sheaves of wheat

  and his two sons will bind them

  while his daughters hide away

  where none of us can find them

  Swing-ho, swing your scythe

  For God is in His Heaven

  And if we do not work He will

  not give us bread to leaven

  Swing-ho, swing your scythe,

  For Mother Mary loves you

  And as you sing your working song

  She sings along above you.

  For the first time, Thomas allowed himself to think they might just get to Avignon, and that whatever the girl had come to do might just get done.

  The raftsmen boarded two more vessels in the next three days: one a fishing boat manned by two frightened teenagers, both missing fingers, and their one-handed father, who surrendered their astonishing catch of pike without incident. The other was a shallow-hulled sailing boat that tried to run. Big-arms cranked the windlass while the younger oarsman and the captain shot bolt after bolt into the ship; a man with a parti-colored cowl took a quarrel in the hip, and he howled lamentably while the other two fought over the limited shelter provided by a wooden chest aft, one getting his scalp grazed so he bled awfully, though the wound was not serious. Neither bothered about the rudder, and the quick little boat ran aground at a bend in the river just as the distance was getting too great for real accuracy.