The Burning Road

by Ann Benson

  She resisted and tried to wrench her hand from his grip, and finally he was forced to drag her, but when the snorting and neighing of the horses began to seem like it was but a few paces away, she realized that there was no choice but to run. So she followed, and they stumbled wildly through the thicket, always moving away from the cottage, staying out of the clearings and off the paths, pounding through the thorny underbrush until their garments were shredded and small rivulets of blood seeped from the scratches on their arms and ankles. They ran until they were panting so badly that neither one could hope to speak. Finally Kate pulled hard on Karle’s sleeve to stop him, for she could not go farther without resting, even if only briefly. The vehemence of her yanking surprised him, and he came so abruptly to a halt that she slammed into him. They teetered, gasping and unbalanced, in each other’s arms for a few moments before regaining equilibrium. Then they dropped to their knees, clutching at each other, and sucked in great gulps of warm, pine-scented air on the forest floor.

  The man who leapt down off his horse in a cloud of dust would be king of France if all went according to his plan, or, as he was so fond of bellowing when frustrated by the limitations of his power, “if only my mother had been a man!” But his mother, the daughter of Louis X, had been shunted off to the mountain domain of Navarre, of which Charles could now properly call himself king, a kingdom far too insignificant and remote to satisfy his lofty ambitions.

  He was a smallish man but fearsome nonetheless, and there seemed about him always to be an air of depravity, as if he were harboring some unhatched scheme that could come to no good. When he first heard himself called Charles the Bad, the young King of Navarre was said to have smiled. Let them think me bad, he’d roared in delight, let them fear me! It would only help him to accomplish his intended purposes. He could do nothing if the rest of the nobility thought him weak and vulnerable.

  He threw open the door and strode into the small stone cottage, sword drawn and ready, his bearing appropriately regal, without first allowing the young knight who accompanied him to determine if the place was empty. After a quick, disparaging glance at the wounded man on the table, Charles of Navarre made a cursory search of the rest of the small space, poking and prodding here and there with the tip of his weapon, until he satisfied himself that the one-armed man was alone in the dwelling.

  He came tableside and stood over the frightened man, sneering down at him. “Well, well, well, look at this,” he called back to his companion. “It seems that Karle has left me something to do. And he has already started the work for me. I am to be chastised for thinking him ungenerous.” He poked at the oozing stump with the tip of the sword, and the injured man screamed out in pain. “Though I will admit that I would have preferred a whole peasant to torture into revealing his whereabouts.”

  “Pig,” the man hissed defiantly.

  Navarre poked again, and the man blubbered in agony. The diminutive nobleman leaned over the wounded soldier and sniffed the air. “You stink of fear, Monsieur Jacques. You wear it in your pants, I think.” He smiled evilly. “You need not fear me; I am a man of great pity and compassion. Tell me what you know, and I will see to your comfort.”

  “I know nothing …” he moaned.

  “Oh, come now! Do you think me stupid? Even les Jacques do not go into battle without an escape plan. Or was the son-of-a-whore Karle so full of arrogance like the rest of his Picardy brethren that he thought he would have no need for such a plan?”

  Alejandro could hear the man’s sobs through the straw-covered planking. “Nothing …”

  “Eh? Nothing?” he heard Navarre say. “Nothing at all? Well, here is something to know. You shall no longer have the pleasure of scratching your own ass.”

  Alejandro heard the sword whoosh through the air, then the smashing of the bone as it sliced through the man’s remaining arm. The fine metal weapon rang like a bell as it reverberated against the wood of the table. His patient let out a long and bloodcurdling scream, and then fell silent.

  Charles of Navarre pulled the sleeve off the severed arm and used it to wipe the blood off his sword. Then he thrust the sharp weapon violently downward into the straw pallet and cursed so profanely that Alejandro, hearing the muffled words from his subterranean hiding place, thought surely the man’s chances of entering the Christian heaven had been significantly diminished by that one utterance.

  The tip of the sword stuck in the planking. Alejandro searched frantically for something to grab, so that when Navarre pulled up on his sword, the planking would not come with it. Bits of dirt filtered down through the cracks in the planking and drifted into his eyes. He squeezed them shut, and groped about in the darkness. He found a knothole and thrust his thumb into it, then pulled downward with all his strength, just before the nobleman pulled up on the sword. Mercifully, the weapon came free, just in time for Alejandro to stifle a dusty sneeze.

  Overhead, Navarre examined the tip of his sword for damage, and when satisfied that the blade was intact slid it into the ornate scabbard strapped to his belt. His dark face wore a look of complete disgust. “Once again, the scoundrel has gotten away,” he said to the knight. “And he will not return here, mark my words. This place is no longer safe for him. Nor will he go back to Meaux, for his forces have been scattered into the wind! Why can they not stand and fight, as true knights? Why must they slip away like cowards and hide?”

  “Sire, they have not the proper training and temperament, and they do not know the courtesies of proper battle—they are ill-equipped and afraid.…”

  “And yet they can do such damage as they have done nevertheless! I am shamed before my peers by the uncanny success of their rebellious insouciance.”

  “Sire,” the knight protested, “what success do you speak of? The Jacques were ruined at Meaux! Surely they can no longer hope to gather sufficient numbers to rise up—”

  “They nearly took the castle before we ‘ruined’ them, if that is what you wish to call it! They were nearly pounding on the door when we ‘ruined’ them! And were it not for the unexpected arrival of the Captal de Buch and Count Phoebus, they might have come through that door, and engaged in a lovely little soiree with three hundred ladies and children! And I would have been shamed before all of France! Not a man among the nobility would have stood with me had they taken hostages.”

  “Yes, but happily, Sire—”

  “Do not speak to me of happiness, for I shall know none until I see Guillaume Karle dead. He shall be declared king of the Jacques when I get my hands on him, and then summarily deposed, and his crowned head shall tumble at my feet, where I shall take great pleasure in stomping on it.”

  He slammed his gloved hand down on the table where the mutilated man lay, the last of his life seeping out of him. “We will likely get nothing more out of this one.”

  The knight watched in terse silence as his king paced around the small cottage with nervous, almost explosive energy. It was painful to watch, so intense was Navarre’s agitation. He let out a small breath of relief when the king finally stopped and stood in one place.

  Navarre’s eyes settled on the one object that seemed out of place—a massive brass-covered book lying beside the hearth. He knelt down beside it and opened the cover, then motioned for the knight to come near.

  “What do you make of this?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Sire, what should I make of it? It is some heathen script. I am not learned in such writings.”

  Charles of Navarre turned another page. “I have seen such writings before. This is the hand of a Jew.”

  The knight seemed puzzled. “Can there be any still about?”

  “None that I know of,” Navarre answered. “But it seems that Karle has managed to find one. And he has come to him for comfort. Such an association is fitting for the sort of man he has become—a lover of plowmen and beggars and charwomen. It is only fitting that he should also become a lover of Jews.”

  But the book held no answers to the whereabo
uts of his quarry, so Charles of Navarre left it where it lay. Finally, after kicking the severed arm and then spitting on the dying soldier, he stomped out of the cottage and headed to his horse. He got up onto the animal’s back in one graceful motion, then pulled on the reins and galloped off.

  The young knight watched in dismay, knowing he would be chastised by Charles’s military advisors for allowing him to ride off without their presence. And he would be further vilified by the nobles who had allied themselves with Charles for allowing the leader to risk searching Karle’s supposed hiding place without protection. He hurried out of the cottage, leaving the door open after him, and struggled up onto his own mount. He followed at a slow trot, keeping the dust of his liege’s rough ride before him on the road, and allowed the king of Navarre his distance. Let the others vilify him if they would—he was simply not man enough to keep the impetuous Charles from doing the mad things he often did when inspired by indignation. They would reach his stronghold far too soon for the knight’s liking, even were they to travel at a snail’s pace.

  Only when there had been silence for a good long time did Alejandro dare to lift up the planked cover to his dark earthen cave, and when he finally emerged into the light again, he saw quickly that it was too late to do anything for the poor wretch who lay still tied to the table. What was left of the poor soul now resembled a tree trunk more than a man. The arm that Charles of Navarre had so handily removed was under the table covered with dust, and was beginning to serve as a landing place for buzzing flies. The armless warrior was bled white and lay almost motionless, but somehow he still drew breath.

  We cling, when all hope is lost, to the illusion of hope, Alejandro mused sadly. What horror floats through his mind? he wondered as he stood over the wreck of a soldier who might once have shown great valor, a man who had managed to live through what the Frenchman Karle had described as a very bloody battle.

  May it please God that I never know such horror. He set aside his Hippocratic vows once again and pulled out the knife that he kept always in his boot, the fine one his father had given him so long ago in Spain. “I commend you to your God,” he whispered to the near-corpse, then quickly thrust the knife into the man’s heart. The life flowed out of him, even before Alejandro could wipe the knife clean and restore it to his boot.

  “To Paris, then,” he said aloud, surprising himself with the sound of his own voice. And if God was good, and Guillaume Karle was a man of his word, he would find Kate there, in the place they had so frequently visited when she was a child and still begging to learn anything he could find to put before her. He pulled the saddlebag out of the cellar and laid it on the floor. In it was his fortune—the gold of his family, the gold from the pope, the gold of King Edward, hardly touched in a decade of running. Enough gold to cover the streets of Paris in delicate, finely woven ladies’ shifts—if only such shifts could be found. He stuffed what little food he had into the bag, and then stood to leave. As he took one last look around, he saw the heavy manuscript still beside the hearth.

  He would not leave another book behind, as he had done when fleeing England. Such secrets as this book might hold must not fall into the wrong hands.

  Karle was surprised, but not unhappy, when Kate named Paris as the location of the rendezvous.

  “But why there?” he asked. “I surmise that you and your père are as much on the run as I. It would seem a dangerous place to meet.”

  “It is,” she acceded. “But in these times, we could not be certain that any other meeting place would survive. How many burned villages and ravaged castles have you encountered in the countryside? Many. Could the same happen to Paris? Never. It shall always stand. And I shall always be able to find my way there. All roads lead to Paris, Père says.”

  “All roads lead to Rome, or so says the legend.”

  “Ah, but that was said many centuries ago. When Rome still had its glory. In these modern times, it is Paris that is the center of the world. Or so those who would stake their claim to pieces of it would say. And I know some parts of that city very well.”

  “And how did you come by this familiarity with Paris?” Guillaume Karle asked.

  “We spent much time there when I was a girl.”

  “I was not aware that you are not still a girl,” he observed sternly. “Yet I fear you will find Paris much changed from your last visit there.”

  “I am seventeen,” she said, her chin raised, “and the mistress of Père’s household.”

  “Hmm,” Karle said through his nose. “Such household as it now is.”

  She scowled and shook a finger at him. “We had household enough to serve you and your men. And now, thanks to your imposition, if I find Père we shall be forced to find a new home.”

  Appropriately chastised, Karle did not respond. They rested by the edge of a stream as their horses took their fill of water—horses liberated from the stables of a local squire by Karle while Kate, pressed into unwilling service as an accomplice in his thievery, stood watch outside. He had been nervous during the deed, for he could not help but wonder what she would have done had they been caught at the theft—how she might have stood against an outraged groom. Would she have strangled him with her white hands, her long, fine fingers? Or kicked him in the manhood with her delicate foot?

  Unlikely, he thought. At best she would have screamed out a warning. But they had not been discovered and now Karle kept a vigilant eye on the ill-gotten beasts, for the animals were unfamiliar and therefore unpredictable. He waited patiently until the horses had drunk their fill and were secured to a tree before seeing to his own refreshment.

  He dipped his cupped hands in the water of the clear, fast-running stream and began to bring the liquid to his mouth, but Kate put a hand on his arm and stopped him. “Wash only. Before we drink, the water must be strained through a cloth.”

  He let the water drip through his fingers. “This is a bit of nonsense,” he said.

  “Not nonsense at all. Great wisdom.”

  “Curious wisdom,” he said. “And not local,” he added suspiciously.

  “There are tiny beasts who live in all waters,” Kate told him. “Père says so. He says that many people who suffer from difficulties of the bowel do so because they are not careful about the water they drink.”

  Karle gave her an incredulous look. “And has he seen these beasts, or only dreamed of them?”

  “He knows that they are there.”

  “How does he come by such knowledge?”

  “Père studies all that he sees. He studies some things he can only imagine by thinking deeply about them. He is a very learned man, as he told you. He has served a pope, studied under the best professors, and attended to the health of m—uh—many important people.” She stammered over her last few words, and looked away briefly to recover her confidence.

  But if her remarks made Karle curious, he was careful not to show it, and when she had regained her composure she showed him a square of finely woven silk. “We each carry one of these to purify what we drink. If we can, we even boil the water.”

  “In God’s name, why do you do that? It takes away the vitality of it.”

  She made a thin smile. “Do you know of any beast, large or small, who can survive a boiling?”

  “Hmph,” he grunted. “No.”

  Curiosity began to taunt him and he found himself with an abundance of unspoken questions. These were terribly bold claims—to serve a pope, to know of invisible small beasts in the water—this père of hers seemed no ordinary man. But he decided to delay his inquiries until a time when he had more of her confidence, for he knew she would be more truthful if she trusted him. He considered how he might hasten the winning of it. Show interest, he thought suddenly. Women—girls— cannot resist this, and respond with wagging tongues. He was pleased with his own cunning. “And has this cured you of your bowel afflictions?”

  “I cannot say,” she said proudly, “for I do not suffer any.”

  Karle l
ooked at her with raised eyebrows. He knew almost no one who escaped occasional bouts of dysentery or diarrhea, especially in these times of war, when streams and rivers often ran red with blood, and all the wells were suspect. “And all of your water is dripped through this—cloth?”

  “Yes,” she said, handing it to him. “See how finely it is woven; Père said it came from the very end of the earth, from the place called Nippon, where it is as common as our coarsest wool. It is very precious, and I should be loath to lose it. All of the impure beasts are caught in its threads. I boil the cloth itself as often as the opportunity presents itself.”

  “Remarkable,” Karle said. He had no need to feign interest in her chatter—it was wild enough to be fascinating. He handed the filmy cloth back to her. “I have never seen such a wonder before.”

  “Pere knows many things that no one else knows,” she said.

  “He seems an unusual man, indeed.”

  Kate sighed and wiped at one of her eyes. “More than you can understand. He is a most excellent physician.” She looked Karle directly in the eye, and challenged him with a story she knew he would find hard to believe. “He saved me from the plague when I was but seven. And then he saved himself when he was afflicted.”

  It was a stunning revelation. Karle stared at her in abject disbelief and whispered, “You have lived through plague?”

  She set the silk down in her lap and slowly unwrapped her shawl. She exposed her long white neck to his eager eyes, and pointed to a series of small scars that were surrounded by a slightly discolored area, the unmistakable scars of the buboes that every plague victim suffered.

  Alejandro had a scar on his chest—I saw it when he washed himself, Karle thought. “But—how?” he said.

  “He gave me a foul-tasting medicine, and watched over me, and after a fortnight I was cured.”

  These claims were almost too much for him to believe. Yet she bore the scars; that much was undeniable. He reached out tentatively in the direction of her neck, wondering if she would allow him to touch her, but she did not stop his hand. He felt the hardness of one of the scars with his own fingertips. “Forgive me this intimacy,” he said as he drew his hand away, “but I find this very difficult to accept. I have never heard of one gone to buboes who lived to tell of it. Some lived, of course, but not after the buboes appeared.”