City of Crows

by Chris Womersley

  ‘We must have done something terrible to be visited by such things,’ Nicolas said. ‘My father dead. My brother, my sisters.’

  Charlotte shook her head, eager to finish this conversation. ‘Your father died of the fever, there’s nothing more to it than that. Like my own mother. And your sisters . . .’ She swallowed a sob, tried to dispel the image of the corpses of those she had loved piled in a corner of her mind. Her girls and her infant boy, forever young, their bleak smiles, stony eyes in their sockets. Gone. Barely formed before they were taken from her.

  ‘Death visits everyone,’ she said.

  ‘Not the way it comes to us.’

  ‘Yes, Nicolas. Exactly like it comes to us. There is no order to it. Remember Ann Waites’s people? The Blois family? They are all gone. The dead are many. They surely outnumber us by now.’

  ‘Mother?’

  She put down her needle and twine. ‘What now?’ she asked, trying, unsuccessfully, to keep exasperation from her voice.

  ‘What is hell like, then?’

  Her son waited, staring up at her, one of his fingers tracing a complex pattern of his own design on his knee. Like a drunk surprised by his reproachful wife, the candle beside him on the bench buckled at the waist, weaved, then managed to halt its collapse. She glanced around the cottage – at the torn curtain hanging across the window, at the rickety table, the shelf warped and corroded by years of use. As always, the place smelled of tallow, of smoke, and of ash.

  Charlotte turned again to regard her husband’s unmoving face, the only part of him yet to be sealed away. She ran a finger along the seam she had already made in the winding sheet. She had done a good job; it would hold for a long time. Much longer than his skin would hold his bones. Sorrow flared in her throat, and was gone.

  Probably like this, she thought, although she said nothing. Hell is probably like this. She took up her needle and bent wordlessly to her wifely duty.

  Soon afterwards, three men of the village came and lifted Michel’s body away in his sheet for burial. By this time it was almost dark. Charlotte took up a lantern and she and Nicolas walked behind them. The other villagers followed silently. Footsteps, the crack of twig, some low murmurs. The grave had already been dug and Michel was laid gently in it, the clumsy farmer Samuel Garance stumbling and swearing at the edge of the hole as they did so. The curé offered some final words. ‘Pater noster, qui es in caelis . . .’

  When the men started to shovel the dirt back in, the sound of soil hitting the taut linen winding sheet had nothing of the living about it. It was unbearable to Charlotte’s ears and she turned away weeping. Nicolas clung to her dress, for her unspoken anxiety as to what would happen to them now had communicated itself to him. When at last she opened her eyes, all she saw in front of her was the dense and complicated forest darkness. The villagers had trickled back to their own hearths. Doubtless they had muttered consolations to her and patted her shoulder as they passed, but of these actions she had been unaware.

  Night fell. Charlotte sensed a lurch in the atmosphere, the wind changing direction, as she stood with one hand pressed to her lower back, the other resting on a spade’s rough wooden handle. It was a clear night and the rising June moon was as full and low as a monk’s belly. She paused to listen to the last gossiping sounds of robins and the hiss of the wind through the oak trees, their slow-creaking limbs, the rattle of ivy that clung to their trunks. It was only the forest muttering its difficult speech. It was a language she had heard her entire life, but it never failed to imbue her with fear and melancholy, as if it were reminding her, perpetually, of some malevolence close at hand, of sprites and other unknown vermin scuttling about in the dark. There were stories, after all, of an odd man in the forest who became a wolf at night and tore people’s bodies to pieces. Other things, too. Ghosts, demons, spirits.

  Charlotte’s chin was crumbed with dirt. Her cheeks and neck were pitted here and there with half-a-dozen scars from her childhood pox, as if she had long ago been splashed with hot oil. There were other less visible scars scattered across her body. Fifteen of them; Michel had insisted on counting them every so often. To make sure none have escaped, he would chortle as he crouched over her stomach, her thighs. They used to call her Fever Girl in the village, on account of these scars – although there were plenty of others nearby similarly afflicted; such blemishes were hardly rare. Of course, most who contracted any one of the many fevers – her daughters, now her husband – died of it. This fact of her survival she hoarded like a mysterious talisman to take out and ponder in private, fondling its indentations in the hope its meaning would eventually reveal itself. It calmed her somehow, this intimation of destiny.

  Nicolas tugged at her dress. Absent-mindedly, Charlotte ran her hand through his hair and pulled him against her hip. She scanned the other side of the valley for signs of smoke or soldiers, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. She swept aside her hair and crouched to smooth over the ground as best she could with the flat of her spade. Once this had been done to her satisfaction, she took up the cross Nicolas had fashioned from two sticks tied together with twine and jammed it into the earth. Like those for her daughters and her infant son who were all under the ground, there were no words on the marker, no flowers for the grave. Death was the final word. What was there to add? More family under the ground than walking on it, she thought as she got to her feet. She made the sign of the cross across her chest and muttered a prayer. ‘In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Goodbye, my husband.’

  ‘Come on, Mother. We should go indoors. It’s getting dark.’

  She stared at the rough ground, breathing hard, suddenly afraid. A worm that had been sliced in half by someone’s spade writhed about on the freshly turned earth like the pink, waggling finger of a miniature creature otherwise hidden beneath the soil. The sight of it disgusted her; it took vast effort not to mash the vile thing utterly with her spade. Eventually, she took the whimpering Nicolas by the hand, and together they picked their way back across the uneven ground to their cottage.

  The village goats complained as they were shoved indoors for the night. There came the hoot of a bird. Coughing, soft words, latches falling into place in the houses around them, then silence.

  3

  By daybreak the following morning, Charlotte and Nicolas had tidied away their few pots and plates and cups, nailed the cottage door shut and were on their way. She had told none of the villagers of her plans, for she knew some of them viewed such departures as a kind of betrayal. They trusted in prayers and isolation, but Charlotte had placed her faith in these things before and been disappointed. Someone would see or hear them leave, of course, and it would take no time for reports of their departure to spread, but by then they would be gone. She was resolved to flee and there was nothing anyone might say to change her mind.

  They took turns tugging the skittering goat along behind them on a length of rope. The animal regarded them with anger and contempt, an old creature forced against its will. Charlotte carried a cane basket with two chickens, and over her shoulder was a sack containing a few turnips and beets, a blanket, some dried fruit, bread, sausage and a flask of water drawn from the well.

  It was not long before they left the village environs and entered the forest. The whistles of orioles and the skirring of finches filled the air around them, and the light from the early-morning sun spattered upon the flowers. Charlotte had never before seen a body of water as large as the ocean, let alone swum in its depths, yet she imagined this was how it was beneath its surface; it would not surprise her unduly to spy a mermaid or leviathan floating through the treetops overhead. Beneath their shoes, leaves crackled and crunched with a sound like that of damp insect shells. Lizards scurried across the rocky path. Ancient oak trees furred with green lichen, drone of huge wasps, the incessant chatter of birds. Despite the outbreak of fever, it had been a favourable start to summer and they were able
to collect plenty of mulberries and plums as they walked. They ate what they could and filled their pockets with the surplus. Charlotte urged Nicolas on, eager to leave the valley. Her son was nimble on his feet but easily distracted and often had to be coaxed onwards after becoming entranced by a bee clinging awkwardly to a head of purple thistle or some martens in the undergrowth.

  The only signs of human life they encountered that morning were the ancient stone crosses slumped along the path at irregular intervals, most of them worn almost to the bone by weather and time, by thousands of penitent caresses. The fields and lanes of their country were dotted with such powerful shrines: for fertility, for good crops, for protection from disease. Charlotte knew that Madame Solange from the village sometimes put the scrapings of one of these crosses in her husband’s dinner to assist him in the bedroom.

  After a time, she heard voices and presently a small group of people approached from the opposite direction. None of them she recognised. The party – two women and a young man dragging behind him a stretcher or bier – waited a moment on the narrow track as silent and cautious as deer. They were dressed as pilgrims, with numerous amulets and icons slung around their necks and crosses at their belts. Charlotte clutched her husband’s knife beneath her shawl.

  The woman at the head of the little procession stared at her and Nicolas until, evidently deciding they were not to be feared, she indicated for her companions to continue. She was old and walnut-faced, her grey hair wispy and only partly covered with a scarf. When they had approached to within hailing distance, the woman halted again and nodded in greeting to Charlotte.

  ‘Good morning, madame.’

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Charlotte paused. ‘To Lyon. We are escaping an outbreak of the plague in Saint-Gilles. And you, madame?’

  The woman sighed and indicated the path ahead of her with her staff. ‘To the shrine of the Virgin to pray for this boy.’

  Although she had never visited it, Charlotte knew of this shrine, which was on a hill some leagues from here. It had grown up at the site where, many years ago, the Virgin had appeared to a shepherd girl and given her a wooden cross. Céline, the village midwife, had journeyed there long ago to pray for the health of her own sick daughter and, on her return, had excitedly described to Charlotte how the tree near the shrine was so garlanded with flowers and icons and votive candles that it fairly trembled, even at night.

  ‘The plague is in this poor child,’ the old woman went on, and gestured to a boy lying on the bier attached with ropes to the young man, as if he were an ox in the field and the sick boy his plough. Charlotte and Nicolas craned to see this afflicted boy, who was bundled in a blanket with only his face, thin as a hatchet blade, visible over the coverlet. He was turned aside. His lips were dry and chalky. Charlotte shrank back, for he reminded her of Michel bound in his winding sheet.

  ‘The shrine is two days’ walk from here,’ Charlotte said. ‘The boy will not last long enough, I fear.’

  The woman shrugged and made a face, as if agreeing with her but reluctant to speak aloud her thoughts on the matter. She crossed herself. ‘We must do what we can. He is the only boy left in his family. We have been bleeding him and he is much better for it. And we will pray, of course, casting his fate into the hands of the Lord. He may yet help us.’

  The woman’s companions nodded and smiled vigorously at this and fondled their crosses and icons. Each of them had sprigs of lavender tied around their necks to ward off disease. Charlotte smiled, greatly touched by their devotion. Each soul contained an entire world, after all. At that moment, the boy on the bier opened his eyes and turned to look at Charlotte. His face showed alarm. Agitated, breathing heavily, he strained to say something. The old woman leaned over him and put her ear close by his mouth. She nodded and stood.

  ‘He says you must be an angel, madame,’ she said to Charlotte. ‘Because you are so beautiful. Are you an angel? Will you help us?’

  Taken aback, Charlotte shook her head. ‘No, madame. It is the fever talking. They sometimes see odd things when it has hold of them.’

  The old woman took a step closer to Charlotte. White whiskers sprouted from her cheeks, lending her the appearance of a strange and leathery cat. Her mouth worked away as she scrutinised Charlotte for a long time with her pale blue eyes until, finally, she turned back to the sick boy, leaned down once more and consoled him with a few words.

  Charlotte tugged Nicolas back by his sleeve and the two of them stood aside on the path to allow the pilgrims to continue on their way. ‘God be with you,’ she said as they shuffled onwards.

  She and Nicolas stared after the group. She crossed herself. ‘They will all die of it, I think,’ she murmured to her son.

  Their last sight of the strangers was of the sick boy on the bier, of his milky face fading, becoming ever smaller as they drew away. A wood dove cooed nearby and fluttered up from the undergrowth, startling them. By the time Charlotte looked back, there was no sign of the pilgrims, prompting her to wonder if they had encountered anyone at all.

  4

  They worked their way up along the wooded side of the mountain until, in the middle of the day, they emerged into a bright landscape of rolling fields that stretched as far as they could see. Wheat shimmered in the breeze. Here and there an orchard or a stand of trees. The spire of a distant church, its grey roof and, closer at hand, an ancient shepherd’s hut built a thousand summers ago. The world had never seemed so vast and immeasurable to Charlotte and she experienced an unfamiliar swooning thrill as she gazed around. The air was fresher up here, but the sun was blazing and it stunned her and Nicolas like the blow of a mallet. She retied the scarf on her head, wiped sweat from her face. For a moment she was uncertain which direction to take, but then she saw the landmark she sought beneath a chestnut tree several fields away. With the sun hot upon their heads and the sharp smell of the countryside filling their nostrils, they paused to drink from their flask before hurrying on, two people with their burdens toiling across the enormous face of the earth. Stalks of wheat swayed about their waists, and butterflies erupted from the crop and fluttered in their faces as they crunched through the fields.

  The so-called Giant’s Table consisted of three huge slabs of lichen-scabbed rock arranged to form a rough shelter. Charlotte had heard of similar structures in the surrounding area, but this was the only one she knew of personally. Some people called it a cromlech, but she did not know the true name for such a thing. An unfamiliar four-pointed cross was carved into the surface of one of the massive slabs, along with various other symbols she didn’t understand, scratches perhaps made by Druids or their ilk a long time ago. Cathars or Saracens. The villagers said, variously, that this place had been used by such heretics as a gateway to other worlds, or that it was a burial chamber or church of some sort. Consideration of odd tribes crouching here, perhaps eating and drinking, speaking in their strange tongues, made her most uneasy.

  Charlotte placed the basket containing the fretting chickens on the ground while Nicolas tied the goat to the chestnut tree. Avoiding the cromlech, they crouched in the shade of the tree to eat some apples and bread. The shaggy tops of the trees in the forest below moved slowly from side to side, as if they were being shaken by men at their trunks.

  ‘Was this place really made by giants?’ Nicolas asked her.

  Charlotte drank some tepid water from their flask and removed her headscarf. ‘Yes, I think so. But don’t worry, they are long gone. They died in the great floods years ago. No one has seen them for many years. Not while I have been alive. Not even when my own mother and father were alive.’

  Nicolas pointed across the shallow valley. ‘And what is that country over there?’

  Charlotte shrugged. She had no idea. Their country ended at the edge of the valley and it had always been enough to know that. Or it had been enough until now.

/>   ‘Perhaps the giants live there these days?’

  ‘No. They are long gone. I told you.’ She indicated the forest below them to the west. ‘We are going through there, anyway.’

  She could see that the prospect of going through an unfamiliar forest made Nicolas nervous, as it did her.

  ‘There is a path,’ she continued before the boy could voice further objections, ‘that leads to the old chapel overlooking the river. We can sleep there tonight, and tomorrow we’ll take the other path through to Lyon. It’s quite simple. Your father explained it all to me before he died. He said it should take us two days.’

  She choked on the memory of Michel grasping weakly at her in the night and exhorting her, over and over, to leave Saint-Gilles and go to Lyon, where he thought it would be safe. Save yourself, he had murmured. Save our boy.

  Charlotte placed a hand across her mouth, as if allowing the grief to escape her body would make it worse. He was gone, she was on her own, she needed to be strong.

  Nicolas thought on this for a moment. ‘What is it like in Lyon?’

  She had never in her life travelled further than one or two days from Saint-Gilles and the thought of such a journey filled her with dread, as if silt were accumulating thickly around her heart. She had been born and grown up in the village, as had her parents. Only a few times in her life had she even crossed the river to the other side of the valley, and that was with her husband or father. She had never needed to until now.

  ‘It will be bigger, with more people. They have an enormous cathedral there, your father told me. Larger than anything you have ever seen, he said.’

  ‘Will it be safe?’

  The question surprised her. Surely even a nine-year-old village boy such as Nicolas knew nowhere was absolutely safe these days. There were constant rumours of banditry, of outbreaks of unrest and damaging weather. A travelling merchant last summer told her he’d seen a five-legged dog.