by Bobby Adair
They had to think differently. Beck just wasn’t sure how.
Chapter 74: Franklin
Franklin stood up and shuffled toward the door. He paused when his hand grasped the knob, stuck on whether to go, or where. The pew in the Temple seemed worse, in its way, than where he was. He turned and walked over to one of the wooden chairs by the fire. The joints creaked as he sat.
Fitz didn’t move. She stayed on the bed, propped up on an arm, a sleeping gown draped over her, barely covering those breasts that Tenbrook’s dirty hands had taken such pleasure in squeezing.
Franklin glanced at her, but quickly turned back to the fires. He couldn’t bear to watch Fitz any longer.
Fitz scooted to the edge of the bed with her feet hanging down to the floor. “You’re frightening me.”
Franklin snorted at her vulnerable voice. He imagined her melting men’s resolve with that voice, all but stealing coins from their pockets after she’d pleasured them.
“Why do you look so disgusted when I speak to you?” she asked. “What did I do?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Franklin snarled.
“Find out what?” Fitz asked. “Nothing was being hidden.”
Franklin laughed harshly. “I suppose not. I’m certain I’m the only one in Brighton who doesn’t know.”
Fitz hung her head and muttered. “I did it for us.”
“For us?” Franklin laughed again through his anger and his hurt, tears burning down his cheeks. “For us? You did it for you.”
“That’s a lie.” Fitz got to her feet. “I risked my life just as you have.”
“Risked your life?” Franklin asked, mocking her. “Is that what you were doing?”
“I could end up on the pyre as easily as anyone. More so. I’m just a Barren Woman. I’m nothing.” Fitz’s tears were starting to flow. “Why are talking to me with such cruelty? Was it so wrong of me to go the market? Was it so wrong of me to seek out allies when you were pouting in the Temple and doing nothing?”
“Allies? Market?” Franklin spat. Fitz was trying to make the conversation about something other than her seduction of Tenbrook. “Pouting?” That part hurt. But why not? Everything else hurt. Why not hurtful words? He’d heard married men and women quarrel before, sometimes in the Temple, sometimes in the market. In the years before he’d been in a relationship, he’d always wondered how people could be so hateful to one another with their words, then find a way to come together and share a bed and raise their children. Now he understood at least some of it.
“Yes, you were pouting,” said Fitz, “feeling sorry for yourself because sometimes things are hard.”
“I’ll have you know,” Franklin shot back, “the clergymen have rallied to my side. They all believe in me now. They’re not against me.”
“Is that what Novice Joseph told you?” Fitz asked.
Franklin looked at the fire. He couldn’t face her with the half-truth he was spinning. “They’ve seen my devotion, and now they believe my words are true when I speak to The People. They believe in me. I haven’t given up. I’m doing something.”
Fitz shook her head and added a mean laugh to the discourse. “Simple, stupid Novice Joseph. He doesn’t know anything I don’t tell him. He doesn’t have any idea what the clergymen think. And the clergymen are no better than he is. Who do you think told them that you were fasting for The People? Do you think they came up with that idea on their own? No. I told them, because I had to tell them something, so they wouldn’t think the leader of their religion was a pouting child.”
Franklin wanted to fight back with something, and he grasped at the first thing that came to his mind, a confirmation of a vile thought that had been growing in his heart since Tenbrook had told him what she’d done. “You manipulate men with your lies, because that’s what you do. You smile and hypnotize them with your icy, blue bitch eyes, and your big slutty breasts, and that makes men too stupid to think, and they’ll do anything you say.”
Fitz shook her head. “Where is all this hate coming from?”
“And you let them dream about what you look like with all your clothes on the floor beside the bed, and you encourage them to dream about you, and when that’s not enough for you to twist their minds, you let them.”
“Let them?” Fitz hollered. “Let them what?”
“You let them touch you and kiss you and bed you to get your way.”
“You are a pig! A nasty, sty-rooting, dung-covered, foul-mouthed pig!” she yelled. “You’re no different than any of them. Yes, I’ve laid on my back to beg for coins, because that’s what this god-awful town makes me do. I have to live by the rules that the Elders make, that men like you make. And you shame me for it. And why?” Her voice rose to a screech. “Why?”
Fitz crossed the room and planted herself in front of Franklin, glaring down at him, daring him to respond. She shouted, “You didn’t mind that I was a whore when your greedy little hands were all over my skin. You didn’t care that I came to your bed with Father Winthrop’s stink all over me. Not one bit. You couldn’t wait to get my dress off. And now that I’ve risked my life and gone to the market to rally women, hundreds of them, to our cause because you’re too busy pouting to do your part, you come in here and sit by the fire like a spoiled little merchant’s boy, because you feel threatened by a woman who isn’t afraid to stand up and fight after you’ve given up.”
“You’re spinning a web of lies to take my eye off the truth,” Franklin muttered, not wanting to look away from the passive embers and risk getting burned by Fitz’s fiery rage.
“And what truth is that?” Fitz’s tears were flowing in full. “What truth has you in such a childish mood that you have to pout in the Temple and then come in here and treat me like a worthless whore?”
Franklin mustered his courage and looked up at Fitz. “The truth is that you bedded Tenbrook to win his favor because you think I’m losing, and he’s going to win.”
Fitz raised her arm and slapped Franklin across the face with every bit of strength she possessed.
Chapter 75: Franklin
As Fitz reached back to slap Franklin again, she shouted, “If men didn’t think with their cocks they’d do no thinking at all!”
Franklin took the slap across his face and looked at Fitz with no change in his expression. He was more disgusted by her touch than the sting of her hand hitting his face.
Fitz swung her arm to slap again, but Franklin surprised her by catching her wrist. He spat, “Don’t hit me again.”
“Or what?” Fitz snapped back.
“Or I’ll kill you.” Franklin didn’t know where those words came from. They’d materialized out of his jealousy, out of her betrayal, he supposed.
“Then go ahead.” Fitz reached back with her other arm and slapped Franklin across the cheek. “Kill me.” She pulled away, but Franklin wouldn’t let go. She went anyway and dragged Franklin toward the door. “Take me into the square and put me on the pyre.”
Still, Franklin held onto her wrist.
Fitz was crying out loud as she fumbled to get the door open, elbowing back at Franklin, who wouldn’t let her go.
Finally, she loosed the latch and swung the door open, putting all her rage into slamming it against the wall. The bang resounded through the Temple as she stormed into the hall, pulling Franklin behind her. “Burn me! Burn me tonight if that’s what you want!”
When they entered the Temple’s main room, Franklin let go of Fitz’s wrist. Dozens of heads were sitting up between the dark pews and staring at him and Fitz. They were aghast.
Fitz stopped at the front of the Sanctuary, just in front of the lectern, where one end of the center aisle led to the giant pair of doors at the other end. She spun on Franklin and shouted in a voice that filled the giant dark space, “Do you want to know
what happened? Do you want to know how Tenbrook makes love to a woman?”
Franklin didn’t answer because he didn’t want to know, not one bit of it. It was bad enough knowing it had happened.
Fitz grabbed the front of her nightgown. “Did you ever think for one moment to ask how my new dress got ripped when you saw me stitching it?”
Again, Franklin didn’t know what to say.
“No?” she taunted. “Of course you didn’t. All you cared about was what was underneath.” Fitz grabbed the cloth of her gown and ripped it apart, sending buttons bouncing across the floor. “He tore my dress just like that.” She dropped the gown off her shoulders, exposing her nakedness underneath. The dress slipped down to her hips, and she pushed it past, letting it fall to the floor. She leaned her head back, exposing her throat. She pointed at a yellowish mark below her jawline. “Do you see it?”
Franklin stepped back.
“Look at it!” she demanded. “Is it a smudge? Is it the remains of a bruise? Or is it right where a man’s strangling hand would squeeze a woman’s neck? It is, isn’t it?” Fitz glared at Franklin, whose mouth was hanging open, completely unprepared for everything Fitz was doing.
“Did you ever ask how that got there, or were you too busy kissing and stroking to satisfy yourself to care about the marks on my skin?” Fitz showed Franklin fading bruises on her arms and scabs on her knuckles. “I fought him. I punched him, but it did no good.”
She turned around and showed him her back. “What about those scabs in the shape of a man’s bite, you selfish imbecile? Did you not care where they came from? No, you didn’t. Or the other bruises and cuts.” Fitz collapsed to the floor, crying aloud. “You didn’t care. Tenbrook attacked me and beat me. Yes, I went there to seduce him for your sake, to get him to force Father Winthrop to go on the expedition. I was trading that for you, even though it disgusted me to do it. And he beat me anyway. He hurt me. He tortured me because he’s a twisted man that only gets pleasure through pain. It was General Blackthorn who protected me from him, who nursed me for a week in his house until I was well enough to come back here.”
“Do you know why, Franklin?” Fitz’s voice lost its steam. “Do you know why I endured that in silence? I did it so you’d never know, because I knew you were such a lovesick puppy you’d have to do something to get your revenge on Tenbrook. And the sickest part is that your revenge would have been for you and your pride, not for what Tenbrook did to me.”
Fitz jumped back to her feet. Her sobbing had come to a stop, though her face was thoroughly soaked with tears and her eyes were red and puffy. She glared at Franklin, and then at each of the clergymen in the room. “Look,” she ordered them. “Look at me. See my bruises. See my humiliation. This is what your sick-minded rules do to me and every woman in these walls. Your twisted thoughts and unclean souls make this world. It is all of you who are guilty. So don’t look on me and judge.” Fitz knelt down, picked up her gown and looked at Franklin. “Are you going to burn me?”
Franklin said nothing. He was too ashamed to speak.
She shouldered past him and marched down the hall. “If you’re not going to burn me,” she called over her shoulder, “find another room to sleep in. You’ll not be coming to mine.”
Chapter 76: Beck
It had been a long day of walking followed by a futile attempt to sleep. Finally, Beck sat up and looked around at what he could see in the dim glow of the fire’s embers. At the end of the day, they’d found the remnants of another ancient building in a patch of woods near the coastline, a simple, two-story structure with walls and stairs going up the side, and a roof solid enough to trust in case it rained. Oliver, Melora, and Ivory were sleeping. Jingo, however, was not in the room. Had Beck not been getting used to Jingo, he might’ve been alarmed. But not now. Jingo was an enigma. He looked like a demon, but he was the smartest, most peaceful man Beck had ever met. Just as Ivory had promised that first day they’d met.
Beck stood and carefully placed his feet, wanting to minimize noise as he made his way across the room. He pushed aside a clump of branches, crossed a doorway, and stepped out into the night.
Beck looked east to see the moon rising into a cloudless black sky over a calm ocean. The moon was a magical sight, a white and gray sphere that was round just like the earth, as Jingo had said, but smaller, and so desolate it didn’t have air a man could breathe.
Wanting very much to look at the stars, Beck walked to the end of the patio and stepped onto the half crumbled stairs that ran up the side of the ancient house. He climbed, careful not to step where the ancient stone had crumbled away. He’d pay for that mistake with a twenty-five foot fall and a broken bone. Without a healer around, that error might be a death sentence.
Once at the roof, he spied Jingo sitting with legs crossed, looking out at the moon coming up over the distant water. Jingo said, “Beautiful, don’t you think.”
“Yes,” Beck agreed as he crossed the roof to sit beside Jingo.
“Can’t sleep?”
“No. Too many thoughts in my head. My imagination is running wild trying to picture how the world used to be, how it might be again.”
Jingo laughed, but it was an empty sound.
“You don’t think it can be?” asked Beck.
“I don’t know,” said Jingo. “I often wonder if we reached such heights of technological achievement before we were ready, or by accident. We got lucky once and followed the technological and cultural path from simple hunters and gatherers to the complex global civilization that we had. I wonder if that path is scattered with so many pitfalls, that an attempt to follow it a second time would inevitably fail.”
“Surely that can’t be true,” said Beck.
“I don’t know,” said Jingo, “I truly don’t. As advanced as we were, as much as we’d learned, the world still held many secrets. We had no idea if we were the first people to know what we knew.”
Beck turned away from the silver moon and looked at Jingo. “What do you mean?”
“Time slowly erodes the evidence of our existence.”
Nodding, Beck said, “I understand rot and I understand rust. I see how the ancient stone buildings slowly crumble. Are you suggesting that one day, they’ll disappear altogether?”
“Exactly,” said Jingo. “You don’t believe that’s completely true. I can see it in your face. But I assure you it is. There is so much in science you simply don’t understand. I have lived over three hundred years.” Jingo stood up and waved a hand down the coast. “I was here when humanity numbered in the billions.” He looked at Beck. “The billions. Can you even comprehend that number?”
Beck looked at his hands. “Theoretically.”
Jingo laughed, “I supposed we all comprehend it that way. It’s a number so far beyond a man’s intuitive sense that we can only understand it as a concept.”
Beck nodded because he didn’t know what else to do. Jingo’s words were loaded with so much meaning that Beck often felt lost when listening.
“All up and down this coast, little towns thrived,” said Jingo. “Where we are now, five or six thousand people lived in wooden houses on the hills with views of the ocean. Outside of town, within ten miles, lived another five or six thousand. My wife and I used to come here before our daughter was born. We’d stay for the weekend and walk by the ocean and eat at the restaurants and dance in the bars.”
“It’s hard to imagine,” said Beck.
“Of course it is.” Jingo sat back down. “So much of our life would be alien to you today. Now, I can’t even show you the places I used to take my wife because most of them have rotted away. The concrete sidewalks are still there, but they’re overgrown by plants, and the roads are replaced by game trails. The point I was making, Beck, is that there is little evidence that this town was ever here, and I knew it was here. I used to c
ome here. What will a person think when he comes here in a hundred years time, a thousand?” Jingo stomped his foot on the concrete roof. “This place won’t even be here. It’s only been three hundred years, and you can see the cracks in the concrete walls. The steps are falling apart. In three or four thousand years, one would have to dig deep and look very carefully to find any evidence that people ever lived here.”
Beck shook his head, “It’s difficult to accept, but it is also sad.”
“It’s sad but it is life. People come into this world from their mother’s womb, they live and they smile. Hopefully, they love. And then one day they die. Their bodies are buried or burned and nothing is left but dust. Even the people who knew them pass away and no records exist that they ever lived. That is the story of humanity.”
“Jingo, I came up here hoping for a better view of the sky and feeling content. Are you trying to make me sad?” Beck frowned at Jingo in the darkness.
Jingo shrugged. “No, I’m just trying to answer your question.”
Chapter 77: Franklin
The Temple sanctuary became Franklin’s new home. He could have taken any of the dorm rooms in the back of the Temple. He could have taken Winthrop’s reeking, windowless room. He could have moved into the one he’d shared with Oliver. None of those rooms provided anything he needed.
The only thing he needed was Fitz’s forgiveness, and the only thing he yearned for was to hold her in his arms again and know that she loved him.
The first few times Franklin knocked, Fitz told him to go away. After that, she ignored him. She wouldn’t speak to him when she walked past the pews on her way coming and going, which she did at all hours of the day and into the evening. She always had places to go. And visitors, women, came to see her in her room, sometimes one or two, sometimes a half dozen or more. They flowed in and out whenever she was there. When she wasn’t, they marched through the Temple, ignoring Franklin and the fasting clergy, and then marched back out again, no interest in anything at all but Fitz.