by D. J. Butler
“What a blessing!” Thalanes grinned.
They stayed again in the woods that night, in a twisted ditch that hid them from prying eyes. Sarah took a four-hour watch, over the objections of both her companions, and she sat awake, listening to a hoot owl at the top of the hill and watching the Pleiades and then the Twins march westward.
She couldn’t be sure in the shadows, but she thought, more than once, that she saw Thalanes watching her.
On the third day they bought cheese and potatoes at a stand operated by two Igbo brothers and in the evening Cal shot a turkey that had had the temerity to squat on a moldering log in full view and gobble. Over roasted fowl and tuber and a few sips of the Crooked Man’s moonshine, Cal asked a question that Sarah realized he’d been holding back for days.
“Why do the Martinites care?” he asked. “Why did Martin Luther raise such a big ruckus about baptizin’ the Firstborn, and why does he still have followers today? What do they want? I ain’t no theologian, but it jest seems like such a silly thing to do, goin’ around tellin’ folks not to baptize the Eldritch.”
Thalanes finished his last mouthful of potato thoughtfully, looking across the fire at Calvin and considering his answer. “Do you remember, when I said there is a burst of energy, of magical energy, when any creature is born?”
“Sure do,” Calvin said. “It gits into the ley lines, jest like energy from the tides and the sunrise and such, you said.”
“Good memory. Do you know what happens when a Firstborn dies?”
Cal shrugged. “Heaven or hell, I guess, dependin’.”
Thalanes laughed. “Very good. And you may be right. But Martin Luther was convinced the Firstborn had no souls at all and therefore couldn’t go to either heaven or hell, but merely ceased to exist on death. You’ve heard the term Unsouled, I know—he coined it. Which is why he taught that it was no sin to kill one of the Firstborn, and in fact he killed a great many himself. He also preached that it was a grave error to baptize any Eldritch, much less ordain or marry them, in the same way that it would be a grave error, a sort of blasphemy, to baptize a jug of whisky or a rocking chair.”
Sarah felt embarrassed. She had used the term Unsouled before, even when talking with the Elector in front of Thalanes. She’d meant it jokingly, without thinking about what it meant. It had seemed a funny oddity; now it seemed deeply personal, both to Thalanes and to her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He paused to smile at her, and then continued. “But Martin Luther’s basic starting point was exegesis, it was how he read a certain verse in the Book of Genesis. In chapter one of Genesis, God creates man in His image, male and female, and then Genesis reports that ‘God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’”
“Sounds familiar,” Cal said. “I don’t git it.”
“Luther believed,” Thalanes explained, “that in this verse we see the Creator giving Adam and Eve and their children dominion over all other living things.”
“Including giving them dominion over the children of Adam and Adam’s first wife,” Sarah said, putting the pieces together. “The lady of the Serpent and the Tree. Wisdom.”
“Correct. So Luther saw any situation in which one of the Firstborn exercised ‘dominion’ over any child of Eve as an abomination. His personal mission, and the quest of the Order he founded, has been to remove the Firstborn from all positions of authority, in the church or out of it. Everything else followed after that, all the other theology and all of the killing.”
“Does that mean Luther believed Adam had a first wife, and you…we are descended from her?” Sarah asked.
Thalanes shrugged. “He believed it, or he knew that we believed it and he held our belief against us. Does it matter?”
“To him, I guess it might,” Sarah realized, “but not to me.”
“Well that jest seems stupid,” Cal objected.
“It gets stupider the more you think about it,” Sarah mused, digging deep into her memory and thinking about the Bible passages Thalanes was quoting. “Genesis one doesn’t name the people ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve,’ does it?”
“No,” Thalanes agreed with a faint smile, “it doesn’t. In Genesis chapter one, God creates ‘man,’ ‘male and female.’ In Genesis chapter two, God seems to create ‘man’ again, names him Adam, and then pulls a woman from his side. In Genesis chapter three, Adam finally names his female companion…possibly his second female companion…‘Eve.’”
Sarah had always realized that the Bible was a complicated affair. It was seeming more complicated by the moment.
“I reckon I’m missin’ the point,” Cal said.
“The point,” Sarah explained, “is that you could read Genesis differently from Martin Luther. You could read it exactly opposite to him, in fact. You could think that Genesis chapter one is about Adam and his first wife, and that they were the ones that were given dominion. And then Eve only comes on the scene later, in Genesis chapter two.”
“You’re as smart as your mother ever was.” Thalanes sounded sad. “Be careful.”
“So remember me again what’s the name of your feller? Cetes? I guess Cetes must a been someone as read Genesis the other way?”
Sarah shook her head. “He wasn’t a theologian at all, was he?” Her words had the form of a question, but really she wanted Thalanes to know she was listening, and she understood, and she knew her history. “He was Lord Mayor of Wittenberg. And he refused to fight back when Martin Luther and his men came after him with pitchforks.”
Thalanes’s facial expression fell somewhere between pained and amused. “The Order would say he let Luther’s will be uncoerced.”
Sarah laughed. “The First Precept. Yeah, I bet they would. And I bet when the Order talks about the fact that none of Cetes’s people ever tried to bring Luther to justice, they’d cite the Second Precept. Only God can judge, or something like that, right?”
Thalanes looked away. “Later, there were the Swords of Wisdom.”
“Look,” Cal said, shaking his head. “In the first place, all of that Genesis one, Genesis two stuff ain’t a good enough reason to kill folks, with pitchforks or otherwise. A verse in the Bible, one danged verse? And in the second, what in Jerusalem gave him the idea the Firstborn ain’t got souls? You walk and talk and smile jest like anybody else. What’m I missin’?”
“You’re a good man, Calvin Calhoun,” Thalanes said. “That makes it hard for you to understand the evil of others. But even you kill the food you hunt, and I think if you had to, you would find that you could kill a man, for the right reasons. To defend your family, for instance, or your home. Or Sarah. But from Eve’s first sons on down, there have been men willing to kill each other for more trivial reasons. For differences of religion. Or for different politics. Different calendars, even. Envy of a successful sacrifice. And I think many of St. Martin’s followers act out of strict devotion to a principle in which they firmly believe.”
Thalanes walked in silence for a long time.
“As to why Martin Luther became convinced the Firstborn had no souls, well, he knew what I am about to tell you. When any child of Adam is born, it is born in a burst of magical energy. This is a good thing, as a midwife or someone else in a position to help can use that energy to ease the birth, heal the mother, console the child, and so on.”
“That’s true,” Sarah confirmed. “I’ve hexed many a newborn Calhoun into a happy smile and a mild first feed.”
Thalanes nodded. “When a daughter or son of Wisdom, one of the Firstborn, dies, there is a similar burst of energy, that is not present at the death of a son or daughter of Eve.” He paused to let that information sink in.
“Nope,” said Calvin, “I still ain’t seein’ it. So what?”
“Martin Luther became convinced, and convinced many oth
er people, that that burst of energy represents the escape of the power that animates the Firstborn during their life. He taught that the Firstborn do not have immortal souls, but are creatures created by magic and destroyed at death. As such, their baptism is a blasphemy and their ordination is an insult to God.”
“Yeah, I recall that bit. So the Martinites ain’t so much angry at the Firstborn,” Cal summarized, “as opposed to the folks as let the Firstborn get baptized, be priests, or hold public office. Is that about the size of it?”
“At least on paper, yes,” the monk agreed. “In practice…well, the sons and daughters of Eve are accomplished haters.”
“Just the sons and daughters of Eve?” Sarah asked pointedly.
Thalanes laughed. “No. Of course not.”
Cal shook his head. “Well, then what is it? I mean, if Luther’s wrong, then what is the ‘burst of energy’ that pops outta the Firstborn when they die?”
Thalanes shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone really does.”
“The Memphites think a person has five parts.” Sarah was happy for every opportunity to show that she knew what she was talking about. “There’s the body, and the shadow, and the name, and two things that don’t make a lot of sense from a Christian perspective, the ka and the ba.”
“Crows and sheep,” Cal muttered. “What’s a ka and a ba?”
“It’s hard to say.” Sarah hid her ignorance behind an evasion. “They’re both kind of like the soul, as we know it.”
“Two souls?” Cal asked. “You’re right, that don’t sound Christian.”
“No?” Thalanes pushed. “But Paul says to the Thessalonians ‘I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless.’ That’s psyche and pneuma in Greek, two different things. He uses the same words again in chapter four of the Epistle to the Hebrews, psyche and pneuma, ‘the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow.’ St. Jerome translates them as spiritus and anima. Doesn’t that sound to you like a person has two invisible parts, a soul and a spirit? Do you think Paul wasn’t a good Christian?”
“You’re askin’ the wrong feller.” Calvin retreated into a shrug. “I’m jest a poor cattle rustler, and I don’t have the answers.”
“I’m just a poor monk,” Thalanes said, “and I don’t have any of the answers, either. But I hope that St. Paul is right, and that you’re right, too, Cal. I hope when I die, my ka or my pneuma will explode in a burst of energy, and my psyche or my ba will go to Heaven.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Sarah asked him. “Aren’t you kind of gambling your salvation on a guess?”
“Don’t we all do that, all the time?” Thalanes countered. “Do we have any other choice?”
* * *
It was in the afternoon of their fourth day on the Natchez Trace that Sarah finally put her foot down.
“Tonight,” she said, “I am going to have a bath.”
Cal wasn’t going to argue, but he thought for a moment the little monk might object. Thalanes hesitated, nodded, and finally said, “I think that’s an excellent idea. Do you want to choose an ordinary for us?”
Sarah selected a stand just on the other side of the next river, which turned out to be a long, low building, peppered with chimneys along its length, with walls of stone halfway up to the wooden roof and then timbers to finish. There was a well in the front yard, a two-doored outhouse behind, a stable, and a long sagging porch with scattered benches and chairs. Sarah walked up to a man in denim britches and a gray flannel shirt drawing water from the well and asked where she could find the innkeeper.
“This here’s Crowder’s Stand.” He heaved the wooden bucket out onto the lip of the well and spat tobacco juice in the dirt. “I’m Crowder.” He was paunchy and thick-legged, with a greasy forehead underneath a shiny bald pate, and he stared Sarah right in her bad eye. Calvin flinched, expecting a storm.
“I’m Sarah Carpenter,” Sarah lied smooth as butter. “We want us a room for the night, and a bath.” Cal could see that her fists were knotted tight and he knew that in her heart Sarah wanted to haul back and pop Crowder one right in his glossy face. “Payin’ in Imperial.”
“Sixpence,” Crowder said. “A shilling’ll get food for the three of you as well, clapbread and bacon for breakfast and whate’er you can git outta the missus for your supper, iffen you ain’t already et. I’ll bring a tub and a heatin’ pot around to your room and youins can warm the water yourselves.”
Calvin produced a shilling, which Crowder bit suspiciously and then pocketed before pointing out to them an empty room and the way to kitchen. A big-eared Bassett lazing on the porch lifted one droopy eyelid as they stepped over him into their room. They laid down their packs and then Thalanes suggested Calvin go to the kitchen for food.
“Just in case Angleton or others are trying to find us on the Trace,” he explained. “Sarah is distinctive, and I’m obviously a foreigner.”
“I could eat a horse,” Sarah said.
Cal patted his tomahawk and lariat, both hanging on his belt. “I jest about hope I do run into that Martinite again.”
He went to the kitchen. Mrs. Crowder was no more friendly than her husband, but she acknowledged in surprisingly expressive grunts that Cal and his companions were paying guests, and she reckoned as how he could help himself from the pantry and the icehouse. He chose a loaf of brown bread and a glazed clay bowl full of cold fried chicken and then shuffled back toward the room.
Sarah met him on the porch. “Come with me,” she said urgently. “I need to discuss something with you.” The Bassett hound crouched behind her on the porch, tail between its legs, whining.
Cal didn’t say anything, but now that the prospect of a bath was in view, he did think she smelled rather…earthy. Something about that bothered him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. The bath would fix it. Jerusalem, he was sure he smelled worse.
Baths all around, it would have to be.
“Sure,” he said. “Jest let me go put this food in the room.”
“No!” She gripped his arm with surprising strength. “I need to talk to you now, and I don’t want the priest to overhear.”
Cal’s heart skipped a beat. Had Sarah tired of the monk, and was she now interested again in the original plan of running away with Calvin to be married? He followed her.
The melt-faced hound barked once, short and sharp, as Calvin left the porch.
“Want some chicken?” He bit into a modest-sized piece himself.
“No.”
“Thalanes say somethin’ put you off your appetite?” Cal asked, following her out of the inn’s yard and back through the woods toward the river they’d just crossed. He tossed the chicken bone, not caring too much this deep in the woods whether he might attract a raccoon, or an opossum, or even a black bear. “You was ravenous afore.”
Sarah crossed the narrow, rutted Trace and turned downstream at the large water-rounded rocks of the river’s edge. She looked determined. Her fire intimidated a lot of men, but Cal liked it. That indomitable will would help her survive, whatever life did to her, and if they were about to go off and set up a homestead somewhere, it would be a valuable asset to both of them.
He looked back over his shoulder and couldn’t see Crowder’s through the trees. “I reckon we’re far enough now the monk can’t hear you,” he told her. “Unless you Firstborn have magic hearin’ powers you ain’t told me about.”
She stopped at the riverbank, picked up a fist-sized rock and squared her shoulders to him, grim-visaged as a harpy.
“Sorry,” he apologized, feeling abashed and crestfallen. “I didn’t mean to sound insultin’, I’s jest funnin’ a bit. You shouldn’t ought to think I b’lieve anythin’ bad about you at all, Sarah. I think it’s jest terrific that you’re... you know…a Penn, and a Firstborn, and a daughter of Wisdom and all. Or part Firstborn, anyway. You know…well, I reckon you know how I feel.”
She crooked a finger at him. “Come he
re.”
He blushed. For the four days they’d been on the Trace, he’d spent the entire time hoping there was still a chance this journey would end in his marrying Sarah, and imagining their life together. He could take care of her, he could give her a life in which she’d be happy, and he figured Appalachee was big enough that the two of them could disappear and no Martinite would ever find them. Now it looked as if his dreaming was about to become sweet, thrilling fact.
He leaned in to hear what she had to say.
Sarah swung the rock at his head.
“Do you not believe in judgment, Parson?”
CHAPTER NINE
Cal’s height saved him.
A shorter man would have taken the rock in the temple. Calvin Calhoun, though he had been leaning forward in anticipation of hearing some sweet confession from Sarah, jerked backward as she swung at him, and the rock only struck him on the shoulder.
Still, it hurt.
“Jumpin’ Jerusalem!” He staggered sideways. “What in tarnation has got into you?”
She swung again, backhand with the rock, and thumped him in the breast. A little higher, and his collarbone would have been broken.
“Iffen you’re mad, Sarah, go ahead and slap me!” He stumbled back. “Jest put down the rock afore one of us gits hurt!”
She jumped at him, clawing for his eyes with her left hand. He twisted away, feeling her nails rake down his cheek and draw blood.
He smelled her earthy odor again. Dirty person was a smell Calvin knew well from his years on Calhoun Mountain, where bathing was permitted but not enthusiastically encouraged, and Sarah’s reek didn’t quite fit that description. She smelled like wet earth, or clay. Somewhere in his head Cal heard a dim warning bell.
He tried to push her away gently, but she was too strong, and he ended up just pressing the bread and the fried chicken against her chest. She swung the rock again, catching him this time in the ribs. Cal felt something snap in his side.