To Kill a Witch

by Christopher Patterson

  He watched as a young man, coverings more tatters than clothing, sifted through dead bodies. He checked pockets and purses. He looked up and caught Thaddeus’s stare. His eyes looked yellowed; his teeth blackened—many of them gone. A year’s worth of dirt caked his face, and when he saw Thaddeus, he hissed like some possessed cat.

  Spread across the battlefield, a dozen similar-looking men sifted through the corpses, seeking out whatever treasures they could find.

  “What could they possibly want from these men?” Gunnar asked.

  “Money, weapons, food,” Thaddeus said.

  “God be good! You don’t think they eat these dead men, do you?” Gunnar asked.

  Thaddeus could see the twisted mouth, disgusted look crossing Gunnar’s face.

  “It’s not like you’ve never seen a man eat the flesh of another man,” Thaddeus said.

  “Aye. But not in the lands of good Christian men,” Gunnar replied.

  “By His wounds,” Asaf exclaimed, “these aren’t Christian men. No Christian man would do such a thing.”

  “Need drives men to do things one might never expect a man to do,” Thaddeus replied, “like lie, cheat, even murder another man. Eh, Asaf? One might not think a good Christian man, let alone a good, Christian priest, could do those things either.”

  Asaf didn’t reply, but Thaddeus could hear him cursing under his breath.

  “I think you went too far,” Gunnar whispered to Thaddeus after pulling his warhorse close to Polemistes.

  Thaddeus shrugged his shoulders.

  “Perhaps. But what did the Lord Christ say in our Blessed Gospel of Matthew? ‘Hypocrite, remove first the plank from your own eye before you remove the speck of dust from your brother’s eye.’ I believe those were the words.”

  “Do not quote scripture to me, Thaddeus,” Asaf said. “My farts know more about the Gospels than you do. By God, I know more about scripture than Pope Urban himself.”

  “Oh ho,” Gunnar cried. Thaddeus could see a smile scrawling across his face. “Now we know why our friend of the cloth was excommunicated: Heresy. Such a bold statement, to pretend to know more about God than the head of the church.”

  “It’s no pretense,” Asaf replied quietly with a slight shake of his head.

  Thaddeus didn’t know if he was meant to hear the cleric, but he did hear him muttering prayers as they passed the dead.

  For all your curses and ranting, priest, you are still a man of God with a heart for God’s work.

  “I feel like we should gather these poor savages together,” Gunnar said, breaking a short silence and waving a hand out to include all of the scavenging men. “We have a priest. We have money. We have food. Should we not bless them with both earthly and heavenly food?”

  Alden said something. It sounded angry.

  “He says these are not men,” Gunnar translated. “They should be killed.”

  “Maybe I do like this Saxon pagan,” Asaf muttered.

  Thaddeus shook his head.

  “No, Gunnar is right. We must help these poor, lost souls,” Thaddeus said.

  “What of our mission?” Asaf replied, his voice ripe with irritation.

  “Helping lost souls is our constant mission,” Thaddeus replied, “always present.”

  “If you know the Scriptures so well,” Asaf retorted, “then you should know what directly follows the Gospel message you just quoted. ‘Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.’”

  “So, you think these men are dogs?” Thaddeus asked. “Should we kill them, then?”

  He heard Asaf huff and knew, without seeing, his shoulders slumped in acceptance. At the same time, Alden started yelling at one of the scavengers, apparently for coming too close to his horse. He pointed and shouted, and the man simply hissed. Alden unsheathed his long sword.

  “Tell him to put his weapon away,” Thaddeus said to Gunnar, “lest he would like to continue this journey bound and strapped across Polemistes flanks.”

  Their conversation was short, ending with an angry glare from Alden while he sheathed his weapon.

  “If you so wish me to say a word over these heathens, then I will do so,” Asaf said, and then added, “a short one. A very short one.”

  Leaving Alden behind, the three companions moved off to a point in the field relatively untouched by the battle.

  “Come hither,” Thaddeus shouted. He spoke in Latin, but he knew, as he spoke, the scavengers would hear his words in their native language. The Holy Spirit had many gifts, and one He had given Thaddeus many years ago was the gift of tongues. It wasn’t always present, like when trying to communicate with their new Saxon companion, Alden. But whenever the need was related to his work for the Lord, like helping a dozen lost souls, his gift was there.

  “Come. We have food and money. And a priest to hear your confessions and prayers.” He stood up in his stirrups, spreading his arms wide.

  They seemed to lumber forward, following Thaddeus’s voice. They looked like the undead, men tortured by hunger. Through holes in their clothing, he could see bones poking through paper-thin skin. At the very mention of food, they came and clawed at Thaddeus’ legs. Gunnar pulled on the reins of his warhorse, backing the creature up.

  “Move back,” Thaddeus said. “If you want food, get back.”

  In their current state, these weren’t men; they were animals as they moaned and hissed and clawed.

  “I smell a demon,” Asaf said. “They are possessed. We would be better off killing them and releasing their souls.”

  “They aren’t possessed,” Thaddeus replied. “They are simply being controlled. They are weak-minded, hungry, poor men. That kind of man, as you well know, is easily controlled by someone—or something—who is more powerful.”

  Demon stink wasn’t the smell of dirt and body odor. It wasn’t the smell of unwashed flesh. It wasn’t even the smell of dead men on a battlefield. It was the smell of sin, corruption, and evil. It bit the trained nose, clawed at the back of the throat, and twisted stomachs.

  Thaddeus looked up, scanning the battlefield. He could still smell it somewhere out there. He saw one man, one who hadn’t come to his calling. He looked like a Norman soldier, but his armor hung from his body. He had sunken cheeks, and his eyes looked hollow. He was no true Norman. Thaddeus felt his pulse quicken as, in the intermittent sun, he saw a reddish glimmer in the man’s eyes as he hissed.

  “Should I run him down?” Gunnar must’ve seen him as well.

  “No.” Thaddeus shook his head. “He won’t come any closer. Not now. Let us tend to these poor souls. Let us do the Lord’s work and aid in uncorrupting them.”

  As the dozen broken men clamored to be fed, Asaf recited a prayer in Aramaic, the language of the ancient Roman province of Judea. His voice began as a whisper and then grew louder until he was shouting. As if ten men were chanting at the same time, his voice rolled over the scavengers and the battlefield in a wave of sound. The air before Thaddeus seemed to ripple and shake, and as the prayer ended, all the scavenging men shrieked and fell to the ground in a heap of ragged, bony flesh. They lay still for a few moments and, then started gagging and coughing as if ridding themselves of something terrible they had swallowed.

  Thaddeus reached down into one of his saddlebags and retrieved a round loaf of bread, its crust a hearty, deep brown. Many years ago, a monk in Ethiopia had given Thaddeus the bag as a gift. Some might call it magic, but the monk called it blessed. He explained as Jesus had fed the five thousand with just five loaves of bread, Thaddeus would be able to feed men and women whenever it helped his work. He threw it to the man closest to his horse, an emaciated fellow with a black beard spreading out like some wild bush. The dozen men started fighting over the bread, tearing at it and each other.

  “Stop!” Thaddeus shouted. “Be kind to one another. The Lord commands you love your neighbor as yourself. I have enough so that every man may have his
own.”

  He retrieved another loaf of bread and threw it to the next man. And another. And another. And another, until all the men had their own, round loaf of bread. Then, Asaf tossed him three water skins—also gifts from the Ethiopian monk—which he in turn passed to the men before them.

  “Drink your fill, brothers, and then pass it along,” Thaddeus said. “There is enough for everyone. Do not be afraid. Adam’s Ale will not run dry.”

  As they ate and drank, Thaddeus once more looked out over the battlefield. The lone creature posing as a Norman man had gone, although the natural carrion feeders, the wild dogs and the crows, had finally arrived to feast on the plentiful bounty war had to offer them.

  Thaddeus turned as he heard Gunnar speak with Alden. The Saxon soldier’s eyes were wide, and his words almost a whisper.

  “He wants to know what magic this is,” Gunnar said.

  “No magic,” Thaddeus replied. “Just the Lord’s work.”

  “Why can’t he understand you,” Gunnar asked—it was his own question, not Alden’s, “and these men can?”

  “He doesn’t need to understand me,” Thaddeus said with a smile, reaching down and retrieving one of the water skins. “He sounds irritated.”

  “He is,” Gunnar replied. “He says he needs to take us to Chesterfield, to this bishop. His mission depends on it.”

  “Our mission depends on this,” Asaf said as he made the sign of the cross in front of each of the twelve men.

  “Asaf is right. No matter what new task our Lord gives us, our mission always depends on helping men such as these,” Thaddeus said with a smile, never taking his eyes off the twelve men gathering in front of them. “That is truly our mission … and the Lord’s work. Asaf, will you preach to these men before we leave?”

  “If you insist,” Asaf replied with a shrug, but he didn’t look truly put out by the suggestion. He retrieved a large, leather-bound bible from one of his saddlebags, dismounted, and walked over to the men.

  Asaf read from the scriptures and said a few prayers before he finally made the sign of the cross. The twelve men mirrored his motion, and they all said “Amen” in unison. Even Alden could see these men were renewed, albeit still dirty and ragged, they looked like men. Thaddeus knew they would improve now, with the weight of evil lifted from their shoulders. They would hopefully return to their families, if they had them, and move on with their lives. After Asaf prayed with some of the men individually, they began to move off in different directions.

  “My lord,” one of the men said, addressing Thaddeus. “I do not know what magic this is, but I cannot thank you enough. I cannot remember the last time I had fresh water and food.”

  “I am no lord,” Thaddeus replied, “but you may thank our Lord for the provisions He has given us this day, for this is no magic, but simply His grace.”

  “I will tell everyone I meet what happened here,” the man said.

  “There is no need,” Thaddeus said. “Just be kind to one another and treat others as you would be treated. Pray for your fellow man and follow the Lord’s commandments.”

  “Yes, sir,” the man replied.

  As Thaddeus and his companions readied to move off, the sun was setting, and he had no wish to camp near a field of the dead.

  “No women. No undertakers. No priests,” Gunnar said.

  “Not with him around,” Thaddeus said as he looked for one more time out over the field. The demon had left, but he could still feel its presence as the day darkened and a light mist began to creep up and hang over the dead.

  “I guess follow our Saxon friend here,” Thaddeus said.

  “With great haste,” Asaf added. “This place stinks like rat farts.”

  “There he is again,” Gunnar exclaimed, “the foul-mouthed priest I have come to love.”

  “Bread?” Thaddeus reached down into his saddlebag, retrieved another loaf of bread, and offered it to Gunnar.

  “Aye,” the tall, yellow-haired man said.

  As Gunnar ate, Alden rode up next to Thaddeus. At first, his eyebrows were furled, and he seemed to peer at Thaddeus, a look of distrust on his face. But then, he smiled, only slightly, and jerked his head to the side and heeled his horse.

  Chapter 3

  THADDEUS WOKE WITH A JOLT. He had been drowning in his dream, desperately trying to gulp air and only taking in more salty water. He didn’t know if it was a vision, a fear infiltrating his unconsciousness or a memory. He had almost drowned several times in his life.

  Despite the humidity and light mist hanging in the night air, the fire Thaddeus had built still raged. The elm and oak wood spit and crackled, and the heat radiated out, spurning the soft drizzle and casting away the ghostly mist gathering in the darkness. He looked to the sky. No stars. No moon. Only high clouds blackening the already dark night.

  “No stars,” Thaddeus muttered.

  Gunnar and Alden were awake while Asaf snored loudly.

  “What?” Gunnar asked.

  “There are no stars tonight,” he repeated. “I don’t much care for nights where I can’t see the stars. They re—”

  “Remind you of your childhood,” Gunnar interrupted. “Yes, I know.”

  “You know me too well,” Thaddeus said.

  “Well, we’ve been together long enough, haven’t we?”

  Thaddeus nodded. He sat up and yawned, stretching his arms. He thought about his dream. Sometimes they were just that, but other times they were more, visions, directions, or signs. What he had just woken from seemed like the latter. He’d seen the beautiful woman before, but this time in much more detail. She had long, black, wavy hair and pale skin and spoke with a large man with bobbed, red hair and a large, drooping, red mustache. They were in a castle, built of stone, and demons danced around as fire rose up around the perimeter.

  Here there were people—thousands of people—tied to stakes. They screamed as their skin caught fire and blistered and they burned, and the demons laughed. He saw cloaked figures, chanting as they stood around a bed on which lay a naked man. Then he saw sand, a vast desert littered with bones, and a burning cross in the distance. Thaddeus then found himself falling, and he hit the water hard. He rubbed his face where the water struck him when he was drowning. And then he woke up.

  “When was the last time we saw one of them,” Gunnar asked, “let alone four.”

  “It has been a while,” Thaddeus said. “Asia Minor? Egypt?”

  “They are all around us,” Asaf said, coughing a little as he rolled over to stare at Thaddeus and Gunnar. “Especially in this land. You just don’t see them.”

  Asaf sat up and rubbed his face. He tried to keep his face clean shaven, unlike his fellow warriors, but it had been a while, and his hair was dark and coarse and made a scratching sound every time he touched it.

  “They’re sneaky creatures,” Asaf said, holding his hands up and wiggling his fingers as if he were trying to scare little children. “I even saw one posing as a bishop in Rome.”

  “You did not,” Gunnar said.

  “As Christ is my witness,” Asaf replied.

  “Is that why God has brought us here?” Gunnar asked. “To kill demons?”

  “You can’t really kill a demon,” Asaf said, rolling his eyes.

  “Whatever,” Gunnar said, throwing a twig at his priestly friend. “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t know,” Thaddeus said with a shrug of his shoulders. “I dreamed of a woman with dark hair. She was beautiful and enchanting.”

  “Sounds like you’re dreaming of our time in Iberia,” Gunnar said, laughing.

  Thaddeus ignored him; ignored his jollity. He saw the woman, the way she moved, she spoke, her skin, her hair, her body. Then he remembered she had looked at him, as if she knew she was in his dream, in his mind at that moment. Then her face changed, and she was a different woman. One Thaddeus knew long ago.

  He shook his head and coughed, taking a drink from his water skin.

  “I don’t know
what our mission is,” he reiterated. “But I don’t think it’s to send demons back to hell. That’s always our mission, anytime we come across one.”

  “Maybe there’s an infestation,” Gunnar said.

  “What are they?” Asaf asked. “Rats?”

  “Might as well be,” Gunnar replied, throwing another twig at the man.

  “Why don’t you ask our Saxon friend here,” Thaddeus said.

  “He keeps saying the same thing,” Gunnar said. “He is to take us to a bishop in Chesterfield. He also keeps telling me there is a king in Chesterfield.”

  “A king?” Asaf asked.

  “What would William Rufus be doing in Chesterfield?” Thaddeus asked.

  “He’s not King William,” Gunnar said. “I asked him the same thing. He’s some Saxon king.”

  “The Saxons don’t have any kings now,” Asaf said.

  Gunnar just shrugged.

  “Damn this land,” Asaf said with an angry grunt.

  “Is it so different than any other?” Thaddeus asked.

  “Yes, if you must ask,” Asaf said. “I know you think it is beautiful and wonderful and magical in all its chaos, but I don’t.”

  “It is beautiful,” Thaddeus said, looking up at the intermittent stars now peeking through the clouds. “It’s always been beautiful. And beauty is often cruel too, isn’t it? Beauty is dangerous. Beauty is powerful.”

  “What are you talking about?” Asaf asked.

  “Nothing,” Thaddeus replied. Then he looked to the priest. “It was good to hear you preach today. It has been too long since you have spoken God’s word to a group of men. You might have very well saved their souls today.”

  “I doubt it,” Asaf muttered. “A hungry man would bloody listen to a priest fart if he fed him.”

  “But you still did God’s work,” Thaddeus replied.

  “Not really,” Asaf said. “We fed them, gave them water, and prayed for them. We saved them from corruption … for now. They will eat their bread, say their prayers, and then some other thing will soon be waiting to corrupt their souls again before you can say, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”