There had to be something—a prayer, a magic spell, a holy relic—something that would help. Only last summer, I’d studied a special ring at the market, engraved with words I could not read; its one-eyed owner claimed it would keep werewolves away. If only I’d had enough money.
More than anything, I wanted to run back to the village, to safety. I began to walk away, quietly, slowly at first, but with increasing speed. Then it struck me. Brother Gabriel had acted calm in the face of danger, in the face of evil itself. He hadn’t fled. I stopped.
In the distance, the sun was gone, leaving only a pool of deep purple and red behind. If I didn’t return with my brother, and if villagers also heard the wolves, before morning the hillside might be swarming with villagers carrying scythes and swords in search of the loup garou. I looked toward the village where the gate torches now glowed.
I walked cautiously back to where Jean-Pierre lay as limp as a rag. I held my breath.
Somewhere far off, wolves howled again. A single wolf’s cry sliced the air and it was quickly joined by another, then another, until it sounded as if a thousand wolves were in the distant hills, calling to Jean-Pierre to join them. My mind crept to two questions I could never answer: What if the villagers were right about him? And, if my brother turned, would I defend myself… kill the loup garou?
“Marius?” came a frightened voice. “Marius?” repeated Jean-Pierre, rising on his elbows, then falling back.
“Here I am,” I said, relieved to hear his voice. Still, I kept myself behind the rock, just to be safe.
“I don’t”—Jean-Pierre’s voice was weak—“feel well.” He touched his forehead, then slumped lifeless to the ground.
My throat tightened with tears. Here was my brother, my only brother, and he needed my help. Suddenly, I didn’t care about the risks.
I leaped out from behind the rock, scooped up Jean-Pierre, and shouldered his body down the slope toward the glow of the village below.
CAGED MEN
December 22
I woke to a bite behind my left ear, sat upright, yanked a small black tick from my skin, and flung it to the far side of the room. At the foot of Madame Troubène’s bed, the redheaded chicken stretched its wings slightly and flapped to the floor. Head bobbing, it pecked among the rushes.
Beside me slept Jean-Pierre, mouth wide open. Since I had carried him back from the ruins two days earlier, like Madame Troubène he had mostly slept, asking only for a drink of broth now and then. Gratefully, I had escaped questioning. My father had taken to rising early and returning late.
I leaned over and began searching my brother’s scalp for lice. As I did, I studied his face again. His right eye was swollen shut and purplish blue with a tint of green; his gashed forehead had scabbed over. That first night back, blood had dried in a mess across his dirt-streaked face. I had cleaned off the dried blood, but he still looked terrible.
In my mind, I could still hear the cries of the wolves. I tried to brush the memory away, not to dwell on the night at the ruins or on my own fears. As it was, the past two nights I’d barely slept, waking every few moments to look over at Jean-Pierre, to lift the blanket and see if he was changing into a wolf, or into something half human, half beast.
Jean-Pierre stirred, breathed in noisily through his nose, and opened his right eye. He touched his forehead. “My head hurts, Marius. Wh-what happened?”
I exhaled with a smile. Finally, he was speaking. I never thought I would miss his voice.
“Don’t you remember?” I tried to keep my voice low so as not to wake Madame Troubène. “You fell and … and … I carried you home.”
“I remember throwing stones,” he whispered, closing his good eye. “That’s all.”
I frowned. My brother looked tired. How could he remember nothing at all? My heart tightened. I hoped his sudden failing in memory was not part of some deep magic. “Go back to sleep,” I said.
With that, Jean-Pierre disappeared beneath the blanket. Soon, his chest began to rise and fall slowly, rhythmically. I lay down, pulled the blanket over my shoulder, and began to drift to sleep.
Hours later, shouts rose from the streets. I jumped up, careful not to wake Jean-Pierre, and hurried past Madame Troubène’s bed. After my mother’s death, my father insisted that Madame Troubène use their wood-frame bed; he slept on the smaller mattress, which was now empty. He must have left again before dawn.
I unbolted the shutters. My breath formed a misty cloud of white as I looked out. Villagers were pouring into the street, crowding around a caravan of travelers. My first thought was that they were traveling minstrels, but I caught sight of the figure of a monk robed completely in black, atop a black horse with a white star. The sun fell upon the monk’s wide forehead, revealing a red birthmark, somewhat like the imprint of a baby’s hand. This man wasn’t a simple monk. He had to be the abbot.
A chevalier followed, his armor glinting silver-white. His horse pranced left and sideways down the street, ten paces, then the knight reined the horse, and the animal pranced right, another ten paces. Next walked a trumpeter with a flag of bright red and yellow hanging from his horn. Bum-bum-bum-breeee! Bum-bum-bum-breee! A cart and driver, four armed men on horseback, and a handful of soldiers walking alongside made up the rest of the procession.
Too curious to stay inside, I closed the shutters, threw on my breeches and shoes, and raced down the stairs to get a closer look.
The smell of refuse pinched my nose—bitingly strong—for every morning villagers poured their night pails into the streets below. In summer, the smells ripened, and when merchants, nobles, and ladies visited, they pressed pomanders filled with spices and dried flowers to their noses. Winter air was better.
Pulling a cart, a pair of large tan horses with black manes and tails muscled toward me through the dung. The horses added their steaming manure to the streets as they passed by. Behind the wagon’s driver were two wooden crates on a flatbed wagon.
I stared. Each crate held a man.
Just as the wagon passed, one of the caged men looked up and met my eyes. His skin hung loosely on his nearly naked bony frame. I shivered in my shirt and breeches, but his clothing was little more than shredded rags. Lips leathery and chalky white, he slowly mouthed one word: “Water.”
“He needs water,” I said to anyone who would listen. Who were these men? What had they done? I’d seen criminals tied up, walking behind a procession or tied up on a wagon, but not caged.
I walked alongside the cart, which stopped near the well, and continued to watch the man. His eyes, set deep in a gaunt face, searched mine. In my mind, as clear as church bells, I heard the words Father Arnaud had recently spoken at mass: “Whatever you do for the least of them, you do for me.” Christ’s words. If this man was thirsty, then clearly it was my Christian duty to offer him drink.
I ran to the well, where Marguerite, a weaver and once a good friend of my mother’s, hoisted a wooden bucket overflowing with water. She set it on the well’s rim, then tucked a loose black curl into the edge of her white cap.
“May I?” I asked, cupping my hands to her.
“Of course, Marius,” she said. Her smile vanished when she turned her head toward the caged men.
“Merci.” I filled my hands with water from her bucket and hurried to the cart.
“Marius,” came Marguerite’s voice, carrying a warning.
Water dripped through my fingers, but with just a sip left, I pushed my hands into the cart toward the man’s mouth. He licked droplets from my palms.
Suddenly, a steely blow knocked me to the ground. A sharp pain flared in my shoulder. Wooden wagon wheels jolted forward through the dirt, dangerously close to my head.
Stumbling to my feet, my head and side covered with smelly dung, I met the eyes of a mercenary.
Thick-set, filling out his black jerkin, which he wore over puffy breeches and high black boots, the mercenary grabbed the gilded handle of his sword that hung from his side. “Keep away!
” he barked, sinews straining in his neck.
I cowered, expecting the man to pierce me through with his sword.
“Keep away from the heretics!” he said, turning to the small circle of villagers that had formed. I lowered my eyes.
“You.”
I looked up.
The mercenary pointed his sword at me. “Don’t make me put you in a cage alongside them. They’ll likely die before sundown, but not before we get a confession out of them,” he said. “On second thought, I would be paid even better for a third heretic, wouldn’t I?” Then he laughed, spat, and moved on with the procession.
A heretic was a dangerous person, someone who went against the ways of the Church, to be damned forever. There had been more talk of heretics every Sunday, but these were the first ones I’d seen. Yet the caged men didn’t look as dangerous as this mercenary.
Ahead, the horn blew from the square. I ran to where the crowd was gathering.
“Let this be a warning!” came a booming voice. The procession stopped at the steps of the fountain.
“Abbot Joseph,” whispered a woman beside me, who leaned on her stick and clutched at her cloak around her neck.
“I have just returned from travels,” the abbot called, his arms stretched wide in his black frock before the growing audience. “Sickness has swept through a village to the south! Bodies piled outside their walls! Even now, wolves are feasting on the flesh of the dead.”
He paused. The audience waited silently.
“Let this be a warning,” the abbot continued. “Take care to follow God’s ways, good people of Venyre. If there is evil in our midst, do not give it time to fester, especially as Christmas Eve draws near.”
The woman beside me crossed herself. “Holy Mother Mary,” she whispered under her breath. Others kneeled to the ground, heads bowed.
I wasn’t used to hearing a sermon in the streets. The presence of the abbot, speaking to the villagers, sent a thrill of urgency through me. This was important, a time of spiritual battle, a time for villagers to unite. But with the mention of Christmas Eve, I worried about Jean-Pierre. I pushed the thoughts away and wrapped my arms tightly over my chest.
“Be on guard,” Abbot Joseph continued. “We have heard of Huguenot activity right here in Venyre. Anyone suspected of being a heretic will be brought to trial. To protect you, we will rout them from among us. See these men? Let them be judged by the Holy Church and God.”
Shouting and cursing rose from the streets. At the wagon with the caged men, a peasant named Adrien, who himself wore nothing better than a hole-riddled jerkin and wool tights that bagged around his ankles, rapped on the cages with a long stick—whack, whack—then poked at the men. Others spat at them. Then the abbot and the procession moved forward.
I stood, transfixed. Huguenots? Weren’t they nearly as dangerous as werewolves? Huguenots were the heretics I’d heard about. They didn’t believe in following the Holy Church. I’d heard travelers, less careful with their speech, talking about the Huguenot leaders: John Calvin and Martin Luther. Some said they danced with the devil himself. They didn’t believe in the pope, and supposedly they didn’t believe that the bread and wine served at Communion were the very body and blood of Christ. Some villagers said Huguenots met in secret to drink real blood. I didn’t know much, really, about them. But I knew they were to be feared.
I turned my palms up. A horror crept through me. I’d let the caged man’s lips touch my hands. He’d licked my fingers like an animal. My mind swam. I tried to swallow, but my throat had turned dusty dry. Cursed. Perhaps I was now cursed, stamped by Satan. What a fool I’d been to give that man—if he could be called that—a drink. Maybe I’d brought curses not only on myself, but perhaps upon my whole village.
Vigorously, I rubbed my hands together, harder and harder, until flecks of dirt rolled up like black gnats and fell to the ground. I rubbed my hands until my palms and fingers turned from blackish gray to grayish pink. Finally, I stopped and looked around.
The woman beside me was gone. The whole crowd had moved on.
I met only the eyes of the small black dog—Jean-Pierre’s dog—curled tightly on the stone doorstep of a house across from the fountain. He whined, but I didn’t encourage him. He thumped his tail, but he didn’t rise to his legs. I avoided his eyes. I didn’t have any scraps to feed him anyway. I wasn’t a nobleman who could pamper a dog with full meals. He whimpered, then tucked his nose into the curve of his body.
Forcing myself to turn away, I then slunk like a stray cat alongside the edges of the stone buildings and shops. I returned to the well, poured a bucket of water over my hands, then walked down the street to the narrow stairs leading home.
I stepped into silence. Madame Troubène was still sleeping, and Jean-Pierre was gone. Even the blanket we shared was gone. The small leather shoes were missing. Had he run off again? Every time I turned my back, he disappeared. I had been gone only a short time. Did he step out, or had he vanished, the curse of his birth taking hold?
With all the noise outside the window, perhaps Jean-Pierre had gone out to explore, had journeyed into the crowd. I chewed at a ragged fingernail.
The crowd. In one moment, villagers could be at church, moved to their knees and willing to endure great suffering for their sins, and in the next moment, they could rise up in anger and drag the guilty to the scaffold. Papa was right, of course, but I did not want to admit it. With so many watchful eyes on my brother, I could only fear what might happen. Take good care of your brother.
THE BOX
I searched the market square, the first place Jean-Pierre would wander. He loved jugglers and acrobats more than anything. With the commotion around the morning caravan, he would have followed the noise, thinking it was entertainment. But he wasn’t there.
I returned past the mill and butcher’s shop, head down. My task was impossible. No one could keep his eye on a six-year-old from dawn to dusk, unless, of course, he were an angel.
At my father’s smithy, pounding sounded within. I eased open the door. Light filtered in through a small window and dust danced in the shaft that fell on my father’s workbench. My father dipped a shield into the large wooden vat of water. Pffft! Hisss! Steam blasted the air.
I drew in a deep breath, even though the air was dense with smoke. For only a moment, here, in this place where the fire was warm, where my father worked steadily, I sensed that everything was good, that any problem could be eased away. Reworked. Reshaped.
Steam cleared and my eyes adjusted to the dim light. Beyond my father, curled on a blanket beside the fire, was Jean-Pierre.
“You little maggot!” I scolded. “I’ve searched every street of Venyre looking for you!”
Jean-Pierre turned from the fire and hopped up.
“You should have waited for me to—”
He hugged my waist. “But you always find me.”
“Even so, you shouldn’t run off!” I scolded. Then my voice softened. “You must wait for me. I didn’t know where …” Emotion rose in my chest and my voice caught. I tousled my brother’s hair, squatted down, and looked into his face.
Beneath bruises and swelling, his amber eyes probed mine. He gently placed his hands to the sides of my face. “Don’t worry, Marius,” he said. “You worry too much.”
I didn’t have a response. Sometimes my brother’s ways, his constant cheerfulness and steadiness, amazed me. Times like this, he seemed older than his years. He hugged my neck and whispered in my ear, “Ask Papa about that dog.” Then, without his usual pestering and questions, he walked back to the wool blanket stretched on the dirt floor before the fire and lay down.
“What happened?” asked my father, with a nod toward my brother.
I stepped closer, and quietly told about Jean-Pierre’s fall, but left out what had scared me the most; that perhaps the wolves were calling to him. I couldn’t bring myself to speak this aloud. Not even to my own father. “Truly, I think he’s fine,” I concluded.
“You must keep a closer eye on him.”
“But …” I didn’t want to hear any more. Didn’t my father see how hard I tried to do just that? I walked to the edge of the forge in front of Jean-Pierre, who to my surprise was already sleeping, his mouth wide open, as usual. I stirred the dusty-red embers with the poker.
Jean-Pierre was right—I did worry. When it came to my brother, I always felt like I was hanging on to the horns of a bull. If I let go, what might happen? If I hung on, at least the bull couldn’t run me through. I shrugged off my own strange thoughts. For all that I knew, all that I’d seen, my mind was torn. Madame Troubène was certain of his curse; sometimes he said the strangest things; villagers talked; even the priest seemed to know. Still, I sensed no evil in Jean-Pierre. Even so, I needed to be watchful.
“I need your help,” said my father, cutting me off from my thoughts, an urgency in his voice. “I need you to deliver something.” With blackened hands, he set aside the shield he was working on. “First,” he said, “bolt the door.”
I obeyed.
He stepped to a corner chest, lifted the lid, and brought out a wooden box, strapped tightly with leather strips. “Take this to St. Benedict’s,” he whispered, “and ask for Brother Gabriel. He will be there.”
“A candleholder?” I asked. I took the box, not much heavier than a small iron pot.
“Give it only to Brother Gabriel,” my father continued. “No one else. Do you understand?”
My chest filled and I stood taller. My father was entrusting me with an important task. Perhaps he was sending me to deliver an item he’d been perfecting in the late hours. That explained his returning to bed so late, his rising extra early. Perhaps his talent had caught the attention of the abbot. “Yes, Papa.”
I glanced at my sleeping brother.
Before I could ask, my father said, “Until Madame Troubène feels better, Jean-Pierre can stay here.
Curse of a Winter Moon Page 3