by Allen Werner
There were several unfertile fields nearby. These grounds never produced anything of value and it was a complete and utter waste to return during any season.
Crops, all crops, even those growing in the wild, required time to mature and ripen. Everything has a season for harvesting, from acorns to truffles, fennel to radishes. No one had ever taught Claire these truths about slow foods. It was an education in patience. What was obvious for many was completely foreign to her. And until Old Nan took her aside and schooled her, no one had ever taught her what quality was or how to spot it. There was no joie de vivre. As a starving vagrant, Claire’s life had been nothing more than a sad series of moments striving to survive. All foodstuffs were treasure. She could consume nearly anything, moldy, unripe, uncooked, wormed and vile. It took time to absorb these lessons in excellence but her life now depended on retaining these truths.
Before long Claire was doing the telling, the teaching, schooling her merchant friends on the availability of certain product and on how much she would charge them when she retrieved them, not the other way around. The merchants were a frugal but respectable lot and came to admire the girl’s tenacity, her talent and shrewdness, eventually competing with one another for her precious items.
Claire’s reputation soared.
Claire had recently turned thirteen when Old Nan, Father Lamaire and the town’s Mayer, Henri Martin, led her out of town, down a long quiet road to a bluff overlooking the Valley of Flowers. It was a familiar location, a place she had been many times before, admiring the amazing view, scavenging for endives. They grew in abundance in this particular locale.
Claire’s instincts, however, were heightened by the walk and she was fully prepared to defend herself from whatever sinister designs these people had formulated. Claire was a loner and a scrapper and didn’t generally trust anyone. Living feral had hardened her. She was apprehensive of any kindnesses. And when her back was pressed to the wall, she could put up quite a stir, almost like a tomcat.
Claire was utterly bug-eyed when Mayer Martin smiled at her, producing a gaudy, symbolic key, one the size of a short sword, a gold ribbon dangling from the bow and shoulder. He extended his hand and offered it to her. Claire would not accept it. Surely the wooden token would not open anything anyway, it wasn’t that kind of key.
Old Nan could see that the symbolism of the gift was not being received, so she pointed to the abandoned shed. “It’s yours.”
Mayer Martin made Claire take the key and deed in hand. Claire stood their dumbfounded, holding both, not sure what to do next. She didn’t even try to read the writing for she was illiterate.
The good people of Chamonix had watched Claire mature. There was a great deal of admiration for her in certain circles. These citizens petitioned the Church on her behalf and they in turn, secured the abandoned shack. Claire was officially invited to join the fold and become a respected member of society. She had proven herself beyond a shadow of a doubt. From that day forward, Claire was a part of Chamonix.
The older women, especially the ones with sons and grandsons in need of wives, began inviting Claire to their homes for dinner, as well as various social events. It was expected that Claire would attend Mass, and she did this religiously. A handful of people were even more generous, taking turns teaching her things, how to care for herself, clean herself, mend clothing and cook. Dame Inês showed Claire how to mix some of the herbs and roots she gathered together to make healing pastes and craft poultices. Claire developed a flair for this art.
Old Nan was even more ambitious than the rest and tried to teach young Claire how to read and write but both were too impatient to accomplish the task. They grew frustrated with one another time and time again. On several occasions, in fact, Old Nan’s nearly flew into a rage, gripping the wooden cane as if to swing it again. Still, all this activity together brought the two of them closer, much closer. Claire developed a confidence in Old Nan she had never known with any other woman. It was nurturing.
When Claire turned fourteen, Old Nan decided the time was right to reveal all she knew about Claire’s auspicious beginnings. Claire’s mother was a vagabond, an entertainer. She was traveling through Chamonix with a minstrel show when Claire was born. Old Nan couldn’t recall the woman’s name for the life of her.
Claire was born in summer but there was no celebration. Her mother died during labor. The show people swore that the father was not one of their party, just some wretched despot from another town they passed through months earlier. He had taken unwelcomed liberties with Claire’s mother before they moved on. The minstrels didn’t have the means to care for a newborn, especially since the mother died, so they left Claire in Chamonix with another woman. That woman reared the infant best she could for several summers before she too died.
If all that was not awful enough, Old Nan held back the worst part. It pained her old heart too much to tell it. The woman who accepted the burden of raising the child did not actually die. Old Nan was the one responsible for the infant. She was old, however, and sickly and nearly blind. She had many excuses for why she was incapable of raising a child, especially a headstrong, rambunctious girl who was constantly running the streets and behaving disobediently, or at least from an old woman’s perspective it appeared that way. Old Nan was utterly amazed the child had survived this long on her own and believed that her outreach to Claire now was a form of redemption. She still didn’t have the patience to educate the girl rightly but they could talk nearly as equals and that was something. Old Nan could impart her wisdom, knowledge based on experience, simple things, honest things. Still, despite what she tried to deem and christen generosity and reclamation, never sat well and guilt still tore at Old Nan’s tired heart.
The snowstorm was something fierce but Claire wasn’t shaken by it. She had stocked the shelter with faggots of kindling and bundles of wood. The shelves were packed full of necessities and other supplies. If properly portioned out, it was more than enough to see her comfortably through to the next thaw. ‘Hopefully the storm won’t last that long,’ she thought with a shy smile.
The one room shed was sparsely furnished, just a rickety old table, a backless wood chair and a bed hardly long enough to contain her small frame. Claire was only five foot tall if that. Her long black hair, curly and full of body, had gone uncut from youth and now reached down beyond her backside.
Beeswax was scarce this time of year, so she was chary with the limited supply of candles. As the wind howled and the tempest raged outside, she darned clothing quietly beside a small warm fire in the hearth, humming simple tunes she learned at Mass, dreaming of the next hot summer day when she would sit on the cliff, watching the sun pass slowly over the Valley of Flowers. When she looked down there, she imagined that this was the land of plenty Father Lamaire spoke of during his long-winded sermons.
The cabin rattled. There were noises outside, pounding and thundering. It was to be expected. The storm was violent. Sticks, branches and other debris were thrown at the building, slapping the exterior. The sound of snow occasionally slipping off the slated roof always made her head lift and look at what could not be seen. Claire grew accustomed to all the various sounds. None of them startled her anymore. None until a surprisingly heavy thump slammed up against the door. It was an unnatural and thunderous thump, shaking the whole building. Someone or something was out there. All the roads had been closed for days. Claire hadn’t seen anyone in nearly a week. She didn’t know how anyone could have managed to reach her, or for that matter, why they would even bother.
A second thud brought her to her feet, her darning needles clenched tight in hand. She stared doe-eyed at the door. Minutes passed and there were no more unnatural sounds. The single candle on the table flickered nearly in rhythm with the small fire in the hearth.
Steeling herself, believing with all her heart she should investigate, Claire placed the long wooden needles down on the chair, prayed a quick and silent prayer to Saint Michael and moved for the do
or. She threw up the black latch and the wind did the rest, shoving the door inward with a squall of white snow. Regaining her composure, Claire fought through the bluster and spotted a bear-like creature covered with snow bunched up on the stoop. Small and weak, she grabbed for the beast anyway, gripping it by the furry shoulders. She dragged it slowly inside the shelter, just far enough to close the door again. Huffing and puffing, Claire forced the door close and returned the latch to lock. She scurried scared to her tiny bed and covered herself with a course blanket, knees bent up to her chin. Eyes wide open, she watched and she waited. The hours passed and the fire eventually died out. Claire listened to the storm raging around the cabin. She did not move all night and neither did the beast.
Claire shuddered. She had fallen asleep. It was morning now and there was cold hazy light entering the room. The beast had not budged an inch from where it lay on the floor.
Claire could see her breath in the frigid air. She breathed on her hands before emerging from under the blanket, clearly underdressed for the conditions, her arms and legs showing. She restarted the fire in the hearth, building it large enough to heat the entire room, making the environment tolerable again. She was hungry, so she fixed herself a small bowl of soup, her slow mind trying to calculate a solution in dealing with the strange creature.
‘Perhaps it is dead. It sure does stink.’
An hour and another bowl of soup later, Claire approached her problem, standing over it in wonder. She got down on her knees and pawed at the fur cautiously, gradually discovering that it was not a beast at all, but a rather large man clothed in thick black bear furs. She wasn’t so frightened anymore. The man was barely breathing, frozen and injured. He had sustained several bad cuts, gashes one might say, even a few chunks of flesh stolen from his arms and legs. Had the man not been frozen, he would have surely bled to death.
Claire removed his furs.
The man was a knight. He was wearing cold metal armor with the scarlet rood of the Templars stamped on the chest. She found an identical symbol on his cape. His face was beastly, rugged, long straggly hair, brown bushy beard and frazzled mustache.
Dismissing modesty, a reticence she had in abundance, Claire stoked the fire even more and began stripping her injured caller of all his clothing. Using her knowledge of herbs and roots, she fashioned several healing pastes. She washed his wounds, applied poultices and wrapped him in bandages. She shaved him and dressed him in the longest, manliest dress she had. She had only two blankets and gave him the larger and heavier of the two. In a large kettle, she boiled his furs and leathers, killing off all the bugs and stink burrowed in them. When this was done, she cleaned his armor and sword, burnishing the steel until it shined again.
Day three, the knight regained consciousness. He would slip in and out, mumbling or praying, she couldn’t be sure. When he did awake and stare at her, he refused to speak. He looked confused, scared and sometimes angry. ‘Perhaps he is a mute. I wonder if he has seen war. That must be where he received those injuries.’
Sometimes, late at night, when she was trying to sleep, she would roll over in bed and find the now clean shaven knight just staring at her, mumbling to himself. Claire could not read the stranger’s thoughts but the aura emanating from him was growing darker by the day. She couldn’t explain how she knew it. She had never felt such darkness. At times, she wished she had not been so kind and healed him, never opened the door.
Three weeks went by and the snows kept falling, the wind kept howling. Claire couldn’t open the door anymore. Neither of them were leaving anytime soon.
The Benedictines of St. Michel de la Cluse had established a priory near Chamonix. Like Old Nan, these educated men tried their hand at teaching Claire to read and write. They failed as well but gifted the young lady the few tattered pamphlets of Scripture they had used to train her, telling her to practice. She couldn’t read them but due to repetition, she had set them to heart. She could recite them from memory. As the storm continued to howl and the days grew longer with less light, Claire would occasionally pull the pamphlets out and pretended to read them to the stranger.
“Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have, I give thee. In the name of the Christ, rise and walk.”
“And He said, whatever comes out of a man, that defiles the man.”
“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face. Now I know in part but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
She wasn’t sure if the stranger understood her French or what these verses meant or even if she was saying them correctly but it served to break the monotony and the silence which often strangled the room. The knight’s countenance hardly ever changed. If he wasn’t staring at her or mumbling to invisible things, he was sleeping. He wouldn’t even lift a spoon to feed himself. She had to sit beside him and put the stew to his mouth and he ate. She changed his bandages and he let her. The same with shaves and basic wash ups. At times, it was all very unsettling. And at other times, it became routine and droning, something meaningful to do.
And then the day came when the knight snatched the spoon away from her hand causing her to jump back. He growled like a rabid dog as he shoveled food into his mouth, his teeth rotted and brown.
Claire swallowed hard, reassuring herself that this was a good sign. ‘He’s getting better,’ she thought. ‘He’s a knight, a soldier of Christ. Soon he can help me dig a path out the door again. We still have plenty of supplies but could do with more wood and water.’
The knight ate everything she had prepared for him and then rose to his feet. He had spent nearly three weeks in the same spot, eating, sleeping and soiling himself. She knew he was a large man but until now she had no idea how truly colossal he was. It was a good thing the ceiling was slanted for where it was lowest, near the door, his head touched. His arms were tight and muscular. He couldn’t stop himself from flexing them and admiring them. His strength had returned and he was testing it, apparently quite proud of it.
The man brushed by Claire who still sat on the floor and went wordlessly towards her stores against the rock wall. He started rummaging through them like an animal let loose, biting off a piece of this, spitting out a spot of that, tossing other stuffs on the floor, breaking things.
“No,” Claire shouted, urging him to stop, making a vain attempt to come between him and her supplies.
With a single arm, the stranger batted her aside, knocking her back towards the bed. She landed hard on the floor. The giant didn’t even turn to check on her. He continued to purge her supplies, tasting and eating everything raw, making a complete and utter mess.
Claire crawled back up on her tiny bed and pulled her knees and blanket up over her chin. She trembled and whimpered, her long black hair flowing all around her.
The knight walked over to the fire and threw several large logs in the hearth. There was no doubt the flames would rage long and hot the rest of the day and into the night. Inhaling fully, as if receiving his first breath of life, the knight tore off the light dress she had fitted him with. Standing nude in silhouette before the inferno raging in the hearth, he warmed his large hands and bulging arms, bending back slightly to rub his hairy legs. When he turned back around to face Claire, he had an erection, an enormous erection. Claire couldn’t help noticing the appendage and it frightened her. She had tried her best to be mature and polite while nursing him, never touching him in that place longer than it required to clean it. A few times it had flared up in her hand and she stopped immediately. What she saw now terrified her. The man’s deep-seated eyes were filled with lust. Claire had heard tales concerning the act of sex. Slavers and perverts were always trying to catch her and fondle her, force her to perform or work for them. She feared being penetrated by a man, any man, and this man was colossal.
The knight laughed and sneered as three quick strides had him at her bedside. He ripped Claire’s blanket off and flung it away. Claire wore a little gown with much of her arms and leg
s exposed. Her long black hair was draped all around her trembling body. She was nothing but a frightened little girl.
The knight leered, his tongue licking crumbs from his bushy lips.
Claire jumped up and rushed for the door. She knew she had little chance of escaping him but still she had to try. She would charge outside and burrow through the snow; die in the cold if needs be.
The knight grabbed her by the arm and reined her in before she got two steps from the bed. With the back of his free hand, he leveled her. The whole room spun and Claire found herself lying on the floor on her stomach, her mouth bleeding. She felt him land hard on her back. His full weight pressed down, knocking breath completely from her body. There was no more after that. Claire passed out.
When she woke again, she was still lying on the floor in the same place she had been thrown but facing the ceiling. It took a while for awareness to come back to her, and with awareness came pain, great pain. Her whole body ached, especially her breasts and hips. She was wet and sticky. It was urine and something else. She touched herself down where she used the bathroom and it burned. There was blood. The flesh was torn. Claire screamed and balled up in utter agony. The ache was increasing, getting worse and worse. Everything down there hurt. There was no relief. She shook and clenched her thighs together as tight as she could. Her screaming escalated. It was deafening. And then the knight was standing over her with an angry scowl on his face. She saw the knuckles of his right hand rounding into view.
The next time Claire woke up, it was only for a few seconds and she was hardly able to focus on anything, just a face and a voice. It was Old Nan. “Oh child, what has happened to you?”
Claire woke up next in the backroom of a storehouse. Old Nan had taken her in. Claire had been given some strong treatments to ease the pain and the surgeon had done all he could for her, sewing her bottom back up but the damage was extensive. It was nearly three months after that before Claire could stand up again and by then she knew, she was pregnant.