by Ray Cluley
Luke was surprised it had taken her so long. “Talk about what?”
“Fair enough.”
“When we’re having that drink drink,” he said.
Nicky nodded.
“How about you? Things with Chris still okay?”
“Tina. Or Christina. She hates Chris.”
“She hates it, or you hate it?”
“Both.”
“Are you ever Nick?”
Nicky glared at him, but the effect was somewhat ruined by the size of the chocolate piece she was trying to cram into her mouth. She took it out to say, “You ever Lou?”
“Come on, which one’s the bitch?” Luke said.
She answered his earlier question instead, once she’d chewed her chocolate down to size. “We’re good, thanks. Might not be when I get back, though. First break in months and I go away with . . .” she paused for impact, “A man.”
“Thanks.”
“Well, a male.”
“I know she doesn’t like me much, but she could have come, you know.”
“Nah. This is about you.”
“Phew. Yeah, it is. I was just being polite.”
“She understands. She won’t be pissed, not really. Maybe jealous when I tell her about the gorgeous French girls . . .”
“How long have—”
“Seven months and fourteen days.” She looked at her watch. “And eleven, twelve, hours depending on the time difference.”
Luke laughed. “But who’s counting?”
“I bloody am.”
“Why do you always have to have such serious long term things?”
“Why do you have to always have to have wham-bam-thank-you-mans?”
Luke winced. “Touché.”
“Shit, sorry.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I should take a leaf out of your book.”
“What, switch to women?”
He cocked his head at her.
“Did you want things with Steve to be serious?”
Luke shrugged again. “C’est la vie.”
“There you go again, showing off with the French.”
They’d arrived back at the square, and without discussing it they took seats outside a place serving alcohol.
“So talk.”
He told her about Steve, and about the others, and about what Steve had said at the end.
“Too gay?” Nicky asked. They were on their second beer.
“That’s what I said, right? What, my hair? My clothes? My Kylie collection?”
Nicky laughed, then said seriously, “Kylie’s gorgeous.”
Luke nodded the fact, it was a given. “He wanted someone more mature.”
“As in older, or just, you know, behaviour?”
“I think he meant settled. Not sleeping around, trying to prove something. Which I don’t.”
“Of course you don’t.”
“Not any more.”
Nicky nodded, but with her eyebrows raised.
“Oh, fuck off,” he told her, “get me another drink.”
“Okay, but just one more here. I want to get changed if we’re going to do this properly.”
Luke reminded her that part of the reason for coming to Carcassonne was because it was quiet, no clubs and no gay scene, but she waved that away. “We’ll make the most of it.”
Luke smiled, grateful she’d come with him all the way to France.
“You know, sometimes I wish you were a man.”
Nicky grinned. “Yeah, me too.”
“Ha! I knew it! Tina’s the bitch.”
When their drinks arrived, Nicky raised hers and toasted, “Too gay.”
Luke raised his middle finger and they drank, smiling at each other.
S
It was dark in the Lists, and Luke couldn’t find Nicky. He staggered to a set of stairs leading to the outer ramparts thinking he’d climb them for a better view.
“Nicky!”
His voice echoed off the walls and came back to him.
“Fuck,” he mumbled, crawling up the steps on all fours in case he fell, “I’m wankered.”
He reached the top and stood up and the world tilted. Luke tilted with it, taking a few steps sideways to keep his balance, reeling to one of the battlements. He leant against it, barely realizing how lucky he’d been not to have stumbled through one of the gaps and all the way down.
“Nicky!”
This time her name went out across the darkened countryside and down to the New Town before coming back to him diminished.
“What a bitch,” he muttered, though he didn’t really mean it. He looked at the inner walls of Carcassonne and remembered Nicky telling him they lit up at night. These, though, were dark. Still, there was enough light from the moon and stars to see. A breeze tried to ruffle Luke’s hair despite the generous handful of gel. It had more luck with the banners though, long triangular pennants fluttering at each of the towers.
There was a figure at the top of one of those towers, watching him.
“Nicky?”
The figure pointed and Luke turned to look.
He heard it before he saw it. Heard the hooves on stone, slow and unhurried; clop, clop-clop, clop. Then, from an archway set in the lower wall of a tower, emerged a mighty steed, dark as night. Upon it sat a figure in full armour, plates of blackened steel atop a glinting suit of chain. Coming out from the arch, the knight raised a lance.
“Holy shit, I’ve time travelled.”
The horse raised its legs high with each step in a way Luke had seen at horseshows. Fancy. Tourists must have loved it. The knight, though, was motionless. Silent.
“I’m a bit lost,” Luke called, starting down the stairs. “I’m trying to find someone. Do you speak English? Parlez-vous English?”
The knight tugged the reins and the horse turned a tight circle on the spot.
“Wait! Can you show me the way to the hotel?”
Luke ran down the rest of the steps, leaping the last few more by accident than intent and stumbled.
The knight had already reached the far end of the List, disappearing around the corner to follow the double walls of the town. Luke would be lost in-between.
“Wait!”
Before he could try to catch the knight, the ground beneath Luke tilted. He staggered again, bent over, and was sick. It splashed out of him, thin and white, until only dribbled lines of vomit connected his mouth to the dirty ground. He pinched them away from his lips and shook the residue from his fingers.
Knight and steed turned to face him.
“Sorry,” Luke said.
The horse snorted and stamped its feet but did nothing else, not yet. Then the knight tipped the lance and kicked at the horse’s flanks.
They sped at Luke.
“Oh shit. Oh no, oh shit, oh fuck!”
Luke turned and ran. Or rather he tried to run, but the ground sloped up too steeply or down too suddenly and he careened from one wall to the other, all the time hearing the hooves coming closer, closer, close, until they were right behind him.
Luke fell and rolled and raised his hands, “Please!”
But the knight was gone.
S
Luke was on the floor of the hotel room, tangled in bed sheets. Nicky peered over the mattress at him. She was holding her head as she tried to open her eyes. She rubbed them, trying to make sense of what she saw, but only succeeded in smudging what was left of her makeup.
“What the fuck, Luke.”
Luke lay sprawled, panting. He could taste vomit with each breath.
“You been sick?”
“I’m not sure.”
Nicky groaned and rolled onto her back. “Com
e back to bed,” she said.
But Luke only looked around the room, already forgetting if he was searching for something or hiding from it, and wondering why it scared him so much.
S
Nicky emerged from a cloud of steam that came out of the bathroom with her. She was wearing a white towel and bunching her hair dry in another. “All yours,” she said.
Luke winced and pulled a pillow down over his head. He was curled in the foetal position, squinting against the light coming in through the slats of the shutters.
“Come on, you’ll feel better.”
“Did you spike my drinks last night?”
“Only with vodka. Come on, lots to do.” She threw the damp towel she’d been using for her hair at him. He pulled it from his face to see she’d dropped the other one and was standing at the wardrobe naked.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he said.
“Well thanks a lot. I’ll put some clothes on then.”
Luke ran from the bed, leaning with an imagined tilt of the floor. He knelt at the toilet and heaved but nothing came. There was something inside him he needed to get out but couldn’t. He cradled his head in his arms, leaning on the seat, breathing in the remaining steam from the shower. The mirror was fogged. The floor tiles were wet. In the corner, under the sink, was the underwear Nicky had slept in. She came back in to pick it up as Luke heaved a second time.
“Seriously, you okay?” She squatted next to him and stroked his hair with her free hand.
“I feel a bit queer,” Luke said, managing a weak smile.
“Only a bit? Let’s get you some breakfast then, babe. Nice big sausage?”
Luke laughed as much as he was able. Everything was going to be all right.
S
Their first full day in the citadel of Carcassonne felt like a history lesson to Luke, but he didn’t mind. It was good to see Nicky so animated, and she probably thought she was helping take his mind off Steve. Which she was. And he liked Carcassonne. He’d always wanted to come, and now that he was here it felt . . . right. Nicky added to that.
“You know, there were Romans here, then Visi-goths or Vi-sigoths or however you pronounce it, then Saracens, then the Christians came and turfed out the Muslims . . . and now there’s us lot.”
Nicky pointed her guide book at the other tourists walking the same walls. Various nationalities and cultures and religions had invaded the town, this time together. They were walking the wall of the western side where the citadel benefited from the natural defences of the river and a very steep slope.
“That river down there is the Aude.”
“Yeah, you’ve said.”
“I was reading—”
Luke interrupted with a groan. Nicky shoved him—“Wanker”—and he stumbled to the edge, regaining his balance before he could fall.
“Wow,” he said. “Déjà vu.”
“What, you’ve been called a wanker before? I’m not surprised. Anyway, I was reading . . .” She looked at Luke but he didn’t fill her pause with any comment, so she went on. “. . . about Lady Carcas. She was awesome. There was a siege, right, and it went on for ages and they were all starving and it was only her left, pretty much. She set dummies up at the battlements and went around firing arrows all day from different positions, you know, making out like there were all these men?”
“Did it work? Pretending there were all these men?”
“Wait, this is the best bit. She was starving but she fed her last pig the last of her grain, stuffed it full, and then chucked it off the wall and its stomach split—”
“Gross!”
“—and all the grain spilled out and the attackers, who’d been trying to starve them out, remember, thought, ‘oh fuck, they’ve got tonnes of food’ and left.”
“Really? It says, ‘oh fuck, they’ve got tonnes of food’ in your book?”
“I’m paraphrasing. So the attackers left, but she felt bad for winning with a ruse so called out for them to come back. And one of them said, this is in the book, ‘Sire, Carcas te sonne,’ which means Carcas is calling you.”
“Did they go to her?”
“What? I dunno. But that’s where the name comes from, see? Carcas te sonne. Carcassonne.”
Luke clapped. “Brilliant. They should make a movie.”
After the walls, they looked around the shops. They found a shop selling medieval costumes, which was pretty cool but expensive. “Shame,” Nicky said, “I’d have looked good as a buxom serving wench.”
Luke agreed, but said, “Too clichéd, even for me,” when Nicky held a leather vest against his chest.
“This?” She held up a knight’s helm, moving its visor like a mouth to say, “Go on, try me.”
“No.” Luke shoved it away before she could get it to his head.
Nicky lost her hold briefly but the shopkeeper was there to take it from her before she could drop it, unleashing a torrent of fast French and then, “No touch!”
Nicky apologized and frowned at Luke. He apologized as well, aiming his at Nicky. She shook her head and pretended to look at other items.
“Look,” Luke said, “I like a nice big helmet as much as the next man, but I’ve just done my hair.”
Nicky laughed, forgiving him immediately. “Bet you’ve said that before.”
“Come on.”
They left the shop, to the owner’s obvious relief, and browsed nearby for postcards. Nicky plucked one from the display and held it up for him. “You should send this to Steve.” It showed a line of knights in armour and tutus and made a joke about the can-can. “Write on the back, ‘Too gay for you?’ or ‘Wish you were queer’ or something.”
Luke laughed, took it from her, and bought it.
“You won’t send it,” Nicky said.
“I might surprise you.”
She looked at him and wrinkled her nose. “Nah.”
They continued their wandering. They found a well in the street but looking down saw only darkness. They took pictures of each other sitting on its wall.
“Oh look,” said Nicky, lowering the camera and pointing, “you did bring me somewhere kinky.”
The building proudly declared itself a museum of torture. It even had a set of oversized stocks outside for photographs. Nicky held up the camera.
“Okay, but only if you do it too.”
Luke put his head and hands into the holes and exaggerated a sad face. But when Nicky went to take the picture another tourist offered so she could pose beside him.
“Thank you,” she said, “Merci.” She examined the picture as Luke freed himself and laughed at what she saw. “Brilliant. That’s a keeper.”
Luke peered over her shoulder. “Nice. One for the mantelpiece.”
“You know, in the old days you could be left in that thing all night. A friend would have to stay with you to make sure nobody took advantage when the crowds were gone.”
“Someone to watch your arse?”
Nicky laughed. “Yeah, although with women it wasn’t so much the arse, exactly. You could get knocked up by someone and never know the father.”
“That’s not just the old days.”
Nicky smiled and pocketed the camera. “So,” she said, “we gonna do it?”
S
“Jesus, look at this one.”
“Stop calling me Jesus,” Luke said, but he went over to the exhibit. “Fuck me.”
“Or not, as the case may be.”
They were looking at a chastity belt, a rusted band of metal that fastened around the woman’s waist and cupped her genitals. Instead of blocking access, though, this one had an opening in the crotch with triangles of metal teeth pointing inward.
“That,” said Luke, “would hurt.”
“Y
eah, think of her poor girlfriend’s tongue.”
They proceeded along the various displays. Mannequins were presented suffering an assortment of tortures, bound to a rack or bent over a wooden block to expose parts of themselves for further pain. Sometimes only the devices were shown, genuine apparatus from the ancient look of them. They saw metal cages and wooden wheels, a gallows, a guillotine. Some of these were outside in a small courtyard, a line of rope leading you around the display and then back inside where a woman in a white gown, torn just enough to expose a plastic breast, was contorted in a permanent ecstasy of pain. False fires licked their way up her skin.
“Witch?” Luke asked.
“Or a heretic.”
Luke ignored the signs prohibiting contact and tried to cover the model’s breast.
“The Inquisition was based in the castle here,” Nicky explained.
“What a lovely town.”
“Yeah, thanks for bringing me.”
“Did you know,” said Luke, eager to have a go with the trivia, “they burnt gay men along with witches? They made the flames hot enough to send her to hell, apparently. That’s where we get the term faggots from. As in firewood.”
“You just made that up.”
He shrugged. “Actually, I don’t know where I heard that, so you might be right.”
The next torture was presented as an illustration framed on the wall.
“Oh, my, God.”
It was another wooden stake, and another woman, but this time she was on the stake instead of tied to it. Her legs had been forced open by lengths of rope and the stake tip disappeared inside her. Large metal weights were attached to her hands and feet, pulling her down.
“What did she do to deserve that?” Luke asked.
“Probably nothing.”
They were moving quicker now, eager to finish but still drawn to each piece.
“Look.”
Nicky pointed to another illustration. This time it was a man. He, too, had his legs drawn apart by lengths of rope but he was suspended upside down.
“Doesn’t look half as bad,” Luke said.
She pointed to the long rusty saw on the wall beside it. There was also a postcard of text. “Read this.”