by Ray Cluley
Luke’s eyes widened as he did so. “Bloody hell. They put it between his arse cheeks and—”
“—they cut him in half.”
Luke was still reading, hand over his mouth.
“Because he was homosexual,” Nicky said for him.
Luke touched the points of the saw. It was longer than he was tall. A man either end would drag it back and forth, down through the victim.
“Shall I lighten the mood with a joke about a ‘saw’ arse?” Nicky said.
Luke looked again at the picture. A crowd had gathered to watch the man’s suffering.
“Let’s get a drink,” he said.
“Drink drink?”
“Definitely.”
S
They drank at a little place nearby that had a view of the castle. Luke traced lines up and down the condensation on his glass.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything in that place.”
“Hey, don’t take it so personally.”
“How can I not?”
Nicky leaned over and took his hand, partly to stop him playing with the moisture on his glass. “I love you, Luke, but you can be a bit of a dick.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to be so gay all the time.”
He pulled his hand from hers. “But I am gay.”
“Ssh.”
“Why? I’m bent. Queer. Totally homo.”
“Keep your fucking voice down.”
“Embarrassed?”
“Of the scene, not your sexuality. Jesus, this is exactly what I mean. I’m gay too, remember?”
He settled back into his chair and crossed his arms. “Say it loud, say it proud.”
She sighed. “Let me put it differently. I’m Nicky. I’m twenty-one. I’m a woman. I work in a shop. I used to smoke and occasionally I still do. I love my younger brother but my older one pisses me off. I enjoy history, travel, and music I can dance to. And I’m gay. All different parts of who I am.”
“So?”
“So you’re gay. You like Kylie, and you’re gay, and you’re funny, and gay, and bitchy, and gay, and you’ve got more shoes than I do, and you’re gay, and you like musicals and Baz Luhrmann movies and, oh, by the way, you’re gay. You get so defensive about it, putting it right out front all the time. Like it’s the only thing defining you. Plus the Kylie thing? Musicals? Come on. It’s like you’ve got a ‘how to be gay’ guidebook. And it’s wrong, by the way.”
Luke left a moment of silence, then said, “Wow.”
“Sorry.”
“You sound like Steve.”
“Don’t be stupid, Steve has a squeaky voice.”
Luke laughed, but she’d startled it out of him. It made him angrier. “You don’t understand.”
Nicky sighed and took a drink. “Look, let’s drink this and go in the castle, eh?”
“Nah, you go.” Luke got up suddenly, the metal legs of his chair scraping on the cobblestones. “I’m going to walk around a bit.”
“Walk in the castle with me.”
But he was already gone, ducking into the first side street that took him away from her and what she was saying.
S
The colours of early evening settled over the citadel, the last of the light lingering somewhere beyond the walls. Carcassonne was a pretty city by day but in the evening it was beautiful. Luke, though, barely noticed. He couldn’t find Nicky. He imagined she was walking different streets, looking for him while he was looking for her. He imagined her on the same street looking, unable to see him. It was unsettling.
He turned up the collar of his coat and looked down to fasten the buttons. A chill had descended with the evening, bringing with it a fine rain that Luke hadn’t noticed. It seemed to hang in the air without falling. Maybe that was why the town was suddenly empty, the weather driving everyone indoors.
No, not everyone: at the end of the narrow street sat a knight on horseback.
As if waiting to be seen, the horse snorted and stamped one hoof. Breath plumed from its nostrils. The fading light shone from the knight’s armour and lance.
Luke felt the world tilt beneath him as the knight kicked, spurring the horse forward in a sudden charge. He fell to his knees, turning as the knight came for him, lance lowering. Lowering.
“Fuck me.”
He scrambled on his hands and knees, moving awkwardly on all fours until his momentum lifted him into a run. Behind him came the stamping of hooves on cobblestones.
Luke fled through the streets.
He called for help but the streets were empty. Dark figures looked down from the perimeter walls, though, so he called to them.
They only watched.
Luke ran.
He sprinted on ground that was rising, a gradual incline where the walls narrowed and swallowed him into shadows. On one of the towers a set of sails turned, part of an improbable windmill. Figures moved and looked down from the battlements either side of it. One of them dropped something at Luke. He dodged it, barely, and a rock ruptured into pieces beside him.
“Don’t,” Luke said.
The knight was right behind him, the horse’s breath hot on his neck.
“No.”
Another rock came down, and another, stones splitting all around him, spitting sharp shards at his ankles. The figures were hooded and when they bowed to look down on Luke the stones fell from where their heads should have been, faces falling at him in the dark. Broken pieces stared up from the ground, solid masks that would fit no face. Luke stumbled over one that looked a lot like his own. It sent him sprawling.
The knight was upon him, horse stamping, thundering, lance aimed low. Luke only had time to turn around again. Not to get up. Not to run.
The lance speared him from behind and came out through his chest in a rush of blood. He felt it puncture his heart, felt his heart torn to pieces, and saw these dragged out of his body in bloody chunks that dropped into the hands he cupped to catch them.
S
Luke clutched his chest and struggled upright in bed, pressing his back to the headboard. A figure stood in the shadows of the room, briefly silhouetted by a light behind then merging with the darkness as the door closed. Luke tried to cry out but only managed a soft noise.
“It’s me,” Nicky said.
He heard her stumble into the room, heard her shoes come off, and by then he could almost see her.
Luke was breathing hard. He checked his hands. They were clean and empty.
“You okay, Luke?”
He said nothing, just watched as she slipped off her jacket.
“You going to be sick?”
“No.”
“Good.” She stripped off the rest of her clothes, giggling a little with the clumsy drunken effort of it, and came to bed wearing only her knickers.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Luke said.
“I’ve been having a drink with a lovely man called Pierre. Or a lovely man I called Pierre.” She turned away from him and pulled up the covers.
Luke looked again into his hands. There was nothing there, though his chest still hurt. It felt ruined and empty.
“I’m still a bit pissed,” Nicky said.
Luke didn’t know if she was pissed drunk or pissed angry. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said again.
“I’m right here. Go back to sleep. You can apologize in the morning.”
S
They both apologized over breakfast, but Luke didn’t want it to develop into a rehash of the discussion that had led them to argue in the first place so he suggested visiting the castle. “You can play tour guide.”
“Okay. But you’re paying.”
“Fair enough,” he said, thoug
h he wasn’t sure it was. He’d merely been defending himself yesterday, hadn’t he? She was the one that attacked him. Still, he was happy to put it behind them.
It had rained in the night and the streets were wet and puddled. Water dripped from guttering and hanging plants. It was a little cold, but to Luke it felt like everything had been washed clean. A fresh start to the end of their short break.
The castle had been wonderfully restored and Luke said so. As they queued for tickets he peered into the moat they’d have to cross. It held only the water of the recent rain. “Not sure that’s much of a deterrent.”
“You’re the expert on defence mechanisms.” She smiled to show she was joking. “Deux, s’il vous plaît.”
“So this was the last line of defence? Seems a bit much to have all these big walls, a citadel town, and then a castle inside as well.”
“It was partly in case Carcassonne turned on itself, somewhere for the rulers to hide from those they governed. And you’ll like this: it was also where young men were sent to have their ‘bad conduct’ punished.”
“Bad conduct?”
She shrugged. “Could be anything. Here we are. The fortified heart of the city.”
They were in a magnificent courtyard where a single huge tree dominated. Above, wooden balconies (“hoardings,” Nicky said) followed the upper level around, and towers pointed their pinnacles to the sky. Luke held Nicky’s umbrella while she took more photos and told him again of Lady Carcas and the pig. He didn’t mind. He loved how it brought her to life, seeing her differently and understanding something of what she’d said yesterday; there was much more to her than her sexuality.
“Beautiful, eh?” The wind tossed her hair and the sun was shining. She shielded her eyes and looked over the river and the surrounding fields.
“Definitely.”
“Come on, I want to show you something.”
“You’ve shown me lots already.”
She took his hand.
“What’s this way?”
“A museum.”
“Oh joy.”
But he let himself be dragged. He wasn’t really bored, and Nicky was doing a wonderful job of distracting him. Until . . .
“These are funerary heads. Look at them all.”
She showed him faces carved from marble. As preserved as they were, each was damaged in some minor way; a nose missing, a section of forehead cracked, chin’s broken. Luke shivered.
“Someone walk over your grave?”
“Déjà vu,” he said. “Again.”
“Spooky.”
Luke didn’t know if her comment was a reply to him or a reaction to the tomb lid she was pointing at. It leant upright against the wall, a knight in repose clutching a sword to his chest. The stone sarcophagus beside it was empty. Luke didn’t like that either.
Nicky handed him the camera, “Take my picture,” and posed. “Wait.” She took the umbrella from him, held it point down like a sword. “Okay, take it.”
Afterwards, he handed the camera back quickly before a foolish part of him could check the picture for ghosts.
S
Nicky made him scroll through the camera as they tucked into a hearty lunch. She had moules frites, while Luke had a burger that was barely cooked.
“It’s how they like it here,” Nicky explained, slurping another mussel from its shell.
“You do that so well.”
“Practice.”
Luke left most of his, though, picking at the bread and pinching chips from Nicky’s plate. “Not a big fan of raw meat,” he said.
“Not what I heard.”
He smiled, taking them through each photo because he had a hand free and she had juice all over hers. He glanced away when they reached the knight’s tomb, though Nicky declared it a keeper. They deleted some and picked out others worth framing.
“That one, definitely,” Nicky said.
Luke, imprisoned in the stocks, stared forlornly at Nicky beside him who posed with her arms crossed.
“Whatever turns you on,” Luke said. “Oh look, the Lists again.”
Nicky licked juice from her fingers, ready to take the camera back.
“Where’s the tower with the windmill?” Luke asked.
“What?”
“The windmill. One of the towers had a windmill on it, didn’t it?”
“Er, yeah. A hundred years ago. The Moulin du Midi tower. You been reading my book?”
Luke sped through the pictures. “It’s not here. I thought—”
He stopped. He’d gone too far back and found a picture of himself with Steve. He stared at it.
Nicky took the camera. “Stop torturing yourself.”
“I miss him.”
“No you don’t. You just want to.”
It was true. He did want to. It would be so much easier. He was sick of visiting the same bars and clubs, meeting the same men with different faces. He was sick of pretending. He wanted to love someone, and for them to love him back for who he was.
“Hey,” Nicky said before he could become sullen or melancholy, “let’s make the most of our last night, yeah?” She raised her glass.
Luke lifted his. “No more fighting.”
“The past’s the past,” Nicky said, clinking drinks. “Here’s to new beginnings.”
S
“I won’t run anymore,” Luke said.
The knight he faced came forward slowly, lance held vertical. Its point was stopped with something slick and dark, and lines ran down from it in glistening stains. The horse walked a circle around Luke, legs coming up high as if it was eager to trample him beneath its hooves.
“I know who you are,” Luke said, turning with them.
Behind them the sails of the Moulin du Midi windmill stopped.
“You’re me,” Luke said.
The knight yanked hard on the reins and the horse reared, immediately huge and threatening. It gave a shrill cry, kicking its forelegs before settling again.
Luke held his arms out wide, exposing his chest. “Come on, then.”
The clatter of the lance was loud against the stones and the knight dismounted with equal sudden speed. Luke took a step in retreat but the knight came no further, only mimicked Luke’s open arms. The two faced each other as if to embrace, the knight an armoured reflection of Luke.
“You’re who I want to be . . .” Luke said.
The knight’s breastplate fell away and the chainmail beneath began dropping in pieces, cascading like small silver coins.
“Or who I need to defeat . . .”
Gauntlets, rambraces, rerebraces, greaves—it all came off.
“Or something like that, anyway.”
As the last of the chainmail links fell, hands that were bare and pale removed the helmet, dropping it to the cobblestones to look at Luke with eyes that had seen him a thousand times. Eyes that were not his, nor any other man’s.
“Stop torturing yourself, Luke.”
She stood naked in the moonlight, her arms open to him, and the world Luke had made for himself didn’t so much tilt as lurch violently upside down.
S
Luke and Nicky were tangled together beneath covers that clung like drunken breath. Luke was curled around Nicky, spooning her, eyes closed against the tilting and spinning of the hotel room, trying not to wake up. He cupped one of her breasts and kissed the back of her neck.
Nicky said something soft and sleepy and fidgeted against him. He began pulling at her knickers.
“Luke?”
He was hard against her. He pushed closer, tried to—
“Luke!”
She shoved him off and rolled away, fast, gathering the sheets around her. “What the fuck?” She stared at Luke with
a wide-eyed expression he tried to block with raised hands.
“Nicky, I’m not—I just wanted—”
He ran from the room instead, and then the hotel, chased by more than Nicky’s angry screams.
S
They had gathered in the street, each of them robed and with a hooded face of stone. They bowed as he ran past, stone heads falling from their cowls, and they bowed in lines ahead of him, too. Each face that fell was that of a past lover. The one he stumbled on was Steve’s and it sent him sprawling into the castle courtyard. A saddled gelding stamped its hooves around him and men watched from the walls and hoardings.
“I’m not like that!” he yelled at them.
The knight drew her steed away, though she lowered her lance to point accusations at Luke. She said something in French he didn’t understand.
“No,” he said anyway, “I’ll prove it. I’ll show you.”
He snatched at the tip of the lance and drove it deep into the soft meat of his belly. He opened himself up for her, dragging the lance point through his flesh. A torrent of semen spilled from his stomach, evidence of every lover he had ever consumed, and he cupped his hands full of it. “Look! Look!” But the thick pool in his palms slipped between his fingers and he saw it was not the proof he thought it was but wet grain. He cast it at the horse’s feet and it reared with a shrill sound like laughter.
Luke knelt, penitent, and the gash above his groin gaped open like bloody lips. He waited for the hooves to fall on him but the knight turned her steed. She eased it through the gathering crowd, her back to Luke, and the hooded men closed ranks around her, keeping her distant. Keeping her away from Luke.
“Come back!” he called, only for one of the hooded men to step close and strike him with a stick. He struck so violently, and so often, that his hood fell down and Luke saw no partner from his past this time, only himself, ferocious in his fury. He raised his arms to ward off the blows and eventually his attacker stopped, dropping the weapon with a grunt of disgust. Luke picked it up. The wood was veined, carved into a shape that repulsed him, and he tried to return it but it went limp in his hands to become a warm wet length of rope, or something like it.