The Nightcharmer and Other Tales

by Claude Seignolle

  Roc has not moved from his place, and none of the villagers dares go and rescue Gomart, lest he should also fall victim to the other invisible traps that must surround the house. Isabelle is the only one to hurry to the miller. She leans over him, and the sight of so much blood overwhelms her. As her distress deepens into sorrow, she calls out to the blacksmith, who remains silently motionless, as if he were painted on the threshold.

  "Save him! Please save him," she implores Roc, calling upon her tears to better entreat him. The villagers are now aghast and powerless as they behold the nightmarish scene. They can hear Isabelle's pleas, and despite themselves their hopes also turn to the one they had come to drive out of town. They all know he has the power to save the miller's life. Even Mrs. Graubois finds herself wishing he would do it.

  As he finally moves from the door, the blacksmith turns to the young girl and utters only a single word. "Come!" His outstretched arm bespeaks such an inflexible will that Isabelle cannot resist him. She obediently walks back to the house. Roc follows her and the massive oak door slams behind them, sending an echo that reaches the church and thunders against its walls. The explosion suddenly releases the villagers from the petrification that had taken hold of them. Mrs. Graubois is the first to get a grip on herself. Vairon, Courli, Denys, and all the others soon pull themselves together. They do not waste much time in deciding their next move. Roc's blood is now the price they must exact to avenge the miller's death. Their fingers poised on the triggers of their guns, they all regroup and descend upon the forge.

  Back inside the shop, Roc returns to the hearth and resumes his interrupted work, as if nothing had ever happened outside. Isabelle throws herself down on her knees and clasps one of his legs in her arms.

  "Roc!" she moans. "I beseech you, save him!"

  The blacksmith's only answer is to brutally shake her off his leg.

  "Roc!" she cries plaintively as she collapses on the ground and takes her head in her hands. Her sobbing reaches deep inside the blacksmith, and he can feel his inexorable decision starting to waver. But his hands suddenly become fists as he thrashes the air around him. With a firm voice Roc repeats his irrevocable verdict.

  "No! I will not save him. This man got what he deserved... I corrected him. Besides, it is too late; there is nothing I can do for him now." Stunned by the harshness of his tone, Isabelle stands up, and for the first time, her eyes and her heart seem to penetrate deeper into him. The young girl backs away and looks at the blacksmith with intensity.

  "Roc... are you not a holy man?" she asks in a slow and faltering voice.

  The blacksmith briefly closes his eyes. He hesitates for a moment and then abruptly regains his poise. "No, Isabelle, I am not!" he replies, gritting his teeth.

  The girl feels her heart wrung by despair. In her disarray, she hopes to find in herself the power to save the man agonizing in the courtyard. She rashes to the door and opens it. Roc screams and tries to grab her, but she is already outside when the echoes of a volley of shots ring out in the forge.

  Blinded by the flashes of the guns, Isabelle doubles up under the pain that explodes in her stomach, while her chest is hacked by a hundred shavings of lead. A purple haze rises up before her, erasing her voice and her thoughts. Her legs buckle under a formidable weight that suddenly presses down upon her shoulders. She collapses near the baker as a piercing wind mangles her body, dragging her over the stones of the courtyard. Her mind struggles to escape the precipitous depth of a dark abyss that abruptly sunders the ground of the forge. For a moment she can see a strange mosaic made of contorted faces and uneven pieces of sky, spinning above her as she continues to fall further and further below... The twitching body of the young girl tenses up in a last spasm, and she is no more. The villagers recoil in horror. They had only meant to rid themselves of the blacksmith, and they have just murdered a child. They had all recognized the frail silhouette of Isabelle as she was dashing out of the forge, but their rifles had fired instantly, as if their hands had been inexplicably set in motion against their will.

  None of them can step back as Roc comes out of the forge, wearily dragging his long black cape, which he places upon the dead body. The villagers cannot even begin to run away when he walks up to the group. In the oppressive silence he scornfully stares at each one of them before bending down and picking up Isabelle. Then, oblivious of the cold, the outlander clutches her against his bare chest. Leaving the murderers impaled upon agonizing shivers, he allows them to see the impossible - the sight of his tears running down a face that for an instant had become human.

  He then turns around and starts back on the road that leads to nowhere.

  The Last Rites

  That night Pierre was even more miserable than usual. Lying awake, he fretfully awaited his wife's return, feeling once more in his heart the sadness of his frustrated love. Lucie had vanished once again to sleep in someone else's arms.

  The townsfolk and the educated still think of peasants as two-legged animals. They also believe that their hearts are daubed with manure and that they probably have no more sensitivity than an ox. Born of the mind of city dwellers, this idea has ascribed to farmers emotions made of brambles and cudgels. But under the wild bark of these so-called bumpkins there quivers the delicate sap of sweet tenderness.

  As if to lend some truth to this old urban prejudice, Pierre was known as a hard-hearted man. Shouting every day at his farmhands, he had a well-deserved reputation of always being temperamental. Yet Pierre was honest: he was equally incapable of vileness or of simpering ways. As if he were the embodiment of the elements directing the course of the day in the countryside, Pierre could alternately become as violent as the thunder, as cold as the north wind, and as hot-blooded as the sun at high noon. Around the farm his workers were well aware of his changing disposition, but they would not have left to work anywhere else, even for better wages. If they stayed in spite of his short temper, it was because anyone in the pay of Pierre knew that he would learn what farming was all about. Pierre could teach how to encourage the grain to grow high and strong; he could show you secret ways to better fatten your cattle. The helpers understood very well what Lucie could not even fathom. They all agreed that she was much too green for him, anyway. Fifteen years younger than Pierre, Lucie wasn't interested in anything save her proclivity to cuckold her husband. That was enough to create a thick hedge of discord between them, and today the only passageways that remained through this hedge were the rare moments that they would still share in bed.

  Still Lucie could drive Pierre dizzy with desire. It was as if the caresses of this delicate and fragrant flower were transmuted in his senses as so many bright colours and passionate words of love. But when all was said and done, their union looked like the mating of a doe and a plowshare. They fared so poorly together that each time Lucie felt her husband wanting her desperately, she would use even the flimsiest of excuses to flee the farm and go to the rescue of an unknown bedridden great-aunt. Or she would travel fifty miles to celebrate the birthday of a cousin three times removed. Actually, Lucie was deceiving her husband with another man, much gentler than he. But Pierre was not fooled by her pretences. Rather, he chose to wait and suffer the twinges of his languishing and impotent distress.

  And so that night, his bed once again deserted, Pierre was trying to ascertain what else he could possibly do to bring Lucie back so that she would nevermore leave him and share with another man an intimacy rightfully his. He would not even have loaded his shotgun and gone after his many rivals, since it was his wife who enticed them. All he ever wanted was to see her back again once her infidelity had been consummated. Even though he was as much a heathen as a wild boar, Pierre had recently turned to the village priest for help. That very afternoon, pretending an appointment with his accountant, he had gone once again to pray secretly in the church's crypt on the tomb of the blessed Hubertine. Under the marble slab was buried a nun who had lived such a virtuous and sinless existence that more than two hu
ndred years after her death, she could still help the hapless victims of unrequited love.

  Many years ago the young nun's life had been a model of chastity and gentleness, and she had left in these parts an undying example of righteousness. Pierre would let himself dream about a wife who would be like Hubertine, a quiet and submissive spouse, a living saint, like those ethereal and beautiful women whose names could be found printed on the pages of the church calendar. Hubertine had many worshippers, and some people had even gone as far as asking her to give them back a virility that they had lost. Nobody really knew why such a pious virgin had been chosen as the patron saint of impotent men, but a few farmhands could whisper in your ear that she had indeed answered their prayers and fulfilled the desires of their most unbridled expectations.

  Hence, Pierre had spent three hours fervently praying over Hubertine's grave, kneeling down on the sunken and cracked slab, resting his big calloused fists on the marble polished by two centuries of begging hands. Beseeching her to bring back Lucie, he had even taken an oath to give the parish priest a large donation if she would accede to his adjuration. Pierre was sure that such a promise was bound to sway her, since the crypt was about to be closed off for repairs. The farmer was going to be her last supplicant for a long time, and he did believe that he was more in need of Hubertine's help than was anyone else who had come to entreat her.

  At two o'clock in the morning, still lying awake, Pierre was awaiting his wife with such anticipation that he had all but forgotten the distemper epidemic that was slowly killing off his horses. Hubertine must have been moved by his faith, because she finally decided that such a wretched soul was indeed deserving of her pity.

  And... the living room door creaked faintly, as if a burglar were stealing his way into the house. The dogs had not even barked. Without any hesitation someone was cutting through the darkness and walking toward the bedroom.

  Pierre immediately recognized Lucie's steps. Betraying her presence by the muffled tread of her footsteps upon the tiled floor, she was now hurrying toward him.

  Pierre slid deeper between the sheets, pretending to be sound asleep. He tried to keep silent and ignore her, but as he felt Lucie's body so close to him, the farmer gave in to the irresistible sensuality of their silent reunion. He tore his shirt open and threw the blankets aside. They fell together upon the bed. The touch of her burning hands inflamed him so much that he felt as if his flesh were being branded by his own lust. Soon this ravenous and alien fever gave way to an ineffable mingling of delight and torture. Writhing with pleasure, Pierre let his desire burst forth, as violent as the fiery course of lightning when it thrusts itself upon the fields.

  The maid had been waiting for two hours before daring to enter Pierre's bedroom and wake him. He had overslept again, and she thought he probably had once more drowned his loneliness in grain alcohol the night before. But after taking a few cautious steps beyond the threshold, she rushed back to the stairs with a piercing scream. A dozen farmhands ran up to the second floor, and guided by her terrorized and mute gaze, they too ventured inside the room.

  The farmer was dead. His naked body lay stiff across the bed, his eyes wide open and his ashen face set in a contorted grin. It did not take long for the gendarmes to realize that Pierre had not died of natural causes. His neck was marred with the deep and bluish braises left by his murderer's fingernails, while his chest and thighs were daubed with a thick, brown substance, as if they had been covered by a parched mixture of dirt and sweat. In their struggle, Pierre and his assassin had smeared il all over the bed, for the sheets and blankets were spattered with mud. Other traces of a more intimate nature puzzled the authorities, but were not made public.

  The next day, Lucie returned to the farm and was greeted by the grief of the servants and the compassion of the parish priest. She told everyone she had decided to come home, since her cousin had recovered from his illness. Knowing perfectly well where she had actually spent the night, the gendarmes had the decency not to question her any further.

  At first nobody wanted to believe it, but the news was quickly confirmed by the local newspaper and by the priest's indignant silence, caught up as he was between the bishop's decision and the animosity of his parishioners. Claiming that his church was badly deteriorated and that its foundations had become dangerously unstable, the bishop had ordered that it be temporarily closed. In the meantime, the relics preserved in its crypt would be transferred to the diocese cathedral.

  The farmers tried to oppose this blasphemous deportation, but it was in vain: Saint Nemorin's jawbone and Saint Agatha's heart, along with the remains of the blessed Hubertine, would be snatched away from their resting place. Trying to alleviate the villagers' resentment, the parish priest had argued that such an unexpected journey could actually help Hubertine move one step closer to sainthood, since the bishop had given him to understand that Rome was thinking of canonizing her. His parishioners were delighted at the news of such a well-deserved promotion, but they still would have preferred keeping her there among the blessed rather than losing her to the saints. A few grumbling tanners had even suggested half-jokingly that someone ought to get a pitchfork and poke a few holes in His Lordship's miter.

  Well aware of the villagers' outrage, the local priest had arranged for the bishop's emissary to come to the crypt unannounced and in civilian clothes, since he was to supervise the exhumation of Hubertine's remains and their discreet transfer to the city. The parish priest had thus decided to meet him late at night, a few miles away from the village. The episcopal representative was an old and shrivelled vicar, a short-sighted bookworm known for his expertise in hagiography. The priest led him into town through deserted backroads and spirited him into the church through a side entrance, which he double-locked behind them. Three workers from the city were waiting in the crypt, ready to start removing the heavy slab that guarded Hubertine's grave.

  The reasons behind the transfer of the relics were made painfully obvious as the entire shrine came to life under the glare of acetylene lamps. The main pillar had caved in a few inches on its foundation and was no longer supporting the vault. The crumbly retaining walls were creviced as if they had just thawed from a thirty-year frost. The old stoneware vase containing Saint Agatha's heart was precariously leaning out of its niche, and one of the glass plates protecting Saint Nemorin's reliquary had been shattered by a piece of plaster fallen from the ceiling. The thick slab that rested upon Hubertine's tomb was cracked lengthwise, and the fact that it was almost possible to peer through the fractured stone gave every onlooker the jarring sensation of committing a despicable blasphemy. One of the cornerstones of the masonry had come undone, and the vulturous hand of an unscrupulous relic hunter could have easily reached inside and grabbed a few bones from the remains of Hubertine.

  Before ordering the workers to remove the ledger, the vicar tried to ease the priest's reluctance by reassuring him of the bishop's best intentions. It had been finally decided that the village could keep Saint Nemorin's jawbone and Saint Agatha's heart. The city would keep Hubertine's body until the day of her official canonization. Then she would be returned to the village, as soon as the decrepit shrine had been remodelled and no longer presented any danger to the faithful or to the defenders of the faith alike. Grudgingly satisfied with this unearthly bargain, the priest nodded in agreement. The workers positioned themselves around the grave and started to press their crowbars under the ledger.

  The priest drew the vicar to one side, and as garrulous as an Easter sermon, he proceeded to tell him the story of the blessed Hubertine. Born in 1720, she was a fifteen-year-old hunchbacked shepherdess from the hamlet of Chantebuisson. Not only was she deformed, but half of her face was sullied by a reddish birthmark. Yet she never grew weary of smiling and of spreading love for life and kindness around her, even though she had quickly become the docile target of the children's wickedness and the butt of everyone's jeers.

  But what had to happen finally came to pass on a
rainy autumn afternoon, as Hubertine was guiding the herd toward Mortefontaine's coomb. She heard a voice calling her name, as deep as if it had sprung out of a well. She looked around but could find no one, and there was not even a well in sight. Someone called her again, but this time it came from the sky, as if she were being tested as to the true origin of the voice. Hubertine readily understood that it was a divine revelation. She was instantly overwhelmed by the love of God. She worshipped him so that she even pictured what he looked like. His face was as austere and handsome as the old squire's whose castle towered over the hills. The very same nobleman, despite the abyss that stood between their social ranks, who would always condescend to laugh at her each time he rode through the pastures.

  And the Lord continued to speak to Hubertine, telling her to come to his house. Thus, at the age of sixteen the shepherdess entered the local convent, in order to isolate herself and grind a thousand bushels of prayers on behalf of a sinful and indifferent world. She remained there until her death, a short span of nine years entirely consumed by her ardent ecstasy. Her life had set such a remarkable example that the diocese ordered that she be buried in the church of her native village.

  Less than a half-century later, the angry cannon balls of the French Revolution rolled throughout the land. The convent was levelled to the ground and ploughed through, as if the rebels had wanted to plant the seeds of oblivion in its furrows. The crypt and Hubertine's remains were the only things spared from the harrowing of religion, and this confirmed to all that she was indeed under the protection of God.

  Solemnly emphasizing these last words, the priest concluded Hubertine's story. In the silence now made even more respectful by the reawakened presence of the young shepherdess, the workers drove the last metal wedge between the ledger and the vault. Easing their crowbars onto the stone, they slowly slid aside the two broken halves of marble, revealing the darkened mouth of the tomb. As the lamps abruptly lighted the excavation, everyone stood in amazement. There was no casket in the vault; neither was there the respectable skeleton they all expected to find. In its place, the perfectly preserved body of a naked woman lay in the grave. It looked as if someone had played a macabre and blasphemous practical joke on the bishop's representative by replacing Hubertine's remains with a fresh cadaver, irreverently lying on its stomach.