Arcane II

by Nathan Shumate (Editor)

  Back at the hut, the sisters had lugged the corpse away and scoured the floorboards. I still could make out faint blood stains, though. Maybe the sisters burned incense; I sniffed something like honey gone bad.

  Quickly I rummaged through the old man’s gear. A battered trunk holding miner’s tools stood against the back wall, covering most of a gaping hole I hadn’t seen. I crossed myself and called upon St. Jude, stuck my paw through the hole and groped at nothing. This must be an old tunnel then; where else could those rats have run in from?

  I lit a candle, set it in a lantern and boldly crept into the hole. I found a man-sized tunnel of hard-packed earth, timbers supporting it every few paces. It ran downhill towards the convent, and I soon came upon the old man’s missing boot: the rats had carried it off and gnawed it to rags.

  Faintly I heard women singing in their foreign tongue. The tunnel grew smaller, so I crept forward on my hard-callused hands and knees. After a while my candle sputtered out, but I’m used to working in the dark. Soon I felt a flicker of fresher air, and dead ahead the tunnel brightened.

  Here I found an opening, big enough for a guard dog and masked with branches. Peeking out through the evergreen tangle I saw the gardens at the chapel’s back. I crawled out, and a woman standing close enough to catch cried, “Mercy!” Clothed in white from head to toe, her wimple in loose folds around her face, the novice looked pretty as a wildflower in December. What a surprise.

  “Don’t be afraid, Sister.” I held up my empty hands. “I’m just the rat-catcher, Franz Durr. I’m searching for their burrows.”

  “The abbess told us.” Her voice sweet and low, she looked pale as a sculpture of the Virgin in a nave. Couldn’t have been more than seventeen... I felt ashamed of my cracked leather breeches, my coarse and rat-bitten hands. To her I must look like a beast from the woods; what a wonder she didn’t flee. To my surprise, she took a shy step closer.

  “Herr Durr, I am Sister Kunigunde. Please, won’t you help me to—escape?”

  “What are you saying, Sister?”

  “Hush.” She drew me behind a sprawling bush of thorns. “The sisters keep me here against my will. My father sold me to this convent.”

  “But—”

  “Forgive me, I must go; they are watching me. I’ll be here tomorrow when the sun’s as high.” She flitted towards the chapel like a fledgling fallen from the nest, not ready to fly. She glanced back once, and I waved at her, moonstruck.

  Kunigunde: a pretty name. A little old-fashioned, maybe. I wouldn’t fall for this temptation; I had work to do.

  ***

  That afternoon in the tunnels I caught a dozen common rats and stowed them in my knotted sack. Frankly it would grieve me to drown them; these couldn’t be the ones that killed old Hans.

  Back at his hut I found a basket of moldy bread and greeny meat—and a flask of wine. This I sniffed, my parched mouth flooding. Red wine: in my life I’d tasted it twice. Our northern lands brew brandy, mead and beer, but no grapes flourish in the clammy soil. Where did these nuns buy such fine drink?

  Knowing my weakness, I poured all that wine out under a tree. At my mother’s grave, with my hand on the wooden cross I’d made—and I still couldn’t pay for a stone for her—I’d made a vow to stay sober, and now I’d kept that vow for almost one month.

  ***

  That night I pushed the chest against the hole and piled heavy stones on top. I pulled apart the bed-sack’s straw and added it, handful by handful, to the fire until I had myself a leaping blaze.

  Missing Fida and old Hans, and too lazy to kill the rats in my bag, I curled up next to the fire. Oh, a man gets killed, and the very next night you burn up his bedding to warm your own bones. I felt a twitch of guilt at that, while savoring my fire.

  Lulled by the chattering flames then, I drowsed off and dreamed of Kunigunde, peeping back at me over her shoulder, out of a meadow of nodding flowers. Slowly she lifted her white robe, and underneath—as bare as a baby. Laughing at me, she skipped away—daring me to catch her? I stood rooted as a tree.

  Yearning to see her I squirmed on the floor. What was that rustling, behind me? The rats in my sack were squeaking, and then one bit me right in the cheek! I woke thrashing in a horde of rats: cat-sized, with hot-coal eyes. “Save me, St. Jude!” I shouted, clawing at the critters whose ropy tails cracked like whips. Grabbing two—they burned my hands—I hurled them away, and one landed in the fire. Whoosh—and he vanished in a curl of smoke.

  Just as suddenly all were smoke, and I lay panting like a dog on the floor. Had I dreamed them too? No, when I stirred up the fire I found tracks of their feet on the boards, marked out in my blood. I was quicker than Hans though, being closer to a rat myself. His door stood fastened, his trunk in its place, the wall’s gap covered by the stones I’d piled.

  My bitten cheek started to burn and pulse, warning of more pain. Quickly I boiled up a poultice, using dried herbs from my pack and the snow I gathered. Although these good herbs softened the pain, an evil black liquid oozed from my wound, so I lay on my back and tried not to move, tried not to breathe at all.

  These were no ordinary rats. When the sun came up I should run for my life; I could always train another dog. As for Bishop Bonifatius, he needed an exorcist for this problem. I’m just a simple working man; I can’t even write my name... To hell with glory, to hell with silver, I’d be glad to leave this forest nest of rats with both boots on my feet.

  When I heard a lone bird greet the dawn, I sat up, head almost bursting. Day’s clean light refreshed my courage. No, I wouldn’t shirk my work.

  Or was it Kunigunde I still wanted? The old longings she stirred—that little white witch—wouldn’t die down, meek as an unfed fire; and on they smoldered, deep in the rotten stump of my loveless heart.

  ***

  My rat bite felt hard and swollen, and swallowing water burned my throat. I’d be a pickled fool to waste more work on common rats... I needed to find the killers’ burrow, kill them, and take a few as trophies. Bishop Bonifatius should pay me double for all my trouble and pain.

  This bad bite would leave me scarred on my cheek like a brand, if it didn’t kill me. People would fear me like the pox or a plague, and flee before they knew my trade, yelling that I bore the mark of Cain. Would all the world’s jingling silver ever make me a friend again? Pretty women fear men with scarred faces; they swear we bring them evil fortune.

  These were my gloomy thoughts, while I made ready a kit of nets and knives. I lit myself a candle, stuck it in the lantern and ventured back into the tunnels’ night, wishing with all my gnarled heart that I still had my dog. Fida had the better nose for rats and could spare me hours of wandering.

  As I hurried along, the tunnel looked shored up here and there with fresh-cut wood, as if miners still were digging out ore. How could this be? In the earthen walls I saw silver gleams, like seams not yet tapped out. A man might make his fortune here, scraping out this ore and hauling it away in a double-sewn sack like mine. I knew my duty, though, or thought I did, and passed these temptations by.

  Again I found the opening into the garden. Talking and laughing, seven withered sisters were gathering apples in large baskets. Had they no vow of silence?

  No sign of my graceful novice. Caught here, among these chattering magpies, she’d look like a pure white swan...

  Oh, she was what I was searching for, and not the rats that wounded me. With every beat of my heart, my whole body pulsed for the slender maiden. Closing my eyes I could see Kunigunde beckoning to me... How I yearned for the maiden’s tender lips, and her cool, small hands like white rose petals...

  My spit tasted rusty, my hot skull ached and my hard cheek burned like hell. Shaking off my weakness, cursing myself, I went blundering down a different fork. From here I heard raucous voices, louder as I turned another bend. Light seeped into this tunnel and showed a blood-dark liquid curling across the ground. Trembling I plunged a finger into it—hot. Then I tasted it: dirty water.


  Bending to a hole the size of a thumbnail, I saw seven women on bath-house benches, most flabby hags with sagging breasts and bald as bent old men. Lean Sieghilde hunched in the middle of the pack, holding up a plump rat with amber fur (and never had I seen one of that hue). Cooing, she stroked his bristly back, and when she set him down, on a turned-over basin, there he sat like a spoiled little darling, preening his fur like a cat.

  Meanwhile, having donned her habit, she stowed her pet away safe in her bosom. Breathing hard, I sat back on my heels and caught my throbbing head in both hands. These sisters didn’t want to part with their rats. Was that why the bishop sent me? I felt myself a wooden pawn in a game played by wise and evil masters. What did these weird women want from me? Was Kunigunde a bait to trap me?

  I heard a roaring in my ears. How could I understand? Stubbornness—I’m a tough old rogue—and the habit of darkness kept me on my feet, while I retreated to the tunnel opening into the gardens of delight. And there, on her knees, softly weeping, under the sprawling bush of thorns, as if she were doing some painful penance—there Kunigunde was waiting. I felt trapped in a drunken stupor; I felt drawn like a moth to the fire. When I scrambled out on all fours, she squealed, flinching away.

  “Don’t run,” I gasped and collapsed on the ground.

  “Franz.” Kneeling, she seized me in her arms, and I felt her small heart leaping. “What happened? Your cheek, it’s oozing black milk.”

  “They bit me—your rats. They wanted to kill me, just like they killed old Hans on his bed.”

  From her bosom she drew a silver flask, uncapping it with one hand. I smelled the tang of fruit brandy, and my tongue slithered like a fish out of water.

  “No. I vowed on my mother’s grave—”

  “Franz, don’t be a fool, it’s the medicine you need. This will soothe your pain like a dream.”

  Feebly I tried to pull away while she pressed the warm flask to my lips. Damn me then, but I gulped her sweetness, choking and weeping and wanting more; and at once the brandy struck me like poison and I couldn’t move, I didn’t breathe; now I was dying in her arms. No more struggling, no craving... such a relief.

  ***

  A dead man has it easy when he sleeps undisturbed, knowing no hunger, lust or shame. After Kunigunde dosed me, I lay still as a bone at the bottom of a pit.

  Woe to me, then, to rise again; and I fought waking like a hard-beaten boy, who tries to burrow deeper and stay under, so he doesn’t have to feel his bruises or taste his own bitter tears...

  And then—as if God, our righteous judge, had packed me off while I lay sleeping—I woke to a din of drums and blaring horns, and stamping feet like a demon army. I woke, I swear, to find myself in hell. Dazzled by a cloud of lights yellow as butter, blinking and squinting I could make out dozens of arm-thick candles on the tables lining a spacious hall. Was this the convent’s refectory? Tightly bound, both hand and foot, I lay on my side in a crude wooden cage just big enough to hold me curled. The floor felt all sticky, as if I lay in blood.

  From the corner of my eye I saw a naked hag dancing, black hair streaming down her sweated back. Then she whirled and cast a cup of liquid in my face, and I licked my lips: sweet wine. My whole body throbbed in the tortures of need, and twisting my head I saw my Kunigunde across the room. She stood on a black stone column, her golden hair shimmering down around her pale, bare body like a silken cloak, and over her head she held a tarry torch which cast dark light upon the mob of dancers.

  Stamping and shouting, these wild women were dancing together in a ring, while inside it huge rats—red, grey or amber—raced in a circle in the opposite direction. I couldn’t see the musicians, whose drumming and blaring seemed to rise out of the floor.

  Then I saw Abbess Meine, in a gown of gold with a jeweled belt. I saw a grey rat scurry up her hip, a silver snake bracelet clenched in his jaws. With a merry laugh she plucked the bauble away and slid it up her arm. When she kissed the furry gift-giver on his lips, my stomach heaved.

  “Our prisoner’s awake,” Sieghilde croaked, and Meine bent and peered in at me.

  “Guten abend, Herr Durr,” she leered, her green gaze hungry. “I hope you’re not too uncomfortable, waiting in your pen.”

  “What do you witches want with me?”

  “Wait a bit. We’ll offer you to our master.”

  “What are you saying? Your bishop sent me—”

  “That tyrant Bishop Malefatius. He won’t let us live as we choose, though we trouble none of his meek flock. He envies our freedom, he envies our studies, he envies us our community.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s whisker what you do. You can go to the devil if you choose, but let me free, and I’ll run off—I’ll never breathe a word of your tricks and follies.”

  “No. You shall be a witness to my power. I command these women, these musicians, and the rats that dig us treasures from the earth. No power born of man may take them: that is our master’s promise to me.”

  Roped like a calf awaiting slaughter I pleaded, Oh save me, dear St. Jude. Save me from this palace of rats, and I swear I’ll never sin again... Now a tall creature whooped and turned to me, golden-skinned with a ram’s whorled horns; and though his face was the face of a handsome youth, dark fleece clothed his loins and his legs. I shuddered, my teeth rattling: this was the creature these wantons served.

  “Bless him, rat-catcher; you bless him, before I offer him your blood.” Pulling a curved dagger from her belt, Meine pricked my throat.

  “I’m just a pawn in our bishop’s game,” I pleaded. “I love neither him nor you.”

  “His exorcists couldn’t pluck a hair from our heads, so he sent us a common rat-catcher.”

  “You are no abbess, Meine. You’re an abscess—an abyss.”

  “Oh listen how the rude fellow toys with me. Durr, we’ll throw your chewed bones into the woods. Sister dear, come hold him tight.”

  Thrusting her claws into my cage, Sieghilde rolled me onto my back while I snapped at her like a helpless pup. The pounding of the drums, the howling and stamping surged as she forced my head and shoulders down. When I spied the dagger hovering at my throat I roared out, “No!”

  Meine echoed it as flames flared all around her; leaping from her pillar Kunigunde set her torch to the golden gown. “Fire cannot harm me...” the evil abbess shouted. “Master, oh save me—how it burns!” The music died as she threw herself down on the floor and rolled in flames. The witches were shrieking like a flock of bats, while the golden ram-creature laughed uproariously, as if he’d played them a wonderful prank. Frantically I tugged at my bonds, which held like the grip of death. I smelled burning flesh...

  Now the Master yawned like a prince bored sick; he yawned like the dry earth cracking open; he spun on his heel and vanished in a peal of thunder that shook the hall and threw the candles down. The end of my cage was smoldering, as hags and rats fled in all directions.

  “You traitor—after all I’ve made of you!” Like a curse Meine leaped at Kunigunde, and seizing her by her golden hair (her own all aflame like blazing straw), she plunged her dagger into the maiden’s heart, and together they floundered into the blaze.

  “Help me!” I shouted like a fool as flames devoured my cage. Kunigunde stretched out her arms to me, her blue eyes glazing over, and I flung myself against my burning bars—and too late, I broke through. I pulled the dagger from her body and sawed my bonds, and then I went groping through the smoke, half-blinded and stumbling over squirming bodies.

  Was that a breath of outside air? Was there another door? Behind me roof beams came crashing down, and into a gulf of darkness I dove, landing in icy water. There I wriggled like a drowning rat—I’d never learned to swim—while all around me witches wailed and shrieked, and roof beams fell and masonry crumbled. Nearer, I heard an eager whimper...

  ***

  This time I woke to stern silence, in cold like the end of the world... Who was that playing on the castanets? My teeth,
chattering in my skull... Chilled to the marrow, I lay on my belly, grasping rubble with both hands, in my nose the awful reek of meat fallen into the fire and wasted.

  Gently a soft tongue licked my forehead. To me it felt like an angel’s kiss. I wasn’t alone, for Fida had found me. Groaning, I gathered her, rib-thin, to me while she yelped and wagged her tail, piebald fur singed and back legs scratched. Strange, but my rat bite didn’t hurt. I touched it; the flesh had grown together.

  Slowly I rose to my aching knees, just paces from an inky cistern. Had Fida pulled me out and saved me? Had St. Jude decided I wasn’t ripe? Saint of lost causes, he’s so patient I’d never stopped hoping he would help me.

  Nothing remained of the Our Lady of Sorrow but a chunk of the chapel’s tower. I found no leavings of the sisters, or their pets. Maybe their master harvested them all.

  As for the bishop, I’d let him think I perished in the fire. I could start over in another town; rats hide everywhere, and most won’t kill you. I’d wander north, I decided, away from the sickness the peddlers were calling Black Plague.

  Later, bowed under my pack again, as I plodded down the lonesome hills, with Fida plodding at my side, wide whirls of grey snow came drifting down on us like the ashes of a great pyre. Glancing back once, I saw the convent’s ruins fading into the trees of snow.

  The Pianist’s Wife

  Nicole M. Taylor

  Part One: Spring

  I did not sleep last night once again.

  Instead I tossed the covers from me and then snatched them back, I curled and I sprawled. I opened the spare little window and I closed it again. The sky outside was a muffling, enfolding velvet black. There was none of the misty peach-colored softness that I had come to know in the city, and the moon was so bright it battered at my eyelids. Soon, I suppose, I will look just like my dear and much troubled husband with his hollowed, darkened eyes and the muscles that shiver and jolt underneath his skin.