The surprise was mutual. Now Parry discerned the face- and it was a fleshless skull.
"I am no stranger," the bare teeth said. "I am Thanatos. I have come for this woman's soul."
It had to be true. The figure had stepped through the wall without disturbing it, at the very moment Jolie was sinking into oblivion.
He remembered something his father had told him. There were Incarnations, and Death was one of them. But he came personally only for those whose souls were in doubt.
"Jolie is a good woman!" Parry protested. "She has been everything to me! How can her soul be in doubt?"
The hood tilted. "I shall ascertain that for you." The hand moved again, this time reaching into Jolie's body and catching something there. In a moment it emerged, holding something like a netting of glowing spider web. It was her soul.
Thanatos studied it. "She is a good woman," he agreed. "There is virtually no blight on her soul. Yet I was drawn to her. Let me investigate."
Then, suddenly, the world stopped. Parry was frozen in place, unable to move, even to breathe, yet was in no discomfort. It was as though time had stilled. This was magic of a far superior order!
Then, after what could have been an instant or a day, motion resumed. "I have inquired," Thanatos said. "She is not evil, but the circumstance of her death precipitates monstrous evil. We do not know its nature, for we find no current evidence of it, but it is nonetheless present. When it coalesces, it will be known that this was the site of its initiation. Therefore the goodness of her soul is balanced by the evil of its situation, and I was summoned."
"She cannot go to Heaven?"
"I think she cannot escape the mortal realm," Thanatos replied. "She must remain as a ghost, until the evil abates."
"Then let her stay with me!" Parry cried. "I will care for her ghost!"
Thanatos shrugged. "Take a drop of her blood on your wrist," he said. "She can inhabit only her own essence."
Parry touched his left wrist to Jolie's wounded breast, picking up a smear of the blood.
Thanatos set the soul against that smear. It shrank into the blood and disappeared.
Parry was silent, gazing at the blood. By the time he thought to ask another question, Thanatos was gone. Parry was left with Jolie's body, and his grief.
Then he heard the soldiers coming. He had to flee, for they would kill him on sight. He could not even remain to give his beloved a decent Christian burial. That was grief upon grief.
He became the wolf and leaped from the shelter. An arrow sought him, but missed. In moments he was away and hidden among the trees. He escaped unscathed-in body.
Chapter 3 - FRANCISCAN
He ran till he was leagues from his home region; there was no longer anything to hold him there. His father, his wife-
He paused in his motion, to revert to his natural form. Now his grief struck with full force. What was he to do, without Jolie? All his other losses he could handle, but hers he could not. He had based his future on the assumption that she would be with him.
He sank down to the forest floor and wept.
Then he heard the baying of the hounds.
He did not need to guess their quarry. The Soldiers of the Cross had picked up his trail and were closing in. He would not be permitted even his hour of grief in peace!
He was tired, for the physical exertion was wearing, and so was the energy required to change form. But he changed into his crow form, spread his wings, and ascended to the open sky. He flew at right angles to his prior trail, so that the dogs would have no hint of his location.
He reached the edge of a village north of the one he had left, and landed. He reverted to man again.
He was naked; he would have to get some clothing. His cache of valuables was back in the retreat, now forfeit. He would have to scrounge.
There was a cottage outside the main village area. It was a standard peasant dwelling, with stout posts buttressing thin logs, the walls chinked with twigs and mud, the roof thatched with straw. The occupant might be friendly or unfriendly; Parry would just have to risk it.
He went up and knocked on the twisted board that served as the door. In a moment an old woman appeared in the dark interior. She stared at him apprehensively. "I have lost my clothes," Parry said quickly. "I-I'm a refugee from the soldiers. They killed my wife. If you have anything I can wear, I will work for it."
The woman considered. He knew she was trying to judge whether he spoke the truth, and whether it was safe to help him.
"Are you Christian or heretic?" she asked at last.
"Christian, with heretical leanings." That was the literal truth. "Whatever kind of Christianity the crusade represents, I'm not it."
"Get in here, then," she said, and lifted the board clear.
Parry ducked his head and entered the cottage. This was the stall chamber, and several sheep were in it. Their manure flavored the air.
They passed into the second chamber, which was the residential one. The woman evidently lived alone; there was a single bed of straw at one side. She dug out a ragged old tunic. "My husband's, rest his soul."
Parry accepted it and quickly donned it. "My thanks, good woman. I will earn it." The thing was patched and restitched and dirty, but did not seem to have fleas; it had been too long unused. That was a blessing.
She found some battered shoes. "You're about his size."
He tried them on. They were a bit tight, but would do." This is more than I-"
"You hungry?"
Parry realized that he was; he had been too busy to eat recently.
She fetched a soiled wooden bowl and poured some cold pease porridge into it. Parry tilted it to his lips and took a swallow. It was bland, formless stuff, but it was food, and he was duly grateful.
But before he finished, there was the sound of baying dogs. "Oh, no!" Parry exclaimed. "They are after me again, and I have brought mischief on your house!"
"Run out and lead them off," the woman said. "Then loop back; you owe me some work."
"Agreed!"
He hurried out. He realized that the boots would mask his smell, so he took them off and carried them. Then he walked quickly through the village, attracting no attention; ragged peasants were common, especially now that war had come to this region.
The sound of the dogs was coming closer. He walked on beyond the village, until out of sight of it. Then he walked into the forest on the left, looped about, intersected his own trail, and put on the boots. He tromped back across the road to the right, finding a passable path. He followed this back around the village.
He heard the dogs arrive at the village. Then, as he moved back the way he had come, they progressed forward the way he had gone. He smiled briefly; they would encounter the loop, mill about uncertainly, and the handlers would conclude that he had changed to avian form and flown. End of that trail! They would not suspect a pedestrian ruse from a sorcerer. At least, that seemed worth gambling on. He was too tired to fly again, when the old woman had offered him further hospitality.
He returned to the cottage. He knocked on the door.
"Get in here!" the woman snapped. "They'll be back."
He got in. "Hide under the straw," she said. "Till it's clear."
He wedged under the matted straw, and arranged it to cover him. Now he could not see out, but he could hear. If they came back, and the woman betrayed him, he would be helpless. But what motive could she have for that? He owed her some work for his clothing.
Shortly they did return. He heard them at the door. "Keep those dogs clear!" she screeched, outraged. "They'll spook my sheep!"
There was a muttering outside he could not hear.
Then the woman spoke again: "Of course he's not here! What do you think I am? May the wrath of our merciful Lord Jesus fall on me this instant if I speak falsely!"
She was baldly lying, compounding it by invoking Jesus! This was not an ordinary peasant woman! Yet she had asked if he were a Christian, and he had assumed that it
was the positive aspect of his answer that had persuaded her to take him in.
Her vehemence evidently convinced the pursuers, for the sounds of the hounds departed. The woman remained for some time at the door, perhaps watching to make sure they were not lingering. Then she returned to the living chamber.
"Very well, boy, they're gone," she said. "Now get up and tell me why they want you so bad."
Parry climbed out and shook off the straw. "You lied for me," he said.
"A villain hag can't afford integrity," she said." But you're no serf. Honor means something to you."
"How can you be sure of that?"
"I worked for years as bondswoman to the Lady of the Manor, minding her children till they came of age. I can spot the manner at a glance, and I got a good glance at you."
Parry grimaced. He had stood before her naked.
"You had no calluses and not much dirt, and your posture was that of no peasant. When you spoke, you had the inflection of education. And you were being chased. They don't chase dispossessed serfs; who cares about them? They chase those who are dangerous to them: the lords and their leading servants. A lord would have honor, a servant maybe not. When you kept your word and came back, I knew you were no servant."
"Maybe I just wanted shelter for the night."
"At a hovel like this? With company like me?" She laughed, a hideous cackle. "You'd go to an inn and talk the serving wench into your bed for the night."
Parry had to smile. "If I had the money." But as he spoke, the word wench brought about a chain of thought that brought him quickly low. The crusade sergeant had called Jolie a wench, and then-
"Say, lad, I didn't mean to insult you," the woman said. "I just meant-"
Parry realized that his horror of the memory had shown on his face. "My-my wife!"
"Oh, I shouldn't have joked about a wench! I'm sorry, lad."
"They took her to-to rape, and when I tried to save her, the sword-she was the most beautiful woman of the region, with hair like honey and eyes like tourmaline, and-"
"The Lady Jolie!" she exclaimed. "She who married the Sorcerer's son!"
"The same," he said, startled.
"And you are that son!" she concluded triumphantly. "The one who picked out a villain girl and made her the loveliest creature of all France! Now I know you!"
"Now you know me," he agreed heavily. "Are you sorry you helped me?"
"I'm glad I helped you! I have no truck with magic, but your father's a good man."
"He's dead, too."
"Yes, he would be the first they would kill, and you the second. He brought good weather to the region, so our crops prospered, our village as well as yours. I never heard a tale of either of you wronging a villain."
"Villains are people, too."
"Not that any lord knows of! I gave the best years of my life to mine, and raised his children right, and I thought he would take care of me when they were grown. But he married me to a field bondsman and forgot me, and the grown children never looked at me again. I was just lucky my husband was a decent man, so I got by."
Parry realized that the Lord of her Manor might have rewarded her in his fashion, by giving her a decent man for a husband in her retirement. But it did not seem expedient to argue that case at the moment.
"Then my husband got the fever," she continued. "I prayed for him, day and night. I used our last coins to buy holy candles to burn to our Savior, that my husband might live. But the Lord Jesus let him die, and now I am alone, and winter coming."
So she remained a Christian, but a disaffected one. That was why she was willing to swear falsely by Jesus' name. "The .Lord Jesus does not seem to have his eye on southern France at the moment," he said wryly.
"And this crusade is a pot of sheep manure," she continued. "They're out to get the Albigenses, who are good folk, and they're laying waste the countryside while they go about it. I wish they'd stayed at home!"
"So do I!" he agreed.
"I did figure when I saw you that anybody the crusade didn't like might be someone I'd like. Well, I know what it's like to lose a mate. I'll help you all I can. Sorcerer."
"You helped me before you knew who I was," he said.
"I did not know your name, but I knew you were someone."
"I can return the favor, perhaps in greater measure than you hoped for."
"All I wanted was some good wood for the winter. I've got this ague in my bones, and when I go out in the cold I get the chills so bad-"
"I'll fetch you wood," he agreed. "But you know I can do magic. If there is something more I can do-"
She nodded. "Let me think about it. It's late, and you are tired. Sleep the night, and in the morning we shall see."
Parry was glad to do that. She fetched some fresh straw for him, and he lay on the other side of the chamber from her bed. At first sleep would not come, because of the horrors of the day. Jolie . . .
Then he mesmerized himself, making the memories distant, and fell out of consciousness immediately.
In the morning she fed him more gruel and some sheep's milk. Then he went out to gather wood from the forest, bringing back many armfuls of sticks. "But you know," he said, "you could make do with less fire, and less smoke, if you had a warmer house and warmer clothing."
"I was thinking the same," she said. "Does your magic conjure good clothing?"
"No. If it did, I would not have come to you naked! I can mesmerize, and change my form, and transmute certain substances to certain others-"
"Lead into gold?" she asked eagerly.
"No, unfortunately. My father was working on alchemy, but had not progressed to that level, and I am far below it. Water to wine is my level."
"I'll take it!" she exclaimed. "Wine would warm me!"
"I'm not sure that it really would," he said cautiously. "My observation is that it may make a person feel wanner, but that the effect is illusory."
"I'll take it," she repeated. "I have water skins!"
"Very well. I'll transmute them. Then we can see about insulating your cottage."
She brought a skin full of water. He invoked the magic ritual, and the skin warmed and quivered as if something had come alive within it.
"That's it?" she asked.
"That's it. Magic doesn't have to be spectacular when it's not for public show. I merely draw on the ambient power that exists, and channel it to my purpose. You could do the same, if you studied the technique and had an aptitude."
"Glory be!" she breathed.
"Try some. See whether the flavor is right."
She squeezed some into her mouth. She smacked her lips. "Best wine I ever tasted! Ah, my winter seems warmer already!"
She had two other water skins. He converted them, then went out to fetch more wood. Had he learned to conjure, he thought ruefully, he could have brought good wood into the cottage with far less effort. But he was as yet only an apprentice sorcerer. It took decades to become truly adept, and then only with the proper application and training. He had planned to get into more advanced techniques at the same time Jolie did. . .
He had to invoke his mesmerization again to restore his equilibrium. His future was in ruins, his love destroyed. Why didn't he simply lie down and die?
He pondered that as he gathered the dry sticks. It was because, he realized, his skein had not yet run its course. At the moment he was destitute and grief-stricken, but his life had been spared. Thanatos himself had come for Jolie, and revealed that there was some great evil associated with her death. Certainly Parry regarded her death as evil! He had to live to discover the nature of that evil, and to set it right. To settle his account with whoever and whatever was responsible for that evil. Until he accomplished that, he could not lay down his life. He had to be strong, and survive his losses, until he could accomplish his settlement. And what a settlement that would be, once he came to it!
He glanced down at his left wrist, where the stain of her blood remained. Was her spirit really there in it? Or had
Thanatos merely tried to make him feel better by the suggestion of her presence? Certainly no such presence had manifested.
Regardless, he would avenge her murder. Even if her ghost should come to him, what good was that? It was her living self he craved, his lovely and accommodating wife!
First he would have to get himself suitably situated. Then he would have to extend his second sight, to spy out the source of the evil. Then-
He paused in his reflections. Was that the sound of baying?
Yes, it was. The hounds were moving again-and coming this way!
He dropped his bundle of sticks and ran for the cottage. But he was some distance from it, having wandered far in his quest for fallen wood, and the dogs were moving rapidly. By the time he got in sight, they were there.
He ducked behind a large tree, knowing it would be folly to show himself. He could do nothing at the moment.
"We know you have him!" a soldier was shouting at the door. "You lied to us, old crone! Bring him out now!"
Parry couldn't hear her reply, but he saw its effect. "Then we'll roust him out the easy way," the soldier said grimly. He gestured to a companion. "The torch!"
Suddenly a torch was flaming. They touched it to the thatch of the cottage, which blazed up. In a moment all of it was burning, sending coils of smoke into the sky.
Parry could do nothing. He lacked magic potent enough to douse a fire of that magnitude, and had he had it, he could not have gotten close enough to use it without being spotted and captured or killed by the soldiers. His best choice was to wait until the soldiers departed, then help the woman craft another shelter. He was sorry he had brought this mischief upon her.
How had they known of his presence? They had been turned away before, but this time had been certain. No one had seen him except the woman, and he knew she had not betrayed him. They had erred only in their conviction that he remained in the cottage. That had saved him-but cost the proprietor.
Yet where was she? He saw the soldiers, but not the old woman. She would not have remained within the burning house! But she did not seem to be outside it, either.
He watched with growing alarm, then with honor. The woman had not emerged! Had she refused to leave her only refuge, or had the soldiers cruelly kept her in there to die in the flames?
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