A Mortal Glamour (18 page)

One of the donkeys laid back his ears and let out a long, high squeal.

"No, no, little one. I am not the enemy. It is the fire your fear, and I do not burn.” She realized that God had not endowed these creatures with understanding, not of the sort that He had given to His children, and for that reason, she must not blame them for their stubbornness. At the same time, she thought that in this situation, she wished she had one of the Flagellants’ whips to drive the donkeys with.

There were shouts from the courtyard, echoing along the high walls and becoming strange, like drowned bells.

Seur Philomine could not let herself be distracted, she insisted inwardly. If there was more danger, then she must work swiftly. She searched about the stables, her eyes watering now, and her nose running. Vaguely she could see the charred perches where the chickens roosted at night. Hoping that they were still not hot, she reached up and grabbed the nearest, putting all her weight behind the action. Her hands grew hot, but she hung on, and was rewarded when the perch broke into a long, serviceable club. Gripping this with desperation, Seur Philomine went back to the donkeys and struck them on the rumps and flanks, forcing them toward the gate in their enclosure. When they were near enough, she pulled the gate open, then stood aside as the two animals bolted, tails up, eyes a maddened white, to the field beyond the smoke-filled door.

Flames were sneaking along the floorboards, running like small, bright mice past her feet. Seur Philomine stared at them, fascinated, amazed that something so dangerous could have such charm.

Then she realized what had happened, and with a falling scream, she stumbled out of the stables, still clinging to the perch she had brought down.

It was twilight, soft and tender, like the petals of violets and lilacs. Seur Philomine stopped her headlong plunge to blink her sore eyes and look about her in wonder. The orchard was still, the trees dark, with blossom-crowned and enormous heads rising out of the earth. She could hear the animals moving through the dusk, their fear still upon them, but she felt her apprehension leave as she gazed at the sky.

She was still in rapt contemplation when she felt a hand seize her, and in the next instant was spun around to see two Flagellants, one bringing back his whip to strike her, the other about to strengthen his grip so that she could not escape.

"No!” she shouted, revulsion filling her. That her beautiful evening should be contaminated in this way! She brought her club up and swung it with the full force of her emotion against the man with the whip. The wood shuddered as it struck and she was jarred by the impact.

"What...?” the man who held her began, then yelled as she kicked backwards, her sabot smashing against his shin with a loud report. The man screamed blasphemously, falling away from her. “My leg! Balls of the Saints!” He lay on his side, his leg doubled up, his hands over the injury.

The other man was starting to get to his feet, but he moved in a dazed way, and he drew each breath in a long, rasping sob.

Seur Philomine flung her club away and fled into the orchard, following her animals.

Two of the hospice windows had been breached and there were now Flagellants within that building. The nuns had retreated, leaving locked doors between themselves and the invading heretics.

"I want torches,” Mère Léonie announced to the women gathered around her in the courtyard. “I want each of you to have a torch, and if these creatures come through the door, set their clothes afire."

"But ma Mère,” Seur Odile asked faintly, “what of our clothes? Won't they be afire, too?"

Mère Léonie answered at once, and with great conviction. “There is always risk. There is risk if you cut a finger or eat tainted food. But you do not cease to do your labor or to eat, for all that. You must think of what is worse; to have a little burn, or to die at the hands of the heretics, knowing that more has fallen than this building. And what of the convent? Cannot we defend it as we defend our honor and our lives?” She saw dread in the Sisters’ faces. “As this building fares, so do we. Saunt Francesco prayed to the fire, made it his friend, and he was given protection."

"I wish God would send us protection,” Seur Adalin said in the most plaintive way. “My faith has always been strong, even at the worse time of the Plague. What can't—"

"Ma Seur!” Mère Léonie snapped. “You will ask God to pardon that thought, when we have ended the battle. It is wrong in you to excuse yourself in that way.” She stared up at the ladder. “Seur Aungelique! What do you see?"

"They are still here,” she answered with a hint of a giggle. “It's too dark to count them, and they will not speak to us."

"Then tell me if they are as near our walls as before, or has night driven them back?” Mère Léonie ordered.

"I don't think they are fewer, or farther away.” Seur Aungelique was the only woman still on a ladder, and it pleased her. The hazard meant nothing to her; she had come to enjoy it. “I will need more water, ma Mère."

"You shall have it,” Mère Léonie promised her. “At once. Seur ... “—she looked around quickly—"Seur Tiennette, can you still tend the fires for me?"

"Yes, ma Mère,” the steadfast nun said flatly. “With God's help."

At this several of the Sisters crossed themselves and one of them began to cry. A few of the others hushed her.

"Come,” Mère Léonie said in her most bracing tone. “Let us get our torches."

"What if we have no help? What if no one comes? What if these men break thought and we do not live because of them? What then?” Seur Odile demanded, her tone high and terribly strained.

"Then we will live in Our Lord,” Mère Léonie answered at once. “Remember that, if you fear you will falter. Our Lord is wherever He is needed."

There was a general but unenthusiastic agreement, and Seur Aungelique laughed. “Beg the Devil for aid; only he rules here."

"That's blasphemy!” Seur Tiennette shouted at her.

"What is that to me?” Seur Aungelique challenged.

"Stop, the both of you!” Mère Léonie ordered. “We have better things to do than wrangle among ourselves."

"I only—” Seur Aungelique started, but was not allowed to go on.

"Keep watch, as you have been told!” Mère Léonie cut her short. “And do not let yourself be lulled into thinking that because you can see little, there is nothing to see!” She rounded on the others. “To your tasks, and at once. I do not want those heretics breaching any more of our defenses."

"What if we cannot stop them?” Seur Adalin asked, more from curiosity than from fear, for she had gone beyond that now.

"Then commend your soul to God and ask the Saints to listen to your prayers,” Mère Léonie said, which was the only correct answer the Church would accept. “Our Lord will see to us."

One of the nuns sighed heavily just as a pounding became more apparent.

"They have broken one of the doors,” Seur Odile cried out. “Oh, God!"

"Get torches!” Mère Léonie said at her most tense. “At once!"

Seur Tiennette was the first to respond; she went to the fading bonfire and pulled two of the half-burnt brands from the stack and held them out. “Start with these."

For the most part the women worked in silence, taking the torches as they were handed them and finding vantage points that would permit them to inflict the most damage on the Flagellants when they broke through into the courtyard. All of them listened to the doors, anticipating that one rending blow that would mean their last defenses had fallen.

On her ladder, Seur Aungelique began to sing, tossing her head the way she had seen Comtesse Orienne do while she flirted in her great hall with the men gathered there. The song was worldly, and more than one of the nuns looked at her with anger and consternation for her impiety. This served only to make her singing more emphatic as she prepared to pour more water on the Flagellants still waiting at the courtyard doors, their whips held ready for the flogging to come. She thought that her father should see her at her post; surely this would convince him that she was made for the brave life and not hours on her knees before an empty altar.

Seur Philomine's feet were bruised and her palms were nearly raw, but she found herself a position of safety on the far side of the brambles, where she paused to catch her breath. What ought she to do, she wondered. The other nuns were still inside the convent and their danger increased with every passing heartbeat. But she could think of nothing she could do that would lessen their travail, and she remained where she was.

When Seur Aungelique started singing, Seur Philomine heard it, faintly at first, and then in a stirring countermelody to the rattle of blows on the walls and doors of the convent. She listened in fascination, thinking that it was so like Seur Aungelique to be so defiant.

She saw the fire in the stable grow, first as a bit of brightness in the smoke, then as a wavering flag in the gloom. Shortly the walls of the convent would begin to heat as the wooden support beams charred and smoldered, then smoke would seep from every crack and fissure in the walls. She had seen fires of that sort before, long ago, when the city elders had ordered the pest houses burned at the height of the Plague. It had been almost ten years since that terrible event, but the memory was still with her and would doubtless follow her into the grave. She sank down behind the brambles so that she would not have to look, either at the convent or her memories.

She was half-dozing, her chafed hands limp in her lap, when she heard a new sound, a clanking, jingling accompaniment to the drum of trotting horses. She looked up, thinking the donkeys must have returned, yet aware that they never made such a noise.

Around the bend in the road from Mou Courbet came a company of men-at-arms, more than thirty of them, led by torch-bearing outriders in heralds’ tabards.

"There!” the leader shouted, pointing his weapon—a mace or a maul; at this distance it was hard for Seur Philomine to see it clearly—toward the walls of Le Tres Saunt Annunciacion. “At the charge!"

His lieutenant bawled out the order, and the horses were pressed to a canter.

Seur Philomine found herself on her feet, running once again toward the convent.

From her vantage point on the ladder, Seur Aungelique interrupted her song to shout down to the courtyard, “There are armed men coming, I think!"

The endless rain of blows on the doors made it difficult for the other nuns to hear her, and she had to shout more loudly before any of them gave heed to what she said.

"Bon Dieu!” Seur Tiennette cried out, her indomitable calm shattered in tears.

"Not yet, not yet, ma Seur,” Mère Léonie commanded her. “They are not here and the heretics are!"

Seur Odile had already put down her torch, but at this grim warning, she gave a scream and ran from the courtyard.

"Let none of you flee,” Mère Léonie warned her Sisters in a genial way. “To fly now with aid at hand is worse than blasphemy. You have prayed for this, and now you will not do that little more that God requires for you to accept it."

This stern correction brought some of the nuns back to themselves, and they renewed their dedication to their duty, returning to their tasks with hardly more than a breath to revive them. Mère Léonie encouraged them with occasional words of commendation as she went from one woman to the next, cheering them on, advising and assuring them their deliverance was truly at hand, if only they did not falter now. The nuns listened, some with keen attention, others with guarded responses, a few with no feeling at all.

Seur Adalin dragged her sooty palm over her grimy forehead and pointed toward the inner door to the hospice. “They're almost through, ma Mère. It will not take them long."

"The chevaliers are nearly here. They have men outside to attend to, and then we will open the gates and allow them to deal with the heretics within the walls."

"You don't doubt the outcome?” Seur Adalin asked, not prepared to be as optimistic.

"Of course not. What are heretics with whips compared to armored men on horseback, with swords and maces?” Suddenly Mère Léonie was lighthearted and curiously frisky. “Come, my Sisters, preserve the Name of Our Lord and enter into His kingdom for your efforts."

On the ladder, Seur Aungelique crowed with delight as she watched the men-at-arms close with the Flagellants for the battle.

The first rush of the men-at-arms caused havoc in the ranks of the Flagellants, who broke, scattering in every direction to escape the hooves and steel of the riders bearing down on them. The horses neighed and snorted with excited fear, the men shouted or screamed; then there were the first thuds and blows of combat.

Seur Philomine stopped running as she saw this, stood swaying with fatigue as she tried to make out what was happening not far ahead of her in the dark. It was difficult to breathe, for fear that she would reveal herself. She heard moans and curses and the soft song of steel cutting through the air before striking home. The sound that followed brought bile to the back of her throat; she knew and rejoiced that the Flagellants were being cut down, but the pulpy impact, the splatter of bone and blood, turned her vitals into cold, hard fists. Her pulse beat heavily in her temples, and she moved back involuntarily, as if to remove herself from the battle, and not out of self-protection alone. The fire in the stables did not give enough smoke to wholly obscure the light of the flames, but she could not see clearly, and she dreaded what she could make out.

One man broke and started to run, his hands pressed hard against his belly. He whimpered as he went, not looking before or behind him, only running to get away. He came near Seur Philomine, stumbled and righted himself. “You Godless scum!” he spat at her. “You poisonous well.” He went a few uneven steps more, still calling her increasingly vile things, then he fell, twitched in the long grass, and lay still.

Charity required that Seur Philomine render aid to those in need, and the man was certainly that. Or, if he was dead, there were prayers for his soul that she ought to say. She could not bring herself to move. The man lying so close to her was a Flagellant. He carried a whip in his left hand. Though he was injured, though he had fainted, he might harm her if she came near him. He had cursed her, and declared himself her enemy. But he was a man and a creature of God who was hurt and in peril for his soul. She managed to take two hesitant steps toward him, then she heard the heavy pounding of a horse behind her, and she turned to see one of the men-at-arms bearing down on her.