The screaming continues.
William decides to pull the door to the right.
It slides open.
William chuckles at himself and leans out into the dusk.
In the yard he sees a cluster of men. They have swords. One is drawn. He sees me shouting. Nearby, he sees an ugly little man with long yellow hair and a face like a weasel. And a little peasant girl. A dirty, angry peasant girl. With a rope around her neck.
“Let him go!” she’s screaming.
Let who go? William wonders. And then he sees it. A bald man has his foot on the neck of a little boy. His sword is pointed at the place where the boy’s spine meets his skull.
What is everybody screaming about? Why does that peasant have a rope around her neck? And why is a grown man standing on a little boy? William doesn’t know the answer to any of these questions. But he does know how to find out.
• • •
Jacob is trying to pray. I can see it. He’s gasping for breath and mouthing words, but he can’t get the prayer out. He’s said the first verse: “Shema yisrael, adonai elohainu, adonai echad . . .”
“How do you know the Shema?” Aron cuts in.
The innkeeper tugs at the fat of his neck. “My grandmother taught it to me,” he says.
“Was she . . . ?”
“She was.”
Jacob is trying to remember the rest of the Shema. The first verse is out—Hear, O Israel, the Lord Our God, the Lord is One. Normally, the rest rolls off his tongue as easily as his own name. But his mouth is fumbling the words, and his throat is choked with dust and tears, and a foot is pressing hard on the bones in the back of his neck. Frantically, he tries to remember: “Blessed are you—” he mutters. “Blessed be you, Oh God . . . Adonai . . . Blessed . . . Blessed be—” Tears are running down his cheeks. “Blessed—”
And then, the ground under his face begins to tremble. It trembles again. And again. And again. Faster and faster. Like a summer lightning storm, speeding across the horizon. Jacob tries to crane his head around, under the weight of the leather shoe-sole, pinning his neck. He catches a fleeting glimpse of something—something enormous and dark—flying across the yard of the inn.
And then—blessed relief. The foot is off his neck. And the words come back to him like summer rain pouring from the sky: Blessed be the name of God’s Kingdom forever and ever. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might. And these words I command you this day . . .
• • •
Jeanne has been screaming—but she stops when she sees a dark shape, storming out of the stable. What is it? It’s moving too fast to tell. It thunders across the yard—just a thunderhead of black robes.
She blinks, and suddenly the bald knight is sprawling through the dust.
The great thing comes to rest. It stands upright. It may be the largest thing Jeanne has ever seen.
But it’s not a thing.
It’s a boy.
And his name is William.
• • •
William gazes around the yard. The knights are ogling him. They’re dumbstruck.
He reaches down and pulls Jacob to his feet. “You okay?” he asks. Jacob nods, but he’s staring up at William, just as dumbstruck as everybody else.
And then, from the side of his eye, William sees a flash of silver.
Sir Fabian is brandishing his sword above his head, running at William and Jacob. “I don’t know what you are,” Fabian is saying, “but you’re about to be dead.”
William raises his arm to shield himself and Jacob.
Fabian is on them now. He swings his sword—and falls, facefirst, into the dirt.
The rope attached to his ankle is stretched to the door of the inn.
While no one was looking, Jeanne had wrapped it around the door handle.
Fabian, sprawling in the dirt, shouts at someone to cut the rope. Haye rushes over, pushes Jeanne out of the way, and hacks the rope in two.
Fabian gets to his feet. He swings his sword at the boys, slicing the air. He swings it again, getting closer and closer. I’m shouting for him to stop—but he won’t listen. He’s coming for the boys.
I close my eyes. This is something I cannot watch.
I hear William scream.
Someone is running past me. I open my eyes. William, holding Jacob’s hand. Jacob grabs Jeanne, and they keep running.
William looks uninjured. So who’s screaming?
I turn to the yard. A white greyhound is gnawing on Fabian’s leg. Fabian is screaming and trying to get it off. The kids are running into the forest. Jeanne shouts, “Gwenforte!”
The greyhound lets go of Fabian, who crumples to the ground, and the dog is off running, first trying to catch the kids, and then alongside them, and then out in front.
They disappear into the woods.
Fabian is lying on the ground, howling in pain and fury.
And then, from the woods, his howl is answered. First by the dog. Then by the kids. They’re howling, just like Fabian. But theirs is a howl of triumph.
The innkeeper leans back and throws up his hands. “Well, that’s my part of the story.”
The inn has become quiet. The diners and drinkers at neighboring tables have, over the course of the innkeeper’s tale, let their own conversations fall to the wayside and have begun listening to ours.
A handsome man with dark curls stands up and asks if he can sit with us. His are simple traveling clothes, and yet they’re the finest traveling clothes I’ve ever seen. Subtle: just browns and yellows and hints of pale blue, but stitched with an attention to detail good enough for the king himself. A small detail, but I notice—anyone of my profession would.
The little nun says, “I know the next part. Would you like to hear it?”
Of course we would.
HAPTER 8
The Third Part of the Nun’s Tale
Three children—so different, so far from home, and, up until recently, so very alone—sat on the bank of a small stream. Jeanne stroked Gwenforte’s white coat. William had taken off his leather sandals and plunged his feet into the cold water. Jacob was hugging his legs to his body and staring up at the gently shifting trees—he could identify them by the silhouettes of their leaves—and beyond them, to the stars he could not name.
Each child glanced at the others. No one spoke.
The excitement of their escape had burned hot and then died, like a birchwood fire.
• • •
I am in a dark wood with a giant monk, Jeanne thought. She did not trust monks and she did not trust giants, and the last time she’d seen a giant monk, her friend Theresa had been taken away to be burned at the stake. So she would not speak to this huge brown boy, lest her secret slip. She decided, in fact, that it would be safest not to speak at all.
Jacob was shivering. He could not tell if it was the cold or the fact that his village had been destroyed; he didn’t know where his parents were and he was alone in a forest in the middle of the night with two young Christians. He had not had good luck, recently, with young Christians. These two seemed rather different from those teenagers who had set fire to his village. Even so, he could not be sure. The shivering spread from his arms to his chest.
William was thinking, I am in a dark wood with a girl. A GIRL. William had never been this close to a girl before. Or a woman. Well, as an infant he had been. Necessarily. Given where babies come from. But not since. The closest he’d been to a daughter of Eve was seeing that peasant across the field. Yes, he had defended girls-as-an-idea in front of Bartholomew. That was one thing. Spending a night in a dark wood with one—and, moreover, a peasant girl—well, that was a different matter altogether. Do not close your eyes on her.
So the children sat in silent fear of one another.
Well, fo
r the space of about ten breaths.
And then William spoke, because ten breaths was about as long as he could go without talking.
“What’s your dog’s name?” he asked the girl. What are you doing? he thought. Beware the daughters of Eve!
Jeanne said, “Gwenforte, the Holy Greyhound.” Be quiet! she shouted at herself. Why would you say that?
Jacob smirked. “The holy greyhound? A holy dog? Christians worship dogs?” Instantly he regretted it. God be merciful, what did you just say? Are you trying to get yourself killed?
Jeanne and William turned on him.
“What do you mean, Christians?” William asked. “You’re not a Christian?”
“Then what are you?” Jeanne said. She didn’t really know any alternatives to being Christian. Everyone she had ever met was Christian.
Jacob peered into William’s face. Then he peered into Jeanne’s. He made a decision. “I’m a Jew.”
Jeanne laughed. “No you’re not!”
“Uh . . . yes I am.”
“No you’re not!” she insisted.
Jacob was completely confused. William was, too.
“Why am I not a Jew?” he asked.
“You don’t look like one!” Jeanne said.
Jacob said, “What is a Jew supposed to look like?”
“I don’t know. Different!”
William said to Jeanne, “You don’t know very much about Jews.”
Quick as a flame catching a wick, Jeanne spat, “You don’t know what I know!”
“I know you think you have a holy dog.” He turned to Jacob. “Do they worship dogs in your heathen religion?”
“I am not a heathen. And no. There are no holy dogs in the Tanakh.”
William turned to Jeanne. “See? Even the Jews don’t believe in them.”
“She is holy,” Jeanne said, and the sharpness of her voice cut through William’s teasing like a scythe through summer hay.
The boys fell silent. The ash trees creaked and the stream sang. The wood smelled cold.
“Okay, peasant. Prove it,” said William.
Jeanne glowered at him. She did not like how he said peasant. It sounded like a curse.
“You can’t claim that she’s holy,” William said, “and not tell us why.”
Jeanne crooked an eyebrow. “I can do what I like, monk.” She tried to make it sound like a curse, too.
Jacob chuckled. “Oh, come on.”
Jeanne glared at him.
“Please?”
But Jeanne had turned away from them, pulling Gwenforte with her. She had already violated her rule. Never tell. Never.
• • •
Jeanne, William, and Jacob lay down under the slowly shifting stars and swaying branches of the ashes. Gwenforte was curled under Jeanne’s arm. At first, each child refused to sleep, afraid of the other two. But soon, the events of the day weighed so heavily on their eyelids that they could no longer resist.
• • •
At dawn, a frog began croaking belligerently from the streambed. Jeanne shifted and woke.
The light was soft in the wood. Jeanne descended the small bank of the brook and splashed water on her cheeks and neck. The frog hopped a ways off and continued his bellowing.
She heard movement behind her, up on the bank. She spun. Jacob was kneeling, eyes closed, whispering. Jeanne watched him. He might be destined for Hell, but he certainly looked like a Christian when he prayed. Even his curly hair and splatter of freckles could have belonged to any boy in her village. At last, he opened his eyes. He saw her looking at him, and he smiled. “What are you furrowing your brow about?” he said softly.
Jeanne shrugged and climbed up on the bank beside him. William had rolled onto his stomach and stretched out his arm so it hung limply over Gwenforte’s white flank.
“What are you doing on the road?” Jeanne asked, her voice soft and scratchy in the early morning. “Where are your parents?”
Jacob fingered a patch of dead raspberry leaves. “I don’t know where they are right now.”
“Why not?”
“A fire in my village. Some boys burned it down.”
“Oh God . . .” Jeanne put her brown fingernails in her mouth.
“Christian boys,” Jacob added.
Jeanne nodded, her nails still between her teeth.
“I got separated from my parents. They told me to meet them at Saint-Denis. How about you? Where are you going?”
Jeanne was still nodding, still chewing on her fingernails. “I . . . I’m not sure yet.”
“Why not? Aren’t your parents waiting for you somewhere?”
Jeanne hesitated. Jacob was looking at her intently. Like he was trying to look past her skin. “It’s not important,” she said at last.
There was a pause. And then Jacob said, “I bet it’s important to you.”
Jeanne looked at the earth. But she was smiling.
Then Jacob said, “I wonder where he’s headed.” He gestured at the enormous, snoring William.
Jeanne pushed herself to her feet. “Let’s find out.”
She approached the cacophonous sleeper, now on his side. She knelt down and tapped on his arm. William did not respond.
Jacob came over, bent down, and whispered in William’s ear, “Wake up!”
Nothing.
Jacob grabbed the enormous hock of meat that passed for William’s shoulder and shook it.
The big boy’s eyelids did not stir.
“Do you think something’s wrong with him?” Jeanne wondered.
Jacob shrugged. “Some people live violently and sleep violently. Kick him.”
“What?”
“He’ll be fine. Just try it.”
Jeanne was reluctant. So Jacob kicked one of William’s log-like legs.
No response.
Jacob dug his toe into William’s back.
William continued to snore.
So Jeanne gave a swift, not-quite-as-gentle-as-she-had-intended kick to William’s stomach. Actually, it was rather hard.
Gwenforte leapt to her feet.
“What?” William groaned sleepily, rolling onto his back. “What is it?”
“Did you really sleep through all that? We kicked you a lot of times.”
William wiped his face with his sleeve and did not open his eyes. “Then I don’t see why I should wake up, if you’re going to abuse me.”
But Gwenforte had decided that it was indeed time to get up—either that, or she liked the salty taste of William’s sweat—because she began licking his ears and forehead.
“Stop! Stop!” William shouted. Jeanne and Jacob grinned. “Stop it!” He tried to push the long dog-face away, but Gwenforte kept finding new openings to attack.
More in self-defense than out of any decision to wake up, William pulled himself to his feet—like a tree falling in reverse—and stretched his long arms over his head. Jacob and Jeanne marveled at him, unfurled to his full length.
“Were your parents giants?” Jacob asked.
William yawned. “No. My mother was a Muslim. My father is a Christian lord. He fights in the Reconquista.”
He pushed past them, sat on his rear, and slid down the short, steep bank to the brook. Black branches overhead framed a gray-blue morning. Jeanne and Jacob moved to the verge of the bank and sat down. Their eyes were about level with William’s now.
“The what?” Jeanne asked.
“The Reconquista. Christians taking back Spain from the Muslims. Trying to push them all the way back to Africa.”
“Your mom is African?”
“I don’t know. I never met her. Never met my dad either, actually.”
Jacob watched as William splashed water on his face. “Do you want to?”
“Meet my parents?” William shrugged. “I don’t know. I bet my mom died in childbirth.”
Jeanne was horrified. “You shouldn’t say that!”
“And my father’s too important. I’m sure he’s got a hundred sons like me.”
Jacob smirked. “Probably not exactly like you.”
William grabbed the hem of his monk’s habit. Then he hesitated. He looked at Jeanne. “Would you turn around? I need to wash my chest.” Jeanne turned around. William watched to make sure she wouldn’t do something evil and daughter-of-Eve-like. She seemed to have no intention of doing anything of the sort. So he pulled the habit over his head.
“Holy Moses!” Jacob exclaimed.
“What?” said William.
“What?” said Jeanne, turning around.
“Turn around!” William shouted at her.
She turned back around. But she tried to crane her neck to see what Jacob was talking about.
“You’re covered in blood!” Jacob said.
Jeanne spun around again so she could see.
It was true. William was caked with dark blood all over his chest and stomach and back. Also, he wore a leather belt inlaid with shining gold through the loops of his underwear. But mostly, the kids were staring at the blood.
“Oh, that?” William laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s not mine.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” Jacob said.
“No, it’s not like that. It’s not even human blood.”
“What kind of blood is it?” Jeanne asked.
“Fiend blood.”
“What?”
“It’s the blood of the Foul Fiends of the forest of Malesherbes.”
Jacob turned to Jeanne. “Do you understand what he just said?”
“No.”
“Just checking.”
William said, “Let me wash up, and then I’ll tell you. And you, peasant, turn around.”
“My pleasure, monk.”
Despite himself, William laughed.