A Threefold Marvel

Jemond dashed among rogue fires of Cache Marque, the Seventh City, heart hammering, dodging flames and frothing mobs between. Cutting his hand on jagged stained glass as he tried to climb in, he abandoned the temple of Aurus the Just, black smoke suddenly belching from its upper windows. Despite religious doctrine, there would be no refuge in the promised light of dawn. In the shadow of the ruined cathedral, men warred on the street with chopping axes and improvised spears, innocents dying, all knights having turned their cloaks to shadow. Jemond ran until he spilled one of his shoes. He looked back to see it snatched up by a mutt, the dog moving towards dangerous men. Jemond cursed and threw the second in the mud.

He passed what he saw as a trial, peasants to be hanged, mock justice in the muck of the road. Any soul could cast another as a looter, any heavy hand could snatch a life. Bare feet carried Jemond in the autumn cold until an open doorway gave him entrance to a smithy. He shut the port and turned, only to gaze upon a spooked lass cradling a babe that did not seem natural in her hands.

“This is our hiding place, not yours,” she hissed, her shoulder bent over the little one in fear.

“Sure as da tides, der’s room for one more in da the whole place,” Jemond said, breathless, gesturing to a wall covered in black iron tools.

She clenched her teeth to spit a rebuke, then hesitated. “You are Jemond Macalou, the orphan.”

The young man was taken aback, trying to catch his air. “I suppose I is, yeh.” He was relieved she didn’t use ‘thief,’ a more recent description.

“I remember you. From church.”

“Not recent, surely,” he replied. Jemond thought any part of that time past would be a nasty recollection, for he or a parishioner alike.

“I do, plainly. Come and hide with us, then,” the girl beckoned. Jemond gave no pause and moved to where she was, five-eighths sheltered within a bin meant for firewood, empty save for bark and a heavy blanket. They waited a beat together, listening to all manner of discord just outside the walls. With the door shut, a touch of heat began to saturate the place, a warmth redolent of fresh metal. The forge and bellows were not long abandoned.

“I donna remember you,” Jemond said. “And yer too young to be married, no?”

The girl gave him rough eyes. “This babe is my brother, Fabien.”

“Ack, sorry.”

Jemond saw the fat baby squirm. He could feel it was unsettled, hungry, unhappy. It smelled of bad milk and soap together.

The girl felt the same and tried to settle it, making whispers.

“I donna recall your name,” Jemond said honestly.

“That is no surprise, for no one does. It is Manon,” she said, dispirited. Her eyes saw the makeshift bandage on his hand.

“That’s no nothin’. Jemond said. “An’ you'd be remembered as a giver of shelter and your brother’s keeper,” he offered. Manon gave a weak smile. They were quick to be silent as another group of angry men paused outside, perhaps to enter. Manon ducked in the box and covered herself and the babe with the blanket, while Jemond stood waiting. Shouts came, roars of rage, weapons and torches without doubt. Quickly the new warmth slid away to shivers of fear, and Fabien was going to wail. They would be caught and dead, all three. Jemond coiled his muscles to run, his poor feet ready again. But instead of charging in, the mob howled and dispersed at the rush of horses, heavy beasts thundering past, trampling, the sound of slashing steel.

“What is all this?” Manon whispered to herself, a scowl of dread upon her. Fat little Fabien fussed like a blubbered devil.

“Dontcha know da king is died? He’s all gone,” Jemond explained.

“And for that they war and burn the city?” Manon protested.

“Yeh. Dey do. Fightin’ for the future. And what it is to be.”

The girl made such a face as to be sick, wretched with disgust.

“Dere be no new king to follow da old king, and dat sparks a tinderbox.”

Manon spat for her distaste. Jemond shrugged. Fabien cried out. Reacting fast, they tried to entice calm, and Manon slapped his hand away. The wee thing only squirmed within his own plumpness, twisting like he wanted to be dropped.

“Hungry,” Manon said, gripping and regripping.

“The nipple he wants, for sure,”

“My mother’s died a month past,” Manon said, her face a misery. She shushed and bounced but it was clear Fabien would not be shushed much longer.

“And your da?”

“Ran off, just, in this madness,” she said. “Said for me to wait here. This is my uncle’s workshop. They went together to save my Aunt Elise from the fortress. The towers of Chậteau DesVoix.”

Jemond scoffed. His only brush with the king’s over-hot castle was a brief spell of imprisonment and sweat. He had tried to break out. It seemed a strange fate to break in.

“And dat be’s da most dangerous place of all now, no?” Jemond asked, not needing an answer. Manon nodded with welling tears. He stared while the girl tried to comfort her little brother, patient, tender. He concluded they were doomed. Then again, she’d just given him more recognition and concern than he’d had in a year. He sighed through his nose.

“Den’s we waits here for a time, no? Until we’s canna wait no longer, at least.”

The girl agreed, and they waited. No less than three gangs passed the door, each a terror of menace and unknown means. Then the sun fell and the temperature with it. The streets began to thin.

Daring to explore the smithy, they found a little food. Manon chewed a heel of bread to give a little to Fabien by her mouth and he quieted, then slept. Jemond worked the bellows to produce a cleaner flame, no smoke to give the chimney away in the twilight. They lit a lamp and shuttered it low, then they dared to take inventory of the shop when no more screams or shouts could be heard outside, mounting frost quelling revolution.

“Do you know who our new king might be, after all this?” Manon asked, biting a withered apple.

“I’s tell ya already,” said Jemond, sipping a found bottle of whiskey, alternating with water. He had been drunk before to soothe his pain, but tonight was no night to be drowned.

“Dere’s no new king ta come at all.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Manon said. “But there shall be someone to lead, I’d guess. Who could that be?”

“What’s it matter?” Jemond asked. No one he could imagine would be less than dreadful. The wicked Lady Dupont. Lord Mott, cruel master of treachery and jails. Greedy knights bickering for power and control. Some ridiculous royal cousin propped up by puppet masters. Or a land of chaos, absent of every law. That would be just fine, he thought, for all the law had done for him.

“The land needs peace,” Manon said. “We cannot burn down the whole world.”

Jemond scoffed. “Da whole world’s a Scarlet Empire. We live beyond the tidebreak by luck alone,” he said, a rough remembering of his tutelage.

Manon shook her head.

He looked at the shape of her supple chin, some girl of maybe fourteen, caught between the end of childhood and the start of the awful truth. She had been protected. He thought about telling her more, a terrible task, but clenched his teeth to see her blue eyes quiver.

Then he claimed, “Dere’s hope yet for a new king, just and kind, same as da old.” Such carved words spoken to Manon did not come careless to his tongue. When he saw her eyebrows relax, the crack of a smile, he nodded and said no more.

Then she laid down next to her brother in the wood box, her body shaking with tiredness. After a few moments he checked to see her fully out, breathing deep. He reached down to snug the blanket closer around her and the chubby babe. He changed his mind right then, deciding to watch the night instead of running further on.

***

“I must go. We canna wait no more,” Jemond said, believing the girl would be loath to lose him. No one had returned. Manon looked up from the coarse washing of Fabien’s clothes. Her cheeks were red in a second, chin shaking, eyes moist.

“I must,” Jemond insisted. “The charcoal’s all gone. We'll use up all da coal and da last wood by eve, what little food was here is ate. And da water’s low. I must.”

In their waiting they had rationed every resource. Fabien had grown weary from poor sleep, crying much for the better part of two days, but no one had heard, no one had come. The fighting in the streets had not ceased, even if the clashes seemed more distant. Jemond grew sure no one was coming back. He had to leave. The only chance was to brave the night.

Manon set the babe down in the firewood box and came close, grabbing his hands. He flinched to feel the warmth of her fingers. In that moment, her sapphire eyes appeared so wide he could have leapt in, but for sufficient bravery.

“Yes,” she said. “You are right. You must go. We need food.” Her solemn gaze was too much. He could only nod and smell her clean honesty. With determination, he didn’t talk to her for the remainder of the afternoon. When the darkness came, he tied the low-cut boots he’d found tight to his ankles. From his laces he looked up at Manon. She bore the thick babe on her hip, every bit of her steeled to her purpose. Only two days ago she’d been some lonesome, frightened bird. Jemond sucked on his teeth and eased the door closed behind him. As he moved to the nearby alley, he wondered what part he had played in her transformation.

He traveled with speed, using his ears as a compass, staying far from torches and lamps. Only the three moons would guide him through the cold night, bright as they were in the clear sky. The stink of foulness burning was floating free in the crisp air, no wind to blow it off. It was the miserable reek of foul poison, burnt meat, or maybe a leather warehouse caught fire. Jemond tried to ease the suffering of his nose by breathing through the heavy cotton of his shirt, but it only slid down as he stepped. He gave up but regretted it, the odor only growing more dreadful. Then he saw the flames. Dead men and women at the stake, their screams abated before his arrival, but their bodies melted and charred. Jemond coughed on his cuff and turned away. Wiping spit from his mouth he gathered himself to cross the square, all the vigilantes who lingered there crocked and churlish. He turned his head to find wide shoulders covered in chainmail blocking his way. A drawn sword.

“Ack, me,” Jemond said, caught in the trap.

“And who is you?” the knight said, his voice lulled by whiskey, his gait loose.

“No one at all is I,” Jemond protested.

“Some prowler, then?” the man asked, a conclusion over a question.

“No, me. Jus’ breathin’ the stink a’ justice. Seein’ those burn for wha’ they’s did.”

The man flinched. Wrong answer, wrong explanation.

“You’s not a judge?” Jemond asked, quickly.

“I? No. I be no inquisitor. No more than any common man or soldier can judge. That’s for a king to decide, and our king is gone. Ruin for us, then.”

Jemond could see the knight was in mourning, drunk with shattered faith, his heavy outbreaths warm steam against cold moonlight.

“Den dey’s shoulda went free, or no?” Jemond asked, edging just a bit farther from the big fellow with the large blade. As he did, he hurried to imagine what might provide consolation, some point to pierce ambivalence and allow escape.

“Free? No. Robbers and rapists. Two were witches, perhaps. But no trial! Just wicked justice by my so-called brothers. They’ve all gone mad with the world’s ending, a tragedy I bear to witness.”

Hearing such, Jemond believed the knight implacable, relishing only melancholy. But he ventured one last idea.

“Look dere, den,” Jemond said, pointing well above the pyres. The three moons shone high and bright, one round the other round the other.

“Dis night our trice moons come ta drive the tides, as de’ave done since time’s beginnin’. And for such monster tides we live out of an Empire’s clutch. An’ such moons will come ‘gain tomorrow eve to preserve our coarse liberty. Dis world’s not ended, maybe just but an ugly start anew.” And the poetic words and pointed distraction caught the big man’s imagination enough that Jemond could trip him flat on his face. Armor crashed the earth, all weight to smash a nose that could never survive.

Jemond ran on. For an hour in the shivered cold, he dodged every person. On most streets this was not difficult, as so many must have been dead or in hiding, a lucky few sleeping if they could. Jemond arrived winded at the apartments of Tiago the Rector, who lived far from the House of Justice quite deliberately. A grim memory struck Jemond in the teeth, but he clutched his grit and crept inside.

The place appeared empty, the door unlatched, the air as frigid within as without, an eerie calm shrouding the darkness. Jemond speculated that Tiago might have striven out in the chaos to save lives. The Rector, for all his barbarism, was a believer, unlike so many in the faith. Creeping forth, he found Tiago’s body as still and as cold as the night, as full of red as the mosaic beneath him. The man was stabbed in the throat, perhaps from his own hand by the angle of the dagger. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the killer was still nearby. Chills hit Jemond’s neck, a tingle of dread. He stood slow from the corpse and listened, his exhalations billowing in the hard chill. There was a wisp of sound, the disturbance of the air.

He waited. If someone was here to murder Priests of Aurus, Jemond remembered with alarm that technically he was one, if knowledge sculpted destiny, if an orphan enduring damaging rituals gave credential. Jemond’s senses piqued, he decided it was just a mouse, a spider, a ghost. He breathed. If Tiago had died at his own hand, there might be silver about. A ghost would never need such, nor food. Jemond found a good measure of both, and a sack to bind it all. He had never had such riches. If he stole a horse that night and rode south to Coils Kunder, he could be free. Free of body and spirit at long last, never again to sup on the rotten fare of memory, and the world would be sorted out in the end. He crept back into the street, thinking that if only the king had died a year, two years ago, how glorious it might have been. He couldn’t have wished death on a fair man. But two years past, he could have been just as rich and bearing half the scars. He searched, ever so quiet, for a mount left careless. It had to be a palfrey, no well-trained warrior’s beast. Some nag to walk the way with a poor rider such as he.

In time he found one, a third of a miracle, hitched careless to a post. The chaos lords were blessing him, a glorious night for thieves. The horse did not protest in the slightest as he placed his hand on its neck, the second part of three. The beast seemed as ready to be stolen as the virtue of the young. If there were unguarded gates, the marvel would be complete.

***

“You’s gonna die here!” Jemond protested. Manon shook with fury, little Fabien wailing and red like an overripe berry. The babe would explode if someone didn’t pick him up. Manon grabbed him and kissed his chubby cheeks, even as Jemond listened for those who might be listening.

“My father and uncle will come back for us!” she insisted.

“You’s nuthin’ but a foolish child. Leave a sign for dem to finds us, den. We’s must go. Hard men wills find us and dat’ll be our end. Dere’s still wickedness on da street and fightin’. Not one of us is safe.” Jemond cursed himself for not having better words to explain. His mind still suffered the harrowing past, his tongue unhealed from hot metal.

Manon sputtered and stared, then fixed her attention on Fabien.

“I canna get food each three days, robbin’ and thievin’. I canna,” Jemond said, holding out his hands. “Dey gonna pinch me and no one’s left fer ya.” He moved to the door and peeked out at the nag, still there, ready to carry the three of them south and free.

“Dis chance’s half once in forever!” he hissed.

The girl began to weep, her blue eyes wide, all agape for fear of admitting the loss.

“Half da chance is da the whole chance for us now.” He spoke softer, “Do ya’s not see?” and she softened too, looking from the babe to the wall of tools, back to Jemond.

“How will my father find us?” she asked, still bouncing for Fabien’s sake. She has budged, he thought. Seize the moment.

Jemond tried to imagine a signal that would give the foolproof message if the men ever returned. Some symbol made with coal on the wall, he thought. Then a massive boot crashed the door with a boom.

“There’s the dead man that stole my horse!” the bruiser said, a black-bearded knight with muddy worn livery and a squire or hireling behind him. The big man had an axe, wide and dark like him.

Manon was already screaming. Fabien wailed.

“Silence that girl, Mael!” the knight ordered. The knight’s second was a blond and bold youngling, maybe the same age as Jemond. He marched into the room with a small sword but tremendous purpose. Jemond threw himself in front; if being silenced meant death, he’d have it for himself instead.

“No, no!” Jemond protested, bearing ill wit to war with an armed man, even for Tiago’s ceremonial weapon tucked in his belt. Mael might have killed Jemond with a single strike and pulled back his elbow to do it.

“Mael!” the burly knight bellowed.

The squire stopped, a flat look of disinterest on his face. He would just as soon sleep as kill, it appeared.

“We know not the truth here,” claimed the knight, stomping forward in his huge black boots.

Mael lowered his blade. Manon and Fabien reduced their cries in unison, low sobs instead of howls.

“I am Sir Anseau Du Pardulac, and my stolen horse is beyond this door,” Anseau said, coming close to Jemond, his body stinking of sweat, the hair of his beard filled with breakfast grease.

Manon looked at Jemond with doomed eyes, rivulets of tears falling.

“I’s was da one that did it,” Jemond spoke, still wary of Mael’s swift justice. “But truth, I knew not da horse was yours.”

“Ah,” replied Anseau, pausing from his strides. He grabbed his chin as if thinking was painfully difficult. “You would not steal from a knight, then?”

It seemed to Jemond a strange question. Not whether he would steal a horse, but from whom.

Manon grunted in protest. “My man has no horse at all,” she said, “and you intrude here upon my Uncle’s Ovide’s property, the smith for the king’s guard.”

Anseau stopped and laughed at that, his big belly shaking.

Mael even smiled a wry grin to see his master chortle as he did.

Manon was outraged. She said with scorn, “Why, some knight you are, Sir, to pretend to mete justice for a horse that’s only wandered off in a rioting city. Here, in a house that’s a freehold.”

Anseau laughed again and went close to the girl, where her nose scrunched up, her whole face in a wrinkle. The big wide knight countered her loudly but with no malice.

“Foolish girl. You're one to disrespect a knight, when the king is no more, the law in arrears, the city burns, and property forfeit to mobs and traitors. I might be the only justice you have for leagues, even if you dispute my jurisdiction.”

Then the knight raised his voice to fly spittle on her dress.

“So, you had best shut your mouth!”

Manon cringed and was silent, but this made Fabien cry.

“And whose well-fed babe is this?” Anseau asked. He thumbed the babe’s wet cheek, his enormous hand shadowing Fabien’s head. Manon appeared ready to crack, pulling Fabien away.

“Da babe’s not mine, but I’s do govern for it,” Jemond threw out with haste.

Mael guffawed in contempt. The out-of-turn laughter only ignited the knight’s combustible elements. Anseau roared like a bearded lion, feral roots at his center. Mael shrunk and apologized twice.

“There shall be no judgment here but my own,” said Anseau, seeming to try to calm himself.

“And there shall be no laughter ‘cept when I make the humour!”

From there he swung his mighty axe to embed it in the mortar, a blow that could have sundered an anvil. He now had the attention of all.

“Arggh, for it all!” he thundered, seeing that even Fabien’s innocence could not further challenge him. He strode about the room in a spate, as if working every muscle to calm his fury. Then, at last, he lowered his chin an inch from Jemond’s and spoke. “So, I ask again, young master. Did ye steal my horse, or no?”

Jemond answered, “If dat be your horse out dat way, rides it to our door me did. But again, I’s assumin’ the horse is free an’ all, lost in da riots an’ such. Not yers, as it was.”

The mighty Anseau paused to consider this, looking at his own bulbous nose.

“Ah yes, I understand,” Anseau said, his twisting lips perhaps portraying that he thought the whole situation a waste of time. Such a show for a nag that could not have carried him, Jemond thought.

“Might I speak, Sir?” asked Mael.

“If you have evidence, only,” Anseau said, as if he were a magistrate.

Mael bit his lip. Then he blurted, “But the horse is mine to use, as you so entrusted, its ownership not perfect to the point. As such, does it matter whose horse the boy thought he stole, but rather just… only that he stole it?”

Sir Anseau grumbled to be caught in such logic. He started to counter the point, stopped, tried again, and stopped once more. Plainly he did not want to bandy a point of law with his squire, nor lose face in front of him either.

In that tension, Manon could not be silent.

“If there be a horse stolen,” she said, “it is stolen no more, surely, for you found it outside this door.”

“Aye, we did, lass,” said Anseau. “But it did not get there on its own. Nor did we find it without effort and risk to our lives. By the king’s law, in times of war or civil riots the penalty for horse-thieving is…” he paused to complete the thought.

“Removal of the arm above the shoulder,” said Mael.

“It is. Yes,” said the knight, a grim look on his face. Whatever temperance he possessed had evaporated. He moved to his axe and pulled at it with fierceness. Manon gasped. Fabien cried again, and Jemond raised his hands for mercy. The axe came away into the grip of the huge knight and he advanced with chagrin, his face set to morbid task.

“Kneel!” Anseau ordered. Jemond felt every muscle in his legs tense. He could sprint out the wrecked door and be gone. Mael could make one move, but he wouldn’t be quick enough. Then he saw Manon trembling, trying to soothe the babe at the same time, chubby Fabien who would not be silent.

“If I’s took dat horse, Sir,” said Jemond, kneeling, “t’was as a servant of Aurus the Just an’ Zaris da Merciful, givin’ my aid to the girl, as sworn governor to the babe. Free horse helps me gets ‘em to a safer place.”

Anseau paused in place.

“And if you be a man of the cathedral, speak the prayer of the Martyr’s Sepulcher.”

Jemond did, just as they’d taught him. Anseau cleared his throat, thick with mistrust.

“Is this true, girl?” the knight blared. “Did this lad of faith bring you this horse to save you and that babe, for which he swore an oath?”

Manon fanned her head to Jemond, to Anseau, to Mael, then back to Jemond.

“Look in my eyes, girl!” Anseau ordered. Manon gasped, gathered herself, and met the knight’s eyes with rage. She gave a stare that might have ripped him in two. Anseau was unmoved.

“Did he bring my horse, my squire’s horse, to give you rescue in this time of need? And that he swore on his life as a man of Aurus the Just to protect the child as guardian? If he did not do both, then he lies, and his life is forfeit to the axe. Answer now the truth!”

Manon’s chin came perfectly still.

“Upon the soul of our dead king, he did. For my father and my uncle have disappeared in this madness, no doubt perished. This lad did save us and offer his protection.”

“Oath and all?” Mael interjected.

Manon smoothly turned her eyes to the squire then back to Anseau.

“Oath upon blood,” she said, showing dried red upon her fingers. “And you’ll see the cut of promise he made upon his palm, the bandage there.”

Anseau saw the wrapping on Jemond’s hand. The knight tensed for a moment, appearing in disbelief. But he lowered his massive axe when Mael spied the dagger of ritual in Jemond’s belt and pulled it forth to show his master.

“All good justice be done,” Sir Anseau said.

“All good justice be done,” Mael repeated.

“Mael, my squire,” said the knight. ‘Ready my mount and the palfrey that once was yours. We make for the gates.”

Mael went dutifully for the door. In quick time, Jemond, Manon, and little Fabien received a knight’s escort to the countryside.

***

“Ack, me,” said Jemond, tending to the gifted horse. They were alone at last to travel, with Sir Anseau and Mael returned to the city.

“What, then?” Manon asked.

“How den, lass, did ya ‘ave the blood ta prove da governor’s oath when I made no such ‘til today?”

“My time had come, just, when you were away,” Manon said.

Jemond gave a confused look.

“The cursed time that a woman endures,” she said.” I had struggled for a cloth that morning, perhaps only a moment before you returned.”

“Den a curse it’s not and wasn’t,” Jemond said, “No more a curse, suppose, than my time bound to the gods of justice and mercy.”

Manon smiled and touched his collar bone with tenderness.

“Many curses do we wear that prove blessings all the same,” she said.

THE END

Bio: Douglas Ironside is an emerging author and public health professional. He lives in Orillia, Ontario with his lovely wife Stacey. Douglas is an actor, Improviser, Director of theatre plays and a life-long Dungeon Master. You can catch more of his work at douglasironside.com...

E-mail: Douglas Ironside

Website: Douglas Ironside's Website

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