Paradise for the Damned. - 19. Chapter 19

When winter came, Claude was deep in his study of Donatus. Lone figures, bundled in fraying cloaks, straggled the fields bleak to grain. People were shut up in their poor huts, spinning and weaving fabric to be sold, casting and fixing of farming tools. Then as if to reinforce good cheer, snow fell for a week.

But when Claude saw Martin Algais and his family file out of Quentin’s house, thoughts of the gay snow were banished away. Tall and thick-necked, the man took after Quentin’s heavy pounding gait. Martis had good land and good name, even Claude could not protest. Nor he could hold to a private thought of scorn as he, yawning, doffed his hat to them. But they marched on, their gazes firm over the impure white lacing the brown fields.

Claude stood defenseless against the cold penetrating his ermine coat. It curled his toes, hardened his fingers, reminded him that soon and very soon, he and Guy would be going to Toulouse to see a rector at a college in Toulouse. And then he could leave behind the villagers and their unending conversations on the weather.

As he turned to make his way back home, he caught a glimpse of Amaline’s enduring gaze. His cheeks flushing hotly, he hoped Amaline had not been staring at him for long. Immediately, his nervous wondering gave way to the force of Alphonse’s insinuations, insinuations that she must be considering now.

He turned away from her rashly as worries scrawled on the things Sabrine must have said to her. But did Sabrine really tell her or not? But Amaline felt so far away from him; her eyes, her lips, her brows, were an unreadable blur. Truth, lies, Claude could read none, only a desire to cross the threshold of the flowerless and frosted brown, and tap the scarlet cheeks. Sometime during the boisterous summer, Amaline had transformed from Our Lady of Doom to the lady who demanded innocence. Martis would be good for her, he concluded. The man was yet pure and honorable unlike him a pestilent pox.

With the awkwardness of long skirts dragging against snow and mud, Amaline turned away, chased after her littlest sibling into the house. Even breathless with exertion, she commanded a marble look. And girl and child were enveloped within the din of family banter.

He turned a resigned gaze to the lacteal sky and smiled. Amaline came back to him in her billowing whiteness. He thought the summer had been fruitful at the end of it all. Whether Sabrine be dead or alive, she was banished. She would trouble Amaline no more. He chose not to think about Sabrine corrupting Alphonse though. It only mattered that Amaline was safe. She would be a good and honorable and respected, be the manner of human, he could not be.

Warmth rising through his temples, Claude thought she might want a wedding present. Sweets? Pater Noster beads? A few sous for goodwill? But these considerations felt dizzyingly worthless. Whatever he decided, it would ultimately be from Guy’s purse. And then it felt dull again. The muffled queasy quiet was in want of the squeals of hedgehogs now hibernating away from his damned view.

“Before Toulouse, we should travel a little.” A mischievous wind had flurried Guy to his side. The travesties of the cold were none to be acknowledged by the tall mountainous man wearing a thin chemise and hose. His face was clean and glabrous, pale as the murky frost.

Claude was frazzled in wonderment. His hand wilted over his head. The Imp.

“Bless me, human. What good are books, if you do not see the world in its beauteous glory with your own eyes.” Guy gazed gloriously at the thick white sky whose beauty seemed to be praised as fervently with broad smile on his lips. “You can go so far north where it’s white all year round.”

The cold weighted his eyelids, scoured in his nostrils, and Claude thrust his hand into his armpits. He thought mortals did not fit in a place of eternal cold.

“Oc, we must travel,” Guy declared like Cicero with strong hand gestures.

“We need to get Amaline a wedding present first,” Claude said mournfully.”

“A book would be prefect.”

Claude thoughts sweets or dainties made better presents for married women. Good wives pleased their husbands, not idled away in reading.

“’Tis shame that she would be married without having tried a dozen different kisses from you first,” Guy said.

“Martis is welcome to give her all my kisses.”

“Bless my cock. You fear women.”

This was no time to pettifog with an imp. Claude hastened away, but the thought of Guy, Roland, and the Yvette he killed, dampened his stride.

There was the trio of maidens making their plodding away around leafless oak tree, more than stone’s throw away from him and Guy. The tutor was already smiling profusely at them, these wenches he had bedded each on three consecutive nights. Their gazes fell upon their sleeved arms, their cheeks rubied, their lips were half-open in anticipation. Claude maddened. “For sooth Eve’s daughters, hot and dry, and ever wanting.” With that, the women were huffed at him and rushed off, leaving Guy with a sagging look of gloom. The face excited Claude, freeing him to excoriate. “I saved them from your demon hand.”

“How good and honorable thou art.”

“Honor … ’Tis so simple. I need not debauch virgins or kill wives.” Guy grinned. Claude retched an fetid feeling. “Oh tutor, show me the virtue in killing a wife. My dim mind cannot grasp its wisdom.”

“You worry about a woman dead and buried. I never knew ye to have such goodness.”

They walked a little in aimless silence. Claude rose again, “Methinks your honor bends when Roland bends you.”

“You dream of Edjya and me?” Guy’s cheeks held back a wink. “Little whore, I wasted nights excogitating stratagems on how you and I could share Sabrine, but you wanted me and Edjya all along.” He shook pointed finger over his face in a moment of wondrous clarity. “If you woo me lovingly, I might set upon it.”

Claude grunted. “I thought true. He rides you. No wonder you fear my bed.”

“I fear your dry kisses and dry organ. It tempers passion.”

“For certes,” Claude mimed. “Verily, I am but a lowly rat. Roland is an exquisite specimen. His machine compels you forsake all for his milk.”

Guy laughed quietly. “Your mind corrupts everything good and pure under heaven. Edjya does not desire me basely and I him likewise. Back when I was a human lad, I transgressed the powerful chieftain. I must have bored his wife better that he could. He bound me and threw me into the peat bog. Edjya saved me, taught me the high ways, and gave of his precious blood.” His face was smooth and stolid. “He is my honor. And I shall stand by him all my days.”

“But you sharpen knives upon his person. I hope never to be your liege.”

“The quarrels are quarrels. But when he calls, I answer.”

“When you call, does he answer?”

Guy raised cool eyes, and Claude quite enjoyed it.

“I have had men like you before,” Claude said thoughtfully. “They brim with love and devotion, but turn upon me with their fists because I want my cock in their mouth, not odes to my fair hair.”

“Little whore, you know nothing of duty. Love and desire have naught to do with Edjya and me.”

Claude, with a slack smile, held back revulsion and mordancy. “St Sernin! ’Tis you who is lost in him. Sabrine commands nothing of you. You command nothing of him.”

Guy glared down at the mud scuffing up his boots. His eyes drifted closer and closer to rest as if ailing against the assault of old memories. With the awareness of an old man rising again to the silent sun, he lifted his eyes. “Bless me, what do you command of God? Of King?”

“God gives me life …” Claude wondered a moment about kings, their right to rule, and their annoying salt taxes. “King keeps order. What does Roland give you?”

Guy quickened a few paces farther than Claude, muttering, “Profit and loss are your soul. You know naught of the will that endures through the ages.”

“I am not God.”

“No, you aren’t,” Guy called back. “You are the whore who trades pearls for coal.”

Claude wilted. Everywhere was subdued by a harsh white. His eyes roved listlessly from grey hamlet to grey hamlet, in search of rest from the holy brilliance. Guy’s eyes were above him. A short smile was snug on his lips. Already Claude was losing feeling in his toes, and deadness was spreading upwards his shins. Kneel, submit. Perchance guilt would be assuaged. Perchance fear would elide into bliss. Perchance Guy would be merciful.

Then he felt his body shake. Guy was bracing him upright.

“Bless me, you pretend strength, and here you tremble.” He caressed Claude’s shoulders. Perhaps he could infuse strength into the waning posture. “You’re breaking. You think about your death? Oc … how shall it be? Swift? Slow?” Little lights dotted his onyx pupils. “But first you must be fat and thick for me. But now, Janelo is in need of my plowing.”

The crass mention of Janelo broke Claude spell of astonishment. Claude brushed Guy’s hands of him, muttering, “You treat the women dogs. And you would treat me like a dog. ’Tis a loving symmetry.”

Guy grinned. “A symmetry demanded by nature’s rule, little whore—”

“You shan’t call me that, you damned murderer.”

Guy cocked his head unsurely. “Or what? You shall break my nose?”

Guy’s strong voice broke through Claude’s senses. Teeth ground against teeth. His sight swirled grey-blind to the far mountains flattening, segmenting, falling off into the distant deep. The disturbance rippled up to his person, breaking up field and boughs, church and cottages, and shoveling him off into his own hell.

Guy stood on solid ground, his mien sickeningly stately. Claude burst upon him and grabbed him by the collar, and shook emphatically. “You damned sprite …” Breaths quivered hotly over Guy’s surrendering laugh. “You bellow strength, but you’re weak … a weak wretched thing who can’t stand against his master, so you destroy everyone else. Sabrine spoke truly. Thou art weak, Diamhin.” The laughs dampened, and Guy’s cheeks hardened. He clasped his white hands around Claude’s and with a grip of severe intention, pulled him off. His eyes were distant and scarlet fibrils thickened in the white of his eyes.

“You mistake my patience for weakness.” Suddenly mindful of the open fields around them, Guy closed his eyes solemnly. The corners of his lips relaxed, a half smile formed. He opened them again, and his eyes were the spring green again then proceeded to pat Claude’s tired shoulders soothingly. “Take care not to defy me again.”

Peace and still squeezing out of him, Claude watched Guy sally across the ripples of snow and soil. He hailed a few passersby, blessed them, encouraged them, took over an old woman’s basket burden, then bead into another undistinguished, miserable figure in the distance. Claude held his chest, gripped skin and bone, grasped for the mad rhythm within, and thought Guy was not fit to be his executioner. And there had to be a way to frustrate Guy’s aim.

But when Claude returned to the cottage, lute and sword and Guy were gone. He did not return that day or the day after next. After a week of his absence, Claude could not decided what he detested more the shivering still or Guy’s unnatural cheer, and so he opted to savor at last the merry of Christmastide.