Curse of a Winter Moon Read online

  I couldn’t believe he’d said it. John Calvin. A name one shouldn’t speak aloud.

  “—And Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples, who died years ago,” my uncle continued, “but who translated the Bible into French for everyone to read.”

  Brother Gabriel turned, tucking both hands into his frock’s shadowy sleeves. I shivered, aware suddenly of the draftiness in the monastery.

  “The light, dear Marius, shines brighter every day … except, I fear, in some places, in some small corners, such as Venyre, where it is still quite dark. Since your brother was born on Christmas Eve, you have more to fear, it would seem, from the villagers themselves than from your brother.”

  Outside the stained-glass window, a mourning dove cooed.

  “I’m afraid,” he said, “you must be on guard, Marius, not only for your brother, but for yourself as well.” He removed his hands from his sleeves and pressed his palms together, fingers spread wide. “With just the right wind, Marius, fear spreads like grass fire.”

  Then he nodded at the monk waiting at the edge of the kitchen, who cleared away my mug. I glanced back; the meal had tasted so good.

  “Come,” said Brother Gabriel, and he led me toward the entrance gates.

  Brother Augustin flashed me a smile and fidgeted with the cloth of his frock, as if he wanted to talk. But he looked up at Brother Gabriel and unbolted the wooden doors instead. My uncle kissed me on each cheek. “Greet your father for me … and little Jean-Pierre.”

  “I will.”

  Standing in the open gate, I adjusted the lute on my back. Hoofbeats drummed the ground. I turned.

  At a full gallop, dust piling up like storm clouds behind it, a black horse with a white star nearly charged into me. I flattened myself against one of the wooden doors, beside Brother Gabriel.

  The rider wore a frock, its hood pulled back from his round face. Three rabbits hung down the horse’s side. I recognized the horse and rider from the morning procession.

  “Abbot Joseph,” whispered Brother Gabriel.

  Over the abbot’s shoulder was a bow and a quiver of arrows. A lanky monk hurried to the horse and held its reins as the abbot swung down, and then the monk led the lathered horse away.

  The abbot headed through the courtyard and called out, “I’m hungry as a bear!”

  Rising from a bench in the courtyard, a woman approached in a hooped blue gown, the skirt padded full at her hips; from below her waist, a V-shaped bodice rose to a low, square neckline. On her white bosom rested a string of shimmery red jewels. She snuggled beneath the chin of the abbot. He drew her close to his side, his hand nearly engulfing her waist, and kissed her neck, then walked with her through the stone courtyard, the woman’s laughter sharp as broken pottery.

  I stared after them, knowing I’d just seen more than my own lips should ever speak.

  Just then, the abbot stopped and turned. “You there!” he called, looking back at me, Brother Gabriel, and Augustin.

  My uncle silently took a step forward, then waited.

  “No, the village boy,” the abbot said.

  I froze. What had I done? Fear flashed through me. Would I be flogged for watching?

  “Do you play that instrument, or just tote it on your back?” called the abbot.

  I swallowed and cleared my dry throat. “I play … some,” I called, my voice weaker than I’d intended.

  “Are you any good?”

  I didn’t answer. I had never played for a real audience. What was I to say?

  The abbot waved away my silence. “Don’t bother to answer. I’ll be the judge of that. Come! Play for me while I dine.”

  Monastery bells began to chime. The abbot turned and strode away with the woman.

  I gave my uncle a questioning look. “I need to return,” I said. The thought of playing for the abbot unleashed a swarm of bees in my stomach. My heart pulsed in my ears. “My brother wasn’t well,” I said, “and my father will worry if …”

  “Don’t cross Abbot Joseph,” my uncle said, placing his hand on my shoulder. “You must go. And I must go to prayer.”

  He gently gripped my elbow and steered me away from the gate and back into the monastery’s interior.

  Behind us, I heard Augustin shut and bolt the entrance doors.

  “Just remember,” my uncle said with an apologetic look. “Not everything here is the Benedictine way. Remember that.”

  THE LUTE

  I quickened my steps past the sanctuary door, where Brother Gabriel slipped behind a stream of monks of all shapes, ages, and sizes. Suddenly, I was alone. From within the church, voices rose in Latin chanting, a song that was both sad and comforting. I wanted to linger, to listen.

  Instead, I hurried after the bright blue of the woman’s dress as she walked arm in arm with the abbot.

  They turned into a doorway and the woman laughed, but nothing in her laughter seemed warm or inviting. Perhaps she was with the abbot out of love, but this reason seemed unlikely. I had heard talk of such things. Perhaps she wasn’t there on her own free will. Perhaps she was part of a bargain, offering herself to the abbot to keep someone she loved from prison.

  I slowed my step, stopped outside the open door, and cleared my throat.

  “Good of you to join us!” exclaimed the abbot. “Come in.” The room held a massive table.

  I stood beside an embroidered tapestry that glinted with threads of gold. I tried not to breathe. Slowly, I wiped my damp palms on the sides of my breeches, aware that I lacked the colorful clothing of a respected musician, and prayed my fingers would not slip on the strings.

  I tried not to think about what the villagers whispered. They said that Abbot Joseph wouldn’t allow peasants to glean from the monastery fields after harvest. He fined harshly, and tripled the tithe on Church holidays (of which we celebrated nearly a hundred each year). He often oversaw the torture chamber in the belly of the monastery, as well as in the village guardhouse. The abbot also required widows, upon the death of their husbands, to donate the husband’s bed to the monastery. Clearly, Abbot Joseph had little regard for clerical rules against hunting animals or having female companions.

  Within moments, a half-dozen monks arrived and set platters of food upon the table: roasted pheasant, meat pie, orange marmalade, golden loaves of bread, a blue-and-white earthenware bottle.

  The abbot poured red wine from the bottle into his goblet. He drank, offered the goblet to the woman, then circled his forefinger through the air. “Give me music,” he commanded.

  I sat on a bench against a wall-sized tapestry of the Last Supper, removed my lute from its case, and set the wood and ivory instrument upon my lap. I began to tune the strings, which lost their tune with every slight change in the weather. When the notes agreed with my ears, I rested my trembling fingers across the six pairs of strings, gathered my breath, then began to play.

  Hesitantly, my fingers found their way up the neck of the lute between frets of brass and measured scales. I closed my eyes, trying with all my might to listen to the music, to feel it within myself, and to play it clearly, freely, no matter my fear. And I tried to play, as well as possible, to avoid displeasing the abbot. He held my life in his hands, nearly as did God himself.

  When I finished the first song, I paused, waiting to be told to stop, but no such word came. Only the sound of the abbot drinking and eating.

  And so I continued, playing songs I had composed at the ruins. I played on, losing myself in the notes. Finally, as I sensed the abbot settling back in his chair, I played the last note, paused, and looked up.

  The abbot beamed from his chair and wiped his hand across his mouth. “Play this for young women,” he said, throwing his head back with a deep laugh, “and you’ll save Cupid a thousand arrows!”

  I smiled in return. I had an audience—a grateful audience. The abbot himself.

  Clearing his voice, the abbot shifted into a tone as stony, as immovable as the walls. “This gift you have, young man, should be shared …�
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  Perhaps I had found my calling. Suddenly, the idea of working as a blacksmith seemed dull and predictable. It became as clear to me as a blue sky. I’d play my lute, play it from my heart, play it for the enjoyment of others someday.

  “Shared here,” the abbot continued, “within the house of God. Here at the monastery. You must listen very carefully to the voice of God and answer his call.

  “Go home, pray, and then choose. Talk with your parents and tell them the abbot desires it. I will wait for your reply.”

  I opened my mouth. When I was eight or nine, I had dreamed of becoming a priest. With each year, that idea had faded steadily and I thought more of living my own life as my father had done. Marrying. And now, the idea of becoming a monk or a priest paled for me. Still, if I were truly being called, as the abbot believed …

  “You may go now,” said the abbot, sitting down.

  I began to put my lute away, fumbling with the case. The enormity of what I’d just accomplished made my hands tremble.

  I held the case in one hand, the lute in the other, and hurried out of the abbot’s banquet room, nearly ran down the corridor, past the chanting in the sanctuary, and finally stood again at the gates under a thick dusting of snowflakes. What strange opportunity was this? To play for the abbot and bury my life in the monastery?

  At the gates, which again Brother Augustin opened wide, I left without a word. The young monk slowly closed the monastery gates, and when I looked back, he was still staring, not taking his eyes off me—or more likely, the road beyond.

  Under the year’s first snowfall, I walked down the empty dirt road. Alone. Free from my brother, free from the walls of the village or the monastery, and filled with more knowledge than my mind could hold. Knowledge of my mother and my father. Knowledge of the ways of the monastery.

  I walked faster. To my left, in the distance, the ruins of the Roman fort were washed in a speckled haze of white. Snowflakes steadily fell, showering the bare road and slowly covering up wheel ruts and hoofprints. For a whirling moment, I was tempted to keep walking, to leave everything familiar behind and set off with only my lute on my back.

  If the abbot deemed my music worthy of his listening, then others might feel the same way. Visions grew: playing my lute in a bustling village square; strumming before a royal court; wearing the finest leather, the finest boots with shiny silver buckles; playing for beautiful girls and young women. … My ideas, like bubbles floating up from the murky bottom of a river, quickly popped.

  I knew where my feet would take me. Back to my life, back to my father, back to Jean-Pierre.

  By the time I neared the eastern gate of Venyre, my pace slowed. I paused for a few moments and breathed in the air, clean and pure. Ahead, snow lined the village wall. Snow layered everything, turning the world perfectly white, at least on the surface.

  THE SMITHY

  At dusk, I entered the village with a wave to Celestin, who nodded at me as I passed beneath his watchtower. The street was muddy with patches of white. I walked slowly, as if seeing my village for the first time.

  The street leading to my father’s shop was quiet, empty, except for the small black dog with the shaggy brown ruff. He was curled in a ball outside the butcher’s shop.

  “You again?” I said. “Where is everybody?”

  The dog whined and thumped his tail. A feathering of snowflakes covered his back. He rose, shook his coat, stretched out his forelegs, and yawned. I reached in my pocket and tossed him a chunk of the monastery bread. He caught it before it hit the ground.

  “Good catch,” I said, and looked around. The shops were open, but it seemed the villagers had disappeared.

  Where was everybody? Had a plague struck? I frowned.

  Ahead, my father’s blacksmith sign hung crooked, one end broken. The door was wide open. My heart jolted.

  Cautiously, I stepped in. “Jean-Pierre? Papa?” I whispered.

  No answer came in return.

  My eyes adjusted to the dimness. The workbench was overturned, the fire had gone out, and the small bench was knocked into another corner on its side. Gaping open, my father’s wooden chest revealed parchment—ripped into shreds.

  “Papa,” I said under my breath.

  I searched the shadows, turned in circles, then hovered for a moment in the doorway. Finally, I fled the smithy, tripping over the back of the small dog, which yelped and skittered away. “Out of my way,” I snapped. I sprinted toward the sounds erupting from the village square.

  As I neared, voices grew into a chorus of mockery: “Huguenots! Huguenots!”

  I tucked myself beside the weaver’s shop and pretended to take interest in the bright red fabric laid out before me. I had to stop to catch my breath and gather my thoughts. Did someone else know that my father had been reading books? Had he been turned in by a villager? Or did this all have to do with Jean-Pierre?

  Two village women turned from the crowd and began walking toward me, heads nearly touching as they talked. They paused near the fabric.

  “… stormed Marguerite’s shop,” one of the women said, “and threw everything around, until someone shouted to search the blacksmith’s shop. Emanuel Poyet stood by his door while Monsieur Dubois shouted at him, ‘Father of the loup garou!’”

  “Then what happened?” asked the other woman.

  I barely breathed and gripped an edge of fabric between my fingers, rubbing it like a baby blanket.

  “Emanuel shouted back that there was no such thing.”

  I closed my eyes, listening.

  “Then a soldier said, ‘What? He doesn’t believe in the loup garou? That goes against the Church itself!’ At that, they stormed his shop. They must not have found what they were looking for, because the mercenary said the blacksmith was to be held for questioning. But now Monsieur Poyet cannot be found.”

  “And the child?” the other woman asked.

  “Why, he disappeared with his father,” came the reply.

  “Disappeared?” the woman whispered. “I hate to think … with Christmas Eve so close. Maybe they disappeared using some sort of magic. His wife was strange enough—”

  “I’m sure they fled and must be hiding,” said the other, and their voices faded to nothing as they left the fabrics and walked on.

  I tried to swallow. My father had always attended mass, ate fish instead of meat on fast days and closed his smithy to business on Church holidays. Now, as a suspected heretic, he would be the Church’s enemy. I clenched fabric in my fists and hung my head.

  At my feet, a mottled pigeon pecked at the ground. My own life—my whole future—was no better than this pigeon’s. My family was tainted. Before long, I would be no better than the ragged beggars in the square every morning. The abbot’s offer—I would have to consider it, even if it meant leaving Jean-Pierre to watch out for himself. And yet, I knew deep within that I couldn’t do that either. Not yet. With all my heart I hoped Papa and Jean-Pierre had fled to a place of safety. If so, what if I never saw them again? I suddenly ached with loneliness.

  Then I realized someone was sitting in the shadows on the other side of the fabrics, watching. Madame Negrel. The most gossipy, chatty person in all of the village. “Marius,” she croaked, “a pity about your father, but don’t cry for him. If you’re smart, you’ll get as far away from him as possible, unless you are cursed as well. As Father Arnaud says, ‘We must rid the village of the devil’s work.’”

  I didn’t bother to meet her cloudy, nearly blind eyes. I’d heard more than my mind could absorb. I pivoted away from her, and walked closer toward the crowd gathered in the square. Across from the fountain, behind a leafless tree, I paused, pressing my hand against the tree’s grayish-green bark. Suddenly, a wet nose nuzzled my right hand.

  I glanced down and rested my hand on the dog’s head. His presence, slight as it was, brought me a trace of comfort. Keeping my eyes on the square, I reached into my pocket and gave him the rest of my bread.

  The crowd w
as focused on something in front of a tavern. I caught a glimpse of a soldier beside the caged prisoners, who appeared more like mounds of shriveled leather than men. The soldier, face square and deeply scarred, held a flask to the sky in toast with the mercenary. “May we add to the number of heretics!” he yelled.

  Cheering rose from the crowd.

  The two men drew their swords, and while hanging on to their mugs, began to fence. The crowd laughed and cheered as steel clashed against steel.

  I scanned the crowd for my father, for Jean-Pierre. I edged from behind the tree and paused near a cluster of village men.

  “Catherine de Médici—niece to the pope,” said one.

  “No veering from the Church with her in Paris,” said another, “and her fifteen-year-old son as our new king.”

  “Yes, and thank God her husband, Henry, was killed in that joust last summer,” said the third. “He spent our country into ruin! With taxes what they are, we can barely survive.”

  “The Huguenots have something there,” whispered the first. “Optional tithing, less money sent to Rome. Might leave a bit more in my pocket. “

  “Shh! You could be burned for such talk—even if it’s true.”

  “With the way my children are growing, my wife will have to start cooking up stray dogs soon.” The men laughed.

  I cared little about the politics and religion of Paris and the Royal Court. Still, I felt somewhat encouraged to know my father was not the only villager who held startling beliefs. I kept my head down, until the edge of my lute bumped against something.

  A woman wider than an ox spun on me.

  “Trying to steal from me?” she shouted. Her face was dirty and deeply pitted. She was one of the lucky few to have survived smallpox, but she was grievously ugly to look upon.

  “No, Madame,” I replied, and tried to slip away from notice.

  I glanced ahead at the mercenary, his muscles tightening in his face. “These prisoners have need for nothing,” he shouted, “except the Church’s forgiveness! Anyone taking an interest in freeing these men—even offering them a drink—will find his throat slit by morning.”