Curse of a Winter Moon Read online

  “If she is unable to get there,” the apothecary continued, his eyes wide as an owl’s, “the barber may be persuaded to come to her bed and bleed her there. For the right fee.”

  “Is there something else? Something you could give her?”

  The apothecary yawned again, then stepped backward. He opened the door to his shop. “I can see you’re not easily put off. Come in then.”

  He lit a tallow candle, and in the dimness I made out small shelves filled with various lidded containers, mortars and pestles, hanging herbs, vials of various sizes, and slatted wooden barrels on the floor. The apothecary, his cloak draped over his sleep shirt, reached over to a tile and board where small, round gray objects had been rolled out and left to dry.

  “This is something of my own creation,” he said. “Only just yesterday did I use my mortar and pestle to create a paste, a powerful medicine, which I then rolled into these shapes.”

  I tried to act interested. “Oh, yes. Amazing.”

  “Medicine pebbles, that’s what I’ll call them,” he said proudly.

  Hands covered with sores, he picked up a handful of the gray pebbles, found a tiny wooden box, and put them inside.

  “Tell her to place one of these under her tongue. It will dissolve slowly and she’ll sleep. She’ll feel no pain whatsoever.” He handed me the box.

  I tucked it in my pocket along with the remaining monastery bread. “Perfect,” I said.

  “I’m not finished,” he said, then began to rummage through his shop, his candle rising and falling as he searched high and low.

  I waited.

  “Ah, here it is,” he finally said. He turned to me with a leather necklace, from which dangled a long wolf’s tooth coiled securely in wire. “And you. You should wear this for your own protection.” He paused, his wide eyes searching mine.

  I nodded, and despite my bold words to Jean-Pierre, a tremor traveled through me.

  “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve,” he said. “The werewolves will gather, and this year we will have a full moon, as well. The powers of darkness will be greater than ever. Keep a close eye on …” He let his words hang there. “Never, never remove the necklace.”

  Despite my strong words yesterday and my father’s reassurance that the loup garou did not exist, I hesitated. My stomach turned with the weight of a millstone. I took the necklace, put it around my neck, and slipped it beneath my shirt.

  The white tooth felt cold against my bare skin, and strangely, brought me relief. I did not believe in the loup garou, yet the necklace made me feel more secure. I could not figure out my own mind.

  “Pay attention,” the apothecary said, his forefinger poised in the air. “Have you found a special salve? The loup garou uses a salve, given by the devil to help it change from a human into a loup garou and back again. Have you seen anything like that lying around?”

  I shook my head.

  “Even so, a loup garou is cunning. It takes a quick wit to identify one. For example, I’m sure you heard of the nobleman who was out hunting in the woods. He caught a wolf, cut off its paw, wrapped it in cloth strips, and returned to his chateau. When he returned, he found his wife in bed, her hand in a bandage. The nobleman unwrapped the wolf’s paw,” the apothecary said, dramatizing the story with his sore-covered hands, “but instead found it was his wife’s hand, complete with her wedding ring. The woman was tried and burned at the stake.”

  My stomach turned at his story. I must have made a disagreeable face.

  “It’s a true story,” he said. “You wear that necklace.”

  The apothecary cleared his throat, stated the amount due, and held out his hand for payment. I reached into my money purse for Madame Troubène’s money. By the time I had finished counting out the deniers, the purse was nearly empty. “Merci,” I said, and quickly left the darkness of his shop.

  At the mill, which was just opening, a women was selling bread. I bought a loaf, tucked it beneath my arm, and raced home. As I rounded my street corner, the sun was cresting the village walls. Ice-covered puddles glistened. Pigeons swooped over the village, ready to search another day for crumbs.

  By the time I returned, Madame Troubène was fast asleep. For her sake, I was glad she wouldn’t have to be bled. Not yet, at least. She did not like bloodletting, a treatment she feared. “In all my years,” she’d said, “I’ve seen as many die as live in the hands of barbers. If we had a good one in our village, that might be different.”

  Jean-Pierre lay on his back, snoring softly, his mouth open wide enough to catch a team of horses. “Wake up,” I whispered, and shook his shoulder.

  He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, groaned, and rolled toward the wall. I tossed back the blanket, pulled him from his sleep, and stood him on his feet. “First, use the pot.” I handed him the night pot.

  Jean-Pierre mumbled and stared into it as if he’d never seen it before.

  “Then,” I continued, “you must go back into hiding …”

  “But I don’t want to …” he whined, something he rarely did.

  I pulled the loaf of bread out from behind my back. “And you may eat this.” I broke it in half. “The other half is for Papa, as soon as I find him.” I would not tell Jean-Pierre about last night. Not yet. I had no idea how long it would be until our father came for us.

  Then I removed the box of medicine from my pocket and put a round pebble in my brother’s palm. “If I’m not here and someone comes up the stairs, put one of these pebbles beneath your tongue. It will help you sleep and you’ll feel nothing at all.”

  At that, Madame Troubène moaned. I stepped to her side. “Open your mouth, please,” I said, suddenly feeling like her mother.

  She did so, her lips cracked and dry.

  “Lift your tongue.” She did and I placed a medicine pebble beneath it.

  “Now sleep.”

  She groaned in response, never opening her eyes. I kissed her forehead, her skin cold beneath my lips.

  When Jean-Pierre was done with the night pot, he crawled into his small cave in the wall with half the loaf. I slid the stone into place, restoked the fire, and started down the stairs.

  Before I reached the archway, Marguerite met me, her face pale and drawn. Years, it seemed, had passed since I had cupped my hands before her at the well two days earlier.

  “Marius,” she said, placing her hand on mine. “Last night … your father …” She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes.

  I waited, knowing in my soul this wasn’t good news she carried. So Marguerite was one of the caped figures who had met with my father last night. She had often stitched beside my mother. Perhaps Mama had taught her to read, as well.

  Marguerite glanced over her shoulder, then brought her face closer to mine and whispered, “The mercenaries arrested him early this morning. We were gathering in secret. Your father was sharing, talking about what he had read in the Bible when they burst through the doors.” Her mouth quivered. “They should have taken me as well.”

  “Where is he now?” I asked.

  “The guardhouse.”

  “Isn’t there something we can do?” I asked.

  She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them. “God knows I’m praying for an answer.” She sighed deeply. “They arrested him for heresy.”

  Then she turned, and I followed down the last steps after her.

  At the street, she abruptly pulled her cape over her scooped blouse and vest, and over her dark hair and white heart-shaped cap. “Marius, please understand,” she said, “even if you’re told he’s evil—your father is no such thing. He is a good man, Marius. A brave man.”

  Then, hoisting her skirts above the snow and mud, she quickly walked away, head high.

  HOUSE TO HOUSE

  A rooster crowed from a rooftop as the sun rose higher over the horizon. Somehow, I had to talk to my father.

  “Marius,” Monsieur Dubois called from across the street. He stepped from his boucherie and met me midway, his eyebrows furrowed be
hind a teasing smile. “You want to find your father?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Father Arnaud has decided justice can be served just as well here in Venyre, rather than cart the men all the way to Avignon.”

  I had heard plenty about Avignon. A papal city, home to numerous bishops, and filled with cathedrals, monasteries, and chapels. Maybe justice would be less harsh in Venyre than in Avignon.

  “And a good thing, too,” Monsieur Dubois continued. He crossed his arms and placed his hands beneath his armpits. “We need a reminder here of the power of the Church. We need a deep cleansing from time to time.”

  “My father,” I said. “What will they do to him?”

  “The prisoners are locked up, to be tortured,” the butcher said matter-of-factly.

  Torture. I closed my eyes.

  “The clergy will get their confessions of heresy. They always have. They always do.”

  “But … Not my father! He’s done nothing wrong. He’s a good man.”

  “That’s not for you to decide, Marius.” The butcher rested his flabby hand on the top of my head. “Perhaps this is true justice at last,” he said.

  I slapped away his hand.

  “Your father always thought he was too good for the rest of us. Started to question everything like an outsider.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “You don’t know anything about my father.” He can read, I wanted to say, he knows as much as any priest, but I held my tongue.

  “I know this,” the butcher said. “Your mother, an unusual woman, kept too much to herself. And your father—he was blind to her oddness, completely taken by her.” His words came faster and spittle formed at the corners of his mouth. “He and I grew up friends, right here on this street. He went away, in search of greater opportunities as an artisan, but when he returned from his travels with her, she had clearly cast a spell over him. He bowed to her, wasn’t man enough to put her in her place. He could never see beyond her beauty, but I could. I saw she wasn’t like other women, all those fancy words, her way of charming with the lute.”

  I opened my mouth, ready to defend my mother, but held back, letting the butcher ramble.

  “She was a tool of the devil, if ever there was one.”

  “No, she was—”

  The butcher lunged toward me, his face too close to mine, his breath vile. “She died,” he whispered, “before anyone could test her. I know, if she’d been thrown into the deep bend of the river, I’d trade anyone an ox that she would have come up swimming, proof enough that she was”—he spat out the last words—“a witch!”

  “And if she’d drowned, then what?” I’d heard this logic before.

  “Well, then at least your father would have come to his senses and started acting like a man.” Drops of spittle hit my cheek. “But she didn’t live long enough to be put to the test. Just long enough to leave behind a cursed child. I’m not blind, not like your father.”

  I stood my ground. “You know nothing about my mother or my father. Better people than you’ll ever be! All you do is pry into people’s lives, turning over stones to find whatever you can.” Heat flared up the back of my neck. I knew I was forgetting my place. I could be flogged for speaking to an adult this way. “You—you’re a fat, sniveling pig—scared of your own shadow!”

  The butcher lunged, hands toward my neck.

  I leaped away and bolted down the street.

  I rounded a corner into the square, where my father had more than once studied placards handed out by travelers. Studied them longer than most. Now I knew he had been reading the words.

  Donkeys pulled carts and merchants set up boards filled with squash and carrots, salted and smoked fish, pork sausage of every kind, herbs, and oils. Today, it seemed, neither the panic about heretics nor last night’s snowfall would keep them, or the sun, away.

  I darted behind a wagonload of bright fabrics, headed past the tavern where the wagon of caged men had been yesterday. They were gone. They, too, were likely imprisoned at the guardhouse across the square, the large stone building just beyond the gallows.

  I neared the building. At street level, a rat scurried through one of the grated windows to the space below, where prisoners were bound by chains to the walls. More than once, I had walked by and looked down, catching a glimpse of prisoners.

  I couldn’t look in. I’d stood up to the butcher who had tormented me and my brother for years, but what did that matter in light of my father’s fate? Torture. The thought nearly broke me. My energy drained as I drew closer and squatted beside a window. I wove my fingers into the castiron grate.

  “Papa?” I called softly down. “Papa, are you down there?”

  All was shadow below, and despite the damp, chilly air, a smell as foul as dead, bloated rats struck me. I clamped my hand across my nose.

  “Marius.” My father’s voice floated up from somewhere below. “Marius, if anyone sees you …”

  “No talking among yourselves!” shouted a much stronger voice.

  I huddled closer. My thin shoes were soaked from running in the streets. I began to shiver violently.

  Moments passed. Finally, my father whispered, “Take care of your brother, and of yourself. I’m in God’s hands now.”

  “Enough!” came the soldier’s voice. “You, who are you speaking to out there?”

  I sprang to my feet and darted away. I tore between carts, nearly tipping over a stack of woven baskets. A woman cursed me as I passed.

  Beside the church, I slowed, eyeing the side entrance door, then stepped into the silence. If ever I had needed a miracle, now was the time. I paused at the stone font, dipped my fingers in the cold holy water, then made the sign of the cross with the tips of my fingers, touching my forehead, my pounding chest, my left shoulder, and then my right.

  Thatched wooden chairs sat empty in neat, straight lines. For hundreds and hundreds of years, the Church had ruled; now people like my father were challenging its authority. I hesitated, unsure of my place within its walls. Should I even step inside to pray? Yet, if God was God, what did it matter? And if God was love, surely He would hear my plea for help. Help for a good father. Help for myself.

  Tiers of candles, a few lit and burning, edged the sanctuary. I knelt before them. “Lord God,” I whispered, “I pray for my father. May you keep him.”

  I didn’t know what else to say. I rose, closed my eyes with a deep breath, and suddenly felt the presence of someone beside me. A sense that I wasn’t alone.

  I opened my eyes and without moving my body, looked left and right. No one was there. I turned around slowly. I was completely alone in the sanctuary.

  A shiver passed through me. Had I sensed an angel? I closed my eyes again. The spicy, smoky, sweet smell of incense lingered from an earlier mass. My heart beat louder in my ears than any other sound. But the sensation was gone.

  The presence hadn’t been my imagination. I had felt it the way I had when my mother had been alive and was nearby. Perhaps it was a sign, just for me, that my prayers would be answered, even if I hadn’t prayed in Latin as the priests did. I opened my eyes again and walked down the aisle, my damp soles sticking on smooth marble.

  I reached the heavy side door, pushed hard, and eased outside. Sunlight glared off patches of snow. The clatter of hoofbeats grew louder, coming toward me. To my left I saw the abbot, riding his white-starred black horse. As he drew near, I ran to his side.

  “Abbot Joseph!” I made the sign of the cross. Here was an immediate answer to my prayer.

  The horse didn’t slow.

  “My father,” I said in a rush, running alongside the abbot, “has been falsely arrested!” Though Brother Gabriel and my father had both warned me about the abbot, I hoped I had won a small measure of favor in his eyes. I had a chance. “There’s talk of torture and heresy. Please, please, help him, I beg you!”

  Abbot Joseph looked down absently, his red-splotched forehead stern, his jowls loose in his face. Then his eyes brig
htened. He pulled his horse to a stop. “Oh, the lute player. Have you made your decision then? I’m waiting to hear you play.”

  “I—I wasn’t asking to play,” I said, catching my wind. “My father has been falsely arrested. There’s been a mistake!”

  The abbot turned away and looked straight ahead. “Talk to me only when you have something to say. Something I want to hear. Of course, I could require you to play your lute, but I prefer that it be your own choice. You’ll play better then.” He lifted his horse’s reins and galloped into the square.

  I followed at a distance, slowly. What kind of man of God was this? He had no heart at all. Only his own will, his own wants guiding him. He didn’t care a speck for my concerns or for my father.

  As the abbot reached the center of the square, a crowd began to form beside the fountain. Soon, several priests assembled. A trumpeter blew his horn, drawing in a larger and larger audience. I waited, glancing toward the guardhouse.

  Soon, the crowd quieted, and the parish priest, Father Arnaud, took his place beside the abbot and announced: “Today, in the village of Venyre, the Church makes a plea.” He held his arms wide. “This is the day to uproot all evil, to bring all heretics, witches, werewolves, and workers of sorcery to justice before Holy Christmas Day. Evil is spreading across France. It has too long lingered beneath our roofs, causing a stench to reach God Himself. Yesterday,” he said, sweeping his palm over the crowd, “yesterday was a beginning. Today the Church will prevail. All who know of neighbors cavorting with the devil, defying the ways and doctrine of the Church, must step forward now. To hold your tongue is to sin against God Almighty.”

  Murmuring passed through the crowd, then individuals began to step forward, one by one.

  The peasant woman with the basket of chickens limped forward. I noticed her basket was empty. “My chickens were alive when I came here,” she said, wagging her finger at the crowd, “but now they’re dead. All of them! Someone here put a curse on them!”

  I didn’t want to linger. I started to walk backward, to get as far away from this kind of neighbor-against-neighbor justice as I could. Suddenly, I felt a familiar, thick hand grab my forearm. I glanced over my shoulder. It was Monsieur Dubois.