It has been asked for several times, and so I will tell you the story of how I got my scar.
They have gone missing sometimes two at a time. Vanished from flocks and fields, from market, from the roadways. They were there one minute, and then the next…
The rumor has scorched the ground, setting my home alight faster than the English. Most here have been crushed by this war that will never end, and even though some survived Patay, or Orleans, they cannot recall when they held their children so close. Strong men mumble prayers at the altars, journey to parishes far afield to beg the saints to protect their sons and daughters.
I am certain of this, because I hear them. With each whisper, I know my time here is short-lived.
I am moving barrels in the crypts when the abbot appears at the base of the stair. He carries a candle and a small, leather satchel.
“Guarin!” The candle is set upon a shelf, and gutters terribly with his frantic movements. “To me.”
With false exertion, I tip the last barrel into place, wipe my brow as I have seen other men do, and come to his side. On a nearby table, he begins to lay out parchments, a quill and ink, and sealing wax. I watch him with a growing sense of anxiety. His face, usually quite jovial, is drawn tighter than a drum and set in a grimace of pain. There is a furtive look in his brown eyes, and he wheezes as he tips into the only chair.
“Come here, my son.”
I drop to my knees before him. He rests a hand upon my shoulder and catches his breath.
“Forgive me, Blessed Virgin.” He says to himself. He is a frail man, and the warmth of the day has been stifling, the coolness down here is a welcome reprieve. His coarse habit is damp with perspiration. “Guarin, do you know La Boucardiere?”
I know the hamlet, as their farmers came to the fair to trade for goods. The scent of nervousness clings to him; as I nod, my nostrils fill with it, and the sound of his heart is a warning. I brace for what I can already tell is coming.
“A man called Sergent came to the Abbey today. His boy was snatched from his home — no one knows when. They went into the field, and when they returned, he had vanished.”
I press my lips upon the sharp edges in my mouth— proof that God is either a fool or a liar, that He should allow one such as I to exist and conceal myself within His Holy Church, so very easily. The abbot is weaker for his charity, and yet stronger for it too. He cannot know what this demon would do to protect him, though it be against his wishes.
He looks deeply into my eyes and takes a breath. We both know what he is about to say, but this well-meaning punishment must be delivered for the good of us all.
“Forgive me, Guarin, but if they cannot find the boy, they will come for you. Only the Devil waits for an invitation.”
My eyes close on the rage that phrase awakens in me. I have learned many things, chiefly that the Devil waits for nothing. Even the Maid could not escape the Father of Lies, though in her eye burned a mad fire like unto no other I have ever seen. Even she became a martyr, even she has had her memory besmirched. The pennants of the False Jeanne d’Arc have not even touched the ground, and here they are, warding off evil by merely ignoring its presence.
There is not a family here that has escaped carnage, had whole branches lopped from the tree in one battle, one raid, one disease, but this…this is all God’s plan.
The abbot places his hand atop my chaperon and worries it with his fingers. “I know that you were here when he went missing. I know you are a good man, Guarin. I would protect you.”
For all his tenderness, he will not speak all that he thinks.
I am the mute, and even though I came to town with the sword of a dead Englishman on my back, there are no credentials to defend me. Soldier or not, injured or not, dumb or not, I have brought an affliction to them.
This boy’s disappearance, whether or not my doing, is because of me. I have invited the Devil.
God’s plan…I know not what I may be, but I can safely say I have never seen sign of God. Surely I must be a demon, to blaspheme in my heart so fluidly. The eucharist — His body, His blood — I would rather dine on corpses.
He leans forward, his breath clouding around me in vapors of hippocras and cheese. His voice catches as he pats me gently. “It is unfair, that you should be kept from grace.”
I blink up at him, stunned. To say such a thing at all is unthinkable, but to say so within the walls of the abbey, borders upon heresy. “Fair” is not for him to decide.
“Our Father would not exclude one such as you, for want of a voice.” He waves aside my shock and rewards me with a knowing smile. “Therefore, I will confess you. I will make certain that you go from this place with as much protection as I can offer.”
He speaks words in Latin. It is a language I do not know, but to which I feel an eerie kinship. It is the tongue of the Church, but I have heard that it is also the tongue of the Romans, their roads all they have left behind. Ruins scattered about, picked at for stones. It is like carving one’s life from a carcass, wondering, all the while, what behemoth has fallen so generously.
“You killed men, in battle, did you not, Guarin?”
So many men. At Patay alone I am certain there were at least fifty, and not all of them in the heat of combat. Some were merely injured, trapped beneath their comrades or horses. In the dead of night, I feasted, while Jeanne’s priests wandered through camp with last rites and triumphant blessings.
The abbot catches me in a look of deep understanding. “You killed men out of battle, did you not, Guarin?”
He is wise, this man of God. Just as he wears his vestments, I wear the mantle of a killer. But I am not the only one. Such is the custom, to rid this land of its usurpers. Any Goddamn is fair game, any enclave of Burgundians, a decent meal. In the name of the Dauphin and Saint Michael.
“Have you ever knowingly harmed someone who was innocent, Guarin?”
I shake my head. The hunger rises, but despite my best efforts, I cannot control it. And so, almost from the moment I opened my eyes, I have carefully avoided them, until the evensong or the smell of blood lures me in. Always, I leave them as I find them, or better, out of penance.
He makes the sign of the cross before me. “Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.”
Gratefully turning from my gaze, he takes up the quill and begins to carefully transcribe a document. I know that though he has sheltered me within these walls for almost a year, he has not fully been at peace with me. Just like the children who continue to vanish one by one, he senses it. He convinces himself it is the violence I have done, and like so many other men, my soul has been steeped in blood for the good of the country, but this opportunity to banish me is something for which he has waited.
“I will write you this letter, to take to whomsoever you wish. I will tell them that you fought with the Maid. I will tell them you are good and righteous, and that you work tirelessly. I will tell them you are godly.”
For all the good it will do.
“I will say that you cannot speak for being kicked by a horse.”
He glances up. When our eyes meet, I blink my thanks; better an injury than a defect of some divine sort.
“It is the truth, no?”
He is granted a tightlipped smile.
I listen to the scratch of the pen. It claws like the chickens pecking the mound of rocks beneath which all my secrets are kept. Where am I to go now? It was never meant to last, for surely the waning occupation has starved me. Best to move north — Caen, Rouen, the great strongholds of Normandy are still in their clutches. There is certain to be fighting enough to feed the devil within me.
As if he can hear my thoughts, the abbot clears his throat. “Go to Tiffauges. My lord de Rais is still there. Conscript with him once more, for they say he is generous, most especially to men of your condition and experience.”
Oh yes, and tales abound of the ribalds now in his employ, scouring the countryside for spoils rather than the invader, servants of a prodigal master more interested in theater than his duty.
I would sooner eat these men, than join them.
And perhaps that is precisely what should be done. Tiffauges is still within my territory. I can avoid a confrontation with my fattened Norman or Anjous kin, all while ridding the area of the few routiers who avoided the bastard de Siqueville’s mad dash to seize Le Mans.
The letter is dried and folded, sealed with wax and tucked back within the satchel. “Take whatever you need, Guarin. Take bread, cheese, a flagon. See to it you are well-provisioned. I cannot give you a horse, but you did not come in with one.”
I accept his gifts with a small bow. As I turn to make ready, he calls out the name he gave me.
“Live a life so earnest in the service of God, that you need never defend yourself with lies, my son. That you cannot speak may bar you from the Kingdom of Heaven, but it will be your savior in Purgatory. Your tongue can never become an agent of evil.”
But what does it matter what a man says? What he does is the only significance, and I have done things that would send this poor man to the grave for the hearing. I am reaping what I have sown. I must leave another village, for a crime I have not committed, because everyone knows that I must surely have done something.
And so I have, and will continue to, for as long as God keeps me on this earth. However long that may be.
I leave him sitting there in the dark, the rattling in his lungs. I collect what little I call mine, the sword, and the braquemart, and make for the rocks. Beneath the heavy stones, I find what remains of the last wanderer to fall into my clutches. It is wrapped in wool, and covered in maggots, but it will have to do. I brush off the meat, and wrap it in layer after layer of dry grasses. Slinging it over my shoulder, I strike out for the road.
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