Shield of Three Lions (19 page)

Although Enoch glinted smiles in my direction, by and large I was as noticed during this treasonous blather as if I’d been a cur. But I heard and I decided: thief or no, Fat Giselle was my only chance and I needs must act
at once.
If Enoch won Wanthwaite by battle, then I was finished.

ENOCH DECIDED TO SUP THAT VERY afternoon with Magister Malcolm in order to continue their talk and sent me home to wait for him.

“Don’t worry if I be late,” he said.

But I was already on my way, praying that Dagobert would be in his quarters, and again Fortune smiled, for he was haggling with Madame Annette about a message he claimed had gone astray. Finally becoming impatient, I interrupted to ask him to lead me once again to Fat Giselle’s.

The hour was still early but the air dark and sultry under a sullen sky. Late-autumn flies bit us fiercely to alert us to the coming storm and we hurried as fast as we could through the thick mantle of fallen leaves. About halfway there, huge drops spattered on our faces and we began to run. Treetops bent in a wind we could not yet feel as the rain fell ever faster. Finally the storm grumbled loudly and broke as we streaked across the cobbles of the pink villa.

Inside, servants scurried to pull food and tables under the balconies while men above unrolled the canopy. Guests japed in loud tones about “getting cleaned” and seemed to enjoy the diversion. Fat Giselle was nowhere to be seen, but a waiter told us she was in her chamber.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Dagobert asked as he eyed the dicing table.

“Of course not. Enjoy yourself—I’ll be right back.”

I spoke more bravely than I felt, but fear is a sharp spur and I saw that Enoch and I were in a hot race back to Wanthwaite, “winner
take all.” On the stair up to Giselle’s apartment, the sky forked white and thunder shook the foundations, forcing me to huddle against the balustrade before continuing. I knocked sharply on the door, competing with thunder, then again.

There was no answer, but in the brief lull that followed I thought I heard voices within. Shivering in the rain, I beat again, only to have my effort drowned by another belch from the sky. I must have repeated my pounding a half dozen times before I gave up: either no one was there after all or I couldn’t make myself heard. Defeated, I looked up at the rolling heavens and huddled close to the door.

Whereupon the door swung open and I fell flat on my back into Fat Giselle’s chamber!

Stunned, I gazed upward as three heads and six breasts dangled over me! Three women, naked as jays!

Fat Giselle bent down and jerked me upward by my hair. “What are you doing, sneaking into my private chamber? Who are you anyway?”

“Oh! Oh!” I gasped. “I knocked, only …” And the pain was too great to say more.

She eased her pull. “Wait a moment, aren’t you the boy I picked for Zizka?”

“Aye, you told me to come back.” Tears choked me.

She was mean as a bogle. “You took your time about it. I daresay he has someone else.”

When she released me I felt like a discarded rag. I stood, weak and disconsolate, as the ladies considered me. Yet I was also intrigued by the variety of shapes in so small a number. Fat Giselle
was
fat after all, only her folds had an interesting contour, layered in great loops like a candle running down. The tall pretty one beside her was shiny gold all over, her curves elongated like melons, her muscles still supple. The last, a tiny shriveled dame, appeared well-used: her buttocks were flaccid bags, her breasts looked to have been chewed by wolves.

She was the first to speak. “Well, this is a real asses’ bridge. What do we do with him?”

“He’s a pretty child, and frightened,” said the golden one, reaching a tender hand to my cheek.

Both deferred to Fat Giselle who was studying me with the same intensity as of yore. “I’m never wrong, that’s the truth. I have an uncanny eye. Look you, is he not Love personified?”

The other two nodded in agreement.

Fat Giselle sighed. “I’ll have to take him to Zizka, but since he’s seen this much we might as well continue our business and swear him to secrecy. Better than turning him loose to gab to the wrong people. What say you, Margot?”

The small one said, “Aye, we can put the hook in him.”

“Tullia?”

“Yes, let him swear.”

Instantly I felt better. “I swear I won’t …”

“You’ll swear when and in the manner we tell you,” Giselle snapped. “Meanwhile, sit and be quiet. Alexander, was it?”

“Aye, Alexander of Wanthwaite,” I said in a small voice.

Fat Giselle shoved me into the chimney corner and placed a cup of hot wine in my cold hands. Trying to be quiet and invisible, I nevertheless coughed softly from a mixture of smoke, a sweet effulgence from their glistening bodies, and a third stench which was familiar but hard to place. The ladies lolled informally on plump cushions, Tullia with one knee drawn to her chin so that I couldn’t help gazing on her hole, Margot on her side so that her breasts now seemed collapsed bellows. Fat Giselle presided from a straighter position, but her fat naturally spread to make her seem a plump hen brooding on chicks. Assured that I was going to see Zizka and no longer affrighted, I gave myself up to the astonishment of the occasion. Never had I dreamed that women took their ease so, never having seen more than one at a time naked. Perhaps they’d just risen from naps and not had time yet to garb.

“Now I’m all addled,” Fat Giselle began crossly. “Where was I?” She thought for a moment. “Ah yes, according to his figures, there are now twelve thousand
poules
in Paris trying to catch lizards in their holes and the competition is keen.”

Which absolutely astounded me, for I could hardly recall ever
seeing any chickens wandering the Paris streets, nor could I recall any chicken I’d known eating a lizard.

“Therefore we have security to offer, a steady supply of swords for their sheaths.”

Bewildered, I tried to see how I’d missed a leap in her terms, moving from chickens to the military.

“Do you have any students in mind?” Margot asked in a slickery voice which made Tullia glance up sharply.

“Well, yes. Brother Matthew, an advanced student in the Cathedral School. He has only two—and I like the small number—and they seem of rather exceptional quality.”

Tullia sat up straight. “Surely you don’t mean Mathilde, that greasy
cocotte.”

“What’s wrong with Mathilde?” Margot asked angrily. “She has good fleshy thighs and a high nasal voice.”

“She’s a fool,” Tullia snapped. “Nothing above her eggy breasts. She acts like a tipsy adolescent when a hound brushes her skirts.”

Fat Giselle frowned. “Are you certain Brother Matthew can be trusted, Margot? You know I don’t like dealing with priests.”

Margot flushed bright red. “I don’t understand why you’re worried.”

Tullia agreed. “Really, Giselle, the Church isn’t demanding a share.”

“That’s not what I’m referring to,” Fat Giselle answered darkly, “and you know it. The pope’s letter very specifically referred to the Crusade in the Holy Land to destroy heretics. But who knows where the Holy Church will look for heretics when the Infidel is conquered? I predict right here in Paris—and our priest could prove dangerous.”

“I guarantee Brother Matthew’s high character,” Margot said stiffly.

“Tullia?” Fat Giselle asked. “Your opinion is more objective.”

Tullia paused. “Aye, and less certain. You know how much I respect you, Giselle. I can’t take your fears lightly. Perhaps we should accept Brother Matthew, since he’s
intimately
known, but take no more clerics hereafter.”

With that decision, their meeting was finished, leaving me both perplexed and humbled. I’d thought myself capable of following the most advanced lectures on the Pont, yet was unable to make any sense of their arguments or conclusions. Their terms shifted from husbandry to politics to the military and, finally, the Church, thus confusing their logic. I was awed by their erudition and understood for the first time Plato’s distinction between appearances and reality, for certes they didn’t look to be so deep.

Now they turned their attention on me, and it seemed that the storm intensified. Wind leaked in behind the black drapes making them billow; thunder growled round us like a mad dog. As the three naked women stood and gazed down, I subtly pressed my caul between my thighs.

“Is he for Ambroise?” Margot asked after a time.

Fat Giselle nodded.

“Isn’t he too young?”

“Nonsense, Bernardo was only eight. How old are you, Alexander?”

“Eight, ma’am.”

Tullia leaned forward and sprung one of my curls. “Alexander the Great, a fitting name. Isn’t he adorable?”

Feeling like a haunch of mutton, I nonetheless basked in their approval.

“I’d like to take him to Zizka while there’s still light,” said Fat Giselle. “Let’s make our ceremony short.”

She disappeared behind a drape and came back with three black candles, put them on the trestle and disappeared again while the other two added powders to the hot wine. When Giselle returned, with the candles lighted, wine flagons in hand, they formed a tight circle with their backs to me and chanted:

Benedicite!
Witches!

I dashed to the door and was caught again by the hair so that my neck near snapped.

“No, you don’t, boy. You fell into more than you bargained for, didn’t you? No harm will come to you if you do as we say, but you’ll swear …”

“I swear! I swear! Only let me go!” I screamed, whereupon I was pushed to my knees, enclosed by a cage of female legs.

“You’ll swear to the archfiend himself on forfeit of your immortal soul if you break faith.”

The legs moved to the drape, the curtain opened and I gazed directly into the yellow slab-eyes of a nervously bleating goat. Aye, that was the rancid odor I hadn’t been sure of. Using their feet, the witches turned the goat’s face to the drape and fastened a black candle between his short horns, then fell to their hands and knees in front of the animal. Now I found myself staring into Fat Giselle’s nether eye.

Margot, first in line, lowered her head three times to the ground.

“Praise Lucifer, Fallen Angel, friend to all women and the dispossessed, I do swear Thee everlasting obeisance. I pray that You fill Rafe’s scrotum with fistulas, let maggots devour his eyeballs, stick Mercury’s wand up his ass-hole and turn it slowly. In the name of the Archfiend Satan, I thank Thee.”

Whereupon she raised the goat’s tail and kissed his hole!

Deus juva me
, Holy Mary, St. George, St. Martin, please, please, they don’t expect
me
to do that! My heart shook my ribs so that I hoped to faint, only I didn’t and I was afraid to pretend in this company.

Margot had risen and Tullia was speaking:

“God of the sublunary world, all hail! Make my progress invisible so that I may not lose income, my delivery easy, my body supple to return to its shape. I thank Thee.”

She placed her lips firmly on the odious hole.

Giselle spoke all too quickly:

“My Lord, continue to keep me safe from the poisonous tentacles of the venal Roman Church. I thank Thee.”

Now I was before Satan’s knock-kneed besmottered back legs. My breath became shallow as bare feet nudged me and Fat Giselle hissed the words I must say.

“Take my immortal soul—to Hell—” I gasped, “if—I—ever—breatheawordofthis.”

I tried to get up and was held by the feet.

“Go on, Alexander.”

I tried to think of Wanthwaite; my throat grew tight, my head woodly.

I brushed my sleeve quickly over the area, held my nose and kissed the goat’s fud.

Somehow it was over, the goat back behind his drape, the witches gone, Fat Giselle dressed again. My head was whipped by the icy drench outside; gratefully I lifted my open mouth to be cleansed of goat taste before Fat Giselle thrust me under her cope and hurried me across the court to Zizka’s cottage.

We burst through the door without knocking and saw our host sitting at a desk, a second man behind him. Never had I seen so many candles used in such a small space, and each was backed with a circle of silver so that it glowed like the sun. Fat Giselle wrung water from her cloak, ruffled my plastered hair to make it stand up, then spoke unceremoniously.

“Here’s the boy I told you about, Zizka. He was negligent about returning and you may have filled the position.”

Position?
Another boy?
My gullet twisted in agony. I stared at Zizka as he reluctantly quit his study and stood to greet us. Tall and in monkish robes, he defied category, for he didn’t fit into any of the four nations which I now easily recognized. His eyes were sunken tarpits, his hair equally inky and pointed upward in such disarray that it might have been struck by lightening, his skin pale, his spade-jaw twice too long for his face and off-center. A strange wight rose behind him as a shadow, cloven in two parts: one side bald, the other bristling with brown hair, one side of his face painted white, likewise his tunic and breeches, the other bright red. Yet if he’d been properly garbed he might have looked more weird yet, for his eyes were uncanny,
huge and staring, and he wore a perpetual silly grin. Zizka gestured courteously to me.

“Come closer, boy; my eyes are weak. Giselle sang your praises for weeks and she’s a difficult mistress.”

Reassured by his deep kindly voice, I walked into the light. Zizka came around his desk and peered squint-eyed, then beckoned to the other wight.

“Brise-Tête, come see. Is this not a likely cherub? Quality here, true quality.”

Brise-Tête nodded enthusiastically.

“Boy, what’s your name and background? How came such an angelic countenance out of the Paris gutters?”

“I’m Alexander Wanthwaite, sir, and I’m only visiting Paris to study with my brother. We’re from—”

“Aragon?” he guessed, rubbing my plaid.