Chapter XLI #2
I don’t like this, Sebastian. The bishop and the Archangel’s puppet meeting in secret? The Almighty is playing a very long game in Gévaudan, hissed my Guest.
Or Avstamet is playing them all. Now be quiet, I’m trying to listen.
“Your service remains invaluable, Lieutenant,” said the bishop,
on the far side of the orchard. His unmistakable voice was enough to dispel whatever anonymity his disguise afforded him. “It is not yet finished, however. The Beast’s corruption cannot be allowed to spread.”
“Another one, Monseigneur? Is this necessary?”
“Lord Bauterne, set it all to the flame. Store and stable, pasture and fold. We will raze this farm back to the bedrock, that it may flourish anew with the Lord’s grace come springtime. Then we will move on to the next.”
“And who will be left to till the soil, come springtime?” I murmured to myself.
Bauterne seemed troubled by the bishop’s words. Bladed wings flickered in the smoke around him; the Archangel was no doubt offering some choice advice.
“If I may object, with respect, Monseigneur—surely we can—”
“You have pledged your very life to the pursuit of the Beast, Lieutenant, and to me as the hand of the Almighty in Gévaudan. Will you falter now, at the last?” The bishop removed a glove and extended his hand, displaying his ecclesiastical signet.
Bauterne seemed about to object further, but then he stepped forward and kissed the ring, bowing his head.
“Have faith, Lieutenant, always. Faith will be rewarded,” purred Fontaine. “Now, what is this other matter you wish to discuss? Quickly, if you please. I do not wish to be seen.”
“Thank you, Monseigneur. Please, wait a moment.” Bauterne called to the men and a makeshift travois was dragged over toward him. It was covered in a blanket that bucked and twitched. The men pulling it seemed eager to leave it behind.
“It is as I described, Monseigneur. The other hounds are scared of her, ever since the day at Saint-Julien. She eats and eats. This is an unnatural sickness,” said Bauterne.
He lifted the blanket on the travois and—thanks to the Litany—I received a face full of the stench it released. I began to gag, breaking my focus.
“What is it?” whispered Antoine, his hand on my shoulder. “Are you well?”
“Soeur,” I answered, drawing a deep breath of comparatively clean air. “Bauterne has Soeur with him.”
“The mastiff? I thought she died at Saint-Julien.”
I held up a hand for patience and resumed my eavesdropping—taking shallow breaths this time.
“You are correct. This is an unholy affliction,” said the bishop. He did not descend from his horse for a closer look.
Soeur was all but unrecognizable. The Lieutenant of the Hunt had bound her to the travois, and with good cause.
The enormous hound had grown monstrous, her forequarters bulging with muscle and her form desperately misshapen.
Her terrible injuries from her fight with the Beast were still in evidence, though they did not bleed.
Soeur’s hindquarters were limp—her back was certainly broken.
But even in her shattered condition, the huntsman’s favorite thrashed ferociously, spewing great ropes of foam from her muzzle.
It looks like your little meat-sheath was not the only one who received a gift from the Beast at Saint-Julien, said Sarmodel.
I remembered Soeur from that day, covered in the Beast’s blood and plasma as he swatted her into the riverbed.
His very essence in the wound, Dayane had said.
The king’s hunter regarded his stricken pack leader with sorrow.
“I find myself tested to my limits, Monseigneur. I came to help these people, to do my duty as a servant of the throne and of the Church. But with all my skill and all the hunters in Gévaudan at my side, I can find only blind trails and fewmets, and this hellish Beast is laughing at us, I am sure. At every turn I seem only to make matters worse. The Gévaudanais welcomed me once; now they spurn me at the threshold, and nor do I blame them. These men I must work with—the Ennevals—they hate me still, though I have sought to uplift them with example and earnest instruction. They would rather see me thwarted than share a victory with me.” He shook his head.
“And now this. My Soeur. Can you help her, Monseigneur? If this is indeed the work of evil, is there not something you can do?” Bauterne seemed close to tears—for a moment, I pitied him.
“You say faith is rewarded, and she has always been my most faithful, my dearest.”
Fontaine, snared in his own words, smiled benignly. “I regret that I am no healer, my son. Nor can evil be cured with simple good intentions. If she is to endure this trial, then she must do so under the strength of her own spirit.”
Bauterne was crestfallen. “Will you pray with me then? It would give me great comfort to know the Lord receives my prayers alongside yours.”
The smile began to slide. The bishop was silent for an uncomfortably long time. “I will pray with you, if so you desire,” he said at last.
Sarmodel snorted. Oh, come! Prayer? The hound is a disastrous mess. Give her a swift death and bury her in salt.
The bishop dismounted, no doubt to the great relief of his horse.
The two men knelt together beside the snarling Soeur, their heads bowed.
Michael’s wings opened protectively above them, flashing more brightly than the flames of the bonfire and thrusting me abruptly back into my own surroundings.
It seemed the realm of prayer was sacrosanct; the Archangel would not permit my intrusion any further.
“Come,” I said to Antoine as my vision cleared. “We should leave before we are seen.”
1. The Beast’s male Incarnation was not necessarily a reflection of the gender of his host; for a Spirit, part of the appeal of living flesh is that it can be shaped.
2. What we call “love” is a complicated and ultimately quite mysterious process of anima enrichment.
The powerful energies exchanged between lovers—not to mention their various reproductive emissions—are therefore highly sought-after by Spirits and occult practitioners.
You are likely beginning to understand why Sarmodel was so eager for me to pursue Antoine’s affections.