Fallen horses did save many a goat and lamb from an early encounter with the butcher.
14. Antieux: Instrumentality
Brother Candle was not accustomed to petitioning the Good God for much but strength to stand firm in his faith. He found himself doing that with painful frequency, and as often tried to intercede for Kedle Richeut.
The Connec east of Castreresone was afire, figuratively. Two minor Arnhander forces, of fewer than a hundred men each, were hanging on in hopes that Anne of Menand would send help. Kedle had driven both behind walls. Each day there was a story about another savage ambush that claimed Society brothers or Arnhander soldiers.
And Socia smoldered with jealousy. Brother Candle strained to keep her focused on being a mother and master of Antieux.
Bernardin Amberchelle encountered few challenges to Socia’s rule. The military class loved her. The people were accepting.
It was a time of incipient prosperity. Military success made that possible.
* * *
Socia trapped the Perfect over a late evening meal, in a side chamber off the kitchen where each often ate in private. She had had a trying day. “Master, do I have the power to create law by fiat?”
The old man’s spoon paused an inch from his mouth. “Excuse me?”
“I want whining made punishable by flogging. And stupidity made a capital offense. The things these people want me to decide! They’re idiots! It’s ridiculous! They all act like spoiled four-year-olds.”
Brother Candle said, “They throw tantrums?”
“Why can’t they use a brain? Why can’t they take some responsibility for themselves?”
The Perfect kept his own counsel.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Oh. Oh, no you don’t! You aren’t turning this around on me!”
Again the Perfect said nothing.
“It’s different!”
His smile said, of course it was. When Socia Rault whined, that was important. She was not some shopkeeper or artisan who just wanted a little respect.
“God damn it! All right. You win. I might have to bare my back to the cat, too. But, even so…”
“You will find, as you mature, that most people are weak. And lazy. Weak, lazy people whine and complain. Otherwise, they would have to take a risk to make things right. And the wrongs they suffer often don’t need righting because they exist only inside their minds.”
Now Socia began to sulk.
“It takes special strength to do the right thing and a good eye to recognize it.”
“Life lessons. With you it’s always life lessons.”
“That is my calling, girl. I am supposed to be a teacher.”
“Yeah? Well, you take it too damned serious. Listen. You weren’t there for the petty assizes.” She regaled Brother Candle with tales of trivial petitions.
He replied, “I see why Raymone was always off risking his neck. Why, though, do such matters get past the neighborhood magistrates? Ask. Strongly. Because those problems ought to be handled by parish priests and justices of the peace.”
“Easy to see why priests dodge issues. They’d put themselves on record. That could haunt them down the road, if the Church ever has its way with Antieux. The justices probably don’t want to offend their neighbors so they pass everything on to me.”
Brother Candle nodded. This whine did merit attention. He might drop a word to Bernardin. To be successful Socia needed her government to perform at every level.
Yes. In this Bernardin’s special talents might be especially useful.
Speaking of that particular devil …
“Master. Look! There’s something wrong with Bernardin.”
* * *
The side chamber Brother Candle shared with Socia was not large. They had been alone till Bernardin appeared, though Kedle’s cousin Guillemette had been in and out, bringing drink and clearing dirty platters. In the scandal-ridden Connec, with its traditions of romantic love and casual infidelity, even prigs did not lose sleep over a sixty-eight-year-old Maysalean Perfect being alone with their Countess.
Bernardin did appear to be in a trance.
He was not alone. A woman followed him. Or, on closer examination, a girl fifteen or sixteen but so stunning her youth was not instantly obvious.
She was tall. She was slim. Her eyes were big and blue. Her mouth was wide and her lips puffier than most. In one hand she carried a metal bucket. In another she held a five-foot staff with a one-foot T-top. In a third hand she carried a quartzlike crystal a foot long and two inches thick. A dark green shadow stirred inside. And in her other hand she carried another bucket, this one made of wood.
Brother Candle hardly noticed the extra hands. He could not rip his gaze away from that captivating face, surrounded by that cloud of wild blond curls, long enough to examine the semiprecious stone rosary she wore. She had a small spot just above her lip, on the right side. It was the most fascinating dot in the universe.
Though he could not check he suspected that Socia was equally enthralled.
Bernardin gobbled out noises to the effect of, “She has brought gifts.”
Brother Candle grunted.
Then, slowly, he reddened, betrayed by a response that had not troubled him in decades.
He had an erection.
The girl smiled, showing impossibly perfect teeth. She knew.
Neither the Perfect nor the Countess challenged her presence. The demon-she had to be a devil, if not the Lord of Darkness Himself-settled her burdens on the supper table.
Brother Candle finally tore his attention away.
It shifted to the metal bucket, looming as large as a farm pond. Four whale-shaped fish a foot long swam lazily there. All four rolled over, revealing pus-yellow bellies, round mouths that seemed to be laughing, and bulging, side-mounted eyes. The demon grabbed Bernardin’s shirt, pulled him close. He panted like he had just run a mile.
She removed his shirt. Bernardin shuddered as though she gave off epic static sparks. She took a fish from the pail and pressed it against his chest, then grabbed another and another till all four had attached themselves. They sank slowly into Amberchelle’s flesh.
“Thou wilt know their time. Don thy shirt.” There were no signs of the fish beyond savage purple scars.
Numbly, slowly, Bernardin dressed.
The girl turned on Brother Candle. She was a devil for sure. Succubus came to mind. Never in his wildest younger years had he imagined such intense temptation.
He remained rock hard.
“Take up the staff.”
He did as he was told. The staff looked like planed laths painted white, actually rather goofy. The top of the T was at eye level. The demon girl thrust a hand into the wooden bucket, came out with a pair of snakes too large to have fit while another serpent lifted its head a foot above the lip of the bucket. The girl draped the first two on the staff.
Brother Candle blurted, “You’re making me look like Asclapulus. Or Trismagitarus.” He mispronounced both names but did not know that. At least one of those classical Instrumentalities had something to do with snakes.
“Undress thyself.”
He did not want to do that. He could not find the strength to disobey. In a minute he had become a bony, withered old thing shivering while his manhood determinedly proclaimed itself. Bad enough, that, but, worse, Socia’s gaze had become fixed upon it. He was a freak, like a man who had lost his ears and nose.
The devil girl took a snake from the T and laid it along the length of the outside of his left arm. It felt cold but neither damp nor slimy. Then he felt nothing at all.
Socia blurted, “Oh, my God!”
The snake melted into his skin. Unlike Bernardin, he suffered no scarring. The serpent became a ferocious, multicolored tattoo with its grimly fanged business end on the back of his left hand.
Before he got over the wonder the girl laid another snake along his right arm. Then she drew a third from the wooden bucket. She eyed his embarrassment, developed a mischievous look.