'Those are a fool's words!' Castinagis cried.
Roger started to shout back at him, but he hadn't the strength. He stuttered over several beginnings, but then just threw his hands up and wailed. Then, his legs giving out beneath him, he fell to his knees, sobbing. Both monks rushed to him immediately.
'I will arrange for her care,' Abbot Braumin promised.
'You will stay with us. Among friends,' Castinagis added.
Roger considered their words, their good intentions, for a brief moment; but any comfort or hope they tried to impart was fast washed away by an image of Dainsey, Roger's dear Dainsey, the woman he had come to love so dearly, lying feverish on a bed and calling out for him.
That was a cry that Roger Lockless, whatever the potential danger, could not ignore.
'No!' he growled, and he stubbornly pulled himself up to his feet. 'No, if you cannot help her, then I will find someone else who can.'
'There is no one,' Braumin said softly. 'Nothing.'
'Then I will stay with her,' Roger snarled back at him, 'to the end.'
Castinagis started to say something, but Abbot Braumin cut him short with a wave of his hand and a nod. They had seen this behavior before, of course, in Jilseponie, and so it was not unexpected that one who was not of the Church could not see the greater good against the immediate pain.
Roger started to walk away but stopped suddenly and wheeled about. 'I wish to marry her,' he said-and it was obvious that the thought had just then come into his mind-'formally, before the eyes of God.' 'She cannot come here,' Brother Castinagis said.
'Will you do that much for me, at least?' Roger asked Braumin. 'Perform the ceremony from across the tussie-mussie bed.' He stared hard at his friend.
Castinagis, too, looked at Braumin.
'I would prefer that you not return to her,' the abbot of St. Precious said. 'You ask me to sanction a union that cannot last out the rest of the summer.'
'I ask you to confirm our love before God's eyes as something sacred, for that it is,' Roger corrected. 'Can you not even do that much for me?'
Abbot Braumin spent a long time thinking it over. 'If I believed that there was some chance that I might convince you to abandon this lost cause, then surely I would,' he said at last, 'but if you are determined to remain beside the poor woman, then better that it be a union sanctioned by God. Go and bring her to the tussie-mussie bed, and be quick, before I become convinced that I, too, am playing the part of the fool.'
Roger was on his way before Braumin even finished.
Chapter 34
'Do not,' Francis warned the irate man with wild, bloodshot eyes and telltale rings on his bare arms. The monk stepped in front of the man. blocking his oath to the tussie-mussie in front of the man, blocking his path to the tussie-mussie bed and St.-Mere-Abelle, for Francis understood all too clearly that the brothers atop the wall with crossbows and gemstones were very serious about killing him if he approached.
' You cannot hope…' Francis started to say, but the wild man, the man who had just watched his only son carted off to the common grave, wasn't listening. He came forward like a charging bull and swung his heavy arms furiously.
Too furiously, and Francis, well trained in the arts martial, ducked the blow and hooked the arm as it swept above him, pushing it down and, with a simple step and twist, put himself behind his attacker. Before the out- raged commoner understood what hit him, Francis had the man's right arm bent up behind his back, while Francis' left arm was across the man's neck. Despite his great rage, the man was helpless.
The man tried to pull straight ahead, but Francis slipped one foot in front of him, and down they went, heavily, Francis landing atop the facedown commoner.
'Til kill ye all!' the man raged. 'I'll kill ye to death! I will! I will…' His voice trailed off as he broke into sobs. 'I will.'
'I understand,' Francis whispered. 'Your son… I know your pain.'
'How could ye? ' came a question from behind.
'What're ye or any o' yer stinkin' monk friends knowin' o' anythin'?' demanded another. Francis felt a boot come down heavily on the small of his back.
And then they fell over him, only a pair of men, but many others were cheering them on. They tore Francis free of the sobbing man and brought him up roughly. Though he managed to get in one quick punch against one man and a pair of sharp kicks to the other's shin, he knew that they had him caught-and understood that others would come help them if he wriggled free.
'Get him and kill him!' one man cried.
'Death to 'em all!' shouted another. Then the mob swirled about Francis, and then… parted, for shoving her way through it came Merry Cowsenfed, cursing and spitting with every step. When one man gave a particularly loud and threatening shout Francis' way, Merry promptly smacked him across the face.
'What're ye all gone mad?' she screamed, her unusual ire calming the crowd. 'This one's been helping us every day, and came out to us healthy! Can any o' the rest of ye say that ye'd be so generous if ye didn't think ye yerself had the plague already? Ah, but what a lot o' fools I got meself caught up with! To be hittin' so on poor Brother Francis!'
The murmuring of the crowd died away, each person turning to the next, as if waiting for instructions.
Then the two men holding Francis roughly pushed him free. 'Bah, Merry's right,' said one. 'This one ain't done nothin' earnin' him a beatin'.' He turned ominously toward St.-Mere-Abelle. 'But them others
…' he snarled, and the crowd erupted into ferocious cheers behind him. The man Francis had downed clawed his way back to his feet and reiterated his hatred for the Abellican monks.
Again, Francis rushed to the forefront. 'They have crossbows and gemstones!' he pleaded. 'They will kill you all before you ever get near the wall. And look at that wall! How do you plan to get over it? Or through it? A team of To-gai-ru ponies could not run a ram through that door, I promise you!'
Every point he made was perfectly valid, every one enough of a detriment to turn aside any reasonable person. But these were not reasonable people. No, they had lost everything, and in the pain and hopelessness of that moment, Francis's words rang hollow.
And so they started off, and so did Brother Francis-but not physically. The monk reached into his pouch and clenched his hand about his soul stone, falling into its magic, freeing his spirit from his body. He went right for the apparent leader of the mob, the man who had torn him from the grieving father.
He did not want to possess the man, but Francis did send his spirit into him. And once inside the man's thoughts, the monk began to impart images and sounds of slaughter, of men running, screaming, while magical fires bit at them and peeled away their flesh. He showed the man a scene of bodies piled twenty deep atop the tussie- mussie bed. He showed…
And then the connection was broken, suddenly, Francis' spirit sent careening back to his body. He blinked his eyes, working hard to recover from the shock, fearing that the slaughter had already begun. But the mob was still there, hardly moving, just staring at their leader, who stood openmouthed, staring blankly at the towering wall and at the deadly monks standing atop it.
Merry Cowsenfed was at his arm all the while, tugging hard and pleading with him to turn about.
The man, seeming unsure, glanced back at Francis.
'They will kill you,' Francis explained, 'every one of you.'
The man closed his eyes and clenched his fists at his sides, but whatever the level of rage within him, he could not ignore the simple fact that they had no chance even to get anywhere near their enemies. No chance at all.
The man growled and lifted his clenched fists into the air, but then he walked back from the tussie-mussie
