Worlds That Weren't

“I was going to ask…were you ever raped?” Guillaume was suddenly full of raw hatred that he could not express. “I-hope not. Just the thought’s made my prick wilt, and talking about that isn’t the way to bring it up again. Not in my case. Though I’ve soldiered with men who would come to attention instantly at the thought.”

His eyes adjusted to starlight. It illuminated shapes-the precise curlicues of bracken, and the crumpled linen mass of his doublet under them, colorless now; and her own hand, where it rested on his chest.

Guillaume whispered, “I’d take all your hurts away if I could,” and bent his head to nip at her heavy breasts.

“Yes…” Yolande smiled.

He felt her body loosen.

Her voice became half-teasing. “But that’s because you’re one of the good guys. I think.”

“Only think?” he gasped, mouth wet from trailing kisses across her body, under her pulled-up shirt. He reached down and put her hand on him, to encourage his prick upright again. “I’m good. What do you want, letters of recommendation?”

She spluttered into a giggling laugh.

“You see? In the dark, you could be sixteen.” He put her remaining hand to his face, and let her fingers trace his grin. “I knew I could make you happy again.”

With Prime and Vespers always at six A. M. and six P. M. here, it made the hours of the day and the night the same length, which Guillaume found odd.

On the cusp of dawn, he began a dream. Forests where it was hot. Holm-oak woods. Dwarf elephants, no bigger than horses. Men and women in red paint, who burned their children alive-sacrifices to deforestation, so that cities could survive. A scream that was all pain, all desolation, all loss. Then he was lost in the African forests again. And again.

He woke with a start, the nightmare wrenching him awake. Cold drafts blew across the pen, counteracting the bracken’s retained heat. Cool blue air showed beyond the half door.

Morning.

“ Green Christ! What time is it? ’Lande.” He untangled himself gracelessly, shaking her awake. His breath showed pale in the cold air. “’Lande! It’s past roll call! We’re meant to be on duty-oh, shit.”

Running feet thumped past outside. Lots of running feet. Men shouting. Hauling his clothes on, wrenching at knotted points, clawing under the bracken for a missing boot, he gasped, “It’s an attack! Listen to them out there!”

Loud voices blared across the morning. He cursed again, rolling over, trying to pull on his still-laced-up boot.

Damn! Huseyin Bey’s division ought to be a fortnight behind us at most. At most. We can stand a siege-if there hasn’t already been a battle to the east of us. If Huseyin’s Janissaries aren’t all dead.

“Don’t hear the call to arms!” Yolande pulled her shirt down and her hose up. She finished tying off her points at her waist, and knelt up in the bracken like a pointing hound.

“What? What, ’Lande?”

“That’s at the chapel!”

“Bloody hell.”

He struggled out of the pig shed behind her, shaking off bracken, not worrying now if anyone saw them together. It was a bright crisp morning, sometime past Prime by the strength of the dawn. So the rag-head monks would be there, to celebrate mass, and this racket must mean “Rosso! Margie!” he grunted out, having to run to keep up with Yolande.

“Yes!” Impatient, she elbowed ahead of him, forging into the crowd of mercenary soldiers already running toward the chapel doors.

He tried to catch a hackbutter’s arm, ask him what was the matter, but the other man didn’t stop. Guillaume heard the captain’s voice way ahead, piercing loud above the noise, but couldn’t make out all the words. Only one came through, clean and clear:

“-sacrilege!”

Yolande barged through the black wooden doors into a rioting mess of men and- pigs?

She reared back from the smell. It hit her as soon as she was through the doors. Hot, thick, rich. Rotten blood, fluids, spoiled flesh. Dung. And the eye-watering stink of concentrated pig urine. Yolande gasped.

In front of her, an archer bent down, trying to stop a sow. The small, heavy animal barged into him and knocked him away without any effort. Yolande caught at his arm, keeping him upright.

“What the hell is this?” she shrieked over the noise of men bawling, pigs shrieking and grunting, metal clattering and scraping against stone.

“The fucking pigs et her!” the archer bawled back. His badge was unfamiliar, a tall man from another lance, his face twisted up in rage or anguish, it was impossible to guess which.

“Ate her?” Yolande let go of him and put one mud-grimed hand over her mouth, muffling a giggle. “You mean-ate her body?”

The archer swore. “Broken bones of Christ! Yes!”

Another pig charged past, jaws gaping. Yolande jumped back against the Green Chapel’s wall as the gelded boar, mouth wide open to bite, chased a green-robed monk toward the open doors.

“Grab it!” the monk yelled, holding the Host in its holm-oak box high over his head. “Grab that animal! Help!”

Yolande’s hand pressed tight against her mouth, stifling another appalled snicker.