Chapter I: Renault
All along the courtyard, the chapel bell was ringing the snow off the roofs of the nearby buildings. The snow had compacted in several areas along the old structures of the monastery-school and the heavy brass bells (which were said to have been donated by the Spanish Regent in Paris) were now cracking the hardened grip of winter on the stone structures. The courtyard was a blissful white and the ice underneath the gentle frost from the morning earlier shone below the blanket like hidden diamonds.
The few trees that wound their bare and gnarled branches towards the sky had a lining of silver along every limb outlining them into caricatures of black and white. The bell rang through the school for the final time before a soft silence enveloped the courtyard only to be replaced by the slowly rising tune of monks chanting an antiphon.
The procession had entered the chapel already, and so had most of the students and staff of the monastery-school. They huddled along the inside of the church to escape the freeze, but shivered nonetheless in the simple Franciscan architecture which afforded no heating. Only the monks and priests seemed used to the cold: their habits, despite being thinly proportioned, appeared to shield them from any bitterness of cold.
The lead monk held high the cross as he moved towards the altar and his hands were still pink with warmth. If he had not been one of the mendicant orders, the poor man might have had to hold up a golden or silver-poled cross: something that would have pulled the warmth from the veins of his hands. Among the faithful gathered, the number exceeded what was expected of the small chapel. Nearly all the room was taken up from wall to wall with a small channel down the middle to allow the clergy to pass.
The chapel itself was not meant to house such a large gathering. Indeed, the small Romanesque building was only initially meant for the Friars Minor of the area and their needs. Even with the new funds funneled in by Madrid, the new chapel on the other side of the campus wouldn’t be built until the spring. For now, the staff and clergy made use of this humble stone and wood house of worship.
If there was one “advantage” in the smallness of the chapel it was that the congregation was packed so tightly and with so much haste before the liturgy started that one or two persons not in attendance would not be noticed. It was exactly why no one had noticed that Renault de Fronsac was absent.
He had strolled into one of the smaller gardens of the campus: one where there was a low stone wall surrounding it on three sides while the fourth was attached to the side of one of the buildings. The rolling hills above the horizon of the barricade were like snowballs aging in the morning heat. Renault held himself tightly with his jacket firmly around him. His nose turned pink in the drying stasis of the freeze, but his eyes scanned the air like a hawk: halfway between the serenity of the quiet and the frenzy of finding that one thing to arrest his attention.
“You didn’t go to mass?” a voice shuddered from behind him as if someone had thrown hail at the back of his neck. When he turned, a beige figure stood near the corner of the garden like a statue.
“Brother Jean…” Renault’s words froze almost as soon as he spoke them. Renault instinctively straightened up. The memory of the lashes he received from Sister Marie made him tuck his rear end in. He felt embarrassed as soon as he did it; probably because the friar chuckled a little from underneath his hood.
“Do you like it out here in the cold?” the monk said while walking along the fourth wall of the garden. He was trailing his eyes along the empty mounds of snow where the plants and herbs had already been harvested well before the winter arrived.
Renault was at a loss to answer as he watched the brown figure move across the field of gray from the building behind him. “I don’t mind it,” Renault replied.
“It doesn’t get this cold this time of year where your family lived does it?” Brother Jean bent his knees and squatted near a mound of snow where he carefully brushed away the frost to check at the ground underneath.
The young man following the monk’s movements and meditated on that question for a moment. It was true that his town never gotten this cold in that time of year, but thinking of the temperature of the town was puzzling for him, as if it should have been easier to recall and answer promptly. Instead, his thoughts were trapped thinking about something—all he could think of was heat: an infernal heat. He looked down to the snowy ground as if to think about something but the white blankness of the carpeted ground gave way only to a burning image. Black and red with the suffocating precipitation of grey clouded his view and made the blank vision of the ground below him into a canvas that screamed up at him. He could almost feel his face burning and he clenched his fists angrily. His anger had returned.
When he looked up, Brother Jean’s fist came speeding at his face. Renault nearly fell backward as he pulled his body to the left. His boots slipped against the ice underneath as the incoming fist sliced by his cheek. It took him only a moment to regain his balance, but by then, a second fist was already swinging from his right. This time, he ducked past it easily and rushed underneath it. “What are you doing?!” he cried out to his attacker.
There was no answer. The monk remained in his position with arm extended as if the punch followed through and his side and back were facing Renault. Even his face could not be seen through the screen of the side of his hood. Renault looked at him with his heart still beating as fast as marching feet as Brother Jean straightened himself up. Brother Jean’s head turned to face the young man but all Renault could see in his own confusion was the stone that had become Brother Jean’s face.
A punch flew from the monk but this time it was a feint. Dodging one way, Renault found himself on the receiving end of a kick from the opposite direction which connected with his gut with a thud. He was tossed in the other direction but kept his balance. This time again, another feint but Renault turned into the kick, deflected it with his elbow and then, twisting his entire frame, rammed his shoulder into the monk’s chest shooting them both to the floor.
Brother Jean was smashed between Renault and the ground, but he quickly wrapped his forearm around the young man’s neck and locked one of his legs in between both of his while twisting his entire body at the same time forcing Renault to bend sideways painfully. “Why are you fighting, Renault?!” the monk nearly screamed into his ear.
Renault tried to breath through the choke on his neck and his arms attempted to wrestle against the two held against him. His legs were immobilized and his back was being bent in an uncomfortable position. Nonetheless, he pushed with his nails against the monk’s skin and raised the forearm off of his neck just a centimeter. “You’re the one—” he attempted to say before the forearm overpowered his pull and slammed against his neck again. “You’re the one…” he repeated as best he could, “who started fighting me—”
“Yes, and if you don’t stop me, I will end up killing you,” the monk hissed into his ear.
Renault struggled against the grip and he could feel his fingers warming with the blood he was drawing from where his nails frantically gripped against the monk’s arm. “Why—” he tried to say, “just—for taking some money?!” he couldn’t understand it.
“No,” the voice came again, but this time darker; heavier: “because you killed her.”
Renault froze and for a split second, his struggling stopped. All he could see was the grayness of the sky above and he thought for that very instant: Then kill me then. But he couldn’t say those words. He hadn’t the energy. He felt like a coward and his mind reeled from the lack of air. He felt colder inside; deader inside.
Then he took in a sharp breath. The coldness in him changed. It was no longer the coldness of the air around him but something more like frozen steel. He knew it was something metallic because he could feel it on his tongue. That steel began to boil inside of him. “No!” he raged although as the monk was blocking his throat, it sounded more like a roar. “I couldn’t… do anything!” his struggle renewed.
“You’re such a liar,” the monk nearly laughed in his ear. “Is that what you tell yourself every night so that you don’t have to face the truth?” and here the monk’s voice approached Renault’s besieged ear and whispered: “your parents sent you here because you’re a murderer; a coward…”
Tears were already freezing down Renault’s face and the blood on his fingers was beginning to bond his struggling hands to the monk’s pouring forearms. Renault’s chest began to heave and his body was weakening, but his teeth were as tight as a jail and his arms began to pump faster against the assaulting grip. “No!” he screamed out again as he pushed and pushed gaining inches on the hold. “No! It wasn’t my fault! They were the ones! The Spaniards—the collaborators—all of you… She’s dead because of all of you!”
“Then prove it!” the monk roared in his ear, “show me why you’ve been bullying my students—show me that this is the source of your anger, Renault! Fight me or die!” with that the grip on Renault's throat doubled and the young man gagged for air.
A swift elbow to the side of the monk's robes and a centimeter of breathing room was achieved enough for Renault to slip his fingers underneath and push. Breaking free only meant that his upper body gained relief as his legs were still hopelessly clamped by the opposing force. Leaping forward, Renault twisted his upper frame until he could slam another shoulder shot on the other side of Brother Jean until the legs slackened and Renault rolled away. But he did not stop: as the monk began to rise to his feet, Renault crashed into him, bearing his shoulder right at the man's gut with a roar that would have cracked icicles off the nearby building.
Both went down on the frozen ground again but this time Renault bore on the monk's right and left swinging his arms wildly as Brother Jean held up his elbows to block the incoming blows. Renault was yelling at the man's face and one or two punches managed to land cutting the monk's eyebrow into a mountain peak of vermilion liquid. “It wasn't my fault!” Renault shouted as he swung harder and harder. Tears were already blurring his target and his aim was beginning to become poor. “I was seven... What was I supposed to do?!” his voice cracked and choked and his fists hit their mark more softly than before.
Brother Jean could see the subsiding anger and the tears flowed and saturated the young man's eyes as the monk's bruised arms continued to deflect the disorganised punches. “That's right, you couldn't do anything,” the monk repeated after him, “because you were impotent and weak. You were a coward who couldn't even protect the one he cared for,” Brother Jean spat at Renault's face, “that's why you beat up defenseless little schoolboys because you can't stand up against real men. You aren't a real man, Renault!”
The last part of Brother Jean's sentence was punctuated by Renault's voice vomiting another surge of anger as the fists regained their strength. Blow after blow now came with unrelenting force and some managed to clip at the monk's cheek with a sickly crack. “No!” Renault desperately challenged the words. “No!” he repeated as he slammed his fists into the defending arms.
“Then show me!” Brother Jean shouted through the punishment, “show me with your power that you're a real man! Kill the lies, Renault! Try if you can!” Blood splattered against the snow as Brother Jean's lip split under the next punch and his one eye was becoming to swell.
“I am a man!” Renault replied to the voice as if he couldn't see the human face underneath him anymore in between blows.
“That's why you came here isn't it?! You could have left any time but you stayed here, so show me that you don't need Sister Marie's whips anymore, show me how a man faces his demons!” Brother Jean spat blood as he shouted.
The punches came and came, but Brother Jean was no longer defending himself: he didn't need to. The punches were now missing his face and were landing against the snowy ground near his ear. Renault pounded and pounded and beat the ground until a small crater began to form where his fists were bloodying themselves against the frozen mud. It was there that his tears and blood were collecting: it was there that anger was now being forced into the earth: unearthed inside of him and finally buried into the ground. It was there that Renault was staring: it was there that he was depositing the dead parts of his body. “Madeleine... I'm sorry...” the young man cried before rolling off of his victim and onto the disturbed dirt.
Brother Jean quietly got up from the ground and wiped the blood away from his eyes. “Is it still your fault, Renault?” the battered monk asked quietly; the softness in his voice returning. Renault shook his head as he heaved breaths on the floor. “Is it the fault of the Spaniards?” that question took longer for Renault to answer and he shut his eyes tightly to let the tears fall downward along his temples before hurriedly shaking his head. The final question was the one that seemed to sink into Renault's heart the most: “then is it God's fault Madeleine died?”
Renault kept his eyes closed and he lay there on the chilly ground like a body ready to be entombed. His muscles slackened and the fresh cuts on his knuckles turned pink as he let blood rush through them. “No...” he said resolutely.
Brother Jean tried to smile despite his swollen lip. “The other brothers will come and tend to your wounds. You did good work here in the garden, Renault.” At the same moment that Brother Jean was giving his instructions did three other friars appear from around the garden corners.
Brother Jean began to walk off as the three monks helped Renault to his feet. Turning the corner, Brother Julien was waiting for his battered counterpart. “You could have said the word to have us intervene,” Brother Julien chastised his colleague.
“I was ready for it. Plus, if we're going to accelerate our plan for what's about to happen, we need to hurry this along...” Brother Jean said while spitting blood onto the floor. “Just make sure he and I are separated until he understands more... lest he attacks me without understanding what just happened there.” Brother Julien nodded to the request. “So what's next?”
“He will not be able to do this alone,” Brother Julien replied, “he'll need at least one maybe two partners.”
“And who's our next candidate?”
“One of the incoming freshmen: Elidio from Portugal.”
Chapter II: Elidio (coming soon)
