“I’m sorry, Mum,” Tillo whispered.

“For what, dear?” Agnelia asked while she tucked him into his small bed.

“I should have stayed. Fought with Clo.” His small body shook, and shame and embarrassment wracked the young boy. His eyes were wet with tears.

“Don’t you say that, little one.” She comforted him, wiping his hair from his face and tears from his cheeks. “If you’d stayed. I’d have buried two boys. Nothing you could have done.”

She held him while he cried, eventually drifting to sleep with his head on her lap. She brushed his hair and hummed a gentle melody to soothe the young boy to sleep.

With a small candle lit, she tidied up the house while she waited for Sigemar to return. It would be late, but she would wait.

The road to the Argenteuil estate was long, and Sigemar would have taken some time to get there, sell the cows, and return. The house was quiet, with the candle flame waving softly to the rhythm of Tillo’s breath. A slow breeze flowed through the spaces between the hold-stacked beams their home was built with. Sigemar would have to pack those shut before winter.

Sitting at the small table, barely big enough for four, too big for three, she rested her elbows. Alone, for the first time since they lost Clodoald.

The first tear rolled softly down her cheek. She remembered Clodoald sitting in the chair beside her, his legs swinging underneath him, eating pottage while his father had just left to fight the Burgundians. Clodoald had been the first to notice the way her belly bulged. He asked her what it meant.

She told him it meant he would be a big brother and needed to eat his pottage to be strong and protect them.

It was a stupid, careless thing to say. She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve and stiffened her lip. That was what she was supposed to teach him. To defend others. She should have taught him to run. Maybe then he’d be resting beside his brother now.

Through the cracks in the spaces between the beams, the wind whistled, low and sorrowful. And she cried, quietly to herself, falling asleep with her face buried in the wet sleeve of her tunic. It was the first time she cried since she lost her son. Her husband and remaining son came first. But alone in the dark, she cried softly, to avoid waking Tillo. While she waited for Sigemar to return.

***

Agnelia awoke, her face in her arm, seated at the table, where she had fallen asleep.

The door slammed open. Sigemar stumbled inside, silhouetted against the gray morning light. He staggered through the thick wooden door. She flinched—just like her father. The way he’d return home drunk, demand eggs and smoked bacon. Then beat her mother for not serving, what he couldn’t afford to stock the pantry with.

“Sigemar, you are home late. How—”

He growled, a deep, throaty growl. His lips curled at the edges as he stared at her with eyes as yellow as a flickering flame.

She stood up, her heart racing.

His fist still held the door open.

She knew that stance, the way a man balled his fists. Sigemar had never stood that way. It was why she loved him.

He stepped into the house, the door swinging shut, shaking in the frame as it struck.

Agnelia glanced toward Tillo, still asleep. She fumbled with her apron, she found her knife, gripping it and rubbing the handle between her fingers like a rosary. Her prayer that he was only tired and ready for bed.

“You must be tired. Why don’t you rest?” Agnelia flattened the apron and walked toward Sigemar.

“I need to eat.” He said, glaring at her.

“Of course, it won’t take long to get the stew to a boil.”

He huffed, lumbering forward.

“Did the Lord Arduin treat you fair?” She asked, adding a log and leaning over to stoke the fire, under the swinging pot. She watched Sigemar out of the corner of her eye.

Is he drunk? He doesn’t drink. Perhaps, he thought he needed one.

Her father always stunk of ale. That sour mash smell clung to him. Sigemar had a different smell. Usually, he smelled earthy, like dirt and musk. Now, he smelled like copper, old meat. His eyes blazed, but his skin hung from his face, like softened clay or dried leather.

“Hurry it up.” He demanded brusquely.

“I’ve got it, dear. Be patient.”

She remembered when her father had beaten her mother badly enough that she sought sanctuary at the church. They offered her refuge for a short time and counseled her husband. The nobles knew, but didn’t intervene in domestic matters. It was a man’s right to discipline his wife.

“Don’t tell me to be patient,” he slammed his fist on the table.

“Shh, Sigemar. You’ll wake Tillo,” she rose, speaking softly and touching his arm. She heard her mother in her voice, trying to soothe the beast.

He snatched her arm, holding it above her elbow and digging his finger into the muscle. Sharp pain shot up her arm. “Don’t tell me what to do, woman.”

She tried to pull back.

His grip was firm. “Maybe I’m not hungry.”

She stared into his eyes. His eyes flashed yellow—an inhuman coloring.

“Maybe I want something else.” He grins wickedly, his teeth straight and almost sharp in appearance.

Those aren’t your teeth. He had a chip in his tooth, and they were a pale-yellow color, not dirty, but these weren’t his teeth.

She tried to yank her arm back again.

“Yeah,” He clicked his tongue and stood. “I’ll take what is mine.” Holding her tight. He dragged her toward the bedroom.

Off balance, she stumbled. Falling to the ground.

Tillo stirred. “Mum?” He mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

Sigemar dragged her to the bed.

She slapped him, knocking his face to the side. He turned and set his jaw, the skin on his face pushed to the side, like a torn mask. His nose was pointed to the left, and his eye socket slid over.

He snarled at her.

She grabbed her apron knife, jamming it into the space below his armpit as he reached for her.

With a howl, he raged on the floor and let her go.

Agnelia stumbled to her feet. She scooped up Tillo, wrapped in his blanket, and ran out the door.

Her feet crunched desperately underneath her.

Tillo groaned and cried in confusion.

The wind in her lungs burned, and acid built within her calves and knees.

She ran.

Without looking back, she ran down the road until she couldn’t hear the howling.

Leaving the distant sound behind, they slowed to a walk on the road toward Saint Denis. In the pale morning light, a few distant birds chirped. The wind brushed the bare tree limbs together.

“Who was that in the house?” Tillo asked, fidgeting in her grasp, more relaxed but still a young boy who wanted to be put down.

“I don’t know, little one,” Agnelia replied. Her shoulders and arms burned, so she set him on the ground.

He took her hand and walked barefoot, wearing only his night clothes and wrapped in a small woolen blanket, down the old Roman road. “It was like Pa, but his eyes were wrong.”

Further down the road, small monastic buildings surrounded Saint Denis’s Basilica. The modest and simple building was built from what remained of an old Roman bath. Etched in stone on both sides of the doors was a relief of Saint Denis, the saint holding his head in his hands.

She sighed. And knocked.

Saint Denis had been beheaded, then carried his head to Montmartre hill, not far from here. But here he was buried in the crypt under the altar inside.

Behind the door, she heard feet shuffling. She stepped back, looking again at the carving of the man holding his head in his hands.

The Saint’s eyes, weather-beaten and gray, stared back. His face was hard, unmoving. Set in a grim expression, a warning or invitation.

A crack opened in the door. It was dark, flickering candle lights within.

Remigius’s friendly face appeared with a smile.

“Agnelia, Good morning.”

“We need sanctuary, Father.”

“Of course, these are trying times.” He opened the door to invite her in, his concern visible.

She walked in, looking around at a few others sitting on the benches facing the altar at the center.

Candles burned on small tables surrounding the dark room, the faint smell of stone, and the collective musk of the parishioners.

“Do I need to get you anything? Have you eaten?” Remigius asked. “We don’t have much.”

“Is it safe here, Father?” Agnelia asked.

“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?” he replied.

Agnelia looked carefully around the room at the others. Some appeared to be praying, others in need like her.

“Mommy, her eyes,” Tillo whispered, his arms and legs wrapped around her.

Theudilla, the old widow, smiled from the pew. Her eyes shimmered—yellow, like flame.

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The Story continues in The Horrors of War series.

All three of the Horrors of War books are available, free. Follow the links below.

Book 1 – O.P. #7 (Declassified Edition) → [https://books2read.com/u/4jM5Kv]

Book 2 – Objective 2 → [https://books2read.com/u/bMdLq8]

Book 3 – Casualty 6 → [https://books2read.com/u/bpo1zg]