Twelve: Of the Ones Who Knock by Night

Thomas, Delphine, and Père Matthieu take refuge with Jehan and Annette as ominous knocks draw closer. Delphine inspects the Jew’s cased relic and recognizes a lance tip. When a baby’s cry and a pleading woman’s voice lure them, Thomas opens the door.

A crowned stone Virgin stands there, clutching a plague-dead infant that still cries. The statue hurls the corpse at Thomas and attacks. In the chaos, it breaks Annette’s arm, mutilates her face, and kills her; then it gores Jehan to death. Thomas batters the statue but cannot stop it.

Remembering the relic, Delphine retrieves the lance tip and hands it to Père Matthieu. The abomination recoils, tries to disarm him using the corpse as a flail, then retreats, taunting Delphine as it backs into the night. A candle-sparked fire spreads; they hastily load the cart, snatch their gear and the relic, and flee the burning house.

On the dark streets, a woman begs them to take and bury an old man and to grant last rites; exhausted and shaken, Père Matthieu cannot stop, and they pass on. Near dawn they must skirt a church befouled by rot and blood. Its statues, many cradling dead children, animate and psychologically assault them: St. Paul vilifies the priest, St. Martin targets Thomas, and St. Anne threatens Delphine.

Reins dropped and minds reeling, the cart drifts until the unseen sunrise ends the assaults. They leave the Latin Quarter in grim silence, smoke-stained, bereaved, and clutching the lance-relic that proved the only effective defense.