Six: Of the Marriage on the Bank and the Visitation in the Stable

In the storm’s aftermath, a fevered woman of St. Martin-le-Preux, Mathilde, wanders toward the river, shunned by neighbors and haunted by plague visions of a breath-stealing goat. Desperate for water, she discovers Thomas lying face down at the bank. Mistaking him for dead and beautiful, she slides her dead husband’s ring onto his finger, declares herself his wife, kisses him, undresses to “ready for bed,” and dies across his armored back, her skin marked with dark plague tokens.

A priest later finds Thomas and Mathilde’s corpse and brings Thomas to his house. Thomas wakes in pain, recalling a nightmare of frogs. He and the priest assess his wounds: a grievous puncture near his groin from the river creature, swelling that may fester, and likely plague. The priest has already given last rites and assures Thomas that he slew the river monster, which floated away leaving its entrails behind.

Before dawn, Thomas hears labored, pierced breathing outside his window, a sound that drags him back to memories of Crécy and his dying lord. He staggers out, sees a limping figure heading toward the stables where the girl sleeps, and tries to follow, but his numbed leg collapses him.

Regaining consciousness, Thomas glimpses the girl speaking with a shirtless figure bristling like a spined man by lantern light. He blacks out again and then finds the same figure helping him into bed—no spines, but ash-wood arrows jutting from his chest. The short, dark-haired youth, eyes luminous with pain, presses a hard thumb to Thomas’s brow, forcing him to lie back, then limps away, coughing blood.

Left with the sting of that imprint, Thomas drifts into sleep, whispering, “Saint Sebastian, help me,” framing the encounter as a possible saintly visitation while he lies between infection, exhaustion, and uncertain salvation.