Tag – Page 3 – Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog

Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 12

Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 12

Grasshoppers chirped and took flight. Bees buzzed from flower to flower. Wrens and blackbirds flitted from limb to limb. A bushtit danced on the dead girl’s barbette tugging at a loose thread, another made a hole in a stocking.

The woods grew silent as Baillot, Tardiff, Eric, Thomas, Verduan, and Patreo gathered in a semi-circle around the body.

Ide pushed through them. Thomas moved to hold her back but not quick enough. She looked at the young woman’s body and collapsed against her son.

Patreo reached into his cassock and pulled out a small phial. “Lay her down.” He pointed to a sprout of turf back aways from the body. “Over there.” One quick shake and he uncorked it under her nose. “Breathe slowly, Mother. Deep and slow.”

Her eyes fluttered then focused. She pushed him away and scrambled across the hard earth to the body.

Baillot frowned at the phial still in Patreo’s hand.

“Crushed Buckthorn with cayenne and some other herbs, Father.”

Ide gently adjusted the dead girl’s blouse and skirt. “I taught Julia needlework and weaving. She made these as I watched.”

Tardiff squatted beside her and gently took her hands in his. “Are you sure this is your daughter, Ide?”

Ide pulled her hands free and hugged the body to her. The blood on the face and neck turned her blouse a patchwork of bizarre leaf shapes, as if red maple leaves became hands, grabbed her blouse, left their ruddy mark then let go.

“Forgive me, Ide, but the face. It would be hard to tell by the face – ”

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Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 11

Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 11

Zevke and Saida sat in their kitchen. A candle flickered in the middle of their table and they watched it burn down. Daylight came in the east facing window and Saida poured weak wine into her cup.

Zevke pushed his cup across the table towards her.

She ignored his cup and nodded at the candle. “Time to turn the breads soon.”

He reached across the table to her and she pulled her hands back, out of his reach. A moment later she lifted her cup and sipped. She kept the cup at her lips and rolled it across them so she would not speak.

Zevke stared at her then at the candle. He brushed flour from his apron. “Soon. Yes.”

Saida put her cup on the table and turned it slowly. Her eyes and fingers inspected the small striations where the potter failed to smooth its surface before placing the cup in its final fire. She did not look up and a single tear fell from her eye. “What were you doing there?”

“I told you. Gathering herbs for our breads.”

She shook her head and smiled into her cup. Another tear followed the first. “What made you go inside? Did you think herbs grow on dark stone walls?”

Zevke rolled his eyes and they stopped to watch the gathering shadows. “You are worse than a nest of hornets, woman.”

“She was broken?”

Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 10

Hello again.

This is the first new Tag material I’ve entered since I posted chapters 6-9 early in February (I schedule a month’s posts in advance. Takes a day, saves lots of time and argita later on). There’s been major and minor changes to the story line since then. Some scenes were added, some deleted, some shifted in the plot line.

In any case, we continue here with Part III The Body – Chapter 10.

Enjoy.

Tag – Part III The Body – Chapter 10

Patreo rode a lope-eared donkey into the village. He passed Verduan’s cottage and Verduan ran out to him. “Father Patreo!”

“Verduan. Sorry not to come sooner. Church politics. Had to get permission to enter another parish.” Patreo looked around. “Buco guarding your herds today?”

“That or with my son. Or playing with the other dogs. Father Baillot doesn’t know you’re here?”

“He’s my first stop. Unless you have some water for Geselda here.” He patted the donkey’s neck with a gloved hand.

“What happened to your hand?”

Patreo held it up and laughed. “Oh, nothing. A slight burn. I wear the glove to keep some ointment on it while it heals.”

A woman walked hurriedly to the center of the road, shaded her eyes from the sun and scanned in both directions.

“Looks like the woman has a concern.”

Verduan nodded. “Ide, Julia’s mother. I mentioned her when we talked.”

Ide marched up to them. She spoke as quickly as she walked without acknowledging Patreo’s presence. “I asked you, is Julia with Eric?”

Patreo scratched Geselda’s ears. “Should she be?”

She ignored him and grabbed Verduan’s arm. “Is Julia with Eric?”

“No, Ide, and I haven’t seen her.”

Ide ran down the road, her skirts lifted in her hands.

“You have an interesting village.”

“I wish it weren’t so.”

“I should go tell Father Baillot I’m visiting. A short respite from my parish duties. I’ll offer the bishopric suggested I council with an older, wiser priest.”

“Oh, he’ll love that. Give me a moment to tend your noble steed and I’ll walk with you.”

They saw Ide conferring with Baillot as he left the rectory. He stood looking down at her, shaking his head and adjusting his cassock. She threw up her arms and ran off as they approached.

“Father Baillot, we have a guest in our village.”

Patreo bowed. “I’m Patreo from Tomeka.” He stared at Baillot a moment. “The bishopric suggested you as first among many regarding counsel on parish matters. You’ve gained such respect with our church fathers.”

“The bishopric sent you?”

“The bishopric suggested I consult with an older, wiser priest. I come of my own accord to you.” He nodded towards the fleeing Ide. “Have I come at an inconvenient time?”

“Patreo.” Baillot stared down at him. “That is not a common name.”

“I am from the west and named in my mother’s tongue. My father left before I was born to fight in the Holy Land and never returned.”

“You do not know your father?”

“I seek him when Mother Church and time allow. Beyond that…” Patreo shrugged.

“Are you a bastard, then? Unfit to do holy work?”

Tag – Part II Forgeron the Tinker – Chapter 9

Tag – Part II Forgeron the Tinker – Chapter 9

The sun capped the western mountains as Forgeron pulled his cart down Nant’s main thoroughfare. Loud voices, the tinkling of mugs, laughter, and bright lights came through windows a ways up. Above them a wooden sign announced “Red Fox Inn.” Underneath the words a tilted flagon dripped ale and a browned leg of lamb dripped gravy.

Forgeron parked his cart in the lane beside the inn and entered.

Eyes rose and took him in. Talk paused but only long enough for people to identify the stranger in their midst. He smiled and nodded in return. Talk, laughter, and the clanging of mugs returned. Lamps and candles lit much of the Inn’s area but dark areas and paths remained. The scent of braised lamb and beef, ale and wine, mixed with light smoke from the lamps, candles, and a few men with pipes as Forgeron closed the door.

Two young men, their arms bare, shirts open, and aprons around their waists moved from darkness to light and back with pitchers and platters as patrons raised their hands or lifted their heads or cocked an eye in their direction. Someone stood in the dark near the door, cup in hand, their oil stained coat pulled loosely around them and their hood pulled low, perhaps just come in from the cold.

A few tables stood free but Forgeron chose a table with a free chair. Three men who he hadn’t met during the day occupied the other three sides. One said soemthing and all three laughed.

Forgeron put his hand on the free chair’s backrest. “May a thirsty, hungry, tinker join you, Good Sirs?”

Gallos pushed the seat out and waved at Slewe, the Innkeeper.

Tag – Part II Forgeron the Tinker – Chapter 8

Tag – Part II Forgeron the Tinker – Chapter 8

Finding Zevke the Baker required little effort. The smell of fresh loaves and rising smoke made the path obvious through the village streets.

Forgeron pulled his cart up to a clay house with ovens like large honey hives on either side and facing the street. A heavy man in dark boots, dark blue linen pants, shirtless but with an apron running from hair covered chest to the top of his boots and tied in back, moved back and forth between the ovens.

Norry came out of the house with a piece of fresh bread in his hand. Zevke handed him a dried block of wood and pointed to a fire at the bottom of an oven. “Careful, Norry. Place the wood, be gentle and quick.”

Norry shoved the bread into his mouth, did as he was told, then wandered off down the lane.

Saida came out of the Baker’s house carrying a basket of loaves fresh from the ovens. She smiled at Zevke then noticed Forgeron and quickly covered her head. She bowed and walked hurriedly away. Forgeron’s eyes followed. He turned back to the Baker and smiled.

Zevke scowled at him. “My wife, Saida.”

“A noble woman.”

“A taken woman.”

“Friend Baker, I admire beauty. I do not covet it nor am I jealous of those who have it.”

“You’re the Tinker’s making his way through Nant?”

Forgeron walked over to the house’s door, his eyes fixed on some small marks, unique but hidden among many scratches on the lintel. He kissed his fingers then touched them to the scratch.

Zevke’s eyes narrowed. “You are not a common tinker.”

“I have traveled some. Do you need any metalworking done? A bellows repaired, perhaps? An axe sharpened to better cut wood? A maul reshaped? Some wedges cleaved?”

“And what’s your price for such work?”

“The lad thinks highly of your bread. Perhaps a loaf and some coppers? And conversation, if you’re willing.”

Zevke gazed in the direction Norry went. “He’s a good lad, that one. Simple. Some say cursed, a halfling for those who believe such things.”

“He has no family?”

“An old woman, Nant’s midwife and herbalist, Dire by name, cares for him.”

“And Good Woman Dire doesn’t believe him cursed?”

Zevke nodded at the lintel. “She’s traveled some, too.” His eyes turned back to Forgeron. “And she’s too old to care about curses.”

“She cares well for the lad?”

“She found him on her doorstep on her return from midwifing Ide Altrea. Ide had enough milk for two and nursing the child would be payment enough. But that was years ago. Now Dire is too old. Her ears betray her and her eyes sometimes dim, but she’s still quick when there’s a need, and what she can not do the good people of Nant do for her, as far as Norry goes.”

“You gave him bread for throwing some wood on your fire. You see to his needs?”

“A helpful lad, but you have to watch him. He can’t remember fire burns.” The baker shrugged massive shoulders. “Come. Set your wheel turning. We can start with my axe.”