ucien de Saint-Honore ran down to the pyre on the beach. When he collided with the full wave of odor from the burning body, he ducked his head to the side.
“What is happening here?”
The two men standing by turned to study him.
“So young,” observed the younger of the two men, more finely dressed.
“Who are you?” Lucien demanded.
The speaker of the pair regarded him. His eyes were wide open, and horrified. As though the dead had been his own beloved. “I should ask that question of you.”
Lucien moved uphill from the smoke. He looked at the scorching remains atop the fire, and grimaced. Unlike some of his older associates in the convent at Tolosa, he was still unused to this sight.
“You laid this person in the fire,” he marveled, “like a roasting animal.”
The other man, with thick whiskers protruding from every side of his face, like a lion’s mane, spoke. “Finishes the job faster,” he said. “Merciful.”
“Who was executed here?”
The younger man folded his arms across his chest. “You still haven’t stated your name.”
Lucien gritted his teeth. “I am Lucien de Saint-Honore, inquisitor, and friar of the Dominican convent at Tolosa. I have traveled here in pursuit of a heretic, Dolssa de Stigata. My authority comes from Pope Gregory himself.” He held himself tall.
The two men looked at each other. Then the younger of them extended his hand to Lucien.
“Well met, inquisitor,” he said. “I am Guilhem de Bajas, and this is Lop, my bayle. Bajas is my holding, and you see before you all that remains of the heretic you seek.”
Lucien forgot his companions. He took a step closer to the fire. There they were, the blackened, leering, smoking limbs, the bits of graying bone. How could they be she? He closed his eyes and saw her soft, living flesh, her red lips, the dark mark above them, reaching forward to kiss him . . .
His eyes flew open. “You are certain it was she?”
The wiry man’s eyes went to the younger lord.
“We are a small community,” said Senhor Guilhem.
The bushy man went silently back to the fire. He shifted logs around to speed the burning. Some, he placed over the corpse, obscuring it from view.
Dolssa de Stigata. His heretic, his great mission, was now mere matter, like any other log in the fire.
“Why did you execute her?” Lucien heard his voice ask. “I heard she was reputed a holy woman.”
Senhor Guilhem turned to stare at him. “Was she, then?”
Lucien stepped back from the heat of the fire into the cool dawn air. “No, she was a heretic. A great deceiver. I . . . I had heard, though, that she had grown a large following here.”
“We don’t harbor heretics,” the young lord said too quickly. “Not here in Bajas.”
The gray man watched.
Dolssa de Stigata was gone from his sight now. Now and always. Lucien shivered. A welcome distraction appeared in his thoughts.
“I saw a toza just now,” he told the others. “I met her once before. Her name is . . . Botille.”
“The matchmaker,” said the gray man.
“Matchmaker?” asked Lucien.
Senhor Guilhem shot his companion a look. “Most meddlesome, fast-talking, lying little slut you could meet.”
Lucien turned this intelligence over carefully. This sounded nothing like the half-witted girl he’d met.
“And her brother . . . ?”
The young lord looked to the bayle and shrugged.
“Botille has no brother, Friar,” he said. “She and her sisters run the tavern. You’re staying there?”
Lucien nodded absently. “That’s right.” No brother. Of course. The embrace he’d seen hardly looked brotherly.
The sun was fully risen now, and up the hill villagers began to stir. The smoke from the pyre began to attract curious eyes, but the presence of the senhor, the bayle, and a holy stranger kept onlookers at a distance.
“Make it known, Lop,” said Guilhem, “that the heretic has met her death.”
The bayle nodded and left.
“Well, friar,” the lord said, “how can I serve you? Will you need supplies or funds for your return to Tolosa?”
Lucien returned the lord’s gaze. “Not just yet,” he said. “The heretic’s death does not necessarily kill the poisonous flower she has planted here. I have more inquiries to conduct. For now, as it is Sunday, I’ll take myself first to the church.”