The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington [76]
“My name is Sister Gloria,” said Awa, happy to be talking to another living woman for the first time in far too long. “ I’m a nun who tends to the sick.”
The woman peered at the bandaged Awa and shook her head skeptically. “Ya don’t look so good yourself, Gloria. If I’d knowed that’s whatcha got up ta in the abbeys I’d ’ave married the Christ myself!”
Then she made a terrible chortling sound like a consumptive man gasping for air and she slapped Awa so hard on the shoulder that the mock nun toppled to the side. The woman immediately helped her up, apologizing profusely. “Don’t take no offense ta my strongarm nor my fat tongue, this pox ’as me spoutin at the mouth like a piked pig.”
“It’s alright,” said Awa, “but I’ve got to feed my other patient now.”
“Manuel, is it?” said the woman. “Recognize that snivelin anywhere. He’s mad, mind, he’ll wade in with the best an’ the beast, but for such a fuckin martyr he bellyaches enough ta rile Mary an’ all the saints.”
“Is your name Monique?” Awa asked, having transferred the contents of the pot into a large wooden bowl.
“How ya know that?” The woman stood quickly, blocking the hall.
“I’m a …” and Awa smiled beneath her bandages, because she knew it was true. “I’m a friend of his, and he mentioned you.”
“Why’d he do that, then?” Monique was not moving.
“Well,” said Awa, “well.”
“Wells run dry,” said Monique. “What reason that wide-mouth ’ave to bring me up?”
“He said we had things in common, you and I.”
“Ya look strong enough but what else? You a daughter of Barbara?”
“No, my mother—”
“Talkin bout Saint Barbara. She minds after us what carry cannons, so if ya pack powder you’d best learn’er name quick.”
“Pack powder?” The more the woman talked the less sense she made to Awa.
“If it ain’t guns, it ain’t cunt, is it?”
“Well.” Awa was relieved her disguise covered her blushing cheeks as she looked down.
“You mean I was right bout whatcha get up ta in the convents?” Monique seemed genuinely impressed. “Fuck me. Not now, obviously, but still. Quack says it’s the cunny an’ cock what spreads it, so ifin the nuns’ve got the pox what hope do the ’ores ’ave, eh, sister?”
“I don’t …” Awa sighed. “I have to feed Manuel before this cools.”
“Right, right.” Monique stepped aside. “Don’t tell’em I’m here, right?”
“Alright.”
“And you promised me a taste of your puddin, don’t forget.” Monique leered as Awa passed her.
“As soon as I’m done I’ll—” Awa paused and stiffened, looking up at the giantess. “That’s … really not something to say to a stranger.”
“I was jus talkin bout the puddin you offered,” said Monique, raising her lesion-covered palms. “An’ us what wears the same ’abit ain’t ever all-strange to one another, is we, sister?”
“I’ll cook you something soon,” Awa decided. “But the coals are a little low for more pudding tonight.”
“I got tinder plenty.” Monique winked as she went back toward her cot. “You jus say the word you need them coals stoked.”
Terrifying though the pox-stricken woman surely was to most who encountered her broken-toothed visage, Awa had never been flirted with before, and the experience filled her with the same heat as Paracelsus’s schnapps. Rousing Manuel, she almost asked him about Monique when she remembered the woman’s request, and so stayed quiet on the matter as she fed her drugged friend. Through his haze of pain and alcohol, Manuel struggled to keep the food down, wondering why the hell Awa was humming happily to herself, and where she kept getting pork from.
The Hangman’s Sword
“Why would a hangman have a sword?” asked Manuel. “Wouldn’t he have rope? Maybe a knife to cut the rope, but why—”
“Sister Gloria carries a sword, and she’s a nun,” said Paracelsus. “Everyone carries swords.”
“I—” Awa began but Paracelsus was already on his way.
“— heard there was to be an execution, so in the name of education I endeavored to attend. My fellows were too squeamish