The storm came upon them fast, and with a fury. Rain fell in sheets and the sky went dark. Errant lightning spread through the clouds like bioluminescent veins, each one punctuated with thunder that felt so near that it rattled in their teeth.


    It was Haddie that spotted the windmill first. Her eyes seemed more attuned than Felix’s over long distances. It was a sturdy structure made of stacked stones on a barren hill. From the state of its torn and tattered sails, it looked to be abandoned.


    The trio and their horses went inside to take shelter. It was dry and quiet, save the faint sound of raindrops leaking through the roof. The floor was covered in straw, and a nest of rocks sat on the broken millstone, having been used as a hearth by other passers by.


    Windmills were an old technology, like the plow before it. They had taken away much of the effort in turning dirt into food. But with it came complacency. The French liked to play with their food. Nobility would experiment in their kitchens, baking new kinds of sweet bread and tossing out their scraps, while peasants starved.


    Felix worked to prepare a fire in the stones. He was fortunate that there was dry wood inside left unmolested by the pouring rain. He used bits of straw from the floor, but couldn’t manage a flame. Retrieving the pistol from his hip, he held the starting mechanism to the tinder and began dry firing the weapon. It shot out a great sea of sparks, and the kindling finally took.


    “What is that?” asked Haddie.


    Felix returned it to the satchel. “A weapon.”


    “That’s what you need the saltpeter for?”


    “Aye.”


    “It is like a canon, then?”


    “It is.”


    “Those men feared it.”


    “They were right to fear it.”


    “It is such a small thing to fear.”


    “It’s powerful. It can pierce through armor greater than any bodkin.”


    “It seems like a weapon for the meek. What injustices could be corrected with that in the hands of women…”


    “Aye. The Church fears it greatly. They see it disturbing the order of things.”


    “Maybe the order of things should be disturbed.”


    Felix turned his attention to the fire, lowering his head to breathe into the flames. The fire found his breath agreeable and rose in intensity.


    Haddie removed her cloak and hung it from a post nearby, then rubbed her hands together for warmth.


    “What is in Normandy?” she asked.


    Felix furrowed his brow. “I don’t know.”


    “Then why do you go there?”


    “I was asked.”


    “By whom?”


    “The College of Cardinals in Rome. They set me to a task, and I complete it. I have done it countless times.”


    “Do you tire of it? Being commanded?”


    He took a moment to think. “Aye,” he replied.


    “Then why do it?”


    “To pay a debt.”


    Haddie retrieved a blanket from her horse and laid it on the floor. Caesar circled on it first and then laid upon it, wiggling its ears contently. Haddie leaned down to meet it, but then paused. She held out a palm and began knocking on the floor.


    “What is it?” asked Felix.


    “There is a cellar here,” said Haddie.


    Prying up an old trap door, Felix stuck his head down into the damp hole of a small cellar. When he pulled himself back up he had a dusty bottle of wine in each hand, the glass having frosted with age.


    “A gift for you,” said Felix with a rare boyish smile, and handed her one of the bottles.


    The wine was good, thankfully. Like all things, not all wine ages well. Felix could not guess as to the vintage, but it was sweet and dry. And it did its work, letting him clear his mind and think of better things.


    “I wonder who left this behind,” Haddie mused, holding her bottle to the firelight and peering through its indigo depths. “Who they were, what they dreamed about.”


    “Someone who didn’t come back,” Felix said, his voice quiet. “That’s how it goes.”


    She turned her head to him. “Is that how it always goes?”


    Felix hesitated, taking a long sip from his bottle before answering. “Usually. But not always.” He glanced at her. “Sometimes, people find what they’re looking for.”


    “And you?” she asked, her voice softer now. “Have you?”


    His grip on the bottle tightened, and he looked away. “I’ve stopped looking.”


    The words hung between them as she uncorked her bottle. Haddie studied him for a moment before taking a long drink. “Maybe you’re just looking in the wrong places.”


    Felix gave a low chuckle, although it held no humor. “That’s generous of you.”


    “What is it you seek, witch hunter?”


    “I have always believed that people just want to go home, they just don’t know where it is.”


    Haddie leaned in close to him and raised a finger to his chest, right above his heart, “The journey home is a simple one, for it lies within you.”


    They laid there, sharing in each other’s warmth, and drank the wine beside Caesar.


    Haddie polished off her bottle and closed her eyes, her arms wrapped around Caesar who also slept. Felix stared at her. She was so beautiful. She was like the Weisse Frauen, the white woman—an elf goddess. In the stories her hair was wreathed in a laurel made of starlight. Haddie was as a nymph, a creature too pure for the world as men had made it. She belonged in some forbidden glen filled with flowers, dancing with satyrs, rejoicing. But now she was with him, dirty and damp and damned, and he felt pity for her. He felt pity for anyone who came close. But, mostly, he felt pity for himself. And he lowered the bottle of wine to the floor without finishing it.


    A creak from above cut through the din of the storm. It was sharper than the wind or the groan of the old structure settling. Felix’s head snapped up. He paused, then moving slowly so as to not wake Haddie, moved toward the ladder leading to the upper levels.


    “Where are you going?” Haddie murmured, half-asleep.


    “Stay here,” said Felix. He began to climb, each rotting rung of the ladder sinking beneath his weight. As he ascended, the howl of the wind and stabbing rain seemed to grow distant.


    At the top of the mill, Felix pushed open the hatch to the loft. It was a mess of machinery. Cobwebbed cogs and gears, with the great spur in the center. If the sails of the windmill could be repaired, this place may still have the ability to come to life with whirring efficiency.


    Lightning flashed, illuminating the room. It was empty—at first. Then, in the vanishing light, he saw a figure standing behind the windshaft. A man, tall and bearded, with a weathered face and a patch over his left eye. Felix instinctively gripped his sword.


    “Who are you?” Felix demanded, his voice low.


    The man turned, his single eye gleaming like molten gold in the dim light. “A traveler,” he said, his voice calm, almost amused. “Seeking shelter, as you are.”This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    “I was certain that we were alone,” Felix said, stepping closer, his hand still on his weapon. “Why did you not make your presence known? I could have killed you.”


    The man chuckled softly. “Oh, I doubt that, hound of God.”


    Felix froze. “How do you know me?”


    The man ignored the question, laying his hand on the thick windshaft and ducking beneath it and approaching Felix. “Tell me,” he said, his tone turning grave. “Do you believe in the cause you serve? Or do you only believe in the sword you wield?”


    Felix narrowed his eyes. “I fight for God. For the Church. For order. Without it, the world would fall into chaos.”


    The man tilted his head, as though considering his words. “Order, you say. But whose order? The dean cardinal’s? The pope’s? Or the story they tell? Have you ever wondered what would happen if that story ended?”


    Felix’s grip tightened on the sword hilt. “Speak plainly.”


    The man rose to his full height. He was taller and fuller than Felix, but old. Ancient. His gaze held a weight that made Felix feel as though he were being judged by something far greater than himself. “Humanity craves stories,” the man said. “Not gods. Not faith. But the tales that bind them together. Why do you think men gather in churches, in taverns, in courts? It’s not the rituals or the ale or the law—they crave belonging. They crave the story. A people without shared stories, without shared values, are no people at all. Do you think the institutions you serve care for those values? Or are they merely protecting their own power?”


    Lightning flashed again, casting the man’s face in white light—his singular eye shining like a north star. “You will face three great tests,” he said. “Not all will end in triumph. You must choose which battles are worth fighting, and which are not. Then you will have to make a sacrifice.”


    Felix took a step forward, his frustration boiling over. “What are you saying?”


    The man smiled faintly. “I am saying that you should question what you fight for. Whether the old world you seek to preserve is truly worth saving—or if the new world, however chaotic, might be better.”


    “And you would advocate for that? Chaos?”


    “A new forest cannot grow unless the old is burned away. Sometimes a fire is how nature renews itself. It just needs a spark.”


    “Is that what I am? The old forest?”


    “No, Felix DeWinter, you are the spark.”


    Before Felix could respond, the man turned away, stepping back into the shadows.


    And then he was gone.


    Felix searched the cramped space. There was no man. Maybe, he wondered, there never was.


    Felix descended the ladder and made sure the hatch was closed tight. When he returned to the fire, Haddie was asleep, her breathing even and soft. Caesar, however, sat upright, his unblinking gaze fixed on Felix.


    “Friend of yours?” asked Felix.


    The goat did not respond. Then lowered its head into Haddie’s lap, and closed its eyes.


    Felix went to tend the fire, and did not go to bed.


    He awoke standing. Leaning on the center post, he had nodded off beside the fire, which had burned down to embers.


    Haddie and Caesar were gone, but her Arabian remained in the corner of the small space, so she had not gone far. Felix burst from the windmill and was met with a bright morning sun reflecting off grass that was still slick from the storm. The air had the earthy smell of fresh rain, and the hint of a rainbow hung above him.


    Haddie was not far off. She sat on her knees beside Caesar, collecting wildflowers. As she plucked each flower they shivered with water droplets, and then she placed them in the white bib of her dress.


    “Wild sage,” she said.


    “Is it for medicine?”


    “Are you worried we have the plague, Felix?”


    “We will not know for two more days.”


    “Yes, I think we should wait here. If symptoms do not show, we can continue.”


    “And if they do?” asked Felix.


    Haddie did not say a word. Instead, she just smiled at him. Her teeth were white, straight, and perfect between a set of equally perfect lips.


    Then she went back to picking flowers.


    Felix walked around the perimeter of the windmill, looking to make himself useful. There were some rusted iron implements half-buried and grown over. But nothing he could make use of. He felt like he was of no use. He marched back to Haddie and Caesar.


    “I am wasting time here,” said Felix. “I should be heading north.”


    “You are only a slave to time if you choose to be. You are safe here. Rejoice in that,” said Haddie.


    “My enemies will not delay.”


    “Maybe we can use this time to get to know one another better.”


    “And what do I need to know of you, Haddie?”


    Haddie stood, collecting the bundle of flowers in the front of her dress, and approached him. “Do you want to know my name? My true name?”


    Felix stepped back, confused. “Is it not Haddie?”


    “It was Maggie, Haddie is the nickname they used. Rhymes and all that. My name at birth was Magdalene. My mother thought giving us Christian names from the Bible would protect us…” She paused. “It didn’t.”


    “Do I call you Magdalene, then?”


    “No, Haddie is fine. I have grown fond of it.”


    “It’s for the best, Mary Magdalene was a whore.”


    Haddie lashed out with a punch to Felix’s shoulder. Then smiled, and took off running toward the windmill. Her flowers falling from her dress. Felix chased after.


    She stood against the millstone, a bottle of pilfered wine in her hand. “If we do be plagued, then we don’t have much time before we waste away.” She took a long pull from the wine bottle.


    Felix walked up to her, and she pressed the bottle to his lips, and lifted it enough to give him an equal sip.


    She lifted a finger to her mouth, pressing down her bottom lip and touching the tip to her teeth. “Maybe, with the time we have left… I can be your whore.”


    Feix grabbed Haddie by the waist, pressing her up against the cold millstone. She let out a delighted gasp as her feet lifted from the floor. Then came a delirious bleating from Caesar outside.


    Felix and Haddie, flushed with red in their faces, were met outside by a small band of common folk trying to lasso Caesar with ropes.


    “Stop!” shouted Felix, adjusting his pants which were now painfully tight, and reaching for his sword.


    “This your goat?” said a man in drab, loosely-fitting brown clothes.


    “Aye.”


    “We thought it a wild goat. Didn’t mean anything by it. We’re hungry is all.”


    The common folk, maybe six in all, looked dejected and dropped the ropes to their sides. Felix’s hand relaxed, though he did not let go of the hilt of his sword. Haddie loosened her own hand on the wine bottle, which she had sought to use as a makeshift weapon. He looked at Haddie, whose expression had softened.


    “These people are starving,” she whispered.


    “I see that,” Felix replied. He glanced at Caesar, who stood as imperiously as a goat could manage, his tail flicking as if he were unfazed by the entire ordeal. Felix sighed, running a hand through his hair. “The goat is mine. But…” He turned back to the group. “Wait here.”


    Felix retreated into the windmill, retrieving a small satchel of provisions from his horse. Inside was cheese, salted meat, and a handful of dried figs—rations meant to sustain them on his mission north. He brought them back to the group and thrust the satchel into the man’s hands.


    “Take this. It’s not much, but it will keep you alive.”


    The man stared at the offering, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Finally, he managed, “Thank you, sir. God bless you.”


    “I pray this is enough before you find your next meal,” said Felix. “But avoid the next town. There is plague there.”


    “Oh, we’ve all had it. For people like us, plague is a way of life. It is our second baptism.”


    “Where are you going?”


    “We are pilgrims on our way to Rome. We want to meet the pope.”


    Felix grimaced. Such small minds think holiness is something like plague, contagious when exposed to those who are deemed to have it. “I doubt he’ll see you, but good luck to you. Rome can be inhospitable, so keep your expectations measured.”


    “You’ve been to Rome then?”


    “Aye,” said Felix.


    “Have you met the pope?”


    “I have.”


    The man’s expression widened, his eyes opening wide and pushing back his already receding hairline and tightening the skin on his gaunt cheekbones. “This man’s met the pope!”


    More people appeared, moving up the hill from some unseen places. Now there was a score of them.


    The man walked up to Felix and placed his hands on his shoulders. Grabbing his hand the man began shaking it. “What a miracle. To meet a man who has met the pope.”


    Others began approaching Felix and he began to backpedal. Before he could protest he had a crowd of hands grabbing him from every direction. People began singing and praising the Lord, and asking for forgiveness, favors, miracles, and money from God.


    Haddie stood beside Caesar, her mouth crooked in disgust at Felix’s newfound celebrity.


    “Please,” shouted Felix. “I am not the Church.”


    The man with the receding hairline called out, “Halt, fine pilgrims. Give the man space.” Then he looked to Felix. “What does he look like?”


    Felix thought for a moment. “Pope Eugene? He looks like an old man, like every other pope. He was only elected last year.”


    “Is he good?”


    “I hope he will be.”


    That was enough for the crowd, and they thanked Felix, and began dividing the rations amongst themselves, returning to their pilgrimage down the hill.


    When they were gone, Haddie looked up at Felix, her eyes bright with approval. “That was kind of you.”


    “They have our food.”


    “We’ll find more.”


    Felix turned back to the windmill. “We’ve rested enough. We’ll need to keep moving if we are to feed ourselves. Saddle up. We leave for Normandy before the sun reaches its peak.”


    Haddie hesitated. “Do you think they’ll survive?” she asked, glancing back at the retreating figures in the distance.


    Felix didn’t answer immediately. He looked out over the horizon and rain-soaked earth. “If they don’t,” he said finally, “it won’t be for lack of trying.”


    Haddie nodded, her expression solemn, and together they prepared to depart. As they mounted their horses and began their journey north, Felix couldn’t shake the memory of the one-eyed man in the loft. His words lingered in Felix’s mind like a splinter—no, a spark.


    Felix glanced at Haddie, who rode ahead with Caesar trotting beside her. He felt the crushing weight of the man’s prophecy settling on his shoulders, heavy as the sword at his side. Whatever lay ahead in Normandy, Felix knew it would test more than just his faith.


    And, when the time came, what would he sacrifice to do it?