First published in Microhorror, this one came from an actual nightmare I had -- and you think you've got problems... đź‘€ If any of you wants to undertake a Freudian analysis, keep sctumm about the results...
Après Longtemps: A Troubadour’s Return
Le Patron du CafĂ© SolutrĂ© called them Gringons. “Only thirteen hands,” he said. “Camargues are born black. Later they turn white but keep a dark undercoat. They require no stabling or shelter of any kind. They are docile enough for children yet strong enough to herd bulls. Tenacious. How are you called, Monsieur…?”
“Cathar,” I told him.
“Then,” he said, “You are come home!” He kissed me roughly on both cheeks and began his story with words of warning. “But, mĂ©fiez-vous, mon brave.”
No village now stands near that cemetery. The spongy bog has swallowed history and shrouded it in protective mists. Deserted and overgrown within its walls la Cimetière des Gardians lies desolate and though I had reason to be there that autumn morning, I experienced a certain trepidation and shuddered as I wandered amongst its nameless tombs. They were of marble: Incarnat du Languedoc elaborately carved. It is a striking stone, its splattered white and crimson veins all too redolent of splintered bone and spilt blood.
I approached the vast monument upon a central plinth; bare but for a short inscription in Occitan which, of course, I could not read. 500,000 souls wiped out by two generations of inquisition. Nobody knew how many lay here or who they were.
“Kill them all. God will know His own,” said the Abbot of BĂ©ziers.
Catholic, Cathar, Jew, it mattered not, as long as this “Synagogue of Satan” was erased and with it that heretical obscenity–Occitan.
Others fled as wandering troubadours, some members of my line no doubt. Faidits ou morts–a brutal choice. The faithful horses, held by strong bonds of loyalty to folk that would take no oath nor swear any fealty, remained close, watching over the dead.
Then one night these “manades,” semi-feral once, now fully wild, ran amok–driven mad by lonely, protracted grief. In their madness they stampeded. Their eyes, they say, shone gold amid the night. One bit another. The bitten one turned red. One by one they joined in hideous blood-rage. They broke the gates and rampaged through streets that had been settled by their herdsmen’s killers; turning all colors, red to gold to blue, purple and green. (Camargues are not white.) Skeletal they were, with yellowed teeth and frightened eyes. They were distraught and savage in revenge. Their teeth ripped flesh, tore sinew, and any that survived the bite were cursed to die, days, sometimes weeks later of crazed fevers that terrorized their fitful dreams; their upturned eyeballs became deathly white. And when that night of hatred was at end, there were no more white horses to be seen. But in the graveyard stood, atop the plinth, a woman with flowing hair, who rode upon a pure white unicorn of finest marble of a type not found in Languedoc or nearby. Its single horn speared the surrounding miasma.
And if I say I began to believe, I had no choice. I heard them. Heard them whinnying close by: les manades. I dursn’t look behind. I perceived as it were a ripple, a wispy change in the mists, like warm breaths disturbing the morning airs. I heard a trampling of impatient hooves and knew they stood behind me. The mists changed color with an eerie glow: red here, a livid green, a subtle gold to purple then cold blue. It was, I told myself, but the residual shades of an autumn sunrise–only I knew better. The sun ought to be high by now. They were waiting for me to reveal whether I was friend or foe. I had no language I could use with them. If I uttered French they’d surely trample me. These were horses of Occitan and I knew little of my kin. I pitied all the souls of that tormented place.
And now a single drop of purest water dripped from the horn of the marble unicorn onto my head. I looked up. The horses reverted back to myth and mist. “Perhaps,” I thought, “the Lady knows her own.”
Copyright: © 2011 Oonah V Joslin
