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The region of Pas-de-Calais, the realm bordering the sea, had been inhabited since prehistoric times.
First populated by the Belgae, it was ruled by chieftains who knew the harvest and the hunt. They celebrated Beltane at the beginning of the pastoral summer season, when livestock were driven out to the summer pastures, and Samain that marked the end of the harvest. And after the winter equinox, when the land was stirring to life again, there were the fertility rites known as Imbolc, to promulgate the longevity and the continuation of their tribe.
Then came the Romans who conquered in the name of their Republic. They brought with them roads and written laws and their own gods and rituals, which included festivals of bacchanalia that engendered springtime awakening and the renewal of fertility in the agricultural cycle. These rites, celebrated on the cusp of the spring equinox, ensured the growth of seeds and repelled any malicious enchantment from the fields and made sure that the babies would be born and thrive.
When the invading Franks came to Gaul and took it upon themselves to stay, they spread their seed far and wide, from the rocky coast to the mountains, the flatness of plains and the green valleys. Everywhere they went, they built houses and villages; they herded animals and tended the land; they brought in the harvest; they made music and they made merry and they made love. The kings and chiefs and village heads ruled the land and observed old ways and new, teaching their sons and daughters to keep the seasons and the solstices.
The festivals did not alter during the times of later conquest. Catholicism may have swept across the land, turning Imbolc into La Chandeleur, a festival marking the presentation of Christ by the Blessed Virgin as a sign of her holiness, but also her venerated fruitfulness. And as before, those who ruled the land chose the stirrings of the spring to mark the return of potency, the banishment of barrenness, in the ways of their forefathers and the ancestors before them — the names might be different, but the rites themselves were, at their heart, the same.
When Father Madeleine came to Montreuil-sur-mer in 1815, he only had a vague sense of its history, the proud lineage that marked the deep connection between the ruler and the region that was ruled.
But even he could see the land was in decline — the weather was too cold and the rains were insufficient; the crops were failing and there was widespread penury and malaise. What little there was of industry had fallen into ruin: before, the region had been known for its special industry in “black goods”, after the imitation of English jet and the black glass trinkets of Germany, but now it had vegetated for seemingly no reason at all. Homes and buildings were so ramshackle and so badly in need of repair that they seemed on the verge of blowing over in the strong winds.
And the village babes were being born sickly, if they were born at all.
The mayor of Montreuil-sur-mer, M. de Bouron, was an invalid. His father before him had also been mayor, hailing from the most prominent farming family in the county. Upon the elder de Bouron’s untimely demise in a hunting accident, twenty-five-year old Perceval had been inducted into the sacred rites. The love of hunting also proved the young mayor’s downfall — not ten years into his tenure, he was gored in the thigh by an enraged boar while out hunting, and barely escaped with his life.
Since that time, he had paid only scant attention to the matters of the town, and spent his free time fishing in the river beside his family lands. He no longer attended to the spring rites, or the harvest rituals, and as he grew older and gaunter and more and more sickly, the land wasted away together with him.
In 1815, Father Madeleine was strong and strapping, in the full flush of manhood. He was said to have come from the south-east, where the land was still rich and abundant; his broad shoulders and barrel chest were testament to a prodigious fecundity. His hefty arms and quick thinking had saved two children from a burning building. His confident, unruffled manner could calm a skittish mare and bring harmony to squabbling, fractious neighbours.
It was his head for enterprise and quick business acumen that inspired him with the idea of substituting, in the manufacture of the “black goods”, cheap gum-lac for costly resin, and replacing the expensive soldering process with one that permitted a marked improvement in workmanship. These small changes sparked a revolution, allowing the goods to be manufactured at a fraction of the previous cost. Although it was said that Father Madeleine had come to town with very little money, single-handedly he transformed the fortunes of this industry.
In one year, Father Madeleine had built a large house with his own two hands; in two, he built a business and a factory which employed the denizens of the town. In the third year, his wealth began to spread across the village; he created at his own expense an infant school and a fund for aiding old and infirm workmen. A new quarter rose rapidly around the area of the factory; in 1818, he established there a free dispensary.
He was a man born to lead others, and it should have been no wonder that the people of Montreuil started to look to him for leadership of their declining town.
At the beginning of 1819, the councillors of the town approached him. There was old Chrétien, the deputy who had served both the older and the younger Mayor de Bouron, as well as two others: the veteran, Gornemant, and the youngest one, kind-eyed Robert.
Madeleine ushered them all into his parlour, and poured them water that he had himself drawn from his well, and bade them speak their minds freely.
Robert, unlike the other two, was a commercial man — he ran a pottery in the town — and was always quick to speak. “Monsieur Madeleine, your coming to Montreuil has been a boon, and your presence has been a godsend,” he said, flushing a little when Madeleine smiled his faint, wry smile in his direction. “Before your arrival, everything was languishing; now, as you see, the town is smiling again with health and honest toil. A strong circulation is warming everything and penetrating everywhere.”
“But the fields still are not thriving, Monsieur, and the farms still lie fallow, and the harvest is in decline,” said Gornemant with a frown. “And worst of all, our sons and daughters are marrying, but they are not producing offspring. There is not even business for the streetwalkers, as there is elsewhere. There is still much work to be done, and so much more you can help us with.”
Madeleine thought upon this, his brows furrowing. “Well, now that you mention it, I do know one or two things about the harvest,” he said. “There is a way to destroy scurf on wheat, by sprinkling it and the granary and inundating the cracks in the floor with a solution of common salt. Do your farmers suffer from the common weevil? One can chase them away by hanging up orviot in bloom everywhere, among the grass and in the houses.” He paused. “But I do not know how to address the situation of babies, messieurs. That is, alas, not within my expertise, though I do not think the absence of exploitative activities an ill thing.”
“You are a treasure trove of knowledge, Monsieur,” said gruff Chrétien. “Let me make our business known. We are here to beseech you to accept an appointment as mayor of this town.”
Madeleine looked at the three faces before him. His countenance showed great puzzlement, and a nervousness that was surprising, given his wealth and accomplishments and shows of leadership.
“It is too great an honour for me,” he said. “I cannot accept.”
Chrétien drew himself up to his full height. “Let us not mince words, Monsieur. The town is in dire need of a new mayor. M. de Bouron is not able to serve, let alone father children, and Montreuil has suffered greatly for it. If someone does not do something, the consequences will be dire.”
Madeleine shook his head. “It is beyond me. In any case, it is out of the question,” he said, decisively, and showed the gentlemen the door.
The councillors did not, however, cease their efforts. In this same year of 1819, the products of the new process invented by Madeleine figured in the industrial exhibition. The councillors petitioned the King to appoint the inventor a chevalier of the Legion of Honour, which they saw as a natural step to the most elevated position in Montreuil. Their efforts were fruitless: Father Madeleine refused the cross.
At the commencement of 1820, five years after Madeleine’s arrival in Montreuil sur Mer, the services which he had rendered to the land were so undeniable, and the opinion of the whole country around was so unanimous, that the King himself issued a decree appointing the man mayor of the town.
Mayor de Bouron himself undertook the task of conveying to Madeleine the king’s decree. As the frail mayor could not walk unassisted, Councillor Robert escorted him from the mairie to Madeleine’s dwelling. Madeleine welcomed them both solicitously and insisted on installing de Bouron in his, Madeleine’s, personal chair, and fetching a stool upon which to prop up the poor withered leg.
Robert could not say why, but he was himself most reluctant to ask Madeleine take up the appointment. A disinterested observer would, however, have remarked upon his elevated colour, and uncharacteristic refusal to meet Madeleine’s eyes.
Madeleine said, courteously, to M. de Bouron, “Your councillors have tried their best to persuade me, Monsieur le maire. For the third time, I must tell you I cannot accept, even though this is now from the King himself.”
De Bouron said: “Monsieur, if you will not do it for yourself, then do it for my sake. I have not ruled this town as I ought for more than twenty years. If you were to take up this burden as mayor, and govern the land and hold the rites, I will be able to live out the few remaining years left to me in peace .”
Madeleine looked abashed. “I am very sorry for your troubles, Monsieur le maire. I can see the rigours of your position have taken its toll.” He paused, then added, “But I am not your man. You would do well to find another. Your loyal deputy, perhaps, or the redoubtable Gournemant.”
“They are too old,” de Bouron said, with chilling frankness. “Even Monsieur Robert here is too old. There are no other candidates, and none as suitable as you are, Monsieur Madeleine.”
“Monsieur, if you refuse, Montreuil will be destroyed,” Robert said miserably, and this caught Madeleine’s attention.
“What do you mean?”
Robert and de Bouron exchanged pointed glances. Finally, the mayor said, “Monsieur, you are a religious man, and I believe what we are about to disclose to you is all the same under God.”
What followed was a lengthy explication of the founding of the land of Pas-de-Calais, and of the settlement of Montreuil-sur-mer: by the Belgae, by the Romans, by the Franks. The mayor spoke of the celebrations of the spring equinox, and the summer solstice, of the renewal of fertility and of the harvest, in the way as they had been conducted for centuries.
And then de Bouron, in a halting voice, described the sacred mystery of the ruler of the land. The man who was appointed to rule — chieftain or envoy, king or mayor — would also become the land’s consort and its lover, and take part in the ritual sacrifice, wherein his sexual nature would be ransomed to the land as an offering, in exchange for blessings of fertility and prosperity and abundance for his people.
“This I undertook, for the sake of the land, as my father did before me,” said de Bouron. “It was not an easy task, but I did it nevertheless, and the God saw that I was preserved for it.”
The mayor’s mouth trembled at this, but he held himself proudly, and after a moment, he was able to continue, explaining how after the ancient ritual, the land had indeed flourished under his rule, in the ways of their people, until his untimely accident.
“A kingdom’s fertility depends on the fertility of its ruler. If the ruler becomes impotent, unable to please his lover and to father children, then the region he rules becomes barren, also.” De Bouron shook his head. “It was not always so with me, even after the accident. My wife and I, we made many attempts through the years, and we were met with some success. After too many years, when we were ready to admit defeat, I discovered it was too late. Every man of suitable age within Montreuil had suffered in the same way and was unable to take my place.”
“Which is why you are the one who can save us, Monsieur,” Robert said. He reached out a hand as if to grasp Madeleine’s shoulder, but then drew it back. “I realise it is a great responsibility to ask of you, as well as a tremendous sacrifice. But we have nowhere left to turn.”
Madeleine rose. His broad, handsome face was wracked with an agony of decision and self-doubt. Deep in thought, he walked over to the windows, and then he stared through the glass in amazement.
“Dear God, look at all these people!”
Robert followed him as he stalked to the door and threw it open. There was an enormous crowd in the front garden, and more people were lining the street. When he stepped out onto the front porch, they all murmured and exclaimed and called out to him with one voice.
“Monsieur Madeleine! Monsieur le maire!”
Madeleine left the porch and strode into the street. The people followed him, as did Robert. Their clamour, their excitement, their pleas rose as one all around him, vigorously urging him to accept the position.
An impartial observer might have noticed that the thing which seemed chiefly to bring Madeleine to a decision was the almost irritated statement addressed to him by an old woman of the people, who called to him from her threshold. "A good mayor will be the saviour of us all. Will he finally stop withholding himself from the good which he can do? Will he undertake the sacrifice, in order that the land may be brought to life again?"
Madeleine looked across at her. Very slowly, he answered, speaking to her, and to the people of his town, his people: “If that is your will, then it is also his.”
The formal mayoral ceremony, held in the grand hall of the mairie that presided over Montreuil’s town square, was a staid affair, filled with necessary pomp and decorum. The prefect of the District gave an interminable speech, and M. de Bouron conveyed the mayoral scarf of office, with much fanfare, to his successor. Madeleine donned it uncomfortably; it circled his broad chest far more tightly than it had the old mayor’s emaciated frame.
When the glasses of celebratory champagne had been drunk and the last of the visiting dignitaries had left in waiting carriages, the new mayor and his councillors went into the town square in Place Saint-Saulve, which was lined with the last of the winter’s frost, to address the people of Montreuil.
Madeleine saw that a sizeable throng had gathered in the freezing square. All men, above the age of majority, comprising the electors of the town, the old seeming to outnumber the young three to one. He squared his shoulders at the right, for this was something that he sought, God willing, to change with his appointment.
A rudimentary platform adorned the nearer end of the square, from which the town’s officials would preside over festivities in the square. It had fallen into such disuse that the people had almost forgotten it was there. This night it had been swept clean, and was ringed with standing torches. A table had been positioned in the centre of the platform, covered with what appeared to be furs and animal skins. Placed upon it was a battered goblet and a bowl.
Dusk had fallen on the cold square; the only light came from the torches, and a bonfire that had been raised directly in front of the platform, tended by solemn-faced stable-hands.
Assisted by his councillors, Mayor de Bouron limped slowly up the stairs, and addressed the gathered men.
"My fellows of Montreuil, let me present to you your new mayor, M. Madeleine, who has taken up the scarf for your sake!”
Madeleine ascended the platform to stand beside the four other men. As he lifted his hand in greeting, he was temporarily blinded by the elevated perspective of the lit fires, and deafened by the cheers of the crowd.
De Bouron continued, “Tonight, for the first time in twenty years, we also celebrate the coming of the spring equinox, and our Imbolc festival. You surely remember the festival, to celebrate the rebirth of the new year, and the return of fertility to our lands? It is our way of our ancient Gaulish gods, of the Romans, and even of our great Church. He who rules us must wed himself to the land and lay down his body as a holy sacrifice, so that the land may be restored to fruitfulness, the crops in our fields may flourish and our industries grow strong, and our young men and our young women may be blessed with children.”
“These are our ways!” a man called from the crowd below; “It has been too long!” cried another.
De Bouron gestured toward Madeleine. “This gallant man has agreed to be your mayor; to accept the sacred wedding, and the sacred sacrifice. Do you accept him?”
“Yes!” and “Save us, Monsieur le maire!”, and a fierce, approving shout went all around.
The old mayor turned to his successor, trembling from something that was not the cold. “Then, Monsieur le maire, if it is your will, let us seal the covenant.”
Gournemant brought the goblet from the altar to them. De Bouron drank first and with great ceremony, and then he offered the goblet to Madeleine.
The wine tasted thick and strange, mixed with spices and perhaps other fluids, and it made Madeleine’s head swim. Immediately, he felt an unfamiliar fire burning through his body: his hair stood on end, he broke into a sweat despite the night’s chill. He swayed on his feet, and there was Robert’s strong potter's arm to steady him.
The three councillors also drank their fill, and then: “It is time,” Chrétien announced. The councillors bore de Bouron to the altar, and settled him on his back against the animal skins, and they loosened his ceremonial robes to lay bare the unclothed body underneath.
There were drummers beyond the bonfire, and they struck up a slow, steady beat.
Madeleine swallowed urgently. He only spared a single glance at the emaciated frame, at the ugly knotted scar that ran from the old mayor’s right thigh all the way to his groin, at the poor withered member hanging limply between the thin flanks. He focused on de Bouron’s eyes, watery and blue from the smoke, filled with terrible gratitude and an even more terrible compassion.
“Is there something I can do to make this easier?” he asked. He put a hand against de Bouron’s cheek, tentatively, as if he had never before touched another human being with desire.
De Bouron shook his head. “My dear sir, you have done so much already,” he murmured. “Rest assured, I have very little feeling left; you cannot hurt me even if I wished you to.”
“He used to wish that one would hurt him,” Chrétien said, gruffly, to Madeleine. “Buck up, boy, this will be over soon. Here is Robert with the sacred oil.”
Madeleine flushed as he started to undress. He left his undershirt in place, as if as a concession to the cold, although the fire from the wine had turned the visible surfaces of his skin a deep, mottled crimson. At Chrétien’s insistence, he also left on his scarf of office.
When he removed his small clothes, all could see that the wine had also roused his own member to shy life. His erection was ruddy and powerful in the firelight, thick with blood, and the crowd murmured raptly in pride and approval at this sign of their new mayor’s potency.
“You are truly worthy,” said de Bouron, in an awe-filled voice. “Come, then, and take your place.”
Robert held out the bowl of oil to Madeleine, his eyes shining. “Allow me, Monsieur le maire,” he said, and, with a hand that trembled, he took hold of Madeleine and coated him with slick, scented oil. The sensation was very pleasant; Madeleine had to bite back a groan at the man’s touch.
Chrétien had sought to anoint de Bouron with the oil as well. He caressed the old mayor’s shoulders to try to soothe him, as Madeleine mounted the altar and took his position between the man’s thighs.
Could it be that Madeleine had not ever joined with another in this way? Certainly a gentleman of his age and good standing could hardly have been untested in the ways of love, although he might be forgiven for being untried with another man, for the old ways of courtly love between kings and knights had sadly fallen into disuse across the breadth of the country. Perhaps he was just overwhelmed by the momentousness of the occasion — by the watching men, the smoke and heat from the bonfire, the ceremonial altar.
Regardless, he made a few test passes and an unsuccessful attempt, before hitching his predecessor’s thin legs around his hips, girding his powerful loins, the muscles in his back straining with effort under his shirt, finally managing to breach the long-guarded entryway, and to thrust himself inside.
A collective gasp from the crowd, and the drumming became faster, setting down a staccato beat that matched Madeleine’s rhythm as he began to thrust. The old mayor made a broken noise, both Chrétien and Gournemant on either side of him having to clench him in place; tears spilled helplessly from his eyes as Madeleine tried to hold himself back and found that he could not.
“Forgive me,” Madeleine panted. His dark hair hung in his eyes, his powerful physique bestrode de Bouron’s frail one, moving with the fierce rutting instinct of an untamed beast of the land. The spring tides drove him, urgent and wild, fuelled by the pounding rhythm of the drums beyond the ritual fires, and underneath the beat there was a low moaning sound that issued forth from de Bouron’s teeth, and from the councillors and the gathered crowd, and from Madeleine himself.
Finally, Madeleine groaned, a guttural noise that signalled his completion, and as the drums exploded in a percussive stroke and then fell silent, the triumphant cry went around the crowd: “It is done!”
It was indeed done. The new mayor had spilled his seed across de Bouron’s barren trough, filling it to the brim with new fecundity. The ripe scent of sweat and seed mingled with the smoke and perfume as Madeleine withdrew, his brawny shoulders and chest heaving from his efforts.
“Thank you,” de Bouron whispered. He sounded as if he was barely clinging to consciousness. Chrétien and Gournemant pulled his robes back into place, and then between them they carried him, painstakingly, from the altar table, and away into the night.
Robert seized one of the furs and wrapped it around the mayor’s perspiring body. “There, that was well done,” he murmured. “You are doing magnificently, Monsieur.”
“Not done yet,” Madeleine said, in tones of great weariness. “Will you approach me, then, Monsieur, in the name of the land and all that you hold dear, to make me yours?”
The crowd murmured restlessly, but Robert could not meet Madeleine’s eyes. “I do not know that I can,” he muttered. “As you know, I am also unmarried, and I have not been active, with any woman, nor any man, either, for so many years. And, Monsieur, you see I admire you too much to cause you any distress. ”
Madeleine took hold of Robert’s hand and drew him down beside him on the altar. “You will not distress me if you approach me,” he said, gently. “And I understand it is a thing that must be done, so that the circle may be rendered complete, and so that the king is taken in his turn upon the sacrificial altar.”
Robert leaned forward slowly. The crowd murmured again as he pressed his lips to those of their mayor. The kiss continued for a long time, slow and reverent; Robert was trembling when they parted. “Forgive me,” he said, “but I still cannot.”
“If you do not, the land will fail,” Madeleine said. “If you will not try for all of them, then you must try for me.”
“I will do it, if no one will,” came a ringing voice from the darkness, and from beyond the ritual fires strode a tall, fearsome figure, dressed in a long grey overcoat, hat and cane in hand. It was the new police inspector of the town; his name was Javert.
The inspector had come from Paris to Montreuil in the preceding year; in his time there, he had become an opponent of sorts to Father Madeleine, as though an imperturbable instinct kept him on the alert, like that of a man-dog sensing the presence of a wolf. It had even been frequently noted that when M. Madeleine was passing along a street, calm, affectionate, surrounded by the blessings of all, this police inspector would turn round abruptly and follow him with his eyes until he disappeared, with folded arms and a slow shake of the head, wearing a sort of grimace which conveyed the following: "What is that man? I certainly have seen him somewhere. In any case, I am not his dupe."
Now Javert was approaching the platform, and mounting the stairs with his long-legged stride. The townsfolk muttered nervously as he advanced upon Madeleine where he was seated upon the fur-covered altar.
A tremor went through the mayor’s broad frame, the sort of shudder that a fox might experience upon catching the scent of a watch-dog, but his voice was calm and courteous. “You, Monsieur l’Inspecteur?”
The inspector bowed minutely. “Yes, Monsieur. I understand from the citizenry that the ritual requires completion. You seem to be willing, so this act is not against the law. In addition, I am a stranger to this place, and seem to be unafflicted by the malaise that ails the men native to this land.”
The three looked downward, to where evidence of Javert’s last remark was clearly tenting the front of his trousers.
“I see,” said Madeleine, calmly. “Are those the only three reasons why you have come forward?”
Javert held his gaze very steadily; the onlookers would have observed the lightning-spark that passed unvoiced between them. “No,” he said, between his teeth. “There is another reason. I wished to see whether you will do your duty for this town, Monsieur, and whether I might be proved right about you.”
“Did you not see I did my duty with Mayor de Bouron?”
Javert said, almost savagely, “Monsieur, it is one thing to give it to a sickly man so desperate to leave his post he would spread his legs for anyone. It is quite another to yield to the rightful authority of the land and its laws.”
Madeleine held the inspector’s burning gaze for an instant more. Then, very deliberately, he lay back onto the altar, his head pillowed upon Robert’s lap, and let the skins fall from his bare flanks.
“Inspector, you are quite mistaken. I mean to do my duty, and if it is my duty to yield to you in the name of the land, then so be it.”
Javert, a man not easily given to surprise, was clearly taken by it now. For long moments, he stood stock-still, rooted to the spot, as if he could not believe the new mayor would truly endure this sacrifice at his, Javert’s, searching hands.
Then the drums started up again, and the noise of the crowd, and Javert unbuttoned his coat and let it fall to the ground.
There were shouts of acclamation. “In the name of the land!” and “The king must meet his sacrifice!” and “The Inspector must champion us!” Thus buoyed by the crowd’s encouragement, Javert visibly took hold of himself, and began to undress with strangely reluctant fingers.
“Are you certain you will submit to this, Monsieur?”
“Quite,” said Madeleine. “Only, I would that you drank a little of the wine, and Monsieur Robert will help you with the sacred oil.”
“I do not require help,” the inspector said, but he drank the last dregs of the wine from the goblet, and, when he was unclothed, he accepted the bowl and smeared its contents generously upon himself. He then clambered onto the altar, which was almost too narrow to accommodate the three of them; there he halted, swaying a little.
“I feel …. What was in the wine?”
Robert said, shortly, “Some herbs that our farmers grow around these parts, Inspector. Nothing illegal, I assure you. The sensation you feel is from the equinox, and the tides, and the God.” Javert still hesitated, and Robert continued, “You said you did not require help?”
“I do not,” Javert said, and seized hold of Madeleine’s thighs, and thrust himself grimly forward.
The gathered crowd might be forgiven for assuming that this was also the dour inspector’s first encounter, for he approached matters as awkwardly as Madeleine had. De Bouron might have lost much of the sensation in his lower limbs, but Madeleine could not say the same; the inspector’s first attempts were clearly even more painful to him than to Javert. The sweat stood out on both their brows; Javert had to fasten his teeth together in obvious agony. Then Madeleine rolled his hips, hesitantly, and Javert loosed a surprised moan of approval: he managed to seat himself, finally, deep inside the mayor’s body, and suddenly the undertaking became altogether more pleasurable than painful.
“How are you — this is, I cannot —“
Javert seemed to be fighting with himself, a battle he was losing. His large body gleamed in the torchlight, sweating fiercely; his big hands made helpless fists in Madeleine’s shirt. He drove into Madeleine’s body at a punishing pace that was echoed by the drums, and the more Madeleine yielded to him, the more agitated Javert seemed to grow.
“How am I doing this?” Madeleine finished the question for him. The shirt was sticking to his body, the scarf of office askew upon his chest. There were marks of tears on his face, as de Bouron had also wept in the throes of the ritual. “Because this is how I can best serve the land and its people.”
Between Madeleine’s thighs, pressed between his bare belly and Javert’s, Madeleine’s spent prick had hardened, an obvious sign of the land’s favour. As the men stared, Robert reached his hand around it, fitting the calloused fingers around the swollen girth as if he had done so all his life.
Madeleine groaned harshly, a sound that was echoed by Javert. The drumming rose around them, taut and frenetic, as Javert finally found his rhythm and the pulse of the ritual finally seized them both. It was the leap of the fire, the bubbling sap under the trees’ winter bark, the sprawl of new green beneath the cold ground; it was the bright spark of life that ran hotly within men’s veins, the throb and pound of a hundred hearts beyond the bonfire, and upon the ancient skins on the altar that could be traced back centuries hence.
“You also wish to serve,” Madeleine murmured, and a shiver racked through the inspector as if he was the one being taken, as if he was surrendering helplessly to the seasons, and the land, and its rightful mayor.
A hoarse cry tore from Madeleine’s throat as he spent once again; it was echoed, wailing, by the gathered men.
A moment later, and Javert finished, too, in a gush that spilled across Madeleine’s thighs and besmirched the mayor’s scarf, that covered the skins of the altar with white.
The world tilted away from them, swaying precariously on its side, as fragile as the spring moon and stars that hung overhead.
“You see,” Madeleine said, finally, to Javert; “I am resolute in my duty. Can you say the same?”
The inspector bent his head and spoke in tones of exhausted, unwilling respect. “Yes. I see that, and I can. Forgive me for doubting you.” And then he called Madeleine by his title, and his name.
Around them, the fires had burned low, the stars ascending in the sky. And across the land, the frost was melting, and the air was warm, and the land was, once again, stirring to life.
Robert was the first among the men to experience this bestirring, and it made him spring to action.
“The ritual is at an end,” he said, abruptly, to the gathered crowd, who sighed, as one, with disappointment. “Monsieur le maire, please allow me to convey you to your residence. I have my carriage in the next square; it is not far.”
Madeleine let Robert assist him; the councillor looked as if he would have swept his mayor into his arms and carried him to safety if he could. He settled for gathering Madeleine’s clothes, and placing his own coat over the mayor’s body, and helping him down the stairs.
The men gathered in the square eventually took their leave of the place, departing the square in twos and threes, heading home to seek out their wives and lovers with renewed vigour. The stable-hands left the bonfires and torches to burn out. A functionary came to gather the skins and goblet and other apparatus of ritual from the altar.
Long after the men had left the square, Inspector Javert lingered, as if reluctant to take his own leave. He had put off his guise as the land’s champion and donned his humble clothing, even though in truth he did not feel the cold. Instead, he wrapped himself in his coat and seated himself on the bare altar to wait for the dawn.
In his mind there was the queer sensation of barriers coming down; upon his skin, the burning of the mayor’s true, gallant sacrifice.
And all around him, rising through the ground, written in the stars above, was the land’s heady, fervent response.