The Cross and the Black

By Luwa Wande

Claude Severin lives amidst the squalor and the religious excitations of Renaissance France. Life is free and brash for the servant cum gay prostitute. But circumstances turn cruel when his master, Serge, fed up with his sinful ways, demands he moves out. The ultimatum seizes Claude with terror. If he does not find a new master soon, only the savage streets await him.

Salvation is at hand when a mysterious stranger, Guy Sewell, offers him the golden opportunity for an education. The chance to raise his station is too tempting for Claude, despite Guy's roguish eyes and his evasion on the lewd nature of payment. But fiery sermons light up every street corner, and Claude grows fearful for his soul. Suddenly the choice isn’t so clear anymore. What way lies forward?

Read here as Claude must find his true way between the Cross and the Black in this exciting first book of this series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luwa Wande
• Release date: Nov 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301110469

Luwa Wande

Also known as Wando Wande, Wandu Wande, Wanda Wande. Luwo Wande, Luwe Wande... you get the idea. I fought barehanded against lions once in Serengeti Plains...

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The Cross and the Black

Luwa Wande

Copyright By Luwa Wande 2012

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter One

It was Lent, the time of grieving and repenting, and braying sententious monks. Enter here, Claude Severin ambling home, grinning like a happy baboon. The melody of a gavotte sloshed in his heart, its rhythm light in his fingers. Passersby gave no eye to his threadbare tunic or his ragged hose; nor did they stop to admire his hat—lined with velvet, decorated with a red plume, a gift from an apothecary for times sweaty and jaunty.

The feast day of St. Joseph, patron saint of manly losers, was drawing to an end. The bell of St. Sernin, St. Etienne, St. Nicholas, rippled across the heavens a meandering, exuberant tirade, counting the hour of vespers. And Toulouse began to gather its horses, its hunger, toil and tiredness for the peace of home and hearth.

By the square in front of the Collège de Foix, three youths strode their boisterous way around a peddler. The men were draped in the brown copes of university students, hilts of illegal swords poking from their waists. Claude recognized Benoit—the stupid one—amongst them. His face looked like mangled dough and sported a prominent forehead, and a dimple for a nose. God had punched his face in before he was born.

What more, Claude owed him five sous—a gambling debt from a tennis game, which had promised the lucky chance of mammon and victuals. The burden of debt roiled queasily in Claude’s mind. A cramp raced up his left side, grounding him to a halt. His mind drew a thousand places at once as he stifled the urge to yelp.

But by the Virgin, no God-raped sissy was going to catch him, for Claude whirled away southward towards the Garonne. But barely had he moved a few paces when another unlucky sight stopped him.

In the twilight view upon the cobbled streets, Bearitz Aleçon cowered before a trio of maidens bound in an unrequited love for the gallant Isarn. It was a familiar occurrence for the daughter of a seamstress. The maidens yanked at her auburn hair and poked flinty fingers at her kerchief shielding her humble bosom. But Bearitz stood mute and pale, like Mary Magdalene before her accusers.

You dare lift your haggish countenance on our Isarn again.

Your sallow color isn’t good enough for our Isarn.

Cheeks like maggots and you dare bewitch our Isarn.

Isarn, Isarn, the words stamped in Claude’s mind. Bearitz’s piteous face unnerved him to the point of shuffling elbows and twisting gazes. Isarn, he thought, a rakehell of broad shoulders and tawny lovelocks, a thief of his good peace. The man, on every opportunity, rammed down his ears of his love conquests. And on this grand show of passivity from Bearitz—Claude fisted a hand to his lips—silliness from wenches who should kiss more and swoon less. 

Those maidens now were imperiously smacking Bearitz’s shoulders.

Isarn doesn’t want a lame sow, another screech scrawled on his peace.

Fight back, you coxcomb wench, Claude thought maddeningly. But this was no time for intervention, not with Benoit and friends approaching closer from behind. He swallowed hard. Flittering nervous gazes, he determined that Bearitz would have to learn of courage all by herself.

To his left, right by an ass nuzzling its head against the supporting beam of a stall, a cart rolled away from the entrance of a sparse-looking alley. And that was it, his golden chance. Claude bounded one step to freedom, but only to view a magnificent slap upon Bearitz’s face. Her lips rippled in a tremolo of umbrage and tears, and Claude was thrust into a fluster of fury.

Thou rump-fed toadstools! he cried,Why you demonesses slap her for?

The women lifted their venomous eyes onto him, and so did the three other men.

Marry, is that the sissy who owes me five sous?

For Certes!

The students brandished blades and annoyance; the wild metallic whine sliced through the barbarous air. The evening crowd scarcely gasped or shrugged as the clatter of their hard boots charged for Claude. In the moment it took to sigh at his fate and huff an athletic breath, Claude sprinted and traversed through the row of the Isarn-addled wenches, grabbing Bearitz as his prize.

Raaaaaat! The students bellowed at the escaping duo in the square of L’Église des Cordeliers.

Dog. By the Collège de Narbonne.

Devil-buggered sheep. By L’Église de St. Pierre de Cuisines.

All the while Claude’s maiden expended more energy spitting, Bon Dieu, bon Dieu rather than running her fair share. They darted around the wagons immobile with barrels and the footmen leading home ungainly masters. Those idle in contemplation over the setting sun knew instinctively to step aside. Even the throng of monks