A Malediction

by Lucie Bonvalet

1314, March 18: Jacques de Molay, the last of the Templars, is burned at the stake. As the fire is lit, he casts a malediction on several generations of Kings. A thin rain falls above the flames, and a wind blows sideways. Flames threaten to leap and lick the walls of the cathedral. In the crowd, no one speaks, no one moves. When the malediction is uttered, it echoes and ricochets on all the heads; each person present in the crowd feels the evil spell just under the skull; and they know it concerns all their future generations. No god attends the fire. But hail, flames, stones and wind, all are present in the voice of the man burning at the stake. The fire gives the voice its potency. The voice is not loud, but clear: each word, each syllable pronounced with slowness, care. The name of the King is voiced twice, at the beginning and at the end of the malediction. Each time he hears his name, Philippe feels penetrated, between the eyes, by something sharp and cold. The King stays much too long staring at the fire. He does not feel the rain nor the worried looks around him. He is still staring at the stake when all has turned to char, the last cinder, extinct. A shapeless lump, a piece of bone among the ashes. And a strong smell of something sugary, which oozes off the char. Philippe sees, or thinks he sees a thin mist that gathers around the lump, pale yellow, and then leaves, ascends. Near Philippe’s ear, a long sigh. On the wall of the cathedral, bright shadows sway in the remnants of wind: one torch, three crows, long leafy branches of linden trees, and the hand that holds the torch for the King. But where the shadow of the King should be, just below the torch, only a shapeless fragment of obscurity.

Lucie Bonvalet is a writer, visual artist and teacher. Her writing can be found in FENCE, About Place Journal, Michigan Quarterly Review, and SAND, and has been reprinted in The Best Small Fictions 2023. Her visual art can be found on Instagram at @lbonvalet. Originally from the Dordogne in France, she has lived in Portland, Oregon since 2004.