Between Two Fires

Jacquot stands near the pope. He joined the papal guard soon after a group of soldiers rescued him from the tree in Normandy. Suddenly the crowd gasps, and Jacquot sees a second pope. The second pope accuses the seated pope of serving the devil.

Thomas knows that he needs to kill the devil-pope. As Thomas rushes the stage, he sees the lion-knight that he knows from the doomed castle. Thomas stabs the lion-knight with his sword, and it crumbles. Thomas gets shot in the chest with an arrow. Jacquot appears, horrified that he shot Thomas. Jacquot asks Thomas to forgive him as Cardinal Cyriac bites the skin off Jacquot’s face. Thomas launches himself at the pope and cleaves his head in two with this sword; however, one of the devil-pope’s hands grabs the sword and flings it away. A fly’s head grows out of the devil-pope’s cloven head. Thomas knows that it is Baal-Zebuth and tries to hit it with the spearhead, but the lion-knight, already partially healed, rips off Thomas’s arm.

Delphine screams in horror as Thomas dies. Baal-Zebuth commands one of the men to throw a spear at Pope Clement, but Delphine intercepts the spear, which pierces her stomach. The lion-knight, still holding Thomas’s arm with the spearhead, shoves the spearhead into her side, telling her she should remember the sensation. The lion-knight bites her legs off and throws her body across the courtyard, where she dies.

Robert crawls under the tables at the feast, covered in blood. A blinding light comes from Delphine’s corpse as she splits in two. Angels step out of the light, including the archangel Michael. The lion-devil pushes over a tower that falls onto a group of people, including Robert, who realizes that he will die under the rubble. He feels something grab his hair and hears Matthieu’s voice telling him that he is sorry.

Maître de Chauliac watches the battle between the angels and demons. He sees two angels attack a devil and drag it into the river. When the angels emerge, there are three angels. The physician realizes that anyone can be forgiven.

Thomas knows that he is dead. He sees his body from above and wonders if Delphine survived. Thomas stands in front of a table with a clerk behind it. The clerk tells him that it was bad luck that he died before the battle ended because the devils took all the souls from the battle to Hell. Thomas looks into a mirror and sees his son looking back at him. A terrifying form stands in front of Thomas and tells him that he is going to Hell. Thomas asks for mercy, but the form swallows Thomas. The same scene plays out repeatedly, and it hurts every time the shadow eats him.

Thomas forgets his name in Hell because of the torture. Suddenly, Thomas sees a bright light and Delphine emerging from it on a cart. The devils leap at her, but none of them can touch her. Delphine calls Thomas by name and pulls arrows out of his body. Suddenly the ceiling of Hell crashes in, and Thomas asks Delphine if she is “him.” She tells him that she is Christ, but she needed to come to him in a form that he would grow to love. Thomas opens his eyes again, and suddenly he is in the cart under the stars with Delphine next to him. She tells him that she is two things that have become one and that now she will be two separate things again. She asks him if he wants to remember what has happened when he returns to life, warning him that doing so will be painful. He says that he does.

Thomas tumbles out of a cart onto a pile of corpses. The men dumping bodies realize that he is alive and pull him out. A boy tells him that there was a battle, which the angels won. He says that they found Thomas in the rubble after an earthquake. Thomas knows that it was the battle, not an earthquake, that destroyed the tower, but he also knows it may be too painful for people to remember.

Avignon is partially destroyed. Thomas wanders around, looking for Delphine, but no one has seen her. He finds the body of Robert, who died under the rubble. A stone devil grabbed him by the hair, while a stone saint held his hand. Pope Clement retracts the call for the Crusade and announces that there will be no pogrom against the Jewish community. Thomas travels north as the plague leaves Europe. He farms for a while and makes friends. Three of them travel with him to Normandy.

Delphine wakes up in the tree overlooking her house. She finds her father’s skeletal remains in his bed and wonders how long she was asleep. She sees Parsnip in the field and notices that some peasants are staying in the barn. Delphine goes into the barn and asks them for help burying her father. One of the men starts to cry. The men help her bury her father. The next day, she rides her donkey with the three men, traveling south. Thomas rides beside her, but she does not remember him. He makes her laugh, and she decides that she likes him. She asks him if he wants to know her name, but he tells her that he already knows it. Then he calls her “little moon,” just like her father did.

An old friar arrives at a castle. A young nobleman tells him to go to the kitchen for food but asks him to leave as soon as he eats. A woman in the kitchen tells him that the seigneur’s mother would like him to pray over her.

The mother, Marguerite, has trouble with her eyesight, but she greets the friar as he comes in. The friar asks what he should pray for. She tells him that she does not want her grandson to die of the new plague that is spreading. She apologizes to the friar for her son’s sharp words to him in the courtyard. She tells him that her son is like her late husband and asks the friar if he knew her husband. The friar tells her that he hardly knew her husband. She asks him if he had a wife, and the friar implies that she is in heaven. Marguerite asks him if he has children, and the friar tells her that he has a daughter who took her vows the same month that he did. Marguerite says that she believes in both God’s will and luck. She tells the friar to pray for God’s mercy on behalf of her grandson; she will pray for luck. The friar agrees that this is a good idea and then bids Marguerite farewell. Before he leaves, Marguerite raps her ring three times on the table next to her. The friar stops and smiles. He knocks the bowl that he carries against the wall three times in response. Then the friar leaves to visit his daughter.