The story opens with a theological prologue describing God's apparent withdrawal from the world and the resulting chaos unleashed by fallen angels. Three key fallen angels each bring destruction to humanity: Uzziel brings famine by corrupting crops and livestock, Belial incites war between kingdoms, and finally Lucifer orchestrates the "great death" - a devastating plague that kills countless people. The year is established as 1348, placing the story during the Black Death pandemic.
The main narrative follows a group of four brigands (former soldiers turned bandits) who have been surviving on meager rations during the plague. They find and slaughter a donkey named Parsnip for food, taking shelter in a barn from the approaching rain. The men - Godfroy (the lecherous leader), Tomas (a former knight with moral restraint), Jaco (with a drooping eye), and an unnamed fat soldier - are all desperate and hardened by the circumstances.
A young girl appears at the barn seeking help to bury her dead father. Godfroy, driven by his predatory nature, attempts to sexually assault the girl despite Tomas's objections. When Jaco is sent to retrieve the girl, he finds her hiding in a tree and coerces her down. However, upon returning to the barn, they discover that Tomas has killed both Godfroy and the fat soldier to protect the girl. As Tomas prepares to kill Jaco as well, the girl intervenes, telling him not to kill anyone else.
The chapter establishes key themes of survival, moral decay, divine abandonment, and the thin line between civilization and barbarism during times of extreme crisis. The plague has not only killed countless people but has also broken down social structures and moral constraints.
Summary content for Chapter Two would go here based on the summary file.
Thomas and the unnamed girl arrive at the town of Fleur de Roche, dominated by an old Norman tower on a hill and a stone church below. The settlement shows clear signs of abandonment and death from the plague, with untended crops, fresh graves, and a mass burial pit. Thomas scouts the tower for potential threats while leaving the girl with his hat, encountering the corpses of two scullery women that crows have been feeding on. The chapter reveals through flashback that Thomas has abandoned his companion Jaco, tying him to a tree as punishment for stealing from their recently deceased fellow brigands, despite the girl's attempted intervention.
In the abandoned church, which has been stripped of all valuables, Thomas and the girl take shelter for the night. During the night, the girl speaks in Latin and mentions Avignon in her sleep. When she awakens, she insists they must travel to Paris and then Avignon, claiming the dead priest Pere Raoul visited her in a dream with this message. Thomas initially rejects this supernatural guidance and considers abandoning the girl, viewing her as a liability who would slow his travel and compromise his survival. The chapter explores Thomas's internal conflict between pragmatic survival and an emerging sense of responsibility.
The chapter ends with a supernatural element that changes Thomas's mind about leaving: he discovers a red devil's mask with horns by his feet in the church - the same type Pere Raoul would have worn in mystery plays. This object appears mysteriously and was not there before, causing Thomas to cross himself and ultimately decide to stay with the girl rather than abandon her as planned.
Thomas and the unnamed girl travel together for two days toward Paris, subsisting on meager forage including green stems, a parsnip, grasshoppers, and traces of honey. Despite the supernatural warning of devil's horns from the night before, Thomas repeatedly considers abandoning the girl throughout their journey, though he finds himself reluctantly drawn to her intelligence and gentle manner. Their conversation reveals Thomas's defensive nature about his past, as the girl's persistent questions about his birthplace remind him painfully of someone who once hurt him.
They discover an abandoned Cistercian monastery with an open gate bearing the Latin inscription "This gate opens to all who enter in Christ's peace." The monastery shows signs of recent evacuation - the stores have been emptied respectfully, and four plague victims lie dead in the church while fresh graves mark earlier deaths. The girl takes a spontaneous vow of silence while on the monastery grounds, communicating only through writing in the dirt, and demonstrates her extensive knowledge of herbs by guiding Thomas through the garden and preventing him from picking poisonous monkshood.
During their stay at the monastery, Thomas observes ominous celestial signs - his comet has moved across Cygnus's neck and appears to have a reddish tip like blood, and a second, fainter comet has appeared nearby. They encounter a merchant caravan from Bruges the next day, maintaining cautious distance while exchanging news. The bridge Thomas intended to cross has been destroyed, leading them to the river town of St. Martin-le-Preux, where they meet a priest who warns of a monstrous creature in the river.
The priest explains how the plague devastated the town, leading to bodies being dumped in the river, which attracted a massive serpentine creature approximately nine mules long. This beast has been killing fishermen and anyone attempting to cross the river, having already consumed several men and a mule. Over wine from the Pope's private stock (obtained through the priest's brother's questionable relationship with a cardinal in Avignon), the priest convinces the reluctant and guilt-ridden Thomas to attempt killing the river monster, appealing to his lost knightly honor and suggesting God might restore his status if he succeeds.
Thomas awakens with a hangover and begins donning his armor, contemplating whether to face the river monster. The priest helps him dress while they debate the reality of the creature - Thomas torn between skepticism and the evidence of supernatural evil in these end times. When Thomas discovers his sword is missing, he finds the girl has injured herself trying to clean it, leading to a tense confrontation where his anger gives way to awkward concern.
The group sets out as a makeshift procession - priest, girl with censer, Thomas, and two townsmen - toward the river to confront the monster. They attempt to recruit help from the local lord's castle but are rudely dismissed by an arrogant herald. At the river, they discover horrific evidence: massive serpentine tracks, piles of excrement filled with human remains, and a severed woman's leg.
The confrontation with the monster begins when the massive eel-like creature emerges from the water - a nightmarish fusion of eel, newt, and frog with white blind eyes and rows of teeth. Thomas enters the water in his heavy armor while one townsman flees in terror. The battle turns deadly when Thomas becomes entangled with the beast, which has a human hand at the end of its tail and rows of black spines. The monster swallows the farmer but Thomas manages to wound it severely. Despite being poisoned by the creature's spine and nearly drowned, Thomas delivers a killing blow, vomiting up the beast's victims as it dies. The chapter ends with Thomas crawling from the river, critically wounded but victorious, as hail begins to fall.
A plague-stricken woman named Mathilde, delirious with fever and tormented by a demonic goat in her house, stumbles through the town seeking water at the river. Abandoned by all, including family who fear contagion, she has lost her children and husband to the plague and been robbed by a young cobbler's apprentice who then contracted the disease himself. At the river, she discovers Thomas lying unconscious and near death from his battle with the monster.
In her fevered state, Mathilde sees Thomas as a beautiful, holy knight and performs a makeshift wedding ceremony, placing her dead husband's ring on Thomas's finger and declaring herself his wife. She removes her clothing to "dress for bed" and dies draped across his armored back, her body marked with plague buboes. The priest later finds this disturbing scene and must separate the girl, who has been caring for Thomas, from the corpse.
Thomas awakens in the priest's house, severely wounded with an infected puncture wound from the monster's spine and showing signs of plague. After receiving last rites, he experiences feverish visions and hallucinations. During the night, he glimpses a mysterious spined figure visiting the girl in the stables, but his weakness prevents him from investigating properly. In his delirium, he encounters what appears to be Saint Sebastian, pierced with arrows, who presses his thumb to Thomas's forehead in a gesture that may be blessing or curse.
The chapter explores themes of death, delirium, and divine intervention as Thomas hovers between life and death, while the plague continues its relentless spread through the community.
The girl announces they must travel to the shrine of the Virgin of the White Rock, ten miles north, where miracles are being granted to cure Thomas of the plague. When the priest objects citing the bishop's skepticism, the girl mysteriously knows his true name (Majer Anicot) and compels him to seek God's guidance. In an almond orchard, they discover a recently deceased man whose cart they appropriate for their journey, with Thomas lying fevered in the back.
En route to Rochelle La Blanche, they encounter a hostile mob of thirty peasants from the village of Chanson des Anges, led by a woman with a pitchfork and including their own priest armed with a candlestick. This mob seeks to reclaim a statue of the Virgin they claim was stolen during a famine. The priest deters them by warning of plague, but the girl disturbs them further by claiming to see devils among them, causing their priest to break down weeping.
At Rochelle La Blanche, the Chanson mob attacks the crowd of pilgrims and breaks the Virgin statue from its shrine. A brutal battle erupts between the two groups of townspeople over the broken statue. When the Chanson forces are overwhelmed, their leader destroys the remaining pieces of the Virgin in rage, screaming obscenities. The Rochelle defenders then massacre all the Chanson attackers, with the last priest killed by the same brick that had killed a child earlier.
As Thomas lies dying in their cart, the girl retrieves the Virgin's severed arm and presses the stone fingers to his forehead where Saint Sebastian had touched him the night before. Thomas gasps back to life, and the Virgin's final miracle saves him from death. The chapter concludes with Thomas's recovery under the girl's care and the priest's humble soup-making, as they prepare to continue their mysterious journey to Paris despite Thomas's reservations about the girl's true nature.
The travelers approach an impressive castle that seems to have escaped the plague, with banners flying and men walking freely on the battlements. Despite the girl's protests about reaching Paris, Thomas decides they should seek food and shelter. A cheerful herald greets them and invites Thomas to participate in a "night tawney" (tournament), promising food and lodging. The girl refuses to enter the castle and climbs a tree, forcing Thomas and the priest to leave her behind.
Inside the castle, Thomas and the priest are treated to an elaborate feast featuring bizarre and decadent dishes: a pastry tower containing a heretic-burning scene, sexually explicit serving bowls, roasted eels, and the grotesque centerpiece of three roasted monkeys wearing crowns with their brains served as delicacies. The lord forces the priest to eat monkey brains while speaking mock-Latin. The evening's entertainment includes cruel treatment of musicians and mounting tensions between Thomas and Sir Theobald de Barrentin, a knight who publicly humiliates Thomas by recounting his dubious knighting during a false alarm caused by a hare at a battle that never happened.
Thomas becomes heavily intoxicated and ends up in bed with the lord's daughter, a disturbing encounter marked by corruption and decay. When he awakens, he's forced into the night tournament wearing armor decorated with heraldic hares, facing Theobald in mortal combat with war points rather than blunted tournament weapons. The priest, also drunk, serves as his squire while being molested by a musician.
The tournament reveals itself as supernatural horror: Thomas's horse is killed and devoured by demonic creatures, Theobald proves to be a rotting corpse leaking seawater (revealed as a knight who drowned at the Battle of Sluys), and the lord transforms into a lion-headed devil. As dawn breaks, the entire castle, feast, and participants vanish, leaving Thomas lying in a cow field beside an abandoned Norman tower and a mass grave containing the real remains of the people he thought he had feasted with. The girl approaches, asking if he's ready to continue to Paris.