The book is Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. It was originally published in 2012 by Ace Books. I read the paperback edition. I read it in October of 2024.
The title refers to a practice during the Black Plague where the pope would receive people only between two massive fires that were supposed to burn away the plague to protect him. I’m not sure if this is an historical fact but it sounds cool.
I think the title represents the characters and how they feel unworthy of the grace and favor they’ve been shown. Or maybe the two fires are symbols of some other story elements I’m missing, like being stuck between “a rock and a hard place.” I’m not sure what the two fires would be from the story.
The book deals a lot with the sins of the characters and whether or not they should even hope for redemption.
The story is about a disgraced brigand knight, a disgraced gay alcoholic priest, and an innocent young girl. It’s set in France during the Black Plague. The subtitle is “An Epic Tale of Medieval Horror.”
Buehlman sets the story during the Black Plague and treats the environment sort of like a dystopian zombie apocalypse. It had Walking Dead vibes as far as the characters not being able to trust doomsday survival people they meet on the road and trying to avoid people who may be infected. It’s a journey story.
I didn’t really get the impression that this was an epic at all. When I think of epic I think in terms of scale, like The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Lots of characters with detailed backgrounds. Huge worlds with a history. It wasn’t like that at all. I mean, it was set in our world but it didn’t lean into history very much. And as far as horror, it was more like dark fantasy. That part was cool.
I read it because it was October and I wanted to read something scary for Halloween time. It wasn’t that scary. It was gory and dark, but not scary.
I’m not sure if a book could really scare me. Blood Meridian gave me nightmares of the Judge stalking me, but that wasn’t really a scare, more just messed with my mind. Movies have jump scares. Maybe my imagination isn’t good enough to get a good visual scare from a book.
A gruesome description can make me nauseous and physically uncomfortable. In All the Pretty Horses there’s a scene where someone gets struck by lightning and the fillings in his teeth weld his jaw shut. That actually made my jaw hurt when I read it. It’s cool when a book can have a visceral effect on you.
This book did not make me feel anything but a little annoyed. The hype ruined it. This book popped up on several Instagram and YouTube book reviewers I follow and all but one loved it. I haven’t read most of the books they recommend and this doesn’t bode well for their other books. It’s weird because the one that didn’t like it loves Stephen King, who I think sucks. I wanted epic medieval story and didn’t get that. I wanted scary. Didn’t get it. It just fell flat, which is unfortunate because the premise sounded cool.
I’m getting into the whole historical fiction genre especially in the medieval period. It’s a way for me to get my fantasy fix and still learn something about the real world. I read the first two Last Kingdom books by Bernard Cornwell. Those were infinitely better than Between Two Fires. It’s ironic because Buehlman seems to be trying to make his book too much like an action movie or TV show and Cornwell’s books actually did get a TV show adaptation.
Buehlman makes the typical accusation against Christianity and religion of judgementalism and oppression. It’s a cliché at this point.
Buehlman is presenting a Christianity very much seen through modern eyes.
The priest is gay and the young innocent girl Delphine (the Christ figure) doesn’t mind at all. It’s a complete non-issue. That does not ring true of the Christian environment of the time.
The message Buehlman is sending is that if you’re good you won’t mind someone’s homosexuality. Only the small-minded and bigoted people care about such things. This is a message that’s been flowing through western culture for decades. TV shows, movies, and books all depict conservatives that are conservative in finances only. That is the only acceptable form of conservatism. Any moral conservative that has a negative word about trans people or gays is the villain. If there is ever a character that’s grossed out by gays then he’s depicted as needing to “learn and grow” and he usually does by the end.
Buehlman’s characters have a cynical view of God. There are no atheists of course because it’s set in medieval Europe. But the Black Plague has made the characters nihilistic and depressed. With so much death and catastrophe all around they think they’re going through the literal biblical apocalypse. There’s one scene where the knight looks up in the sky and sees a meteor and wonders why God isn’t’ just wiping them all out.
“He noticed a second comet now, close to it and very faint.
‘Just kill us all,” he said. “What are you waiting for?'” (p45)
The characters negative view of God comes from their pain. This is a familiar sentiment. When bad things happen, we get angry at God. We ask how he could let this happen. Isn’t he good? Where is the good in any of this? Why doesn’t he stop all this pain?
This mindset comes from a serious ignorance of who God is and who we are. The first thing to point out is that God did create everything good and then we disobeyed and wrecked it all. All the pain and suffering is our fault. We introduced sin and death and pain into God’s good world.
Second, God is the creator and we are the created thing. We are pottery in the potters hand. He has every right to do with us as he pleases according to his will, not ours. He is under no obligation to consult with us and get our consent before he annihilates us. He has made promises and covenants with us not to destroy us, but it’s important to remember that he didn’t have to do that.
Our response is to be grateful for his patience and grace every second of our offensive lives. We offend him every day and disobey his commands, and then we have the gall to turn around and demand that he answers for things that are causing us pain. So many people, even Christians, don’t understand this. Especially as Americans, we hate the idea that we wouldn’t get a vote in what happens to us or to the world. These are the things about Christianity that are easy to understand but hard to accept.
There is a scene in Between Two Fires where the main characters come to a town and the knight defeats a water monster that had been terrorizing the town. After he beats the monster it starts hailing and he passes out thinking the world is literally ending. Thomas, the knight is living in the context of a massive plague, possibly the end of the world, but then he still fights to save the town from the sea monster? Why? Does he still have hope? Is his nihilistic cynicism a lie? The plague will probably take out the town anyway. What’s the point of fighting on? Why try so hard?
This scene makes me think of what we should do in a world-ending situation. Say there is a meteor headed for America and there’s no escape. It’s just a matter of time before we all die. What should we do? Just accept our fate? Make our final peace with God and wait for the blast? Is it sinful to just get drunk or high when you’re on the brink of obliteration? I’d say no. I don’t think there is anything wrong with numbing the pain of inevitable death. Why suffer? Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know.
There is a consideration of God’s sovereignty in this book. The characters come upon a dead man’s cart when the priest Matthieu couldn’t walk anymore. Thomas wonders if God killed the dead man for Matthieu to take the cart or did he just steer them to the man after he died.
Thomas asks what’s the difference. Everything serves God’s will anyway. But there is a difference and it’s important to identify it. In one scenario, God is sovereign over the death of the man and in the other, God is merely responding to the situation. The answer must be that God caused the man to die and one of the reasons they have the benefit to see is so that Matthieu can have the cart.
It cannot be the case that God is responding to a situation. He doesn’t merely turn bad things around for good. He is in control the whole time. If he is only leading the characters to the dead man, that implies that the man’s death is out of his control. That’s not true. There is nothing outside of his purview. Not a single molecule in the universe moves without the permission of God.
In Genesis, after Joseph’s brothers committed the evil act of selling him into slavery, it ended up saving them all because Joseph rose to a position of power in Egypt and was able to provide food for them. Joseph says “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good,” (Gen 50:20). God meant it. God didn’t clean it up and pull something good out of the bad situation later. The good outcome was part of the reason for the evil the whole time. God is sovereign over it all from beginning to end.
During the Black Plague the pope granted audiences to a wide variety of people and supposedly there were two large fires blazing on either side of the pope in order to burn away any germs that the people might be bringing with them. This creates a haunting picture of the pope behind a wall of flames. It conjures images of hell. Is this supposed to be an ironic picture of the pope in hell? I think so.
All popes are most certainly in hell. The doctrines of Catholicism are anti-Christian. They are heavily synergistic in their soteriology. Meaning, they believe that people are able and required to participate with God in our salvation. This is a slap in the face to Jesus Christ on the cross.
With their penitence, and treasury of merit, and worship of Mary, Catholicism is antithetical to true biblical Christianity. It’s difficult to think of anything more insulting and blasphemous than to see Christ’s bloody, humiliating, literally excruciating sacrifice on the cross and say, “thanks for the help Jesus but you missed a spot. Don’t worry I’ll pay for it the rest of the way in purgatory.” It’s crazy to call that Christianity. It’s a cult of the church still clinging to its pagan Roman roots. All popes can be assumed to be not only between two fires but in a lake of fire.
In one scene of this book, the gay alcoholic priest Matthieu, states that he has no room to judge anyone or even offer any remedy to sin, because of his profound sin. While he has sinned greatly that’s true, it’s also true that he was in no position to judge or offer advice before the homosexuality and drinking. We have all fallen short of the glory of God. There is none righteous.
An overseer is required to be above reproach (1 Tim 3:2), but that doesn’t mean he’s sinless. The issue is unrepentant sin. The truth is still true even if an evil man tells it.
However, it is very easy to ignore a hypocrite. If someone is advising you how to fight a certain sin, and you know that they are also struggling greatly with that sin, it’s hard to take that advice. It makes it seem like the advice doesn’t work. It’s like when a fat person lectures others on how to diet and exercise. What they’re saying may be true but it’s hard to hear it from them, especially if it’s delivered as an admonishment.
Discipleship often looks like Christian brothers and sisters fighting sin side-by-side together. We’re all in the trenches of sin. Some might be in a different place in their life and the struggle is different, but the threat is always there and we’re all in it together.
We shouldn’t put each other on pedestals, not even pastors. I guarantee you would not want to trade your struggles for theirs.
This book dealt a lot with death. Obviously it takes place during the Black Plague so death was everywhere. This leads to contemplation about humanity and how we die. The people and the animals all died together. One character questions how man could be made in the image of God, set apart and special, when we look so much like any other animals when we die. When the light goes out of our eyes, are we still image bearers of God? Are we not just another hunk of meat and flesh starting to rot? Ashes to ashes and dust to dust and all that.
I believe the answer is yes. Even in death our bodies have a certain dignity as human beings. Christ’s physical body was resurrected and then glorified. Ours will be too.
Christians ought not to be cremated. How could we if we believe in a bodily resurrection one day when Christ returns? It could be said that God is a great puzzle maker. Since matter is not created or destroyed, he has the power to reassemble our bits of deteriorated dust and atoms and put our bodies back together again. But as Christians, we ought to do what we can to respect the bodies that God has given us. We shouldn’t willingly destroy what we believe will literally physically rise from the grave one day.
Pagans burned their dead. Yes, we used to be pagans and we can redeem most old practices, but this one is specific to the doctrine of resurrection. Cremation should stay in our pagan past. Christians bury our dead in the hope waiting for the return of Christ and the physical resurrection of our bodies. Dressing our corpses in a suit and laying them to rest is symbolic of that faith in the resurrection, that death for a Christian is truly only a rest until the eschaton.
In this book there are a lot of fantasy elements like angels and demons fighting in the sky. It’s cool imagery. It gets very Revelation-ish. The knight, Thomas, sees these apocalyptic beasts fighting and he says that it’s his mind playing tricks on him and he calls it a translation. He can’t understand what he’s seeing so his mind is translating it for him.
Many people believe the weird stuff like the Garden of Eden and the miracles are symbolic of a deeper truth about humanity and the world. It’s a useful myth. They believe the original writers couldn’t explain things like the origins of the universe so they came up with a creation myth to understand.
This view can be a problem. Eden must be taken literally because it’s the story of how literal sin and death entered the world. However, I do take Revelation to be almost entirely symbolic. Is this a double standard? Absolutely not.
The book of Revelation is exactly that, a revelation. An unveiling of what was to come. When John was seeing these things it wasn’t a literal event that was happening. Like Thomas the knight, he is seeing a translation of future events.
Also, John wrote this revelation during a time of intense persecution of the Christians, a revelation would be wisely disguised and obfuscated. For example, John doesn’t write down Nero’s name, he gives the number of his name, 666 and says “This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.” (Rev 13:18).
Consider also that Jesus interprets for John some of the things he’s seeing. “As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” (Rev 1:20). It’s perfectly acceptable to take Revelation as mostly symbolic. Genesis is not a vision or revelation. It doesn’t deal in symbols and metaphors. It’s a history of real things that have already happened. It’s an explanation of realities that we see today, like sin.
In one scene in Between Two Fires there is a discussion where Eve gets blamed for the Fall by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The innocent young girl Delphine, the Jesus figure in the story says the following.
“She was tempted by something stronger than her. Adam was tempted by a weaker creature. Or so we are told. If Eve was his inferior, his sin was greater. You can’t have it both ways.” (p268)
This is very nearly a true statement. Both Adam and Eve are guilty but only Adam is held responsible. Eve knew she should not have eaten of the tree. She’s not innocent. But if we look closely we see that Adam was with her when the serpent deceived her. Genesis 3:6 says “she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate” (emphasis mine).
Adam was right there with her and he let a serpent lead his wife astray. Why didn’t he step in? He fell down on the job of protecting it. And for that he is actually the one held responsible. In 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 Paul says “For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.” Adam get’s blamed for the Fall. Both Adam and Eve are guilty. They both ate. They both disobeyed. But only Adam is responsible.
My main takeaway from this book is that mainstream entertainment still doesn’t understand the true gospel. The Catholic Christianity shown in this book is a liberal theology. Christ is seen as an example of how we can save ourselves by either being good enough or by punishing ourselves properly when we’ve sinned. Totally missed the mark.
I would not recommend this book. The premise was cool but it did not execute. The end totally petered out and was very confusing as to what was happening. I will not be reading anything more from Christopher Buehlman.
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Notable Quotables
“”””
Thomas woke up in the middle of the night and went to look at his comet.
He noticed a second comet now, close to it and very faint.
“Just kill us all,” he said. “What are you waiting for?” (p45)
“”””
“I’d rather He got me another goblet of this.”
“No,” the priest said. “You wouldn’t rather a goblet of wine than your honor back. Your joking is pleasant, but it doesn’t hide the hole in you.”
Thomas turned his eyes away from the priest’s warm gaze. He only just managed not to cry. He did this by angering himself at God for making him suffer and pay for sins he had been backed into. God ringed you round with hounds and cornered you, then speared you with your back against a tree. (p53)
“”””
But he was alone and dying, with his armor heavy on him in the river.
His legs were still in the water. If it wasn’t dead, it would drag him under. But he didn’t care now.
Something was banging on his armor and his helmet. Hail.
It was hailing.
So this is the end of the world, he thought, feeling nauseated, hoping to pass out.
And he passed out. (p66)
“”””
Then he had a moment to wonder whether God had slain this man to provide them a cart, or if He had merely directed Matthieu to the scene of this sad event, already foreordained. What was the difference? Everything served God’s will, and here, at last, after months of senseless deaths and unending tears, was a tragedy that bore some fruit. (p74)
“”””
The Great Death was coming.
It had already begun devouring Avignon, where it was said the pope heard audiences between two fires to burn off pestilential air, and nibbling at Paris, where the first afflicted households were trying to hide their sick so they would not be shunned by their neighbors.
What troubled him most was his feeling that God could see into his heart and knew that his love was twisted. (p175-176)
“”””
But who was he to judge anyone, or propose any remedy for sin?
He was such a profound sinner that he had considered leaving off his robes and stopping the pretense. He was just an old bugger who would sell his last possession for a barrel of good wine. Or any wine. (p193)
“”””
How was she to believe man was anything special when he looked so much like any other animal in death? (p206)
“”””
Thomas knew somehow that what he was seeing was not precisely true, but a translation; he had no way to understand what he was seeing, so his mind painted its own pictures. (p229)
“”””
“We thank you,” the priest said, as Delphine set the cages down and opened their doors, taking one docile bird and then the other into her hands. She kissed them both, then released them. One flew up into the sky; the other went toward the bank.
Nobody saw the second finch fly into the squash field, where it stayed for a moment before flying up again and into the clouds.
Neither did they see the jester now get to his feet and run toward a farmhouse in the distance, no longer limping. (p260-261)
“”””
“Man is born into sin. All because of Adam.”
Guillaume said, “Mostly Eve, my priest told us.” Delphine looked up from the water now. “That’s not fair.”
“How’s that?” said Guillaume.
“She was tempted by something stronger than her. Adam was tempted by a weaker creature. Or so we are told. If Eve was his inferior, his sin was greater. You can’t have it both ways.” (p268)
“”””
he caught up with the envenomed priest, who was barely moving, his remaining force going to his arms, which held the girl up and out of the water.
The knight would never forget the image of the faltering priest holding the girl up; how like the raising of the Eucharist it looked. (p273)
“”””
Could a sodomite attain to Heaven? He remembered the priest holding the girl up out of the water as the abominations stung the life from him.
Hoc est corpus meum. If that was not good enough, nothing would be. (p280)
Solomon White 
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