His Black Tongue

Pierre is an aging Franciscan friar and Remi is his young, saintly ward. His Black Tongue is the first story in their shared world, which continues in the novel In the Name of the Worm.

In plague-torn fourteenth-century France, in a god-fearing town called Enfaire north of Reims that has been left untouched by the pestilence killing thousands elsewhere.

Yes. It is the first book in the In the Name of the Worm series, followed by the 2025 novel In the Name of the Worm, which continues Pierre and Remi's story.

It evokes medieval France vividly, though some readers have pointed out anachronisms, such as a character smoking a pipe with a match centuries before tobacco and friction matches actually reached Europe.

Enfaire is spared the plague, but dead, twisted shapes appear in its fields and rumors spread of a blasphemous union and creatures that haunt the night, hinting at something worse than any sickness.