The old barkeep came barrel-assing into the hall. “Wenny, Louisa, douse the lights—” She blew out a lantern. “Gentlemen, if you please.” Wenelda launched off Karl’s lap and blew out a light. I obliged by blowing out the one nearest me as the barkeep, barmaid, and Wenelda scrambled about pell-mell, dousing lights til we were sheathed in darkness.
“Karl.” I nodded toward the front door.
But Karl was already by it, thane-axe in hand.
“Avar.” I pointed to a side door.
“Wh-What—?”
“Stand by it,” I hissed.
“Oh. Aye. Alright.” He hustled over to it, a belaying pin clutched trembling in hand.
Upon either side of the street, twin lines of torch-bearers strode. Down the middle, stumbling through the muck, lurched a scrawny half-naked fella, a ring of thorns crowning his bloody brow. He looked like Jesus Christ headed for Golgotha. Sort of. The massive cross borne across his shoulders toppled, and he tumbled splashing after. Gawping, gasping like a fish, ribs straining against flesh, his naked chest rose and fell as he lay supine in the cold muck.
“Definitely not monks. Here,” I patted my thigh, “you can see better.”
Lady Mary ignored me.
Scrawny Jesus scrabbled to his knees, hands out as he shouted to the mob fast assembling. The Tome-Bearer staggered under his burden, dropping it open in the muck, eyes boiling with madness as he read, spittle flying, drool coursing, his high-pitched screech somehow melding with the mob chants.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered in awe.
Lady Mary didn’t respond.
They were all dressed as Jesus.
“Please!” Scrawny Jesus’s fingers interlaced in prayer. “Please! I beg you!”
“Flagellants,” Lady Mary spat.
“Lunatics,” Karl grunted.
“Yeah,” I said, “that, too.”
The chanting grew as some big bastard of a messiah barged his way through the mob, shouldering folk aside, a coiled scourge borne in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other. From his crown of thorns, blood eked lines down his broad mug, the legion of crimson trickles pinking his ragged beard, his hairy chest, his distended gut.
“I want to look away, but c’mon—” I held out an emphatic hand, “Fat Jesus.”
“PLEASE!” Scrawny Jesus slithered like a wyrm, abasing himself before Fat Jesus. “Flay me, brother! Flay me!”
Lady Mary blanched. “Oh, my word…”
“What God-Son gets his arse so thoroughly stomped?” Karl rumbled.
Fat Jesus trudged forth, bit the stopper out of the wine bottle, yanked it free, spat it aside. He and his scrawny doppelganger had a muted exchange before Fat Jesus raised his bottle overhead, roaring, “The Body and Blood!”
“This shit’d never happen to Thor…”
“The glory of God!” Fat Jesus upended the bottle, sloshing wine out over the two of them, flicking it in drizzles, christening the roaring crowd in a shower of spittled-crimson. Scrawny Jesus swayed on his knees, hands out, teeth bared in a rictus of ecstasy. When only drips came, Fat Jesus spiked the bottle into the ground, shattering it, showering Scrawny Jesus in shards of glass. “Flay yourself, brother.” He cast him his scourge. “Do him proud.”
“Yes!” Eyes glowing, Scrawny Jesus caught the scourge whipping round his neck. A cat o’ nine tails of leather thong, bits of iron spike all knotted along its many lengths. Disentangling it, he took the handle in two hands, drew himself up, eyes closed in muted prayer, then whipped the barbed monstrosity back and over his shoulder, biting into spine. Snap! He yanked down. Rip! “Rrrrg…” Grimacing. Trembling. Teetering. “YES!” Then he did it again.
Snap! Rip! Grimace.
“YES!” the crowd roared.
“Just what the hell’s wrong with you folk?” Karl asked.
“We’ve got a whole book about it,” I said.
“Yer whole book’s the cause of it.”
“You ain’t wrong.”
“The Lord loves you, brother!” Fat Jesus roared.
The mob chanting to the caustic swish of laceration reached a fever pitch as Scrawny Jesus staggered to his feet, bleeding profusely, and stutter-fumbled his way onward, lurching to and fro in a drunken stupor, the mob jeering after.
Snap!
Thud!
Rip!
“YES!” They roared.
In a few moments, all the Jesus doppelgangers had fled down an alleyway, bodies pouring, pressing against one another, forcing themselves in, and the street was desolate once more.
“Holy shit,” Avar breathed from across the room.
“You’re half right, kid.” I sat back, took a breath and a long pull.
“They left the crucifix.” Lady Mary pointed towards Scrawny Jesus’s cross wallowing in the swill.
“Yeah,” I pointed at an empty puddle, “but they took the corpse.”
…rigors of the road have indeed proved harsh, yet nary as harsh as the tearing of the caul of delusion I bore for him.
He wallows behind, head down, muttering, cursing, stumbling into camp hours after even the meanest servant has arrived. He scars the Haesken family name, weeping in his baser moments when he believes none can see.
Yet I do…
—War-Journal of Prince Ulrich of Haeskenburg
Chapter 5.
THEY GONE?” As the flickering torchlight faded up the row, the barkeep relit a lantern, waved out the taper, a trail of blue smoke twirling, then collapsed in the nearest chair with a pronounced, “Oof…” She picked up a mug and sourly eyeballed its innards. “Louisa, be a love and fetch me an ale and something stronger, would ya?”
Louisa hustled off.
Karl kept to the shadows, nursing his axe while Avar gnawed his fingernails.
“So,” I called across the void, “what the hell was that?”
“Damnation? Ruin? The apocalypse?” The barkeep slathered a hand through her frazzled iron-grey hair. “Or the Lord Jesus, our Father? Take your pick.”
Louisa returned with a pitcher and the shot of something stronger, but the barkeep proved strongest, wrestling it back with but a bend of her elbow. “Ahhh…” She wiped her chin. “Thanks, love.”
“How long have they been here?” I asked.
“Hrmm…” The barkeep stifled a burp and patted her soft, prominent belly. “Excuse me. Not long. Nigh on a month. Maybe two.” She filled the empty mug. “But too long. Double-edged sword, if you catch my drift?”
“No. Not exactly.” I set Yolanda against the table. “They seem more of the single-edged variety.”
“Well, y’see, plague’s not taken root here as it has in so many other burgs,” the barkeep said. “Somehow. Location. Luck. Grace o’ God. What have you… Far as I’ve heard, we’ve not had a single case, whilst north and south up and down the Abraxas, towns’ve been laid to waste. Simply gone. Ghost-towns full of empty hovel and rotting corpse moldering away to wrack and ruin.”
“Yeah,” I said, “not like here.”
“Aye.” She smiled ruefully. “We’ve other problems, make no mistake. Always have, but plague ain’t one of them.”
“What’s plague got to do with that lot?”
“I’ve no explanation for our luck, if that’s what it be,” the barkeep said. “Perhaps we’re merely destined to die slower. Yet, yon lord of the scourgers claims it were by the grace of God through him that we been spared. You see’d that burly fella out there?”
“You mean Fat Jesus?”
“Glurg—!” The barkeep sputtered through her slug of ale. “Err, ah, yessir. Fat — ahem. Folk’ve taken to calling him the Nazarene. He’s the one in charge of all that,” she waved a hand, trying to conjure up a word—
“Shit-storm?” I offered.
“Aye. For sure. That works.”
“Plague’s been raging for well over a year,” I said. “How’d he get people to swallow that one?”
“He yelled it loud, and he yelled it often.” The barkeep sho
ok her head. “Folk are so wont to misplace their trust.”
“Folk are stupid.” I took a measured pull.
“Aw, well, something like that.” The barkeep rubbed her eyebrows slowly and Louisa started in on her shoulder with two practiced hands. “Ahh… Thanks, love. Still feeling somewhat rattled. Like walking on a floating log. Twisting every which way underfoot, all slick and bouncing, tough to get a grip.” She let out a groan. “Ain’t charisma keeps that rabble gaggling along behind like geese.”
“No? He’s practically bursting at the seams with it.”
“No.” She leaned in as though someone might hear. “It’s what he can do.”
“And what’s that?”
“They say he can perform Christ’s miracles. Cure the afflicted. Heal the wounded. Some even say he can,” she lowered her voice, “raise the dead.”
“They do say a lot.”
Out of the corner of my eye, Avar grinned in rancid delight, “Oh my good gracious Lord,” as Wenelda found a seat on his lap.
Lady Mary stared pointedly aghast out the window.
“And this Nazarene fella claims it’s all their whipping and frenzying and passion-Christing that’s keeping the plague at bay.” The barkeep took a swig. “Now me? I ain’t so sure of it.”
“Says that they’re keeping other things at bay, too,” Wenelda cackled from Avar’s lap. “Relax now, sugar,” she crooned, rubbing his arm. “Let Wenny loosen all these knots.”
Avar went flaccid. Well, most of him, anyway.
Lady Mary lowered her hackles, cleared her throat, took a surreptitious sip of ale. “What sort of things?”
“Begging your pardon, my lady, but the sort of things I don’t want to be talking on.” The barkeep crossed herself. “Sort of stuff no one wants to be talking on. Not on a night dark as this. Jehoshaphat. Them flailers see light in here…”
“They’ll saunter in calling for women and song?” I asked.
“Nay sir,” the barkeep’s visage turned ashen grim, “not likely. I’m living on borrowed time as it is. Whorehouse and tavern and run by a woman.” She crossed herself again and looked to the ceiling. “Mother of God.”
“Can’t be too careful.”
“Aye. Got a few too many of the seven deadlies dwelling under my one roof. Y’understand?”
I raised my mug her way. “But two of my personal favorites.”
“Heh, well, they ain’t got no favorites. They only got them scourges and them torches, and they ain’t shy on plying with the rough half of either. Mother of mercy. Burned down five houses last night on the east side.”
“Why?”
“Expunging sin from the populace is what he’s spouting.”
“And what sins did the folk have?”
“Eh… Was a rumor one of them was harboring Jews.” She swallowed. “Folk say the fire got out of hand. Conflagrated all the way down to the river.”
“It’ll do that.”
“Aye, ain’t no lie.” The barkeep closed her eyes as Louisa dug into her neck. “Ooh, that’s the spot, lass. Bless you. Ain’t no Jews left.”
“None at all?”
“No smart ones, anyhow. The Nazarene ran ‘em all out. First thing on his list. Said they was an affront before the light of the Christian God. The crucifiers of our savior and all. Lucky the whole damned town ain’t razed. After the Jews, they done the same with the taverns. Mine’s the only still standing. Blessing of the Lord.”
“Or cause the Schloss is a stone’s throw up the road,” I said.
“Aye. Or maybe that, too.”
“Less competition,” I offered.
The barkeep fixed me an eyeful. “Silver linings on maelstroms ain’t often long term.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “And where’s all the other folk? And what the hell’s King Eckhardt doing through all this? Sitting around with his thumb up his royal arse?”
“The King took some folk into the Schloss at the outset,” the barkeep said. “Got a tent city festering behind the stockade. But he can’t fit the whole town in there. Not near even a quarter.”
“And the rest?”
“Gone. Took whatever ships was moored. Made for somewhere. Upriver. Down. Anywhere. Others what were left? Hoofed it out of here, east, through the pass.”
“They’re probably all dead.” Louisa shook her head.
“Best not linger your thoughts long on such matters.” The barkeep patted her hand. “Pass is stoppered tight til May. Sometimes June. Sometimes beyond. Other folk we got living in abandoned houses, the mills, the guild halls, hiding round town. And there’s a camp north of town, in the Grey-Lark Forest, and one up in the derelict old keep east of here.”
“Why doesn’t the King send out a sortie? Cut these bastards some crimson grins? Bunch of half-naked lunatics might scare a bunch of shop-keeps, but fighting men?” I swiped a hand out, knocking down legions of imaginary foes. “Sickles to chaff.”
“Don’t know. Don’t make a whole lick of sense.”
“So this Nazarene’s the cock in the hen house.”
“I’d say so, young man. Or the weasel.”
“Talk about cocks and weasels?” Wenelda glanced up from the snaggle-toothed nuzzling she was doing at Avar’s neck. “They hanged a priest two days ago. Scourged him raw first, too, I heard.” She shuddered. Avar didn’t seem to mind.
“A priest…?” Avar swallowed.
“Relax, sugar,” Wenelda crooned softly. “There now. Sit back.”
“Aye, folk’re afraid to take him down.” The barkeep frowned Wenelda’s way. “The Nazarene deemed he hang til he rots.”
“Lovely.” Movement from the stairwell caught my eye. I nudged Lady Mary with an elbow. “Our quarry. Lasted longer than I’d have bet. Longer than me, anyways.”
An old man fixed his cravat as he stepped into the hall from the stairwell. He kissed his hand and placed it against a portrait, holding it there as he swayed slightly to and fro, an empty tankard dangling limp from his other hand. His lips moved as he spoke low in the gloom.
“Pardon. Sir Alaric?” I was on my feet, sliding through the labyrinth of empty tables and chairs. “Sir Alaric Felmarsh?”
“Oy?” The old man turned, cleared his throat, glancing from side to side as though I’d caught him mid-thrust boning my wife. “Who is it now?”
“Sir Luther Slythe Krait.” I offered a half-assed bow, rose, studied his lined face. He was short and stooped and old, one toe tickling the grave, the only thing of significance about him being the massive white sideburns slathered down to his chin from his barren scalp. A cracked reflection through a musty mirror twenty-some-odd years older than I remembered, but I was fair sure it was him. “You’re Sir Alaric, yeah?”
“Aye, sir.” His hand settled on his sword hilt. “That I am.”
“You went by Red way back when.” I kept my hands up. Out. Open.
“Ain’t been called Red in quite a piece.” He rubbed a hand across his smooth pate. “All the reasons fell out some time ago. And what didn’t turned to snow.” He squinted at me, snapped his fingers, pointed, “Slythe Krait! Luther, aye? You were Charles’s squire.” He tapped his temple. “Out of Lankashyre. Never forget a name nor face, though sometimes it takes a mite to sift through all the rubble.” He looked up. “And you’ve grown some, lad.”
“Well, they say I’m quite gruesome.”
I could practically hear Lady Mary and Karl roll their eyes — Avar was wholly occupied — but Sir Alaric laughed, a fair bit harder than my joke warranted, but then he was very, very old. “It’s been, what?” Sir Alaric said. “Twenty … twenty-five years?”
“Give or take.”
“Lord, how the years fly. You was but a lad.” The twinkle in his eyes dulled. “Yer Uncle Charles…?”
“Passed on,” I said. “Long while back.”
“Hmm. Happens to the best of us.” Sir Alaric smiled to himself and crossed his chest. “A good man he was, yer uncle.”
“Yeah
.” Uncle Charles had been. And then some. Honest. Hard-working. Honorable to a fault. Probably a fair portion of the reason he was dead.
Sir Alaric glanced guiltily toward the stairwell. “Don’t go jawing on to my wife, eh?”
“Long as you don’t to mine.”
“A fair bargain.” Sir Alaric stomped forth all bandy-legged, and we shook hands. “Well met. Well met. So,” he offered a winning grin, “what are we drinking?”
“Whatever you can afford.”
“Grand. Dog piss all around.” He slapped me on the back. “How’d you find me?”
I shrugged. “We drank here a few times is all. Drank a few places, truth be bare, but this is the only place still standing.”
“Aye, old habits and all that…” Sir Alaric glanced over to Karl. “By the hound, I remember you, too, sir. That axe, most especially. She still sing sharp?”
Karl took a sip, nodded.
“Aye, sure and she does.” Sir Alaric rubbed his hand together.
I introduced Lady Mary next but skipped over Avar as I was fair certain Wenelda was hand-jobbing him something fierce beneath the table. I didn’t want to be rude.
“Well now,” Sir Alaric, ever the true gentleman, also glossed over Avar, “how is it I can be helping ya then, lad?”
“Need a lay of the land. We’ve just shipped in, you see?”
“Hrmm…” Sir Alaric frowned. “Well, I’d think hard on shipping back out if I was you. Not upriver, mind. Plague’s thick as a hill-women’s back hair. Nay, nay. Head on out to the coast. East. West.” He threw up a hand. “Pick a direction, but go.”
“Why do you stay?” Lady Mary asked. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Me, lass?” Sir Alaric puffed himself up and beat his chest with a wizened fist. “The best swordsman in the seven kingdoms? I ain’t afraid of nothing.”
Lady Mary raised an eyebrow.
“Which seven we talking?” I queried innocently.
“Hah!” Sir Alaric slapped me on the shoulder, and I found myself grinning. “Some of the smaller ones, lad. Scattered over yonder. Probably never heard of ‘em.”
The Last Benediction in Steel Page 3
