Josselin was taken aback. No man would dare face the commander for a sanction. Urian had made his place in the slums with a reputation of pitilessness. This distinction still prevailed. Why had a soldier taken such a risk? “Has the man been apprehended?”
“Follow me.”
Urian walked into the room next door. In a cell lay a man whose face had turned blue with red streaks running from his nose. The culprit hadn’t been killed, but he had received a taste of his future sentence.
“Open the cell,” Urian ordered the gaoler.
Once the door was open, Josselin stepped inside the cell. Without lifting his head from the hay, the sergeant looked at him from under his swollen, split eyebrows. “Why did you let those people pass?” Josselin asked. “How much did they pay you?”
The man shook his head slowly. “I received money for the trouble,” the sergeant moaned faintly.
Urian stepped forward with anger. “You rascal—”
Josselin put his hand on the commander’s arm to calm him. “What do you mean for the trouble?”
“They arrived late during the night,” the man carried on with pain. “I explained to them the orders, but they maintained they had an authorization. When I wanted to check with the commander, they handed me their papers and the money.” The sergeant gazed at Urian. “The papers were in order, Commander.”
“Bullshit!” Urian exclaimed.
“Who signed those papers? Who gave the authorization?” Josselin asked.
“It was Lord Pembroke, my lord. He signed the papers.”
This was bullshit, indeed. Pembroke followed Louis’s orders to the letter. He would never have made an exception for a few nobles. Josselin turned to Urian and nodded to return to the office. They walked out.
“Did you talk to Pembroke about it?” Josselin asked once they were alone.
“No. He would just fly off the handle. These are lies.”
“Not necessarily. Why would the man take such a risk when Pembroke could oppose his words and put him to death for his fraud?”
Urian scowled at him, offended. “Pembroke would never—”
“I don’t mean that,” Josselin objected coolly. “But someone wrote those papers. Someone who waited for the king’s departure. Maybe the nobles wrote them themselves. How many of your men can read anyway?”
Urian walked towards the window and stared at the city. “If the news spread, others will want to take their chance and claim injustice at any refusal. I don’t have the authority to enforce special measures. As a fellow member of the council, what do you propose to do?”
“To do what the king would have done. Outlaw them and confiscate their properties. But first, we need to inspect their houses to make sure all of them left. Do we have their names and addresses?”
“The Sergeant said it was the Bartels,” Urian said. Josselin knew where they lived and nodded. “Take one of my patrols with you.”
“I will control the house and report the facts to Pembroke. You should spread the word that any kind of authorization to leave the city is invalid. We are locked here for good until the king returns.”
Urian looked at him with an eyebrow raised with doubt, but his eyes were full of hope. Josselin took his leave. Once outside the tower, he talked to one of the sergeants.
“I need to inspect a townhouse. You and your men will follow me. It’s an order of your commander.”
Josselin got on his horse and rode to Poldon District. People still filled the streets, but the atmosphere was tense. Wrapped in their cloaks and coats, the passersby avoided each other and hurried to their tasks. Their strong perfumes mixed with the stench of the street. This was unusual. The streets should have been cleaned at this hour. Someone had not done his job. Josselin smelled burned wood and saw smoke drift above the roofs. Followed by the guards, he hastened his horse’s pace. A large fire in an open brazier had been lit at the corner of the street.
“Put this fire out at once!” he yelled.
The guards hurried to the nearest well and came back with buckets of water. It only took a few minutes for the fire to be under control.
“Who did this madness?” Josselin asked the attentive crowd around them.
A beardy, sturdy man in a brown cloak stepped forwards. “It’s to purify the air, my lord. The disease won’t spread if the air burns it.”
“The only thing you will purify is the whole city. Once it is a heap of ashes, nothing will spread indeed, and certainly not your stupidity! I don’t want to see bonfires in the streets. Is that clear?”
The people nodded, and the crowd dispersed in silence. Josselin and his group carried on towards Bartel House.
The building stood behind high walls. The gate was closed, but it didn’t take long for the guards to force the door open. They stepped inside the garden. All was silent. The grass had been raked up, and the furniture had been covered for winter. No servant was to be seen. Even the numerous shutters were closed. Though the place looked abandoned, Josselin decided to check inside. He walked up the marble stairs and knocked at the steel-adorned door. No one answered. Josselin nodded towards the guards. The watch’s master key worked on the door. It would have been a shame to break open such a piece of art. The door opened on a poorly lit hall. Josselin walked inside. He could see his breath in clouds of puffs in front of his face. No fire had been made since the nobles’ departure. He lit a candelabra and went to the parlour. Sheets covered the tables and fauteuils. He heard a noise. Voices came from across the hallway. Josselin stepped carefully in this direction. He crossed the kitchen. Mugs and bowls with half-eaten groats stood on the table. After he put the candelabra on the table, he drew his sword and opened the door to the pantry. Shaking hands stretched out in his direction.
“Please don’t kill us!” voices squeaked.
“I am Lord Josselin with the city watch. Who are you? Thieves?”
“No, my lord. We belong to this house,” a man with a grey beard said while approaching. The man was wounded and limped on one leg.
Josselin put his sword away. “Why were you hiding here?”
“We can’t fight, my lord. We thought you were bandits.” The man helped a woman out of the pantry towards one of the kitchen’s benches. She too limped. More servants came out of the storage room, all wounded.
“I don’t understand,” Josselin said. “It’s freezing cold here. Why do you live in such condition in your own house? Why are you injured?”
“This is not our house, my lord. It’s the house of the Bartels. They left yesterday night. We have been charged to guard the house in utter discretion.” The man looked at his foot. “They broke our feet to make sure we wouldn’t escape or fail our duties. No one wants a wounded servant.”
And neither would the Bartels, but they didn’t put high hopes on your survival of the pestilence, Josselin thought. He regretted Louis wasn’t here to hear that. Such crimes on a household were punished by death. Those nobles had better not come back. Josselin only hoped this would not create an example. He turned to the guards.
“Fetch one of the priests at the gatehouse to check on their wounds.” He looked at the servant again. “You are not sick and thus should not go to the hospital. But this place is yours should you want to live here. Make a fire, eat the food, and open the windows. We will sort this out once the king returns.”
“Will the king return, my lord?” the plump woman at the man’s side asked. Her green eyes were filled with despair.
“The king loves his people. He will return, with a cure,” Josselin said and smiled.
Josselin left the kitchen, crossed the house, and returned to the street. It was time he had a discussion with Pembroke.
His stomach grumbled. He regretted now that he had skipped his breakfast. In the shopping area, Josselin stopped in front of a bakery and dismounted. A person whose nose and mouth were covered with a leather mask walked around him with wariness and suspicion, leaving a fragrance of rosemary behind. Josselin turned t
o the baker who leaned on the windowsill over the displayed sorts of bread.
“Do you have wastels?” Josselin asked with a look at the last black wheat round loaves in the baskets.
The baker snorted. “My lord should know that the law forbids us to use saffron.”
Josselin nodded at the basket on the shelf behind the baker. “I’ll take some crackers fried in lard then.”
“As you wish. It’s still without saffron.” The baker turned around and picked a handful of the pastries. “These are the last ones. I’m closing tomorrow.”
“Closing?” Josselin wrapped the crackers in a piece of cloth and put it in his pocket. “Do you have a shortage of flour?” He handed the man two coins, but the baker refused to take them and nodded towards a bowl on the windowsill. Coins lay at the bottom, swimming in a liquid that reeked of vinegar.
“Some people come here with a mask on their face. They say it’s for protection, but I hear them cough. I won’t take any chance,” the baker said. “No one in this damn city lifts a finger to stop this plague. I’ll take care of myself.”
“But where will the people buy bread?”
The baker shrugged with indifference and walked to the back of his shop.
Josselin got back on his horse and headed to the palace.
Pembroke sat alone in the council room. The minister had rings under his eyes and seemed lost in the sea of papers spread on the board in front of him.
“I wonder how the king managed these tasks every day,” Pembroke mumbled. “I never had half as many reports to read in my countship. There are even reports on myself in the lot.”
And probably on me too. “The king likes to be informed,” Josselin said with a knowing smile.
“This is no more information. It’s surveillance.”
Josselin took a seat in front of Pembroke. “This is why the rats waited for his departure to leave the sinking ship.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nobles left during the night. The Bartels. I visited their home. They locked in their servants and injured them to make sure they wouldn’t leave. But there is worse, the Bartels used papers with your signature to pass the city gate.”
“What?” Pembroke shouted and rose from his seat. “I never gave anyone such an authorization!”
“Urian and I figured that. But someone did. In your name. Those Bartels have some nerve.”
Pembroke sat down. “No. Only fools would make such a bold move. I could send a bird and have them arrested for treason wherever they are in Trevalden. Someone gave them this authorization. The question is who.”
“They probably paid the price for it. I fear this may give ideas to others.”
“We will put a stop to this fraud once and for all. No one leaves, even with papers signed by my own hand. We follow the quarantine. And I will send crows to outlaw those cowards wherever they are.”
“It will calm the nobles, but what of the people?”
“The people?” Pembroke sneered. “You see that pile?” Pembroke asked, pointing at a thick pile of papers. “This is the pile for the complaints. The people urge me to burn down the slums. If we don’t do anything, soon we will face riots. I will need to take measures to isolate the slums. The hospital has reached its limits, and patients from this area continue to pour in.”
Josselin shook his head with objection. “No. The king insisted that we avoid such a thing.”
“With all my respect, the king is chasing the cockatrice in the Ebony Forest,” Pembroke insisted. “Decisions have to be made.”
“So, you don’t believe in him, do you?” Josselin asked, staring at Pembroke with dismay.
Pembroke sighed and leaned back in his seat. “I would like to, really. And I’m sure Louis meant his words. But I know those woods. They won’t find a cure in there.”
“Then, we’re doomed.” Josselin’s eyes crossed Pembroke’s gaze. No answer was needed.
17
Drops of cold drizzle wetted his cheeks. Lissandro gazed over the valley. The turrets of Embermire’s castle could be seen between the naked trees. On the north side of the city, the Ebony Forest with its centenarian oaks looked as dusky and thick as he remembered it. Under the heavy coat of clouds, the trees on the south side, though less sinister, presented a dull mat of sepia bristled with umber, crooked spikes. On top of it, he remembered the place to crawl with bandits.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Lissandro kicked his horse and joined his companions on the main road. He couldn’t wait to arrive. If it weren’t for their colorful cloaks, their cortege could be mistaken for a funeral procession. Persuaded that someone followed them, Folc was nervous and grim. Left alone, Askjell had lost his joie de vivre and looked around with dreary eyes. Selen and Kilda had buried themselves under their hoods, and the rare times Lissandro cared to look at him, Louis seemed as amiable as the rattlesnake on the Gadsden Flag. At least it wasn’t raining soft hail anymore.
As they approached the ramparts, Lissandro noticed that tents had been pitched outside the walls. His first thought was that merchants had installed a market, but as they drew nearer, he realized that the tents were in a shabby state. The people wandering around in the muck did not look better. Could the plague have reached Embermire? He turned his gaze towards the city. Black things hung from the merlons.
“It’s people. They hung people from the walls?” he whispered, incredulous.
Lissandro looked again at the tents. Two men clumsily fought for a stone which broke. With their unequal shares, they dropped into the mud and plunged their faces into what revealed to have been a loaf, tearing bits of it with their teeth. At such a distance, Lissandro couldn’t say if the people carried the disease. He presumed that families had wished to find refuge in the city and had found the doors shut.
Noises came from the city. As the bridge went down, a party of riders appeared and trotted in their direction. A pack of dogs preceded them. If it’s a welcoming committee, Lissandro thought, why the dogs? With horror, he grasped that the riders were not here for them. The mastiffs sped up towards the first tents. Families hurried back screaming. Yet, they had nowhere to run to. The weakest could barely move. In the chaos, a young little girl stumbled in her gown and fell.
“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” Lissandro whispered, still frozen in shock.
Lissandro’s horse shied as Louis’s horse galloped between them and towards the dogs. Riding hard, his friend managed to place his mount between the pack and the child.
“You can’t stop dogs with a horse,” Lissandro said.
Yet, Louis didn’t rein in but jumped off his horse. He unsheathed his sword, picked up the child, and carried her high on his shoulder. The first dog was on him and lunged. Louis turned around and raised his sword. It skewered the animal through the chest. Already overloaded with the child, Louis couldn’t block the weight of the dead mastiff’s body collapsing over him and fell on his back. Fortunately, Folc’s, Selen’s, and Kilda’s horses charged the rest of the pack and prevented another attack. The dogs trotted away and barked from a reasonable distance. Lissandro was joining his companions when the riders arrived from the other side.
“How dare you!” their leader exclaimed from under his basinet. He drew rein and dismounted. “You will answer for this felony!” He pointed at Louis.
Louis had pushed the dog’s corpse to the side and rose to his knees. He checked on the child to make sure she was all right and rubbed his hand through her hair before sending her away with a light tap on the shoulder. Slowly, he turned towards the rider. Considering Louis’s gaze, there could be no confusion on the man’s fate.
“Folc. Arrest them,” Louis said calmly. On Folc’s sign, the soldiers circled the group of riders. “The names of the people controlling the city,” Louis asked.
As the words only met silence, Folc moved his sword towards the man’s neck. “You don’t even wear a camail,” he scoffed. “From here, my blade can pass between your basinet and cu
irass. I wonder if I will get the shoulder or the spine.” Folc pushed his sword under the metallic helmet and flipped it from over the man’s head. The rider moaned and trembled with fear. “And one takes off his hat in front of the king.”
Realizing his fatal mistake, the rider dropped to his knees. “The city is controlled by a council led by Lord Guimar, Your Majesty. Please, have pity! I only followed their commands.”
Louis tilted his head. “Pity? I don’t think you know the meaning of this word.” He nodded towards Folc and went to fetch his horse.
Folc plunged his sword. The tip emerged in the middle of the throat, bespattering the breastplate in a river of blood. In a gargle, the body collapsed, bouncing against the basinet before landing next to Folc’s horse’s front leg.
“We could have asked him to open the gates first,” Lissandro grunted.
Folc looked at him. “Do you think they have a choice?”
Louis came back on his horse. He had fastened his circlet on his brow again. Without a word, he took the head of the group, and they rode towards the city. Their soldiers circled the captive riders. The drawbridge was still down, but the doors were closed. Folc and Louis stopped in front of the moat. Lissandro raised his head. As his eyes fell on the rotten bodies of the hanged men and women, he felt nauseous. Trying to make abstraction of the macabre sight, he stared through the crenels. The guards on top of the battlements seemed to hesitate on what they had to do. Maybe we just killed their lieutenant, Lissandro thought.
“In the name of the king, open the gates!” Folc shouted.
Lissandro heard indistinct shouts. In front of them, the heavy doors opened. No one came out to bid them welcome. Lissandro supposed that, realizing their wrong, the guards might hide in barrels, waiting for the storm to pass. Their group progressed through the gatehouse and into the city. Lissandro was struck to see the streets as empty as in a ghost town. The last time he had entered Embermire, it was so jammed he could barely breathe. Today, he could count every cobblestone of the pavement. Yet, the city wasn’t dead. Most shutters stood ajar. Doors slammed in the distance. The people were hiding. However, it could not be from them, not in such a short time. They must have heard of the plague. It was like during the Black Death. The cities in the north knew they were next on the list. It was only a matter of time. Lissandro didn’t know if the plague would reach Embermire. However, what he knew was that if the city life stopped, chaos would spread. Louis had been extremely attentive on that in Nysa Serin. A city needed food. It needed hygiene. Or soon, anyone could get infected by any common bacteria. That would be quite stupid to avoid the plague only to die of cholera. There was already a strong smell in the air, and a putrid liquid ran in the gutters.
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