by Leo Carew
Tekoa turned back to him. “You are a god-damned fool. A vapid, half-baked clod.”
“Why?”
“There is a plague.”
“Which is my fault?”
“Of course it’s your fault!” exploded Tekoa. “You think you can just shelter thousands of people in squalor in the streets without building additional latrines or ensuring they are properly fed or warmed? You think you can then cram those people into the homes of others without infection? Plague is not a coincidence. It is not a bloody curse from the Almighty or something cooked up by the whims of chance. We have not had one for fifty years because we have not had a damned oaf like you in charge. This is what happens to rulers with a soft heart. Calamity!”
Roper blinked. He was caught off-guard by the tirade, and could think of no obvious defence of his actions. “Your counsel would have been welcome long before this stage, Tekoa,” he said, at last.
“The extent of your lunacy has only just been made clear to me,” snarled Tekoa. “You must move fast, or this fortress will be overwhelmed. We cannot lose a large proportion of our population to plague. There must be a quarantine, and it must be now.”
“What do you propose?” Roper took a seat, staring at the legate who was prowling back and forth across the room. Keturah had fallen quiet and sat on the bed beside her father’s cloak.
“Legionaries to cordon off any street where there is infection: nobody goes in or out.”
“The people won’t like it,” said Roper. Tekoa looked incredulous at that. He stalked to the chair in which Roper sat and leaned close.
“Have you not yet understood, my Lord Roper?” he said, lips barely moving. “When the piles of suppurating corpses are building up in the streets, and you cannot breathe without wanting to retch through the smell of burning flesh, and whole neighbourhoods vanish within days, you see how much the people like that.”
Instinctively, Roper wanted to resist Tekoa’s advice for the tone that it carried; for the fact that he had been made to feel like a child again. But the decision was as blatant as sand in the mouth. Within an hour, legionaries had flooded from their barracks to seal off all streets with a tuft of hay hanging in a doorway. The soldiers built barricades of barrels and carts and tables which they guarded night and day, turning away the subjects within who were at first furious, but before long had retreated silently into their own homes. The legionaries supplied them with food which they traded over the barricades to those caged inside; taking care to soak any metal they received in return in bowls of vinegar to destroy the contagion. They also provided bundles of wood, propped against the inside of the barricades for use after dark had fallen. And everywhere, pervading the fortress like the cold, was that bitter smoke, emanating from braziers of herbs.
Each day, the death toll grew faster. With every new dawn, corpses were ejected into the street by their families, beginning a pile in the middle of the cobbles that grew until dusk brought a measure of peace to the fortress. Then those bundles of wood were collected from the barricades and propped over the bodies, which were arranged with their heads facing towards the east. Nobody but the families would touch the corpses, so they were burned in the streets in which they had died. The pyres smoked and smouldered terribly, so that what remained by morning was often a pile of white ash, surrounded by charred limbs. They were scraped together and reserved for that evening’s conflagration.
Roper watched the fires. He stood with the legionaries after dark, watching from behind the barricades as flames stuttered into life further down the street and trying not to retch at the sense of responsibility that made his limbs weak. He was not sure that the connection between his treatment of the refugees and the plague was yet widely known, but he had an enemy who would ensure that it soon was.
Despite the swift implementation of Tekoa’s suggestions, the plague was already widespread. It had developed on the snow-laden streets among the refugees and spread before it had become clear what they were dealing with. Beneath locked doors, between sealed shutters: through the air or carried by the flesh or in the water or however it spread, it suffused the fortress. There was little worse that Roper could have unleashed upon his subjects. Plague was a Suthern problem: very rarely one which bothered the Anakim with their superior standards of hygiene.
The streets were deserted but for the legionaries who guarded the barricades. The markets fell quiet. The smoke invaded everything. The sickly orange glow of the corpse-fires crept beneath Roper’s shutters at night. One morning, after a night of dead-calm, Roper awoke to discover the smoke from the corpses hanging as a fog above the fortress, so that only the rooftops were visible from his elevated quarters.
He toured abandoned streets, being sure he was seen sharing in the danger of the legionaries. He felt like a fool and was desperate to regain the trust of the subjects. He had seen the way Earl William and Lord Northwic had interacted with their knightly bodyguards. He had heard from his father, from Tekoa, from Gray, how King Osbert, ruling from his throne in the south, treated his subjects. They were his servants. At all times they stood in deference to him: bowing, flattering and fearful of his vengeance. King Osbert led through fear. Tekoa did the same; people were motivated by his displeasure. That was not a leader, as Roper knew it. A leader shares in every bit of danger that he asks from his subjects. A leader commands from the front, not the back. He shows how it should be done and invites others to take their turn with him. A leader’s character is the most potent weapon in his arsenal: sharpened and honed to be the presence his followers need at all times. That was the Black Lord, as Roper saw the role. That was the difference between him and a king.
So he spent his days at the snowy barricades with his legionaries, doing no more than sharing in their danger and discomfort; showing he was not scared. Keturah, against Tekoa’s fervent insistence, accompanied him. More than accompanied him. Barred by the quarantine from stepping foot inside the affected streets, she went to the markets at the request of those within the barricade, trading for whatever it was they particularly desired. In this capacity, she encountered Gray’s wife Sigrid, who, as well as trading for the subjects caged by the quarantine, sat at one end of the barricade and told stories to those on the other side.
It was Roper’s first encounter with Sigrid, who was quite as stupefyingly beautiful as Keturah had described; almost intimidatingly so, with silver-blonde hair, high cheekbones and eyes of such a light grey that Roper found them abrasive to look into. She did not have Keturah’s sense of humour, coming across as kind but unyielding. “So here’s the lord who had my husband travel home in a wagon of corpses,” she had said when first meeting Roper, referring to the deception that had gained him entry to the Hindrunn.
“That is I, my lady,” confirmed Roper, taking her hand and not quite clear whether she was joking.
She surveyed him for a moment. “Well, I shall forgive you for your bravery in coming onto the streets now, lord.” She looked stern until she greeted Keturah, the two embracing like old friends. “Thank you for the last time, my love. How are you?”
“Thriving, blooming, inspired, fulfilled,” said Keturah carelessly, making Sigrid laugh.
Keturah had begun to follow Sigrid’s example and sat on the barricade with her; the two women taking it in turns to tell stories. Keturah told those which came from the Hindrunn and which her mother had taught her when she was younger. There were many of the chivalric deeds of legendary warriors; a few on the race of dwarves which emerged after dark to snatch newborn children from their cribs and the subsequent adventure in recovering the infants; some which told of talking livestock, mistreated by their owners who then spilt their secrets about the fortress.
Sigrid was a child of the east, like the refugees, and the stories she had learned as a girl featured mighty storms after which nothing was the same; strange happenings when watching over the flock at night, or miraculous objects discovered in the iron mines.
Though the subjects who gath
ered around to listen covered their mouths and noses with cloth, Roper still felt his heart quicken at the sight of them. It seemed that the two women were inviting infection, but he knew how Keturah would react if he suggested she should take more care.
Roper left Keturah with Sigrid and toured further afield. His presence was most valuable spread as far as possible; theirs in individual communities.
“I’m running out of stories for them,” said Keturah one evening to Sigrid. It was dusk, the sun now hidden behind the walls of the Hindrunn but an orange glow capping the snow-blanketed roofs around them. The two women were walking to a new barricade, one they had visited two days before, to attempt to lift the spirits of the people trapped there. The snow squeaked beneath their feet and was hard going for Keturah, who felt weary.
“Then maybe you should go home and get some rest,” said Sigrid. “The plague will still be here tomorrow.”
“I can rest later, I must just think up another story.”
“You look tired,” said Sigrid, examining her. “These people will die with or without our help. All we’re doing now is leaving behind an example to those who survive.”
“You’re staying though,” said Keturah.
Sigrid gave her distinctive smile: a slight narrowing of the eyes and twitching of the corners of her mouth. “I’m older than you. I’ve had my children, I’ve done my service, and I have had enough happiness for several lifetimes. You’ve got all that to come.”
Keturah raised her eyebrows at that. “Worthy of a Sacred Guardsman.”
Sigrid smiled. “Who would want to be a Sacred Guardsman? It seems an unrewarding lifestyle to me: all the prestige in the world can’t make up for a complete lack of freedom.”
“It offers recognition,” said Keturah, who quietly coveted the extreme prestige of those three hundred men.
“That’s true,” said Sigrid thoughtfully. “Though what sort of person spends their life seeking recognition? A discontented one, I suggest.”
Keturah frowned. “Why does Gray do it?”
“The same reason we are doing this,” said Sigrid. “To serve.”
A left turn and they reached the street they had been aiming for. But it was deserted. Four cold legionaries stood guard over the barricade, with nobody in sight beyond them.
“Those bodies were there when we last were,” said Sigrid.
Keturah looked and saw six corpses, lying facing east, further down the street. They lay on a bed of ash, where several fires had evidently already burned themselves out and which had melted a crater in the snow. She turned to the guards at the end of the barricade. “There’s been much death in this street?”
“A lot,” confirmed the legionary. “Dozens have died here.”
“When did you last see a subject alive inside the barricade?”
“Two days ago. A man laid out the final body and then went back inside.”
There was a long pause. Sigrid was gazing out over the street. “Then they’re all dead,” she said. “There’s no one left to burn those bodies.”
“An entire community destroyed,” said Keturah. She stared across the empty street, mouth slightly open. The buildings were covered in a fine layer of ash, picked up by the wind and dusted over the stone. A few of the wooden shutters were half-open, like the eyes of the dead. There was nothing left to animate the houses.
Sigrid gave Keturah her steady look. “Then there’s nothing else we can do for them. Come, my love.” She held out her hand, which the younger woman took. “There’re people all over this fortress who could do with our help.”
On the other side of the fortress, Roper too was touring the streets, accompanied once again by the resolute presence of Helmec. He glanced at his companion, who did not seem to have been fazed by the devastation unfolding around them and still walked with a bounce in his step. “What are you doing here, Helmec? Go home, I’m in no danger. Uvoren’s best hope at the moment is that the plague strikes me down. I can’t lose you to disease as well. Go home.”
“I’m going nowhere, lord.”
“It’s an order, Helmec. Off you go.”
“I have no interest in your orders, lord,” said Helmec cheerfully.
Roper tutted. “I have no idea how a legionary as mad as you has survived so long.”
“I too am mystified, lord.”
Roper was touched by Helmec’s loyalty, but did not want the responsibility of yet another soul hanging over him. Particularly one so close. Generosity had begun to make him feel guilty; that he had erred so badly and still enjoyed such dedication from those closest to him.
The corpse-smoke hung on his shoulders like a leaden cloak, making him sick to his heart. He had never really considered why he wanted to rule. He supposed, looking back, that it was because this was what his life had been spent in preparation for, and that because the alternative was death. Uvoren had tried to take it away from him and so, naturally, he had fought back. He had not really thought beyond that. But now, standing at night behind a barricade as he watched frail, trembling figures further down the street ignite the piled bodies of their loved ones; or saw the pale faces of his soldiers, who were being forced to contain their friends and acquaintances with a silent, inglorious threat; he was not sure he had wanted it after all. He did not admit this to anyone. Not Keturah. Not Gray. Certainly not Tekoa. There was only one way through this: onwards. Confessing that he was not sure he was the man for this job was a certain way to have others agree.
Perhaps they already did. Returning to his quarters that evening, Keturah had seemed uncharacteristically muted and irritable, just as she had the day before. Was she appalled by what she was seeing and by the man she had married? That thought was better than the alternative. That the invisible infection had crossed the air and infiltrated her lungs.
There was no one so expert at making Roper regret his actions as Uvoren, who challenged him in every council meeting. “You tried to provide justice for the displaced eastern subjects. How can they have justice now that they are being ripped apart by plague? Where is the justice for those already within the fortress, who were unaffected by war and now find their loved ones dying in a manner more ignoble and drawn out than that offered by any battlefield? Ever the man for the grand gesture, Roper, but you didn’t think this one through, did you?”
No, was the honest answer. Roper, overwhelmed for an instant, stood furiously to say they were doing all they could; that they had acted as fast as they were able, and found even his allies shaking their heads at his excuses. One by one, Uvoren’s closest supporters stood to make speeches against Roper, driving home the catastrophe as hard as they were able.
First came the dark, brooding form of Baldwin Dufgurson, the Legion Tribune. “Let us examine the facts of this boy’s rule so far. He has overseen the first ever retreat of a full call-up from the battlefield.” There came a rumbling jeer. “And now, just months later, we have our first serious plague in fifty years as a direct consequence of his policies. The streets are choked with bodies! Our people cannot move for the soldiers that force them to stay and die! Is this what leadership in the Black Kingdom has come to?” He sat to raucous affirmation. The Vidarr and Jormunrekur, perhaps complacent, perhaps tired of this struggle, were quiet and it was the Lothbroks who dominated.
Next up, Vinjar: the rotund, sarcastic Councillor for Agriculture. “Tell me! One of you please, tell me, where is the Hindrunn’s food to come from? It is not merely that we live in such squalid, cramped conditions. This fortress is overpopulated and now that the eastern subjects have been accommodated so generously at Lord Roper’s invitation, the supplies from the east have dried up. At a time when our population is largest and most in need of nourishment, Lord Roper has helped ensure that we have as little food as possible. You must tell us all, Lord Roper, what was going through your mind!” This speech seemed to be particularly effective and was met with a mighty jeer.
Roper tried to stand and retort but was drowned out by the Lot
hbroks, who were instead insisting that Randolph, legate of the Blackstone Legion, who had also stood, should be heard instead. Randolph was one of the swaggering rogues who did so well under Uvoren, a handsome warrior with a reputation for recklessness. He was grinning as Roper was forced to give way to him under pressure from the table. “It becomes yet harder, Lord Roper, to see where your true talents in fact lie.” The Lothbroks hooted. “While we’ve got you here, perhaps you could respond to the rumours that you only secured a Suthern withdrawal by promising them a large part of the east, and that this is why you keep the eastern subjects from returning to their homes: because you have set the land aside for Suthern cultivation?” There was a low boo and a hiss and even Uvoren broke into a laugh at this accusation, winking at Randolph across the table. The legate was grinning. He went on, extracting laughs from the council with his ever more absurd descriptions of Roper. Among other honorifics, he referred to him as “calamity’s happy servant” and “the high priest of total catastrophe.” By the end, some of the table had tears of mirth in their eyes and Roper himself had almost been driven to unwilling laughter.
More of Uvoren’s supporters stood and added their weight to Roper’s humiliation, though Roper noticed that the captain’s two sons, Unndor and Urthr, were not among them. Both sat scowling at the table but neither stood to speak, nor lent their voices to the Lothbrok cause. Had Uvoren’s casual choice of bride for the two proud men alienated them? It was common knowledge that neither was satisfied with the arrangement, particularly as the houses they had brought close, Nadoddur and Oris, were of almost unrivalled irrelevance.
Under cover of another hoot aimed at Roper, Gray leaned across the table. “He must be broken soon, lord,” he muttered. A disquieting episode lay heavily on both their minds. On their way to the council that day, Uvoren had fallen into line with them. The sight of the Black Lord had initiated no more than stares and resentful silences. Then the crowds had spotted Uvoren, which had prompted a great and raucous cheer. The captain had acknowledged it sternly, raising a leather-gloved fist in response to the crowds as he rode past. The glory of Roper’s last campaign had faded quickly and while the subjects of the Hindrunn had not sent their eastern cousins back onto the streets, Roper was once again staggeringly unpopular. He was such a recent lord that people only seemed to remember the last thing he had done and base their opinion of him on that.
