02 - Sacred Flesh

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  “Damned flagellants!” Recht cried. “You can’t get away from them, these days.”

  “That is also heresy,” Devorah explained to Franziskus. “To scourge yourself like that is to deny the primacy of mercy.”

  “So,” said Franziskus. “I was asking what you’d do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were obligated to the prioress, but now she’s gone. I imagine you’ll continue to Heiligerberg, in her honour…”

  “Yes, I owe her that.” Devorah’s dull, dazed expression was not far from that of the halfling flagellant.

  “And you…” Franziskus paused. “I guess you haven’t had time to contemplate, what might happen after that.”

  “I’ll let Shallya show me the way,” Devorah said.

  Angelika halted the group. Oxen groaned to her right as a large party of travellers circled their wagons for the night. To her left, several dozen men and women, all garbed in identical off-white robes, bedded down in the open air, throwing down bedrolls. She spotted a recently abandoned fire pit that lay roughly between the two groups. Immediately she raced toward it, heading off a trio of stocky men in dark cloaks and high boots. They stood considering her for a moment. Angelika stamped her foot at them and they scattered, grumbling. She directed her group to circle around the fire pit and pitch their tents. Arms crossed, she watched over them, casting an evaluating look around the crowded pass.

  Franziskus joined her. “We’ll have to set up watch, against robbers.”

  “And now that Richart’s suspect, we can’t make use of our third-best swordsman.”

  “I find it hard to believe that he’s a thief, much less a killer,” Franziskus commented. “But why would Lemoine lie?”

  A voice rang out from amid the party with the carts and oxen. “Waldemar!” it cried, jolly and surprised. Waldemar’s head popped up. Angelika saw a pained look cross the summoner’s face, which he quickly replaced with a mask of good humour. Rising, he greeted a portly, harmless-looking fellow decked out in burlap robes, his puffy, indistinct face beaming out from under a wide-brimmed hat. The stranger halted for a blustering sneeze, wiped his nose on his sleeve and moved to embrace Waldemar, kissing him on both cheeks. Waldemar returned the gesture dispassionately.

  Not satisfied with the kissing, the mush-faced man clapped Waldemar on the shoulders. “Waldemar Silber, you old hound!” he happily exclaimed. “You’re the first decent sight I’ve seen in two weeks of arduous travel!”

  “It is good to see you, also, Hildred Biber.” Waldemar watched a clear wet trail establish itself between the bottom of the man’s nose and the top of his lip. “You are not unwell, I hope.”

  “No,” chortled Biber, chucking him on the shoulder, “just my damnable hay fever acting up again. Shallya only knows what atrocious humours fill the air here. I reckon my left lung’s glued shut with snot, and my right, with bitter black bile.”

  “You have always imagined yourself in colourfully poor shape, Hildred.”

  Hildred nodded happily at this observation. “When I stand before Mother Elsbeth, I’ll be well cured of all that ails me, for once and all. But I thought you weren’t coming on the pilgrimage.”

  Waldemar’s hands drifted down to his belly; a queasy look came over him. “I altered my plans,” he said.

  Hildred gestured magnanimously to his party’s massive carts. “Well, it’s fortunate we’ve come across each other. You can join us and travel in comfort the rest of the way.” He leaned into Waldemar’s ear and spoke in a whisper that was louder than his regular speaking voice. “Frankly, it looks like you joined into a party at the last minute and have fallen in with rather mangy company. It will be an utter scandal and outrage if you don’t come right over and bunk in with us. Everyone’s over there: Josef, Aldebrand, Ivan—even old Gobble-Guts!”

  Waldemar shifted uncomfortably stepping in front of his shabby tent, to hide it from his acquaintance. “It would be an imposition, I’m sure.”

  Without warning, Hildred sneezed heartily into Waldemar’s face. Like a beagle, he shook his jowls. “Nonsense!” he barked. “There’ll be some squeezing in to do, but we wouldn’t hear of letting you stay with lice-ridden strangers.” He said this with a smile, apparently unconcerned that the lice-ridden strangers in question stood all around him. Angelika saw Ludwig reach for his gnarled club.

  Hildred clapped hands over his porcine ears. “You cannot still be angry at poor Aldebrand!”

  “Naturally not.”

  “He and that woman of which we shall not speak—they have parted company now, you know.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes, yes, she proved herself a most brazen strumpet—treating him as she did you. So now both of you are hoisted on the selfsame halberd. You should gather together and quaff a flagon or three of ale, commiserate, and drown your foolish conflict. I am quite sure Aldebrand is prepared to forgive you.”

  Waldemar ground his teeth together. “If I were still occupied by this affair, which I assure I am not, Hildred, I would say when a man beds another’s wife, it is not he to whom forgiveness is owed.”

  “Whatever, my fellow, whatever! A good friendship cannot be allowed to founder on the rocks of a woman’s falseness. They are all harlots, Waldemar, to a one.”

  Waldemar looked at Angelika. She did her best to seem as if she hadn’t been listening, though the booming volume of Mildred’s voice had given her, and the rest of the party, no choice but to hear.

  “It is not true, Hildred.”

  “Let us argue that over dark Tilean brandy.”

  “We’ve all made a pact of mutual protection,” Waldemar said. “I can’t go breaking my oaths now.” He pointed heavenwards. “Not with Shallya so dose.”

  Hildred dabbed his sleeve under his nose, then took a look at the dark spot. “You always were a stickler for that sort of thing. Well, perhaps we’ll meet up at the mountain. When I see her grace, I’ll do my best to see she grants you audience.” He waddled back to his cart.

  Waldemar squatted down beside his half-pitched tent, cold sweat beading on his pale and regal forehead. He caught Angelika’s eye, as if inviting her to inquire into his affairs. It was a temptation she found eminently resistible.

  A soft voice came up behind her. “You’ve done it, Angelika.” It was Gerhold, the friar. The firelight from nearby camps played on his worn features. Angelika squinted distrustfully at him. She had given him little thought over the course of the journey. Unlike almost every other member of the assemblage, Gerhold struck her as genuinely kind and pleasant. It had to be a trick. Maybe he was the murderer.

  “Done what?” she asked.

  Gerhold covered his surprise with an affable chuckle. “Your responsibility weighs heavier on you than you like to admit,” he said.

  “You know my rule about preaching. Now what are you telling me I’ve done?”

  Unfazed, he smiled and pointed into the southern sky, where a low blanket of night clouds parted. Moonlight spilled onto the mountaintops, silvering their snowy reaches. “Hold out your arm,” Gerhold instructed. She did, and he directed it toward a modest, truncated peak backed by a trio of more impressive brothers. “That’s it,” Gerhold said. “The Holy Mountain. You’ve done it. You’ve brought us to Heiligerberg.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Angelika took first watch. She positioned herself on a makeshift bench made by draping her bedroll over her pack. Gradually the torches of the pilgrims around them were extinguished. She kept her ears alert. Every so often a stray traveller or two would come wandering past them, but none aroused Angelika’s sense of threat. One, a beady-eyed young man with a half-witted grin, made to approach her, but she scared him away with a growl and a brandish of her dagger, which she’d been absent-mindedly sharpening with her whetstone.

  Just as she was beginning to reconsider the wisdom of camping amid so many others, she heard a metallic commotion, followed by shouts of exertion and screams of pain. A fight had started t
o the north. It was hard to tell, with the din of struggle bouncing off rock faces to the west and the east, but her experienced guess placed the scene of battle about a quarter mile away. There were dozens of encampments between them and the melee, but Angelika woke her people anyway, so they’d be ready to fight or flee, as required. Amid the shouts rose harsh and guttural cries; Angelika recognised these as the products of the orcish larynx. Her crow’s stratagem had proven wise.

  The sound of clashing arms lasted for perhaps ten minutes then subsided. Groans and curses continued for a little while after that. But by then the others in Angelika’s party were already settling back into their tents and bedrolls. It was time for Richart and Lemoine to take over watch, but the clamour of the skirmish had set Angelika’s blood to racing and she decided to give them more time to rest. Part of her wanted to creep off and find the site of the battle, to glean its treasures. But if the humans had won—and it sounded as if they had—there’d be nothing to take anyway.

  She stood and craned her neck, hoping to see what had happened. She heard the sounds of parties breaking camp. Soon the pass shook with tramping feet and creaking wheels, as pilgrims moved away from the place of trouble. As they began to tromp around her spot, she hailed them, asking what had gone on. It was greenskins, an angular sister called out, her face all straight nose and high cheekbone. A dozen pilgrims were killed before their bodyguards beat them back, she said. No, corrected another woman, an ice-blonde creature in noblewoman’s attire, there’d been two dozen killed, perhaps three.

  Richart stirred and came to join her. She told him what had gone on.

  “I didn’t kill Altman,” he said. “You can trust me.”

  “I don’t even trust myself.” Angelika felt suddenly exhausted. She lifted herself up and dragged herself over to the snoring Lemoine. She delivered a swift, stern kick to his ribs. He jolted up, snorting and coughing.

  She pulled her bedroll off of her pack and laid it out on the ground. She sank into it and soon was deeply asleep. Yet as Angelika slept, she maintained an awareness of the vast campsite around her, with its clanking of pots, its snapping, popping fires and the muted wails of the sick and dying.

  She was propelled headlong into dream. Through a trackless forest she endlessly wandered, searching for an unspecified something. Franziskus was there, impossible to get rid of, as always. Her other companions melded into one another, changing identities like snakes bulging from their skins. She mistakenly joined a procession of the dead. Thomas Kreiger reproached her for not taking the oath he’d demanded of her. He told her he considered her bound to it regardless, and that her heart agreed with him. The prioress, her top half sliding around precariously on her severed hips, told her she was now obligated to marry Franziskus, so that Devorah’s chastity would be protected. Muller, fluid leaking from an aching pit in his skull, demanded that she send his killer, Rausch, to keep him company in the afterlife.

  Something is wrong with me, Angelika thought, as the dead circled around her, preventing her from moving forward. She saw the mountain—and in the dreams it was the tallest peak around—but every time she took a step toward it, the slain pilgrims grabbed hold of her and hauled her back. Altman climbed onto her, jutting his fat face down at her. At least Muller knows his killer, the bailiff accused. You forgot to look for mine, didn’t you? You have no idea who it is, do you?

  Angelika squirmed, trapped, wanting to tell him that yes, she did know who it was. And in her dream state, she did know. Angelika wanted to hear herself say it. She would remember it, she promised herself, carrying the knowledge into the waking state. But as she tried to speak, a stream of bloodied gold came from her choking mouth, blocking her words, and stopping her from naming Altman’s killer. Now Altman was beside her, solicitous hands on her shoulders, popping the heel of his hand against her back, to no avail: she spewed up jewels, gems, stickpins, chains and a brace of tiny swords. You must tell us, dream-Altman demanded.

  Wait, dream-Angelika thought. You’re the one who was killed. You tell me who did it.

  She woke up, chilled to the bone, her gorge still rising. She ached as if she’d been beaten. Through watery eyes, the darkened campsite swirled around her. On hands and knees she crawled past Franziskus, his features angelic in sleep. Devorah lay beside him, fully clothed and blanketed; her hand stretched his way. Angelika sneezed. She choked. She made her way to the camp’s perimeter, to a muddy trail trampled by hundreds of pilgrim sandals. She opened her throat and sprayed their footprints with gelatinous pink vomit. For an instant, she was thankful that it was not gold and silver coming out of her. Then it felt like a fist had reached down into her innards and pulled them inside out and more vomit exploded from her guts.

  By sunrise, it was plain that nearly everyone had the sickness. Angelika stretched out on her side, passing in and out of consciousness. Franziskus could stand, but his head felt heavy and hot. Waldemar was on his knees, coughing and shaking. Gerhold and Devorah sat shoulder to shoulder, shivering.

  Pinch-faced pilgrims passed their camp, turning up their noses at the stink of vomit. “They’ve got the plague,” one muttered. “Someone should have them burned, then,” said another.

  Angelika fought to marshal a few drams of strength. She worked herself up to her hands and knees.

  “It’s Chaos plague,” said Stefan Recht.

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Ludwig. “Bad things can happen without them being Chaos.”

  Stefan had his shirt open and was checking his chest for any pustules or buboes that might be bursting from his skin. His search revealed nothing worse than a few speckly moles and some sweat-matted grey chest hair. “The transformations will begin any moment now. Not even Mother Elsbeth can cure those.”

  “Mother Elsbeth can cure anything,” Devorah insisted.

  Angelika made it to her knees.

  “Stefan’s hypothesis, may not, I dread, be discounted out of hand,” said Lemoine, reaching under his monk’s cassock to perform a self-examination of his own. “The dread possibility of Chaos looms everywhere.”

  “Nonsense,” snorted Ludwig. “This is naught but a bad case of the croup.”

  Ivo sat slowly up; the illness made him seem drunk. “No point in talking sense to them. Little minds see Chaos everywhere.”

  “Chaos is everywhere,” said Recht. “Especially now.”

  Ivo lay back down, pulling his road blanket closer around him. “All right then, Chaos is everywhere. But we don’t have to fear it, not as much as people think. It’s fear that gives Chaos its power.”

  “An arrogant doctrine,” Lemoine wheezed.

  “A typically false and blasphemous doctrine,” amplified Waldemar, “which is to be expected, from a shameless pardoner.”

  Ivo threw off his blanket and capered over to Waldemar, holding his hands behind his head, mimicking the horns of a daemon. He wiggled his fingers and stuck out his tongue. “Boo! Boo! I am a Chaos daemon! All must fear me!”

  Waldemar shrank back. “How dare you tempt fate so grievously?”

  Lemoine stretched out to grab Ivo and pull him off his feet, but the effort exhausted him and he collapsed halfway to the pardoner’s dancing feet. Ivo disgustedly tossed his blanket down on the ground. “How many of you have actually met a Chaos worshipper?”

  Ivo’s question was greeted by a series of horrified stares.

  “Well, I have, and I can tell you they’re nothing to be afraid of. A pack of drooling, deluded cretins, that’s all they are.” The pardoner arranged himself on his blanket, on his back, his fingers interlaced on his chest. “And the likes of them are supposed to bring down the Empire? Later, when we’re over this perfectly ordinary malady, and it no longer hurts to laugh, remind me to do just that.”

  “And just how did you happen to keep company with the minions of Chaos?” Waldemar asked.

  Lemoine protectively put his hands to the sides of his head. “Let us hear no more! He might spill blasphemous secrets into our ears, lea
ving us with no choice but to scourge ourselves.”

  “I don’t know which of you is stupider,” muttered Ludwig.

  “Flagellation is another false doctrine,” said Waldemar.

  Ivo snorted derisively, but it came back on him and resolved into a wracking cough. He rolled on his side and pounded his breastbone for relief. “Never fear, Lemoine,” he finally sputtered. “There’s no tale to tell. A covey of the gullible sots once approached me, wishing to purchase pardon for their misdeeds.”

  “As if the taint of Chaos may be erased with gold!” Waldemar huffed.

  “Gold? They weren’t even willing to pay silver!” said Ivo. “They thought they could cheat me and that the pardon would still be valid. Imbeciles, every last one of them, barely able to tie their own bootlaces. Ever since I realised that, I’ve given Chaos no hold over me.”

  “Your logical error is thus:” pontificated Lemoine. “Men who choose to worship the dark gods may, as you say, be nothing but fools. After all, their devotions guarantee their own eventual destruction. That, however, does not mean Chaos itself—its devouring gods and its slavering beastmen—lacks all capacity to harm us. You’ll regret your loose words, when we begin to sprout black horns and ropy tendrils of corrupt, inhuman flesh.”

  Angelika stood. She wavered. Franziskus tripped over to her side, to prop her up.

  Ludwig picked up a stone and faked a throw at Lemoine. “That’s a steaming pile of fresh-laid twaddle! It ain’t Chaos that’s given us this little throat-rattle. It’s Waldemar there.”

  Waldemar closed his eyes, as if resigning himself to the downswing of the executioner’s axe.

  Ludwig kept at it: “His rich friend, from last night. What was his name? Biber? He couldn’t have been sneezing harder if he had been paid to do it. It was him who salted the air with ill humours.”

  Lemoine bolted up from the waist, energised by this opportunity for academic argument. “It is you who twaddles, Ludwig. All scholars agree that disease is communicated by malign configurations of the stars.”