02 - Sacred Flesh

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  Ursula and Dema hauled an increasingly resistant Elsbeth down thirteen stone steps to a round chamber, in the middle of which stood four copper vats. Each of the vats sat atop a grate, three of which were filled with liquid. Steam rose from them and billowed out toward Manfried; they were the source of the complex, awful stink. The vat closest to the stairs boiled and hissed. Just south of these a stone slab, about six feet long, rose up from the floor just past waist height. A man-sized washing tub was recessed into the uneven rock floor next to the far wall. A small dark archway could be seen opposite the stairs that led to a darkened chamber.

  A pair of sisters slaved over the boiling vat, sweating in their heavy habits, perspiration slicking their faces. The first, young and plump, her face still round with baby fat, might have registered as comely, were it not for a dense cross-hatching of scars that marred both her cheeks. She brandished a wooden paddle, which she held over one of the vats, as she peered intently into it. The second had baleful, slate-grey eyes. She reminded Manfried of a dried apple jammed onto a stick.

  The baleful sister interrupted her stirring. “We are not ready,” she said.

  “I told you to be ready at any time,” replied Dema.

  “I did not expect it so soon.” She took an unhappy appraisal of Elsbeth’s condition. Manfried could not be sure if her defiance arose from sympathy for the abbess, or a more basic truculence.

  “Hop to it,” Dema said.

  Baleful stood her ground. “We have not harvested.”

  “Then harvest,” Dema countered.

  Baleful gestured to Elsbeth with her paddle. “It upsets her.”

  Elsbeth had slumped into Ursula’s shoulder. Manfried hoped she’d gone unconscious, but she propped her head up and opened her eyes. “That’s right, Mechthild. You mustn’t.”

  Mechthild turned back to her vat.

  “Am I not still the superior of this abbey?” Elsbeth asked, her tone more pleading than commanding.

  Mechthild bowed her head. “It’s a sinful thing, you know, to want to die. You’ve no right to leave us, not until Shallya takes you.”

  “It is unnatural!” Elsbeth nearly toppled off the stairs, but Ursula caught her in time. She wrapped thick arms around the abbess’ frail midsection. Elsbeth sagged. Ursula cooed and petted her head, crackling off shards of desiccated hair.

  “It is holy,” Ursula whispered. “When you are better, you will see it correctly.”

  “I will not be better for long.”

  Mechthild and Dema bustled, along with the plump one, toward a darkened archway. Manfried, wishing to be spared Elsbeth’s pitiful whimpering, followed. Mechthild turned to glower forbiddingly at him, but he ignored her and nonchalantly squeezed past the shoulder she stuck out to block him.

  He entered a small chamber, its rough stone ceiling forcing him to duck his head. It snaked jaggedly into the rock for about fifteen feet or so, with less than two yards of clearance from one wall to the other. The chamber, lit only by spare light from the adjoining room, was the abbey catacomb. Weathered wooden shelves abutted each uneven wall, each holding up to five levels of linen-wrapped bodies. About half of the shelves were empty, so there were fifteen corpses in all, by Manfried’s rough count. Dema’s sisters had prevented him from making an exact inventory.

  Manfried inhaled deeply. This room smelled sweeter and fresher than Dema’s vat chamber. Manfried made out a tang of rose petals, overlain with traces of cinnamon, honey and nutmeg. The place settled his mood: he no longer cared about the threat posed by the mass of wheedling pilgrims above, or even his ultimate fate. The first time he’d stood here, he’d worried that it might steal from him all of his will and volition. The feeling had not lasted, thank Sigmar.

  The sisters muttered to one another in muffled tones, but Manfried’s ears were too keen for them and he heard them clear enough.

  “Mother Kristen?” mumbled Mechthild.

  Dema threw her head back, consulting a memorised registry of names and dates. “Last harvested a fortnight ago. Unlikely.”

  “Mother Emagunda?”

  Dema briskly shook her head. “Seventeen days.”

  “Marien?”

  “That was but ten days back!”

  “But she’s been producing well lately.”

  Dema shrugged indulgently and moved to a body ensconced on the middle shelf of the stack directly ahead of Manfried. He edged up for a closer vantage point. Dema’s rough hands took brusque hold of the shelf and yanked it out, along grooves filmed with sawdust. Mechthild and the plump girl swept in to unroll the corpse’s milk-white shroud. Their movements were deft and confident, but also solicitous, as if they thought their patient still lived.

  Manfried never managed to completely suppress his surprise at the first sight of these beautiful corpses. Mother Marien’s body showed no speck of corruption; her pink flesh retained all the spring and suppleness it would have had in life. Long brunette hair flowed extravagantly from the crown of her head. The nails of her fingers and toes had kept their sheen, and maintained a perfect trim. It was impossible to determine her age from mere examination; her face seemed old and wise, yet her elongated body had a willowy girlishness about it. If Dema had her facts right, Mother Marien was born in the year 2178—well over three hundred years ago.

  The young-old body lay unclothed beneath her shroud, a fact that Manfried found vaguely unsettling.

  Mechthild backed up, crunching her heel deliberately on Manfried’s foot. When he did not move, she croaked indignantly at him. He stepped back a little.

  Dema reached out for the dead abbess’ wrist. She manipulated it, twisting with both hands on the flesh of her freckled forearm. She bent down and aimed her single eye at the spot she was manipulating. “No,” she said, straightening herself, “she’s dry.”

  “Mother Adeline, then,” said Mechthild.

  Dema ticked her tongue doubtfully. “Perhaps. It’s been a month, but last time she seemed brittle. We mustn’t overtax her.”

  They pushed back Marien’s shelf and moved over to slide open a top shelf on the opposite wall. They unwrapped a squat, wide-hipped woman with short white hair and heavy, drooping breasts. A deathly grimace, exposing grey gums, pulled at the woman’s lips. The three sisters recoiled.

  “Oh, heavens,” said the plump one.

  “She’s corrupting,” said Mechthild.

  They quickly rewrapped her. “If we let her be for a year or so, she’ll come back,” said Dema, but she sounded unconvinced by her own words.

  Mechthild wheeled to face Manfried. “You’re burning them all up! They were never meant to be harvested at this continual rate!”

  Dema’s restraining hand settled on the baleful sister’s shoulder. “No, Mechthild. It is the terrible times that force this. Father Haupt is but their harbinger.”

  “You must slow Elsbeth’s audiences! Soon we won’t have a single source of divine elixir!”

  Not deigning to argue, Manfried returned to the vat chamber. Ursula had found a chair for Elsbeth, who swooned in it, her head held at a listless angle.

  “No time to waste!” Manfried called, into the funerary chamber.

  After a few more moments, the three sisters emerged, delicately hoisting yet another shrouded body. They carried it over to a stone slab that rose from the centre of the room, and laid her out on it. They unwrapped the shroud yet again, exposing a body barely escaped from puberty. Her hair was so blonde that it was nearly white; her eyes refused to close, their irises a penetrating, leafy green. Manfried had gotten to know her well—this was Dema’s champion producer, the child prodigy Sister Friedhilda (2265 - 2250.)

  Mechthild and the plump girl spread-eagled her on the slab as Dema crossed to a shuttered cabinet attached to the far wall. An old padlock hung from its rusted handles, a belated measure against thievery. It had been from this cabinet that an unknown thief had filched some of Dema’s blessed instruments; he would have taken the rest if Dema hadn’t removed some of the pie
ces for cleaning. The lock would not stop a determined bandit, but that was the job of Manfried and his warriors. Dema keyed the lock open and withdrew a bundle of strange gilded implements. Unpacking them on the slab next to the dead girl, Dema revealed a hook, several small paddles, a series of jars and a wedge-shaped scraper.

  Dema moved close to Friedhilda’s corpse and got to work dragging the golden scraper over the body’s soft skin. She pressed firmly, running it along the grain of the dead girl’s musculature. At first, her movements seemed to have little effect, but gradually, a strange, gummy substance the colour of beeswax began to eke from Friedhilda’s pores. The air filled with the same sweetness that suffused the catacomb. Mechthild and the plump one beheld the process with open-mouthed awe, while Dema held herself to an efficient, dignified demeanour. After five minutes or so, she had finished work on Friedhilda’s front parts and had scraped an ounce or so of saintly residue into the jars. Dema’s assistants stepped up to roll the body over. Dema gave equal attention to the girl’s back, harvesting another jar’s worth of the substance.

  Mechthild placed the open jars in a wire cage. The plump girl rewrapped Friedhilda’s corpse, softly cooing to her as she would a child. Dema returned to the cabinet and withdrew various glass containers filled with salts and herbs. Taking up the stirring paddle, she poked it into the vat, sniffing to evaluate its vapours. She dropped in a handful of red salt from one container and a sprig of some dried plant from another. Mechthild handed her the cage; she lowered it into the liquid, hanging it on the vat’s lid by its wire hooks. Old burn tissue covered the surface of her fingers. If contact with the vat’s hot surface caused her pain, she did not show it. Glistening dots of golden grease appeared in the bubbling liquid. Dema threw in a few shavings of what looked like leather, stood back, then nodded in satisfaction.

  Elsbeth stirred. “No,” she said. “I beg of you.”

  Dema’s two assistants hauled in buckets brimming with glacial water. They poured it into the tub then came back with more. Dema dipped smaller buckets into the boiling vat, tossing the liquid into the tub water. Steam billowed, obscuring vision.

  When the tub was filled, Dema stooped to test its temperature. She nodded. Ursula and Mechthild flanked Elsbeth, drawing her unwillingly from her chair.

  Mechthild fixed herself on Manfried, grinning. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to dip your hand in, just as an experiment?”

  “You’ve an odd sense of humour, for a follower of the mercy goddess,” Manfried remarked. He thought of Vilmar, the dupe on whom Dema had performed her most recent experiment. Manfried still had small scorches on the backs of his hands, where sizzling morsels of Vilmar’s melting flesh had hit him.

  Manfried turned away as the sisters stripped Elsbeth of her vestments.

  “No!” she cried. “Please!” Finding a hidden reserve of energy, she wiggled free of Ursula’s grip and dashed for the stairs. A draft caught Elsbeth’s grey hair and unfurled it into a mad, silvery halo. Manfried squinted in revulsion as her pale, naked body came at him. He saw the toll her healing audiences had taken on her, and gasped. She tried to run around him, but he was too big and fast for that. He caught her wrists. She turned her cloudy eyes on him. She opened her lips to soundlessly beg for freedom; her gums were coated and bloody; she had only a single jagged tooth left. Elsbeth kicked at Manfried with an unshod foot, her yellow toenails slashing at him. He jogged aside and her foot hit the stone-wall and turned. It snapped. She shrieked; Manfried winced. He ducked down to sweep her legs out from under her and carried her, one arm under her knees, the other holding her back. To see where he was going, he had to look at her, too. On the battlefield, he seen much worse things than the bare body of a dying old woman, but he was revolted just the same.

  “Put her in the bath,” Dema said.

  Elsbeth sobbed.

  Manfried didn’t know what would happen if any of the bath happened to get on him. It might do nothing. Or it might burn his flesh. Or fill his flesh with worms and tumours. Maybe Sigmar would protect him. He did not want to find out.

  He dropped Elsbeth into the tub and stepped back so none of it would splash him. She thrashed, but, oddly, none of the liquid escaped. Instead, it adhered to her and soaked into her skin. Her frail, skeletal body shook. Dark streaks appeared in her wet, snowy hair. Morbid, flabby muscle firmed up and gathered around thickening bones. The cataracts melted from her eyes. As she screamed, her voice gained youth and renewed power from her lungs. New teeth jutted from her gums: they grew quickly and filled their sockets, before gleaming with a pearly, unnatural symmetry. Manfried could not help but watch as her flat, empty breasts swelled up and formed themselves into pink and perfect orbs like you’d see in a painting. Elsbeth rose from the tub, her strong and healthy fingers clutching its rim. The last droplets of restorative liquid found her pores and forced their way into her skin.

  Manfried looked around for Eugen, but realised that he had not come down as far as Dema’s chamber.

  It was hard to say how old Elsbeth now looked. She was both newborn and ancient. Her skin shone youthfully, but her hair was still mostly grey and thinning, so the shape of the skull could still be seen beneath her glowing face.

  She exposed her flawless teeth to him. The purity of her rage reminded Manfried of a mountain cat.

  “You,” she said, “must let me die.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Angelika lay in the gully, aching. She stirred before taking stock of her condition. A throbbing sensation radiated out from the bridge of her nose and eventually filled her head with pain and dull stupidity. Acrid mucus poured down the back of her throat. She swallowed; another cascade of wretched slime slithered down to replace it. She coughed, rattling loose a chunk of phlegm. She spat it out, realising only belatedly that she’d hocked it Franziskus’ way. He was crouched near her, inspecting her with that damned attentive look of his. That furrowed brow. The rosy bottom lip tucked just beneath those accursedly perfect front teeth. Franziskus moved his hand so that her airborne sputum would not hit it. He forced a shy smile, as if to deny that he’d been at her side for any length of time.

  Angelika blinked wet and gummy eyes. “You look healthy enough,” she said. “How are the others?”

  Franziskus did not need to answer. The pilgrims lay all around Angelika, wheezing, groaning, eyes half-open. “Fate laughs at my folly,” she muttered. She imagined the warm tavern she might well be sitting in if she hadn’t agreed to help these god-addled fools finish their suicidal mission. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself raising a cup of brandy to her lips. She savoured the brandy’s imaginary richness as she rolled it across her tongue. A hypothetical heap of logs burned in the tavern’s fireplace; Angelika let its warmth seep through her, dispelling her chill.

  She watched as a group of four heavily armoured pilgrims—or perhaps they were merely mercenaries—made a wide circle around their camp. They were sizing them up with sidelong looks, barely bothering to disguise their predatory intentions. Angelika cursed loudly, invoking the most intimate elements of the mercy goddess’ anatomy. Her blasphemy sent a stir through the suffering pilgrims. She shot a hand out at Franziskus; with a gallant flourish, he grabbed onto it and hauled her stumbling to her feet.

  The fever, or grippe, or whatever it was, had taxed her sense of balance. Beneath Angelika’s feet, the traitorous ground whirled and shifted. She stumbled. Franziskus caught her, steadying her with a discreet hand on the small of her back.

  She battled her congested lungs, gathering the air for an authoritative pronouncement. “No matter how sick we are,” she hoarsely gasped, “we have no choice… but to be on our way. Our robbers left us without slitting our throats… but we can’t assume we’ll be so lucky… the next time.”

  “Yes,” grunted Ludwig Seeman, who’d propped himself up against a pine tree, his knobby-kneed legs splayed out on either side of him. “It’s time you lot of malingerers got up off your soft behinds and got moving.” Seized by a
fit of coughing, he pounded himself on the breastbone until his balky respiratory apparatus submitted itself to his will.

  “You don’t exactly seem to be moving,” Recht said to him. Dark rings hung under the advocate’s eyes. It took obvious effort for him to launch himself up onto his elbows.

  Ludwig snorted. “I was waiting for the lot of you, but you’re right. This situation calls on a man to lead by example.” He remained in place. “What we’ve got here, hardly qualifies as a disease at all. I’ve had so much worse I can hardly think which story to begin with. One time I—”

  “Use your breath for standing up,” Angelika told him.

  “This is nothing!” Ludwig scoffed, still firmly ensconced against the tree-trunk. “It’s certainly not Chaos.” He slapped the air dismissively with the back of his hand. “I know, believe me. When I served aboard the Stammigkanonen, the entire lot of us came down with something that shrivelled our limbs and dried up our bowels. But we kept working all the same and were the better for it. I promise you, what we’ve got here is hardly more than a throat-tickle compared to that.”

  “Old sea stories aside,” said Angelika, “who here feels well enough to actually be of assistance?” Richart, Gerhold and Franziskus raised their hands; Ludwig’s remained conspicuous by its absence. Along with the volunteers, Angelika picked her way through the moaning pilgrims, helping—or pulling—them to their feet. Franziskus approached Ludwig and extended his hand. But the sailor stormed to his feet without aid, then held his hands in the air, like a man expecting applause. When none came, he grunted in displeasure.

  Franziskus, Richart and Gerhold split up the packs of the weaker pilgrims, then added them to their own burdens. Franziskus made sure that he got hold of Devorah’s pack. Everything was lighter, now that they’d been robbed of half their food.