by M. K. Hume
Normally, such a hideous wound would cause the sufferer to bleed to death, but someone had wanted this victim to die of suffocation, so hot pitch had been slapped around his hideous amputation to seal off the blood vessels.
“It’s a miracle that he didn’t die of shock. God would have been kinder to this man if he’d permitted him to die alongside his wife.” Disgusted, Lorcan spat on the ground. “People sicken me most of the time, especially those fuckers who enjoy inflicting pain on their victims. They deserve a special place in Hell.”
A sudden indrawn gasp came from the crucified man. After the best part of a day hanging from the frame with his shoulder and chest muscles in spasm from the strain, his condition had weakened with pain and the exhaustion from blood loss, prolonged pain, and the incalculable cost of despair. But the need for struggle was over now, and he was about to join his loved ones. As Lorcan held the farmer’s broken and damaged hand, the man struggled for breath and died when his heart stopped under the strain.
“Why were they killed?” Gareth asked later as they placed the bodies of the small family in their beds, almost as if they were sleeping.
“Remember what Louis said on the road?” Lorcan reminded him. “The Jews are becoming common victims of the superstitions that exist in plague-infested areas.”
“So these children were sacrificed because they had been lucky enough to escape illness and they happened to be of the Jewish faith.” Germanus’s disgust was mirrored in the eyes of his two companions.
“So, we’ll send these innocents to their God and shake the dust of this pesthole off the soles of our boots. How we can hope to remove its stains from our souls, I don’t know,” Lorcan decided quietly as he gathered up an unlit torch and led the way out of the cottage.
At the doorway, Germanus used his flints and tinder to light a small collection of twigs and dried moss, and coaxed it into the semblance of a fire. Once this starter fire had caught alight, Lorcan thrust the fat-soaked torch into it. Then, once the torch was blazing fiercely, Lorcan went back into the cottage and set fire to the woodpiles, the beds, and any other flammable materials. Finally satisfied, he threw the torch back into the conflagration and stepped briskly out of the splintered door.
As they rode away, choosing to travel into the darkness rather than sleep in this ugly, contaminated village, Lorcan looked back over his shoulder.
“Germanus! Gareth! Turn and look! The children are dancing around the fire.”
Gareth saw the shapes of children and youths as they capered around the burning cottage. With a whoosh, the roof collapsed in a shower of hot sparks, and both Gareth and Germanus saw excited, young faces barred with stripes of drying blood, leaping and prancing like crazed animals.
“Children did this?” Germanus exclaimed, outraged by a thought that he struggled to grasp. “I don’t believe it! Children couldn’t commit such hideous crimes.”
“Children are more likely to survive the plague than adults,” Lorcan explained. “They would never survive alone in the aftermath, so it makes some sense that they’d band together for mutual protection. But children can be very cruel, my friend.”
“But a village of this size would never have so many young ones among them. I counted nearly twenty of them dancing around the funeral pyre,” Germanus protested.
“They’re like a tribe that constantly moves from village to village, gaining in number and scavenging off the dead for some time before moving on again.” While Lorcan knew his assertions were correct, part of his mind continued to rebel at the thought of murderous children running amok among the population.
“And children can be cruel and curious by turn,” Gareth added. “I can imagine how they’d respond to the plague by using pack violence against those people whom they think could have caused the deaths of their families.”
“Whatever they were once, they’re hardly human now. I’d rather not think of the little animals, so the sooner we reach Reims, the better.”
• • •
THE CITY OF Reims had been a beautiful metropolis before the Hun had swept into the north a hundred years earlier. But these barbarous warriors had burned every city that lay in their path, including this one.
The town had been rebuilt, but much of its classical Roman character had gone, and many buildings housing the poor had been replaced with structures that were tawdry and temporary in nature and appearance. The town’s sewerage system had been irreparably broken, as had its water supply. At this troubled time in its history, the city fathers had little idea how to counteract the plague and even the stout walls that had been repaired and reinforced in the years since Attila’s attacks could offer no protection for even the least significant citizen or slave.
At Soissons, a much smaller township to the west of Reims, King Theudebert had settled his army into bivouac just beyond the outskirts of the walled center. Here, in the fallow fields that had been left unplowed and unplanted by farmers who would never tend their crops again, a small army of fifteen hundred men had set up two-man tents, dug latrines, and spent all their free time whoring and drinking in the town’s stews. Although Theudebert had instructed his officers to keep the men away from the town to minimize the risk of plague, those same officers received small sums of coin from innkeepers and the owners of brothels to recommend their establishments to the troops. For a further golden stipend, those same officers provided guaranteed protection from bar fights, damage to their girls, and problems with the king or the city fathers. As always, corruption made the world go round.
The general consensus seemed to be that what the king didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Theudebert had a strong and virile face, made even more masculine by bristling, luxurious mustaches and a neatly clipped beard. His dark golden hair fell in heavy waves to the neck, where it was shorn off in a blunt, straight line. The king’s nose was narrow at the bridge but his nostrils flared to a broader tip than would have been expected. Above heavy brows and permanent frown lines at the bridge of that jutting, arrogant nose, his forehead was wide, deeply lined, and surprisingly low. Theudebert was a handsome man who was suited to armor and military dress, he also loved jewelry and elaborate, highly decorative ornamentation.
But, for all the richness of his dress and the many jeweled rings upon his fingers, the great chains of kingship around his neck and his heavily gilded armor, Theudebert had a serious and persistent problem: two problems, if he chose to be accurate.
Wisigard, the queen of the Franks, had died of the plague and her remains were lying in a glorious tomb in Cologne Cathedral. Encrusted with her favorite gems and richly attired in the dress of her Lombard birth, she had gone to rest with all the panoply of the Christian church, while special candles had burned, night and day, to disguise the reek of a plague death.
Once the days of mourning had been completed, Theudebert had fled from Cologne with the army at his back. All thoughts of conquest in Thuringia vanished from the king’s plans once the possible effects of the plague entered his considerations. Indeed, Wisigard had never been so much trouble in the seven years of their betrothal and the four years of their marriage as she had become in death. Subsequently, Theudebert had ridden as far south as he dared—only to find that Reims was already afflicted with this new illness that had been called the Wrath of Heaven.
“That stupid bitch! Trust her to catch Justinian’s disease. No one else at court even had a cough, but Wisigard would insist on distributing bread to the poor and other such nonsense! She put herself in harm’s way and so she contracted her illness. But what if she had passed the plague on to me?”
Theudebert was in his cups and was belligerent and melancholy. He had lacked a confidante during his Roman wife Deuteria’s absence, not to mention the pleasures of the bed that she had mastered, perhaps because of her first marriage. The Frankish lords had insisted that Deuteria be sent home to her family in Auvergne
, partly because her arrogance had irritated them, but mostly because good alliances could be forged with a more suitable wedding to Wisigard. Theudebert needed a sounding board that was able to listen tactfully to whatever was irking the king, but in Deuteria’s absence, he was forced to depend on his servant, Hubert, who only had one conversational advantage, his absolute discretion.
“The queen took her responsibilities seriously in the old ways of the Lombards,” Hubert answered in a conciliatory fashion while cleaning up a spill of red wine on Theudebert’s folding map table.
“Meaning she wanted to be loved.” Theudebert snickered gently into his half-full wine cup. “Is there anything to eat around here? I’m the king, so I shouldn’t have to cook for myself, as well as everything else. Doesn’t anyone fucking think around here, other than me?”
Hubert sighed gently and tried to keep the irritation out of his voice and off his face. The king had already sent two hot meals back to the kitchens in petulant exercises of petty contrariness. When he was drunk, the usually alert and decisive monarch became almost childish in his fits of sulkiness and high-handedness.
“What would you desire to eat, sire? I will send orders to your cook immediately.”
“Whatever’s available! My cooks should know my appetite, or I’d hope they do.”
Hubert was unconvinced that Theudebert would accept the meal when it came. When he was in a contrary mood, Theudebert was unpredictable. The frustrated servant sighed again and sent orders to the kitchens for a haunch of mutton, a fish stew, several roasted chickens, and some honeyed confectionery.
One of these meals will strike his fancy, Hubert decided. But I’ll probably have the others thrown at my face. When my father sent me to court at Reims from our broad acres at Troyes, I doubt he envisaged me as a glorified butler.
Hubert was the son of a minor nobleman who grew up outside Troyes. His father had hoped for family preferment by sending his second son, at fifteen, to the court of Theuderic I, the father of Theudebert. The boy had possessed organizational gifts and Theudebert had grown to depend on Hubert’s loyalty, discretion, and ability to anticipate his master’s smallest desires. The relationship was mutually advantageous because Hubert had grown rich and powerful in the prince’s service and, when Theudebert had taken up the crown after the death of his father, Hubert’s star had risen even higher among the nobility of the land.
Hubert continued to straighten the palatial tent that was the king’s home for most of the year, for Theudebert was only truly happy when he was on campaign. Their enforced bivouac at Soissons was driving the king demented with inactivity, so he drank to alleviate his boredom. Unfortunately, he missed the terrifying Deuteria when he was intoxicated.
“My father was a clever and ruthless man, Hubert. Did you know that?”
Hubert’s spirits sank because the king’s voice had that whine of self-pity that signified a period of maudlin confidences. Did the king ever remember what secrets he revealed when he was in his miseries? He hoped not, for such a possibility could herald a death warrant if he was the sole possessor of too much of the king’s business.
“Yes, my lord! King Theodoric was a man of many talents,” Hubert agreed, while his mind was turning and twisting like a basket full of rats trying to escape.
“So—if he was so clever, why did he betroth me to Wisigard? I told him I’d never marry that blond milk cow, but did he listen? No, not him! The mighty Theodoric knew everything!”
Hubert could tell from his master’s discontented face that no answer would satisfy him, so decided on presenting his king with a novel approach: the truth.
“Your noble and clever father sought to make an alliance with Wacho, the king of the Lombards, whose lands adjoined yours, so marriage to his daughter was the most simple and effective means of securing the eastern borders.”
“True, Hubert, but I never wanted to marry that silly woman, so her presence at court in Metz was embarrassing, to say the least.”
Theudebert’s normally firm mouth was pursed unattractively as he pouted.
“Unfortunately, Princess Wisigard was forced to live in the palace at Metz for seven years, my lord, which must have lacerated her feelings. She was still unmarried at twenty-one! As well, your love for the lady Deuteria was no secret, was it? In the twelve months before your father died, the queen heard nothing but rumors of your passion for the daughter and kinswoman of Roman aristocrats and Emperor Avitus. And when your father died, she found herself still betrothed to you while she constantly heard gossip that you were married to the Roman woman. How would you feel in her shoes, my lord?”
Theudebert was angry, drunk, and sullen now, a dangerous mix, so Hubert feared he might have gone too far. The servant held his breath as Theudebert staggered to his feet and weaved his way towards Hubert’s side. But, instead of striking Hubert viciously or flying into a rage, Theudebert draped one arm conspiratorially over Hubert’s shoulder and whispered in his ear.
“These women, Hubert! They’ll find ways to castrate a man between them, one way or another. Wisigard was so frigid I thought she’d freeze my prick off. But Deuteria! Gods, Hubert! She killed her daughter because I expressed some . . . affection for the girl. Much as Deuteria is an itch I can’t quite scratch, she still scares the shit out of me. These women frighten me, Hubert! Even Wisigard—and she’s dead!”
“I understand, my lord.” Hubert tried to look wise, but the revelations that Deuteria had killed her own daughter would take any man some time to accept.
“I still want the bitch in my bed, that’s the trouble! Have you ever loved someone or something that was so bad for you that you were likely to die if you gave in to your desires? No? Well, Deuteria is my death wish. From the moment we met in Auvergne, I had to have her, and she’s one of those women that one can never tire of. I miss her!”
“Then send for her, master. The queen is dead, so there’s no reason why you can’t have Deuteria if you want her to be with you, is there?”
Hubert was trying to be reasonable, although his heart was racing at such dangerous confidences. If the Frankish lords should realize what he knew, he’d be dead within a week. Gods, some of them were monsters!
“I’d already married Deuteria privately when the Council of Franks decided that I should honor my father’s word and marry Wisigard. They knew the situation, but they ordered Deuteria back to Auvergne. I was left in no doubt that they would withdraw their favor—and their men—if I didn’t act as they wished. So much for the rights of kingship!”
“Yes, master. Sometimes it isn’t easy to be a ruler.”
Theudebert nodded owlishly. “Then the silly cow caught the plague, and now she’s viewed as some kind of saint by the common people. There’s no impediment to my taking Deuteria back into my bed, but the lords say the people wouldn’t like it. Who the hell cares what the people think?”
Hubert coughed politely. It was perfectly obvious that the lords cared, so Theudebert was certainly caught in a trap of his own making.
“Perhaps you could visit her incognito, my lord? Maybe she could move to Reims and you could visit her when the need arises, without raising the suspicions of the lords?”
Theudebert’s handsome face expressed a series of emotions that ran the full gamut of frustration, hope, fear, a dawning idea, and, finally, conviction.
Oh no! What has this drunken fool decided? And does it concern me?
“Whenever I become angry with you, Hubert, I forget just how brilliant you can be when situations are difficult. Metz would be far too dangerous for any liaisons, but Reims would be perfect, especially now when the plague is such a danger. You will organize Deuteria to come to me as soon as possible, Hubert, and you’ll be well paid for your trouble. Just make sure that nothing can be traced back to either of us.”
“Lord . . . are you—”
“Yes! Yes! Use mercenaries to col
lect her, and then settle her into a suitable house on the outskirts of Reims. This plan will solve all of my problems, Hubert. It will work!”
The king’s face was flushed with excitement—while Hubert knew that his own face was pale from horror.
“I feel so much better now, Hubert. I swear I could eat a horse!”
Then the king smiled, and Hubert knew that he had been trapped by his own stupidity.
The sumptuous feast arrived while Hubert considered his options. With a sudden fit of appetite and good humor, Theudebert commenced to eat, while the night continued to darken and the overcast sky threatened rain.
In his heart of hearts, Hubert knew he could be saved only by a miracle.
• • •
THE THREE TRAVELERS reached Soissons late in the evening. Because they had approached the city from the south, they were ignorant of the presence of Theudebert’s bivouac to the north of the town until after they selected an inn for an overnight stay. As they arranged for their horses to be stabled, they learned of Theudebert’s presence, but they had already paid for the care of their horses and their feed in advance, so they toted their valuables into their inn, which carried the colorful name of the Leopard and the Unicorn. The inn’s sign swung on a metal arm above the entrance and moved fitfully whenever there was the slightest wind. The noise of the creaking and grinding metal was both threatening and sinister.
Germanus led the way into a large room that took up the whole length of the building and offered a large bar where drinkers could sit and eat with friends. The din of shouts, snatches of song, and arguments hit the three men like a physical blow as they fought their way through the crowded, smoky, and dimly lit room towards the bar where a large man and several equally buxom women served beer in huge pottery, tin, or horn containers.
Germanus used his height and weight to negotiate his way through the crowd while Farther Lorcan used his religious habit as his entrée. Gareth’s nimble flexibility allowed him to slide through gaps in the press of drinkers as he followed a zigzag path to keep Germanus’s blond-grey head in sight. Eventually, he found himself pressed against Arthur’s tutors at the bar, where Germanus was questioning the barkeeper as he paid for three huge, foaming mugs of local beer.
