The Plague

by Joanne Dahme

  “Chickens!” George exclaimed, as if they were a novelty. A wired cage in the cart contained six of them. All looked headless, as they were still slumbering beneath the shelter of their wings. I was more interested in the rows and rows of bottles of all sizes and colors. Each was marked with a name I could not read and sat in a crude tin pot, ready to catch its contents should the bottle break.

  “Our potions,” Albert said proudly. “We trade in remedies for all sorts of maladies, although Albert the Slim there,” he said, pointing to the tall, thin brother with a pointy beard, “is yearning to learn alchemy.” Slim Albert, hearing his name, wagged his finger at Round Albert. Obviously, this argument was an old one.

  “Do you have a potion for the pestilence?” George asked, standing on tiptoe to reach the nearest bottle. Albert gently swatted him away.

  “No, my dear boy. That is one curse that we have yet to find a pill, powder, or lotion for, but we will keep working on it.”

  Henry came up behind us. “Our horses are ready, Albert. Do you wish to lead the way?”

  “Of course,” he answered, his jovial nature seeming to awaken with the growing light. “I’m sure your horses will not mind the leisurely pace of the cows.”

  Indeed, the pace was slow.The steady gait of my horse and the coolness of the forest path, protected from the harshest glare of the sun, made me drowsy. I had to keep pinching myself to stay awake for fear I would fall off my horse and pull George along with me.

  Albert and his brothers, two of them pulling their cart and the others constantly scampering after their animals, clogged the thin path in front of us. They talked incessantly, all at the same time, as if everything that they needed to say had to be said at this moment. Periodically, Albert would wave his walking stick at us as if he were leading a pageant. Henry rode quietly behind us, every so often turning his horse around to stare down the road we had recently traveled.

  “May I walk with Albert, Nell?” George asked. “My rear is getting sore.”

  “It’s princess,” I whispered back, thinking that I would prefer to walk at this point, too.

  I was ready to guide George out of the saddle when suddenly Henry’s horse reared and thrashed his front hooves in the air. My horse bucked more gently, but his ears flicked back as he showed his teeth.

  “What is it?” I yelled to Henry, but my question was drowned in a thundering boom and a flash of light that seemed to strike at some trees not far to the south of us. Another burst of light blazed in front of us, and I jumped in my saddle as George dug his fingernails into my waist.

  Albert was using his walking stick now to swat at his brothers. “We must hurry!” he shouted. “I can smell a harsh storm. My brothers and I know of a cave not far from here.” With that, the men and their menagerie began trotting up the road.

  I turned back to Henry. Why is he hesitating? Why is he not following us? It was then that I saw it—a black stain, like a swarm of low-flying bees, moving toward us on the forest path. It moved steadily, heedless of the thunder and lightning erupting in the trees around us, and oblivious to the smell of metal and water that suddenly permeated the air. I moved my horse alongside Henry’s and gripped him by the arm.

  “The rats!” I yelled. “We must get to the cave.” Although I did not know what we would do once we got there.

  “Turn, Nell! Get in front of the merchants!” Henry shouted, anticipating the next crack of lightning. He grabbed at my horse’s reins, not waiting for me to react as he turned his own horse around and pulled mine forward.

  “What are we going to do?” George screamed as our horses trotted along the edge of the path, catching up to the procession and upsetting Albert’s brothers and their animals. Only the cows wouldn’t move to allow us to pass.

  “What are they?” Albert puffed as he slowed to take another look behind us. He flinched as a searing light split a tree near the front line of the rats, which appeared to be gaining on us. Suddenly the huge tree, aflame, slammed across the forest path, cutting off their access.

  “They are the Black Prince’s rats!” I said, with what sounded like a wail to me, which only made me angry. “Are we near your cave?” I shouted.

  “To the left, this way,” Albert replied as he suddenly stopped to roll away a sizable stone from a tiny footpath. I glanced over my shoulder, and indeed, there was a rutted gully that had been carved into the steep hill on my left. From my vantage point, I could see an earthen mound, like a large boil, rising from the hill’s summit. Its dome appeared and disappeared in the crowns of the storm-lashed trees. “Follow my brothers and take up your horses,” Albert insisted. “There is room enough for us all!”

  “Henry!” I called as my horse skittishly began climbing the winding, rock-gouged path to the cave. I looked over my shoulder to see him and his horse standing in the middle of the forest road, waiting.

  It suddenly began to pour, a hard pelting rain that would easily extinguish any fire.

  “He’ll be coming, Nell. He’s just waiting for us all to make it up this hillside,” George reassured me. I shivered as the cold rain plastered my hair and clothes against my body.

  Albert had managed to get to the top of the bluff before any of us and he stood at the entrance to a cave that yawned like a giant’s mouth in the hillside. His wild red hair was flattened and his wet tunic, where it stretched across his belly, had a shine to it. He motioned frantically for us to hurry.

  My horse made it to the top, and George and I quickly jumped off to assist the brothers with their goats and sheep. Henry was plodding behind the two cows, nearly shoving them up the hillside.

  “Albert the Strong!” Albert yelled. “Don’t forget our potions!” George and another red-haired brother ran out to help Strong Albert with his cart.

  Finally we were all inside the cool, dank cave, peering past the curtain of rain to stare out at the tops of the trees that were being whipped around in the wind below us. The thunder and lightning continued unmercifully. Henry stood closest to the cave’s mouth, his hand nervously clasping the hilt of his sword. It was a gesture I was coming to know all too well.

  I turned to survey the cave where we were to hide like animals. It was amazingly wide—the span of a courtyard, with a high roof that provided ample headroom for even the horses. Just beyond the remnants of an old cooking fire, which blackened the center of the cave’s floor, the ground pitched toward the back, to what looked like a hole. I could only discern its blackness.

  The brothers all began talking again, raising their arms and scaring the livestock, which bucked and clucked around us. Albert stood by his cart, which the brothers had placed against the north wall, as if protecting it. Iron pegs had been rammed into the rock, and a worn brown cloak hung from each peg. Henry was whispering to our horses, which he had walked to the south wall of the cave. He was rubbing their noses soothingly as they looked around the cave, wide-eyed. George covered his ears with his hands in the ruckus. The brothers were all yelling about the rats, about why they were coming after us.

  “Are you cursed, princess?” Albert attempted to ask politely, his one hand nervously stroking his beard as his other latched onto his belt.

  I looked around at his sodden circle of brothers, all their earlier cheer gone as they waited for my reply. I am a nobody, I wanted to reply, whose worth is only in what she pretends to be.

  “I am afraid I am,” I said, a horrid feeling of guilt washing over me. What have I gotten these innocent people into? “The Black Prince has set these rats on us, because he wants me back.” Is the Black Prince near? With the thought, I felt the heat drain from my face.

  “Well, he will not have you, though!” Henry interrupted. His eyes suddenly seemed to reflect the burdens of an older man. “Albert, can you and your brothers make a quick fire?” he asked.

  “Indeed we can!” Albert answered excitedly, as if glad to have a call to action. “Our tinder is in the far corner there!” he reminded a brother, pointing into the darkness
of the cave, far from the hole. Two of the brothers clambered into the blackness, until they could be seen only as shadows.

  “Our situation reminds me of the trial of a great Greek who battled his own monster in a cave long ago.We should call upon him for inspiration,” Albert proclaimed.

  “What about your potions, Albert?” I asked, truly inspired by his bravery. George ran over to the cart to peer in. “Do any of them repel rats?”

  Albert scratched his beard. “Not that I recall,” he said. “Although I never really tried to concoct a potion for that purpose.”

  George already had his hand around the throat of one of the shiny red bottles. “Perhaps we can just try a few, then?” he asked hopefully.

  Albert frowned but before he could reply, Henry shouted, “The rats! They are coming up the hill!”

  I pushed my way forward to stand beside him. Sure enough, a shimmering black line began to snake its way up the hillside.

  “Bring up the fire!” Henry called.

  “And the potions!” I added. “We can make a fire wall outside of the entrance. Hurry!”

  Immediately, Albert, George, and Strong and Slim Albert pulled stoppers out of bottles and poured them in a half circle extending out from our cave. The other two brothers—Albert the Red and Albert the Shy—were right behind them. Each held a flaming torch in hand, which they touched to the potion-saturated ground before the rain snuffed out their flames.

  A barrier of fire shot up, wavering and then roaring back to life despite the driving storm. The dirty black smoke barely masked the rows of beady eyes and twitching noses that crouched on the other side of our barricade of fire.There must have been a hundred rats, their soaked bodies trembling impatiently at the rain and at our fire.

  I prayed that if the fire did not keep them back, perhaps the sickly sweet, stinging aroma of the burning potions would. But the rats appeared undeterred as they stared oblivious to the fire and rain that raged around us. I heard Albert and his brothers collectively gasp as a section of our fire wall wilted for a moment, pounded by a surging gust of wind. We all knew that our blockade would not last much longer.

  “What is in the back of the cave?” I asked desperately. I thought of the hole. I was hoping for a means of escape.

  “Nothing but a hole, princess. A hole that burrows deep into the earth,” Albert said, shaking his head. He put his arm around his smallest brother, Albert the Shy, a brother more freckled than the rest.

  “You’ve stuck your head in that cavity many times, Shy Albert,” he said, as if speaking to a child. “What did you see? I know it’s as least as round as my waist,” Albert added, patting his stomach affectionately.

  Shy Albert attempted to wipe his face dry as he looked down at his boots. “It was very cold in the hole and it smelled like damp earth,” he replied. “Its blackness showed no bottom to it.”

  “How about the rats?” I asked. Henry’s eyes met mine as the same thought charged between us.

  “You do have more potions?” Henry suggested. “We need to create two lines of fire, lines that will form a single pathway for them, from the cave entrance to the hole.”

  Albert’s eyes widened. “We do,” he acknowledged, although he glanced at his remaining potions as if they were treasures he could not easily part with. His brothers gathered around him and again they all began arguing at once. Behind them, I could see George already standing on his toes, leaning into the cart.

  Albert wheeled around. “Boy!” he yelled, his face contorted as if in pain. “Grab those potions and begin pouring.”

  Again we unstopped the thin, delicate bottles and started to pour two parallel lines from the fire wall that rimmed our cave’s mouth to the mysterious dark hole. Henry grabbed one of the brother’s cloaks and approached the mass of living fur. Some of them began snarling, at Henry or the fire, tired of this game.

  The torches were relit and their bearers touched their fire to the fresh trails of potions. The aisle to the hole whooshed to life. Inside the cave, the heat was smothering.

  “Run to the hole, all of you!” Henry urged. “They will track you there.”

  As we all gathered on the other side of the hole, we stared down the center of the fire walk. I clung to George, who seemed intent on looking into the abyss. He kicked a rock into the hole. It hit one side and then fell. We never heard the impact.

  “Be ready!” Henry yelled as he used the cloak to extinguish a segment of the flames that intercepted our aisle. The rats were leaping over one another now, snapping at their brethren in front of them in their frenzy. In a moment, their entry into the cave was no longer guarded. Henry pulled the cloak away as waves of the vile creatures suddenly charged down the aisle, right toward us.

  I wanted to scream as the rodent army hurtled toward the hole, seemingly insensible to the fire that hemmed them in on both sides. We stood mesmerized, as whole packs of them poured into the chasm, the seemingly endless hole that swallowed up every last rat. They squealed as they fell, their cries echoing off of the cave’s walls, creating a nightmarish sound.We never heard them hit the ground.

  Within a minute they were gone and their screeches were replaced by the softer rumblings of thunder moving off into the distance. Wordlessly, we each picked up a cloak or a blanket and began to beat down the flames in the cave. Coughing was a relief, as it signified that we were still alive. Finally I looked at Henry, who had his back now to the cave’s entrance. Behind him stood a hooded figure.

  “Good show,” Gracias said, shaking his head and causing his bells to jingle. “I couldn’t have done better myself.”

  the potion

  ALBERT WAS THE FIRST to speak, although Henry had been the first to act. As the brothers and I stared stupidly at the minstrel blocking our cave, Henry whirled around as he pulled his sword from his belt and held its hilt with both hands. He muttered and lowered his sword when he saw it was Gracias.

  “And who are you?” Albert asked in wonder. Thunderous black clouds appeared to rest on the shoulders of the black-bearded minstrel in the multicolored tunic with bells. Truly, his towering image was a fearsome one. Albert’s brothers closed around him. Albert the Slim grasped George and pulled him close.

  But George pushed away.“It’s Gracias!” he announced, as if relieved. “He helped us escape the Black Prince,” he added proudly.

  “Please, do come in,” Albert invited, as if this smoke-filled cave that stung our nostrils with its acrid potion smells were his proud home.

  Gracias laughed and, after a theatrical bow, entered. It was then that I realized what a perfect disguise a minstrel’s costume was, for how could anyone initially fear a man, even a large man, who jingled as he walked and talked. But I was still unsure if we could trust him.

  I introduced the brothers and Gracias, and quickly attempted to bring Gracias up to date on the events that took place since he had left us. What harm is there in this telling? It certainly could not change what had passed.

  Gracias nodded solemnly when I finished.“I know who killed my soldados,” he said bitterly.“We had been following your Príncipe Negro, your Black Prince, since we left you. El cobarde, the coward crept upon our camp in the darkness of night like an animal,” he sneered, his bushy black eyebrows gathering in a frown.“One of my soldados was killed immediately and I sent the one who survived after you, to warn you that your prince was close in pursuit.” Gracias paused and clenched his fists before continuing. “I chased the prince but he had vanished like a espíritu maligno.”

  Albert, George, and the brothers listened to Gracias’s story with their mouths open. Henry stared at Gracias, his gaze searching the minstrel’s face for a fault. Gracias turned his head to return the look.

  “How did the rats find you again?” he asked, bending toward Henry mockingly. “Did you summon them somehow?”

  Henry stepped back, looking more shocked than outraged. “I don’t know what you mean, sir,” he said. His body trembled.

  “Really,�
�� Gracias drawled, his eyes never leaving Henry’s pained face. “Sir Andrew told me that you were employed to track the princess at all costs. Who are you tracking her for, soldado? Sir Andrew or the prince?”

  “That is ridiculous!” I interrupted. George’s eyes were wide as Albert and his brothers stepped away from us, as if sensing another attack. “Henry has done nothing but protect us,” I protested. “Let him be.”

  Henry said nothing, until he raised his eyes again, almost pleadingly as he looked into my face.

  “The Black Prince talked to me about chivalry,” Henry said. His tone sounded betrayed. “The prince told me to keep you safe and not to let you out of my sight.” He looked away from me.

  “Is that why you are with us now?” I demanded to know. My throat tightened. I feared I might cry. I wondered if this was the reason he cast so many dark glances Gracias’s way.

  “No,” he answered fiercely. “At first yes, but not now. A legion of rats from hell is not chivalrous. Marrying you falsely is not chivalrous. Killing those who are also seeking to protect you is not chivalrous! This is not the way of our king!” He looked us all in the eye now. He was still trembling, but with rage instead of shame.

  “Then why are the rats following you, soldado? How do they know how to find you?” Gracias prodded, his chin defiantly in the air.

  “I don’t know,” Henry answered. “On my honor.”

  “I know how,” George’s small voice interrupted. We all turned to look at him, pressed against the line of brothers. He pulled the amulet from around his neck, the amulet that Henry had buried in the gravedigger’s woods. I shook my head at his dirty arms. Why hadn’t I realized what he had done earlier?

  “Oh, George,” was all that I could say.

  We spent the night in the cave. Gracias insisted that we remain there. He was sure that any surviving rats would smell the death of their brothers that came before them and stay away. He also took George’s amulet as he readied to mount his horse, extending his huge hand in a command. Despite his bells and colorful tunic, there was nothing comical about Gracias.When he wasn’t smiling, his thick black eyebrows and beard made him appear all the more severe. George tentatively left the safety of the cave as he dropped the amulet in Gracias’s outstretched hand.