by Ann Benson
He pulled the emerald-and-pearl ring he had received from the Countess Elizabeth off his finger and handed it to Kate. “Put it on your ring finger, that you may show with pride your marriage. You are a wife now, and you will be a fine one, I know it.”
She accepted it and handed it to Karle, who slipped it onto her finger. Beaming, she reached out and embraced Alejandro.
He turned to Karle and said, “I have nothing that you may hold in your hands, Karle, but I will give you something that very few men have known, something I hope you will hold in your heart. I give you my respect. We are family now. You are a man of honor, and I think my daughter has made a fine choice.”
And then he could say no more, lest he shame himself with tears on their day of joy. With a few simple words of good night, he left them alone in the main part of the longhouse and went to where the horses were stabled. And as he climbed the ladder into the hayloft, he decided it was not so painful to lose a daughter like Kate, if one should in the same act gain a son like Karle.
After reading Marcel’s latest scroll, and finding nothing in it that might compromise his own position, Charles of Navarre read it aloud to the Baron de Coucy.
“Today Karle left, once again accompanied by this mysterious maiden of his. She seems to have a pronounced influence on the man’s thinking.” Navarre looked up from the missive and smiled at Coucy. “Such is the way of the world,” he said, “that we let women ride herd over us. Let us hope her influence is more hobbling than helpful.”
He returned to the text. “It is their intent to ride north to the vicinity of Compiègne and begin the assembly of an army, though I use this word in the loosest possible manner. How many men can be brought together he could not estimate, nor can I, but it may be a substantial number. There is little else for these unfortunates to do, and if they are promised food and arms, I believe they will come.”
Coucy interrupted. “How can such things be promised? Karle has not the means to purchase them.”
“Some among them have arms of their own. Though it cannot be a substantial number.”
“And what of mounts?”
“Those they have not eaten are skinny and worthless.”
Coucy hmphed, and Navarre continued to read: “Though there are many factors weighing against him, I have come to know this Guillaume Karle. He has the one thing that les Jacques have lacked since the beginning of their uprising: the ability to lead them. He is an intelligent, inspiring man whose heart blazes for victory over what he considers to be his godless oppressors, and those of his countrymen. He has the most dangerous reason of all for doing what he does: his belief in the moral rightness of it. Make no mistake, many will follow him. Some will be zealots, as he is. Others will go because they have little left to lose, least of all their miserable lives. Still others will be in it for the reward they see waiting: fortune and land, to be stolen from the nobles they slaughter.”
Coucy said, “It will not matter on the battlefield what their reasons might be. Once there, they will fight.”
Navarre laid down the parchment. “Perhaps we ought to try to speak with Karle before we join forces against the Dauphin. There may need to be further understanding.”
Coucy chuckled. “Further understanding about how he may keep his head?”
“Among other things,” Navarre said. He handed the parchment to a page, and nodded in the direction of the fire.
In their few days of occupancy, the longhouse had become a serviceable abode, and it began to take on the feeling of a home. The young wife who now made her bed with her gallant new husband fairly glowed as she clucked like a hen over her roost, although thoughts of what lay ahead were never far from her heart. The man who had taken her to wife strutted like a lion over his domain, and made himself as useful as he could in view of the competence of his bride.
The new father-in-law held his tongue when it was appropriate to do so, and let it loose when he could not help himself. But all in all, they found their way together. With hard work and cleverness, they had managed to put together a few rough benches and a plank table, and though the newly hewn boards bore the flaws of Karle’s inexperienced hands and oozed the dampness of green wood, when Alejandro sat at the table the bench did not come apart and the table did not rock unevenly. He could eat and think in motionless peace, which he considered a blessing.
It became their habit, as they sat together at their evening meal, to review their preparations, and under the light of a torch the list of the things that would be needed was studied and perused and reworked until all three of them could recite it from memory. Tools, weapons, oil and fat of any sort, scraps of leather, the simplest armor, especially that taken from slain nobles in the last battle. Horses, extra shoes, grain, dried beans, anything portable that might increase their chances of victory.
“We must beg our recruits to bring what they have of these items,” Karle said, “and convince them to add them to the common lot.”
“A man with two pocketfuls of beans will not give them to the cause,” Kate said.
“But he may give one,” Karle said, “and that will be a help. We must also seek the help of men with certain skills: grooms, carpenters, blacksmiths.…”
“If such tradesmen have not already been conscripted by Navarre.”
“We will find them,” Karle said, “I assure you. They are out there. And they are waiting for the opportunity to do some harm.”
His prediction was correct: They were out there. As word of Karle’s arrival spread through the countryside, men came from all directions, and the longhouse became l’hôtel de ville for a small city of warriors in the making. Karle took his natural place as their leader, the roi des Jacques that Navarre had so cleverly predicted he would become. And he did it, this former man of numbers, as if he were born to it. There seemed no limit to his ability to organize a war, nor to inspire the assembled malcontents to follow him into it.
Carpenters were put to use in making first bows, then arrows, and those who were otherwise idle were taught to strip away the bark from a long, straight branch and smooth off the joints where smaller branches had been cut away, then to implant a flake of sharp rock into the tip, and feather the green opposite end to give it balance. Leafy sections of the stripped branches were piled up to use as thatching for the roofs of the lean-tos that started to rise along the edge of the meadows. Latrines were dug, and a modicum of sanitation maintained, at Alejandro’s insistence.
When birds were caught for food, their feathers were used on the arrows. All manner of viscera could be seen hanging to dry, twisted from the guts of small forest creatures into the strings that would carry those new arrows forward. Their pelts were dried and scraped to become protective padding for the shoulders of those who would be transformed into archers. Woodsmen carried their axes deep into the woods and came back dragging bundles of long, straight saplings, young trees that gave their flexible shafts to the making of spears.
Blacksmiths chipped the flint that was needed for points, and when metal could be gotten, these brawny, sweaty men formed it magically into sharp tips for spears. And finally, Alejandro had to take their own horses out of the stable area of the longhouse to make room for the growing store of weapons, rudimentary but serviceable implements of attack that should be sheltered from the weather until they were carried into battle. He tied a rag around the ankle of each horse, to mark them as his own, and sent them away to the meadow, where the scrawny lot that had been brought by some of the volunteer army were being grazed and trimmed and trained by skilled grooms who would no longer serve the nobility.
The ceiling of the longhouse became a hanging place for herbs and spices and leaves that had medicinal value, and pots boiled all day and through the night, brimming with the potions that would be needed to treat the wounded. Some of the volunteers had brought wives and children, and those that could not be sent home again were set to the task of gathering and spinning fibers, first to be twisted into ropes, and then if
there was time, woven into bandages. Cotton simply could not be had, and so rough wild flax was pressed into service; the bandages that could be made from it were stiff and somewhat scratchy, but they softened to usability when water or oil was applied.
And in a locked metal box by the hearth, never too close to the flame to catch but always close enough to be warm, sat the hand of the plague child that Kate and Karle had exhumed before reaching Paris. She checked it now and then while no one else was looking, and watched with grisly fascination the progress of its desiccation, as the flesh shriveled and dried first to leather, then to something like clay, and finally into a grayish, greasy powder. Every time she opened the tin, she crossed herself against some unknown demon that she half-expected to rise out in an angry mist, and she was always careful to show it to Alejandro so that he might gauge its progress toward readiness. He would grimly nod and shake the can lightly from side to side, to see how much more of the flesh fell away each day. Finally, it was nothing but powder and sinewy bones. Alejandro separated out the bones and took them into the forest, where he dug a shallow hole and buried them again beneath a pile of rocks.
And when the weapons were finally assembled and the horses a bit plumper and better shod, and all the supplies to be had were gathered, the training began. From dawn until sunset, day after day, Karle rode through the meadow on his horse and watched as his lieutenants, chosen for skill and bravery from among the gathered, instructed raw recruits in the arts of war. Peasants thrust and parried and rolled away, then rose again, shot arrows into targets, and chucked spears at scarecrows from very long distances. They formed up and marched forward, their wooden swords held bravely toward the sky, then split into smaller troops, fell back, and regrouped for a charge. They charged and retreated, then charged a little farther and retreated a little less, then charged a little farther again. They became an army.
The lieutenants met nightly in the longhouse and were served thin stews and porridges by the women while they discussed the details of what training remained to be done. It was down to simple lessons now, for the work had been thorough and exhaustive. They must never let a weapon lie unused on the ground by its fallen owner. A weapon down is a weapon free. It is no shame to retreat when by doing so an advantage might be gained for a later attack. They must water themselves as often as possible, for blood sport quickly drains a man of his liquid humors. These and other such bits of wisdom were the last that could be given to the Grande Armée des Jacques, which started with one, grew to hundreds, and stood, at last, at thousands.
“And now a message must be sent,” Guillaume Karle announced at one of their suppers. “We must tell Charles of Navarre that we are ready.”
28
The sequencing is done, the message from Michael said. I’m bringing the file and your original materials home.
They drove to Michael and Caroline’s house in Kristina’s small, gas-friendly car. There was an unusual amount of traffic, both vehicular and human. Kristina was visibly distracted by the goings-on outside the car. She finally made a quiet but rather profound observation. “People are walking faster. They look scared, I think.”
“I noticed that too,” Janie said. “It’s starting to scare me that everyone’s rushing.”
“I wonder where they think they’re going to rush to.”
“I wonder where I’m going to rush to. If it comes to that.”
They were stopped at a traffic light. Dozens of people were hurrying across the street in front of them. Kristina turned to Janie and said, almost casually, “Do you actually think there’s a chance that it won’t?”
Janie stared at her for a few seconds. “I don’t know how to respond to that, Kristina.”
The light changed. With uncertainty still hanging in the air, Kristina drove on in silence. And when they arrived at Michael and Caroline’s house, Nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide was screaming through Janie’s brain.
When Janie introduced them, Kristina stared at Caroline for a few seconds, a bit too intently for politeness, then turned to Janie with a look that said Is this the one?
Janie understood, and nodded very slightly. Caroline saw it all, comprehended, but added nothing beyond a little smile of her own. “Michael couldn’t stay,” she explained as she handed Janie the envelope. “You just missed him. He asked me to tell you he’s swamped at work.”
He would be in the front line when the time came, leading the charge. The worried look on Caroline’s face betrayed her understanding of the danger he would be in.
Good Lord, Janie found herself thinking, if anyone should be running and hiding … “He’ll be all right, Caroline,” she said softly. “He knows what to do.”
“I know. But it’s hard.” Her glance moved downward. “Especially right now.”
“Any news?”
Caroline shook her head, but the look in her eyes said Maybe.
Janie sighed. It was love amid the ruins. “Well, keep me posted. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you.”
Caroline smiled and displayed her own crossed fingers. On one was a Band-Aid.
Janie reached out quickly and took hold of Caroline’s hand. “What’s that for?” she demanded sternly.
“A hangnail,” Caroline answered. Then, a bit more nervously, she said, “And maybe you’re overreacting just a little bit, hmm?”
“I want to take a look at it.”
She tried to pull the hand away, but Janie would not give it up.
“Oh, really, Janie … this isn’t necessary.”
“Why don’t you let me decide that?”
Back out in the kitchen, Janie unwrapped the finger and scrutinized it under a strong light. “Let me see the same one on the other hand,” she said.
With a sigh, Caroline held the other finger out next to its mirror twin.
There was a visible hangnail, a tiny little tear in the flesh around Caroline’s index finger cuticle. The area around it was swollen and colored. “How long has it been red?” Janie demanded sharply.
“Just since yesterday.” Caroline was trying to sound casual and unconcerned, but was failing miserably. “I clipped a nail too close, I think.”
“Plague can leave you vulnerable to infections for a very long time,” she said to her friend. “I want you fastidious to the point of compulsiveness.”
Caroline’s forehead wrinkled into a pained, almost hurt expression. “I know that. You’ve told me plenty of times. And you know I’m careful.”
“I just want to make sure you’re careful enough,” Janie said. “Although I’m not really sure that’s possible.”
As they stood together at the sink and scrubbed their hands with strong soap and steaming-hot water, Caroline said, “Good Lord. You need to lighten up. It’s not plague, and it’s not DR SAM.”
Paper towels, immediately discarded. “Then what is it?”
“A hangnail,” Caroline said. “Just a hangnail.”
The atmosphere at the foundation was as rushed and uncertain as it was anywhere else. The in-and-out traffic was intense and noisy with a strong undercurrent of confusion, and security guards were stopping people who looked even slightly suspicious. The first thing Janie noticed as she entered the logjam at the main door was that they had the bacterial scanners operating again.
Janie waved her own hand over the ID sensor and passed through the scanner, reading clean, and then waited on the other side as Kristina followed her through the machine’s archway. She saw the glint of Kristina’s metal car keys in her right hand, and heard the metal detector sound. When the guards turned in Kristina’s direction, the young woman smiled at them and made a little oops shrug of the shoulders. She held up the keys, and after a brief hesitation one of the guards waved her through.
Janie watched the whole scene with slight discomfort. She’s not in Big Dattie. She held her car keys in her implant hand as she passed through. It was another notch on the tree trunk, but there wasn’t time to examine what had just transpired. It
would have to wait.
“We don’t want to take too long,” Janie said as she led Kristina down the stairs to one of the basement labs. “My supervisor is not very happy with me.”
“Considering the way things are going, he’s probably going to be a little busy now,” Kristina said.
“You might be right, but still … we should get out of here as quickly as possible.”
She had never traveled this corridor’s length when such worries were in the air. As she looked up and around there was something strangely familiar about the walls and the ceilings and Janie found herself slipping into a memory of London, an occasion when a similar hallway had presented its terrifying self for passage and she had succumbed to its imagined horrors in much the same way.
No, she said to herself firmly. Not now.
She tried to resist the pull of it, but the vision grabbed on and clutched her mercilessly, and she couldn’t get loose of it. As sweat beaded up on her forehead, she imagined herself in the corridor of what had once been a hospital, where dying Swine Flu patients and groaning World War I soldiers had reached out through a century to grab at her arms as she made her way through the shades of their presence.
Her step faltered slightly. She stopped and put a hand on the wall for support as the recollection forced its way through her.
Kristina noticed and moved to support her.
“Are you all right?” she said.
She was breathing deeply, concentrating on safety and goodness and white light, all things foreign to the vision. “I think so,” Janie managed to say. “This place—it’s disturbing all of a sudden.”
“We can do this on V.M. if we have to,” she said. “It’ll take time, but—”
Janie shuddered and shook her head to clear it of the unwanted recall. “No,” she said. “I don’t think we can afford the delay.”
Suddenly a technician came out of a side door and rushed past them with no acknowledgment, no greeting. He was wearing a full plastic face mask and long latex gloves, and the look in his eyes was frightened and focused. After watching the tech disappear into a turn in the corridor, Kristina looked at Janie and said, “No. I don’t think we can.”
