The Burning Road

by Ann Benson

  For some reason, she believed him. “Then you’re dumber than I thought. Hopefully you’ll be smart enough to do what I’m going to suggest.” She told him about the replacement gene, the fix for the first “fix,” and the vials of serum that had been sent out. “That’s going to keep them from breaking any more bones. But it’s not going to repair the bones that are already broken. So when you move all those study patients you have out there into isolated biosafe wards like you’re doing now, you’re going to have a few more patients than you planned on.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You have the room, you have the money. Make it work. And do it today. Because if you don’t I swear I will rise up out of the ashes of what’s to come and kick your ass from here to Hong Kong.”

  “Janie, they will never let me do this upstairs.…”

  “Then wave these pretty papers under their noses, Chet. There’s also a police report about a dead basketball coach in there. With a little perseverance, I could establish a connection. The evidence is pretty compelling. I’ll bet someone upstairs would love to know something about that.”

  He stared at her, horrified. “I had nothing to do with that, I swear.”

  “But your father was the guy who set all this in place. Someone I know happened to see a list I had on my computer, and he remembered the name. So you can wipe out all the evidence you want. People will always have memories, even if the machines don’t.”

  33

  It was the coldest winter Alejandro could remember since they first came across the Channel, now more than a decade before. And though the winters they had known in France had not been especially kind, they were for the most part far milder than the one winter he had known in England, when it seemed to him that no birds or flowers would ever come again. But he had been warmed by the love of a woman that winter, and now it was he who tried, most times in vain, to warm his daughter. Sometimes he was successful, but only when she would agree to be warmed.

  Miraculously, the child within her had managed to survive the horrors of the rise and fall of the Jacquerie, and as he watched her belly change from flat to slightly rounded to fully round and finally near pendulous, Alejandro marveled at how God always provided for those who could not provide for themselves. In the case of Kate and her forming child, however, God seemed to have provided the flesh from the girl’s own bones, for she who had once been voluptuous and ripe was now thin and angular, giving every bit of what meager food she took in to the child of Guillaume Karle. Though she had not lost her beauty, something Alejandro thought near impossible anyway, the pregnancy had cost her the glow that once colored her cheeks. She was ghostly pale most days, unless she took some air, but that was often too tiring for one so terribly undernourished. She complained often of aching teeth, and Alejandro prayed daily that she would not give any of them up to the carriage of the babe. An apple once in a while, or, should God be so magnanimous, an onion with its miraculous qualities, would have taken care of the problem. But there were no such fruits to be had.

  The unborn infant marched through her belly like a little soldier, and Alejandro never had any difficulty finding the babe’s feet when he kicked into the thin skin of his mother. It gave Kate almost all the pleasure she knew to run her hands over the one thing, beyond her memories, that remained of her love for Guillaume Karle. And Alejandro thought it only fair that she should have some pleasure of her burden, for she had spent the first few months retching and heaving and trying to keep down what little food she had. There were no herbs to make the proper teas and potions to cure her pregnancy sickness, for they had all been spent on the wounded soldiers of the Jacquerie, or for other curative reasons, and when the last of the maimed were finally brought out of the longhouse, the earth had already given itself over to brown and there were no more herbs to be had. There would be none till spring, and by then, the child would be born. Alive, Alejandro hoped. He did not think he could bear to watch his daughter suffer another torment.

  They had started that winter with two gold pieces, and he had thought for sure it would get them through. Two pieces of gold was enough to feed a large family for a year, or so he had been told, and so he wanted desperately to believe. With no one to tend the cattle and no one to harvest what little wheat had been sown, and no one to bring it to market, people paid outrageous prices for anything that could be found. There were likely no nobles going hungry, he thought, especially not Charles of Navarre or the Baron de Coucy.

  But even they were expending their coinage at a faster rate than ever before, and their grumblings were whispered throughout the countryside, and brought into the longhouse by anyone who passed through it.

  They were down to the last few sous; Alejandro knew that their only food until spring would be what he himself caught. But game was scarce, and with the ponds frozen it was a miserable, often impossible task to obtain fish. His dreams were full of golden loaves and steaming white fish and juicy red apples; his belly was full of grit and gristle and groans. And he would have been thankful for more of those, if only they could be found.

  A few people came seeking treatment; he no longer bothered to try to hide the fact that he was a physician, for it was well known among the countryfolk what he had done for their wounded brothers, sons, and husbands, and legends of his compassionate deeds were told for miles. And he was the only physician left north of Paris, or so it seemed when the streams of misérables presented themselves. Often he could do nothing for these poor ones who suffered from the diseases of deprivation and came seeking some reason to hope; most times he sent them home with encouraging words and little else. Those who he could help were rarely able to pay him anything, though he gave his services without demand for payment. Sometimes they would bring a strip of dried meat, or a wormy apple, or a crust, for food was the only tender anyone cared about during the long winter of 1359. He was grateful for what was brought, and effusive in his thanks, but he gave most of it to Kate. The knocks on the door of the longhouse were no longer surprising to him, and he never bothered to wonder if the agents of King Edward had come at last to claim him. Let them come, he often thought with terrible bitterness, if only they bring food.

  One cold and sunny morning in the late winter, when the air should have been much warmer and the icicles much smaller, there came a knock on the door that was somehow different from the rest. The touch was firmer—there seemed to be some strength behind it. Peasants seeking his help always knocked meekly, knowing that what they were doing amounted to little more than begging. But this was not the knock of a beggar. And for the first time in many months, he reached for his knife before opening up.

  Again, the knock came, this time even stronger, and Kate’s face began to show alarm. So close to her time, he thought; let it please not be a robber or a knight seeking even more plunder.…

  Knife in hand, he slid back the wooden bolt and opened the door just a crack. A tall man in a riding cloak stood there, a mass of darkness against the gray-white of the snow. With the sun behind the stranger, and his vision blurred by malnutrition, Alejandro could not see the man’s face.

  “Physician?” he heard.

  The voice was so familiar, but it did not register in the dullness of his mind.

  Then came “Colleague?”

  He nearly fainted.

  You are not welcome here, Alejandro had said as he tried to slam the door.

  But de Chauliac had shoved his shoulder against the wood and pushed his way inside, far outdoing his weakened colleague in both strength and will.

  No, but I am needed.

  And now the Frenchman watched in silent and guilty embarrassment as Alejandro wept over the food he had brought from Paris, and handed it to the pitifully thin and massively pregnant girl, who devoured every morsel as if she were a starving animal.

  When he had taken his own fill, the Jew thought momentarily about attacking his caller and making an end of him, once and for all. But he had been wise enough to know that his s
trength would not permit it, and sane enough to understand the terrible loss it would be.

  “How did you find me?” he only said.

  “I have known where you are since the day you first came here. I had a spy among your soldiers. One of the guards you so heartily despised and so handily tricked. But you would not have noticed him; the man came and went discreetly among your thousands. And you were rather preoccupied, or so he said.”

  “And did he …?”

  “Perish in the battle? Nearly. But your daughter treated him, and he lived.” He cast his glance in Kate’s direction and nodded respectfully. “The man sends his most heartfelt thanks, and his promise that he shall never keep your father captive again.”

  This brought the faintest smile to her lips, and Alejandro’s heart soared with the sight of it.

  De Chauliac gestured in the direction of her belly. “Karle’s child, I suppose.”

  Alejandro nodded.

  “When shall her confinement be?”

  “Soon, I think, though I cannot say exactly.”

  “Stand up, madame,” de Chauliac said, “if you please.”

  She looked at Alejandro, who only raised his eyebrows in surprise. She stood.

  “Turn to the side, that I may view the extent of your maternity. Hold your dress against your belly—I wish to see its curves.”

  She turned, revealing a rounded protuberance that bulged just over the top of her skinny thighs.

  “The babe sits low,” de Chauliac said.

  “No wonder,” Alejandro said, “for her belly has no flesh to hold it higher.”

  “Yes, but a babe only lets itself drift this low when it is ready to come forth. She will bring this child out in perhaps a week.”

  “From whence comes this knowledge of childbirth? I had thought you above mere midwifery.”

  “I am the royal midwife, or was when I had His Holiness’s favor.”

  “Père,” Kate said, “can this be true—can it be so soon in coming?”

  “I think it so,” de Chauliac said, without waiting for Alejandro’s comment. “So you had best come back to Paris with me.”

  Alejandro looked at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “To be your prisoner again? Never.”

  De Chauliac stood up and glared down at Alejandro. “Fool,” the Frenchman said, “you are a most bitter and unappreciative guest. And what little I want from your company you hoard to yourself, quite jealously. I care not if you stay or you go, if you do not see fit to share your learning with me. And when you are in my keeping, I am obliged to feed you. That is a dear thing to do, these days.”

  The diatribe was stunningly unexpected. Alejandro could only stare, dumbfounded, at the man who had delivered it. When he found his tongue again, he said, “Then why …?”

  “There is plague,” he said, “in Paris. You are needed.”

  At last, he thought. Something he could bargain with. “And what of my gold?”

  “I have it still. You shall have it back.”

  “And the manuscript of Abraham?”

  De Chauliac hesitated. “It is with Flamel.”

  Alejandro raised himself up slightly, as if he were going to pounce. “You gave it to him?”

  “He begged me for it.”

  “But he knows not what it means.”

  “He promised to find someone to finish the translation.”

  “And then he will do with that wisdom what he will! It will not be used toward the benefit of those it was intended for!”

  De Chauliac sighed. “There is nothing that you or I can do about that. It fell into your hands quite by accident, and now, by similar accident, it has gone to Flamel. He is a good man at heart, though undeservedly pompous; he will do good work with it. And somehow this tome has found its way to safety through a very long journey before this without your stewardship. What makes you think it requires your protection?” He stood up and began to pace. “One begins to think that this manuscript has a will of its own. Or, if you would prefer to think of it another way, one might say it is under the influence of the will of God, and will end up where He wants it to.”

  Humbled, Alejandro was quiet for a long moment. “And you believe now what I told you about the cure for plague. Do you also believe what I told you of the rats?”

  “I am not in a position not to believe. And I am oathbound to seek out any cure, for I gave my pledge to the Dauphin. You see, the patient we must treat is the young son of Prince Lionel and the Countess Elizabeth.”

  Alejandro swallowed hard. “I cannot go there.”

  “I believe you owe her this, colleague.”

  He lowered his head. Then quietly, he looked to Kate, silently asking her permission. She said yes with the tiniest movement of her eyes.

  He turned his own eyes back to de Chauliac. “In the room, where I was captive …”

  “Aye,” de Chauliac said. “The maid found it. She would have got rid of the smelly stuff, but instead brought it to me. I have it still, in a bottle in my study.”

  “Then it has not dissipated.”

  “Perhaps some, I cannot say for sure. But it is still immensely foul, so whatever quality you treasure in it seems to have survived. I am glad now I did not dispose of it.”

  When they came out of the longhouse to depart, Alejandro saw two horses tied to the post, waiting unguarded. He turned to de Chauliac in surprise and said, “You rode out alone? With an extra horse?”

  “There are no highwaymen about just now,” de Chauliac explained.

  “How can that be?”

  “They are all dead, colleague. Slaughtered. Navarre and Coucy have dispatched anyone they even suspect of such activity. And of course, they have deemed that begging to feed one’s family might qualify one as a highwayman. So I had little to fear.”

  Yet they left us alone, Alejandro thought, in keeping with their promise to Karle. There is honor among monsters, it seems. He whispered a brief word of thanks to the departed soul of Guillaume Karle, and wondered if the good man’s spirit had found repose.

  It had been too painful to speak of Karle, and so he had been remembered silently through the long winter. Though he never gave voice to his thoughts, Alejandro often wondered what his final hours had been like. Had he stood in defiance of his tormenters and taunted them as they had taunted him, knowing it would be his last opportunity? Or had he remained stoically silent as Navarre and Coucy went about the business of plotting his demise? It must have been a shock to Karle, Alejandro thought, to hear that his alliance was not needed, that the Dauphin had failed to raise the necessary troops, and that there would be no battle between Navarre and the French heir to the throne. Yet he managed to extract a solemn promise from Navarre, with enough passion that the scoundrel had honored it.

  He had often wondered—had it been Karle who slashed Navarre’s arm, thus earning his respect? The wound might have been a day old when he treated it.

  These questions were revisited in his mind as they prepared for the journey to Paris. But he would never know the answers without confronting Navarre. And that was something he could only do when his body was not likely to betray him with weakness.

  “Colleague?” de Chauliac said gently, when all was prepared. “Are you ready?”

  “Aye” came the quiet reply.

  They had nothing worth bringing save Alejandro’s bag of implements and the tin of desiccated flesh that Kate had so carefully prepared when they first came to the longhouse. These items fit neatly into the saddlebag in which the food had been brought. It was pitiful to realize that all they had in the world could be crammed into the space once occupied by what now filled their bellies. So Alejandro tried not to think of it as they rode along—he concentrated instead on keeping a firm grip on Kate, who rode in front of him on the larger of the two mounts. At first he thought it would be a great burden on the horse, and he wanted to walk alongside, but de Chauliac convinced him without much difficulty that their combined weight could not be much more than
his own. So, gratefully relieved of his guilt, he rode.

  The roads were still frozen, and there were few tracks in the fresh snow, only lightly covered impressions of the tracks de Chauliac’s horses had made on the ride out. The forest around them was eerily silent, for the game was mostly gone and the birds had not returned, and the snow muffled everything except the occasional crack of a branch that could bear no more ice. Along the side of the road, Alejandro saw now and then the unmistakable shape of a skull layered with a fresh film of snow, or a mound that could only be the remains of some poor man’s body. Once, this road had been lined on either side with pyres, for when tinder could be found and the time taken, those who still had the strength to do so would set the dead aflame. Red flames leapt up, and a revolting stench filled every breath, searing the nostrils. If he closed his eyes he could hear once again the cries of the men who had died on the road to Compiègne, the screams of the wounded, the pounding of Navarre’s mount’s hooves as he rode in to be repaired with the vicious Coucy at his side.

  They passed through the gate into Paris without incident, for de Chauliac had arranged ahead of time for their return. The streets were quiet and near-deserted except for the wool-cloaked hour criers who called out the time to the occupants of tightly shuttered houses, wherein the fortunate who had fuel would be huddled together over meager meals. Shops were boarded or shuttered, cafés dark and quiet. And when they rode by Notre Dame, Alejandro saw no workmen on the scaffolding, nor did he hear any of the singing that made proximity to that bastion of Christian excess tolerable.

  There were no pigeons in the courtyard.

  At last! Eaten! he thought with no small glee.

  Finally they crossed over the frozen Seine to de Chauliac’s manse near the university. And when Alejandro stepped inside the heavy door, he felt true warmth for the first time in many months.

  They were taken immediately to separate rooms, and in them found all the necessities of decent living—once again, de Chauliac had proved himself a worthy and considerate host. Clean water, fresh attire, brushes for the teeth, combs and ribbons for Kate’s hair—everything was laid out with exquisite care. As Alejandro cleaned and dressed himself, his mind finally freed of the need to find ways of keeping his body alive, an unfamiliar emotion began to creep in, a sense of urgency and fear over the task he had been summoned to perform.