Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2)

by Roberto Calas

  The clouds blot out the sun once more.

  The cobbled streets of St. Edmund’s Bury are empty. Deserted stone buildings sit shoulder to shoulder, monuments to a dead civilization. I doubt even the rats remain in them. A chicken wobbles past me and disappears into an alley between a butcher’s shop and a candlemaker’s home. One of Brother Phillip’s, I’m sure. Clever chicken.

  My ankle burns with each step. It is a wound from a week ago, the result of a disagreement with a brown bear in Rayleigh. Sister Mildred applied Saint-John’s-wort and bound the ankle tightly with linen strips. It is a remedy that worked well enough in the confines of the monastery, but not even Saint John can ease the pain I feel after the first mile.

  I leave the town and make my way into the countryside, drawing out the glove I borrowed from Elizabeth and breathing in her scent. She gave me this glove once before. At the Earl’s Tournament, in Nottingham; the only tournament I ever won. When I returned the glove to her after the contest, she cherished it more than the golden rod I was awarded, or the four horses I won from other knights. She kept it in a pouch at her side from that moment on.

  I stop to rest every hundred paces or so, making it slow going. During one such break I decide to load my cannon. I have never loaded a cannon, but I have watched Tristan do it. It is a nervous business. These weapons explode when packed improperly. I have seen it. It is unpleasant.

  The barrel is wet, so I wrap a stick in strips of cloth and run it through the iron cylinder before carefully packing the powder. I roll a strip of wool wadding around one of the iron projectiles and jam the slug deep into the barrel with the stick.

  I continue my journey, stopping at every stable I see, but I have little hope of finding a horse. The afflicted have an uncanny ability to find life and to take it. The horses I do come across are little more than ribs and hooves. Sometimes the plaguers leave a skull.

  The land here in East Anglia is supposed to be flat. So flat, they say, that a man can watch a horse run away for two days. But here, near St. Edmund’s Bury, this is not true. My ankle feels every hill and valley. I will have to find a horse soon or my journey will end in Suffolk.

  My wrist itches. I slide the steel gauntlets off and stare. The world spins. I look away, take several deep breaths, then look back again. It is the same. I am cut. A small gash across the top of my wrist. Hardly noticeable.

  But I do not know how I got it.

  I search my memory of the encounter with the two plaguers in the tunnel. Did either of them get close enough to bite me? Could the man in the doublet have caught me with his teeth while I hacked him to bits? Sweat dampens my entire body. I study the wound. It is probably from the metal of my gauntlet. Or perhaps I scraped it on the crude rungs of the ladder when I first entered the tunnel. Maybe the gauntlet slid forward and I ran my wrist against the stone walls without noticing. I look away, then back again. Nothing has changed.

  I am cut.

  I continue southward and cross a field that is littered with cattle bones.

  Perhaps I scratched myself with my nails and broke the skin.

  Another farmhouse lies ahead, and a stable. It will be the fourth stable that I search. When I am twenty yards from the structure, I see a man dressed in a tattered robe on his hands and knees in the grass, his arse in the air. A tuft-eared red squirrel stands on two legs a few paces from him, nibbling at something in its paws.

  Maybe I brushed my wrist against the edge of the wheelbarrow.

  My foot snaps a twig and the squirrel’s keen ears catch the sound. The animal drops the morsel and scurries off. The man rises to his feet and runs after the squirrel, but it is a hopeless chase. The animal disappears in a quicksilver dash up an elm trunk. The man throws his arms skyward and shakes his hands.

  “What you ask is impossible!” he screams toward the heavens. “Send the demons! Take me now, for I cannot do it, oh Lord, I cannot do it!”

  He hears my footsteps when I am only a few paces away and he whirls to face me. His head is more beard than face, and his eyes grow wide when he sees me. He runs in the same direction as the squirrel, throwing his hands up and shouting, “I am sorry! I will do it! I will do it! Mea maxima culpa!”

  He trips on the dangling fabric of his robe and falls to the ground. “I am sorry! Oh, Lord, I am sorry!” He sobs and makes no attempt to rise.

  I remove my helm and kneel at his side. “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” I say.

  The man rolls on his back, his eyes shut tightly. “Do it. Finish me. Bring an end to my pitiful life. I can strive no longer. Mea maxima culpa.”

  I recognize his Latin from mass: “my most grievous fault.” He is riddled with guilt, as every good Christian should be.

  “You want me to kill you?” I relegate the wound to the cellar of my mind and give the man my full attention.

  “Plunge your fangs into my throat. Rend me with your claws. Burn me with your fiery breath. I am ready.”

  “I have a sword,” I say. “Will that do?”

  He opens one eye.

  I shrug. “I could light you on fire, but it will take some time.”

  “Are you a demon?” he asks.

  “That depends on whom you ask,” I say.

  He sits up. His robe is soiled by grass and Lord knows what else. “You are not here to take my life?”

  “I’ve killed enough today, I think. Maybe I’ll keep you around until tomorrow.”

  His eyes grow wide again and I smile, then feel a storm of guilt for smiling when Elizabeth is locked in a cathedral. Mea maxima culpa.

  “I’m not here to kill you.” I rise to my feet and help him stand. “I’m sorry I spooked your meal.”

  He stares at me and cocks his head.

  “The squirrel. I scared it off.” I set Tristan’s great helm down and reach past the hand cannon into the sack that hangs from my shoulder. “I’ll break bread with you to make amends.”

  He looks horrified. “I was not going to eat the squirrel! I would never have eaten it! Not ever!”

  “Weren’t you trying to catch it?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Our Heavenly Father instructed me to catch it.”

  “God wants you to catch a squirrel?”

  “Two squirrels,” he says. “And two deer. And two badgers. And two magpies. And two hedgehogs. Two of every animal. A male and a female.”

  “I see.” I clear my throat. This man is not a clever chicken. “Have you built your ark yet?”

  He wrinkles his nose and looks at me with mild disgust. “What a ridiculous thing to say.”

  His name is Peter and he was a clerk in St. Edmund’s Bury. He tells me that he has lived in the stable for the last two months.

  “The Lord led me here,” he says. “And Osbert found me a few days after I arrived.”

  “Osbert?”

  “Osbert is God’s messenger,” he says. “God speaks to him. And Osbert tells me what Our Heavenly Father wishes of us.”

  God speaks to many people these days. If He had spoken to us earlier, perhaps there would not have been a need for this scourge that has afflicted us.

  “So the barn is full of your animals?” I ask.

  Peter licks at his lips, and his brows twist with anxiety. “Animals…they are difficult to catch. We have captured two rabbits.”

  “Two rabbits?” I say. “That seems like a slow start, Peter.”

  He shakes his head vigorously. “That is not all! We have also found a lark.”

  “You caught a lark?” I ask.

  “We found it. It fluttered on the grass. Something was wrong with its wing. But God did not say the animals had to be in perfect health.”

  “No, I imagine he didn’t,” I say.

  “We have a hedgehog.”

  “Healthy?”

  Peter looks as if he might cry. “I do not know what is wrong with it. Osbert says it may be plagued.” He wrings his hands, then holds up his forefinger and brightens. “But we caught a healthy chicken once.” />
  “A chicken?” I ask. “Does it dream?”

  “Dream?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Chickens are clever, Peter. They dream.”

  I wonder if chickens can sense that something has gone catastrophically wrong with the world. I hope their cleverness does not extend that far. I pray the chickens live in blissful ignorance and that their dreams are full of grain and sunshine.

  Peter is talking. His words soak through the veil of my thoughts.

  “…will never stop, no matter how difficult the challenge becomes. God wishes to purge the world once more. Osbert and I will be the caretakers when the slate is washed clean.”

  “Is this the new Flood, then?” I ask. “Does God want a fresh start?”

  He raises his hands and closes his eyes. “Thus says the Lord of Hosts: ‘Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

  I have never heard of Amalek, but I wonder what they did to deserve such a fate. Even the donkeys must suffer. This would upset Tristan.

  I glance at my wrist. Just a line of red among the hair, filthy with muck from the tunnel. Is this wound God’s Fury as well? Am I to be purged?

  “And what does Amalek have to do with the plague, Peter?”

  “Amalek shows us the strength of the Lord’s intolerance for iniquity. Those who do not yield to our Almighty Father will suffer, as those of Amalek did. For this is the End of Days! The seas will turn to blood! The earth will shake! The stars will fade from the sky!”

  I scratch at my neck. “Do you or Osbert know of any horses in the area?”

  Peter thinks about this for a time. “There is a horse near the Lutons’ manor house.”

  “A living horse?”

  “Yes. We have seen it through the window of the stables. Osbert says I must get the animal. But there are demons.” He covers his mouth with a filthy hand and shakes his head. “So many demons.”

  I have heard of Lutons Place. It has changed hands many times over the last twenty years. One of the owners was a friend of that Chaucer poet Elizabeth is so fond of. I think the manor is owned by Thomas Clopton now. I met Sir Thomas in London once, but I have never been to Lutons Place and I do not know its precise location.

  “Can you show me where the Lutons’ manor is?”

  “No!” He shakes his head and backs away. “No, the demons are there!”

  “I don’t want you to take me there,” I say. “Just tell me the way.”

  “No!” He crosses himself. “You will lead them here! You will bring them down upon Osbert and me! Our work is too important!”

  I study him for a time. People talk about this new sickness, this scourge that turns people into mindless demons. They call it the second plague. But no one talks about the third plague, this affliction of madness that has swept England.

  I decide to try a different approach. “I didn’t want to explain all of this. It would have been better had you never known. But God is upset with your progress, so He sent me to help you. My first duty is to find two horses.”

  He looks at me without expression for a long time. “God is upset?”

  I nod slowly. “Not terribly. Annoyed, really. A bit irritated.”

  “Osbert never said that.”

  “I’m sure Osbert didn’t want to worry you,” I say.

  Peter paces back and forth with such speed that I think he might wear the grass away. He halts and stands perfectly still after a few heartbeats. His gaze rises, one brow arched. “How do I know God sent you?”

  “Faith.”

  He thinks on this, then walks toward the stable. “I must ask Osbert.”

  Perhaps Osbert has more sense than this poor creature. I follow Peter into the stable, staring at my wrist as I walk. The stalls reek of urine and feces and rotting flesh. It is the kind of smell that only shit and decay and dampness can create when exposed to day after day of warmth. I understand now why the plaguers have not found Peter and Osbert.

  A massive silver crucifix, tarnished and soiled, leans against the rear wall of the first stall. Next to it is a small etching of the Virgin Mary. The etching stops me.

  Mother Mary was a constant companion throughout our journey from Bodiam to St. Edmund’s Bury. Silent and ever present. And, it seems to me, not always kind to us. Wherever our travels took us, we found her churches. Whenever anything went horribly wrong, I felt her touch. Perhaps she is trying to tell me something. I’ll be buggered if I know what it is.

  Peter walks down the center aisle and I follow. We have to squeeze past a carved wooden pew with velvet seat cushions powdered by straw dust.

  “Do not look into the stalls,” he says.

  I nod to him and look into the stalls as we pass. Each one contains a melting candle and a cage made out of woven branches. All of the cages are empty except one, which holds a half-starved hedgehog.

  “Where are the animals?” I ask.

  Peter spins toward me and puts his hands to his face. “You should not have looked! I told you not to look!”

  “I thought you said you had a lark and rabbits,” I say. “And a chicken. What happened to the chicken?”

  He groans and pulls at his hair, then screams loud enough to make me back away. “I have to eat, do I not? How can I do God’s work if I do not eat? Why does no one understand that?”

  I hold my hands toward him, palms up. The cut on my wrist catches my eye again. “God understands, Peter. It is a difficult thing He asks of you. That is why He sent me to help. But He truly needs to know where the Lutons’ manor is.” I hope Peter is far gone enough that he doesn’t ask why God would need directions.

  He is. The former church clerk stomps to the back of the stable, where a blanket mostly covers a cage that sits on a chair. No, not a chair. It is a hinged wooden seat set into a great panel of burnished wood that leans against the back wall. Carved wooden faces provide the platform to support the seat when it is in the down position, as it is now.

  We have seats like this at the back of our Church of St. Giles, in Bodiam. The carved wooden platforms are called misericords. The name comes from the French word miséricorde, which means mercy. Apparently priests or parishioners can gain a modicum of mercy by leaning against these platforms when they are required to stand for long periods during mass. Father Aubrey was proud of the misericords at St. Giles. He told me they were among the finest he had seen and spent ages explaining who each of the carved faces belonged to. I wonder where Peter took the panel from. Father Aubrey would seethe if he saw this fine example of Christian craftsmanship in a stable like this.

  Three candles burn on a shelf built into the panel above the cage. Dozens of prayer beads have been hung from a nail above the candles. Peter kneels and whispers into the blanket, glancing at me suspiciously as he does. I cannot hear what he says. After a moment he stands.

  “Osbert says that he is not certain that God sent you. He wants proof.”

  “What is in that cage?” I ask.

  “Osbert demands proof!” he shouts.

  “Peter, what is in that cage?”

  “Give us proof! You say are you from God; Osbert says you are a demon! We need proof!”

  I shake my head and brush past him.

  “No!” Peter throws himself at me and we fall against the back wall. I elbow him in the chest and reach for the blanket.

  “Get away from him! Get away from him!” He wraps his dirty hands around my forehead and pulls my head back. His hands smell of shit. I pry his fingers off me and rip the blanket away.

  “No!” Peter shouts.

  The gnawed remains of a rodent lie in the cage.

  “Osbert is a rat?” I ask.

  Peter slumps away from me and sobs, covering his face with his hands.

  “Honestly, Peter, did you eat Osbert?”

  Peter wrings his hands. “Osbert…Osbert said it was acceptable. He said I could just have little n
ibbles.”

  I wipe at my forehead and sniff my fingers. “I don’t care. God doesn’t care. Just tell me where the Lutons’ manor is.”

  “I cannot,” Peter says. “Osbert requires…Osbert requires proof.”

  This is a stubborn sort of insanity. If God was this frustrated with that Amalek city, I can understand his judgment now.

  I take the candle off the shelf, then draw my cannon from the shoulder sack.

  “Here is your proof.” I aim at Osbert and light the cannon. Peter dives shrieking to the floor at the sound of the explosion. The smoke from the gun dissipates, making patterns in the shafts of light that enter through the stable windows. Much of the cage is gone. There is no sign of the rat.

  “You…You killed Osbert.”

  “Mea maxima culpa,” I say.

  Peter tells me where the Lutons’ manor is.

  The manor is near the village of Sudbury, about three miles from where I am and not far from Hedingham. I take a deep breath when I think of Hedingham. I planned to stop there on my way down. Sir Morgan of Hastings is imprisoned in a nunnery there. He was infected by the plague because of me—because I insisted on bringing two of my knights on my journey to St. Edmund’s Bury. And in so doing, I risked both their lives and have likely orphaned Morgan’s daughter.

  I tap a pouch on my hip and feel the edge of a thighbone inside. Morgan is not the only one I need to see at the nunnery. I made a promise to a nun there.

  The wound on my wrist has not changed. I wonder if wounds inflicted by plaguers look different. Will the wound blacken or run with pus? Will it change over time until I am certain it carries the plague? I rub at it and manage only to push grime deeper into the wound.

  An hour before sunset, I spot a tall Norman church tower in the distance. The Lutons’ manor house crops into view two hundred paces later. It is a handsome home of Suffolk flint, rising several stories. And it is entirely surrounded by plaguers. There must be survivors inside.

  May God protect them.

  A scattering of outbuildings sit neatly upon the grounds. I focus on the only other building that has attracted the attention of plaguers. Many plaguers. Twenty-five or thirty of them surround the stable. That is twenty-five or thirty too many. I need to draw them away somehow. Burning mint attracts the afflicted, but I have no mint and do not want to waste my hour of sunlight searching for it. I should start carrying chickens with me.