Alvilea (Aveley) exists of course, as does St. Michael’s Church. Father William is a fabrication. I am sure the priests of St. Michael’s were far kinder, and most certainly are now.
Corringham exists as it did then. The great stone church at the center is another St. Michael’s, and it has an impressive seventy-foot-tall Norman tower that is worth a visit.
Hadleigh Castle does indeed sit on a hill overlooking the Temes (Thames) although its new King, Sir John, and his half-mad follower, Sir Gerald, are both figments of my imagination.
I am not certain of Edward’s relationship to King Richard, although I assume they were on good terms. King Richard gave Edward many responsibilities, both in England and France, and allowed Edward to build a castle in Bodiam. But Edward’s relationship to the King’s uncle, John of Gaunt, was a different story. Edward did indeed challenge John of Gaunt to a duel in the middle of a court of lords. Twice.
John of Gaunt, who acquired lands near Bodiam, clashed with local landowners and accused them of trespassing on his properties and of poaching. I don’t know his arguments, but it seems like he made a lot of enemies very quickly. The local landowners pleaded with Edward to represent them in court against John. And Edward did, reportedly showing up to court in a full suit of armor and throwing down his gauntlet in front of John twice.
There is no record of Edward calling John “a festering imbecile with more bile than bollocks,” but you know that a man who has the gumption to show up in court in full harness and to challenge the King’s uncle to a duel is going to have some pretty fiery lines. I wish I had been there. And yes, Edward was reportedly imprisoned for it, but not for very long.
The village of Lighe is now Leigh-on-the-Sea, and it does indeed have a church up on a hill — The Church of All Saints. Historians don’t know the exact date the church was built, but they know it was around in the 14th century, which is good enough for me and Edward.
And lastly, a little about French raids during the hundred years war. Though it is possible the French attacked towns along the Temes (Thames) Estuary, most of their attacks were concentrated on the south coast. Rye, where Sir Tristan is from, was burned twice by the French. In fact, it was because of these constant harrying raids along the south coast that Edward wanted to build a castle in Bodiam, although, to my knowledge, the French never traveled that far inland on their raids. And though Edward’s castle at Bodiam is strong and defensible, it is clearly meant as a aesthetic structure as well. The picturesque moat that laps at the castle walls, the lack of a keep, the meticulously plotted ponds — all of it points to the fact that Edward Dallingridge was just as concerned with visual appeal as he was about the French attacking.
Episode 3
Chapter 14
The mists bleed a sulfurous orange above the horizon as the sun wakes. Smoke from the campfires of Lighe mingles with the morning fog and drifts toward the burning skies. We are less than a mile from the fishing village, but it might as well be ten leagues, for we are still moving at a slow walk. And sunrise has crept upon us.
A horn sounds in the distance. Sir John has started his assault.
“King Guy the First has a nice ring to it,” Tristan says. But not even he can smile for long at the thought of French rule.
I unsheathe my dagger again, but Sir Morgan raises a hand to stop me. He slashes his own arm and the blood runs down to his elbow.
“I still don’t like it,” he says. “Using these poor sick people like this.”
The hordes behind us snarl and stumble more quickly in our wake. Sir Tristan has four gashes in his arm. I have lost count of the cuts on my flesh.
“If Sir John is routed, can we do it on our own?” Tristan asks.
I shake my head. “This lot behind us has no armor, no weapons, and no brains. We can’t win without Sir John’s men.”
The English soldiers roar in the distance. Their shouts are drowned out by a greater roar, and I know the French are preparing for war. I ride faster, but the plaguers begin to disperse. We are forced to slow again.
I can just see the French from here. They are forming up in the village, though only the rear of their formation is visible to us. Infantrymen are running into line carrying axes and spears, adjusting the straps on their nasal helms. My horse nickers and I realize I am pulling the reins tightly. I force myself to relax.
The French sound trumpets of their own. The first of their knights ride forward. They must have hurried into line, because they wear only breastplates, mail, and helmets. But their lances glint in the diffused sunlight. Arrows fall from the mist and rain down upon the French. Shafts strike the earth around the rear ranks. . Screams carry far in the crisp morning air as arrowheads find flesh.
I look back at my own army. A score of my soldiers have taken interest in a dead deer just off the road. More and more of them break rank and set upon the carcass. I fight down an urge to scream.
“Sir John’s men are about to die and our army stops for breakfast.” Tristan shakes his head. “Maybe we should wear deerskins and frolic, so they follow us.”
I know his words are a joke but they spark an idea. My fingers fumble over the cords of the flowerpot. I cut the strands apart and tie them into a single long line. A six-foot rope. I make a loop at one end.
Tristan sees what I am doing and shakes his head. “No, no, no, no, no. That is a spectacularly bad idea.”
I don my gauntlets and helmet.
“Don’t be daft, Ed,” Tristan says, but he knows he won’t change my mind.
I dismount and approach the deer warily. Thirty or forty of the afflicted are massed around the animal. They shove one another and squeeze into gaps and crawl over each other to reach the bleeding flesh. They are intent upon the carcass. Tristan and Morgan draw their swords and watch me.
“Ed, they’re going to swarm you,” Morgan says. His hand fidgets on the sword hilt.
I wave him silent and kneel behind the writhing mass of inhumanity. A man with an arrow lodged in his shoulder shuffles past the deer. Another man, with a drooping, blood-soaked moustache, follows the first. The two plaguers approach Tristan and Morgan. I hear the knights hacking and grunting and know the afflicted are being sent to God. Or wherever the afflicted go.
“Hurry, Ed,” Morgan calls. “Hurry!”
The loop dangles from my hand. A boy covered in blood looks up at me and snarls, then continues to feed. There are too many of them. I can scarcely see the deer. Two of the feeding plaguers hiss and snap at each other like base animals. I spot a hoof through a gap in the bodies. More plaguers bypass the deer and stumble toward the mounted knights. I hear swords at work.
“Our army dwindles, Ed.” Morgan stabs a bald man in the throat, then nearly decapitates a woman in a linen shawl.
“Your knights are going to dwindle too,” Tristan says. Six or seven of the plaguers shamble toward the mounted knights. The central mass of our army closes on us. Hundreds of them.
My breath rings sharp in the great helm, each exhalation a tiny hiss. I reach slowly past the shoulder of a man with one arm. I stare at the ulcerated flesh and the skeletal knob of his shoulder. A woman’s fingers brush my hand — short withered fingers, nothing like those of my Elizabeth. I freeze. She rips a hunk of meat from the deer’s ribs and smears it into her mouth without looking at me.
The rope loop settles against the deer’s hoof. There are no more hisses in my helmet, because I am holding my breath. My hand trembles as I struggle to snare the leg.
One of the plaguers stops feeding. A moment later another one stops. Then another. It is like a ripple of paralysis. Until there are no plaguers left feeding. The silence makes my ears ring.
The man with one arm turns toward me. His eyes are a black void. The rest of the plaguers swivel their heads to look in my direction, a few at a time. They sniff at the air. I look at my arm, at the blood that flows from countless gashes beneath my rusted mail. Their empty eyes meet mine.
Christ.
I h
ook the hoof with the loop and pull. The knot tightens. Hands grab at my tabard.
I run.
The deer breaks apart, but I have the largest piece — the head, neck, and most of the torso. The plaguers roar as their prize is pulled from them. I feel my tabard tighten. Hands pull the fabric. I strain against them.More hands grasp at my shoulders. The dead close in around me and something thumps my helmet. My tabard tears and suddenly I am free, stumbling forward.
I run, shouting and shivering at the touch of the dead upon my back, kicking my legs high so they can’t drag me down. I lug the carcass behind me; the deer’s tongue lolls stupidly. Tristan and Morgan hack with their swords as I leap onto my horse. Never have I mounted a horse so quickly.
A woman in a bloody chemise tries to pull me off. I break her jaw with a kick but she doesn’t let go. Sir Morgan hacks her arm off. She shrieks and I ride away with the arm still clutching my belt. My mare slows and strains. She is dragging three plaguers who have fallen upon the dead deer. Morgan and Tristan ride behind me and hack at the ghouls until they release the carcass, and my horse is free of its burden.
I pry the dead arm off my belt and we ride again toward Lighe. The deer carcass careens along the old Roman road, leaving a trail of blood. The plaguers lurch after us faster than they have all night. My army has regained its discipline.
In the distance we see the French marching in formation. They sweep northward past the deserted cottages and disappear behind the embankment upon which the church sits.
“Sir John’s done his part,” Tristan shouts. “The French grape rolls northward.”
Another trumpet screeches in the distance. I ride faster. My plaguers struggle to keep up. The road has flayed much of the skin from the deer carcass and I think about our first meeting with Sir Gerald, about the plaguer he dragged along this very road.
We pause just outside the village as a misty rain drifts down around us. I send my horse up the steep hill, toward the church. Tristan and Morgan follow, their steeds grunting and slipping on the wet slope. I want to swoop down on the French from above, before they can set eyes upon us. I only hope they didn’t leave watchmen in the church.
Our horses are slow upon the wet slope, but the plaguers are slower. The afflicted don’t seem to like hills. Most of them drop to all fours and crawl. Halfway up I dismount and run my blade along the deer’s torso to release more blood. There isn’t much left to drain. The front line of plaguers give half-hearted cries and pick up their pace. They are the vanguard — the rest simply follow. Their movements are awkward and inhuman. Like a swarm of giant insects upon that hill.
Three French soldiers in quilted gambesons stand on the hill and watch the battle take shape down below. They laugh and turn to face us with smiles. But we are not French. And the quilted gambesons do little to slow our swords.
Tristan and Morgan search the stone church while we wait for our army. I thread past a dozen blackened gravestones and look out over the misted valley of Lighe. For the first time in my life I see a true battle on English soil.
Sir John has picked his spot well. He has fallen back nearly a half mile to a small, winding river. The stream curves around his forces, protecting his left flank and his rear. Fog drifts from the river in skyward strands. A shallow embankment offers token protection for his army’s right side.
“Church is empty,” Tristan calls.
Sir John’s army looks tiny on that field. Like a patch of grass missed by a herd of goats. But the goats are coming.
The French have enough men to surge over the embankment and flank the English army, but they don’t. They are confident of victory. Eight hundred footmen wait just beyond the range of Sir John’s archers. Roughly three dozen mounted knights stand at an angle on the left side of the footmen. None of them advance. For the moment, the battle is fought at a distance.
Twenty or thirty French crossbowmen hide behind pavises — massive wooden shields spiked into the earth. The crossbowmen crouch halfway between the two armies. Sir John’s dozen archers fire their longbows. The arrow strikes rattle against the wooden shields like the song of a crazed drummer.
Tristan cuts open the deer carcass and drags it along the crest of the hill. The first of the plaguers are not far now. I have time for one more look at the battlefield.
The crossbowmen peer around their shields and return fire. Rows of dead and writhing wounded litter the front ranks of Sir John’s army. Dozens of English soldiers disappear into the river mists, their oaths to Sir John crumbling under the relentless crossbow fire.
A horn blares from the French lines. The crossbowmen pull the pavises from the ground and back away. There isn’t a man on the field who doesn’t know what is coming. The French horses sidestep and toss their heads — even they know what happens next.
Behind me, the first ranks of my army emerge from the mist. My soldiers are gray and withered, painted in gore and mud. Their black stares make me shiver. I watch them through the rows of gravestones and think of Judgment Day.
The deer carcass is still on the grass, so I grab it by the rib cage and mount my horse. Then I wave the bloody fragments back and forth through the air, splashing blood toward the plaguers.
“I feel like a fool doing this,” I say.
“You’ll be pleased to know that you don’t look at all foolish doing it,” Tristan says.
“Not one bit,” Morgan says.
The two of them laugh and I splash them with deer blood. Morgan has spent too much time in Tristan’s company, I think.
The plaguers howl and pick up their lurching pace.
“Shall we?” Tristan says.
We canter down the hillside toward the French.
The legions of hell come with us.
Chapter 15
Trumpets blare again. Footmen sprint across the wet field toward the English in a crush of mail and helms, spears and axes. Their screams echo across the landscape.
The French never see us coming. Even if they could, the thick mist shrouds the rest of our army. They would see only three knights charging. How could they know we are not French? How could they know that hell’s infantry staggers behind us?
We overtake the French footmen and gallop with them. I drop the deer carcass and cut open a hulking Frenchman from behind, filling the air with his fragrant blood and giving my soldiers a taste of their loot. Then we are past, riding in the space between France and England.
We near the English line and one of Sir John’s idiots shoots Morgan’s horse out from under him. Sir Morgan tumbles to the mud. I loop around, but Tristan has already circled back. The French footmen are a hundred yards away. Their cries are like thunder. Their axes glitter in the morning light. I can feel the tremor of their footsteps upon the glistening mead.
I wait fifty yards from the English ranks as Morgan rises and clambers awkwardly behind Tristan. His armor is streaked with grime. His horse writhes on the wet soil, an arrow in its chest. The French are almost upon them.
I kick spurs into my horse and ride toward the two knights. But Tristan’s horse scatters divots of mud, and the two men flee the rumbling infantry. A Frenchman throws a spear that skitters past them and glides sideways along the mud. I spin my golden mare back toward the English. She slips in the thick mud for a few paces before finding her stride. I can hear the sloshing tread of the French behind me. Their battle cries deafen me. Tristan’s horse kicks up cold mud that enters my visor and spatters my face. The English soldiers make space for us and we gallop through.
“Your men!” Sir John is howling behind an open bascinet helm. He sits at the rear of the formation with his fifteen mounted knights. “You promised me five hundred men!”
I try to shout back but I am drowned out by the sound of infantry meeting infantry. The shouts of men killing. The screams of men dying. Poleaxes thudding through cartilage. Swords ringing off helms. Men crying for mercy. Grunts. Shrieks. The cacophonous hymns of death.
“Make them bleed!” a sergeant scre
ams above all the other voices. “Stay in line!”
“Abattre! Abattre!” a Frenchman shouts.
Sir John drops his visor and motions for his trumpeter. He wants to call a retreat.
“No!” I lean in close to his ear and point toward the base of the hill. “Look!”
He follows my finger, thensmiles. The first silhouettes of my soldiers appear in the mist. “Five hundred?” he shouts.
“At least!”
I wonder when the moment of understanding will come to him.
My plaguers no longer need me to motivate them. The prize is before them. They hobble toward the French flanks as fast as I have ever seen them move. The French cavalry is entirely focused on us. I almost feel sorry for them.
Sir John has his moment of understanding. He gasps and when I turn to look at him I can see his eyes widening behind the bascinet’s visor. “What have you done?” He stares at the dark shapes lurching toward the French knights. “What have you done!”
The French knights turn an instant before my raven-eyed soldiers fall upon them, but only a few escape . I ride to the edge of the embankment so I can get a good angle on the carnage. The French horses are islands amid an ocean of bloody, grasping hands. There are too many bodies for the horses to move. The knights hack down with swords as their islands sink into the sea of rotting flesh and snapping jaws. A plaguer is kicked by a dying horse and sails clear of the melee, then rises unsteadily and returns.
Waves of my shambling soldiers wash past the drowning horsemen. There is blood on the frontlines and my plaguers howl for it.
Soldiers on both sides roar. Terrible clarity has come to them all.
Many of the French infantrymen turn to face the new threat. They have never seen these creatures before, so, for a moment, many of them simply stare. And in that moment, the English cut them down.
The Scourge (Kindle Serial) Page 7
