The Scourge (Kindle Serial)

by Roberto Calas

  Tristan peers into the darkness just past the shattered cage. “Wait,” he calls. “What…what in God’s name…” He raises his sword, then shrieks. “Morgan! Edward! Oh God! Help!”

  I turn and take a hesitant step toward him. The shock of pain travels up my ankle again, so I lean against the wall to steady myself. Morgan brushes past me, his eyes wide in the faint candlelight. Tristan falls back, leveling his sword at something. “Oh Christ! It’s coming at me! It’s coming at me!”

  I try to control my breathing, point my sword toward whatever is attacking him. I remember that we are in a church crypt. A burial place. I wonder what horror approaches from the dark. Morgan’s back is hunched; he holds the knife over his shoulder, ready to stab downward.

  Tristan retreats another step. “Here it comes!”

  I recognize the tone of that shout. He’s having a jest, the stupid bastard. I resist the urge to pound him in the head with my mailed fist and look past him.

  A plaguer approaches slowly, staggering and hissing. He is dressed in what once were fine clothes: padded shirt, stockings, a fur-lined cloak. Just another wealthy man with the plague. We have killed countless numbers of them.

  But this one is only three feet tall.

  Tristan holds the dwarf at bay with his sword and laughs so hard that he has to wipe at tears with his cloak.

  “You buffoon!” Morgan sheathes the hunting knife. “There is something very wrong with you.”

  “Get…get the cannon!” Tristan can barely force the words out through his laughter. “Load them all!”

  “It’s not funny, Tristan,” I say. “He is a man, like you or me, and he is sick. Give him peace.”

  Tristan sobers. “I’m sorry, Edward. You are right.” He raises his sword. “He deserves a little peace.” He laughs so hard at this that he can’t make the stroke. The dwarf lunges at him and Tristan’s laughter dries up in an instant.

  The plaguer grabs his leg and bites at the coat of mail. Tristan yelps and falls backward and pounds the dwarf with the pommel of his sword. Tristan has no greaves and never found trousers, so his legs are bare above his boots. “God’s cock! Get this thing off me!”

  Morgan pulls the dwarf’s hair back. I drive St. Giles’s sword through the man’s neck and wrench the blade back and forth until I hear bones crack. The dwarf stops moving. The three of us are awash in his blood. Tristan lets his head drop back against the earth floor and sighs. “Fast little bugger.”

  “Serves you right for laughing at him,” Morgan says.

  “I wasn’t laughing at him,” Tristan says. “I was laughing at the absurdity of this new world in which we live.”

  The woman approaches us slowly. “My saviors! My shining, courageous saviors! My gorgeous, beautiful knights!” She wraps her arms around Morgan and kisses the back of his breastplate over and over. “God is all around us. He sees injustice and sends warriors to save the pure! My sweet, wonderful, brave men. Angels, you are. My powerful angels, come to lift me from my struggles. Such darlings! Such beautiful darlings! Such saintly men! Such heavenly creatures! God is everywhere!”

  Tristan stares up at her from his back, then looks at me and makes a gesture indicating that I should put the gag back on her.

  Getting out of St. Mary’s is easier than getting in. Three of the men in the parish take the chickens halfway up the Norman tower and squeeze them out through the wide arrow slits. The men then climb to the top of the tower and watch until the plaguers have all staggered after the chickens. Brother Gilbert opens the church doors, and the people of Chelmsford run for the fortified friary. Tristan and Morgan each take one of my arms and the four of us run to the stables.

  The woman we saved runs with us as well. “Please! Take me with you!”

  A few plaguers linger around the stables, scenting our horses. Or hearing them. Or doing whatever plaguers do to find the living. We cut them down and I open the stable doors.

  The woman pulls at my cloak. “Take me with you, my darling knights,” she says. “There’s nothing for me here. Take me with you!”

  “They know you are not a sorceress, now,” I say. “They will leave you alone.”

  “No,” she says. “They don’t like me here. The four of you seem such well-bred gentlemen. You must take me with you. You must. You must. You must.”

  The tears brimming in her eyes make me stop. I cannot suffer a woman to cry. Elizabeth and I have an agreement: she does not cry in arguments anymore and I let her win them all.

  “Do you have family left?” I ask. The woman has long dark hair, a wide mouth, and a look of trouble about her.

  “My mother lives near Brantry,” she says. “I have not seen her since…the invasion. But God is everywhere, and he will protect her.”

  “It is a plague,” I say. “Not an invasion.” The chickens have been eaten, or have escaped, because plaguers begin lurching toward us. Morgan helps me into my saddle. “Our journey takes us past Brantry,” I say. “You can ride with Tristan. Zhuri, ride with Morgan.”

  Tristan turns his helmet my way and I can see his furrowed brows through the visor. The woman’s tears dry instantly. She reaches a hand up and kisses Tristan’s great helm when he helps her up. “So noble,” she says. “So refined.”

  We set off toward the stone bridge but don’t get far. Morgan hasn’t left the stables. Zhuri makes hand gestures, apparently urging Morgan to get the horse moving.

  “Morgan, we’re leaving.” I trot back to him. “The plaguers are coming. Let’s go.”

  “He told me to come here. To this church.” He shakes his head. “How can I just leave? I don’t understand why that peddler wasn’t here.”

  “Maybe we’ll find him on the road,” I say. “But if we stay here, we won’t live long enough to search.”

  He nods but doesn’t move. “Perhaps I didn’t really hear St. Giles, Ed. Perhaps my grief made me imagine it.” He points to the stone building. “The church of St. Mary. The blood of Saint Mary. I thought Giles had given us a sign.”

  I grasp his shoulder. “After watching you at the willow with that cross, I won’t ever doubt you.” Dozens of plaguers stumble toward us. My mare tosses her head nervously. “But perhaps this is a conversation for the road. You know how boring the road gets.”

  Tristan sits on his horse two dozen paces away. The woman sits sidesaddle behind him, her head resting against his back, a contented smile on her face. He cups his hands over his mouth and shouts, “The afflicted will block the bridge!”

  Morgan nods and digs his heels against his horse’s flanks. We gallop toward the bridge and thunder over it.

  When we are on the Roman road again, we dismount and reload the guns at Tristan’s insistence. The woman chats to us as the powder is poured and packed.

  . “I am Isabella.” She smiles at me and bats her painted lashes. “We must stop at my home before we continue to Brantry. Won’t take a moment.”

  “Isabella,” I say, “are you making demands already?”

  “God is everywhere, my beautiful knights, but he has allowed me to suffer from a coughing sickness,” she explains. “The apothecary mixed herbs to treat it. I know my lovely knights would not want me coughing and choking to death on the road, would they?”

  Tristan and looks up at me from his cannon with an expression that suggests he just might.

  “Course you wouldn’t,” she continues. “You are kind, decent men. Gentlemen. So brave in that church. Such selfless warriors.”

  When the guns are back in their saddlebags, she directs us to a tiny thatched cottage on the edge of the forest, five miles north of Chelmsford. One half of the cottage is a walled off byre, the other is her home.

  “I need only gather the pouches he gave me and we can continue on our journey. God will surely reward you for assisting me.” She hops down from Tristan’s horse and runs inside. “Come in if you wish,” she calls. “I have food.”

  We leave Zhuri with the horses and enter the cottage. I lean on T
ristan and hop on one foot. The cottage is small and cluttered, with etched bones and carved wooden statuettes and all manner of worthless trinkets. A closed door of faded wood provides access to the byre. Near the back of her living space, a curtain of wool hangs, forming a partition for a smaller chamber. Isabella ducks behind the curtain.

  Something scratches and growls behind the door to the byre. Tristan and I exchange glances.

  “Angry sheep?” Tristan suggests.

  “Isabella,” I call. “There’s something in the byre. Something … unpleasant.”

  “My dogs,” she calls back. “My sweet, angels. My gorgeous masties. God is everywhere, but a maid needs a little more protection these days. Please do not let them in. They have yet to eat. Just wait there my lovely knights. There are berries and plums on the table. I won’t be long.”

  I look at the table and wonder how we are to find berries and plums among the mountains of scattered baubles. I see bracelets and dried flowers, a floppy hat with a hole in it. Deer antlers, a small copper bell, some iron nails, moldy wooden bowls, scraps of soiled fabric. I find the bowl of plums only by following the flies. The plums are withered and sagging and smell rotten.

  “Those plums are afflicted,” Tristan says.

  I nod and search for the berries, but I am not hopeful. “You see any berries, Morgan?”

  Morgan doesn’t answer. He stands with his back to me, unmoving. I wonder what sort of spiritual conflict he is struggling with this time. “You all right, Morgan?”

  He doesn’t speak, simply stares toward the floor. I follow his gaze and for a moment — for one long moment — it feels like my heart has stopped beating. Tristan steps past the table to look. He gasps.

  “I am ready, my brave knights,” Isabella says.

  We turn to face her. She steps past the curtain lugging two large sacks. Something in our expression seems to frighten her, because she takes a nervous backstep.

  She struggles to smile, flutters her painted lashes again. “Is something amiss?”

  Chapter 36

  Morgan points a trembling finger toward the floor. “What…” He takes a moment to compose himself. “What is that?”

  Isabella tightens her grip on the sacks. Her eyes make a quick dart toward the door, then back again. She gives us another strained smile. “That is…that is thresh, my lovely knight. Thresh.”

  “On top of the thresh.” Morgan’s voice quivers.

  Isabella gives the tiniest of shrugs. She edges sideways so the table is between us and her. “It is…it is nothing. Nothing, really. Nothing at all, my beautiful knights.”

  Morgan slams his fist onto the table, making the heap of trinkets rattle. Isabella jumps at the violence. “Do not play games with us, woman!”

  The dogs growl and scratch at the door, making the wood shudder. Tristan leans down and plucks a ceramic phial from one of the racks stacked against the wall. He tosses it to me. It looks identical to the ones we got from Gregory. Even the racks look the same. There must be twenty or thirty of the racks.

  “Someone gave them to me,” Isabella says. “I was told they would cure the plague.”

  “Where is he?” Morgan roars. He circles around the table. Isabella backs away from him. “Where is Gregory the Wanderer?”

  She tilts her head. “You seek Gregory?”

  “Bloody right I do! Where is he?”

  “Why do you seek him?”

  “Because he — ”

  “Because he stole from us,” I say, interrupting Morgan. “He stole a horse from us. We saw these same phials in his wagon. Have you seen him?”

  Morgan frowns at me. I can see him out of the corner of my eye, but I keep my gaze on Isabella. Her posture relaxes. “That sounds just like him,” she says. “He’s a wretch and a scoundrel. I trust you will punish him when you find him. If it pleases you, I swindled him myself.”

  “You swindled him?” I ask.

  “I am a trader,” she says. “An honest one. But he has duped me too many times. I traded him a dozen of those phials for this lovely necklace.” She pulls a gold necklace and pendant from inside her robe. “I told him the phials held a cure for the plague and the fool believed me.”

  “You sold them to him?” Morgan’s face reddens. I think he is about to go Old Testament. I step between him and Isabella.

  “Are you sure they are not a cure?” I unstopper the phial and sniff at it. Her gaze is locked on the tiny vessel. She licks at her lips and tries to smile.

  “They contain nothing but sour wine,” she says. “Horrible to the taste. Do not drink it.”

  “I actually like my wine sour, don’t I, Tristan?”

  “The sourer the better,” Tristan says. “In fact, Morgan and I call him Sour Old Ed.”

  I scoff at him and toast Isabella with the phial. “To King Richard!”

  Isabella lunges forward — knocking a glass Virgin Mary statuette to the ground, where it shatters — and swats the phial from my hand. “No!”

  Morgan shoves me aside and slams his fist into the side of her head. He puts everything he has into the blow and she topples to the ground, where she lies motionless. I have to hold my blade under her nose to make sure he hasn’t killed her; the metal steams from her breath, so I sheath it again.

  Tristan shakes his head. “Why do people hate King Richard so much?”

  I clear a layer of baubles from one of the two chairs in the room and we sit Isabella in it. I tie her waist and legs to the chair using a ball of tangled yarn that we find in a rusty helmet.

  “What are we going to do with her?” Zhuri asks. The Moor dashed into the cottage when he heard Isabella’s scream.

  Morgan slumps in the only other chair, which he has dragged in front of the unconscious woman. He holds one of the phials in his hand and watches her face.

  “We can’t make her drink it, Morgan,” I say. I lean against his chair to keep the weight off my ankle.

  “St. Giles told me to cleanse the world of evil. If this woman is not evil, then there is no evil in the world.” His voice is terrifyingly calm.

  “Maybe she didn’t know,” I say. “Maybe she only just found out.”

  “No.” Morgan shakes his head slowly. “She knew it wasn’t a cure when she sold it to Gregory. How would she know that? She had to understand what it was.”

  We sit in silence for a time. I think about Elizabeth. What I would do if someone poisoned her like this woman poisoned Matilda. Isabella opens her eyes and doesn’t seem to realize where she is at first.

  “You knew,” I say. “You knew what was in those phials.”

  She looks at me but seems to have trouble focusing. “I stopped,” she says. “I stopped when I found out.”

  “But you knew when you gave them to Gregory,” Morgan says. “You knew.”

  “No,” she says, touching the side of her head and wincing. “No.”

  “Then how did you know they did not cure the plague?” he asks. “You said you duped him. How did you know you duped him? How?”

  She flinches at his scream. Her eyes widen. “I…I…” Tears flow again. She shakes her head, then winces again. “Gregory was the only one. It was only a dozen phials. He is a thief! He is a swindler! I thought he would drink one.”

  I can see Morgan trembling and the red flush rising along his neck again. I make eye contact with Tristan. He nods. We step in close. If Morgan goes into a rage again, we will be ready.

  But Morgan doesn’t go into a rage. He holds up the phial calmly so that Isabella can see it. “The blood of hundreds is upon your soul. Drink of this willingly and God may have mercy on you.”

  “Morgan,” I say. “I don’t…”

  He holds up a hand. “It is the will of St. Giles, Edward. He has spoken to me again. And this is his will.”

  “ The Lord says thou shalt not kill ,” Tristan says, and I recall Morgan uttering those same words to Tristan not long ago. “Some people still respect the Word of the Lord.”

  “Whe
re did you get the phials?” I ask Isabella. “Where did they come from?”

  “A simpleton,” she says. Her cheeks are shining with tears and black with eyeshade. “He is a servant at an island fortress not far from here.” She swallows, and the suggestion of a smile plays upon her lips. She is preparing for another performance. “There is a cure,” she says. “They have an elixir on the island. An elixir that cures the plague.”

  “A cure?” Zhuri asks.

  “Yes! Yes!” She hisses, nodding her head wildly, then wincing and touching the bruise. “An alchemist found a cure. The simpleton works for him. He was supposed to bring me the cure. But he brought this instead. He brought this instead! Never trust an imbecile, my lovely knights. They may mean well, but horses have more sense.” She ducks her head forward and whispers: “I can help you find the simpleton, my beautiful knights. We can find him and make him get the cure. We can all get the cure. All of us, and our loved ones.”

  “When will the lies cease?” Morgan shakes his head and unstoppers the phial. “You would go to God with a lie on your lips?”

  “It is not a lie! There is a cure! It’s the truth.”

  “The simpleton told you that, did he?” Tristan asks.

  “Yes,” she replies. “No. Well…he did. But I have heard it from others. Guards at the dungeon. They have heard it too. Release me and I will show you. Please, let me live, my beautiful knights. I swear I will help you find the cure.”

  I know I shouldn’t listen to this woman, but the idea of an elixir for this plague makes my heart pound.

  “The cure for you is here in my hand,” Morgan says.

  “Morgan, you are not like this,” I say. “Listen to what you are saying.”

  “God has called me, Edward. St. Giles has told me what must be done. In Moriah, God asked Abraham to kill his own son and Abraham didn’t hesitate. He has asked me to put an end to this witch-whore and that peddler Gregory. And it will be done.”