. . .a terrible weight for the soul to bear.
I lower my head and listen to the rain beating on my helm.
But there is no time to mourn the man. Tristan jumps to his feet and stares northward.
“Riders,” he says.
I look backward. Four mounted knights are stopped on the road, less than a quarter mile to the north. One of them speaks to a fleeing pilgrim who points in our direction.
I stare upward toward the Heavens. “Satan’s beard. Sir Gerald’s men.”
“Tell me that story again, Edward,” Tristan says. “You had a cannon pointed at Gerald, a flame inches from the touch hole. What did you do again? I always forget the next part.”
Chapter 6
On our journey south I have tried to avoid roads whenever possible, but the rain has made marshes of the countryside. We have no choice but to seek a dry path. Sir Gerald is aware of my ultimate goal, so he knows where to search for me. He will follow me all the way to St. Edmund’s Bury. I am certain that he would have entered the monastery there already and killed Elizabeth, if not for the sea of plaguers circling the abbey walls. She is an angel, and the Lord protects his angels. There is no army in England mightier than the one God has stationed around my Elizabeth.
But that army is in St. Edmund’s Bury and we are here. And Gerald’s men are on their way.
I glance to the south. The horses that belonged to the guards mill on the grass a few hundred paces away. I pick up the dead man’s discarded helm, then slip the mail coif off his head and unfasten the black traveling cloak. Tristan watches me, then nods and finds the other dead guard. He kills two plaguers to get to the man’s helmet, coif and cloak, and we run for the horses.
A mass of plaguers feed on the two oxen. One of the animals is still alive. It lies on its side mewing softly, its eyes rolling. I kick a plaguer from its back then slit the ox’s throat. The afflicted shriek and bathe themselves in the gush of blood. They drink as if from a fountain of wine.
A plagued man with broken spear lodged in his shoulder reaches for me and I finish the work that the spearman began. The man falls backward, his throat shredded by my blade.
The splatter of hooves on mud grows louder as the knights gallop toward us. Tristan and I approach the horses belonging to the mercenaries. The long-legged geldings back away from us as we approach. I yank the reins of the nearest one and pull myself into the saddle, hang the dead guard’s helmet from a metal hook in the leather. Tristan leaps onto the other horse and we wheel the animals south before driving our spurs into their flanks.
And they run.
Two of the knights stop at the wagon, but the other two give chase. Tristan motions to me and slows, then turns to face our pursuers.
“We don’t have time for a fight,” I shout. “And the cannons won’t fire in the rain.”
He unslings the crossbow from his back.
“The string is wet, Tristan!”
“I wrapped the bow in one of Elizabeth’s scarves,” he replies.
My heart aches at the sound of her name. His Elizabeth, not mine.
He must have kept the bowstring cocked since our forest run, for he slips a bolt into the groove, raises the weapon to his shoulder, and sights one of the approaching knights. When they are within two hundred paces he fires. The bolt wavers in the air and falls miserably short.
“Your damned bowstring is wet, Tristan!” I slap the reins, kick back my heels and my gelding races southward. Tristan follows.
“Silk,” he shouts, “is not a proper barrier to water!”
I do not answer him. The knights are too close behind us now to speak. I hunch low in the saddle and snap the reins again. My horse thunders along the Roman road, sending up daggers of mud behind and gouts of white breath ahead. Tristan rides behind and to my right, slapping his horse’s flank.
The knights slow their horses after a mile or so and turn back toward the wagon, but Tristan and I do not stop. We run the horses for another mile, then slow to a trot. My gelding tosses its head and blows but I will not allow it rest yet.
Tristan twists in his saddle to look back. “They just gave up.”
“They don’t want to pull too far from their friends. They must have been the vanguard of Gerald’s force.” I thank Saint Giles and the Virgin Mary. If they are the vanguard, then Gerald is behind us. I had feared that he would ride south quickly and beat us to St. Edmund’s Bury. But I do not think he has. Sir Gerald is behind us, and now nothing stands between me and my angel.
Nothing but a thousand bloody plaguers around the walls of the abbey. I wonder if God might call off his army long enough for me to get through.
“Edward?”
I follow Tristan’s gaze southward. Something moves on the southern road. I take my horse onto the wet grass and give it the rest it has earned.
“Can you make it out?” I ask. Tristan’s eyes have always been better than mine.
“Looks like a cart,” he says. “A small one.”
“Is there a bloody fair somewhere?” I ask. “This road holds a damned nuisance of carts.” I watch the cart for a time. It is small, so there cannot be many men on it. No riders seem to accompany it. I do not imagine it will pose a threat to us, but I am too close to Elizabeth to take any risks. “We’re going to canter past. Do not slow down, do not stop. Just ride past quickly. And when we are past, break into a gallop and get away from them as quickly as possible. Understood?”
“And when they see two armed men bearing down on them, what do you suppose they will do, Edward?”
“They will do nothing,” I reply. “Keep your hands on the reins and stay in a swift canter. We may scare them, but they won’t risk a fight if we don’t bring one to them.”
It is a pitiable world we live in now, one in which we must fear the men of reason more than the mindless masses. Perhaps it has always been so.
I take off my helm and bevor and don the mail coif I took from the dead guard. It fits snugly but wool trim along the edges keeps the links from scraping my chin. I tug the nasal helm onto my head and tighten the strap until I can shake my head without the cap rocking. The thick traveling cloak is heavy with rain, but I tie it across my shoulders anyway.
I took the guard’s helmet and cloak in case Sir Gerald was waiting for us to the south, but the disguise will be useful here, too. Tristan dons the other guard’s cloak, helm and coif and we look at each other. If Gerald questions the men in the cart, they will say they saw two garrison guards riding past, not knights. Gerald may suspect it was us, but there will be uncertainty. And Elizabeth’s life may well depend on uncertainty.
My horse grunts when I snap my calf against its flank. I have to whip the damp reins and shout to get the animal walking forward, and it takes a jab of my spurs to make it canter.
We close the distance swiftly. My eyes pick out more details as we near the cart. Two people. One in the wagon bed and one in the driver’s box. The one in the wagon bed wears a white robe with the hood pulled up against the rain. A thick blanket is draped over his shoulders. The driver wears a brown cloak with the hood up. It is the same cart I noticed near the mill, where I gave the archer a cure for his son.
Stakes have been affixed along the outside edges of the cart. A forest of stakes pointing in odd directions, so that an advancing plaguer will impale itself no matter what direction it approaches from.
The figure in the back of the cart cranes his neck at the sound of our horses. I think it is a man, although I cannot be sure because his face is obscured by a white veil. Only his eyes are uncovered.
“I don’t like the look of that one,” Tristan calls. “There’s something terribly wrong with him.”
The man in the robe speaks to the driver, who hands back a long bundle wrapped in canvas. The veiled figure unwraps the canvas and raises a thick, wooden crossbow to his shoulder.
Tristan veers his horse away from me so we present smaller targets and calls to me, “Canvas is probably better than silk.�
�
“Make way!” I shout at the cart. “Make way!”
The cart drifts to one side of the road and the crossbow follows our approach. I glance at the men as we canter past. The driver wears a leather gambeson under the cloak. The hood shadows his face, but I can see that he is dark and bearded. Perhaps an Italian. Tristan pretends to doff his cap, and we are past.
One of the men in the cart calls to us. “Wait!”
I do not wait. Elizabeth has waited too long already. I lash the reins, shout at my horse, and break into a gallop. I will not wait. I will not stop.
I stop after three miles.
I do not want to stop, but darkness swallows the countryside. Clouds smother the crescent moon and the air becomes blacker than a plaguer’s eye. I cannot see the road ahead. My horse stumbles and I realize I can go no farther without risking its life. I consider walking the rest of the way, but it would take me all night and all the next day to reach St. Edmund’s Bury—and a battle awaits.
A battle against an army that has neither horses nor spears. Their weapons are sheathed in fingers and lips, and their banners are the tattered shreds of robe and tunic that hang from their rotting bodies. But there is no army in England more dangerous. They are a thousand strong, have a poisonous bite, and do not know fear. They do not rout and they do not surrender. Their war cry trembles with the savage echo of evil, for in their illness they take orders from Satan himself. And if they win, Hell will claim another acre of God’s earth.
I do not want a forced march before I face that army, so I will rest tonight and fight every plaguer in St. Edmund’s Bury tomorrow if I have to. The saints will rise from their graves and fight at my side. Angels of war will hurl lightning, and God himself will help smite the legions of dead and bring them home to Heaven. For tomorrow I will heal the most beautiful of his creatures.
Tomorrow I will wake my Elizabeth.
Tristan lights one of his firing cords and we use its flickering light to guide our horses off the road. We walk in the dark, our boots sloshing in ankle deep water, the night’s chill drawing gooseflesh on my rain-soaked back. There are a cluster of priories and convents on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk, east of the Roman road, and I intend to find one.
It feels like we walk for an eternity before a distant light appears. An orange glow that promises warmth and perhaps food. And most of all, safety. We pick up our pace, tugging at the horses and taking long, hopping steps through the flooded fields.
There are only two structures, but they rise high into the night sky. An abbot once told me that monasteries were built as high as possible to remind the inhabitants that a monk is not bent over, but stands erect before God. And this priory stands taller than anything around it, starkly out of place on this flat, sodden land of marshes.
Smaller wings and apses jut from the lengths of the two buildings giving the impression of many buildings. And every wall is graced with tall, arched and latticed windows.
The lights we noticed come from several of these windows, and from a massive wheel window piercing the highest floor of the tallest building.
Small groups of plaguers mill around the monastery. In these days of plague, the afflicted gather around places of life like flies around dung. Tristan ties his horse’s reins to my horse’s and we draw our swords. I touch my breastplate and feel the guilty reassurance of Elizabeth’s cure. We kill six plaguers quietly, but not quietly enough; more shapes lurch toward us in the darkness. I pound on the door while Tristan uses a windlass to pull back the wet cord of his crossbow. The horses toss their heads and back away from the approaching plaguers.
“I’m beginning to hate abbey doors,” he says.
Tristan and I have found ourselves fighting for life outside churches and monasteries too often. But it is not the doors that are the problem.
“I’m beginning to hate slow monks,” I say.
Tristan nods his agreement. “So sayeth the Lord.”
More and more shapes draw toward us. Men who were once monks. Men who were farmers and haywards. A nun, and a young boy wearing the skirts of infancy. All of them bleeding and rotting, like the victims of a Hellish war. A bald farmer with a nose half torn off gets too close and Tristan fires the crossbow. The string is wet, but the man is only ten feet away and even a water-logged cord can bring death at that distance. The bolt carves through a boil on the man’s forehead and buries itself in his skull. The farmer’s head snaps backward and he crumples to the ground. Tristan attaches the windlass to the crossbow and begins winding the cord again.
I raise my fist to pound once more upon the oak but a resonant clanking echoes from inside. The towering door creaks open a few inches and a soldier’s hard face peers out. “What?” he says.
I motion toward the mass of afflicted staggering toward us. “What do you think?”
The man sighs and watches Tristan miss a plagued nun with his next shot. I step forward and drive the tip of Saint Giles’s sword through her eye socket, then kick her lifeless body backward.
“Alright,” the soldier says. “Inside, quickly.”
Chapter 7
The abbey is full of men, women and children. It is the same throughout England. The houses of God have become the houses of man, and while monks may stand upright before Him, the families I see do not. They slouch and stare downward, huddle together and cast prayers toward the floor. I would pity them, but most of the families look complete. Husbands hold wives, and I envy them.
The abbot is named Peter and he does not look into our eyes when he speaks. Monks are an odd breed. Mother Mary is the only woman they are allowed, so Jesus becomes the hunger in their bellies.
The abbot rings a hand bell and tells us there is little food at the abbey, and no beds available. A young postulant holding a basket trots down the long gallery hallway and bows to us. I take a loaf of raveled bread from the basket and thank Abbot Peter for the safety of his walls.
Tristan and I follow the postulant back along the gallery, leading our geldings. A monastery is no place for a horse, but horses are worth more than silver these days, and I need mine to reach Elizabeth. We leave our steeds to graze in the cloisters and find an empty corner of the dormer to sleep in.
I dream that night of armies clashing. The forces of Heaven and Hell meeting in a seminal battle, and England is the prize. But in the dream I cannot tell which side is which. Cannons with demon mouths erupt, three quick bursts, and the battle begins. I am caught in the middle of the battlefield. Another three cannons shake the skies and the armies rage toward one another. I crouch and cover my head as the next cannonade fires. And as the armies collide, I wake and take deep gulps of air.
The cannons erupt once more. Four, five, six bursts. I do not know how the cannons from my dream can follow me back to the abbey. It takes a moment for sleep to fall away completely and for me to realize the sound is not cannons, but a pounding on the monastery doors.
Tristan is already on his feet, buckling his sword. I do the same and, with a glance at our armor on the floor, we hurry down the stairs and through the galley hallway that leads to the great double doors.
The door is partly open when we arrive. The soldier that allowed us into the abbey peers out. Abbot Peter is behind him, rubbing his fingertips together and trying to see through the small opening. A dozen sleepy families watch from their makeshift beds along the gallery.
“What about him?” the soldier says to someone outside. “Is he plagued?”
I can only make a few words of a reply from beyond the door. “. . . fine! . . . sake! . . . the door!” Snarls ring out from outside. The voice grows much louder. “We. Are. Going. To die!”
The soldier glances at Peter, who shrugs. The door opens and two men stumble inside. They turn and drive their shoulders into the door as hands reach through. They are the men who we passed earlier, on the cart. Tristan and I push past Peter as the soldier jabs at the afflicted with a shortspear. The weight of the plaguers drives the door open further
. Two of the afflicted slip inside: A tall man with a leather cap tied under his chin, and a naked woman. Tristan and I drive our swords into the man’s stomach at the same time, then realize our mistake.
“I’ll get the woman,” I say. But Tristan is already drawing his sword out of the man’s belly and our blades clang as we both stab her. He laughs but the situation is not humorous. Both plaguers are still alive and we have no armor. The man’s hands clamp around my left arm. I drive my sword into his mouth with such force that the tip drives through the back of his skull.
Tristan swings his blade with two hands and knocks the woman into me. I slip on blood and fall to one knee, my sword still in the man’s mouth. Tristan hacks at the woman again and again. Blood everywhere. I leverage the male plaguer to the ground and put my foot on his throat. He flails at me with his hands and catches me in the side of the head. I grunt and drive the sword with both hands at his forehead. The blade skips off bone and gouges his temple, so I plunge my sword down again and finally break through the skull. His legs kick once, then he is still.
I glance at Tristan. He is blood spattered and panting, but unharmed.
“Now that was a storm of shit,” he says.
Peter glares at him. I shake my head and gesture with my chin toward the watching children. Tristan covers his mouth. “My apologies,” he calls to them. “It was a storm of ships. Like a tempest at sea. That’s what I intended.”
Someone chuckles behind me. “That’s what I meant.”
Tristan and I spin around so quickly that a spot of blood is fired from my tunic and splatters the door. I look at the man before me. “Zhuri?”
“My friends!” Zhuri shouts. “I was certain that was you on the Roman road!”
“God’s mighty penis!” Tristan embraces him with one arm, holding his bloodstained sword at a distance. Peter hisses at the words, but I do not think Tristan hears it. “How did you find us?”
Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) Page 4
