“What game is this?” I ask her. “Are you in danger or not?”
“There! Is that it?” Her voice rises, then strains with anguish. “No! It is a branch!”
I look back toward the road. Shapes plunge through the mist-drenched scrub. They will see us soon, if they have not already. I take hold of the woman’s arm and turn her to face me. “Are those men going to harm you?” She shakes her head and I sheathe my sword. “Let’s go, Tristan.”
He lowers his crossbow and we crash through gorse, northward away from the men.
“They will take my maidenhood,” the woman cries. “They will fill me with their seed and leave me to starve.”
My sword flashes out from its sheath and Tristan’s crossbow rises. We lurch back toward her.
“Perhaps,” Tristan says to me, “you should have been more specific in your question.”
“Rape is harm, maiden,” I mutter. “In case this sort of thing comes up again in the future.”
The first two men push through wet leaves, laughing, but what they see is not funny, and their humor dries up. Tristan and I stand shoulder to shoulder. My sword is pointed forward in mid-guard. His crossbow is strung and loaded and aimed in their direction. We are not thin, we are not dainty, and neither of us wears a fox tail.
“We can’t seem to find the arrow,” Tristan says. “Care for a war-bolt instead?”
They both step back. One, a tall man with long black mustaches, draws a dagger. The other, a thick slab of a man with hair so blond his eyebrows are almost invisible, unslings an axe from his shoulder. Both wear coats of mail, but no tabards or arms that could identify them or their master. I do not think they are Sir Gerald’s men.
“The young maiden doesn’t wish to be raped today,” Tristan says. “You evil bastards.”
The tall man looks at the crossbow and sniffs. “Are you wearing lavender?”
Tristan fires.
“I didn’t say they would rape me,” the woman cries.
Chapter 11
The blond soldier shrieks and falls to his knees. Tristan’s bolt has lodged in his thigh. Three more men crash through the branches.
I take a step back and straighten my arm, putting Saint Giles between them and me.
Tristan drops the crossbow and draws his sword. “Did that harpy behind us say what I think she said?”
The new men are dressed in the same fashion as the first two. Mail and round helms, no tabards. They draw weapons and glance nervously at the tall man who spoke to Tristan.
“No one needs to die,” I shout. “Back away and everyone lives!”
Tristan glances backward. “She’s gone. When will we learn to stop being so bloody chivalrous?” He smiles at the soldiers. “Hello. I believe there’s been a misunderstanding.” He tries to laugh but it sounds more like a cough. “Terribly sorry.”
The tall man with the mustache kneels beside the wounded soldier and touches the bolt. “You aren’t sorry yet,” he says without looking up. “But you will be, soon. Your short, misery-laden lives will be the very definition of the word.”
I draw myself to my full height. Elizabeth waits in a monastery not thirty miles from here. She is the hunger that burns in my belly, and not one of these lambs will keep me from her. “I am Sir Edward Dallingridge, Knight of the Shire and friend to King Richard. I have killed more men in France than you have seen in a lifetime, and I will kill the lot of you with my bare hands if you don’t leave here at once!”
Confidence is a parasite that feeds upon the courage of your foes. If you show no fear, your enemy will hesitate, no matter how badly they outnumber you.
The tall man twirls his mustache with his little finger. His arrogant posture falls away. “Can you prove what you have said?”
“Course I can,” I say. “Come closer and I’ll show you.”
“Not that,” he says. “Can you prove that you are who you say you are?”
I let my blade drop a few inches. “I can.”
“And you are not with Bolingbroke?”
I exchange a glance with Tristan. “Bolingbroke? Henry of Bolingbroke?”
“The very same. Are you allied with him?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I reply. “The last I’d heard of Henry Bolingbroke was that he had been banished to France.”
The man nods and gestures to the other men, who put away their weapons with reluctance. “Then we are not enemies.”
“God’s Teeth we’re not!” the blond man cries. “He put a bolt in me!”
“As a point of fact,” Tristan says, “it was the crossbow that put the bolt in you. And to be fair to the crossbow, it was acting under a mistaken premise.”
The tall man extends his hand toward me. I remove my gauntlet and clasp his arm. We shake vigorously and grip each others’s forearms to make certain there are no hidden weapons.
“I am Sir Simon of Grimsby,” the man says.
Two men help the wounded soldier to his feet and support him as they walk toward the road.
“There was a woman here,” I say. “She said that if she didn’t find an arrow, you and your men would rape her. That’s not true, is it?”
He smiles and rolls his shoulders in a slow shrug. “Rape is such an ugly word. We were playing a game, nothing more.”
“Here’s another ugly word.” Tristan rests his hand on the hilt of his sword and steps toward Simon. “Eviscerate.”
“What type of game were you playing?” I ask Simon.
“She wanted something.” He twirls his mustache. “And we wanted something. So I made a wager with her.”
I understand what occurred here, now.
“You fired an arrow into the forest,” I say. “And if you found her before she found the arrow, you and your men could take her maidenhood.”
“That is absolutely untrue,” Simon replies. “Maidenhood can only be taken once. And that honor would be mine. The rest of my men would simply fuck her.”
He laughs, and the men laugh with him.
My heart pounds a deadly rhythm. “And what would be her reward if she found the arrow first?”
Simon nods to one of the soldiers, a boy no older than fifteen. The boy tosses a moldy loaf of bread to him. “She would eat for the day,” he says. “Although we pissed on the loaf when she ran into the forest.”
More laughter.
The rage rises slowly in me, coiling around my soul like a red mist. I feel the leather of Saint Giles’s hilt against my bare palm but cannot remember reaching for it.
“You’ve spoiled the game,” says Simon. “Now she won’t eat and I won’t fuck, and we’ll have to take you to Framlingham.”
“And why,” I hiss, “would I go anywhere with you?”
“Because someone wants to see you,” he replies.
There is no one on Heaven or earth who could make me go to Framlingham on this day. Not a soul. I tighten my grip on Saint Giles’s sword. “And who would that be?”
“Your friend,” he replies. “King Richard. I am his new marshal.”
My hand falls away from the sword. His words are like a gale, scattering the red mist of my fury. King Richard!
Something crashes through the forest behind us, but I do not look back. I stare stupidly at Simon of Grimsby.
“I found it!” the woman calls. “I found the arrow!”
The boy throws the loaf of bread to her.
Richard is alive.
We have a king.
England is saved.
“This doesn’t smell right,” the maiden says.
“No,” Tristan knocks the loaf from her hands. “It certainly doesn’t.”
Framlingham Castle is close, only ten miles to the south. But ten miles is a third of the way to Elizabeth, and we are heading in the wrong direction. I try to protest. To tell Simon that I will go to Framlingham only after I reach my wife in St. Edmund’s Bury. But he draws a tattered parchment from a poke at his belt and shows me Richard’s seal upon the botto
m. Simon has been tasked with bringing any knight he finds directly to Framlingham, without exception.
I can ignore the order. Cut my way through these men and continue to Elizabeth. But I cannot make an enemy of the one man who can give my Elizabeth a peaceful home again. And Richard will no doubt have an army. Men who can help me reach my sleeping angel. The king’s men would sweep Gerald’s soldiers aside and I could march unmolested into St. Edmund’s Bury. Seeing Richard is a delay that may do more good than harm. So I swallow my protests and prepare for the journey to Framlingham.
Simon of Grimsby has ten more men waiting at a crossroads, where the wagon trail meets the Roman road leading to Norwich. All of the men have horses, and Simon sends one of them northward to collect Morgan and Zhuri. We wait in the misting rain for them to return. The woman from the forest eats a new loaf of bread that I hope has not been pissed on.
“Why does King Richard sit at Framlingham?” I ask.
“Because he grew tired of standing.” Simon laughs with his men and my hatred of them grows. This knight thinks he is a clever chicken.
“Why isn’t he in London?” I ask.
“Because he’s at Framlingham,” says Simon. “He can’t be in two places at once, can he?”
The men’s laughter is like stone scraping glass.
Tristan looks as if he wants to say something, but not even he is careless enough to insult the king’s marshal.
Morgan’s wagon rattles down the path and stops beside us upon the Roman road.
“Is everything in hand?” Morgan asks.
I nod to him. “We’re making an excursion before St. Edmund’s Bury.”
“An excursion?” Morgan crosses his arms over his chest and studies the gathered soldiers. “What sort of excursion?”
One of the soldiers reaches up and touches the olive skin of Zhuri’s face. Zhuri slaps his hand away and there is more laughter among the soldiers.
“We’re going to Framlingham Castle,” I reply. “To see the king.”
“Which king would that be?” he mutters.
Simon yanks the woman by the arm toward the forest. The woman walks with him, tearing at the bread with her teeth, tears welling in her eyes.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He pauses and grins back at me. “Something ugly.”
I reach for my sword hilt but two spears flash out toward me. The leather flexes beneath my grip until I can feel the wood beneath, grinding into my palm.
I look at the young woman, who takes a strip of dried meat from Simon. She sees me looking and shrugs. “It’s only rape if you fight.” She sniffs at the meat. A tear rolls down one cheek as she bites off a piece. “Maidenhood is . . . such a small thing. And hunger is so very large.”
Something in my heart shatters.
Simon takes a grip of her hair and kisses her savagely. She wipes her lips with a forearm and rips at the salted meat with her teeth again as they walk, again, toward the forest.
“Who is that?” Morgan asks, pointing to Simon.
“That,” Tristan replies, “Is King Richard’s man.”
Chapter 12
Sir Simon leaves the bulk of his men upon the Roman road, to await more knights of the realm. Then he and two other soldiers set off with us to meet a king.
This is the second time I have traveled to Framlingham under Richard’s orders. I visited the castle a year ago to survey its defenses. To find any weakness that could be exploited by the French. I measured the depth of the ditches, suggested that removable wooden hoardings be added to the crenels along the walls, made certain that the murder holes were clean and clear. At the time, I was worried about the French. But the French have become the least of our problems. If I had known of the coming plague, my inspection would have consisted of nothing more than a short walk around the castle. Because only unbroken walls are needed to stop the dead.
I spent much of that year plodding across southeastern England, surveying castles and city fortifications. A panic had gripped the lords of England after Rye was burned, and so Richard asked my patron, the Earl of Arundel, to send me out so that I might appease the populace.
When my task was completed, I took the opportunity to ask the king’s permission to build a castle at my manor in Bodiam. “Rye is only twenty miles from Bodiam,” I told him. “If they can burn Rye, they can burn Bodiam.”
He granted the license to crenelate immediately, but I know it was simply as a favor to me. Bodiam is not circled on any French war maps, and not enough buildings exist in my village to make a good fire. Richard knew this just as well as I, but he granted the license anyway. And I have always been grateful to him for that.
We approach from the northwest, which is the best way to see Framlingham Castle. The fortress presents its finest face from this angle; a golden line of flint and clay-stone, broken by thick rectangular towers and reflected with perfect symmetry in the reedy mere at the castle’s feet. From this distance, the fortress and its reflection resemble two golden crowns. The first faces skyward, toward God. The second points the other way.
We circle around the endless pond until we find the northern road leading to the main gateway. The castle gatehouse rises before us—a broad, unembellished square of scattered flint, reinforced at the edges by great blocks of sandstone. Richard’s banner, blue and emblazoned with the lion and lily, hangs from the wall. A ditch thirty feet deep snakes around the curtain walls, and a long drawbridge that extends from the gatehouse is the only easy way to surmount the trench.
“Is there no plague at Framlingham?” Morgan asks.
“King Richard will tolerate no demons at his gates.” Sir Simon’s voice is overly formal and dramatic. “His mighty armies drive them out.”
I look in all directions and do not see a single plaguer.
“Perhaps Richard should tolerate no demons in all of England,” Tristan says. “Or are his armies not mighty enough?”
“The very presence of our mighty king will drive the plague from England,” Simon replies. He smiles at the two soldiers riding at his side and all three of them laugh.
I am surprised that a King’s servant should be so flippant about his master. When I see Richard, I plan on speaking to him at length about his new marshal.
In the distance I spot a group of men pulling at a plow. I wonder that Richard does not have oxen to do the job. Until I study the men closely.
“Tristan.”
He follows my gaze and his eyes grow wide. The men pulling the plows wear wooden masks, and their hands have been severed. They are plaguers. It is something I have seen before, and so has Tristan.
A stout dog, attached by rope to the harnessed plaguers, walks ahead of the group, tantalizing the plowmen and driving them ever forward with the heavy plow.
The masks look identical to ones I saw near Boxford, at a place called the Holy Lands. Followers of a prophet named Hugh the Baptist purposely afflicted themselves with plague and made the wooden masks before the change came over them. And when they made the transition from senseless pilgrims to mindless plaguers, a man named Matheus set them to work the fields.
But how can they be here? Thirty miles from the Holy Lands?
We are stopped at the gatehouse by a hulking constable in a leather jerkin. He is stout, with bulging shoulders and a thick brown beard streaked with the first snows of his winter.
“They’ll be inspected before they can enter,” he says to Simon.
We are taken into the gatehouse barracks and made to remove our armor and clothing while men in robes examine us. We’ve often been scrutinized upon entering fortifications in these dark days. I understand the need for such measures. Plague hides in flesh—like Greek warriors in wooden horses—and leaps out at night to conquer the living. But this inspection is more thorough than any we have had. A man spreads the cheeks of Tristan’s arse and it takes three soldiers to break up the ensuing scrum.
Two robed men recoil from Morgan’s ragged wounds. One asks him if
he is plagued. I hold my breath. Morgan prides himself on his honesty, but we could use a good lie.
He looks at me, then at the man in the white robe. I can almost hear the struggle in his thoughts. Finally, he shakes his head and speaks: “I was dragged behind a horse.”
I release my breath. It is a good lie—he looks precisely like a man torn by the road. Although in truth, he seems better than when I last looked upon his body. There is no blackness left on his skin, other than the scabs. Most of his wounds have stopped bleeding, and those that have not are nearly dry. Even the long gash on his jaw has scabbed over. Perhaps the Malta fungus is helping.
The robed men examine him carefully, but find no boils nor dying flesh, no fever nor shuddering, so they clear him to enter.
Sir Simon whispers with the constable for a time, then waves us forward and walks through the gate.
Framlingham Castle has no central keep. The interior buildings are set against the curtain walls. A great hall to the west, living chambers to the north, and a steep-roofed chapel to the east. There are no families in the castle. No makeshift tents or sleeping pads on the ground. No cooking pots hang from tree-branch tripods, and no children chase one another through the bailey. It seems empty, save for the guards upon the walls and lingering in the courtyard.
A great cheer arises from the west, outside the curtain walls. Sir Simon and four other knights lead us toward the sound, across the castle bailey, through the massive postern tower on the west side until we are outside once again. We find ourselves in the lower court, a vast outdoor yard encircled by a ten-foot wall of cobbled flint. This is where the cheers originated.
A sprawling length of tiered benches has been built here. And on those benches, clapping and shouting and whistling, sit hundreds of men and women. They are not the starving masses I have seen at other castles. They are gentry and nobility. Plump and healthy, and dressed in silks and brocade.
In front of the benches lies a tilting field several hundred paces long and a hundred paces wide. A low wall of piled stones circles the entire arena, and a deep trench about as wide as a man is tall encircles the wall. A jester stands on a log at the center of the field, looking surly and pointing at the seated gentry. He sweeps his hand to encompass the crowd, pauses, then turns around and pulls down his pants. The men and women cheer again.
Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) Page 7
