Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) (2 page)

I take a last look at the dead man, sling my shoulder sack, and lurch westward through the forest. The sack is heavy with supplies: a three-foot-long hand cannon; food for our journey; a large jar full of dragon’s blood; and a jar of miraculous healing salve called Malta fungus.

I shove at the grasping branches with my shield. Cold water from the wet leaves sprays my cheeks through the perforations in my helm. We cannot outrun our pursuers forever. My hope was to lose them in this forest, but there are too many, and the dogs have our scent. I wonder how Sir Gerald will kill us. On our last meeting, he threatened to skin us like rabbits and piss on our pulp. He may be mad, but he is creative in his madness.

I glance back at Tristan and think of all the times I have put his life in danger. Death’s skeletal fingers have scratched our shoulders too many times to count, but today I can feel his bony hand on my throat. Tristan sees me looking and blows a kiss, then picks up his pace so he is directly behind me.

Men will follow anyone.

Chapter 2

The forest dies out slowly, coughing clumps of hawthorn and acacia, until there are only the empty chalk plains of Norfolk. A goshawk cries out and circles above.

Tristan shakes a fist at the bird. “Insolent bastard.” He sights the creature with his crossbow even though it is far out of range. “We’re not dead yet!”

But the goshawk knows better. A horn sounds behind us. Shouts rise again in the distance.

The soldier we killed gained us time. The other men must have paused at the body because, for a time, Sir Gerald’s cries grew more frantic. “Leave it!
Just leave him there
!” It was a long time before we heard the crash of their pursuit again. I almost believed we would escape.

But now there is nothing but open ground ahead. If we try to run across the plains we will stand out like ticks on a pig. And if we hide in the forest, the dogs will root us out like truffles.

I tug at edge of my breastplate, adjusting the sharp weight on my shoulders. Sweat makes my fingers slip across the metal. Tristan pants beside me, hunched with hands on his legs.

A hind leaps from the hawthorn a dozen paces away, no doubt driven from the forest by the distant cacophony of Sir Gerald and his men. She stops when she sees us, her ears taut as sails in a gust.

“You rode a cow to safety once, didn’t you?” Tristan’s voice is tinny in his great helm. The hind hunches low then springs away. I track her flight.

“Hinds are Saint Giles’s animals,” I say.

“Not even the patron saint of the insane can stomach Sir Gerald,” Tristan replies.

“He’s my saint, Tristan,” I say. “He’s my saint.”

East Anglia is so flat you can watch your horse run away for three days, but I cannot watch the hind for three days. I cannot watch her for even three heartbeats because Sir Gerald is behind us. We have gained ground on our enemies, but they have not given up.

Something moves in the distance, far past the running doe. A horse pulling a two-wheeled cart northward along a worn path in the grass. The hind runs directly toward the wagon, but if Saint Giles wants me to follow, he is a fool. The cart is nearly a mile away and there is nothing but flat chalkland between us and it. We would be defenseless on the field, and the even ground would allow Gerald’s horsemen to hit us at a full charge.

I spot something else in the distance.

An old mill lies to the south, half hidden by a line of overgrown hedges. The tall structure sits on a narrow channel of water, about three hundred paces away. A scattering of thatched cottages rot on the opposite bank.

I glance back toward the forest. The men are still a long way from us, but they are relentless in their pursuit. I look to the mill. Tristan and I have killed oceans of men. It is a trade we know well, and the crumbling building will give us a place to work our craft. Elizabeth’s cure hangs on a cord around my neck. She is the hunger in my belly, and I will slaughter every one of Gerald’s lambs if they get in my way.

I run south, calling back to Tristan. “The mill!”

My armor clatters with each stride. I hear the shudder of Tristan’s plates behind me as we sprint toward the waterway. The ceaseless Norfolk wind makes flutes of our helmets and tugs at my shield. My breath comes in great ragged bursts.

The mill is not crumbling as badly as I had imagined. In fact, it is not crumbling at all. Rain beads upon fresh linseed oil on the walls. Rose bushes grow in neat lines along a footpath leading to the doorway. Someone is living in the house.

Something hisses through the air and strikes the bevor at my throat with enough force to make me gag. I stagger and crash heavily to the grass in a jangle of plates, gasping. Tristan dives to the ground beside me, skids on the wet grass, and covers us with my shield as I strip off the dented bevor and cough. The wooden shards of a broadhead arrow lie on the grass beside me.

A thin archer with a six-foot war bow stands twenty paces away, using the hedges for cover. Time has robbed the brown from his temples, but his arms do not tremble as he draws back the bowstring. Two quivers hang from his thick belt, one at either hip.

The blare of a horn trembles in the Norfolk wind. The archer glances toward the forest, then scowls at us and draws the bowstring to its full length. It is no broadhead nocked on the bowstring this time. The arrow bears a thin bodkin tip, meant for piercing plate armor. My shield is nearly useless against such a weapon. The horn blows again from behind us, louder, ever louder.

I gaze toward the Heavens for guidance.

The goshawk circles lower.

We could charge him; a middling bowman might only get one well-aimed arrow away before we closed the distance. But a good bowman could fire two or three shots in that time. I look at the man’s posture. At his broad shoulders and the steadiness of his gaze. I have no doubt that he is a good bowman.

Tristan points to the garden. “Lovely roses.”

No one speaks. The spinning mill wheel splashes in the channel. Rain tinks off my armor and beads on the archer’s bow. The horn sounds again. Gerald’s men have a bloody affection for that horn. If I live through this, I will never hunt a fox or boar again.

 The archer glances again at the forest. Our pursuers will push through the hawthorn in moments. The fingers holding the bow twitch and I know the man is uncertain of what to do. Uncertainty is good. There is certainty behind us, and certainty nocked upon his bow. At this moment, Elizabeth’s life depends upon uncertainty.

I rise slowly and remove my great helm, hold my arms out to the sides. It takes all of my will to keep from looking back toward the forest. “Those men will kill us,” I say.

“And piss on our pulp,” Tristan adds.

The archer’s fingers twitch again. He flicks his gaze toward the forest and tenses suddenly. The first of our pursuers must have emerged from the forest.

I catch movement at the upper window of the millhouse. A woman stares down, her hand over her mouth, her shoulders hunched in terror.

I meet the archer’s gaze. “I have a wife,’ I say. “She is . . . ill. I just want to go to her. Please.”

Our land is plagued by flesh-eating corpses, and still men fight against men. If humanity is to survive this calamity, then we must show ourselves to be human. That is why I let Sir Gerald live when I could have killed him.

I raise my arms into the air and walk toward the archer. “This plague has left so few of us,” I say. “We are all brothers, now.”

Tristan jerks his head back toward the forest. “Except for the madman in the forest. He’s more like a distant cousin. Three or four times removed.”

I wave him silent, my eyes locked upon the archer’s, and take another step forward. “Please. Help me reach my wife.”

The archer looks back toward the woman in the window. His hands clench tightly around the bow, then he lets out a long breath and releases the tension on the bowstring. He gestures with his chin toward the channel. An old rowboat sits upon the water, downriver from the spinning waterwheel.

 “He will kill you if he knows you helped us willingly.” The archer looks toward the gathering soldiers and licks at his lips. I touch the hilt of my sword. A tooth is embedded in the pommel, and that tooth is said to have come from the mouth of Saint Giles himself. I run a finger over the molar. In these times of madness, only the patron saint of madness will save us. I tap the hilt of the sword and nod toward the archer. “I’m going to pretend, do you understand?”

The archer half draws the bowstring again so I stretch my hands out to the sides. “I won’t harm you.”

He turns to look at the woman in the window again, then relaxes the bowstring again and nods.

I glance back. A cluster of men push out of the forest. Sir Gerald’s black destrier pushes past the acacia.

I draw the sword and point it at the archer. Tristan does the same and the man hustles toward the rowboat. I nod toward the sobbing woman in the upper window.

A great rectangle of hay bales has been stacked to shoulder height beside the mill house. There are no bales at the center of the stack. I peer in, and I forget about Sir Gerald.

Chapter 3

The mockery of a child snarls within the hay pen.

A boy, no older than seven, afflicted with plague. There is no white to his eyes, only black—slick almonds of ebony that reflect my face as the child hisses. Bleeding boils rise along one of his cheeks. Clumps of his hair have fallen out, leaving ragged patches of red scalp. The skin on the backs of his hands and arms has split, revealing bone and raw, bloody meat. My gaze falls, and I note his shoes. They are not much longer than the palm of my hand. He shrieks, claws at the wet walls of hay, and my soul weeps.

“Leave him be!” The archer aims the bodkin tip at my head. His face twists with rage, tears glimmer in his eyes. “
You leave him be
!”

A rain of thudding hooves sounds behind us as Gerald and his men race across the wet grass. Another horn blast reverberates across the plain.

Elizabeth and I have wanted a child for years. If it is a boy, I will name him John. He will inherit the great castle I am building at Bodiam, and will bring glory upon our family name. I am certain this poor archer and his woman had hopes for their boy, too.

I reach into a poke on my belt and draw out a ceramic ampoule, extend it toward the man.

“Edward!’ Tristan snatches the ampoule. “We only have three!”

“One more than we need.” I pluck the ampoule back from his fingers. The thunder of horsemen draws nearer. I have no time to explain it all, so I lay the cure on a hay bale and run to the rowboat, calling back: “Give it to the boy. Perhaps it will heal him.”

Tristan unties the line from a wooden post on the bank. “Or perhaps it will make him worse,” he adds.

The rowboat, hidden from the horsemen by the line of unkempt hedges, rocks from side to side as I get in. Tristan steps onto the planks with one foot and shoves off with the other. The rowboat slips quickly down the rain-dotted stream. Tristan takes the oars and quickens our pace. I nod my thanks to the archer, who takes the ampoule and studies it, then glances back at me. I nod again and point toward the cage of hay. He watches me silently, his brows furrowed.

“Are you mad, Edward?” Tristan says. “You gave that complete stranger one of the cures. A complete stranger. Now we have none to spare.”

We cut swiftly downstream. Tristan continues to natter about the cures, and what will happen now if one of us gets plagued, and why we shouldn’t just hand out the ampoules like festival garlands.

I do not reply. The ampoules came from Syria, and were, most recently, hidden in the floorboards of an alchemist’s workshop. They are a Muslim cure for our Christian plague, and they do not always work properly. One of these ampoules turned the alchemist’s wife into a monster—a shriveled and insane abomination. But another cured one of the alchemist’s guards. The world always seems to hinge upon two opposite outcomes. A cure or a curse. Joy or grief. Life or death. Heaven or Hell. If this Syrian cure heals her, I will have the first of each. And if I fail, it will be the last.