Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) (29 page)

“So sayeth the Lord!” the old man in the doorway shouts.

“They must be hanged, my lord,” Father Benjamin’s voice is a whisper. “They have defiled our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Prayer is the only answer to this plague, Edward.” Henry’s voice wavers.

“And God has answered our prayers,” I reply. “He has sent us a cure. What would people think of you, my lord, if they learn that you could have cured the kingdom, but did not?”

Henry looks up at me sharply.

“Alchemy is a sin,” the priest hisses.

“Alchemy . . . is contrary to the laws of God and England,” Henry says.

“
Necessitas non habet legem,”
I reply. “Necessity has no law.”

The duke stares toward faint wisps of smoke rising in the distance, rising from piles of smoldering bodies. I understand the struggle in his heart.

“I want proof,” he says. “I want proof that this cure works.”

“My lord!” the priest shouts. “You cannot—”

“Silence!” Henry arms are lance-straight at his sides, hands clenched into fists, as he shouts at the priest. “I have done everything you asked me to. Everything! The exorcisms. The prayers. The lashings and the hair shirts.” He jabs a finger toward the rising smoke. “
I have burned two hundred afflicted men, women and children because you said they were demons
! I have listened to every piece of advice you have given, and nothing has worked!” He wipes at his lower lip, breathes a deep sigh, and continues more calmly. “What if these men are right? What if God has delivered the cure to us? Shall we sink the ark because we do not like the way it was built? Shall we refuse to flee through the Red Sea because it was parted with sorcery?” He turns to me. “Can you prove to me that this cure works?”

“I can,” I reply. “My wife is plagued. Give me four horses and I will bring her back here, and cure her before your eyes.” I try not to think of Richard’s wife, the Good Queen Anne.

“I need all of my horses, Sir Edward,” Henry says. “St. Edmund’s Bury is less than twenty miles from here. You can walk. Keep to the Roman road, and take some food from our stores. We have wine for—”

“I need the horses, my lord. I don’t have much time to reach her.”

“And why is that?”

I rub at a spot of rust on the steel of my bracer. “King Richard . . . he . . . he wants to kill her. He’s heading to St. Edmund’s Bury with an army as we speak.”

“What?” The bucket falls to the grass with a thud.

My companions turn their eyes toward me. There is a labyrinth to be navigated here, and a Minotaur down each path. “I . . . I upset him. It is a long tale. One I will gladly tell you when my wife is safe, my lord.”

“I don’t care why Richard is angry with you,” Henry replies. “Did you say he is leaving Framlingham?”

I nod. “His army is marching as we speak.”

“I spent two days outside Framlingham with my men, waiting for Richard to meet me and he never left the castle. I need you to be absolutely sure of it, Sir Edward. Has Richard left Framlingham?”

“We met one of his men this morning,” I reply. “He said the army is mustering.”

Henry picks up the square of silk from the ground and folds it neatly. “Godfrey, tell John to prepare the men to travel tomorrow. And remind them that we are not waging war against Richard, we are simply presenting him with an unassailable argument against stripping the Lancasters of their birthright. Go. We march to St. Edmund’s Bury tomorrow.”

“Hurrah!” The old man grins again. “You will be King Henry IV!”

Henry shakes his head. “I’m not taking the crown from . . .” He dismisses the old man with a wave and strides back toward the church.

“And Godfrey,” the duke calls. “Get Sir Edward some horses.”

Chapter 34

The alchemist is named Josalyn. She is pretty and shockingly young, with a round face, dark hair, and eyes the color of a forest at sunset—greens and browns and yellows. She does not speak but kneels at my feet and bows her head with what I imagine is gratitude. Her arms embrace my legs, an echo of what I did to save her. She weeps silently. I wonder if she is mute. Or perhaps her throat was injured by the noose.

Henry relented, in the end, and gave permission for her to start work on the cure, but only for today. Because tomorrow Josalyn will accompany Henry’s army to St. Edmund’s Bury. “And if your wife is not healed by this cure, Sir Edward,” he said, “I will put the noose back around the heretic’s neck. And this time, the knot will be on the side, not the back.”

A noose knotted on the side breaks the neck instantly. There would be no saving her a second time.

I help Josalyn to her feet and we escort her through the village, past rows of cottages and tile-roofed shops. A soldier told us that her home is on the outskirts of Stowmarket, and serves as her alchemical workshop as well.

My pace is just short of a trot. The others struggle to keep up. I want to give this woman what she needs to produce the cure and be on my way.

Armies are ponderous things. There are wagons and pack mules, cattle and armored infantrymen. It will take Henry’s forces ten or eleven hours to complete the twenty-mile journey. But I do not have that long.

If King Richard is quick-marching his men—which I have no doubt that he is—and leaving wagons and animals behind, he will reach Elizabeth by tomorrow afternoon. So I must leave within the hour and reach St. Edmund’s Bury tonight.

I still have not solved the problem of Sir Gerald and his men. Perhaps they will think they have missed me and simply leave the town. But that is more prayer than possibility. Sir Gerald will wait for me until Judgment Day. No. Judgment Day may already be upon us. Sir Gerald will wait for all eternity.

Two soldiers in leather hauberks walk to either side of the girl. They will guard Josalyn at her workshop until the army leaves Stowmarket.

I give the girl the spare cure as we hustle through the empty village, and explain to her what we need. She studies the ampoule carefully and listens as I relate my experiences with the alchemist from St. Benet’s. I explain that the ingredients for the cure are listed on each ampoule. “They are written in Arabic,” I say. “But my friend Zhuri will translate the words and scribe them for you before we leave.”

“I will be delighted to help you with this task.” Zhuri bows to her, his eyes making quick darts in her direction, though never lingering. I believe the Moor is smitten. “I will do whatever you require of me.”

“I’m not comfortable with this, Edward,” Morgan says. “If she is to do this, then she must do it in the name of God. There should be no question of our piety or motivation. Priests should be there. Any water she uses should be blessed. Crucifixes must be mounted on the wall. God’s presence must be seen everywhere. Everywhere, Edward, or we risk heresy.”

“So, as long as the trappings of religion are near, heresy isn’t heresy?” Tristan asks. “I’m going to thump Father Benjamin in the nose with a Bible the next time I see him.”

“Quiet, Tristan,” I reply. “Morgan’s right. People will balk at the cure if they think it is the Devil’s work. We need this to have the Church’s blessing from the beginning. I will speak with Henry.”

We stop outside a two-story cottage of wattle and daub. Whitewashed stones form a tidy square around an herb garden beside the structure. A yellow-flowered plant adorns the wooden sign that hangs beside the door. The plant is Saint John’s wort, and the cottage is an apothecary’s workshop. I have seen four alchemists burn, and three of the four swore at their trial that they were simple apothecaries. That is the alchemist’s defense; and the typical answer is a pyre, a grin, and the words, “Of course you are.”

One of the two soldiers opens the black-varnished door and the other motions for Josalyn to enter. She glances at the soldiers and gives a short shake of her head, extends the ampoule back toward me.

“I know.” I say. “They tried to hang you. But these men will obey Henry. No harm will come to you. You must listen, this is important. The ingredients for the cure, they were written as riddles. For instance, one of the ingredients was called the juice of metal, and the alchemist understood this to mean quicksilver. He said any alchemist could decipher the riddles.”

I dig inside my shoulder sack until I find a glass bottle wrapped in linens and bound with leather cords. I use my dagger to cut away the wrappings and show the jar to Josalyn. The sunlight strikes dark red gleams from the otherwise black fluid. “There was only one riddle he couldn’t solve, and that’s because it wasn’t a riddle.” I extend the large bottle to her. “
Ad-dimaa ah-teen
. The blood of dragons.” I extend the bottle toward her. “This is from a real dragon.”

“We slayed it,” Tristan says. “Edward and I. We slayed a dragon, and collected its blood.”

I shake my head. “We didn’t actually slay—”

“
We slayed it
.” Tristan barks. “Edward and I. We are dragon slayers.”

The jar is heavy. Josalyn takes it with both hands, looks at the blood, and shakes her head again.

“I know, it is hard to imagine that dragon blood could be used in a cure,” I say. “But Zhuri confirmed our belief. Dragon’s blood is considered a powerful healing elixir in the Muslim world.”

“It is,” Zhuri says. “I’ve heard it said that anything can be cured with the blood of dragons.”

I point to the bottle. “I’m certain you understand how rare that is. Have care with it.”

She closes her eyes and takes a long breath.

I reassure her as best I can. “I know we ask a lot of you. But you are England’s best hope. If you can make this cure, you will rise from heretic to saint. Not a bad reward, is it? Saint Josalyn, patron of alchemists. How does that sound?”

She shakes her head again and extends the bottle toward me. “I . . .” Her voice squeaks, so she rubs at her throat and tries again. “I . . .”

A man screams from somewhere behind us. I look back toward the village green.I spot three men in the distance. They sprint across my field of view, laughing, their swords flapping up and down in belted sheaths. And they disappear behind a long, thatched building.

 “I . . . am not . . .” Josalyn coughs. “I am not an alchemist.”

 “What?”

Zhuri whirls toward her so quickly that his elbow strikes her hand. I watch for a helpless eternity as the bottle of dragon blood spins through the air.

And shatters on the row of white stones.

Chapter 35

There is no sound in this world louder than the roar of an iron-barreled, fifteen-foot siege cannon hurling fire and stone at a city wall. I have heard such blasts many times, but my first was at the Battle of Nájera. I remember that first volley. The violence of the gun surged through my blood like ripples through a jostled mug of ale. Smoke stung my eyes and the stench of sulfur burned my nose and my only thought was that not even Satan could have made such thunder when he fell to the earth.

But the clink of a broken bottle in Stowmarket is louder than any cannon in Spain. It is not a gun, and it is not Satan, but the sound ripples through my blood nonetheless.

It is the sound of my own Fall from grace.

I lunge to my knees and scoop at the shards, gashing my hand. My blood mingles with dragon blood upon the spattered stones. I cannot form words. I can only grunt.

“God in Heaven,” Morgan cries.

“Mary’s tits!” Tristan dives to the ground beside me and scoops out handfuls of blood-drenched earth. Zhuri, Morgan and Pantaleon kneel and try to salvage as much of the blood as they can.

Josalyn covers her face and weeps. “I’m . . . I’m so . . .” She cannot get the words out, either because of her injuries or because of her sobbing.

“It is my fault.” Zhuri pounds the earth with a fist. “It is my damnable fault! I am a curse! A curse!”

The thud of footfalls sounds, not far from us. People running. Three soldiers approach us. The same ones who distracted us before and caused the catastrophe.

“
Che cosa è questo
?”

The three men who were running and laughing along the avenue stop a short distance from us. Pantaleon rises, holding a rounded shard of glass with a drop of blood in it. He nods to the three men and speaks to them in Italian. “
Questi idioti appena condannati umanità
.”