Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2) (10 page)

“Must you lose your hands to be saved?” I ask.

“Not at all,” the soldier says. “But it helps.”

I spot an old ox mill operated by the afflicted. The plaguers lurch in circles after a bloody goat, their bodies harnessed to a shaft that rotates with them and transfers their energy to the millstone.

The soldiers lead our horses behind us as we climb a shallow slope. On the other side of the hill lies a small village—ten or twelve thatched homes arranged in a straight line. Opposite them, a few hundred paces away behind stone walls, sits a manor house with a tiled roof. The gates are open, and I see a fishpond at one side of the home. The manor is modest in size, but the owner is expanding.

A new wing, half-built, rises on the east end. Plaguers wearing the bizarre wooden masks and leather harnesses are tied together into groups of three and four. They strain and lurch, reaching for men who walk backward. The men hold clay pots in their hands and stir something inside with wooden spoons. As the plaguers stagger toward the men, they drag large blocks of sandstone roped to their harnesses.

“Hugh the Baptist has an army of slaves,” Tristan says.

“You say such things because you are ignorant of the truth,” the soldier replies.

“I’m sure you’re right,” Tristan says. “Those harnessed plaguers probably enjoy doing the work of draft animals.”

“You will be enlightened by Hugh the Baptist. He will free you from your darkness.”

“I’m sorry, but I find it difficult to be enlightened by someone named Hugh the Baptist,” Tristan says. “What sort of name is that? It’s not even biblical. He might as well be called Ralf the Baptist. Can you imagine if Jesus had been named Ralf? Ralf of Nazareth. Doesn’t really invoke the same sort of awe, does it? I don’t think Christianity would have had quite the—”

“Silence!” the soldier shouts.

“Do not make things worse with your blasphemy, Tristan,” Belisencia says.

“Worse?” Tristan scoffs. “They are going to plague me, cut off my hands, and harness me to a plough until my body falls apart. I’m interested in your definition of worse.”

“In hell,” Belisencia says, “your body will not fall apart. You will continue to plough for eternity. But the plough will be ten times as heavy. And the harness you wear will be made of fire.”

“I’m not sure you completely understand how harnesses and fire work, Sister,”

“I understand how the fire in that tent worked,” she says. “And you would have had an intimate understanding of it if I hadn’t scraped the burning canvas off you.”

“Did I ever thank you for that?” Tristan asks.

“Not once,” Belisencia replies.

“Good.”

We approach the gates and the first soldier points to an outbuilding of stone that lies to one side of the manor house. Flowers have been wreathed around the door and an intricate crucifix made from bits of curved wood hangs from the eaves. “That’s the sacred temple of Hugh the Baptist.”

“That name again,” Tristan says, laughing. “Hugh. Hugh the Baptist. I knew a man named Gruelthorpe. Now there’s a name. Not a biblical name either, but I can respect a man named Gruelthorpe. Gruelthorpe the Baptist is a man who will dunk you whether you want to be dunked or not. He’d have converted thousands.”

The soldier nods to the others and I know what is coming; I have seen Tristan elicit that nod more times than I can count.

“Tristan…” I shout, but it is too late. One of the soldiers swings his spear shaft and cracks Tristan in the back of the head. I turn and drive my shoulder into the soldier and he falls backward. Two of the other men grab my arms. Tristan is on his knees, one hand on the ground, the other on his head. I struggle against the two soldiers and free an arm. But a third and fourth man join in. They each take hold of a limb and drive me into the ground. They hold me motionless while another soldier draws back his spear to slam the end of the shaft into my face. I close my eyes and turn my head away.

“Leave him!”

I wait two heartbeats before opening one eye and glancing toward the gate. A man with long ringlets of black hair steps toward us. He wears a monk’s robe and a smile that holds so much goodwill that I am instantly suspicious. His hands are covered in blood. “He struggles because he does not yet know the Truth. Cease your struggles, Knight. I am Matheus, king of the Holy Lands. Cease your struggles and listen to the words of the Lord.”

Another king.

King Matheus raises his bloodstained hands in a gesture that I assume is meant to convey holiness. But the blood and his overreaching smile make him look malevolent. He walks back through the gate and stops halfway to the manor house at a marble font that looks like it was taken from a church. Two priests near the font fix us with solemn stares. A young man in a white robe holds a platter of strawberries.

The soldiers shove us forward until we are a few paces from Matheus and the marble basin. Many more soldiers stand guard around the manor house, including two scarred men with hard eyes and the olive skin of foreign mercenaries. These two towering predators stand by the door to the manor house, ten paces from Matheus and the priests.

Six or seven people in white robes form a line that leads to the font. A girl who cannot be older than nine is among them.

“How are there pilgrims already?” Tristan asks. “People will follow any cause if they believe there is a breath of religion in it. I should set up my own font. Change my name to Gruelthorpe.”

“Knights will follow any cause if there is a breath of violence in it,” Belisencia says. “I should set up my own throne. Change my name to Richard.”

“You don’t look much like a Richard,” Tristan says. He studies her. “You’re more of a Ralf.”

I look at the pilgrims, and I understand them. These are people starved of hope. When you are starving, you will eat whatever is given to you in the hope that it is food. I, too, am starving, but the Church has not fed me. Nor has it nourished my wife.

My breath catches when I think of Elizabeth. The machinery of sorrow rattles in my head, but I shut down the mill before it can grind out tears. I will feast on alchemy. I will leave this hellish place, find the cure, and devour the love of my woman.

At the front of the pilgrims stands a freckled woman with hair so blonde it is nearly white. Blood runs in rivers down her face and soaks the collar and back of her robe. The dark red looks black against her pale tresses. She wipes blood from her eyes and smiles rapturously.

There is an instant where I see Elizabeth in this women. My beloved has few freckles upon her face, but her legs are spattered with them. I have spent many drowsy hours tracing figure eights between these marks with my forefinger. I wonder if those freckles will still speckle her legs when I bring her the cure. Or if her flesh will be blackened and stained, her mind lost in the madness of this plague. Every heartbeat I spend here brings my angel one heartbeat closer to destruction. The machinery in my head clanks again, but this time it is rage I feel, not sorrow.

I shrug the soldiers away and bellow at Matheus. “I am Edward of Bodiam, a knight of Sussex and friend to King Richard and the earl of Arundel! You cannot hold us here!”

“I will not hold you here, Sir Edward,” Matheus says. “I only wish to save you.” The serving boy plucks a strawberry from the platter and feeds it to Matheus.

“Forcing us to contract the plague is not salvation,” Tristan says.

The cut on my wrist throbs, but I think perhaps it is simply a festering of the wound. It could not be the plague. Not after two days. I wipe sweat from my brow with the leather palm of my gauntlet and take a deep breath. Matheus gives me a bemused smile. “You have misheard,” he says. “No one will force you to contract the plague.”

Belisencia covers her face with her hands. “Thank Mary and Joseph,” she says. “Thank the saints and the angels.”

Matheus steps forward and strokes Belisencia’s hair with bloody fingers; it leaves streaks of gore in her hair. “My poor sister. Did you really think I would force you to do such a thing?” He shakes his head and the boy feeds him another strawberry. “The three of you will listen to Hugh the Baptist,” he says, chewing the strawberry. “And then you will afflict yourselves.”

Chapter 14

Matheus whispers to one of the priests, a bald man with a pocked face, then walks a dozen paces to a stout oaken table beside the fishpond. He stands beside one of the benches and waves us toward him. The guards reinforce his request. When we are seated at the opposite bench, Matheus sits and smiles at us. The young man brings the platter of strawberries and sets it on the table.

I think of my Elizabeth again, bound and dying in St. Edmund’s Bury, and I fight the rage that builds within me once again. We are wasting time. We are wasting Elizabeth’s time. “There is nothing you or your baptist can say to make us afflict ourselves.”

“And yet,” Matheus says, “you will.” The boy feeds him another strawberry and Matheus speaks as he chews. “Hugh the Baptist will bring peace to your soul. He will free you from the darkness.”

I hear the bald priest speaking to the next white-robed person in line. “You were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he says. “And today you will be baptized in the Blood of Christ.” I glance over. The priest lifts the silver ladle from the font and tips it over the head of a young man with dark hair. The man stiffens as the blood slips past the collar of his robe and down his back.

“Whose blood it that?” Tristan asks. “Is that from the afflicted?”

Hugh shakes his head. “It is lamb’s blood. But during the sacred ritual, the blood becomes that of Christ.”

“How do you know that it becomes Christ’s blood?” Tristan asks.

“Because God told Hugh the Baptist that it does,” Matheus replies.

“Have you ever considered that perhaps a mule kicked Hugh the Baptist in the head?”

The second priest leads the blonde woman toward the small stone outbuilding the guards first pointed out. The temple of Hugh the Baptist is little more than a storage hut.

I turn back to Matheus. “I have an urgent matter to attend to.” I try to keep the edge from my voice. “You have no authority to hold us here.”

“I am king of the Holy Lands,” Matheus says. “I have been given the authority by God and Hugh the Baptist.”

Tristan taps my shoulder. “If Hugh the Baptist gave him the authority, we really can’t argue.”

“Quiet, Tristan,” I say.

Matheus chuckles. Despite my contempt for this man, I see the eloquence of speech and demeanor that makes people follow him. He has a warm gaze and a quick smile, and though his geniality seemed affected at first, I am not certain of this now. When cruelty surrounds you for long enough, you learn to fear kindness.

I do not know if Matheus is sincere or not. Perhaps he truly believes what he says. But I despise him either way, because he keeps me from my Elizabeth. The door to the stone outbuilding opens with a creak. I glance back. The blood-spattered woman takes several deep breaths, nods as if to herself, then steps inside. The priest follows her and shuts the door.

The bald priest at the font continues to shout: “All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him, by baptism, into death. Just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too will walk in newness of life.”

I look back at Matheus and he smiles again. A peaceful smile. “You do not know Hugh,” he says. “He is the shepherd in the storm. He gathers the lambs and sends them home. He will bring peace to your soul. He will free you from your darkness. You will understand soon.”

A woman’s scream from the outbuilding shreds the reverential silence of the manor grounds.

“I think that woman understands now,” Tristan says.

Belisencia puts a hand to her chest; her gaze darts from the outbuilding to Matheus. “Why did she scream?”

“It is Rapture,” Matheus says.

“Rapture sounds a lot like agony,” Tristan replies.

The door to the outbuilding opens and the priest steps out. A moment later, the woman stumbles forward, one hand on the doorframe, head low. There is more blood on her now. Something has savaged her shoulder just above the collarbone. It is a wound that only teeth can create.

She has been afflicted.

My stomach roils. It is likely that this lovely woman was someone’s Elizabeth. And Matheus has murdered her.

“Is she…? Did she…?” Belisencia covers her mouth.

“She has received eternal salvation,” Matheus says. “God has freed her from her darkness.”

“If I believed in hell,” Tristan says, “there would be a place for you in Lucifer’s fiery garderobe.”

“Sir Tristan, is it?” Matheus asks. “Do you not believe in hell?”

“I do,” Tristan replies. “I rode a unicorn through it once.”

Matheus smiles. “What if I were to show you hell?”

“You don’t need to show me hell,” Tristan says. “The longer I am forced to talk to you, the more I believe in it.”

Matheus turns away from Tristan and the veneer of sincerity slips for an instant. In that moment, I catch sight of the real Matheus, the puppet master behind the curtain. He glances my way, sees me staring, and smiles.

“I will show you hell, Sir Tristan. It is a short distance from here. I will show you hell and I will tell you what God said to Hugh the Baptist. And when I am done, the three of you will, of your own volition, do precisely what that virtuous young woman just did.”

I stand and lean toward Matheus, my arms trembling with rage. I see soldiers move toward the table at the corners of my vision. “And if we don’t do what she did? What then, king of the Holy Lands?”

Matheus shrugs, his eyes on the afflicted woman. “Then you will have rejected God.” He glances at the two hulking mercenaries by the font. “And you will burn as heathens.”

The dark-haired young man in pilgrim’s robes is escorted toward Hugh the Baptist’s temple next. I look at the woman who afflicted herself. She sits on the grass by the manor house carving and whittling at a rounded block of wood. A stocky man sits beside her and helps her with the work. It takes me a moment to realize that she is making a mask. The mask she will wear when she turns.