Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2) (13 page)

A plaguer refused to bite her. The more I think about Matheus, the more I doubt his motives. But there is nothing disingenuous about the woman riding beside me. I wonder who she is that God would protect her so.

She sees me looking. “Edward,” she says, “do you think Matheus was right? Do you think Hugh the Baptist wanted me to spread God’s word? Is that what happened in there?”

“Hugh the Baptist is a plaguer in a bishop’s hat,” Tristan says. “The only thing he wants spread is your blood on a husk of manchet bread.”

Belisencia does not acknowledge his response but looks to me for an answer. I think about her question for a time as we ride.

Elizabeth reads often, so I brought her many books from France when I returned. Among them was a set of old volumes named Roman de Renard. Elizabeth took a fancy to these books and, after finishing them, tried for several days to make me read them.

“I am a soldier,” I told her. “Books are as useful to me as swords are to monks.”

“If more soldiers read books,” she replied, “then we would not need so many swords.”

“But a soldier I am,” I said. “And you can’t use a book to stop a sword.”

“No,” she replied. “A book cannot stop a sword, but it can stop a war.”

I gave up and read the bloody books. It is no use arguing with her. She always outmaneuvers me. Probably because of all the damnable reading she does.

I thought the stories childish. They were about animals. A fox, a chicken, a wolf, a lion. But I recall one of the stories where the fox steals a chicken, then sees his reflection in a well on his way back home. He mistakes the reflection for his wife and leaps into the bucket. When he is at the bottom of the well he realizes his mistake but has no way to get out.

After a time the wolf looks down into the well and he sees the fox. But he also sees his own reflection, which he, too, mistakes for his wife. Fox calls up from the bottom of the well.

“We are dead, wolf, and this is heaven. Confess your sins and come down in the other bucket and you will achieve the realm of heaven, with fields full of cows and sheep and goats to eat whenever you please.”

The wolf leaps into the second bucket, and while he descends, the first bucket ascends and the fox escapes.

I think of Matheus’s smile and cannot help but feel like a wolf.

“I don’t know if Matheus was right about any of it,” I say to Belisencia. My horse seems to tilt from one side to the other. The sun feels too hot.

“Any of it?” she replies. “You mean about purgatory and all of us being dead already?”

“I don’t feel dead,” I say. “And my wife is not in the well. She is in St. Edmund’s Bury. Where I must return with the cure.”

Belisencia frowns and looks at Tristan. He shrugs and speaks to her with mock solemnity. “His wife is not in the well, Belisencia.”

She looks to me again. “But you looked at the tapestry. You heard Hugh the Baptist speak. We saw the same things, Edward.”

“And yet I think you saw more than I did.” I feel wise and educated; I should read more books.

My smugness fades as I reflect upon what occurred in the Holy Lands. I cannot be certain that Matheus was wrong. I cannot be certain that we are not already in purgatory. There is only one thing I can be certain of, and that is my love for Elizabeth. I will not rest until I have found this alchemist. And if the plague sends the afflicted to heaven, then I will use the cure to bring Elizabeth back to me, if only for an instant. I will kiss her lips, stroke her long fingers, and promise that I will be with her soon. And if God keeps me from my angel, then I will storm the very gates of Paradise. I will lay siege to Kingdom Come. I will muster an army of sappers to topple the walls and towers of heaven itself.

I draw Elizabeth’s glove from the pouch on my hip with as much subtlety as I can muster. I hide it in my hand and pretend to rub at my face so I can smell her scent. The lavender oil is fading.

“If you have doubts, we can return to Matheus,” Belisencia says. “He can explain it again.”

Tristan chuckles. “I don’t think Matheus will be explaining much anymore.”

“What does that mean?” she asks.

“King Matheus,” he says, “has been saved.”

“Saved?” I ask.

“Yes, Edward,” Tristan says. “That’s when your soul is redeemed by the Lord.”

“I know what it means,” I say. “But why do you say that?”

He reaches into his saddlebag and tosses me a ceramic phial. I study it. The seal has been broken. I look back at Tristan. He is eating a strawberry.

“No!” The world stops tilting. I yank my horse to a halt. “Tristan, no!”

“Yes,” he says. “Most assuredly yes. God has freed Matheus from his darkness.”

“What have you done!” Belisencia shrieks. “You fool! You terrible fool! He is a godly man! You have committed a great evil!”

“Tristan,” I shout. “You can’t go around afflicting people! It’s…you…you just can’t!”

His horse pivots in a full circle. When he has control again, Tristan looks at us with a raised brow. “I’m sorry,” he says. “What exactly are the two of you so angry about? Is it because I sent a good man to heaven, or because I sent an evil man to hell?”

Belisencia opens her mouth but no words come out. She looks to me for help. But she will find none. Tristan reads far more than I do.

“It was not your choice to make, Tristan,” I say.

He shrugs. “
Mea maxima culpa
.”

I sigh. “We can reach Hedingham before nightfall if we hurry,” I say. “There’s work to be done. Much work.”

Chapter 18

It takes us several hours to find a place where we can ford the River Box. Boxford is the closest village, but it is not in my interest to visit a village that resembles a prophet’s image of hell. We find a low point in the stream and our horses splash through. Belisencia dismounts and washes the blood from her hair in the river. Tristan talks to me as we wait, but I see his eyes drifting toward the nun kneeling by the water. I wish I could throw myself into that river. My skin feels as if it is on fire. My head pulses to a drumbeat of agony. My wrist is paralyzed with pain from the wound. It sends bolts of torment down my entire forearm. It smells bad and leaks a yellow pus. Tristan sees me sniffing under my gauntlet and chuckles.

“I don’t know where they kept our gauntlets, but they smell terrible,” I lie.

“Mine are fine.” He gives me a wry grin. “I don’t want to make you feel bad, but I don’t think it’s the gauntlets.”

I feel a chill in the air and draw my cape tight around me. “You smell…as bad as I do, Tristan.”

“I haven’t been seducing cattle, Edward.” He laughs, then stops laughing abruptly. “You don’t look well.”

“No,” Belisencia says. She mounts her horse again. “He doesn’t look well at all.”

“I’m fine,” I reply. “Just…just a bit chilly.”

“Then why are you sweating?” Tristan asks.

“I’m fine, Tristan.” The world tilts sharply to the right. The strawberries in my stomach threaten to escape.

“Show me your wrist,” he says. There is something fragile in his voice. A jagged edge of glass. “Show me your wrist.”

I take the gauntlet off and show him my wrist. He lets out a sharp huff of breath and runs a hand through his hair. “How?” he asks. “How did you get that?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. It happened when I was leaving the monastery.”

“How long ago?”

“Two days,” I say. “Too long for it to plague.”

Tristan nods repeatedly. “Two days,” he says. “Two days; that’s good. It couldn’t be plague after two days. It couldn’t.”

“It couldn’t,” I say.

“Are you certain of that?” Belisencia studies the wound warily.

“Of course he is,” Tristan replies. “The wound is simply corrupted. He just needs a good leeching, is all. We need to get him to a barber or a surgeon.”

“The nuns at Hedingham might mend it.” I remember a novice at the nunnery binding my ankle when we first passed through. Has it truly been less than a week since we were there last? I try to count the days but my mind does not cooperate.

“You need a surgeon,” Belisencia says. “Not a nun.”

I try to argue with her, but I know she is right. I do not know if I will make it to Hedingham.

She kicks her horse forward. “Follow me. I believe I know where we can find one.”

Tristan goads his horse forward, makes sure I am following, and rides after her. “Are you sure you don’t want to simply pray the problem away, Sister?”

“If prayer was that effective at removing problems, Tristan, you would not be here.” She sends her horse into a canter.

Tristan looks back at me and shakes his head. “I hate that woman.”

“I’m not sure that you do,” I say.

We kick our horses after her.

Belisencia leads us for two or three miles, to the
praeceptoria
of Maplestead. The compound is surprisingly clear of plaguers, which leads me to believe that the Knights Hospitallers might still man this outpost. The Hospitaller order, originally founded to protect pilgrims in Jerusalem, has properties and hospitals all over England. I have passed this particular property and the hospital within on many occasions during my trips from Bodiam to St. Edmund’s Bury and back. But I have never had a call to use it. And now, when I have call to use it, I did not think of it. I find it difficult to think clearly at all.

“Are you from this area?” I ask Belisencia. “You don’t have a Suffolk accent.”

“This is Essex,” she replies. “And no, I am not from this area. But I have passed through here before. I recognized the area when we forded the Box.”

We ride slowly toward a rising church spire. I feel cold. The wound sends pulses of pain through my body.

“Where are you from, then?” Tristan asks. “What is your family name?”

“We’re here,” Belisencia announces cheerfully.

A cluster of limestone buildings sits among oaks and grassy fields. Meticulously groomed gardens of roses and lavender line the worn paths leading to each of the buildings. The church is the tallest, its tower capped by a domed and shuttered bell cot. Beside it is another large stone structure that I imagine must be the hospital or dorter. Other smaller stone homes sit among hedges and daffodils. An ivied trellis on one side of the church leads through a hedgerow into what looks to be an orchard.

A group of children play among the buildings. They are the first children I have seen playing outside since this ordeal began, and to hear them laughing brings sunlight into my soul. A child being scolded by a woman spots me. The woman scolding him looks to see what he is staring at. She starts and sends the children off toward one of the smaller homes.

“We should run,” Tristan says. “We should run very fast and get very far from this place.”

“What?” Belisencia scowls at him. “This place is beautiful. And peaceful.”

“Precisely,” Tristan says. “We should run.”

But I cannot run. I can barely stay on my horse.

“Walter!” the woman shouts. “Walter!”

A man kneeling by the central path to the hospital stands and brushes loose soil from his trousers and hands. “I see them, Emma.” The man wears what appear to be silk rabbit ears on top of his head. He stoops and picks up the largest crossbow I have ever seen, then points it at us. “If you seek strife, seek it somewhere else,” he says. “We are a peaceful people.”

“I can see that,” Tristan says, laughing. He draws his hand bombard. “Aim the crossbow somewhere else or your warren will lose its bunny chief.”

Another man runs from behind a building and takes position beside Walter. The new man has a smaller crossbow and wears a mouse nose made from felt. He aims the weapon at us and glances at Walter. “What’s all this?”

“Some folk who apparently want to die, Roger,” Walter says. “Some folk who want to die.”

“We’re already dead,” Tristan says. “Haven’t you heard?”

“Tristan, put your cannon away,” I say. “Or this will get out of hand.”

“Out of hand?” Tristan replies. “We’re being threatened by a man wearing rabbit ears and another wearing a mouse nose. It can’t get much more out of hand, Edward.”

The sound of singing rises from behind the church. I glance over and spot a group of men and women holding hands and dancing wildly toward us. Their song is boisterous and their movements carefree, but there is no joy on their faces. In fact they look miserable. The line of them emerges from the orchard. They pass beneath the trellis and caper toward us. All five of us watch their approach.

They dance directly between the two men and our horses, between the crossbows and hand cannon, singing loudly, some of them weeping as they sing. Some throw their legs upward and toss their heads; others dip their shoulders below their waists and rise again. A young woman spins as far as she can while maintaining her hold on her neighbors’ hands, then spins the other way. Her bracelets rattle and chime. Tears stream down her face. Spittle and foam fly from one man’s lips as he skips and hops into the air. A woman rolls her head from side to side so swiftly that I cannot see her face behind the whip of golden hair. Another woman can scarcely sing through her sobs. The line jangles past us, then arcs toward one of the smaller buildings, until all the dancers disappear behind it. The faint sounds of their song echo in the distance.

Tristan clears his throat and shrugs. “I stand corrected.”

EPISODE 4