Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2) (16 page)

“How do you get thirty dancing men and women into a barn?” Tristan asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

“With great difficulty,” Tristan says, laughing. “They really are an interesting mob. Walter tells me that they hate pointy shoes. Can you imagine that? Whatever makes them dance also makes them hate pointy shoes. And the color red.” He smiles distantly. “I didn’t believe him, so I took one of Belisencia’s pointy boots and showed it to the dancers. God’s teeth, Edward, you should have seen it! They
do not
like pointy shoes.” He grows sober and shakes his head wistfully. “Not one bit.”

“Where…where is Belisencia?” I ask.

Tristan shrugs. “She’s in the barn with Roger, trying to get the remains of her boot back.”

“Shush,” Paul says. “I need to concentrate.” I turn away from the blast of foul air. Paul slides a metal file beneath the edges of a leech until the suction breaks and the worm releases its hold. He does this with each of the leeches. When the swollen leeches are back in their jar, he sets strips of wet, mold-ridden bread over the wound using linen bandages to hold the bread in place. I have seen surgeons do this before. Something in the mold eats the infection, although I do not know how or why. And I do not think the surgeons do, either.

Paul turns to Tristan. “That is all I can do for him!” he shouts. He still thinks Tristan is hard of hearing. “As I said, the stars are against your friend! He will probably die in horrible pain!”

“Are…are you supposed to say that in front of me?” I croak.

Paul pats my arm. “False hope is no hope at all.”

I despise doctors.

Paul tells me that I must remain in bed for at least two days, if I live that long. But if I am to die, I will die riding toward Elizabeth’s cure. I stagger upright. The floorboards feel cold against my bare feet. “Tristan, my clothes.”

“Edward, it pains me to say this, but perhaps Paul is right.”

I nod to appease him, but he knows I won’t change my mind.

I pick up my boots and perch on the bed to pull them on. Tristan sighs and helps me dress. Everything except my armor. He gathers my breastplate and cuisses and walks toward the door with them. “You can put your harness on when you feel better,” he says. “Its weight will only make you weaker now.”

I know he is right, but I mutter a protest to stave off one of his smirks and deny him satisfaction.

Belisencia waits for us outside, already on her horse, and wearing mismatched boots. Walter and Roger hold crossbows on their shoulders.

“No offense intended,” Walter says, “but don’t come back. Ever.”

Tristan has to boost me into my saddle. Children peer out from behind buildings to look at us. Belisencia waves to them and a few wave back.

“The Bible says that children are a gift from God,” she says as we ride away from the
praeceptoria
.

“That can’t be in the New Testament,” Tristan says. “Children are noisy, rude little people that act like drunkards and piss their pants. They are always getting into trouble and never listen to anything they are told. A gift worthy of the Old Testament God.”

Belisencia looks thoughtful. “Noisy. Rude. Always in trouble. Never listen. Act like drunkards. Why does this sound so familiar to me?” She looks at Tristan and raises a brow.

“Sister Belisencia,” Tristan replies, “how dare you suggest that Sir Edward is childish.”

“Did Tristan tell you that he wet his pants once on the battlefield?” I say.

“Edward!” Tristan shouts. “That was perspiration!”

“He had to…pardon me, my lady…piss before the battle started but the horns sounded and he had no time. A French bastard hit him low on the breastplate with a mace and suddenly Tristan had a groin full of
perspiration
.” The jostling of the horse hurts my head, but I feel better. Perhaps the sleep helped.

Belisencia laughs. “I had no idea groins perspired so much.”

“Sweat accumulates there,” Tristan says. “Did Edward tell you that someone threw up in his great helm once?”

“Tristan…” I do not like this story.

“Edward didn’t know until he put the helmet on, but he was already running toward the city walls, so he couldn’t clean himself off. Fought the rest of the battle with chunks of rabbit stew dripping onto his neck.”

“That is a total fabrication.” I say.

We ride a hundred paces before I speak again.

“It was chicken stew.”

Hedingham is only five miles from Maplestead, which is a good thing because I do not think I can ride very far. Fire still courses through my arm, and my strength has not returned.

A sprinkling of rain falls on us from the cloud-swept skies as we ride a muddy track heading westward. I call a halt a mile from the
praeceptoria
and slide down from my horse.

Tristan dismounts and joins me.

A dead fox lies among a patch of buttercups on the side of the old track. I kneel beside the corpse and unwrap the dressing that Paul made.

Tristan kneels next to me. “Oh Lord,” he says, “we commend the soul of our friend, fox, into your arms. Forgive him his chicken-killing ways and accept him into your kingdom.”

“Shut your mouth and help me collect maggots,” I say.

“I didn’t realize you had a maggot collection, Ed,” he replies. “Not to cast judgment, but have you ever thought about wood carvings instead? Or maybe little ceramic statues?”

I pick maggots from the fox’s flesh, feeling them flail in my fingers, and drop them into my helmet. The first time I saw a surgeon fill a man’s wound with maggots, it nearly made me sick. But I have seen such treatment many times now, and I know how useful these little creatures can be. Leeches and maggots. I thought my own personal path to salvation depended on chickens. But it is worms that will deliver me.

Tristan shakes his head. “I’m sorry Ed, I can’t. Have I ever told you of my deep disgust for maggots?”

“What are you two doing?” Belisencia walks toward us holding the reins of all three horses.

“Edward is hungry,” Tristan says.

Belisencia looks at the rotting fox and shudders. “Have you both gone mad?”

Tristan grins. “In these times of madness, only
maggots
will save us.”

When I have harvested two dozen of the maggots, I give Tristan the helmet and tell him to tilt it over my wound slowly, so that the maggots fall onto it a few at a time. He nods. I clench my teeth and open the cut with my fingers. Four maggots fall onto my wrist. One of them slips into the wound, another falls half in and half out but wriggles inside. The other two fall to the ground. Tristan tilts the helmet several times, until ten of the maggots have made a home of my wound. I smear the wet bread over the gash so that some of the mold settles inside.

“That is the second most repulsive thing I have ever seen,” Belisencia says.

“It is vile,” Tristan says. “But seeing you kiss that doctor was worse.”

I wrap the moldy bread in the linen bandages and tuck them into my saddlebag. “What’s the first most repulsive?” I ask Belisencia.

She sets her gaze on Tristan and crosses her arms.

I chuckle and kick my horse forward. My fever does not seem as bad. Perhaps Paul’s treatment is working. I look skyward and pray to Saint Giles and Saint Luke for healing. I say a prayer to House Gemini, too, just in case.

We ride again through the worsening rain, leaning low in our saddles. Our horses send up crowns of water with each plodding step. A few hours before sundown, I see something that makes me yank the reins hard enough to make my gelding nicker. We stop on the muddy track, the rain nattering off Tristan’s spaulders.

“Edward,” Tristan says. “Where is Hedingham from here?”

I point to the southwest with a trembling finger. “There,” I say.

We stare silently. A column of black smoke rises from the direction in which I point.

Chapter 22

We ride swiftly toward the column of smoke. The lively pace makes my head throb and keeps me gasping for breath, but I note these things absently. My only thoughts are of my friends, Morgan and Zhuri, and of the nuns of Hedingham.

We crest a small hill crowned with oaks and spot the nunnery. The walled convent used to lie among green fields and hickory rows, but today there is nothing but charred earth in a wide circle around it. We storm down the hill toward the convent. Countless skeletons lie blackened and smoldering upon the scorched ground, curled in on themselves in the agony of death. The nunnery itself does not seem affected by the fire. The limestone walls stand untouched. No smoke rises from the arched, tile-roofed buildings of the convent.

“It would seem they had plaguer problems,” I say.

“Demons,” Belisencia says. “They had demons at their gates.”

We ride through the circle of death, our horses picking paths through the charcoal husks that once were humans. Perhaps they were not plaguers. Perhaps the nunnery was attacked.

Two soldiers gaze at us from the wall. One calls down and the wooden gates creak open slowly. Our horses amble inside and two soldiers with spears approach as the gates close again behind us.

“Dismount and remove your clothing,” the first man says.

“We’re not plagued,” I say as we dismount. “Tell Sister Margaret that Sir Edward of Bodiam has returned with what he promised.”

The soldiers look to one another and back to me. One of them runs off toward the chapter house.

“What do you think of your new home?” Tristan says to Belisencia.

Belisencia looks around and shrugs. “It is a nunnery. They all look the same.”

“Will you stay here then?” Tristan asks.

“I do not know,” she says. “I miss my home. I may return to Hampshire.”

“Hampshire?” Tristan says. “What is your family name? I know Hampshire well.”

“Hampshire is lovely,” she says. “I wonder how badly the plague has affected it.”

“What is your family name?” Tristan says it firmly this time.

Someone shouts my name. I look toward the dormitories and see a familiar face. It is my friend, Zhuri, the Moor. He sprints the last ten paces and nearly knocks me over with his embrace.

“Edward! Tristan! It is wonderful to see you!” Zhuri still keeps a short and meticulously groomed beard, but he wears a leather gambeson from the garrison and tall brown boots. He almost looks like an Englishman.

We met Zhuri in Danbury, at a manor house that became overrun with plaguers. Zhuri escaped with us and we traveled to Hedingham, where he has remained to watch over our afflicted friend, Morgan.

“We thought the monastery had been fired,” Tristan says as Zhuri embraces him.

“We are fine,” Zhuri replies. “A mob of plaguers found us. The walls at the nunnery are not completely sound, so we decided to strike them before they discovered a way in.” Zhuri glances toward the gate, his lips clenched tightly. “May Allah forgive us.”

“He will,” Tristan says. “You look well, Zhuri. I trust living in a fortress that houses three-dozen women and only a handful of men has been satisfying?”

Zhuri smiles. “It has Tristan. It has.”

“You were right to strike first,” I say. “I don’t like the way the stones lean on the eastern wall. They’ll tumble if enough pressure is put on them. “Thank you, Edward. I will let the nuns know.” Zhuri claps me on the shoulder. “Tell me, Edward, did you find her? Did you find your Elizabeth?”

I say nothing. We found Elizabeth. Locked in a hall with dozens of plaguers. Three men in that hall had shown signs of plague, so the monks at St. Edmund’s Bury sealed the doors, locking everyone inside. Dooming the lords and ladies of Suffolk—and one angel from Bodiam—to either death or plague. I found my Elizabeth. And I suppose I should be happy that it was plague and not death.

Zhuri sees my expression and bows his head. “I am so terribly sorry,” he says. “Is she alive, Edward?”

“She is alive”—I take a breath to steady myself—“but she is not herself.”

“My sorrow has no words, dear friend,” he replies. “Perhaps I can provide a small amount of cheer.”

I look into his eyes. “Cheer?”

He smiles. “I have acquired some information that may bring you a gleam of hope. But first…” He turns to Belisencia with a dashing smile and a deep bow. He takes her hand and kisses it several times. “Who do I have the pleasure of setting my eyes upon?”

Tristan takes Belisencia’s hand from Zhuri’s. “That’s Belisencia. And she is promised to a doctor in Maplestead.”

“Do not listen to him,” she says, smiling at Zhuri. “He is full of lies.”

“My lady,” Zhuri says, “I learned long ago to ignore the words of Sir Tristan. I am Zhuri of Granada.”

“Belisencia,” she replies, “of…Hampshire.”

“Tell me the information.” My voice is gruffer than I intended. It chases away their smiles. Zhuri nods and glances back as the doors to the rectory open and Sister Margaret emerges. “Do you remember the witch Isabella?” he whispers.

I cannot possibly forget Isabella. A woman we rescued in Chelmsford. After saving her, we discovered that she was spreading the plague, selling poisonous phials like the ones Tristan still carries. It was her afflicted dogs who put Morgan in the wine cellar of this nunnery. And it was Isabella who spoke to us about the alchemist and a possible cure for the plague. The witch was killed in a gun explosion not long after setting her dogs on us, and pieces of her body may still litter the northern reaches of Waltham Forest.

“What of her?” I ask.

“Do you remember she said that an alchemist had the cure for the plague?” he whispers.

“Yes,” I say. “We’re trying to find the simpleton that Isabella spoke of. The man who works for the alchemist.”

Zhuri beams. “I know where he is,” he says. “I know where the simpleton lives.”

Sister Margaret arrives with another nun and two soldiers. We greet her and I hand over Saint Luke’s thighbone. Margaret speaks to me; her tone is a grateful one, but I do not hear her words.

Zhuri has found the simpleton
.

We are one step away from the alchemist. One step from a cure. I imagine myself pouring drops of elixir into Elizabeth’s delicate mouth. I see her waking. Her long fingers reaching up to touch my face. A smile playing across her lips. I know what I will say to her when she wakes. I will gaze into her blue eyes and say, “
Je suis apprivoisé.
”
I am tame.
She will call me a wonderful fool, wrap one arm behind my neck, and kiss me. I can feel her warm body against mine, feel the tears of joy stinging my eyes.