Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2) (30 page)

“I knew they were trouble, John,” one of the halberdiers says. “They’re like the others.”

“No trouble.” I unstrap Saint Giles’s sword from my waist and hand it to the portly drunk man, John. “We’re no trouble at all.”

Tristan looks at me, sighs, then hands the dagger over.

“Where’s your sword?” John asks Tristan.

“At the bottom of a river,” Tristan says.

“How’d it get to the bottom of a river?”

“Is the alchemist here?” I ask.

“I thought you needed a surgeon,” John says.

“I do. But I also need an alchemist. Is he here?” I try to keep the desperation from my voice.

John studies me for a long time. “Let’s have a look at your wound.”

I show him my wrist. He inspects it, then nods. “We don’t have a surgeon, but we might be able to help. You said you’re friends with Lord Richard? What’s your name?”

“Edward Dallingridge, of Bodiam.”

Knights do not live long unless they have a finely honed sense of danger. The glance that passes between two of the halberdiers is a fleeting one, but even in my fevered state I recognize something dangerous in it.

“Tristan, why don’t you and Belisencia wait outside,” I say.

“Nonsense,” Belisencia replies. “We will stay with you, Edward.”

Tristan does not reply but I see his posture change. I do not think he saw the glance between the halberdiers, but he knows something is wrong now.

“Wait here in the gatehouse,” John says. “I’ll see what can be done for you.”

He walks off, slightly unsteady, toward a smaller gatehouse and another curtain wall of napped flint. It is a hundred paces easily to the gate, so we watch him walk for a long time.

There are no makeshift tents or mattresses in the monastery grounds. There are fishponds and buildings along the river, vineyards and plowed fields, stables and orchards, but there seem to be few people in the abbey grounds. I wonder why the place is not flooded with villagers. I wonder how many soldiers guard this place. I wonder if I will die here, perhaps a hundred paces from my goal.

John stumbles back after a time and climbs into the wagon with us. “Go to the church. Past that small gatehouse.” The wheels chime and John glances at the strips of metal on the wagon wheel. He kicks at the walnuts in the wagon bed. “Where’d you get this cart?”

“It belonged to a simpleton,” I say.

John nods. “Where is the simpleton?”

“He’s with my sword,” Tristan replies.

The church is not impressive for a monastery of this size. It is larger than most village churches but lacks the grandeur of abbey structures. The only interesting feature is an octagonal tower, plated in lead, which rises high above the church. The turret is crowned with a tall spire that juts into the sky, far higher than the smaller Norman tower on the west end. This spire was the one I saw from the marshes.

We leave the cart near the great, iron-hinged doors and John leads us into the church. I feel unsteady on my feet. Belisencia and Tristan try to take my arms but I shrug them off.

“Are you taking us to the alchemist?” I ask.

John does not reply. I have a terrible foreboding. He could be leading us anywhere. We have no weapons, and even if I had my sword, I do not think I could swing it more than once or twice.

The church is narrow. It has no aisles and the choir just past the crossing is a cramped one. The ceiling is vaulted and ribbed, with the faces of monks staring down wherever two ribs intersect.

John walks quickly through the nave to a small arched doorway just before the south transept, and then up a long set of spiral stairs. The stairs wind anticlockwise, of course, and they prove too much for me. I have to stop and sit down several times, my coughs echoing in the stairwell.

John sighs and shuffles his feet each time he has to wait for me. Eventually I get to the top. Small spheres, like tiny beads of glass, appear in my vision and pop like bubbles. I have to lean against the tower wall to stay on my feet. My breath rasps. Tristan looks at me and I nod reassuringly.

John raps on a thick door at the very top of the tower and, after a moment’s wait and the clank of a thick metal latch, the door opens.

Belisencia gasps. Even Tristan backs up a step at the sight. I look past them and see a thin man in the doorway. But he is like no man I have ever seen; this man has the head of a bird.

“Are you ready to die?” the bird man says.

Chapter 45

The bird-headed man turns his beaked face slightly and peers at us. “Oh, these are the knights.” He backs into the octagonal chamber and motions for us to enter. “My apologies. I thought you were someone else.”

John enters the chamber but the three of us remain outside the door. I think Tristan and Belisencia would have fled already if I was in good health. I have seen a bird man like this before. I have had nightmares about such a creature. Long, long ago. But I cannot place the time. I study him closely and realize that he does not have a bird head at all. He merely wears a long-beaked mask.

“You can go in,” I whisper to Tristan. “It’s a mask.”

“I know it’s a mask,” Tristan whispers back. “But knowing doesn’t make me any more inclined to go in.”

I brush past him and understand his hesitation. There are three long trestle tables in the room and all three have bodies chained onto them. The closest is of a powerful-looking naked man. He turns his head toward me. His eyes are like a plaguers’ eyes, only a deep blood red instead of black. He opens his mouth and a monstrous tongue lolls from it as he hisses.

“He is bound by chains,” the thin man says. “He cannot hurt you.”

I step inside. Tristan and Belisencia follow, taking short shuffling steps. Two men in leather jerkins stand just inside the door, short swords at their waists. They watch us carefully, hands on hilts.

The room is like a scholar’s library—the ones where bookshelves have been stacked to dizzying heights and affixed to every wall. Except the shelves do not contain books. They contain phials and flasks, ceramic jars, leather pouches, pestles and mortars, funnels, and round-bottomed flasks, and all manner of what I can only assume are alchemical tools.

“You…” The words will not come out. “You…”

“Yes, his case is quite severe,” the thin man says. “He seems terribly disoriented.”

“You are the alchemist,” I say finally.

The thin man takes off the wide-brimmed hat and slips the mask off his head.

I remember where I saw such masks. When I was a child, during the Black Death. I think doctors used to wear them to keep from contracting the Plague.

The alchemist walks to a peg and carefully hangs the hat, then places the mask on a shelf beside the peg. He studies the mask, uses both hands to adjust its position, studies it again, and nods.

“I am a scholar,” he says. “Alchemists search for what
might be
. I study what
is
.”

“So, is there a cure?” I say.

The alchemist studies me for a long moment, then shrugs. “Might be.”

He threads his way through the tables toward the back wall of the tower.

“You cannot imagine the things we have gone through to get here,” I say. “Tell me, please, is there a cure for this plague? I must know.”

“Patience is bitter,” the alchemist says, “but its fruit is sweet. Come to my workspace first so that I might look at your wound.”

I follow the alchemist past the first table, the one with the powerfully built naked man. The man hisses again; his red eyes follow me.

The second table holds another naked man, but this one’s eyes are normal. His bound hand stretches toward me as I pass and a single tear streaks down his cheek. He opens his mouth and I see no tongue. His throat is blistered and yellow and raw, but he manages a sorrowful croak.

I cannot look closely at the last table. It is like a butcher’s block. A man has been cut open from throat to groin, and his ribs have been pulled apart. I have seen men cut wide open on the battlefield, but there is something ghastly about seeing one cut up in such a methodical fashion and displayed in this way. As I pass, the head turns toward me and I jump back so sharply that I clatter against the second table.

“He’s alive!” I shout. Mother Mary, the man is still alive. His eyes are completely black. Belisencia squeals and covers her mouth, buries her face in Tristan’s chest.

The alchemist has taken position at a wide wooden shelf that is set into one wall and supported by chains that rise to the ceiling. He glances back. “Yes, he is alive. Do not disturb him.”

“Lucifer’s bollocks!” Tristan says. “He’s disturbing me!”

“What are you doing to him?” I ask.

The alchemist sighs deeply. “You are fighting men,” he replies. “It is beyond your understanding.” He sees my expression and holds up a hand. “I mean no offense. Such things are simply beyond the scope of men like you.”

“How could that possibly be offensive?” Tristan says.

“Who are these people?” I ask.

The alchemist crosses his arms. “I had been led to believe one of you had a wound that needed tending.”

I hold out my arm and the alchemist studies my wound, smells it, then holds my wrist up to one of the arched windows. I glance out and see a lone horseman riding south. The alchemist shakes his head. “English medicine can do nothing for this wound.”

Tristan takes a step toward him. “What kind of—”

“And so,” The alchemist says sharply, “it is a good thing that you came to me, for I do not rely solely upon English medicine.” He walks a few paces along the perimeter of the tower and gestures to one of the guards at the doorway. “Daniel, the ladder, if you please.” The guard, blond and sharp-eyed, fetches a ladder leaning near the doorway and brings it to the alchemist. When the guard nears me, I notice strange mottled scars across his forehead and one side of his jaw. “Fifth shelf,” the alchemist says. “In a jar with a green circle painted on it.”

Daniel climbs the ladder, takes the thick jar in two hands, and carefully steps down. The alchemist brings the jar to the workbench and removes the thick cork from the top. A vile odor fills the air. It is like the smell of a dead fish left out in the sun for days, then dropped into a bowl of rotted eggs. Inside the jar is a brown paste.

“What is that filth?” I ask.

“That
filth
,” the alchemist says, “is Malta fungus. It is a medicine found on a rock off the coast of an island called Gozo. The Knights Hospitaller discovered the rock upon which it grew and they guard the site as if it were the king’s bedchamber. To take fungus from the rock without permission is punishable by death.” He holds up the jar and waves it under his nose. “This
filth
is so rare in Europe that only royalty can afford it. The Muslims call it ‘The Great Treasure’ because of its almost magical curative powers.” He wedges the cork back onto the jar. “I have fifty-four drams of it left. Perhaps I should save it for someone who appreciates it.”

I look at the jar. In my travels throughout Europe I have discovered a curious thing. The farther something travels, the more power it is perceived to have. A fruit that not even children will eat in Jerusalem will become an expensive cure for shingles in England. And a gourd grown in England will take on magical powers in Italy. But I have exhausted my country’s best cures. And something about this alchemist gives me confidence.

“How does it work?” I ask.

He tsks and shakes his head. “As I mentioned before, you are fighting men. It is beyond your understanding. And as before, I mean no offense. Such things are simply beyond the scope of men like you.”

I look into the jar and nod. “Cure me. Do what you have to do.”

What he has to do, apparently, is bring me incomparable amounts of pain. He cleanses the wound with a fluid that makes me feel as if burning coals are being thrust under my skin. Then he cuts at the wound—his knife making sounds like footsteps in a distant swamp—to open it wide. The workbench trembles under my grip. I look away until I hear the sound of a cork being pulled free and smell the putrid odor of the Malta fungus.

“Interestingly, it is not really a fungus,” he says. “It is a tuber.”

“That is truly fascinating,” Tristan says. “Don’t you find that fascinating, Edward?”

I stare into Tristan’s eyes and let him see my displeasure. I do not want to anger this alchemist. He is the last man on earth I want to anger.

The alchemist glances up at me. “You said you were a friend of Richard FitzAlan?”

I nod. “I am Sir Edward Dallingridge. My family and his have been very close for many generations.”

The alchemist nods. “Perhaps, then, before I finish the treatment, I could ask something of you.”

Take while the patient is in pain
.

I let out a long breath. “I’m not in a position to refuse, am I?”

“Do you know the earl of Warwick?” he asks. “Thomas de Beauchamp?”

“I have met him several times,” I say. “But I don’t know him well.”

“He is my patron,” the alchemist says. “And I need to get a message to him. I understand Lord Richard and he are good friends. Perhaps you could deliver a message for me?”

“I haven’t seen Lord Richard in six months,” I say. “And I haven’t seen Warwick in longer than that. I can’t even tell you if they are alive.”

The alchemist sighs. “Do you have any men?” he asks. “Any soldiers you could lend me?”

I shrug. “Back in Sussex I have men. But I haven’t been to my home in nearly three weeks. Heaven knows if anyone is left back there. But if you have a cure for the plague, I will give you everything I have.”

The alchemist shakes his head and uses a cylindrical brush to apply the salve to my wound. It stings but is also quite cool.

“Why do you need the men?” I ask.

“Because people are learning that I am here,” he says. “They are discovering what it is I am doing. And they do not like it.”

“And what exactly are you doing here?” I ask. “Have you found a cure? An alchemical cure? Is that what people don’t like?”

He covers the wound with a linen pad soaked in a clear fluid, then bandages it neatly with linen strips.