Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2) (37 page)

“We’re wasting time,” Tristan says. “We should get back to the monastery as quickly as we can.”

“And how will we get past the army of plaguers that will be waiting for us, Tristan?”

He rubs at his cheek. “We can…well…”

“How will we get into the monastery?” I ask.

“There must be…” he stares toward the estuary and thinks.

“How will we defeat forty armed-and-armored men?”

No one speaks for a long time. We would need at least fifty men to assault the monastery. Eighty would be better. And we would need armor and weapons for all of them. Cutting a path through plaguers is dangerous enough with a full harness. In brigandine, with exposed legs, arms, and hands, it would be suicide. And even if we did have our full kits, it would be pointless if we could not find a way into the abbey.

A wind gusts, and one of Praeteritus’s pigeon feathers comes free from his crest and hits me in the face. I turn to him, irked at the interruption, and am struck by a thought so powerful that I know I cannot take credit for it. It is divine intervention. I hear the voice of God.

“I…I know how to do it,” I say. “Dear God in heaven, I know how to do it.”

Chapter 57

The clouds strangle the sun slowly as our army marches toward the Abbey of St. Benet’s. We are two hundred eighty-four strong, but our soldiers do not march properly. They stumble in the marshy fenland, and their ranks grow farther and farther apart as they slosh onward. Only a few of them have well-crafted weapons. They carry clubs and sickles, rusted axes and sharpened plough blades. There is not a single plate of armor among them, but we need none. Because God will be our armor.

We loop around a thick stand of alders and the walls of the abbey come into view. Everything around them comes into view as well. I draw up so short that one of my soldiers steps on the dragon carcass Tristan and I drag behind us.

“House of fucking Gemini.” Tristan looks toward the monastery, both hands holding the rope that passes over his shoulder. We all gaze toward the monastery.

I have not seen so many plaguers since leaving St. Edmund’s Bury. Hundreds of afflicted men and women crowd the landscape. Rank upon rank of them howl at the walls. They are like ocean waves, rippling and crashing against the abbey. The skies continue to darken and a spattering rain falls upon us, striking the exposed backs of my hands like dull pins.

“Every plaguer within twenty miles must be here,” I say.

“It shouldn’t matter,” Praeteritus says. He holds a tall cross made from yew branches. Moses leading his people out of Egypt.

“
Shouldn’t matter
isn’t the most reassuring thing ever said to me,” Tristan replies.

“Forward!” I shout to our soldiers. “Forward!” And our soldiers advance.

When the abbey walls are a quarter mile away, my army begins to sing. Their voices echo hauntingly across the marshland. No monks could ever hope to match the harmonic passion of my soldiers. It is the song of angels, risen from the bodies of demons.

“
Dies iræ!
”
they sing
.
“
Dies illa Solvet sæclum in favilla: Teste David cum Sibylla!
”

I recognize their song. It is the “Dies Irae.” Day of Wrath. A hymn about Judgment Day, often used in funeral masses, so it is appropriate on several levels.

Some of the plaguers turn to look at us when they hear the song. Many shamble in our direction. Tristan and I move deeper into the ranks of our army and pull the cowls tightly around our faces. My heart is like a maddened sparrow. This may be the worst idea that has ever come to me.

“
Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando iudex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discussurus!
”

The first group of plaguers reaches us. A dozen or so. Men and women with blackened skin, bleeding sores, and terrible wounds. Their hair is plastered to their scalps by the rain. They fall into step with the leper army and stare with inkwell eyes, turn their heads to one side, then the other. I imagine they can smell me and Tristan and Praeteritus. Or perhaps they smell the dead dragon. But they do nothing. They turn away a few at a time and slosh back toward the monastery.

God is our armor.

“It’s working!” Tristan whispers. “It’s working! This is the stupidest brilliant idea you’ve ever had, Edward, but it’s working.”

Two banners hang from the abbey gatehouse: Sir Gerald’s three roosters, and Sir Brian’s lion and staff. Both flutter in the Norfolk wind despite the rain. The song of the lepers falters and many point toward the banners. Praeteritus tells them to keep singing, and they do.

“What’s wrong with them?” I ask.

Praeteritus gestures toward the banners with his chin. “Remember how I told you that soldiers massacred a lot of the lepers?”

I remember. When the lepers left Norwich, soldiers attacked them on the road, blaming them for the plague. The survivors settled in Caistor St. Edmund, where Praeteritus found them.

He spits to one side. “The men who attacked them wore the lion and staff.”

“Sir Brian of Yarmouth,” I reply. “He and his soldiers are inside.”

Praeteritus’s hands clench tightly around the cross. “Not for long.”

“
Mors stupebit, et natura, Cum resurget creatura, ludicanti responsura
.”

None of the lepers objected when Praeteritus told them about St. Benet’s. Not one of his subjects spoke out against the idea. He promised them a home, and today they will fight for one.

“
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus, Cum vix iustus sit securus?
”

The true test of my idea will come when we reach the moat. Plaguers quiver and snarl at the water, four or five ranks deep, their skins glistening from the rain. Occasionally, one of them topples into the water. I peer through breaks in their lines and see that the moat itself is full of floating plaguers. And beyond the moat, at the abbey walls, two dozen dripping plaguers stand wailing and clawing at the flint.

Our army is undaunted. They march directly at the moat. Their song grows louder as we near the howling mass of plaguers, as if the coming confrontation gives the lepers strength. And when the first rank of my army touches the last rank of plaguers, something astounding happens. The afflicted move away. They retreat from the lepers, shoving one another in their haste to get clear. A dozen more bodies fall into the moat as the ocean of plaguers parts before us. Praeteritus lifts his cross high for the full Red Sea effect and he leads his people into the gap. The wind whips our white cloaks and the rain falls more violently.

Two hundred eighty-four men dressed in white robes and singing hymns part a legion of plaguers without even lifting a sword. If I had not conceived the plan, I would be dumbstruck.

We stop at the edge of the moat, opposite the gatehouse, and the lepers stop singing all at once. Faces peer at us from the gatehouse window. Many faces. I am too far back to tell with certainty, but they certainly do look dumbstruck. The plaguers drift closer to our ranks. A few jostle with the lepers, and a chill sweeps through me. One incident could turn this field into a slaughterhouse. Tristan huddles closer to me. A flash of lightning burns the sky in the distance.

“Now!” I say, seeing the moment. “Quickly!”

Praeteritus clears his throat and shouts the words that we rehearsed. “We are the Sacred Brothers of Justice! We have come from Canterbury to reclaim St. Benet’s Abbey in the name of God! I demand that you open the gate, or we shall drown you in a holy flood!”

A roll of thunder shakes the flint fields of St. Benet’s.

Tristan grins next to me. “Ah, showmanship.”

A plaguer at the left side of the formation hisses. He is bald, with thick shoulders and a face that was no doubt frightening even before the boils and sores. He sniffs at one of the lepers, his head moving with animal jerks. The leper trembles but does not look at the monstrosity that inspects him.

There is much activity among the people in the gatehouse. After a time, a thin man with a pointy beard thrusts his head out.

“The Sacred Brothers of what?” he shouts.

“Justice,” Praeteritus calls back. “Open the gates. It’s raining.”

I give Praeteritus a glare, and he offers the faintest of shrugs without looking my way.

“King Brian of Yarmouth owns this monastery now,” the man shouts. “He decides what will be done with it. Why aren’t the plaguers attacking you?”

I whisper, “God owns the monastery,” and Praeteritus nods.

“God owns the monastery!” he shouts, adding a tone of indignation consistent with priests. “And the plaguers don’t attack us, because we got a sacred relic with us.”

“Have,” Tristan whispers. “
Have
.”

“What relic is that?” calls the man at the window.

Praeteritus motions to a leper at his side, and the man holds up the pigeon-crested Roman helmet. “It is the helmet of Pontius Pilot!”

The bearded man turns to one side and speaks with someone next to him, then faces us again. “Why is Pontius Pilot’s helmet a relic?”

“For Christ’s sake!” Praeteritus shouts. “Open the gates and we can talk about it.”

There is more discussion inside the gatehouse. An afflicted man paws at one of the lepers, who rings a handbell at him. Two plaguers snarl and hiss at one another as they study yet another leper in the ranks. I do not think God’s Armor will protect us for much longer.

A new face peers out from the arched gatehouse window, and I recognize this one. Father Simon.

“Steady, Praeteritus,” I whisper.

“Who are you?” shouts the priest. “I have never heard of the Brothers of Justice.”

“We’re very popular in Canterbury,” Praeteritus replies.

“Consecrate the monastery,” I whisper. “Man who defiled it. Keep to what we rehearsed.”

“We are God’s Justice,” Praeteritus shouts. “We’re here to consecrate the monastery and to give justice to the man who defiled it.”

“And to smite the large headed among you,” Tristan adds.

Praeteritus nods. “And to smite the—”

“No!” I hiss. “Tristan, you’re going to get us killed!”

Praeteritus licks at his lips. “And to smite the…bad people…of the…of the world!”

The priest stares at us for a long time, then he disappears. A moment later, Sir Gerald appears at the window. “We welcome the Brothers of Justice,” he says. “I know of your scared order and all the good works you have done.”

I doubt very much that he does, since I invented the order a few hours ago.

“But unfortunately,” he continues, “we can only allow one of you inside. I hope you understand.”

I know that he is suspicious, but he cannot deny robed men who have warded off plaguers, men holding a cross and claiming to be God’s Justice. I did not think he would allow three hundred men into the abbey. But I was certain he would not turn all of us away.

“You’d deny our sacred order?” Praeteritus says. “You’d keep God’s People out in the rain while you feast in the Lord’s house?”

“Yes,” Gerald replies. “Terribly sorry.”

Praeteritus shakes his head. “You ain’t a good person. But if only one of us can go in, then I guess it’ll be me. Open the gates, sinner!”

The winch cranks, and chains rattle as the drawbridge opens. Every one of the lepers rings a handbell or rattles a clapper at that moment. It is a clamor that I hope cuts through the rain and carries across the monastery. The plaguers directly beneath the drawbridge stumble away from the descending planks. Two of them are knocked into the moat. The others reach clawed hands over the top of the wooden platform as it descends.

Eight men come into view at the gate. Four hold crossbows and four carry halberds. All of them wear chain mail. The crossbowmen fire on the nearest plaguers. Two of the plaguers fall instantly, with bolts in their faces. Another two howl and claw at the quarrels that have pierced them. The halberdiers reach forward with their weapons and shove at the plaguers.

“Hurry!” Gerald shouts. “Run inside!”

The lepers ring their handbells all at once again. Then shouts rise up from the south side of the abbey, where the docks used to be. More shouts go up from inside the abbey itself. A horn blows from the tower on the curtain walls. Sir Gerald disappears into the gatehouse. For an instant, the open gate is unwatched.

And my army charges onto the drawbridge.

Chapter 58

We reach the eight soldiers at the gate almost before they realize we are charging. Tristan and I pull with all our strength at the dragon carcass and do all we can to keep up with the lepers. Neither of us wants to be left outside the monastery without God’s Armor. The planks of the drawbridge rumble under nearly six hundred feet. And in that instant the Brothers of Justice become the Brothers of Vengeance.

I am awed by the fury of the lepers. They spent years as the unclean. Years living in shame. Years suffering insults and scorn. They suffered it all silently, swallowing their words, accepting their roles. But tonight they will be heard. Tonight they have a new role. Tonight David has become Goliath, and there is no sling nor sword that can stop him.

The soldiers at the gate are hacked down by plough blades and clubs, sickles and axes. I watch two lepers pound a halberdier’s head to jam, one holding a wooden mallet in his three-fingered hand, and the other using a staff. Another leper hooks a crossbowman’s neck with a sickle and drags him along the ground, the blade cutting deeper and deeper into the man’s neck. The lepers fly over the soldiers’ bodies like a herd of deer over logs. They search out their enemies, enemies that hacked their friends and families to pieces on the road from Norwich, and they return the gesture.

Four of the lepers stop at the gatehouse, as I had asked them to, and make a human gate to keep out the plaguers, but there is too much food inside the monastery. The afflicted shove at my sentries, so I call more lepers and make a second rank.

The winch in the gatehouse sounds and the drawbridge rises slowly. Plaguers climb onto it, lie prone upon it or grasp the chains, and are lifted into the air, howling. If they get inside, someone else will have to worry about them. I have other immediate goals.