Reign (2 page)

Claude carried the two buckets in one hand, listening to them thump together as he walked. He could have walked forever. Through the woods, past the stream, farther and farther down the hill. Part of him didn't want to return to the cottage. Was that wrong? Was he a bad person for wanting to leave, to get as far away from here as he could? He couldn't, he wouldn't… but he wanted to.

When he got closer to the stream, he stood there for a moment, looking out through the trees. Had it been here that he'd seen Lily that day, or was it farther down the bank? He wished she'd arrive now, out of nowhere, the bucket in her hand. He hadn't seen her since the plague started. Once, while he was getting goat's milk in town, he'd overheard that her younger sisters were sick. He refused to ask anyone if she'd gotten the disease, though he knew it was likely. Whenever the thought came, he tried to push it away, but it always came back.
Lily might be sick, Lily might be dead.…

Claude rested one of the buckets on the bank. He leaned over, about to dip the other one in, when the wind changed. The smell was immediate. He'd gotten used to the stench of rotting corpses, that heavy stinging scent that filled his nostrils and trickled down his throat. He had to cover his mouth to keep from throwing up.

He glanced upstream, where someone had left the bodies. Three of them, two smaller than Jacques. Not everyone buried their dead. Some were afraid to touch them, instead using pitchforks and shovels to lift them into wheelbarrows. Then they would dump them as soon as they could, wherever they could. Claude could not tell why he was not infected after spending the past weeks inside his house. He waited for the plague to come for him, but it never did. His neck never swelled and he never slowed from fatigue. He knew now that he had been spared. For what reason, though? Why? Was it not a worse fate to live when everyone else would die?

He stared at his reflection in the water, a clump of blond hair floating past. There was a tiny red sock snagged on a rotted log. He walked along the bank, trying to get beyond the bodies to clean water, but within a few steps he saw a woman, facedown on shore. She was just thirty feet away.

Claude turned back toward the cottage, hoping he might be able to draw just a quarter of a bucket from the old well in the woods. He took the longer path, circling around the town. As he got to the edge of the cottages, he could hear a woman's screams. She wailed with the confused words of the dying. Nothing made sense.

“James!” she yelled, her voice breaking. “I want to go with you, but the world, James! The world!”

Claude heard a man trying to comfort her, the words too low to make out. There was a child crying somewhere inside.
Keep your head down
, he thought, watching the ground pass beneath his feet.
Don't look at them.

It was the only way he knew how to walk through town now. There were graves everywhere, and people calling out from windows, begging for food. Some wondered if he had some special medicine that he was keeping. How was he not sick? Why did some people live and others die? How could he help them?

As he got closer to the town square, he heard the pagans chanting. A horse made horrible sounds as it bled to death—squealing, bleating. He tilted his head up just in time to see it writhe in pain. The pagans had tied its hooves to the platform and it couldn't kick free. Blood was everywhere.

“Our Catholic god has turned his back on us!” yelled Gerard, a man four years older than Claude. He'd been one of the cruelest to Claude growing up. He was always the first to kick him or spit at him when he walked by. “We must make bigger sacrifices to appease the pagan gods. We must try to end this!”

A few survivors were huddled around him. A woman was crying. “But this is the third horse we've sacrificed to them,” she said. “Nothing will stop it. What do they want from us?”

“We must keep sacrificing to them,” Gerard announced. “We must…”

He trailed off, uncertain. As Gerard looked out over the crowd, his eyes met Claude's. His upper lip curled in a sinister smile. He still held the dagger he sliced the mare's throat with, the end of it dark red. “We will do whatever it takes! They need more to be appeased.”

A horrible noise was coming from the mare. It was still struggling. Claude turned away, unable to look. Instead, he picked up his pace, nearly running past the tiny Catholic church, which was now abandoned. Nothing had stopped the plague, and the survivors had lost faith in their prayers. They turned instead to the pagans in the village, hoping they could give them answers.

When Claude reached the well, he worked quickly, trying to forget the sight of the dying mare. He tried to forget the bodies by the river and the pile of dead goats next to the stone altar. If only he could forget two days ago, when he'd buried both Jacques and his mother in the woods behind their house. He'd left one wooden cross on each of their graves. He had to believe in some greater power.… It was all he had now.

There was only an inch of water in the bucket, but he brought it inside anyway, hoping it might be enough to wet their throats. Enzo was lying on a mattress on the floor. His neck was swollen, his fingernails black. He twisted and turned in his sleep. Claude dipped a cloth in the bucket and ran it over Enzo's lips, then rested it on his hot forehead.

“Water for you,” he said as he entered the back room. He knelt beside his father's bed. He was worse than Enzo. The plague had infected him two days before the boy, and he was further along. He couldn't speak. He could barely keep his eyes open to look at Claude.

Claude dipped a cloth in the bucket, then squeezed it, letting the water drip into his father's mouth. He tried to swallow, but he couldn't. He was wheezing, the thick fluid in his lungs making it hard to breathe. As many times as Claude had wished his father dead, he knew now he'd never meant it. The past days had been horrible to watch. “I'm here now,” Claude said, trying to comfort him. “I'm with you. Be at peace, Father, be at peace.”

He was slipping away. Claude knew what it looked like now. He knew how everything in the body slowed, how it stopped. He'd seen it in his mother and Jacques. He combed his father's hair away from his face. Then Claude picked up the wet cloth and squeezed the last of the well water into his father's mouth.

Claude brought the soiled, sweat-stained clothes outside and dumped them on top of the bloodied sheets. There were his father's shirts, his mother's horsehair brushes, the boys' shoes and toys. He'd emptied the house of all their things, just as the townspeople had ordered. He went inside and grabbed one of the candles, then set the whole pile ablaze.

There was some relief as he stood there watching it burn. Jacques's favorite pair of red pants. His mother's apron. The scarves she used to tie her hair back when she cooked. The rope dolls Enzo liked to pretend were soldiers, even though Claude was certain they were meant for a girl. And his father's clothes—among them the executioner's hood. No, he was not sad when the fire consumed it all.

The cottage was one great reminder of what he had lost. Living alone the past weeks, he saw them everywhere. Here is where Jacques had said his first words. There, at that corner of the table, was where his mother had given Claude the clay statues he'd played with as a child. That corner of the bedroom was where Claude had slept beside Enzo, who always talked in his sleep.

Then there were the other memories… the terrible ones that appeared when Claude least expected them. He'd be cooking rice over the fire and he'd hear his father's voice mocking him. He'd kneel down on the floor, stooping to get something, and he'd wince, thinking of his father beating him with his belt. Even though Arthur had been dead for weeks, Claude could still feel his dark presence lingering. He seemed to possess Claude in moments, and more than once Claude had turned to his father's bottles of rum, drinking to forget.

As the fire dwindled, Claude listened to the bleating of another horse being slaughtered. They had continued sacrificing more animals. Two horses, three goats, a cow. Some weeks there were more. They had tried everything, but the pagan gods would not be appeased. The plague had spread to other towns, and any chance Claude had of escaping had long passed.

He started into the house, again noticing the ropes that hung in the corner of the kitchen. His mother had dried clothes on them after a wash. They were thick enough… long enough. Just one would do, tied to the rafters in the back bedroom or maybe a tree in the woods. He could end it today, tomorrow, whenever the pain and isolation grew too much. What was the point, anyway? What purpose did he have in this place now? Who was he without his family?

He heard footsteps outside. It was a few men, possibly Gerard—he could just make out their voices. They knocked only once before entering.

Claude backed up against the wall, watching Gerard enter with Louis, a man a few years older. They, like him, had already lost their families to the plague.

“I told you,” Claude said. “I've given you all the surplus I have. You can check the pantry.” He pointed to the cupboards in the corner, where he kept the last of his rice and flour. He'd hidden an extra supply in the woods, burying it in a chest in case he ran out of food. They had been stopping by more frequently in the past weeks. They wanted everything he had.

Gerard walked around the tiny cottage. He seemed to notice that many of the possessions had been cleared out. He stared down at the bare table, the five wood chairs, a mat where Enzo and Jacques had played. “We don't want your supplies,” Gerard said, not looking at him. “We're looking for your father. We need him for something.…”

“My father passed already,” Claude said. “I buried him myself. What do you need him for?” It was strange how quickly Gerard's presence could make him feel like a child—scared, helpless, begging not to get hit.

Louis, a fat redheaded man, smiled his three-tooth smile. “The pagan gods won't be appeased by animal blood. We need to sacrifice a human to them to stop the plague.”

“You were going to sacrifice him?”

Gerard laughed. “No, boy. He's the executioner—we wanted him to take the life. It wouldn't be his first. But I suppose you can do it—you're the executioner's son.”

“I—I'm nothing like my father,” Claude stammered. “I can't do it—I won't.”

“You'll be paid handsomely,” Louis said. “We've collected money from the dying's families. We need this to end.”

“It won't end this way,” Claude said, his voice breaking. “And I don't need money. Or supplies. I need peace, and I won't get it slicing the throat of some innocent.”

Gerard shook his head. “We will all get peace this way—it's the
only
way.”

Before Claude could argue any further, Louis came up beside him and tied his hands. He was a burly guy—three times Claude's size. Claude had no chance against him.

“We'll take you to the house,” Louis said. “Three inside are already dying of the plague. You must kill one of them and hang them upside down until the last of their blood has spilled out.”

Claude fought the rope around his wrists. “I won't do it—you cannot make me.”

“You can and you will do it,” Gerard barked. “Nothing can save them now. You would be showing them mercy.”

“It would be murder!” Claude said as Gerard grabbed his arm. They dragged him out of the cottage. “Why me? Why can't you do it? You've been leading the sacrifices so far.”

“There's no way to tell how our gods will interpret this,” Gerard said. “Is it a sin, or the ultimate sign of our devotion?”

“We'll let you out when you're done,” Louis growled.

Claude was shaking now. They dragged him toward a house on the other side of the square. He recognized it immediately as Lily's house. He'd passed by it so many times, in the months before the plague, walking slowly, hoping she would head out on some errand or maybe peek out the door. But now the windows had all been boarded up. Someone was banging on one, trying to get out.

“Please, Gerard, I beg you,” Claude said, practically in tears. “Don't do this. It will not stop it. It won't.”

“We will see!” Gerard flung the door open, and in one quick motion Louis cut Claude's hands free. They pushed him inside and locked the door behind him. They threw boards up over the front of it and nailed them in place.

It was dark in there, the air stinking of urine and blood. A woman was sobbing somewhere behind him, but Claude couldn't bear to turn around. “Please don't do this!” he yelled. He pounded on the door. “Let me out, please! Let me out!”

But Gerard did not respond. He kept nailing the boards in place, until the last sliver of light was gone.

Claude had to cover his ears. He couldn't listen anymore to the moans escaping Lily's lips—they sounded too much like his own mother's in the day before she passed. She was heaving. Each breath was a struggle.
Make it end
, Claude thought, clasping his hands over his head.
Please, God, make it end.

Her parents' bodies were in the back room. He'd brought them there after they passed from the plague. He'd wrapped them in sheets and tried to fix their hair, as he'd done for his own parents. But now the stench filled the sealed house. Claude kept his nose covered, choking every now and then on the smell. Outside, the chanting grew louder. The surviving pagans had surrounded the stone house and were urging him on. “Kill, kill, kill,” they said in their pagan tongue. “Appease our god.”

Claude looked at the three marks he'd carved into the wall. One slash for every sunrise he saw through the thin break in the back window. Three sunrises, four days. He couldn't sleep here, couldn't eat. They'd given him no water. By noon the air was so hot and putrid inside the house, he was gagging. He'd told them he wouldn't do it, that he couldn't, but this had to end. Why wouldn't it end?

Claude wiped the sweat from his eyes. Lily was watching him from the corner. She was unrecognizable. He wished she'd stop looking at him with that uneasy stare. She was curled up, her head resting on a bag of flour. Her neck was now swollen and red. Her fingernails were turning black. Every now and then she twisted in pain, the sickness taking control of her muscles.

“Please, Lily,” he begged. “I told you I'd never hurt you. I'm not going to do it. Stop looking at me like I would.”

Why wouldn't she stop staring? Why had they chosen him, so unlike his father? What had he done to deserve this hell? He wanted it to end—why wouldn't it end?

She twisted, turned, and the chanting grew louder. It mixed with the dying girl's moans.
I will not kill her
, he thought to himself.
I cannot, I will not.
But with each sunrise he grew more uncertain. What would happen now that her parents were dead? What would happen when Lily passed too? Would they let him out then? Or would it be on to another house, another trap where they'd chant and cry while he watched others succumb to the plague.

I will not kill her
, Claude repeated to himself. But outside, the chanting grew louder. Lily looked at him, and her mouth moved ever so slightly. Was she praying? What did she want to say to him now, alone here?

He pulled his hands from his ears and moved closer to her. She'd been in and out of consciousness all four days, sometimes talking to herself, saying things he didn't understand. But now she seemed more lucid. She was more alert than before, and she seemed to smile as he knelt down closer to her.

She spoke again, her words a whisper. “That day by the stream,” she said. “I still think of it.”

Claude leaned in, trying to see the girl he once knew. The pretty, purple-eyed girl by the stream. “I think of it too. Often. It has saved me at times.”

She took a deep breath, her lungs rattling. “It saves me still.…” She closed her eyes, a few tears slipping out. “Lily of the valley… pretty, blooming flowers…”

It took him a moment to recognize the old song. It was from when he was a child—they would sing it as they ran through the woods. He had known Lily well when they were younger, but in the past years, as she grew into a young woman, with that beautiful heart-shaped face, he only saw her coming and going places. She was the girl behind him in church. The girl he stole glances at on the way to the baker. He conjured her in moments when there was nothing else good in his life.

“You remember it?” she asked, her words uneven. “That was the song my father sang to me growing up. It helped me sleep.”

“Yes, I remember that song from when we were young,” Claude said. But just beyond the house's walls, the voices of the pagans rose up around him. It was impossible to ignore them. If she was afraid of him, she didn't show it. She never once cowered when he came close.

She shook her head. When she looked back at him, her eyes were full of tears. “Just do it,” she said. “They'll kill you if you don't. I'm as good as dead.”

“What do you mean?” Claude asked. He knew what she meant, but he needed to hear her say it. He didn't want to understand.

Just then her whole body tensed, her head twisting to the side. “I can't take the pain anymore,” she said, her voice breaking into a sob. “It will be mercy. You will be giving me peace.”

Claude backed away from her, not wanting to believe what she'd asked. But he kept hearing that insistent chant in his ear.
Kill, kill, kill.
The sour stench of death was all around him. The girl was rattling her last breaths as he went to the kitchen and found the sharpest knife he could.

“Kill, kill, kill,” the pagans chanted.

He brought the knife to her wrist, but he could not cut into it. Everything about it made him sick. “I won't,” he said. “I don't think I can.”

“Give me mercy,” she said. “Please.”

The chant grew louder. His hand was shaking as he held the knife over her wrist, barely grazing the skin. He couldn't, he wouldn't. But then in one quick motion he stabbed into her flesh, cutting it down to the bone.

He worked as fast as he could. The girl didn't scream. She barely made a sound as he slashed into her other wrist. The pagan chanting was so loud now, he could barely hear his own voice singing the song as he went. “Lily of the valley… pretty blooming flowers…”

When it was done he held her, cradling her head in his hands as she passed. Then he got the rope from the back room and tied her as the pagans had told him to. By the time he was done, she was already dead. Claude pounded on the front door, his cheeks stained with tears.

“Please let me out,” he said. “Please, I've done it. I've sacrificed her. She's dead.”

Gerard pried the wooden slats off the door. Then he kicked it open, light streaming into the small cottage. Claude walked out and collapsed on the dirt outside. The sun felt so good on his skin. The fresh air felt so good as he breathed it into his lungs.

He shouldn't have done it—he shouldn't have looked back, but he did.

The walls were spattered with blood and vomit. The table was overturned. Lily hung upside down, her eyes still open, watching him. Her feet were tied to the rafters. Blood spilled from her wrists. It formed a shallow pool below her, turning the floor red.

“You made me do this,” he yelled, grabbing Gerard by the collar of his shirt. “You have made me a monster.”

Claude punched Gerard in the face, then lunged at him again. He punched and kicked as the pagans swarmed him. Louis pushed him down on the ground, trying to tie his wrists. But no matter how many of them tried to calm him, he could not be subdued.

“You made me kill her!” he yelled again. “You made me kill her!”