The Scourge (Kindle Serial) (7 page)

Tristan and I pull David Lords away before his neck snaps.

“It ain’t a real human!” David says. He touches his face and looks at the blood. The woman on the rope loop screeches and lunges toward him. “Look at her. She’s just an animal now.”

“Just as long as she’s not a horse,” Tristan says.

“Of course she’s human!” Morgan shouts. “She is afflicted! She has the plague! What you have done is a sin!”

“But I ain’t never violated none of them,” David says. “Not a single one.”

“What do you mean, ‘none of them’?” I watch the woman struggle against the snare around her neck.

David Lords becomes silent. He exchanges glances with the man in the leather vest.

“What do you mean, none of
them
?” I repeat, taking hold of his torn tunic.

“You got an empty scabbard, m’lord,” David says. “I got swords. I can give you a sword. I got lots of things I can give you.”

Tristan smacks the man in the head. “Sir Edward asked you a question.”

“Thereare others,” the thickset man in the leather vest says.

“Shut your mouth, Thomas,” David Lords shouts.

“There are six others in the barn.” Thomas points to a wooden building far behind the mill house. “In there.”

And while we look at the barn, something clangs inside the mill house. I study the stone building and wonder if we are in danger. “Are there more of you?” I feel for the hunting knife at my belt. “More men?”

Thomas shakes his head. Tristan draws his sword. He and Morgan walk cautiously toward the mill house, where a hefty lock holds the iron-studded door shut.

“Are there more of these women in the mill house, too?” I ask.

“No,” David says.

“Yes,” Thomas says.

I look to each of them.

David shrugs. “Not pretty ones, anyway.”

David Lords tells us that, before the plague, his livelihood was making and selling fishing nets. And his assistant, Thomas, was a fisherman. But nets and haddock aren’t as profitable as they once were.

“I got to feed myself, don’t I?” David says.

He feeds himself these days by catching pretty plaguers and whoring them out. The mill house was abandoned, so he took possession of the stone building and of the adjacent barn and turned the property into a brothel. He has seven women in his stable, although he insists men won’t pay for the redhead anymore, because I broke her nose. I suspect he is implying that I should pay him for his losses. But David will be lucky if I don’t slit his throat when I leave.

Men come from as far as Chelmsford to visit David Lords’s brothel. They pay him in goods. Food, weapons, ale. Whatever they have to barter with.

“And these men don’t become afflicted with the…sickness?” I ask.

“Why? You get the plague from bites. We make sure to hold their heads down. It’s part of the service, you see? Wouldn’t be safe, otherwise.”

“No one knows how the plague is spread.” Morgan scowls at David. “They say blood can give it to you. Why wouldn’t it live between a woman’s legs?”

“No,” David says. “The plague spreads through miamas … miasams … bad air.”

“
Miasmas
,” Tristan says. “Assuming that this is a plague.”

“You get a lot of people coming back?” I ask.

“Yes,” David says, but his eyes grow distant. “Well, we haven’t been doing this long, but we had one man come back. Right, Thomas? The tanner. He couldn’t get enough of Hilda.”

“How long was it before he came back?” I ask.

“Next morning,” David says. “He traded a bearskin for her. I let him take her for free the next day.”

“How did he look?” I ask. “Was he sweating? Throwing up his food?”

David looks at Thomas for a long moment. “He was healthy.” But Thomas’s head shakes almost imperceptibly.

“He was sick, wasn’t he?” I say.

“No, he was fine,” David says. “He had Hilda, then went home smiling.”

“He was sick,” Thomas says. “He said some bad food got in him. But he was sick.” Thomas looks a little pale himself. I think he realizes what they have done. We sit in silence for a long while. I wonder how many men have found the plague here at the Corringham brothel. I find it hard to believe that David Lords didn’t know.

“So what’s in the mill house?” Tristan asks.

David clears his throat but says nothing.

Thomas replies instead. “David learned that them plaguers like mint. Burning it makes them crazy. They come runnin’ when they smells it. So we put burning sprigs of mint in the mill house. Lots of them. And we get the plaguers to go inside. Only … only if one of them looks pretty, we … well, we rope ’er and put her in the barn.”

“So, in the mill house…” I suddenly understand.

“There ain’t that many pretty ones,” David says.

Tristan, Morgan, and I put down the seven women of his brothel, the ones in the barn. Morgan suggests we free the other plaguers in the mill house, but I know we can’t kill that many. There are hundreds of men, women, and children. The mill house is the best place for them.

I tell David Lords that I should kill him. That if the world hadn’t gone mad, crows would be tearing at his flesh right now. “I will come back this way,” I say. “If I hear that you have opened your brothel again, I will throw you into that mill house and lock you inside with them. Do you understand?”

“Yes, m’lord. I’m sorry, m’lord.” David kneels at my feet and touches the earth with his forehead. “I won’t never do it again. I swear upon the Holy Bible. Thank you for sparing me. Thank you for sparing my life, m’lord.”

He offers us swords, but I don’t want anything from him. His goods are tainted. Morgan and Tristan agree, although Tristan can’t help asking one question.

“You don’t, by chance, have a sword that curves, do you?”

Screams ring out across the marshland. Terrible, inhuman screams. I am reminded of Sir Morgan’s afflicted falcon and the cries it made. As if the screams were being inhaled instead of exhaled. We have heard cries in the distance for a long time. It is not until we crest one of the many knolls, a few miles southeast of Barstable, that we see the source of the cries. A man rides a black destrier along the westerly road, about a mile ahead of us. Sunlight gleams off his armor. He drags a body behind his horse, and it is this body from which the screams emanate.

We spur our horses into a trot and close on the rider. The body he drags behind him is naked. It looks like a man, but I’m not certain. Much of the skin has been shredded by the flint and stones of the road. The dragged man, whose hands and arms are bound with a rope attached to the rider’s saddle, screams and thrashes.

The rider hears us and slows his horse, a handsome warhorse with a thick neck and a restless stance. The knight tugs on the rope to make certain the man is still tied securely. I note the utter black of the dragged man’s eyes. Slits of pitch within a face of pulp and blood.

“Ho, good sirs,” the rider says. He is tall and wears a breastplate and chain habergeon. A chainmail cowl is pushed back off of his head so that it rests on his shoulders, and a longsword and crossbow hang from his saddle. He is a knight but wears no crest. “I am Sir Gerald of Thunresleam.”

I make introductions. Tristan points to the plaguer. “Are you trying to see how small he will get?”

Sir Gerald spits toward the bound man. “I promised Sir Hugh that I would drag this thing all the way back to Hadleigh.”

“And why would you do that?” I ask.

“Because this creature bit him,” the knight says. He yanks on the rope hard enough to make the plaguer scream. “Because this creature forced me to kill Sir Hugh.”

We ride with Sir Gerald toward Hadleigh, the plaguer’s screams making conversation a challenge. I feel pity for the dragged man. These plaguers feel pain. They suffer as we do.

“Maybe it’s time to end his pain,” I shout.

“What?”

I point to the screaming plaguer and draw a hand across my throat.

“This is my prisoner,” Gerald shouts. He yanks the rope again. “That means
I
decide when he dies.”

I turn away and look toward Hadleigh. I don’t want strife with this knight. I have had more than my share of strife on this journey. A column of smoke rises in the distance, probably where yet another village burns.

Gerald tells us that he and a score of other knights from Essex have taken refuge in Hadleigh Castle, under the protection of Sir John of Mucking. The castle brims with commoners from the surrounding towns and villages — commoners who sought the safety of the castle’s walls and its well-armed garrison.

“I thought King Richard owned Hadleigh Castle?” I shout, so as to be heard above the plaguer’s screams.

“He does,” Sir Gerald shouts. “And if he comes to visit, he’ll find that Sir John has done an admirable job keeping it safe from the plague. He burned a thousand plaguers on the castle motte two weeks ago and sends sorties out twice a day to keep the surrounding lands clear.”

“A good man,” I shout. I met Sir John at a tournament two years ago and he made a favorable impression on me. He seemed confident, intelligent, and courteous.

“For heaven’s sake, man,” Tristan shouts. “Haven’t you dragged this man far enough?”

Sir Gerald scowls at the plaguer. “He’ll think carefully before trying to bite another knight of Essex.” He leans toward the screaming man and shouts. “You’ll think carefully — won’t you? — you piece of filth. Won’t you?” He spits at the plaguer again.

“You’re a lunatic,” Tristan says. “Has our entire kingdom gone mad?”

Sir Gerald wheels his horse toward Tristan. “Look around you, Sir Tristan. Our entire kingdom
has
gone mad. The dead walk the land with demons in their hearts. If I release this man, he will try to eat us. Does that sound sane to you?” He crabs his horse closer to Tristan. “In these times of madness, only madness will save us.”

“No,” Morgan says. “In these times of madness, only God will save us. The bishops say this man has the plague, Sir Gerald. He knows not what he does.”

“This is no plague,” Gerald says. “This is the End of Days and we are at war with demons. Our Lord Jesus Christ would be proud of my work.”

“Proud. Of course,” Sir Tristan says. “Like in that old parable where Jesus dragged the sinner behind his horse for five miles.”

The plaguer begins screaming again.

Sir Morgan frowns and flips through his Bible. “I don’t know that parable. Is it in Luke?”

“Lunatics, all of you,” Tristan says, and he rides ahead.

Hadleigh Castle stands high upon a hill that overlooks the estuary of the Thames. It is a powerful thing of curtain walls and drum towers and a bulging high tower built by King Edward III, our King Richard’s grandfather. I doubt King Richard would have given anyone permission to take command of his castle, but Sir John has done well to clear the land of the plague. I have not seen even one infirm soul within two miles of the castle. Except the one being dragged by Sir Gerald.

I have always believed that authority should yield to competence, so I am glad that Sir John took over. Lord James of Dartford could take a lesson or two from this young knight.

The hill upon which the castle stands is scorched black. A new stubble of grass rises in patches, but the overall impression is that of a fortress struck by a massive fireball. Sir Gerald cuts the rope that binds the plaguer to his horse, then pours lamp oil on the man’s body and sets him alight. A score of kettle-helmed soldiers look down from the castle walls and watch the plaguer burn. Sir Morgan scowls at Sir Gerald, then takes out his Bible and says a prayer over the dying man as the stench of burning flesh fills the air. I am unsettled by this sort of torture. This creature was once a man. Someone once cared for him. I unsheathe my knife and end the man’s screams. Sir Gerald stares at me in silence, the muscles in his neck throbbing. I stare back.

“You fulfilled your promise,” I say. “You dragged him here. He’s suffered enough.”

“No,” Sir Gerald says. “He will never suffer enough. All the fires of hell can’t make him suffer enough for what he has done.”

“Then neither will your fires,” Tristan says, looking unusually sober.

“My fires have only just begun burning,” Sir Gerald says. His hands tremble on the reins of his horse. “I have sent forty-two of these creatures back to hell. And I will continue to do so until each and every demon has been returned to Lucifer.” He drives his spurs into the destrier and storms to the castle gate.

Sir John looks older than I remember. He can’t be past his twenty-third year, but he seems to have aged a decade since our last meeting. He is thinner and his face has seams where there were none before. He holds himself with confidence still, and his eyes shine with intelligence, but I do not see the courtesy I once did. We eat in the great hall, and his silent gaze rarely strays from me. I compliment him on his work at Hadleigh and explain my mission. When I am finished, he stares at me for a long while before he speaks.

“Do you truly expect me to believe that drivel?”

I blink at him twice but say nothing.

“You are here to take command of Hadleigh. That gangly whelp Richard sent you to take it back, didn’t he?”