by Dan Davis
“Bring us hypocras,” I called to the servants, which was a spiced red wine that the produced with such alacrity that they must certainly have anticipated my order.
Stephen laughed. “Of course it was ready, Richard. Do you not think that I know you well enough, after all this time together?”
“Let us drink to your good health, my dear friends,” I said to Thomas and Eva, raising my cup, and we did so drink.
“And to friends departed,” Hugh said, raising his cup. We drank to John, who all of us missed.
“I must say, I am quite relieved to be rid of that terrible affliction,” Thomas said. “I never felt anything like it in all my days.”
Eva nodded. “And I never wish to again,” she said. “It feels like…” she trailed off, staring into nothing.
“Well,” I said, “it is all over now and all I can say is that I apologise for not being here sooner.”
“You came as soon as you were summoned,” Stephen said. “What more can a man do, Richard?”
Summoned. It irked me that he would use such a term when I was his superior in every way but I was in such a high mood that I let it pass. I often wonder what might have come to pass had I destroyed Stephen in his early days, instead of letting such moments pass and pass.
In no time, we were well on the way to pleasant intoxication.
“This was a fine meal, Stephen,” Thomas said, “considering the circumstances.”
“What do you mean?” Stephen replied, growing rambunctious with the wine in his belly. “This would be a fine meal in any circumstances.”
Thomas shrugged. “For an English merchant, perhaps that is so. Speaking as a Frenchman of noble breeding, however, all I will say is that I look forward to when this pestilence passes and we can get some decent food in this hall.”
As gibes go, it was rather close to the bone but Stephen laughed it off and so we all felt able to join in with the laughter.
Thomas was still chuckling when he popped some bread into his mouth and began coughing. I jumped up, thinking he was choking on his food, and thumped him on his back.
He coughed up a handful of bright, frothy blood.
We all stared at his hand, shining in the lamplight.
Thomas whispered the short prayer.
“God, no.”
I turned to Eva. I will never forget the look of dread in her eyes.
His face contorted in pain, Thomas clutched at his guts and vomited onto the table before collapsing in a shaking fit.
Stephen called for his people and the servants came running.
“Eva,” I said, kneeling by her. “It may not return for you.”
“No,” she said, “it has come again. I can feel it. Your blood, Richard. It did not work.”
***
We tried everything that any of us could think of. I gave them more blood, of course. We gave them mortal blood soon after mine, or before, or both before and after. Stephen had the idea of concentrating my blood by heating it gently for some time. That seemed, if anything, to lessen its potency.
Nothing worked.
“We shall find a cure,” I said, looking down on Eva, in her bed as the sickness descended upon her once again. “I shall not rest until I do.”
“I know, Richard,” she replied, patting my arm before turning away from me. I got up and trudged down to the hall.
Sitting with Stephen later with my head in my hands, I felt truly defeated. More than I ever had before. The pestilence was an enemy that I could not fight.
“There must be something,” I said, for the thousandth time. “Must be some way to strengthen my blood.”
Stephen shrugged. “What flows through your veins is already the most powerful substance on Earth. Yours and your brother’s. And as much as I should like to empty him of his, he is not even in Christendom.”
“It would take years to follow him to Cathay, Stephen, if that is what you are suggesting.”
“I suggest nothing of the sort, sir,” he replied, as if he was affronted. “Even if William was here, there is nothing to indicate that his power is any greater than yours. Is there?”
As tired as I was, I knew that Stephen was pushing me for information. He always was. It was his nature.
In fact, I had long suspected that my brother William was stronger than me. Whether it was a factor of the blood in our veins or something else, I did not know but I felt it nonetheless. Perhaps Stephen sensed it too, in some way, and was seeking confirmation.
“We are equals, my brother and I, but if he were here I would string him from the beam there and drain every drop on the chance alone that it could help Eva. And Thomas.” I thought for a moment, and idly spoke the next thought that popped into my head. “It is a shame that he killed our father so long ago, or else I could fetch him from Derbyshire and see if he is any stronger than his sons. Alas, William poisoned him when—”
I stopped speaking when I recalled something I had not thought of in quite some time.
If you do return to Christendom, you should seek our grandfather. The Ancient One. The old Lord de Ferrers was not our father’s true father. Our true grandfather lives, and he is thousands of years old, Richard. Thousands! The things he has seen. The power that he has. You would learn a lot from him, brother, if you would but go to him. Our grandfather is in Swabia. In a forest, living in a cave. The locals live in terror of him.
“If power is what we need, there is one who may be stronger than I.”
“Your brother?”
I scowled. “No, Stephen. Back in Baghdad, in that charnel house of a gateway, I made a deal with William. He told me of the immortals he had made in France and I agreed to not pursue him until he returned to Christendom.”
Stephen nodded. He knew all this.
“William also told me something else. He told me that he had discovered our true ancestry. That my natural father was not descended from the de Ferrers family line but had been fathered by an immortal himself. A man who is thousands of years old.”
Stephen sat bolt upright. “But you cannot make children, Richard. Neither you nor William.”
“Our grandfather did. As did our father. That is why I think he may have more power in his blood than I do. The strength to create life. Perhaps it has strength enough to cure this cursed pestilence.”
“Just a moment, please,” Stephen said, shaking his head and closing his eyes. “Are you saying that your grandfather yet lives?”
I sat back and spread my hands. “I am relating William’s words. As far as I know, he does not lie. To me, at least. But he may be mistaken or confused. He claimed to have visited him.”
“Where?”
“Swabia.”
“A fair distance from here, Richard. Where in Swabia?”
“In a forest. He lives in a cave.”
Stephen stared. “That is it? How can we find him?”
“I would go to Swabia and search, I suppose. Ask around.”
“How big is Swabia?”
I shrugged. “Big enough.”
“It must surely be the size of Wales and just as mountainous.”
“Even more so. And thickly wooded.”
Stephen rubbed his eyes. “We must certainly seek this man out but I do not see how it will help us with Thomas and Eva. How long will it take us to travel to Swabia?”
“I can move quickly when I need to.”
“Even so, how will we find one cave in a forest the size of Wales?”
“My brother found him. I will find him.”
Stephen stood up. “You speak as though you have already decided.”
“Do I?” I asked. “I suppose I have. Do you have a better idea?”
He waved his hands in the air as if he hoped to scoop one up out of the ether. “There must be one.”
“Perhaps there is but until it occurs to us, I shall do this. Alone.”
“Alone?” Stephen was appalled. “Take Hugh with you, at the very least.”
Hugh was a goo
d squire and a fair fighter but my instinct was that he was not up to such a challenge. “I shall take almost nothing but food and travel quickly.”
“Take Black Walter with you, at least.”
“Walt?” I said. “He is mortal. And ignorant. Close to useless.”
“He saved your life once, did he not? You underestimate him, Richard.”
“I doubt that is possible but you are correct, I shall need someone to take turns on watch and I suppose he is marginally more useful than a goose.” I stood. “I will make preparations immediately. I will take Black Walter with me but no other servants. We will move swiftly that way. You and Hugh will stay here and keep our companions alive.”
He looked stunned so I strode over and grasped him by the shoulders.
“Keep them alive, Stephen.”
His eyes were wide. “I will.”
I was going to cross a Europe deep in the grip of the worst plague it had ever known, in the faint hope of finding a hermit who apparently claimed to be thousands of years old as well as my grandfather. And I was going based on the word of my brother, who I had sworn to kill.
I must have been mad.
11. Land of the Dead
The ports were closed. No ships in or out across all southern England. I knew that it would be foolhardy to travel to the south coast and try to force passage across the English Channel from there, even though that would have been the quickest crossing. Instead, I headed north and east, up into that flat, marshy land called East Anglia. Although it was a fertile land, good for wheat, sheep and cattle, it was wet at the best of times and it had been raining steadily for weeks. When we travelled through it was as though the North Sea had risen up from the east to claim the land for itself. Roads were washed out. Rivers burst their banks and spread out to turn fields into lakes, ruining all crops not on the higher land. And that was few and far between. The landscape was often as flat as a table top.
“How will they eat?” Walt asked as we passed yet another field turned to bog. A man stood on a spit of land running to a cluster of houses, staring at the disaster. “How will they survive winter?”
“They will not.”
There were fowl in the reedy ponds and wading birds on the mud flats. Deer in the woodlands. But unless there were enough survivors of the pestilence to hunt for them through the winter, the people would not fare well.
When we reached the coast, it took days of following it from town to town to find someone willing and able to cross to the continent. Even in that remote place, Walt proved useful. Well did he know the taverns in every town, and every hosteller and bar-maid, and these directed us to those who might have helped.
A few fishermen claimed to be able to make the journey but their boats were in appalling condition. Most simply refused to approach us, let alone converse. I considered stealing a boat and leaving a bag of coin but I could never have sailed it and Walt barely had wits enough to navigate his way up a gangplank.
It was a merchant who volunteered his ship, sailing master and small crew in exchange for an appalling amount of money. Due to the closure of so many ports, trade was so diminished as to be non-existent but still he was canny enough to know a desperate man when he saw one. We sold him our horses, as there was no possibility of taking them aboard the tub. Anticipating such a thing, we had not brought our best horses. Still, the awful price I got for them made me more irritated at the merchant than I had any right to be.
“Good idea, this, my lord,” the merchant said as we agreed our terms, blustering in the loud voice merchants use when attempting to make a sale. “Get away from the pestilence to where it is safe.”
“Do you take me for a fool? It is far worse everywhere south of England, as you well know.”
His face turned white and he lowered his voice. “Then why do you wish to go there, sir?”
“I hear Ghent has an excellent brothel house just off the market square.”
He went away, mumbling something about petty lordlings and Walter sidled up to me.
“That place ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, sir. Especially nowadays, I’d wager.”
“Be quiet, Walt.”
The crossing was remarkably unpleasant. It rained either all day or all night and sometimes both and the boat was seaworthy enough but it had a strange and at times quite alarming propensity to roll like a barrel.
Black Walt was completely unaffected by the motion, which was irritating in the extreme. We crept down the coast, taking advantage of the wind when it blew where we wanted and waiting it out when it did not. We sat in one cove for three days somewhere off the coast of Essex with the sky low and grey and the land lower and greyer. Local men on the land cried out that we were not to land under any circumstances. They made sure that we saw the huge longbows in their hands.
Blustering wind whistled and rushed through the mass of rigging like the wailing of a thousand widows. The boats rolled and pitched in the waves with relentless regularity, up and down, rolling one way and back the other. On every horizon, nothing but a haze like powdered bone. No man who was not a sailor knew whether we were being blown out to sea, on to the shore, or were making no headway at all. Such is the sea. Some moments out of a thousand, when all is well and the sun shines and the wind is stiff and steady and the ship ploughs through the waves toward home, it is of the purest joy. At all other times, it is deep misery that must be endured.
Eventually, we crossed the waters and were out of sight of land for a disturbingly long time and I was sure we would end up in Denmark, despite the sailing master’s assurances. And yet he put us down on the coast of Flanders, just as he had said he would.
“Got to row you off onto the beach from here,” he said as his ship bobbed at anchor off the coast. “We’ll do it as the tide turns.”
“If this is anywhere other than Flanders,” I promised him, “when I return to England I shall castrate you and throw you into the sea so the fish can feast on your ruined nether parts.”
He swallowed, hard. “This is bloody Flanders, my lord. I know these waters. Southwest is a fishing village called Eastend, and beyond that is France. Up the coast, northeast, the mud flats and shoals go on for miles. There is a harbour just up the way at a village they call Bruges-on-sea. You might find horses to purchase there, elsewise it’s a walk into Bruges proper for you.”
Walt shrugged. “Seems to know his business, sir.”
“We shall see,” I said, giving the master the full force of my death-stare.
The cold winter sea churned beneath the prow like the frothing mouth of a blown horse. Icy wind sliced through my clothes and chilled me to the bone.
We splashed ashore in the half-light of a grey dawn, wearing our padded armour coats and struggling to keep our over-sized packs from getting completely soaked.
“Going to be right hard buying decent horses for anything other than a king’s ransom,” Walt said as we trudged along the track to the nearest village. “But I reckon we can like as not help ourselves to a brace of them from some little lord’s stables hereabouts.”
“We are not thieves, Walt,” I chided. “And the Flemings are our allies.”
Walt scratched at his chin. “Seems like they’re allies with King Edward in fighting the French but me and you are just a pair of foreigners traipsing through their lands uninvited.”
“Nevertheless.”
He shrugged and hitched his packs higher on his shoulders.
We were turned away from the village of Eastend by men with spears and crossbows who did not believe, or did not care, that we were English.
“Let us try Bruges,” I said to Walt. He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
The path to Bruges was almost empty and we met few travellers. The town was one of the biggest and busiest markets on the Continent, teeming with wealthy merchants and stuffed with skilled craftsmen, drawing locals from the lands all around and traders from everywhere in the world, when times were good. And yet it seemed as though we were a
lmost alone as we approached the outskirts and suburbs. Even Walt was disturbed.
“Seems like things ain’t going to go well for us in there, sir,” he said, nodding at the walls and roofs in the distance.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” I replied.
A short while later, we passed by a father and his son sitting on their cart by the side of the road.
“Way’s closed,” the man said, turning to spit. Where one of his eyes used to be was a weeping sore that he dabbed at with a filthy rag.
“Do you mean to say that the town is not admitting travellers?” I asked him.
It seemed, as he squinted at me, that his French was not very good. “Way’s closed,” he repeated.
Walt plucked at my elbow. “Best make our way to a manor off in the country, what say you, sir?”
I shook Walt off. “They likely did not admit him on account of the appalling pustules in his eye, fearing him to be a plague carrier.”
Walt wrinkled his nose. “What if the townsfolk detain us?”
“We shall not allow that to happen,” I replied, tapping my sword. “Come on, you coward.”
The men on the gate were suspicious but once they saw we were healthy and had coin to spend, they welcomed us like we were old friends, directing us to the places where we might purchase what we needed.
“Is the brothel house still open?” Walt asked but I shoved him in through the gate and apologised to the porters.
“Of course it will not be open, Walter. Besides, we have no time for that sort of thing, man. And you will certainly catch the plague in such a place. And catch it in your nether regions, like as not, causing your pestilential member to drop off by the middle of next week.”
He nevertheless disappeared from our inn during the night, returning bleary-eyed but happy before sunrise and dozed in the saddle the next day.
Our four horses were good enough for the task and I felt hopeful as we set off because finding good mounts for the journey had been playing on my mind since leaving London. The rain threatened throughout the morning, fell lightly in the afternoon and ceased before sunset.