“Not quite,” Loche answers. He looks at Julia, “The notebook—the red note book—you’re certain no one has looked at it? No one has read it?”
Julia nods, “Yes, I am sure. George thought it would be dangerous. Have you?”
“No. Not yet. I must wait. I—I must—” he broke off.
With one hand, Edwin dives Luke Skywalker from the tub edge into the bath, apparently in pursuit of some monster from the depths. “Are we still writing the good stories?” he says with the splash.
“That’s all we can do.”
Loche’s eyes freeze on the surface of the water as Edwin lifts Luke and walks him along the floating bodies of action figures.
“That’s all we can do.”
Horses
August, 1350
London, England
“It takes near to a month, sometimes longer, for a leaf to grow from the stem once one is taken,” William of the Leaves said.
Dr. Robert Peterson lowered one of the leaves into a steaming cup of water. The scent of warm earth and citrus rose into the air. He lifted the cup to his lips and sipped at it.
“My lord, Albion the Apothecary, has taken the only seed the plant has produced over these twelve years to see what can be cultivated. Our hopes are for healing herbs. Alas, there has been nothing yet. How I wish for more. Once I leave you, I journey to Italy to meet him.”
The Great Plague had come ashore and ravaged England. The Great Mortality. Countless had been infected. Countless had died. Blackened skin, lesions, convulsions, pain—death.
William had seen it before.
William had seen death in many forms over his short life. But never quite like this.
William was now eighteen.
“You have grown tall,” Robert Peterson said. The doctor’s wrinkled hand stirred the tea. Lying in a soft bed beside the window was his wife of twenty-three years. The plague was devouring her. Sable caps of skin tipped her fingers. Blood stained the sheets near her sleeping face.
The doctor leaned down bringing the rim to her mouth. “Drink, my sweet,” he said, gently. “All will be well. All will be well.” He began to cry.
The woman opened her mouth and the drink fell in. She swallowed. A moment later, she opened her eyes.
“Something is happening, Robert. Robert! Robert! I can feel the sun seeking me. The winter is passing.”
Robert sat beside her and wept.
She fell back to sleep shortly after another sip. The blood red lesions were already fading to pink.
William stepped out of the room and into the summer morning sunshine.
Healing the vast numbers of sick was impossible with only three leaves, but he could do his best to give a few doctors a kind of immunity so that they could at least ease those that suffer. The leaves did not grow with the same speed as the pestilence. And there were only three. William did what he could. When Robert Peterson’s letter came, telling of his wife’s coming demise, he rode in haste.
The doctor looked much older than the last time he had seen him. His hair had washed to a silver-white. There was still a raw scar across his forehead from that horrible night, long ago.
William recalls being carried by Albion back into Gravesend’s chamber and seeing the doctor sitting with his back against the wall and a servant pressing a cloth to a wound upon his brow. It was Robert Peterson that set William’s escape into motion by sacrificing himself and attacking the monks that restrained his father.
“Thank heaven, the boy lives!” William remembers the doctor saying, when they returned. “Apothecary, well done.”
Bishop Gravesend coughed quietly to the cleric at his side, “The boy. There is the boy!”
William pulled against Albion to be set down.
He ran to his father lying on the floor. It was too late.
He stood looking down upon his half-open eyes. Radulphus was statue-like—peering into some vision beyond the room.
William had seen death before.
In tears, William spun and went to Gravesend’s side. Healing is all there is, he remembered thinking. His fingers felt for another leaf from the pouch.
Before he pulled if from the stem, Gravesend said, “No, William. I am paid. The Devil has paid.” Then, with failing breath, to all in the chamber, he whispered, “The boy, the Priest and the Apothecary defended me against Cyrus. See them safely back to London. Cyrus and his followers made an attempt on my life. I go to the Lord. Praise be to God.” The Bishop of London spoke no more.
William tucked the remaining two growing leaves beneath his tunic.
There is something about the slant of light as autumn approaches, the William of eighteen summers thought. As if the sun, in its circle around the earth, shifts its glorious, brilliant attention to something other than us. While it looks away, our shadows grow longer. Our days shorten.
William pulled his boots off and set them beside the door. He stepped onto a clay path that was still moist from morning rain. The high sun warmed it beneath his feet. Above the sky was dark blue. Not the midsummer bright sky of June and July. It was hazed with an angled light. A few dingy weeds, a delicate whitish-green, grasped for life beside the road. Eight to ten corpses were piled a few feet away. Their arms and hands were black and smeared crimson. Clouds of flies. A small fire smoldered just beyond the neighboring hovel. The air was curdled and acidic.
William wondered why the seasons circle around us. Why, over and over, we were forced to witness spring into summer, fall into winter—birth into life, aging into death? Year after year. Why would the divinities in their spheres have any interest at all in these horrors we endure?
Treetops rustled. A few poplars arced in a welcome breeze—a breath of distant flowers. William inhaled it. His horse neighed at the scent.
It was time to go.
Across the road, three young, stick-thin children watched him through a low hedge. Dr. Robert said that he had taken them in when their parents had died. With a glance at the pile of bodies beside the road, William hoped the parents were long buried or burned.
The children stared at him. Their little dark eyes were wide and curious.
William pulled his boots back onto his feet. He reached into his saddle bag and produced four wood-carved horses—one black, one grey, one green and one blue. He held them up so the children could see. The oldest, probably seven-years-old, grinned at the shining toys. Slowly he stood up, took hold of his brother’s hand. His brother in turn took hold of his little sister’s hand, and the three circled around the hedge.
William set three toys on the clay path. Their noble frames carved in the shapes of swift galloping steeds—furies of motion. As the children began to play, William climbed onto his saddle and turned toward the road leading out of London. He held the blue toy horse up and examined the leg—still wrapped with a leathery tendril from a sorceress.
Here ends Part Two of The Newirth Mythology
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my grandparents, Ralph and Gerry Koep, and Bud and Leona Weiser, and my parents, Kenneth and Diana Koep. For unwavering support and creative influence, my deepest gratitude to Stan and Jo Lynn Koep, Bob, Bobbi and the Bean, Eric and Laurie Wilson, Scott Clarkson (caw minle), Mark Rakes, Cristopher Lucas, Cary Beare (Belzaare), Dani Clarkson, Geri and Walter Perkins, Michael Herzog, Mary Starkey, Dan Spaulding, Tom Brunner, David and Lisa VanHersett, Steve Gibbs, Randy Palmer (Vlad), Andrea Brockmeyer, Margaret Hurlocker, Terry and Deon Borchard, Anthony Nelson, Jeff Hagman, The Rubbish, all at the 315 Greenbriar Inn and The Iron Horse. To The Core, Mark Lax, Greg and Sara White, and Lisa Koep, the minglers of dreams and making, thank you for your belief, and encouragement. Heartfelt thanks to my editor, Allison McCready (Luminaare), and Will Dreamly’s Andreas John for guidance, scotch, and enthusiasm.
To my dear wife, Lisa, and son, Michael, all of my love.
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The Newirth Mythology, Part Three
Coming Soon
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Leaves of Fire: Part Two of the Newirth Mythology Page 31