Elisha Daemon

by E. C. Ambrose

  Elisha, who had long distanced himself from God, felt the weight of that absence now, surrounded by churches in a city dominated by the massive palace of the chief Shepherd, with the sheep ever-dwindling, ever more anxious, ever more angry. His own anger against God had been indulgent, personal—if all men turned away from God, and from the leaders they could no longer trust, what happened then? The world as they knew it disintegrated into confusion, terrified masses of desolati ruled by necromancers who sucked their strength from the dying all around them, and molded the new world into a shape of their choosing. Mancer-lords would become mancer-kings, mancer-cardinals would rise to mancer-popes, exterminating the magi who might defy them and enslaving everyone who remained.

  A boy darted across the street, and Elisha froze, resisting the shove of the guard behind him, but the boy had lank blond hair and stopped at the building, coughing blood and breathing too hard. He propped himself up with a hand, revealing the bulge of darkness beneath his arm, then he plunged onward, up the steps of a house, where a woman took him in, already scolding by the time the door shut behind them.

  The soldier pushed again. “Get a move on!”

  Elisha obeyed, catching Harald’s quick glance.

  “I see you are still missing your ward,” Petrarch said. “Truly, it is a pity. So many parents will be without children, and children without parents. Here I had believed us on the verge of breaking with the darkness of the past, taking with us only its glory, to birth a new age of the dignity of man.” He spread his arms, then let them sink. “But it shall have to await our recovery from this great misfortune.”

  “If recovery there shall be,” muttered one of the soldiers.

  “Ecco là!” Petrarch announced in Italian. “Here is the church. But I shall have to hurry.”

  The pale stone building loomed ahead of them, with two great, peaked doors, richly carved and somewhat in contrast to the austere lines of the papal palace itself. The church gave the appearance of a holy space carved out from a fortress. Inside, the ceiling towered over them, with sweeping arches and a glory of stained glass windows in the nave, presiding over a scene of misery. A few people crouched among the pillars, some in attitudes of prayer, some slumped over. A few of these occupied irregular shadows, the blood and fluids that leaked upon dying, their smell mingling badly with the scent of incense and candles. Dark, fresh shades lingered through the gloomy church, so still in their deaths that Elisha longed for the battles of shadow he had witnessed in England, even the tragic suicides, the women lost in childbirth, the murders, beatings and drownings—even those had some sense of the heroic struggle of life. Every person who died should at least be striving toward something worth the struggle, be it the life of a child or the service of a king. This death smothered with indifference, crushing the spirit even as it destroyed the flesh, leaving these silent, standing shades, sentinels to a weary desolation.

  “Here, this is the place.” Petrarch had brought out a kerchief to cover his nose and mouth as he led the way toward an alcove at one side. A woman knelt there, her presence seething with hope and fear. Katherine. “Ah, Madame, forgive us the intrusion,” said Petrarch.

  “Not at all, sir. The Lord’s house always has room.” She shifted over deliberately toward the left, where Elisha stood, so that he must kneel between them.

  “It was here,” Petrarch whispered, with a glance to see if Katherine objected to the conversation. “I knelt in prayer, and bowed my head, then I was touched with the light—with the wailing as of lost souls crying out unto the Lord, and when I looked up, there he was, beside the altar.” He crossed himself reverently, kissed his fingers and touched the altar itself. “Alas, I must go. The cardinal is a demanding master. I shall hope for your acquittal on the morrow. In the meantime, may your soul be lifted by this holy place.” With a nod, Petrarch rose and departed, the soldiers shuffling themselves about to maintain their watch over Elisha.

  Elisha imitated the poet’s gesture, crossing himself and reaching out to the altar, feeling the chill sting of a torturous death. One of the mancers’ forged relics resided in this altar, a portal to the Valley. He was about to withdraw, when Katherine’s hand joined his, fingers splayed to grip the stone, her smallest finger touching his hand, the exposed flesh above the bandage. “You look half-dead, Elisha, what has happened to you?”

  “I had the plague.”

  She gasped aloud, then swallowed, darting him a look, her eyes glossy with unshed tears. “Sweet Mary, my angel, how? When?”

  “I had to, in order to know it, and maybe to cure it.” The wash of his emotions heated their contact.

  “Jude gave it to you.” Her touch sizzled with anger.

  “Because I asked him to. Believe me, that was the last thing he wanted to do.”

  “You survived it, yet you still can’t cure it,” she said with bitter finality.

  “Perhaps one by one, but I cannot stop it. I had to know for certain.”

  A flash of chill steel strengthened Katherine’s back, bringing up her shoulders. “Would it help to kill him? I know you’d hate that, as would I, but if he is the carrier, then surely—”

  “No, Katherine.” He reeled at the thought, nearly snatching back his hand. “There are too many others, too many small ways it spreads. Killing him would stop nothing but his chance to become the master of his own life for once.”

  “Forgive me. Clearly, you know much more than I.”

  They knelt a long moment, as stone on stone, no emotion shared between them save this frosty silence.

  At last, she told him, “Harald followed a mancer here, Lord Nicolas of Orleans. Harald believed there was more going on than simply a courtier paying a call to the papal city, so he has not yet killed the man, but instead got himself hired as a papal guard—there have been many openings of late. Then, of course, he spotted Renart from your drawing, and asked for me. When I finished my business, I came. It was nothing to do with you.”

  The fact that she withheld her emotions displayed her hurt more than any contact might have done. Had he been too angry? If her suggestion to kill Jude had had merit, would he still have rejected it? “Thank you for carrying out your duties with such diligence.” He sent a slight apology, but she offered no response to that.

  “What brought you here?” she asked. “Renart, I assume.”

  “They need the Pope, or at least, enough of the papal authority to destroy the Church, too. Do you know if the Pope has been influenced?”

  “He’s met with Renart, of course, but he meets with many cardinals, when his physician allows him to meet with anyone.”

  “Guy de Chauliac?” Interesting. What if the doctor himself had been influenced, and his direction to his esteemed patient was a marker of their control.

  “That priest you asked after, Pierre Roger? I heard some of the nuns talking. Bandits strung a net across the river where the priest was sailing. Apparently, it caused the boat to crash, and he was injured, along with some of the Jews, but they were able to fight off the bandits and bring him here.”

  At their backs, one of the guards cleared his throat significantly. “We must return.”

  Elisha withdrew his hand, holding his palms lightly together, then crossing himself. “Forgive the disruption, Madame,” he murmured to Katherine as he stood.

  She gazed up at him, her eyes once again gone moist. “As I said, there is nothing to forgive. Peace be with you.”

  “And also with you.”

  Harald fell in beside him on the walk back to the blockhouse, hand on his sword-hilt. They crossed a triangular plaza fronted by palaces, and a low wall surrounding a garden where a few people sat or stood, listening to a woman singing about the miracles of the Virgin. Two of the company gave off the sinister vacancy of mancers. Between them, not screaming, nor struggling, nor bound, clad in fine velvet with a cap on his shaven head, sat Jude.

>   Chapter 29

  One of the guards noticed as well, giving a snort. “Seems your ward’s found a better guardian, eh?” He thrust his chin in the direction of the well-dressed family in their lovely garden, surrounded by the blossoms of springtime.

  Elisha’s heart ached along with his hands. He longed to break from his guard and dash across the plaza, catching Jude in his arms, asking what happened, begging him to return.

  “I shall address him, sir,” said Harald. “It was my task to find him for you, and in that I have failed. Let us at least be sure of his circumstances.” Not waiting for a reply, Harald strode across the plaza, but the singer finished, and her audience stood, applauding, and filing back into the house. “Hey!” Harald lengthened his stride. “Jude, stop!”

  The boy hesitated upon the steps, glancing back.

  Elisha raised his hand in greeting, his awareness racing between them, building from his knowledge of the boy. Before he gained more than the briefest sense of his warmth and distance, Jude turned and followed the others inside.

  “Yes? May I help you?” asked one of the women.

  Harald glanced back, apparently looking for some confirmation of how to proceed, then said, “That boy who was with you, who is he?”

  “An orphan who came to my attention. I understand his former guardian stands accused of dreadful crimes. In times like this, soldier, we have more need of charity than ever.” She smiled down at him. “He did wish to send a gift to his guardian.” She reached into a pouch at her side and produced a small object, which she placed in Harald’s grasp. “Perhaps you might deliver it?”

  “Thank you, Madame.” He gave a stiff bow, and marched back to join them, tight-lipped, free hand resting on his sword-hilt, the other holding out a small sachet stitched with a cross.

  Elisha accepted it, smelling the herbs it contained, and feeling the sting of Jude’s panic and pain. The lock of hair his father had torn from his head was inside. “When I am free, I shall return,” Elisha murmured, but it seemed hopeless: Having succeeded in his mission for Elisha, Jude had returned to the familiar company of mancers. His silence now was merely another sort of screaming, the defense that provided safety, keeping Elisha safe from him—or was Jude choosing the status that came with power unabashedly abused? What child would not wish to be well-fed, unafraid of violence or death, clad in velvets instead of rags? A child should not have to choose between comfort and trust, but Elisha had a sinking dread that, if he did return to talk with Jude, it would be Elisha who provoked Jude’s shrieking terror. The scar at his side, where Jude had cut him, throbbed in time with his palms as they walked back to the blockhouse.

  • • •

  In the morning, Elisha picked at his food, waiting for the moment they would reveal his burns and declare his guilt or innocence. Madness, really, this sort of justice. Thanks to Jude and his father sharing the plague, Elisha knew the body more deeply than ever, all the tiny things that must happen within, whether to spread a sickness, or to heal a burn. If any one of those little things went wrong, even the most innocent man could be infected. God knew Elisha had seen it happen often enough on the battlefield or in the hospital. He felt vaguely guilty, as if he should do a penance for his ability to escape that danger while so many others must face it. Even so, his innocence depended not on his level of healing, but on his inquisitor’s interpretation of it.

  A rapping on the door startled him, and the familiar guards stood outside, opening the door for his exit. In the courtroom, a smaller crowd gathered, including Father Osbert, Cardinals Renart and Colonna, Guy de Chauliac, and the young barber who had applied the bandages. Brigit was nowhere in sight, making Elisha both grateful and nervous.

  The barber stepped up to inspect his hands before unwrapping them. “Aye, these are my knots, untouched.”

  The bandages showed a bit of blood at the edges, along with the crumbs and stains of the last few days. With a sharp pair of scissors, the barber snipped through the top layers and unwrapped the rest, revealing Elisha’s palms. The blackened boundaries of the burns set off the redness within, and a few deeper burns where blisters had formed and receded. Elisha held his breath while Guy and the inquisitor examined the wounds for themselves.

  “The healing is relatively advanced,” the physician remarked.

  “But not unduly so,” said the inquisitor, “do you think? Would a revenant display such damage and healing?”

  “There is no such thing as a revenant,” Cardinal Colonna said. “When the flesh has failed, the soul passes on for judgment. If he is adequately healed, then the Lord has shown the way, and we must release him.”

  “Very well.” Guy spread his hands and stepped back. “It is a matter for the church, not for medicine, to determine.” He stared hard at Elisha.

  Father Osbert straightened, holding the book of his records. “So, Elisha of London, we find you innocent by means of the trial by ordeal. Go forth, and sin no more.”

  Cardinal Renart’s jaw twitched, his glare blazing at the inquisitor’s back, but he said nothing. They had agreed to the ordeal, and now the court must abide by its justice.

  Elisha finally released his breath, and bowed. “Thank you, Father.” Exposed to the air, his hands stung and throbbed all over again. “May I ask the return of my medical kit and the relics I carried? I should like to speed my healing as best I can.”

  “Master, may we have your permission to go to the papal infirmary for oils and simples?” asked the barber, causing Guy to break his stare. “The apothecaries in town have little of use, those that remain.”

  “Very well.”

  “And Father Pierre, how is he?” Elisha asked.

  “Little changed. But I cannot stop you seeing him.” Guy stalked away.

  Cardinal Renart stood up. “Then we are done here. As you have said, Father, we all have more important duties than this. Myself, I must attend the Holy Father.” He, too, swept from the room.

  The weight of his cold presence lifted from Elisha’s awareness, and he looked to the other two clerics. “How can a man gain an audience with the Pope?”

  Father Osbert shook his head. “In spite of your innocence, sir, you are hardly in a position to ask such a thing. You must prepare a petition and have it presented to the papal nuncio, and he shall decide if your request is worthy. Even then, it may take months. Monarchs, bishops, lords, abbots, so many have precedence.”

  “A petition to the papal nuncio.”

  “Yes, generally proffered by your own bishop or archbishop. Who is inconveniently deceased.” Father Osbert’s eyes crinkled as if he recognized this irony.

  “I’m already in Avignon, there must be another way.”

  “You could, of course, approach the nuncio yourself to inquire.” Father Osbert tapped the book in his hands. “But he has recently passed on due to the pestilence. In the absence of such an official, it is the duty of one of the cardinals to serve as the Holy Father’s gatekeeper, as it were. Alas, that man is Cardinal Renart.”

  Elisha absorbed this last blow with a sigh. Did that explain how the mancers influenced the Pope, not by getting him to do their bidding, but rather by controlling his access to everyone else?

  A soldier returned from the blockhouse, holding out Elisha’s medical pouch. “Couldn’t find no relics, sir.”

  Elisha checked inside and found his basic tools—tweezers, tooth key, scalpels, needles—and a few packets of herbs, but nothing else. Sometime in the last week, the mancers confiscated his relics, anything that might give him access to their churches and their crimes. Even these small movements sent shafts of pain up from his hands. “When may we go to the infirmary?”

  “Oh, right away, sir. I’ll take you, then I’ve patients to see, myself.” The barber set off at a brisk pace. “Rounds of the houses, anyhow, seeing who’s gone since yesterday.”

  The scent of sickness p
ermeated even the high walls of the papal palace, and the shifting currents of death moved around them. Few shades lingered in this palace; it was barely older than Elisha himself, and had seen nothing of war. Beyond one wall, eerie wails broke the sounds of the subdued city, and the barber chuckled. “Peacocks and wildcats, sir. The Pope’s got a garden for ’em, over yonder.”

  Like the royal menagerie back in London, where he had killed a lion to save a traitor’s life.

  Thomas’s ring fit too snugly on his finger, but he’d be damned if he removed it. Up a set of stairs opposite the tallest square tower, the barber led him to a high corridor. “Hospital Saint Benezet is just outside the wall here, near the bridge. Used to be just a dozen patients, and now it’s filled up.” He pointed out a window as they passed, then his hand fell. “Or maybe empty again, at this rate.”

  “It’s carried by fleas,” Elisha said. “You’ve got to watch out for the bedding, anything made of cloth. Try oil of rosemary to get them out.”

  “Fleas?” The man wrinkled his nose. “That’s not what Master de Chauliac says. He’s got the Pope standing, sitting, and sleeping between burning braziers to ward off the miasma.”

  Elisha wished he could catch the man’s arm and use his magic to wrench away his veils and show him the truth without terrifying and alienating him. “Trust me,” he said, adding a sense of honesty and urgency to his words, but he did not believe anything would come of it. There were so many theories of the origin of the pestilence, who would put any stock in what Elisha claimed? The disease originated not in the punishment of God, nor the power of the stars, nor the imbalance of humors carried in the miasma of the world, but tiny, ubiquitous fleas? What power did they have to influence the body? All the power they needed, once they made contact between a carrier of the plague, and a body that had none.