Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2)

by Roberto Calas

  Tristan clears his throat. “Pardon me,” he says. “Can we return to killing each other?”

  Walter narrows his eyes. “We weren’t killing each other,” he says. “Roger and I were killing you.” He spits to one side. “Unless you want to take yourselves somewhere else. That’s the last time I’m going to ask.” He takes a step forward and his hands flex on the crossbow. Tristan edges his cannon closer to him.

  “We need a surgeon,” Belisencia blurts. “Is there a hospital here still?”

  “Don’t be rude, Bel,” Tristan says. “We’ve only just met these men. We’re still at the pointing-weapons stage of our association.”

  Walter and Roger glance at each other. Walter’s gaze comes to rest on me, his eyes inventorying my condition. His hands shift and tighten on the crossbow, then he swings the weapon in my direction. “There’s nothing a surgeon can do for the afflicted. Get him out of here before he changes.”

  I want to speak in my defense but I am tired. So tired. I lean forward and lie against my horse’s mane. How could the wound have done this to me in so short a span? I think of all the men I know who have died in battle. The vast majority of them did not die on the battlefield. They died days later, sweating and vomiting, crying out from the agony, their wounds foaming with pus and reeking so badly that surgeons had to cover their faces with scarves. I would not like to die in that fashion.

  “He’s not afflicted,” Tristan says. “Just a smelly wound. If you leech him and get rid of his stench, we’ll let you see our horses’ bums.”

  “If he’s afflicted, we’ll kill him,” Walter says.

  “You wouldn’t be the first to try,” Tristan responds.

  I want to tell Tristan to stop being so aggressive, but I am tired. I rub at my eyes.

  “Edward is very weak.” Belisencia looks at me nervously. “Perhaps we should move him to a bed now.” She glances back toward Tristan and Walter, who still point weapons at one another. “If the two of you are done with your barbaric rituals.”

  “Walter, I don’t advise this.” Roger takes the mouse nose off and tosses it to the ground. “They are knights. They have armor and cannons.”

  “Which is why we should let Paul treat the man’s wound and get them out of here as fast as we can.” Walter nods to Tristan. “Put your weapons away and we’ll have a look at your friend.”

  “My apologies, did you say Paul would treat his wound?” Belisencia asks.

  “Paul’s our leech,” Roger replies.

  Belisencia glances at Tristan, then looks back at Roger. “But…you just said that Paul has no sense in his head.”

  Roger shrugs. “I didn’t say he was a good leech.”

  Walter and Roger are Knights Hospitallers. They are the only remaining knights at the praeceptoria and they have turned it into a refuge of sorts. Each day they ride out with ten other men to look for survivors and to kill any plaguers they find.

  “A majority of the survivors are children,” Walter says. He and Roger lead us toward one of the cottages at the far end of the compound. “The poor souls. They have nightmares, all of them. They jump at every sound. Most of them will cry if you raise your voice. So Roger and I try to distract them at all times.” He points to the rabbit ears on his head.

  “Is that what those dancers were?” Tristan asks. “A distraction?”

  “The wrong sort of distraction,” Walter replies. “It began with two women. They started dancing, and they wouldn’t stop. We thought they were just being silly. After an entire day of dancing, we grew a bit concerned. But how long can two women dance? We knew they would tire eventually. A few days later, a man joined them, and another woman. And after two weeks, we had a whole line of them. I don’t know how to help them. They just dance and sing until they fall down with exhaustion. We’ve had one of them die from it. His heart just burst.”

  Tristan opens his mouth, then shuts it. I think he is trying to decide if Walter is serious.

  “It’s happened before,” Roger says. “On the Continent. Hundreds of people dancing uncontrollably. They call it Saint John’s Dance. It moves from person to person, like plague, so we keep them locked in a barn.” He glances at Walter. “Or we try to anyway.”

  “Have you not heard the virtues of rope?” Tristan asks.

  Walter shakes his head. “They get worse if you bind them. A woman named Mary battered herself to death. Cracked her pretty skull wide open trying to get free. We had to bind the wounds of a half dozen of them before we decided it was best to just let them dance.”

  A child peers out at us from behind the wall of a cottage. He is clean and his dark hair is trimmed, but I have trouble focusing on his features. My eyes water with this sickness and I want to close them and sleep.

  “Is it a new sort of plague, then?” Belisencia asks. “Another one?”

  Yes. It is part of the third plague. The relentless spread of madness.

  “Perhaps this is God’s new scourge.” Tristan smiles. “It has a bit more flair than that tedious flood business from the Old Testament.”

  “There is nothing funny about this, Tristan,” Belisencia says.

  “No,” he replies, rolling his eyes. “There is nothing funny about God cleansing the earth through dance.” He laughs. “Perhaps we should gather pairs of animals into a boat and do needlepoint and other dull things.”

  “Stop it, Tristan,” she says.

  People do not understand Tristan. They call him an arse and say he has no consideration for anything. But I know Tristan. He is a man with a love for life. A man who sees the humor in everything. A man who rarely gets flustered or melancholy. I wish, sometimes, that I could be more like him. My mind drifts to the past, to our campaigns in France. I think I am feverish.

  “It’s too late!” Tristan shouts. “ Dear Lord, it’s too late!” He takes Belisencia’s hands and dances, spinning her in a circle. “We are doomed!”

  She scowls, but I can see the smile struggling to break free.

  “Dance with me, Belisencia! Dance with me to heaven!”

  They look into each other’s eyes for a long moment, then she pulls her hands away, a smile shining on her face. Tristan would do well at this hospital. He is good at distraction.

  The smile fades quickly. Belisencia smooths her skirts and shakes her head. “Those people are sick, Tristan,” she says. “You have no respect for anything.”

  “On the contrary,” he says, staring at her. “I have a deep respect for beauty.”

  She blushes, fights another smile, and runs a hand through her dark hair.

  “And some day I will find it.” He laughs.

  Belisencia’s mouth drops open; she looks to me and I shake my head.

  Tristan is an arse.

  Chapter 20

  Doctors.

  That is the new name for men who are somewhere between barber and surgeon. I despise doctors. We used to call them “leeches,” because their primary course of treatment was to apply small bloodsucking worms to their patients. I do not know the reason for the name change, but I suspect the old title was too close to the mark. Doctors are a greedy lot. In my experience, they are always more concerned with payment than treatment. “Take while the patient is in pain.” That is the philosophy of their profession. And I despise them for it.

  But I need a doctor right now. My wound must be tended to so my journey can continue. I think of the black marks on Elizabeth’s wrists and feel a wave of frustration. I need the wound tended to quickly.

  Walter and Roger escort us into a cottage at the far end of the praeceptoria. It is not a hospital, just a small stone cottage with a tile roof, but Paul has set up his tools here. He is a plump man, with a matted auburn beard and the wild hair of a shipwreck survivor.

  “We have a patient for you, Paul,” Walter says. He and Tristan help me into the room.

  “A patient?” Paul holds the lid to a ceramic jar in his hand. He replaces the lid and looks our way, but it is not me whom his eyes rest upon.
It is Belisencia. The doctor rakes at his hair with thick fingers and smiles at her while Tristan and Walter help me out of my armor. Paul’s mouth looks like an ancient ruin; the teeth that remain are twisted and soiled by years of decay.

  “Are you a nun?” he asks Belisencia, his gaze roaming her body.

  She nods quickly and puts her hands together. “Married to God.”

  Paul frowns and scratches at his beard, leans toward her. “Happily married?” He stares at her like a beggar looking through a window on a feast day. Belisencia flinches from him and touches the tips of her fingers to her nose. It appears the doctor’s breath is as rotten as his teeth.

  “Your patient is over here, Paul,” Tristan says.

  “Ah, the patient. Lay him over there.”

  Tristan and Walter help me into a bed in the one-room cottage. It is a sparse chamber: a chest, two chairs, and a table with the sundry instruments of a doctor. Paul studies my wound, sniffs at it, and recoils.

  “Roger, please open the door,” he says. “Or this smell will kill us all.” I catch the briefest hint of his breath and consider the irony of his statement.

  Paul asks me questions about the wound. When the fever started. What caused the injury. Where I received the wound. How long the wound has festered.

  I answer his questions as best I can, then listen to him as he drones on about black bile and phlegm, about my humors being out of balance, and how the liver is an oven that, in my case, has overheated. He looks back at Belisencia often, as if explaining all of this to her.

  “Incidentally,” he says to her, “might I ask if your humors are in balance, my lady? I could have a look at y—”

  “She has no humor,” Tristan says. “Speak with me and Edward, not her.”

  “Yes, speak with Tristan.” I see a glint of mischief in Belisencia’s eyes. “But he’s half-deaf, so you will have to lean in close.”

  Paul stands up and edges close to Tristan, who turns away from the man’s mouth and darts a glance at Belisencia. Tristan’s smile is a vow for revenge.

  “On what day was the patient born?” Paul asks loudly.

  “The seventh of June,” I say.

  Paul shakes his head and looks at me as if I have failed some test. “You were born to the House of Gemini.”

  I nod.

  “That is not good, Sir Edward. Are you sure you were born on that day?”

  “Listen to me,” I say, my voice croaking, “I have answered all of your questions. Drain the wound and apply what you must to my wrist. I need to leave as soon as possible.”

  Paul, like many doctors, uses astrology to guide him. I know nothing of star signs, but looking to the heavens for answers is just prayer, no matter what form it takes. And prayer does little for me these days.

  The doctor sighs. “I will treat your wound, but I do not take responsibility for what comes of it,” he says. “Venus is transitive today, and the moon is three-quarters full. That does not bode well for any patient today. And it certainly does not bode well for someone who was born under Gemini.”

  “Edward was born under a goat,” Tristan says. “So don’t worry overmuch.”

  I would kick him if he were in reach.

  Paul rises from the bed and walks to the trestle table that holds the tools of his profession. He picks a thin saw from among the tools.

  “What are you doing with that?” Tristan asks.

  Paul looks at the saw, then at Tristan. “I’m going to heal your friend.”

  “With a saw?”

  “Yes. We will have to cut the hand off. It’s the only way.”

  “Satan’s hairy cock!” Tristan says. “You’re not cutting anything off.”

  “Your friend’s wound is like a month-old plum. It is rotted through. If he is to live, we must prune the rotted parts away.”

  “Your brain is rotted,” Tristan says. “And I’ll prune it from your skull if you get near him with that saw. I’ve seen surgeons treat festering wounds without any sort of pruning.”

  “Any other form of treatment will fail. If you could read the stars, you would understand that. I am the doctor here. You asked me to try to save him, and that is what I am going to do.”

  “There will be no pruning.” There is steel in Tristan’s voice.

  Paul tries to push his way to me, but Tristan blocks his path.

  “Put down the saw,” Tristan snarls. “Or I’ll prune your face, you charlatan!”

  Paul sighs and looks to Walter. “Can you please take everyone away except for the patient? I must be allowed to work.”

  “You wanted us to tend his wound,” Walter says to Tristan. “Step out of the way and let him tend.”

  “I wanted you to tend his wound, not remove it.” Tristan points to the table that holds Paul’s tools. “There are a host of things on that table, things that are not saws. Go pick one out and use it.”

  Walter aims his crossbow at Tristan. “If you prefer a different course of treatment, you’re free to find a different leech.”

  “We’re called doctors now,” Paul says.

  “Perhaps you could recommend another leech,” Tristan replies. “One who doesn’t mind that Edward was born on a summer day in June.” I hear the frustration in his voice. Tristan does not get flustered or upset easily, but when he does, it can be a terrible thing.

  “There are no other leeches within ten miles of here,” Walter says. “So you might want to step aside and let Paul do what he’s good at.”

  “What he’s good at?” Tristan snaps. “Maiming people? Is that his specialty? I won’t allow it!”

  Walter studies Tristan over the top of his crossbow. “Then leave.”

  Tristan’s lips draw into a snarl. “He will die if we leave.”

  “He will probably die whether you leave or not,” Paul says. “The stars aren’t in his favor.”

  I am dying already. I think I can hear the angels singing in heaven.

  “I’m finished with this,” Walter says. He motions toward the door with his crossbow. “Get out. All of you. And take Sir Edward with you. Ride away somewhere and don’t return.”

  Tristan speaks with a calmness that terrifies me. “I will not leave until Sir Edward’s wound has been treated.”

  “I told you not to let them in.” Roger aims his crossbow at Tristan. “Didn’t I tell you not to let them in?”

  “I am finished with this too.” Paul sets the saw down on the bed and walks toward the open doorway.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Tristan shouts, and this time the steel is not in his voice, but in his hands. He pulls Paul back to the bed by the hair and places a dagger blade under his throat. The doctor stops moving, his eyes wide as eggs.

  Belisencia gasps. “Tristan, no!”

  Walter’s face reddens, his neck pulses. “Take your hands off our leech.” He steps forward and jabs the crossbow toward Tristan. “Let him go!”

  “God’s bones, Walter!” Roger shouts. “You had to allow them in, didn’t you? You couldn’t listen to me, could you?”

  Paul gropes backward with his hand until he finds the saw and tries to strike at Tristan with it. Tristan grabs the doctor’s arm and twists it behind the man’s back. Paul shrieks and drops the saw, but Tristan does not let go. “What do the stars say about broken arms, Paul? I hope you weren’t born under Gemini.”

  “Let him go!” Walter aims the crossbow at Tristan’s forehead. “Let him go or I swear I will make you a unicorn!”

  Roger slips forward, his crossbow inches from Tristan. “Let go of him and get out!”

  It is crowded at my bedside.

  The voices of the angels grow louder in my head. I wonder if Elizabeth’s voice is among them.

  “I’ll let this gong farmer go when he heals Edward!” Tristan shouts.

  The song of the angels swells to fill the room. But they are not angels, they are dancers. Dancing men and women shuffle into the cottage. They hold hands and sing and weep and look at us with tortured eyes
. The line is led by a woman with a blue silk veil wrapped around her head. She sobs and weaves between Belisencia and Roger, then knocks Walter backward and leads the line between him and Tristan.

  Walter does his best to ignore them. “Let him go!”

  Belisencia covers her ears and shrieks. “Stop it! Stop it all of you!”

  “Everyone…everyone stop…” I feel faint from sitting up.

  The dancers wind though the room like a living serpent. A man wearing a green muffin cap kicks Paul’s trestle table over. Metal tools fall jangling to the floorboards. Ceramic jugs shatter, splashing fluids across the room. Linen bandages and leeches, silk thread and metal knives, needles and spoons—they fall in a rattling shower onto the wooden floor.

  “This will accomplish nothing!” Roger shouts. “Release him!”

  “I’m going to shoot!” Walter shouts. “I’m going to send you to hell!”

  “Please, Tristan!” Belisencia cries. “Please!”

  I can’t make sense of what is happening. Everyone is shouting at the same time. Belisencia is crying and pulling at Walter’s arm. Roger is trying to aim over her shoulder with his crossbow. The dancers are making a mess of the room. Tristan is screaming about astrology and gardening. And Paul shrieks as the dagger blade touches his skin.

  A woman with fair hair meets my gaze, her blue eyes blurred with tears. She twines her long fingers in front of her face. A small silver cross dangling from her neck bounces and twists against her dress as she leaps and twirls.

  I look at the fallen trestle table and spot a loaf of green bread on the floor.

  God helps those who help themselves.

  “Kill him, Walter!” Paul screams. “Kill him!”

  It takes all of my strength to slip out of the bed on the side farthest from the cacophonous dispute. The fever has leeched me of my energy. I pick up the loaf.

  Bolts of pain shoot through my head when I bend down to pick up a steel knife. The metal blade feels like ice in my warm fingers.

  “Let him go, Tristan!” Belisencia shrieks. “This isn’t helping!”