Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2)

by Roberto Calas

  We rise at first light and I go to Zhuri’s chamber to ask if he wants to come. He shakes his head. “I swore I would guard Morgan,” he says, “and that promise will keep me here until he is healed. I will continue to take care of him and check his health every day. I am glad you arrived when you did, or I would have had to leave him.”

  Something moves next to him and I catch a glimpse of long brown hair. Zhuri clears his throat. “Besides, I like it here.”

  “Until next time, Zhuri,” I say.

  “Until next time, Sir Edward.”

  I walk to the stables, where I meet Tristan and Belisencia.

  “How is the wound?” Belisencia asks.

  “Much improved,” I say, and it is. My head feels clearer. Walking no longer tires me, although I still feel weak. Tristan helps me into my armor and I help him into his. We tighten our sword belts, nod to one another, then mount. Or try to mount. After my third attempt, Tristan gives me a boost into the saddle.

  “You could use a day or two of rest,” Tristan says.

  “You could do with a day or two of shutting your mouth,” I reply.

  “Hallelujah,” Belisencia says.

  As we ride out of Hedingham, the panic returns to my soul. I must find the cure. It feels as if someone has punched a hole in Elizabeth’s sandglass. It feels as if her life is seeping away faster than ever.

  Chapter 24

  We ride eastward again, passing south of Maplestead. Tristan asks Belisencia if she wants to visit her husband, Paul, but she ignores him. Thick black clouds drift and swirl overhead, turning day to twilight. We keep a good pace, stopping only to water the horses.

  Just past Pebmarsh we spot a pilgrim walking on his knees southward, probably toward Canterbury. I have seen this before. Pilgrims walk on their knees to atone for their sins. But I cannot imagine doing such a thing amidst this plague that has swept England. I have no doubt that he is afflicted by the other sickness: the third plague. Only a madman would walk on his knees through this England. He does not look at us and we leave him to his pilgrimage.

  “Someone should give that man a horse,” Tristan says. We slow our pace to give our steeds some rest.

  “I admire him,” Belisencia replies. “He is a devout, God-fearing man looking for a way to atone for his sins.”

  “I’d prefer a God that I don’t have to fear,” Tristan says.

  “Only sinners need to fear him,” she says. “And yes, that means you.”

  “But aren’t we all sinners?” Tristan replies. “The Bible has us sinning before we are even born, doesn’t it?”

  “It does,” she replies. “Because of Adam and Eve.”

  I spot movement up ahead on the side of the road. A plaguer is eating a horse.

  “Some mad strumpet eats a crab apple and the rest of us have to suffer forever? What sort of God does that?”

  “Do not blame God for our faults, Tristan,” Belisencia says. “It was Adam who caused this. Not God.”

  “God, Adam, Eve, does it matter?” Tristan says. “I don’t even like apples. Why should I be born a sinner? Why must newborn babies carry a stain?”

  “Newborn babies acquire Original Sin from their parents,” she says. “Parents transmit the sin through their procreation.”

  “Through procreation?” Tristan shakes his head. “So Original Sin is like syphilis and the burning crotch. It’s all starting to makes sense.”

  “That’s not what I am saying at all,” she replies.

  Thunder rumbles distantly. We approach the plaguer and I realize I was wrong. It is not a plaguer at all. It is a man buggering a hobbled horse. The man does not even look at us as we pass. He continues pumping at the prone horse, his eyes closed, his face strained. The mare grunts resignedly. Belisencia gasps and looks away. Tristan and I exchange glances. We ride silently for a few paces. Tristan clears his throat, looks back at the man and horse. We ride a few more paces.

  “So,” Tristan says, “maybe a little mercury ointment, applied liberally, would clear up this Original Sin affliction.”

  “Think of it in this way,” Belisencia replies. “Humanity is like a pail of white paint. Adam dropped a spot of lampblack into it. It does not matter how much more white you add to the pail. It will never again be pure.”

  “Interesting,” he says. “So, if the pail will never be white again, why not just add more lampblack and make a nice gray? It would be a lot more fun than spending your entire life trying to make it white again.”

  “Because gray is dark and unpleasant,” Belisencia says. “White is bright and virtuous.”

  “I like gray,” Tristan responds.

  Thunder rumbles again, loudly this time, and the three of us look up at the dark clouds.

  “Gray.” Belisencia points toward the skies. A few thick drops spatter down onto us, and after another dozen paces the dark clouds unleash a torrent of rain. I give Belisencia a saddle blanket to cover her head and we ride hunched against the deluge.

  The storm eases after a mile or so. We ride the remaining miles in a spitting rain that comes and goes, but I barely even notice. Bure is not far. The simpleton is near.

  Bure is a quiet place upon the River Stour, with ivy-wrapped tree trunks and mild, rolling hills. A humble stone church and a mill sit by the river, surrounded by shaggy willows, marsh grasses, and water lilies. A forest crowds the village on the east side, just a kicked stone’s distance from the church, and two-dozen thatched homes spread out from both banks of the river. The Stour winds lethargically through the village and disappears into the forest.

  It is a normal English settlement. But there is something quite abnormal occurring on the far riverbank. The entire population of the village seems to have gathered at the Stour, near the forest. Tristan and I look at one another. If we did not need the simpleton, we would stay well clear of such a sight. But we ride past the church, which is devoted to the Virgin Mary of course, and head toward an arched wooden bridge that spans the river.

  One of the tallest men I have ever seen clutches a long staff that bears a crucifix at the top. He has close-cropped black hair and wears red and black robes that hang off his thin frame like sails. Two men in front of him hold a bound and gagged woman in their arms. The rest of the villagers form a half circle around them.

  Tristan and I break into a gallop. Only bad things can happen to a bound woman when priests are around. But we are too late. The tall man makes the sign of the cross and the two men throw her into the river. We cross the bridge and lose sight of the woman, but the villagers see our horses rumbling toward them and pull back. I see the bound maiden again. It is not deep where she has fallen, so she lies, kicking, on her side, the water covering only half her body. Her head is still clear of the river.

  Tristan and I dismount and push our way through the crowd. I point at the tall man with the staff. “Are you mad?” It is a question I should not ask anymore. The third plague is easy enough to spot.

  “Mad?” the tall man asks. “Would that it were madness and all our pain just a tormented dream. Would that I could wake in the morning in my cottage and say to myself, ‘Good Lord, what a foul dream I had.’ Nay, ’tis not madness, my good sir. ’Tis survival.”

  Tristan nods. “Yes,” he says. “I’ve lost count of the number of bound women I have thrown into rivers so that I might survive.”

  “Mock our pain,” the tall man says. “Mock our suffering. Go on.”

  Tristan looks puzzled. “I’ve never had this sort of invitation before.” He clears his throat. “All of you are fools! I laugh at you! You deserve—”

  “Tristan.” I put an edge in my voice.

  Belisencia arrives and shuffles through the crowd. She stares into the river. “Why is that woman in the water?”

  “Survival,” Tristan says. “Do you know nothing?”

  “You, priest,” I say. “What is your name?”

  “My parents christened me after my grandsire, a fine man who made a living from tanning hi
des,” he says. “And he was christened Ralf.”

  Tristan snickers at the name.

  “Why have you thrown that woman into the river, Father Ralf?” I ask. I feel like sitting on the bank. It tires me to stand.

  “Because a great evil has descended upon us,” the priest says. “Sent from hell, or perhaps from some other wicked place, but it has descended upon us all the same. A terrible menace that has terrified the people of Bure. Something so wicked that—”

  “What is it, man?” I am anxious to find the simpleton and this priest will not stop talking.

  Ralf flinches at my raised voice. “A dragon,” he says. “We are plagued by a dragon.”

  Tristan laughs. “Truly? A dragon?”

  Ralf nods his head. “Yes. A dragon.”

  Tristan looks at the bound woman in the river and raises his hands. He turns toward the crowd. “When will you people stop acting like sheep? You deserve to be mocked! Your priest tells you there is a dragon in the area, so you allow him to tie up your women and throw them into the river? Is that what Christians do these days?” He points to the woman in the Stour. “This river is probably tidal. You will go home and, during the night, the river will rise and she will drown. Her body will be carried out to sea. You will come back in the morning and she will not be here, and this priest will tell you a dragon took her. And you will believe him, won’t you? And you will allow him to murder more of your women! If you have any women left, that is. Do you people have no minds? Do you truly think a dragon simply swoops down and—Satan’s hairy cock! Holy Christ almighty! House of fucking Gemini!”

  Tristan staggers backward as a dragon bursts from the forest and roars. I am too stunned to react, and so is everyone else. The dragon leaps into the river, hisses, then snatches up the woman in its toothy maw.

  EPISODE 5

  Chapter 25

  Father Ralf is correct. It is a thing of hell, this dragon.

  Every scabrous fold and ripple of its body is a testament to the evil in its soul. It crawls upon its belly like the Snake of Eden, long as three men lying head to foot and thick as two armored knights standing shoulder to shoulder. Its crusted skin is dark and stony, as if chiseled from the jagged walls of hell itself. Thick scales of deep, mottled golds and blacks ripple along the creature’s knotted body, glimmering in the daylight with the promise of invulnerability.

  I shake my head and gather my senses, feeling the calling of honor upon me. A maiden’s life is in danger. And it is a dragon that threatens her.

  Every priest dreams of sainthood. Every merchant dreams of riches. And every knight, no matter how much he may deny it, dreams of slaying a dragon. It is in our blood. Tristan and I nearly knock each other to the ground in our haste to reach the creature.

  I vault into the water and sink up to my calves in the soft mud of the river bottom. The Stour is only knee-high near the shore but gets swiftly deeper. I slog toward the wyrm, my sword flashing in the cloud-baked sunlight. The waterline licks at my stomach. Cold water seeps through mail and numbs my thighs and groin. Tristan takes long sloshing leaps at my side.

  The dragon’s jaws are clamped around the woman’s legs. It pulls the woman deep into the river and rolls like a twirling log, taunting us, the water splashing and churning violently. The woman is a whirl of white skirts and blue corset, of black hair and pale skin: an explosion of fabric and flesh that disappears into the Stour. The monster completes a roll and she becomes visible, her gurgling shrieks muffled by the gag, then she disappears once again below the surface. She spins in and out of the river.

  The cruel beast is having sport with her.

  Tristan reaches the wyrm first. He shouts and hacks at the creature with his sword, sending up an eruption of water. I sheathe my weapon and clutch at the bound woman, my mailed fingers brushing against the hard, warted skin of the dragon. The water makes her clothing slick and I have trouble taking hold of her. Something long and spiked lashes across the water, so fast that it is just a blur. It strikes Tristan’s back with a metallic crack that echoes across the river. The dragon’s tail. Tristan’s shout is cut short as he falls forward and under the water.

  Tristan!

  I stare into the river where he went under and hold the woman’s torso with both arms. I hug her close as the dragon rolls again. It drags me forward so powerfully that I almost roll with her. I dig my heels in and groan against the creature’s pull. The woman’s shrieks turn from horror to agony, so I release her. She plunges under the surface again. If I had kept my grip, the monster’s teeth would have torn off her legs.

  I lunge at the twirling monster. A spurt of water splashes into my mouth as I inhale, making me cough. The wyrm thrashes, making deep grunts, then curls its body through the water, heading downstream and into the forest. I claw at it, clutch at its knobbed body, and take hold of the tail, feeling the double row of spikes flexing under my hand. The creature flails, frothing the river, and its terrible strength nearly knocks me underwater. The dragon makes a sound: something between a hiss and a deep, throbbing grunt. It coils backward, releases the woman, and lunges at me. The mouth is as big as a treasure chest. Big enough to accommodate my head and torso. I fall backward, raise an arm as the flashing rows of bone-white teeth clash against my bracer and glance off. The impact knocks me back, the water roaring around me. People on shore cry out in terror. The Stour swallows me. Feathery milfoil brushes my face. There is silence. A cloudy brown darkness. I am in purgatory.

  I kick my feet and surface, taking in a deep breath and shaking the Stour from my hair. Sound returns to the world. Water splatters. Villagers scream from the shore.

  The dragon has vanished.

  The undulating river washes against me, makes me lightheaded and unsure of my balance. I pant from my exertions, feeling weak and more tired than I should be. I draw my sword again and spin in the water, my eyes darting wildly. Tristan stands in the river, holding the bound woman in his arms. He nods to me, water dripping from his armor, and sloshes toward the rush-hemmed shore. A lily has settled onto his right shoulder. I spin again, sword held high in one hand, and search the Stour as I back toward shore. Something moves to my right. I whirl and threaten a sprout of waving spearwort on the riverbank. I search downstream, but there is no sign of the dragon.

  Perhaps it has returned to hell. Or maybe we have angered it into bringing hell to Bure.

  The woman is alive, but her legs are torn and bleeding badly. She sobs through her gag.

  “Is there a leech in this village?” Tristan asks, but no one will meet his gaze. “For God’s sake, she’ll die! Do you have a barber?”

  I climb from the river. “We seek a simpleton who is said to live in Bure.”

  Father Ralf slams the butt end of his staff against my breastplate. “We had a pact with that dragon!” He strikes me with the staff again. “You have enraged it! We had a pact!”

  “A pact?” I shove the priest backward. “You made a pact with the devil?”

  “Our survival is at stake!”

  “What kind of pact?” I ask. “You feed it villagers so it will leave you alone? Is that your pact?”

  The priest raises the staff to strike me again, then appears to think better of it. He shakes his head and walks away, toward the village. I take hold of his cape and pull him backward with a little more force than I intended. He stumbles and falls to the wet grass.

  “Is that it?” I say. “Are you feeding your flock to the dragon so it will leave you alone?”

  The crowd becomes more active. I note a ripple of discontent at the edge of my vision. I should not have pulled on the cape so hard.

  Father Ralf crosses his arms and says nothing. The priest would not stop talking when we saw him first, and now he will not speak at all.

  “What kind of pact?” I shout.

  He flinches and holds up a trembling finger. “The dragon demands one virgin each month,” he says. “And in return it protects our village.”

  “This woman wil
l die if she is not tended to,” Tristan calls. He still holds her in his arms. “Who among you can bind her wounds?”

  Belisencia speaks soothingly to the woman, who is still bound and gagged.

  Father Ralf shakes his head. “She is our sacrifice,” he says. “She must be returned to the river.”

  Tristan scowls at the priest. “I’m certain that she doesn’t see it that way.”

  A bearded man at the front of the crowd speaks up. “She does,” he says. “She agreed to it.”

  Tristan opens his mouth to speak, shuts it again. He looks at the woman, who nods tearfully.

  Chapter 26

  The woman’s name is Sara, and her family is to receive an allotment of three shillings every month for five years. In return, Sara is to be sacrificed to the dragon and her name etched into the floor of St. Mary’s Church as a martyr for God, England, and the village of Bure.

  “They might even make me a saint,” she says tearfully.

  It is an unsettling thing. Maidens are supposed to cheer their heroes, to weep with joy at being pulled from the jaws of the beast. But Sara looks at us with tearful indignation.

  I sit on the damp grass and rub at my face. “Tend to her wounds,” I say to the priest. “Tend to her wounds while we talk. You can always throw her back after she has been bandaged.”

  The priest purses his lips and stares at the woman. A damp circle at the back of his robe marks the spot where he fell onto the grass. He nods at a thick-armed man in the crowd. The man takes Sara from Tristan and trudges off toward the village. A pox-faced older man—the leech or barber no doubt—follows him.

  “Now, where is your lord?” I ask.

  “Sir Richard perished,” the priest replies. “He died fighting the dragon.”

  “Sir Richard?” I say. “Sir Richard Waldegrave?”

  The priest nods. I knew Sir Richard. He was a good man. He would never have allowed the atrocity of human sacrifice in his village.

  “Very well,” I say. “Then I will ask you for your help. We seek a simpleton who lives in Bure. Is he among you? Can you point him out to us, Father?”