There are bodies inside the priory too. But warm blood flows in these. Half the population of the village has settled inside the walls. I don’t want to know what happened to the other half. Blanket tents and sleeping mats fill the priory’s courtyard. Villagers sit in silence, their dirty faces watching our progress through the cluttered yard. Children playing by the walls take notice of us and thread the crowds to tag behind us. They touch our armor and ask to see our swords.
I wonder how many priory courtyards and castle baileys across England are similarly filled. I wonder just how bad things have gotten farther north, where the plague is said to have started. I wonder if my Elizabeth lives still, and the thought of her quickens my heart.
Prior David greets us and invites us into his chamber to dine. His room is sparse and the meal is sparser, but he seems humble and pleasant enough. The monks here are Carmelites. I know little about the Carmelites. Only that their order was started in Jerusalem by Europeans who travelled to the Crusades and settled in the Holy Land as hermits. I imagine we will all be Carmelites soon. Hermits. Hiding in castles and priories and praying assiduously.
“The plague worsens.” Prior David breaks off a hunk of bread from the loaf we share. “I understand it began among the Sodomites of Scotland.” He chews the bread and sips at a wooden mug. “To think that buggery is the cause of this misery.”
“I have heard many explanations,” I say. “But I’ve not heard that one.”
“Would it surprise you, Sir Edward?” He passes the loaf to Sir Morgan. “Such sins against nature always draw God’s Fury.”
Tristan’s smirk and the squint of his eyes tell me he has something to say. I kick him under the table and he ignores it.
“I hold no love for buggery, Prior David,” he says. “But this sickness has claimed many innocent lives. It seems that God’s Fury has poor aim.”
The prior raises his hands above his shoulders, palms up, and quotes scripture: “Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens. They are deeper than the depths of the grave.” He looks directly at Tristan. “It is not for us to question God, Sir Tristan. It is for us only to have faith.”
Sir Morgan scowls at Sir Tristan and quotes the last line of the verse that Prior David began: “But a witless man can no more become wise than a wild donkey’s colt can be born a man.”
Prior David offers us a novice’s quarters to sleep in. I decline the quarters. My knights and I can sleep on the grass outside the abbey, among the villagers. The only thing I want is a wall between us and the plague while we sleep.
Before I step outside I visit the nave. It is packed with burghers and wealthy merchants, who have set up beds of hay and linen. I walk through their midst and light a candle for Allison Moore. I say a prayer for her soul. And for mine.
Outside, in the courtyard, I listen to the hum of life as I drift toward sleep, and I think of a monastery in Saint Edmund’s Bury. It is a bit like this priory, but far larger. The men who rule there are neither humble nor pleasant, but I pray that Elizabeth is there. My wife’s mother is friends with the prior at that monastery, and I have been inside its walls many times as her guest. It is impenetrable.
I imagine Elizabeth sleeping in a novice’s quarters. I imagine her praying for my return, her hands clasped together. Her hands are beautiful. Fingers long and white and slender I would sometimes study those fingers while she slept. Such perfect beauty in them. A panic grips my soul when I think I may never see those hands again. Never feel the gentle stroke of her thumb against mine. Has it truly been three months since I have felt her touch?
Elizabeth. Never shall I let you out of my sight again.
Chapter 4
The Medway tumbles beneath us as we cross the stone bridge at Aylesford. I had wanted to cross the river at Rochester and follow the old Roman road thereafter, but the attack at Meddestane forced us west. There are few roads here. We will ride over chalk hills and red heaths. Sir Morgan tells me it’s for the best.
“That old Roman road is well travelled,” he says. “Many big towns. Probably teeming with the afflicted. Out here” — he gestures grandly — “we won’t see a soul.”
As he speaks, I spot a soul running toward us, a man in a roughspun tunic waving his arms. We pull our horses to a halt and wait for him. In the distance behind him is a tiny village of wattle and daub. A small stone church is the only structure of any significance. Up in the sky a large bird flutters erratically. It can’t be possible. It has to be a different falcon. I watch it until it settles in a stand of alders. Morgan doesn’t seem to notice, and I don’t make mention of it.
“Kind sirs!” The man pants and doubles over as he catches his breath. “Kind…sirs. Thank…thank Our Lord…that I spotted you.” He is a peasant, with shaggy black hair and a patchy beard.
“How can we help you?” I ask.
“My daughter. She’s trapped. One of those monsters chased her into our house. Come quickly!”
Many people say that chivalry is a dying notion. That honor is dead. This may be true. But no knight I have ever known can resist a maiden in distress. And though my every thought is to continue north, toward Elizabeth, I find myself thinking about how close this village is. How easy it would be to dispatch one afflicted man and be on our way.
The peasant clasps his hands together. He has three black circles tattooed onto his right hand above the thumb. They are odd things to mark your skin with. “Please, m’lords. My sweet Allison. She’s my only daughter.”
And that is the final argument. The name thunders in my ears. I draw my sword and nod to the peasant. “Take us to Allison.”
The thud of our horses’ hooves is the only sound in the village. The settlement seems deserted. Half-eaten bodies lie scattered everywhere. No one has cleared them. No one has burned them. Morgan pulls his tunic over his nose. The peasant walks ahead of us, looking back over his shoulder time and again to make sure we follow. He holds one hand over his nose.
“My neighbor, Thomas, he got afflicted,” the peasant says as he walks. “He went into our house while I was getting wood. My Allison, she was inside. She got herself into the cellar, through the trapdoor. But Thomas, he’s in the house! My Allison can’t come out with him inside!”
He runs ahead and we follow.
“He lives here with his daughter? In this stench?” Tristan gazes to either side, then back to the peasant, ten paces ahead. “He seems a bit off to me. Why didn’t he stand outside the house with a scythe and call Thomas out? Maybe he’s out to ambush us.”
“Honestly, Tristan,” Morgan says, “is there anything you trust? This man is obviously a farmer. See the fields? He’s spent his life working a three-crop rotation and tending to his family home. He’s never killed anything larger than a pig, and you want him to take a blade to his neighbor? The Lord says thou shalt not kill. Some people still respect the Word of the Lord.”
“So he tells us to kill his neighbor, instead,” Tristan says. “I understand how it works now. Thank you, Sir Morgan.”
The peasant takes us to a home that is ten paces from the stone church. A two-wheeled wagon full of stones barricades the door. Our peasant locked the plaguer inside with his daughter.
Howls ring out from inside the house. We dismount and don our helmets. I point with my sword toward the church. “Are there plaguers in there?” My voice sounds metallic with the great helm on.
“No, m’lord.”
“Good. Wait inside. Keep the door barred. This will be sorted in a moment.”
“I’d prefer to wait outside, m’lord.”
I stare at him. Tristan is right. There is something odd about this man. Too many things don’t add up. “If you want to orphan your daughter, that’s your choice.” Morgan and I stand ten paces from the door as Tristan takes hold of the wagon’s handles. He rolls the cart away, groaning with the effort.
I take a breath and prepare to do my part for honor.
>
Sir Morgan looks at me. I nod to him. Tristan takes hold of the cast-iron door latch and glances our way. I tighten and loosen my grip on the hilt of my sword. Tristan yanks the door open and ducks behind it.
It takes several heartbeats for the afflicted neighbor to notice the open door. He is the largest human I have ever seen, and I have seen many large humans. His arms are logs, his neck thicker than my thigh. The man takes a shuddering step, then careens toward us with his head ducked low. It is as close to a run as these things are capable of.
Morgan and I brace for the assault, but just as the plaguer reaches the doorway Sir Tristan slams the oaken door shut. The impact rattles the house. The man shrieks in pain from inside. I can see Tristan’s shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Are you finished?” Morgan asks. His voice is pitched high with tension. “You done having sport?” His sword trembles, but I know Morgan is no coward. All soldiers tremble before a battle.
I call back to the peasant. “Why didn’t you tell us he was a giant?”
“I weren’t sure it would help my cause,” the man says.
“Bloody right it wouldn’t,” Morgan says. “That’s a troll in there, it is.”
The door shakes. I exhale and nod to Tristan. “At your leisure, Sir Tristan.”
Tristan opens the door. The monster stoops under the doorframe and runs toward me, his shoulders dipping and swinging wildly. I get one slash, but his movements are so erratic that I miss. My blade carves a red moustache over his lip instead of opening his throat. I feel the tip scrape bone, then the vast bulk of him hits me. We fall to the ground and his weight makes me gasp. The collar of my breastplate stabs my throat. The noises that come from the plaguer are those of an animal. Growls and shrieks. There is no reason. There is no humanity. I can feel his teeth scraping at the bevor upon my neck. His hands shove at my helmet. I see three red circles above his thumb. I shove at him, but he has latched on to me, with one arm under my head. He pulls me toward his mouth like a hungry lover, and I scream. Not in fear but in anger. His weight is too much to move. Bloody spittle drips from his mouth. I thank God that the air perforations are on the opposite side of my helmet.
Sir Tristan and Sir Morgan take one foot each and pull the man backward, but the plaguer has such a grip on me that they end up dragging both of us. I shove the man’s face away from me. He grabs my hand and gnaws on my gauntlet. The gauntlet slips forward. Cool air strokes my wrist. The man works his teeth lower and lower along my hand. I scream. It is fear this time.
Sir Morgan batters the man’s head with his gauntlets. Tristan drags me another three feet. I imagine they don’t want to use their swords in case they hit me. Battle often drives logic from the minds of men. “Use your swords!” My voice cracks as I scream.
As one they pick up their swords and begin their dissection of the man trying to eat me. Their blades clatter against my armor a few times but I don’t care. They can hack off one of my legs if it will help remove this Goliath. Blood leaks into my helmet visor. I feel the heat as it trickles up my cheek. I close my eyes. I have heard stories of blood spreading the plague.
The giant is deadweight. More deadweight than you would find in an entire cemetery. I shove the carcass off me with a roar and rise to my feet. I hop from foot to foot, groaning as I throw off my helmet and gauntlets. I wipe the blood from my face with sweat-lathered hands.
Our peasant runs from the village. He holds a two-foot silver crucifix in his arms. I point at him. “There goes our farmer.”
Tristan and Morgan remove their helmets and watch the peasant run.
“And without his sweet Allison,” Tristan says.
“Where is he going?” Morgan asks. “What’s he holding?”
“I saw him run into the cottage while we were playing with the giant,” Tristan says.
I think about the three black circles tattooed on the peasant’s hand. I look down at the bloody giant, at the three red circles tattooed on his hand. “Thieves.” I work it out quickly. “Their loot was in the house. The big man got afflicted and our peasant couldn’t get to the hoard.”
Tristan shakes his head. “Sir Edward.” He points toward the dwindling peasant and imitates Sir Morgan. “That man is a farmer. See the fields? He’s spent his entire life working a three-crop rotation. He’s never stolen anything in his life.”
Sir Morgan walks toward the horses and slips their reins off the oak branch that tethers them.
“Sir Morgan,” Tristan calls, “does the Word of Our Lord mention stealing?”
Morgan throws Tristan’s reins at him. “Get on your horse, you clod.”
“What about stupidity? Does Our Lord and Savior talk about stupidity?”
I peer inside the house. A dirt floor covered in rushes. No cellar. I look back toward the running peasant and see nothing. He is gone.
Honor is dead.
Chapter 5
“Edmund the Groomsman,” Morgan says. We ride northward toward the River Thames while he tells us about the first plaguer he encountered. I have heard this story, but not the details.
“A few years back we had a carpenter named Paul who liked buggering horses. A terrible thing. Terrible. We had to send him away.” He takes out his little Bible. It is water stained and tattered, but he flips through the swollen pages until he finds what he is looking for. “Cursed is the man who has intercourse with an animal.”
“What if the horse enjoys it?” Tristan asks.
“You’re an arse, Tristan.” Morgan peers over his Bible, then reads another verse. “If a man lies with an animal” — he peers over the Bible at Tristan — “he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal.”
“Kill the horse?” Tristan says. “How ghastly. This is why there are no more centaurs in the world, Morgan. Because of just this sort of narrow-mindedness.”
I cut Morgan off before he replies. “What happened with Edmund the Groom?”
Sir Morgan closes the Bible. His eyes are back in Hastings. “I was bringing my daughter to the stables for a canter. Edmund, he was sitting next to my horse when I got to the stables. The horse was lying in the grass outside. I thought it was resting. And Edmund, he was kneeling at one of its flanks. His hands…they were…” Morgan spreads his hands as if resting them on something in front of him. “They were on the horse. It wasn’t natural how he held his hands. Wasn’t natural. He was bent over the horse, moving up and down. It was just like the carpenter we sent away. I couldn’t understand why Edmund would be buggering my horse right there, in daylight, in front of the stables.
“I turned Sara round and shouted at Edmund. And he didn’t say anything. He kept on buggering the horse. Only, he wasn’t buggering the horse. There was all this blood. Her neck was twisted to the side. I couldn’t…couldn’t make any sense of it. I walked up to Edmund and grabbed him by the hair and pulled him away. And he went for me. By God, he went for me! His face was bloody and he was hissing, and I’m not ashamed to say I screamed. I tripped backward. Sara was screaming. Edmund jumped on me and bit my calf, but I had my good riding boots. God bless Margaret for those riding boots. The plague would have gotten me right there if not for those boots.”
“So what happened?” Tristan asks.
Morgan lets out a long breath. “Edmund wasn’t the only one with plague. Simon, the old man with the stutter — the one that used to muck out the stables — he had it too. We have this stone wall holding back an embankment beside our stables. And Simon, he just steps off the wall and lands face-first next to Sara. Just falls right on his face. Made an awful smacking sound. And Sara screams, but she doesn’t run. She just screams. And Simon gets up, and his nose is broken up from the fall. I thought he was coming to help me. But then I saw his eyes.”
He stops and fiddles with the cover of his Bible, then waves the book in our direction. “Abraham was willing to sacrifice his child to God. Maybe I’m not strong enough in my faith. I wasn’t going to let those things get my Sara. So I mur
dered them. The Lord says thou shalt not kill, but I tore them both apart with my bare hands. I was red with their blood.” He tucks the Bible into a saddlebag. “Back then, the archbishop hadn’t yet given permission to send the plagued to God. What I did that day was a mortal sin. I hope that someday God forgives me.”
Morgan falls silent. I think of Allison Moore standing on the banks of the Medway. See her hands fiddling once more with her savaged throat. None of us speak for a time.
Tristan finally breaks the silence. “Of course he’ll forgive you. All you did was rip two humans to pieces. It’s not like you buggered a horse.”
Chapter 6
We ride the North Downs for most of the day. I make certain that we avoid towns and settlements, avoid anything that can distract us from our mission. Our immediate goal is Dartford. There is a new bridge there that spans the River Thames. It is a massive thing of wood, built to provide an eastern crossing. I first saw that stretch of river fifteen years ago, when the bridge was nothing more than an architect’s confident smile. I watched as workers lowered pitch-lined timbers into the river at low tide. The logs, fifteen feet tall each, were bound together with metal strips. They formed massive cylinders as thick around as castle towers and heavy enough to resist the river currents. These cofferdams were set deep into the soft mud so that workers could dig the pier foundations while the river swirled around them.
It was completed six years ago, and, when Rye was burned two years later, they added wooden gatehouses on both sides of the bridge and a stone keep on the Dartford side. I’ve crossed the bridge many times and I know how secure it is. The crossing will be a safe and easy one. That is what I tell myself.
Sir Morgan’s peregrine falcon finds us again as the North Downs peter out. I resist the compulsion to kill it, and Sir Morgan scares it off. None of us understand how an afflicted falcon can track us across southern England. Sir Morgan swears the bird’s eyes are clearer.
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