The Scourge (Kindle Serial)

by Roberto Calas

  And I wash my sins in the blood of animals.

  The plaguers don’t wait for all the animals to go down. I see them bobbing toward us as I raise the ax to kill the last of the oxen. Perhaps we have killed enough for our purposes. But if I spare this one, I am trading a clean death for a terrible one. I look to Robert Bailey and he shrugs, then wrinkles his nose and nods, so I kill the last beast.

  “Robert, Joseph, get clear of the blood and take your people back to Danbury. Morgan and I will finish this.”

  The old man draws a rusty old blade and salutes me with it, then he and Joseph lead the other servants away. Matilda stays behind and Sir Morgan helps her into his saddle. I open my mouth to tell her to leave with the others, but Morgan’s eyes make a silent plea to let her stay. The way he looks at her reminds me of what I feel for Elizabeth, and I find I cannot deny him.

  We ride in a great half-circle around the hill as Robert Bailey and his men hurry from the dead oxen. I look back and watch a swarm of locusts descend upon our altar of grass and heather.

  God accepts our sacrifice. Or perhaps the devil accepts his payment. One of the two is happy with the dead oxen, for a great bulk of the plaguers lurches away from the willow.

  It takes a long time for the ranks of the dead to clear the hillcrest. Morgan crosses his arms and sighs as the slow, graceless plaguers trudge toward the dead beasts. I catch a glimpse of something large fluttering through the air.

  “It can’t be!” Morgan watches the bird. “It can’t!”

  It can. And it is. The falcon makes no attempt to glide down to us. It merely circles erratically above us in the afternoon sky.

  I turn my attention back to the plaguers. Not all of them leave. A few remain at the willow, climbing and falling, over and again, like witless children. We charge toward them. I draw the Sword of St. Giles and send them to their death. To God or to Satan or to an eternity of nothingness. I put them down.

  We help Tristan out of the tree, then Matilda’s sister, Cecilia, and her child. The two women embrace and Cecilia sobs.

  The last person out of the tree is a lovely woman, perhaps eighteen years old, wearing one of those fitted French dresses that cling to the body and leave the shoulders and collar exposed. She is a pretty thing with blonde hair, but she lacks the grace of my Elizabeth. I feel a knife thrust of panic as I think of my Elizabeth. Is she safe? I have fought for these women, these strangers. Who fights for Elizabeth?

  Tristan helps the blonde woman down from the tree and her grin promises him more than gratitude. He allows the woman to lean on him, as if she is injured, and turns to me. “Who led that gun crew? Was he a lunatic or just blind?”

  Morgan shakes his head and smiles. “Tristan, show some respect. The man who led that gun crew fought at Calais.”

  “That he did,” I say. “Launched quite a few shots at the city walls. How many was it again, Sir Morgan?”

  “I think it was twenty-two, Sir Edward.”

  “Yes, that’s right, twenty-two.”

  Morgan and I chuckle and pump our fists and say “Boom!” again and again as the seven of us make our way toward Danbury.

  Chapter 24

  We sit on gilded wooden chairs in a garden that has been meticulously groomed. Orchids and magnolias and thick hedges of rose line the paths around the stone manor house. Two women dressed in white robes play gentle music, one with a flute, the other a harp. Four other women sit across from us, with their backs to the manor house. They sit embroidering and blushing and trying to not look at the three of us.

  I wipe something that looks like brains from the shoulder of my breastplate. The arms of my tunic are red to the elbows and smeared with a gore that I cannot identify. Morgan’s tunic looks like a butcher’s block. His forehead bears a long smudge of blood where he wiped with his hand. Tristan’s hair sticks up in wild tufts and is tangled with dry leaves. Blood covers much of him too.

  I can only imagine how I must look. How the three of us must look to these people.

  A portly woman approaches warily. She wears servant’s clothing and holds a tray bearing two dozen tiny pastries shaped like swans. The scent of minced beef and pepper makes my stomach growl. Morgan and I each take one. Tristan scoops out the rest, nearly knocking the tray from the woman’s hands. We haven’t eaten in more than a day. I try to eat the pastry slowly but I can’t. It is gone before I can savor it. Morgan’s disappears in an instant, too, so we both look at Tristan and pilfer from his hoard.

  “Bgr uff,” Tristan says, his mouth crammed with pastries. He tries to keep them from us and we try to get them and it becomes a sort of game. We laugh and stuff pastries into our mouths and cough dry flakes of bread until Morgan falls back onto his chair, laughing, and shatters it.

  The musicians stop playing. Morgan bounces to his feet and tries to put the two broken legs back in place. I try as well but I can see no way to mend the high-backed chair. The embroidering women steal glances our way and whisper.

  Morgan and I kneel before the chair, each of us holding a leg, and we argue about how best to affix them. Tristan laughs and stuffs more pastries into his overflowing mouth. The rear door of the manor house opens and a man who I assume is Sir Thomas steps out, flanked by three men, including a now-unarmored Robert Bailey.

  “These are the men who saved your son, m’lord.” Robert gestures grandly toward us. I get up off my knees, nod toward Sir Thomas and raise the chair leg as if toasting him. Morgan rises too, letting the broken chair tumble backward. Tristan stands and sets the remaining pastries on his seat.

  Sir Thomas is a tall man, nearly my height, and has the posture and gait of a warrior. He clears his throat and smiles at us. His gaze shifts to the broken chair and then to our blood-soaked clothing.

  “This is Sir Edmund,” Robert Bailey says.

  “Edward,” I say, shaking Sir Thomas’s hand.

  Robert leans close to me and whispers, “Thomas. He’s Sir Thomas.”

  I stare at him, confused.

  “I cannot express sufficient gratitude for all you have done, Sir Edward,” Sir Thomas says.

  Morgan offers Thomas his hand. “I am Sir Morgan of Hastings.”

  I introduce Tristan, and Sir Thomas introduces the other two men with him. One of them is a burgher from Chelmsford named Ralf. The other is a young Moor, who Thomas introduces as Zhuri. The young man, no more than nineteen or twenty, wears a waist-length tunic, tall boots, and bears a meticulously trimmed beard.

  Morgan nudges me with an elbow and gestures toward the Moor as subtly as he is capable of. But not subtly enough.

  “Zhuri is from Spain,” Sir Thomas says. “From a place called Granada.” He smiles at the Moor, then clasps his hands together and addresses us again. “You will dine with us tonight?”

  He opens the door to the manor house before we can reply and motions for us to enter.

  It is a sprawling home, two stories high, and larger than my home in Bodiam. Sir Thomas takes us to a room with an iron-studded oak door, which is locked, then excuses himself so that he can fetch the key. He leaves us with Zhuri, Robert, and the burgher. We wait silently in a hallway with carved ceilings.

  Robert sees me looking upward and he studies the ceiling, too. After a moment he leans toward Zhuri and speaks slowly and loudly: “I’ll wager they ain’t got these sorts of ceilings in Arabia, young master.”

  “He’s from Spain, Robert,” Ralf says. “Remember? Spain.”

  The burgher addresses us. “Robert is a tad forgetful, but you’ll not meet a better man. He fought in France. At Calais.”

  “Did he?” I say.

  Morgan stifles a chuckle.

  Sir Thomas returns with the key and unlocks the door. “I apologize for my discourtesy. The food is being prepared, but I would like to show you something while we wait. It is something I must admit I am immodestly pleased with.” He gestures toward the door with his chin. “I have spent a long time collecting what lies behind this door. Robert, my steward, tell
s me you have an interest in such things.” He nods toward Robert Bailey, then swings the door open.

  I half expect to see plaguers chained to the wall, but what I see in that massive chamber is perhaps more shocking than that.

  I see guns. Crammed into every corner of the room and on every wall. Not the guns I am familiar with — massive iron cylinders bound together with bands of steel, like the one Robert Bailey fired today. These are small guns. Some of them look as if they could be transported by a single horse. Some of them could be hoisted by a small crew of men. And some look like they could be carried and fired by a single soldier.

  “Are these all weapons?” Tristan asks. “Do they work?” His expression is the same as the one Morgan wore when the peddler brought out his wares. Broad smile, wide eyes, gaze darting from one to the other. He looks like a child that has found a box of puppies.

  “Most of them fire,” Sir Thomas says. He picks up a long metal pipe from a display stand. The pipe is carved with Moorish patterns and has been set into a thick oaken shaft that is just longer than my arm. “My guest, Zhuri, brought me this one from Spain. He heard about my love of such things.”

  Morgan turns to Zhuri and speaks slowly, pointing and making gestures so the Moor might understand. “Sir Tristan and myself have never been to Spain. Have they many guns there?” The Moor looks at Morgan quizzically, so Morgan starts again, more slowly. “Sir Tristan…and myself…have never been…to — ”

  “I…” Zhuri says. He hesitates, and Morgan encourages him with a nod and smile. “I,” Zhuri says again. “Sir Tristan and I.”

  Morgan tilts his head like a dog trying to understand juggling.

  Tristan laughs. “I think a Moor just corrected your English, Sir Morgan. And I have been to Spain. Fought a battle there.”

  “You speak English?” Morgan points to Robert Bailey. “But he…I merely assumed that…”

  Zhuri laughs. “You merely assumed that the savage Moor would not speak your civilized tongue? I speak it quite well, I believe. I also speak Spanish and French. And no, we do not have many guns in Spain.” He cracks an infectious smile. “You bloody Christians will not let us have them.”

  The room smells of oil and metal and wood ash. Sir Thomas leads us to the wall on our right and unseats an ancient weapon from its display hooks. He calls the gun a fire lance and tells us it was brought to England from lands farther east than Jerusalem. The gun is little more than a hollowed-out staff of segmented, pale wood that can be stuffed with saltpeter, sulfur, and rocks. “The mixture is lit from the rear,” Sir Thomas says, “and the stones burst forth from the front, along with a tongue of flame the length of a man.”

  There are small cannons at each of the room’s corners, but Thomas leads us to one on display by the fireplace. The weapon consists of twelve iron cylinders mounted on a wheeled, wooden frame. It is a ribauldequin, and I have seen its like before. We had one in France for a short time when I marched with Robert Knolles. The gun was made to fire twelve blasts at once, but the thing was so heavy and failed to fire so often that we destroyed it. I’m sure the pieces of it still litter the forest near Toulouse. But this one looks to be of much better quality. Thomas explains how it works, and while the others study it and take turns pretending to fire, he speaks to me.

  “Those people you saved today…they are a part of my family.”

  I nod. “I’m sorry that we couldn’t bring them all back.”

  He sighs and his gaze drops. “My own family. They fled from here. They never said a word. They just left.”

  I’m not sure how to respond, so I nod again and give him a sympathetic look.

  Sir Thomas shows us the other four cannons, the ones in the corners. Most of the barrels are as long as a small wagon, but that is still far shorter than the ones I am familiar with. I glance at Sir Thomas and he smiles at me. I know that type of smile. I gave Robert Bailey that same smile when I needed his help.

  We tap upon the steel cannons and stare into the barrels and debate the penetration power of these weapons for a time. And when the conversation lulls, Sir Thomas walks to a wide shelf that runs the length of one wall. Four smaller guns, all roughly the length of a dining table, are displayed upon this shelf. Their barrels vary in thickness — the largest is thicker than a tankard, the smallest is thinner than a cucumber. All of them are mounted upon metal legs at the front and rear. I gaze at them, and Sir Thomas must see something in my expression because he chuckles. “Culverins, Sir Edward. They are called culverins.”

  “They look heavy,” I say.

  “Try one.”

  I pick up the thinnest. It is cold and heavy, but not as heavy as I imagined. One man might carry it, with difficulty, but there would be no way of firing the weapon without resting it upon the metal legs. Even so, I imagine a dozen of these weapons mounted on the walls of the castle I am building at Bodiam. I don’t know how much damage they can do, but I can imagine the terror they would create.

  Sir Thomas walks to the far wall, where the last of the weapons hang. Tristan’s smile can’t possibly get bigger. Nine guns have been mounted here, and they are smaller than the culverins. They are little more than cylinders of metal mounted on short wooden poles. They look similar to the one Zhuri brought from Spain. I am certain that one man could carry and fire one of these. Sir Thomas smiles proudly at the weapons. “Hand bombards.”

  Tristan points to one of the weapons, which is made from a short metal cylinder as wide around as a horse’s hoof. The cylinder, which is mounted on a wooden staff, is fully enclosed, but ten holes the size of coins pierce the front. “Does this do what it appears to do?”

  Sir Thomas chuckles and rubs his hands together. “Yes! Ten shots in one blast! I call it ‘God’s Love.’” He cackles, looking like a man half his age, and gestures that Tristan should feel the weapon.

  Tristan removes it from the wall and cradles it to his chest. “What a gorgeous creature you are,” he says, stroking the weapon. “I propose a trade. In return for this beautiful cannon, I will give you Sir Morgan.”

  “Tristan, don’t be a fool.” Morgan scowls.

  “You’re right, that’s silly,” Tristan says. “Sir Morgan and two of our horses.”

  Chapter 25

  We have to wait for more than two hours before the food is ready, but the meal does not disappoint. It is the most elaborate feast I have had since the plague took hold. The servants bring out course after course. Suckling pig, venison in verjuice sauce, smoked pike, salted cod, saffron duck, crayfish, eels, plums, grapes, and a unique new style of blankmanger — chicken pounded into a custard, mixed with rice and anise, and sprinkled with sugar. I am shocked at extravagance of the meal, and I have no doubt now that Thomas wants something from us.

  “This is the finest meal I’ve had in months, Sir Thomas,” Morgan says. “I hope that we aren’t taxing your food stores.”

  “We do not typically eat like this these days,” Thomas admits. “But today we honor our three heroes.”

  There are fourteen of us at the table. Robert Bailey, Ralf the burgher, Zhuri, Matilda, Cecilia, and Thomas’s son Harold are there. The pretty blonde girl from the tree, Lilly, is also there, as are two more of Sir Thomas’s nieces and one more nephew. Morgan and Matilda sit side by side, whispering to each other, probably trading Bible verses. Tristan sits across from Lilly and, from the subtle glances they exchange, I imagine something is happening beneath the table.

  None of Sir Thomas’s relatives look at him when he speaks, and a silence settles upon us as everyone dines. When I can’t take the clinks of spoons and knives upon plates any longer, I clear my throat and address the lord. “How large is your demesne, Sir Thomas?”

  “Nine hides,” he says. “Forty-five virgates.”

  I work the numbers in my head. I have never been good with these figures. I come up with roughly nine hundred acres, depending on how they divide their hides here in Essex. It is a small estate, especially for the size of this manor house,
but farming that much land requires a lot of help. And with this plague, I can’t imagine where he gets that help.

  Sir Thomas guesses my thoughts. “We’ve abandoned some of the outer furlongs at the base of the ridge. And another few furlongs will go to spoil this harvest. But we have plenty of men to reap. There has been little plague here in Danbury.”

  Tristan looks up from his blonde. “Why is that?”

  Sir Thomas looks at his son, Harold, as he speaks. “Because Danbury is safe. Because we are on a steep hill and the plaguers do not like to climb hills. Because there are thick forests and fens surrounding our village. Because we have worked hard to fortify the places where there are no hills or forests or fens. And” — he raises his voice — “because no one leaves the village if they don’t have to.”

  Cecilia blasts a great snort of air from her nostrils and speaks. Her voice is venomous. “There is plague in Danbury. More and more of it. The blighted ones come in packs from the north. Packs like the one we ran from today. Some of them find their way to Danbury. Ten of our people were killed in the last two weeks. My mother. My sister.” She trembles, points a finger at Thomas. “His wife! All of them dead. And still he makes fiery speeches about staying safe and about how he will protect us, and how Danbury is secure. It is not secure! We will be overrun soon, and we will die! All of us! Did you see it today? Did you see it? They will sweep into Danbury and surround us like they surrounded that — ”

  “Silence!” Sir Thomas stands and points to Cecilia. “You think fleeing is the answer? You think packing up in the black of morning and riding off to Dartford will keep you safe? Did it keep you safe today?”

  Silence falls again.

  Tristan shakes his head. He souses a piece of bread in the blankmanger and speaks before he is done chewing it. “Dartford wouldn’t be my first choice.”

  The family members excuse themselves as soon as the meal is finished, and the remaining guests do the same not long afterward. Tristan, Morgan, and I are left alone with Sir Thomas, who sips at his wine and stares into the distance. “They are safe here,” he says. “I’ve done so much to make Danbury secure, but still they fear that plague.”