The Scourge (Kindle Serial)

by Roberto Calas

  Tristan pulls the door open wider so he can look too. After a moment I shut it again quietly. Tristan removes his great helm and sits on it, then runs a hand through his hair.

  “This was us,” he says. “We did this.”

  I nod.

  “She was infected when I was with her,” he says. “Last night.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Tristan,” I say. “Have you vomited? Are you feverish?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t feel at the pinnacle of health, but I haven’t vomited. And I don’t think I’m feverish.”

  “If those phials made them sick, it would have been hours before the sickness could have affected you from…from any personal contact.”

  He nods, but he doesn’t seem convinced. He runs his hand absently through his hair, forward and backward, then he looks up abruptly. “Matilda. Morgan is probably with Matilda.” He rises and dons his helmet again. I nod. If Morgan woke to find plaguers in the manor, he would have run to Matilda first.

  “Where does Matilda sleep?”

  Tristan shrugs. “In a bed, I imagine.”

  I brush past him and into the great hall, then out through the opposite door. I dash through the library and into a hallway that branches into a cluster of four rooms.

  “Morgan!” I throw the first door open. Cecilia and her child stumble toward me, hissing. Their eyes are eternal darkness. I shut the door and hear them clawing at the other side.

  “Morgan!” I try to put the child out of my mind.

  A door to my left opens and Morgan leaps out with an iron bar in one hand. His other hand holds a phial with the wax seal removed. He shuts the door and gives us a concerned look. “How did they get inside the manor?” he says.

  Tristan lunges forward and knocks the phial from his hand, then crushes it beneath his heel. Morgan howls and shoves Tristan backward, then falls to his knees. He tries to scoop up the ceramic bits and the red fluid that has splattered upon the floor.

  “What are you doing?” Morgan’s voice cracks with his shout.

  I take his arm and pull him to his feet, but he drops back to one knee and tries to sop the fluid with his fingertips. “The blood of Mary!”

  Tristan helps me drag Morgan away from the broken phial.

  “Morgan, it’s not the blood of Mary,” I say.

  “It is! It came from Rome! It is her blood and she will protect us!”

  “No, Morgan,” I say. “I wish it was. I truly wish it was. Have you taken any of it?”

  “How do you know that it’s not?” Morgan asks. “How could you possibly know?”

  “Morgan.” I look into his eyes. “Have you taken any of it?”

  He stares into my eyes, then glances back at the door. “Why?”

  “Because it doesn’t protect against the plague,” I say. “I’m fairly certain it causes the plague. Whoever drinks from it becomes afflicted.”

  Tears flood Morgan’s eyes. He glances back at the door that he came out from. “No. That’s not right.”

  Tristan lays a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. Morgan brushes it off and shouts at us. “You are making this up! You are mocking me again!” He sobs. “You two are always mocking me!”

  I feel the tears rising in my own eyes “We’re not mocking you, Morgan.”

  Morgan beats the iron bar against the wall again and again, gasping and sobbing. Tristan and I pry the bar from his hand and he slumps to the floor. Each of his sobs breaks something inside me, until I feel empty and shattered. I slump next to him. “Did you take any of it, Morgan?”

  The door behind Morgan opens a crack. I look up and see Matilda peering out, her face a mix of fear and inquisition. She smiles when she sees me and Tristan. “Thank the Lord,” she says. “Edward, Tristan, you must drink Mary’s blood, too! The blighters are in the manor.”

  “Wait inside for a moment, my love,” Morgan says.

  Matilda glances at him and draws a sharp breath. She tries to open the door farther. I stand and put my foot against it so that she can’t.

  “What happened?” she asks. “What’s wrong?”

  “Wait inside please.” Morgan’s voice is faint.

  I shut the door gently and lean against it, then stare into Morgan’s eyes again.

  He looks away, his eyes red and glistening. His voice is low and rasping. “They got into the manor. I thought Mary’s blood would protect us.” He glances at the door, then back to me.

  “Morgan, did you and Matilda drink from that phial?” I hear my voice tremble as I ask the question.

  Morgan’s eyes find mine, and more tears flow.

  He nods his head.

  Tristan vomits.

  Episode 5:

  Historical Note

  Sieges in the Middle Ages involved huge machines of war. We’ve seen them in films and images: catapults and ballistas, mangonels and trebuchets. Massive wooden monstrosities capable of sending stones or other missiles into fortifications and the ranks of enemy soldiers. But we tend to forget that cannons made their first unsteady steps into warfare in the Middle Ages.

  They weren’t very efficient at first. Robert Bailey, the former gunner in this novel who once fired a few shots at the walls of Calais, was, in the last episode, able to send off one blast from a titanic cannon called the Right Hand of the Lord. Sir Edward notes that a good gun crew can fire only four or five times a day — and he’s right, if a bit optimistic. Cannons were huge and unwieldy and took hours and hours to load. The firing powders had to be mixed and dried and packed properly, the projectiles set just right into the long metal barrel. And even when everything was done properly, the guns had a horrible tendency to misfire or explode. Case in point: King James II, a gun collector, like Sir Thomas in my story, was killed when a cannon misfired and exploded. The guns discussed in this episode are based on real weapons: the Chinese fire lance, the hand cannons, the ribauldequin — all were real weapons used in or around the time of Sir Edward. The Culverins, though more common in the fifteenth century, were first used in the fourteenth century, which is why I felt comfortable using them in the story. In fact, Sir Edward’s real-life castle, Bodiam, has gun loops in many of the walls, where culverins and hand cannons may well have been positioned.

  Like many of the characters in this novel, Sir Thomas St. Clere comes from a real family but is fictional. The St. Cleres ruled in Danbury for many years and the remains of at least one St. Clere, Sir William, are entombed there in the thirteenth-century church of St. John the Baptist.

  Danbury is a real village in Essex. It is a sleepy place, with an old church and mill, and a lovely green. It is on a hill and, in Sir Edward’s day, would indeed have been surrounded by forests and fens. Plaguers would have had difficulty getting to the village, making it an oasis in the novel. A Garden of Eden. But as Sir Edward notes, not even God could keep the serpent out of Eden.

  Episode 6

  Chapter 27

  Matilda opens the chamber door. I am too shocked to stop her. Tristan removes his helmet and a stream of his vomit trickles from the lower edge.

  “I got sick.” He stares at the splash of pungent vomit on the floor. “Christ, I got sick.”

  I take off my helmet, let it drop, and the metal clangs off the oaken boards.

  Matilda crouches beside Morgan and holds his head in her arms. “What is it, my love? What has happened?”

  Morgan strokes at her hair but says nothing. Tristan’s voice trembles as he speaks. “Are we certain about the phials?”

  “What about the phials?” Matilda asks.

  “Are you feverish, Tristan?” I touch his cheek with the back of my hand.

  “What about the phials?” Matilda asks again. She lifts Morgan’s chin and stares into his eyes. “Tell me about the phials.”

  Tristan is warm, but perhaps it is merely the kind of warm that comes from wearing a helmet and running through a manor. Matilda rises and turns my shoulders so that I face her. “Sir Edward, please tell me what is happening. Please.”
/>   I look at Matilda and feel unsteady on my feet. I put one arm against the doorframe for support. Could it be that all three of them will plague in another few hours? Could it be that I have orphaned Morgan’s daughter? That I will never hear another of Tristan’s jokes?

  I am the angel of death. Everyone I touch dies.

  “What is happening!” Matilda’s scream startles me from my stupor.

  “We have eaten the forbidden fruit,” I say. “God’s wrath is upon us.”

  A heartbeat after I speak these words, God smites the earth again. The walls rattle with the sound, and all four of us brace for Judgment Day.

  I recover my wits after a moment and don my great helm. “The gun room.” I draw my sword and run toward the front of the manor again. The other three follow behind at a slower pace. I race through the foyer, past the grand staircase and into the Red Hall, from which the gun room branches. A figure runs toward me in that hall, from the opposite direction. I raise my sword, but it is not a plaguer. It is Zhuri, the moor from Granada. A hunting knife gleams in his hand. I slow, making little hops upon the wide rug to stop myself, and he does the same. We come to a halt a few feet from one another.

  “Say something!” Zhuri cries. He raises the knife high but his posture tells me he wants to flee. “Say something!”

  I remove my helmet. “God has abandoned us.”

  He lowers the knife and breathes out deeply. We nod to one another.

  “You could have said something more cheerful,” he says.

  I shrug. “Our deaths may be quick.”

  “You Christians are a dreary lot.” He looks behind me and I hear Tristan, Morgan, and Matilda enter the hall. Zhuri studies them, then gestures toward the open door of the gun room. I nod and don my great helm again. The Moor walks behind me, one hand on the back of my breastplate, as we creep into the chamber. The room is veiled with smoke and smells of sulfur. I am awed once more by Sir Thomas’s collection of guns.

  Harold, Thomas’s son, writhes on the floor. His eyes are completely black. Most of his mouth has been shattered and parts of his face and skull have been ripped away. Sir Thomas sits bleeding in a plush leather chair a few feet away. A piece of metal juts from his forehead. His face is crossed with gashes and deep welts. Both his eyes are closed and bloody tears leak from beneath the ravaged lids.

  I slit Harold’s throat, and his struggles cease after a moment.

  I am the angel of death.

  Thomas’s head tilts to one side at the sound of our approach. “Come…come and take me then, you bastards.” One of his hands has been mangled, so that it is nothing but shredded bone. The other is streaked with blood. Shards of metal and wood lay scattered across the floor. Three hand cannons sit on Thomas’s lap and a firing cord smolders on the floor. Thomas’s eyes remain closed, but he fumbles for one of the hand cannons and points it at us. He rests the cylinder on the stump of his right hand and searches with his left hand for the firing cord by his feet.

  “No one has come to take you, Master Thomas,” Zhuri says.

  I’m not sure I agree. I think back on the fate of Sir John in Hadleigh, of Lord Robert in Rayleigh, and I look at the broken body of Sir Thomas in the chair. I am here. The angel of death has come for him.

  “Zhuri? Is…is that you?”

  Zhuri drops to a knee at Thomas’s side. Matilda sobs and kneels on his other side and caresses Thomas’s remaining hand. “Yes, Thomas. I am here. Matilda is here, too. And the three knights: Edward, Morgan, and Tristan.”

  Thomas’s shoulders quiver and he coughs. Blood pulses from the shard of metal in his forehead. “Congra…gratulations, Edward. Took you…one night…to do what the plaguers could not do in months.”

  “It wasn’t Edward’s fault,” Morgan says. “I gave you the phials. I offered the help. It was I.”

  “No,” Zhuri says. “It was me.”

  “You had nothing to do…” Morgan breaks off. “Are you correcting my English again, you stupid bastard? You miserable cock!” He lunges toward the Moor, and neither Tristan nor I react at first, because we are both so shocked that Morgan has cursed. We recover and grab his arms and pry his hands from Zhuri’s vest.

  “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” Morgan shouts. It takes all of our strength to wrench him backward from the Moor and hold him until he ceases to struggle. I know he is not truly angry at the Zhuri. If I had accidentally poisoned Elizabeth, I can only imagine the violence I would perpetrate.

  Tristan shrugs at Zhuri. “By the way, ‘It was I’ is correct in this instance. It’s no wonder he’s so angry.”

  Morgan shuts his eyes tightly and grimaces, his hands curled into tight fists. Matilda’s breath comes in panicked spurts. She has pieced it together. Her moment of realization has arrived.

  When I am certain Morgan is settled I turn my attention back to Sir Thomas. “I can’t express the extent of my sorrow for what happened to the people of Danbury, Sir Thomas.”

  “My home…destroyed.”

  Matilda takes a deep breath and gathers herself. “They only tried to help, Uncle.” She strokes his bloody cheek. “You did not want to go to the fortress. So they helped the only way they could.”

  He nods and his throat makes a bubbling sound. “Should have…listened to you Tilda. To all of you. Should…gone to the keep. You all told me. Even you, Zhuri. What…was…you said? Trust in…trust in…”

  Thomas coughs again and Zhuri finishes the sentence: “Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.” Tears brim in the Moor’s eyes.

  “I wanted…was best for all of you…all I wanted.”

  “I know, Uncle.” Matilda weeps and buries her face in his arm. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry we left.”

  Thomas lays his good hand on her head. “My son. My Harold. He…he came at me. I tried…tried to send him to Jesus…quickly and without pain. Blasted hand cannon…misfired. Exploded. Please…please grant me an honorable death.”

  “No!” Matilda sobs. “No, Uncle!”

  Thomas pats her arm. “Hurts very much, Tilda…is best.”

  Zhuri pulls Matilda away. I raise my sword, but Morgan takes it from my hand.

  “I am responsible for this,” Morgan says. I rest a hand on his shoulder and breathe a sigh. I am not certain I could kill another king.

  “No,” Tristan says. He picks up the smoldering cord from the floor and takes the ten-shot hand cannon from Thomas’s lap. “Quickly and without pain.”

  Morgan nods, and we all back away from Sir Thomas. Matilda cries “No!” Morgan embraces her and whispers and strokes her hair, and I see the tears fall from his eyes again. Tristan holds the hand cannon a few inches from Thomas’s head. Zhuri glances at the shards of metal around the room, at Thomas’s missing hand, then backs away another few feet.

  Matilda fights through tears to speak a verse: “Blessed are…blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. They may…they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.”

  “Amen,” Morgan says.

  I take the firing cord from Tristan so he can hold the gun steady, then dip the flame into the touchhole. A heartbeat of silence passes. An explosion deafens us. Fire belches from Tristan’s hands. Smoke swirls through the room.

  And God’s Love sends Sir Thomas to Jesus. Quickly and without pain.

  Chapter 28

  We barricade ourselves in the kitchen, using casks of brine to bar all three doors. When we are done, Tristan looks at the barrels, then back at me. I know he wonders why we aren’t fleeing Danbury yet.

  “I need some quiet time,” I say. “Time to think.” But all the time in the world won’t settle the sick feeling in my stomach. I am the angel of death, and I will have to kill Morgan, Tristan, and Matilda before this day is over.

  When the room is secure we sit in glum silence on buckets or pots and avoid looking at one another.

  “The phials,” Matilda says. “They cause the plague.” Her breathing is swift and erratic again. Morgan pulls her close to
him and kisses her hair.

  “I am so sorry,” he whispers, his eyes glistening with tears. “I have murdered you.”

  “Oh, Heavenly Father,” She closes her eyes and tears squeeze from beneath the lids. “Oh, Christ our Lord.” She runs her fingers over Morgan’s beard. “You didn’t know, darling. You didn’t know.”

  I think of Elizabeth, and my heart aches for them.

  Morgan rests his forehead against hers and weeps. “We must pray. If we pray, God will listen, for we are devout. He will listen to us.”

  Morgan has no armor. Only a tunic and trousers and boots. His weapons and armor sit on the floor of my chamber upstairs. Tristan sits on a small cask. At his feet is a large shoulder bag holding four of the hand cannons from the gun room. One of the weapons is more than four feet long. I wonder how the guns haven’t torn through the bag. Next to the shoulder bag, on the ground, sits a haversack that Tristan stuffed with powder skins, iron projectiles, and other items from the gun room.

  Tristan clears his throat. “I got sick,” he says. “I purged all over my helmet.” Zhuri moves his bucket farther away as Tristan addresses Morgan. “When you speak with God, can you put in a good word for me?”

  I stand and touch Tristan’s forehead. “You’re not feverish.”

  “Not yet,” Tristan says. It seems as if he wants to make a joke, but he simply sighs and looks at me. His lips are tight and he won’t stop fidgeting with his hands.

  “So, should we take care of them now or when they change?” Zhuri asks.

  “Hold one moment,” Morgan says. “You’ll not take care of anyone!”

  I think back to Morgan’s tale about his first plaguers. How he tore them to pieces to save his daughter. He was once a priest and is not quick to anger, but when he is on the precipice of fury, anything can set him off. I know he is stretched across that precipice right now.