“Something has to be done,” Zhuri says. “In another hour or two, we will be trapped in this room with the three of you. I would prefer you went to Jesus before you can no longer remember his lessons.”
“Give it a try.” Morgan stands and glowers. “Try sending me to Jesus.”
“No.” Zhuri takes a step toward Morgan, scowls, and corrects him. “Try to send me to Jesus.”
Morgan sails over the precipice.
Zhuri sits on his bucket, with a scrap of fabric stuffed into his bleeding nostril. His vest is torn and his cheek swollen from one of Morgan’s blows. Morgan and Matilda kneel in the pantry and pray over Morgan’s assorted relics. Tristan has found a case of walnuts. For each one he eats, he throws three more at a pot that he has set faceup in the distance.
“If there is a God,” he says. “I know I haven’t endeared myself to Him. I have ignored Him and so He has ignored me. If God exists, then I deserve this fate.” He tosses a walnut toward the pot. It misses and skids across the wooden floor. “But I don’t know if I have met two people more devout than Morgan and Matilda.” He looks up at me. “So why is God ignoring them?”
I shrug. “Maybe it’s a test. Maybe he’s testing them like he tested Job.”
“Yes, Job. God made a wager, didn’t He? He let Satan torture Job almost to madness so He could prove a point.” Tristan tosses another walnut toward the bucket. The nut hits the rim with a clink and bursts in a shower across the floor. “God can be a heartless bastard.”
Glass shatters in the distance. Tristan, Zhuri, and I glance at one another and lift our ears to the sound.
I shrug. “It was the Old Testament God, Tristan. He was grumpy back then.”
We sit in silence for a time and I try to come to a decision about the three afflicted members of our party. I know I can’t do anything while they still possess their humanity. And I can’t just leave them when they lose it.
Tristan throws another three walnuts toward the pot. Before he can throw a fourth, the door that leads into the Red Hall shakes. Something snarls outside.
“So much for quiet time,” Tristan says.
I quote Job at him: “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away.”
“Seems he’s doing a lot of taking these days.”
The door shakes again but the brine barrels hold it closed.
“How did they find us?” Zhuri asks. The fabric stuffed in his nose makes his voice sound pinched.
“They are hungry,” Tristan says. “We’re in the kitchen.”
“Perhaps they can hear us,” I say. Everyone falls silent. Morgan and Matilda walk back from the pantry. She leans against him as she walks. Sweat glistens on her forehead.
“How many are out there?” Morgan asks.
I walk quietly toward the door and peer underneath. There are two pairs of feet. But as I watch another pair joins them. Then another. I keep looking, until there are too many pairs to count. The door shudders as they pound upon it. They groan and hiss, and my heart begins its familiar dance.
“Too many,” I whisper. I don’t know why I whisper. They know we are here.
A thunderous pounding shakes the other door, the one that leads to the great hall.
“They are in the great hall as well!” Zhuri says. “We will be trapped!” He draws the hunting knife from his belt and, trembling, points it toward the thudding door. He glances back to the servants’ entrance at the rear of the kitchen. “There is only one way out.”
“And it’s the servants’ entrance,” Tristan says. “How mortifying.”
It is a tiny door. I would have to duck to pass through it, and I think my shoulders would brush both sides. “Where does that door go?” I ask.
Zhuri shrugs. “To the servants’ quarters. I think there’s another door past it, leading out of the manor.”
“Good,” I say. “Everyone up. We leave now.”
“What happens when we get outside?” Zhuri asks. “There are more than a hundred villagers in Danbury. How will we get past them all?”
I touch the hilt of my sword. Glance at the hand cannons by Tristan’s feet. “We’ll think of something.”
Matilda vomits.
Everyone stares at her as she dabs at her mouth with her fingers. Tristan drops a walnut and it shatters on the floor.
“Allah protect us!” Zhuri stumbles over his bucket, trying to get away from her. He falls and scuttles backward.
Morgan makes a sound I have never heard him make before: part sob, part moan. He pulls Matilda into his chest and rocks her, makes the sound again, and it shreds my heart. “You will be all right. You will be all right. You will be all right.” He looks at me over her shoulder, his eyes pleading. I can’t hold his gaze. She holds his shoulders with long, slender fingers. I study those fingers, and a blackness darker than any I have known settles in my chest.
“She’s blighting!” Zhuri shouts. “Allah help us, she’s blighting!”
“Shut your filthy mouth!” Morgan’s shout is loud enough to echo.
“She has to be put down! She will kill us all!” Zhuri points his knife in her direction.
The door to the Red Hall slams against the brine barrels. The plaguers have forced it open a few inches. They bang against it, so that it slams against the casks again and again. Clawed hands snake through the gap and scrape at the door and wall.
“How is she sick so soon?” Tristan says. “I was with Lilly for hours and she was fine.”
Matilda throws up again. She looks at Zhuri with terror, and he looks back at her with the same. She turns to Tristan. “Half…the phial,” she says.
The Red Hall door grinds opens another inch. The afflicted roar and shriek and reach through the gap, like lunatics trapped in coffins. I have trouble thinking, with those screams in my ears. My heart races. They are getting in. Dear God, they are getting in.
“You drank half the phial?” Tristan says.
Matilda nods.
“For all that is holy!” Zhuri shouts. “She’s turning! We must go!”
Tristan patiently holds up his forefinger to Zhuri. “And Morgan only had a drop?”
Morgan’s eyes glisten with tears again. “I didn’t have any. You knocked it out of my hands before I could drink.”
Tristan’s mouth drops open. My heart stutters in my chest.
The banging of the door is ceaseless. The plaguers see us through the gap and they shriek with renewed energy. Zhuri scrambles to the door and shoves at the barrels.
“You told me you drank from it,” I say.
“What?” Morgan’s brows furrow. “When?”
“Outside Matilda’s room!” Tristan says. “ Edward asked if you and Matilda drank from it, and you said yes, you stupid bastard!”
“I said Matilda had.”
“No.” Tristan and I say it at the same time.
The banging door is a ceaseless, maddening drumbeat. A frenzied rhythm to the demented hymn of howling plaguers. One of them, a man, thrusts his face against the gap and screams. His eyes are wide and black and maddened. His tongue, unnaturally long, thrashes from his mouth.
“You’re not going to plague?” Tristan asks.
Morgan isn’t listening. He strokes at Matilda’s hair and whispers to her and holds her tight against his chest.
Banging. Banging. Banging. I can’t suffer it any longer. It is driving me mad. Banging. Banging. Banging. The war drum of the dead.
Zhuri sits with his back against the brine barrels. The pounding door shoves him and the casks forward another inch. “They are getting in! We have to go! We have to go! We have to go!”
One of the plaguers is partly in the room. His arm curls around the door and part of his maddened face juts through the gap. He has a black, curling moustache. A great red boil mars his cheek. The skin beneath one of his eyes has been torn away. More arms lunge into the room from behind him and thrash against the wall.
The pounding at the door of the great hall grows louder. The thick oak shudd
ers, and cracks appear in the frame.
“Christ almighty!” I run to the servant entrance. “Tristan, help me with these barrels.”
I glance at Morgan. He kneels with Matilda, his back to me. Her head lies against his shoulder. She looks up and her eyes meet mine. There is less humanity in them. Something in the color or the way she looks at me. Her lip twitches into the suggestion of a snarl. She shakes her head and sobs. “Morgan…”
“It’s all right, my love.” He strokes her hair again. “Oh, Jesus, our Lord, it’ll be all right my love.”
“Morgan…” She says again. “Morgan…”
Tristan looks at Matilda and freezes, with his hands around one of the casks. “Mother of God.”
Her head twitches. The muscles in her face jerk. “Morgan!” It is a question and exclamation and prayer all at once. “Morgan!”
“Move the fucking barrels Tristan!” I shout. “Move the fucking barrels!”
“Morgan, get away from her!” Tristan runs toward the couple.
“God will spare her!” Morgan cries. “God will save her!”
“Edward!” Zhuri’s voice is tinged with panic. “Oh, merciful Allah! They are inside!”
The man with the moustache is nearly in the room. Zhuri has both his feet against the casks, but there are too many pushing against him. I hear the splintering of wood from the great hall door.
I rock the last barrel away from the servants’ door and draw my sword. “Door’s clear! Go! Go! Go!” It takes three steps to reach the man with the moustache. I lash St. Giles’s sword with such force that it lodges in his face. Just above the eyes. The plaguer’s neck snaps backward. His head cracks against the doorframe. The man’s howls drown out the other cries in the room. But he does not die. I put a hand on his forehead to help wrench the sword free. And I finish the job with a slow thrust into his palate.
Tristan drags the bag of cannons and his helmet into the servant hallway. He darts back to help Zhuri pull Morgan toward the door. Matilda is locked in Morgan’s arms, her fingers hooked and trembling on his back. The four of them creep slowly toward the servants’ entrance, Matilda dragging along the floor.
“She can’t come!” Zhuri screams. “She’s blighting! She’ll come for us!”
Matilda sobs. “Morgan!”
The door in front of me bangs against the casks again. The combined weight of the plaguers forces the barrels back another few inches. I throw myself against the door but it doesn’t budge. The plaguers have leverage. Arms reach through the door. Hands grasp for me. Another head squeezes into the gap, all blood and broken teeth and mad eyes of ebony. It hisses. The casks slide backward. More heads peer through. I put my shoulder into the door above the barrels but my boots slide along the floor. Demon eyes stare at me. The cries are terrible. Their quarry is at hand, and they bay like the hounds of hell.
I abandon the door.
Tristan and Zhuri are almost at the servants’ entryway. Tristan has his arms around Morgan’s waist. Morgan still holds Matilda, who falls to her knees and retches. She looks up and calls his name and sobs. Her voice is changing. It’s as if several people are speaking through one throat. The sound of it sends a shiver through my body. I pick up my helmet and throw it through the servant doorway into the hallway beyond, then help Matilda to her feet. But it is too late.
One of the barrels overturns behind me. Water floods the kitchen and fills the room with the bitter scent of brine. Plaguers push past the door and stagger toward us. A woman slips in the spill and takes down two others. But there are many more. Far too many. And they are on us. I feel hands grab at my armor. Fingers clutch at Matilda.
“Leave her!” Zhuri shouts. “Leave her!”
Tristan drags Morgan backward. The Moor uses one of the guns to shove at Matilda, but it is unnecessary. The plaguers have her. I hack at their arms, but more and more of them take hold of her. Hands slide against my armor. Bodies press against me; I feel their weight dragging me down. Something gnaws at my boot.
“Morgan!” Matilda shrieks and grabs his hand. I wrench myself free of the grasping plaguers and duck past Matilda. I am the angel of death and I leave her in their clutches. Oh, Heavenly Father, I leave her to the demons.
Tristan and I pull Morgan toward the doorway. Zhuri jabs at the plaguers with the gun barrel. We inch through the cramped servants’ doorway and it becomes a tug o’ war. Tristan and I heave at Morgan, and the plaguers pull at Matilda.
“Morgan!” Matilda’s body lurches with sobs. “Morgan!”
Her hand slips slowly out of Morgan’s grasp. He lashes at us with his free arm but we don’t let go. And neither do the plaguers. They pull Matilda backward little by little, and we pull Morgan backward little by little. And I feel the sting of tears once more. I look at Matilda and think of Allison Moore.
Countless hands reach past Matilda to claw at Morgan. I lean back with all my weight. The tips of Morgan’s fingers are hooked against Matilda’s. Her eyes are wide and gray and filled with tears. Her fingers slowly pry apart.
She shrieks one last time, her voice pitched unnaturally high. “Morgan!”
And then the tug o’ war is over. Tristan and I fall backward. Morgan falls onto us. I look up and watch Matilda disappear behind a fog of falling plaguers. Her eyes are the last things I see of her. Black and shiny as prayer beads.
Zhuri kicks the door shut and she is gone. We lay gasping on the floor, unmoving.
Until something behind us snarls.
Chapter 29
A woman wearing an apron launches herself at Morgan. I grasp the sword of St. Giles and rise to my feet, but Morgan is in a fury. He pins the woman to the ground and slams his fists into her face again and again until she is no longer recognizable as human. He continues to swing his arms and grunt even after we tear him away from her. His knuckles are bloody and swollen and, at that moment, there is no sanity in his eyes.
“It’s all right, Morgan.” Tristan pulls Morgan’s head against his. “I’m so sorry. Everything will be all right, brother.” Morgan rips himself from Tristan’s grasp and shoves him. He lunges for the servants’ door, but I throw my arms around him from behind, and Zhuri throws himself against the door.
“She is gone, my Christian friend,” the Moor says. “I am sorry. But she is gone.”
Morgan struggles against me, screaming and jerking his torso wildly, but Tristan helps me wrestle him to the ground. We hold him until he stops moving, until the anger in his eyes is replaced by tears. Tristan and I stand, but Morgan remains on the floor, staring distantly and weeping.
“There are no windows here,” Zhuri says. “We can’t see how many are outside.”
“There were at least twenty in that room.” My soul feels battered. “If there were twenty at the other door as well, that would still leave seventy-five villagers out there somewhere.”
“Peace shall come to them,” Morgan says.
“What?” Tristan sends me a worried glance.
“The archbishop said they need to be given peace,” Morgan says. “Their souls are not at rest.”
“There are too many, Morgan,” I say. “We can’t give peace to a hundred and twenty villagers.”
He looks at me. His eyes are bleary, and from the look of them, I’m not certain sanity has returned to him. “But we must give it to one.”
Zhuri shakes his head. “There are twenty or more of those creatures in there. If we open that door, there will be no way to shut it. They will overwhelm us.”
“She needs peace.” Morgan rubs at his eyes. “Her soul is worth more than all of ours, and it must go to the Lord.”
Tristan and Zhuri look to me. I let out a long breath. If it were Elizabeth, I would want at least this much. I nod to Morgan. “She needs peace.”
We each take one of the guns from Tristan’s shoulder bag. I find a gilded hand cannon with a hexagonal tube. Zhuri still holds the gun he used to fend off the plaguers — the one he brought to Sir Thomas from Spain. Morgan draws
out the long weapon I had seen in Tristan’s bag earlier — a massive gun that might be more culverin than hand cannon. Tristan cradles God’s Love, the ten-shot hand bombard. I don’t think he will ever let go of that weapon.
Three of the four guns are loaded. Tristan spent the powder in his gun when he sent Sir Thomas to Jesus. So Zhuri helps him pour the mixture of saltpeter and sulfur into the casing of the cannon. They pack it with a rod, sifting and compacting several times to ensure that each of the chambers is full, then place an iron projectile in each of the ten holes. They wad fabric into the holes to secure the slugs.
“And that’s it?” Tristan asks.
“I think so,” Zhuri replies.
“You think so?” Tristan stares at the cannon. “I thought you knew how to do this?”
“How would I know?” Zhuri says. “I said you Christians don’t let us Moors have guns. Sir Thomas explained the method to me once, but I’ve never actually done it.”
“We put an awful lot of powder into this,” Tristan says. “Are you sure we didn’t put too much?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Zhuri says. He nods confidently several times, then shrugs. “Probably.”
Tristan sighs. “What’s the worst that could happen?” He clears his throat and studies the cannon. I know he’s thinking about Sir Thomas’s misfire.
There are six powder-caked firing cords in Tristan’s satchel, and two flints. I light one of the cords and give it to Zhuri. “I’m going to open the door,” I say. “Morgan, are you all right to fire? Good. You fire first. Zhuri, you light the touchhole on Morgan’s cannon. When he fires, I’m going to shut the door. Then we’ll keep doing it until we give Matilda her peace.”
Morgan flinches at the sound of her name. He raises his gun. It’s a heavy thing — two feet of thick iron tubing and another two feet of oak shaft. So heavy that he has to rest the metal tube on Tristan’s shoulder. Tristan is reluctant but straps his helmet on and leans his head away from the cylinder.
The plaguers behind the door shriek and thump with more force. As if they can sense we are about to open the door. I take hold of the latch. Zhuri holds the firing cord just above the touchhole of Morgan’s cannon. Tristan tilts his head even farther from the gun; I can see the tension in his posture, in the rising and falling of his chest.
The Scourge (Kindle Serial) Page 16