Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle

by E. C. Ambrose

  Best make himself known, Elisha thought, approaching Lucius and bowing a few feet short of him.

  “Ah, so you have not made off for the hills. Very good. Is that all your baggage?” His eyebrows arched upward to such good effect that Elisha suspected he had them plucked and trained for the expression.

  “Aye, it is.”

  Tilting his head like hunting hawk, Lucius gestured up toward the seat of the wagon. “It may fit under there—I doubt there is a place for it among my things.”

  Lugging his chest, Elisha leaned to peer beneath the seat, and shoved the chest in, stuffing his blankets after it to keep it lodged there.

  “Ay, Barber,” the carter called from across the wagon. He grinned, showing his crooked teeth, and Elisha recognized the same man who had aided them in their flight from the hospital yesterday.

  “How did you come here?” Elisha asked.

  “Conscript. They’ve demanded a dozen of us, good with the horses, as know the road from here to Dunbury. Name’s Malcolm.” He stuck out a broad, grubby hand, and Elisha grasped it with a smile.

  “Elisha’s mine. I’m glad of a friendly face.” He cocked his head toward the physician. “This is by way of a punishment for me. You’ve heard about the end of yesterday’s operation?”

  “No! Not too bad, I hope?”

  “The worst.” Elisha paused just a moment, fitting the proper words. “I lost the child and my brother also.”

  The man crossed himself. “Cor! And they made ye get up for this affair? It’s mourning ye should be about, and seeing to the wife.”

  For a moment, his eyes stung. Elisha said, “She’ll have none of me. Maybe it’s for the best that I’ll be gone.”

  Eyeing him sidelong, Malcolm crossed himself again. “Ye’ve not been to battle before then?”

  “No.”

  Someone ahead blew on a trumpet, and the soldiers suddenly took up their reins. Elisha and the carter likewise climbed into the wagon, awaiting their place in the train as the huge portcullis ground slowly upward on its chains.

  “Terrible sight, this war, and sound, too. These bombards, now, they’ll cast a stone as big as your head straight through the ranks and halfway to the camp, leaving limbs and corpses behind.” He added with a bitter chuckle, “I’d not want your job, sure enough. The screaming and the dying, day and night, and always with that pounding of the cannons. First time I went out, I swore the earth would rip herself apart for all the noise.”

  “The physician has some new treatments he plans to test out on the victims.”

  “If ye can scrape one up while he’s still alive.” Eyes to the horses, Malcolm called out, “Hya!” and the wagon pitched into motion.

  Three days distant, the castle at Dunbury Ford lay under a partial siege, the king’s army unable to surround it completely. Heart of the rich holdings of a duke once favored by the king, the castle occupied a hilltop alongside a deep river. Elisha did not follow the doings at court. He had enough to do to keep brothel politics straight from one day to the next, and nothing the king or his barons did was likely to touch on them. Even the mayor who ruled London preferred his manor house and let his bailiffs handle the lesser citizens. Elisha gathered from the soldiers’ talk as they rode that King Hugh accused this duke of plots against the crown for his failure to deliver a shipment of new weapons from Milan. As Lucius had implied, the duke had been set to cement his loyalty with a marriage between his daughter and the king’s younger son, Prince Alaric, but the whole thing had gone sour somehow.

  Hugh had not been popular from the moment his father, then-King Edward, declared Hugh legitimate during a great feud with his unruly presumptive heir, Edward the Younger. Given the rushed marriage of Hugh’s high-born mother to a Welsh lord, and the birth of Hugh following so soon after, many of the lords were unsurprised to find that Hugh’s father had been the king himself. Apparently, King Edward hoped rewarding the loyal Hugh with legitimacy would bring his heir in line. Then both royal Edwards died within months of each other—one from sickness, the other on the front in Scotland—leaving the barons to choose between an unpleasant but powerful bastard, or the little children of King Edward’s French second wife. After the declaration of Hugh’s legitimacy, the queen had taken the boys home to France in a fit of anger, expecting King Edward to apologize and beg for her return, only to hear of her husband’s death some time later. Given their youth, accepting the French heirs would amount to handing over the throne to the French king. The bastard Hugh had enough power from his Welsh backers to stick his own claim and prevent the French boys from returning—and now he had his own sons, the princes Thomas and Alaric. Since that difficult succession, chances were, as the captain suggested, that this new battle was merely the latest in forty years of skirmishes mounted by the restive barons.

  From what Elisha’s father had said of his own days at war, Elisha suspected the causes drifted high above the battlefield where peasants died until the nobles agreed to be friends once again. The high born were supposed to be better folk, more blessed, more beautiful, more wise, but they all looked the same on the inside. A king would bleed just as red as a serf.

  That first afternoon, they passed through the village of Elisha’s boyhood, half-empty now, long abandoned houses collapsing on themselves. Drought had driven them off, and few remained to make a living on the land he once had known. He remembered the days of growling stomachs and brittle crops before they set out for London, but the family’s hardship had been his opportunity to act upon the wild dream of learning the healing arts. As they drove through, he noticed a few farmers with weathered, familiar faces. It was he who had become the stranger.

  Within two days, they left behind the lands Elisha knew, setting a good pace for the king’s encampment. Hills grew taller here and thickly forested. Then a heavy rain caught them up, slowing the journey and forcing Elisha down from the wagon to help heave it from the mud, and later to lift the thing up so its axle could be repaired. Lucius would not have his precious things unloaded, of course, so it required a dozen of the strongest to strain and grunt, glaring at him on his tall horse.

  The physician’s assistants did not deign to speak to Elisha, so he spent his evenings at the carters’ fire, laughing at their bawdy songs, sharing his most gruesome stories when they were in their cups. They especially enjoyed hearing anything about the whores, and he did his best to satisfy, until some detail or memory would bring Helena to mind and Nathaniel with her. Then Elisha would fall silent and turn away.

  As the fifth day dawned, Elisha rolled from his blankets to a sound like distant thunder. He listened, but it came no nearer. The carters grew almost solemn that day as they approached the terrible noise. Yet by evening, when they entered the last town along the road, it was the silences Elisha noticed, looking up in curiosity when the sound had gone. The wagons creaked into town, approaching the little church they’d known by its tower. A few lanterns shone in the houses, but ahead a great conflagration flared up, and almost everyone leapt down from wagons and horses to see what the trouble was. Elisha found himself at the lead, his long strides equal to those of the taller physician.

  From the streets around, townsfolk rushed up as the visitors reached the square. A mob of men surrounded the fire with water buckets, while another group huddled to one side.

  Leading his retinue, Lucius approached the huddled gathering, calling out, “I am a king’s physician. What’s the trouble here?”

  “Witchcraft, my lord!” one of them hollered. The little band separated, revealing one man clutched in their midst by many hands. The slight figure trembled, bruises showing on his face. With his fair hair and frightened eyes, he reminded Elisha chillingly of his brother. “He’s lit up the chapel with spellfire.”

  The soldiers stopped short at this, muttering, but Lucius shook his head gravely. “Nonsense. I am a learned man, and I assure you that such tricks as witches have are not equal to creating real flame. That requires spark and fuel—”
<
br />   A scream tore through the night, and they whirled. A woman spun and shrieked in the churchyard, flames leaping up from her hair.

  “Witchcraft!” someone shouted, and those around her cried out, stumbling back from the magic fire.

  Her arms beat about her head, and she tore at her skirts. In her panic, she ran toward the center, as if pursuing the soldiers. They scattered, crossing themselves.

  A few men from the fire brigade dashed forward with buckets, and Elisha swore and ran. “Stop! No water, you’ll sear her to death!” He fumbled at his cloak, dodging the fleeing soldiers.

  At last he ripped the garment free, throwing himself into the path of the stricken woman and pouncing on her, flinging the cloak around her.

  She fought him, wailing, as he bore them both to the ground and smothered the flames.

  For a moment, she whimpered in his embrace as he patted her head and shoulders muffled by cloth. “You’re fine,” he whispered. “Fine. Everything’s all right.”

  Finally, he sat up, breathing hard, and unwrapped the cloak from her face.

  Smoke-stained, her eyebrows singed, the woman gingerly touched her face and hair. Some of her hair was scorched, her chemise falling away from one shoulder in burnt remnants.

  Elisha smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring. “Just a spark,” he told her, and she offered a timid smile in return.

  “Is the lady injured?” Lucius said, coming up alongside. “I’d best examine her.”

  Immediately, she turned from Elisha, pulling up her tattered garment. “You’re the physician, sir?”

  “Indeed, I am. Of the Salerno School.”

  Slipping off his cloak, Elisha rose, shaking out the cloth. No harm done—then a cry rose up around them.

  “The witch! He’s gone!” Townsfolk ran to the shout, then scattered out among the streets. “Quickly, before he enflames another!”

  Elisha found himself surrounded and caught up in the rush down hill toward the river. This action the soldiers could support and they, too, joined the cry. At the river’s edge, Elisha stopped, clinging to a tree. In the mad dash, his cloak had been torn from his grasp and left behind. “Damn it all,” he grumbled.

  After a moment, his eyes adjusted, making out the dim shape of a bridge, and the absurd sight of townsfolk and soldiers pursuing some poor man caught unawares with a sprig of mistletoe or some other supposed sign that he’d cast fire on their chapel. A pile of stones sat nearby, and Elisha made his way over, feeling for rough edges and someplace to catch his breath.

  Instead, his hand encountered an arm, and someone cried out and burst up from his hiding place among the rocks.

  “Bloody Hell!” Elisha shouted, as frightened as the other man. Several of the crowd turned in their direction.

  The witch stumbled toward the river, and Elisha sprang after him as a soldier behind called out, “Have you got him?”

  Catching the man with one hand, Elisha hauled back the other and knocked him senseless into the shallows, jumping lightly down after.

  “Here, what’s going on?” a soldier called, as a few townsfolk gathered, one raising a torch overhead.

  Quickly, Elisha scooped the man’s shoulders against his chest, looking up to them, his heart racing. “This man’s fallen. I’ll see to him. You’d best keep searching.”

  “Aye,” the soldier called down, and they hurried off in search of their prey.

  Bent over his captive, Elisha took a few quick breaths. His hand at the man’s throat found a rapid pulse, and the man started under his touch, trying to push him away.

  “Hush,” Elisha urged. “Don’t move, I’m not out to hurt you.”

  Shaking, a muffled voice replied, “You hit me, didn’t you?”

  “I had to—I couldn’t take time to explain, could I? Now they think you’re unconscious.”

  “I am,” the witch answered, ceasing his struggle, but sitting stiffly, not trusting.

  Elisha slipped his arm around the man’s shoulder and helped him from the water up to the rocks. “Steady, steady,” he whispered. Elisha guided him into a nook and settled beside him.

  The witch shook all over, drawing his knees up and ducking his head. Quietly, Elisha replaced his arm about the other man’s shoulders.

  “They’ll kill you,” said the witch. His voice was light and soft, younger than Elisha had guessed.

  “I won’t tell,” he replied. “Will you?”

  A muffled snort answered him, a sort of nervous laugh, stifled for safety. “Who are you?”

  “Elisha Barber. And you are?”

  “Does it matter? I’m accused of magic.”

  Dropping his voice even lower, Elisha asked, “Are you a witch?”

  The other jerked. “Of course not!”

  “Pity. I could use a bit of magic.”

  Laughing, the witch rose. “I think they’ve gone.”

  “At least let me see to your injuries.” Elisha tried to get a look at him, but trees obscured the feeble light of the pale moon.

  “Just a beating. I’ve had worse. It’s what I earned for trysting in a chapel.” Clothing rustled as he moved, and he added, “I think your blow was the worst, actually.”

  “It was the best I could do in the moment.”

  A warm hand sought his own in the darkness and gripped it tight—a soft hand, with the slightest calluses. Not a workman’s hand, nor that of any townsman he’d ever known. Elisha frowned. The young, clear voice said, “I thank you, Barber, for the blow that saved my life.”

  With the other’s aid, Elisha pulled himself to his feet. “Take care with it, then. I’ve no wish to hit you again. But how did you come to this?”

  “Look to yourself, Barber,” the stranger said, “if you plan to save any more witches. Mobs take no more kindly to the accomplice than to the accused.” Swiftly, he vanished into the night, leaving Elisha with neither cloak nor answer.

  Chapter 7

  Elisha rose and went in search of his lost cloak, cursing the darkness when he found not a sign of it—nor of the silver coins he’d so carefully stitched into the hood. “Bloody Hell,” he muttered, making a second sweep down the road he had taken. Doubtless one of the townsfolk had collected it as a prize and would only feel the more blessed when he found the coins. The spring days were warm enough, but evenings grew chilly, and he felt it especially now that he was damp from his splash in pursuit of the witch. The cloak was a sore loss. When the wagons rumbled by a little later, Elisha dusted himself off and followed along, catching up with Malcolm and pulling himself up.

  “Did ye see the witch, then?” the carter asked, with an eager grin.

  “Only for a moment. I think the shrine just caught a spark from something—a candle most like. The poor man’s probably giving prayers of thanks right now that he got away.”

  Malcolm snorted. “Ye know nothing of the world, eh? These witches, they’ll set fire to ye soon as look at ye. Revenge for theirs, if ye catch the meaning. And I had a cousin as turned black when he looked at one the wrong ways at market.”

  Elisha left off rubbing his arms to keep warm. “Black?”

  “Aye, black’s your hair. Took a bath in mother’s milk to clean him up.”

  “Sounds expensive.”

  “Dunno, I wasn’t there, was I? But that’s the least mischief I’ve heard from a witch.”

  Hugging his arms close, Elisha laughed.

  “Ye don’t believe me,” Malcolm grunted. “Suit yerself, ye’ll see some doings around these parts, mark my words. I hear this duke’s been accused himself.”

  “Well, I’ll be looking forward to that,” Elisha said, then noticed the carter’s lowered gaze. “Just curious, that’s all.”

  “Don’t be too eager, Barber. These witches, they take blood in their rites and summon up devils to torment those as displease them. Oh, aye, that village we passed’s had more trouble than a bit, let me tell you.” He straightened and flicked the reins to encourage a quicker pace. “Course, we may be in
for a burning, we stay long enough.” He grinned at this and nodded. “Not been to one in years.”

  This caught Elisha’s attention, and he asked, “Were you there, outside the city? Maybe twenty years ago?”

  “That I was. You’d have been little more than a lad, eh? I’s lucky to be a groom then, with one o’ the great houses. We had a spot not five rows from the stake.”

  “What did you see?” Elisha leaned forward, propping his chin on one hand to see what he could of Malcolm’s face.

  With a flash of that suspicious look, the carter said, “She cast a glamour at the end, she did. The devil himself come into her and raised his fiery wings. Cor, that were something to see. Yet the priests held him back, so the archers got off their shots. Might’a been an awful day for all of us if they hadna taken her down.” He crossed himself, staring into the distance as if he, too, could still see the scene before them. “It’s the sacrifice, ye see. They’re strongest at the very moment of death, when they’ve given themselves over to darkness.”

  “Like saints,” Elisha murmured, but into his hand, and the carter did not hear him.

  They reached the encampment shortly before dawn, led onward by the night watch. The bombards were silent all night, but Elisha saw movement on the battlements of the distant castle and doubted they would have peace for long. The vast camp stretched along the riverside, a motley assortment of common canvas tents and the brightly decorated bell tents and pavilions of the knights and nobles. Spread out all around were the cookfires and bedrolls of the common foot soldiers and camp followers.

  At the heart of this stood an old monastery, its towers crooked and collapsing, rents in the walls overgrown with trees and vines. The long nave of the church lay exposed to weather through gaps in the roof and empty windows. The wagons came around the front of this structure toward the old cells where the command post was established; the lower hall, once the refectory, still had a roof by virtue of the intact second floor. From the cries and the stink, Elisha knew they’d reached his destination.