Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3)

by Roberto Calas

  Richard whirls to face the crowd. He raises the maul crosswise over his head and howls once more.

  If there is cheering, I do not hear it.

  All I hear are the boisterous swells of conversation and the sharp laughter of the nobility. The king holds his pose for a few heartbeats. The frog-helm pivots so he can take in one end of the crowd, then the other. He jogs the maul up and down a few inches again, as if the crowd might notice the motion. But they do not.

  He hurls the maul to the ground. The weapon bounces, ringing off the grass. The king throws off his gauntlets and twists four bolts on his shoulder. He removes his helm and tosses it to the ground, fumbles with the cords of the leather cap he wears.

  Richard is not as handsome as his father was, but he possesses a fineness of features that Elizabeth says makes him attractive. Those fine features glisten with sweat today. His body is slender, so slender that his secret nickname among many knights is, “The Damsel.” He wears a mustache and trimmed beard, and a thick mass of unruly black hair falls to the nape of his neck.

  The king motions toward the squires. “Come!” he shouts.

  One of the young men shoves planks across the trench and another squire crosses the boards, holding his arms out for balance. Richard waves toward the stable where the two knights are posted. “More!” he shouts. “No breastplate or helm this time.”

  One of the knights holds up a fist toward the king to acknowledge the instructions. The squire begins unbuckling the straps of the king’s breastplate.

  He wants to do it again. He wants to butcher more men and women, and I cannot allow it.

  I am the champion of the dead.

  The wide trench stands between me and my oath. I back up three steps, take a long breath, and run at the ditch. Three paces. One. Two—

  Something crashes into me. I stumble to the side and put my hand down to keep from toppling into the trench. A soldier in chain mail grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet.

  “Where are you off to, then?” he asks.

  “To stop a terrible mistake,” I say.

  Another soldier arrives, takes my other arm.

  “Why don’t we watch from the benches, eh?” the first soldier asks.

  “Because I won’t sit idly while people are butchered for sport.”

  “So sayeth the Lord!” Tristan shouts from behind us.

  The first soldier’s hand tears free from my arm as Tristan hammers him to the side. The second soldier seizes Tristan and, while they struggle, I leap.

  I strike the far wall of the ditch and the breath explodes from my body. I flail wildly, remembering the spikes, dig my armored fingers into the clay. Soldiers shout behind me, but a more immediate sound draws my attention. I glance down into the steep-sided trench. The sharpened stakes are set in rows along the bottom of the shaft and, impaled upon two of these, is an afflicted woman. She is a skeleton wrapped in wrinkled flesh. The black eyes look unusually large in the withered sockets. She hisses and writhes against the spikes.

  They left her there.

  I see another plaguer, impaled face-down a few yards away. And yet another a little farther out.

  They leave them in the trench.

  The afflicted fall in and no one takes them out. They are left to rot, in agony. I wonder how long this poor woman has suffered.

  Something buries itself into the earth next to my arm. A crossbow bolt. I dig my toes into the trench wall and drag myself up onto the far side, an arm’s length from the wall of piled stones.

  Past the wall, and far to my right, Richard stands on the field with his arms out. The squire fumbles with the straps on his shoulders. Both seem oblivious to my presence on the near side of the trench.

  Sir Simon’s voice calls out from behind me as I scramble to my feet.

  “At this range, my bolt will cut through your armor as if it were cheese.”

  “Cheese can’t cut through armor, Sir Simon.” Tristan is held by two men in chain mail and seems to have lost his awe of the marshal.

  I turn to face them. The king’s marshal keeps the crossbow trained on me.

  “Hop back over, Sir Edward,” Simon calls. “We can drink mead and taunt the Italian until Richard is done.”

  I hear the squeak of the stable doors again, hear wood crash against the sandstone blocks. There is no time for strategy.

  “Your bowstring’s wet,” I say.

  There is only the briefest flicker of Simon’s eyes toward the crossbow. Tristan kicks the marshal an instant before I throw myself sideways over the stone wall. The bolt clicks as it skims off the steel greave upon my shin.

  I roll to my feet and run hunched toward the stable. The crowd cheers. I am certain they are celebrating my unexpected arrival on the field. And, in all likelihood, Sir Simon’s unexpected attempt to kill me.

  I glance back. Richard raises an arm to the lords and ladies. He thinks they are cheering him. The squire removes the engraved breastplate, and Richard slaps his unarmored chest a few times, raises his arm again.

  I turn away and sprint toward the stable. One of the knights peers from behind his door at me. But I am not interested in him. What interests me is the dozen soldiers running from the benches. They sprint along the other side of the trench, pointing at me and circling toward the back of the stable.

  The crowd hoots and stomps as I near the planks leading to the stable. Their wild applause is like hail on cobblestones. A dead chicken soars over my head. The second knight stiffens as he notices me for the first time.

  Broken, shuffling footsteps sound from inside the stable. They are coming. The afflicted are coming.

  I pass the stone wall, hop on the wobbling planks, and bound across the trench.

  “You can’t be here!” The chicken-hurling knight ducks behind his door and peers at me over the edge.

  I take hold of the door and slam it shut, turn to the other knight.

  “What do you—”

  I tear the door from his hands. But the plaguers are upon me. Glinting eyes of polished ebony. Heads jerking from side to side. They come with open mouths and black, jagged fingernails stretched toward me. I know now that they are not demons. They are simply sick people.

  But they are terrifying sick people.

  I put my shoulder into the door and drive it back as hard as I can. Bodies thud against the oak and fall away. The doors meet and I shove my arm into two of the brackets that once held the barring plank.

  The doors shudder. The steel of my vambrace takes most of the pressure, but only a few of the afflicted are pounding. I will not hold off nine or ten bodies shoving in unison.

  The two knights stand motionless. They stare at me through the open visors of their bascinets. “Get the plank!” I shout. The door shudders again, and this time the steel vambrace digs painfully into my arm. “Get the plank!”

  The first of the soldiers from the benches rounds the corner of the stable. He is young and badly trained. His instinct is to grab my shoulders, which allows me to pull his sword from its sheath with my left hand. He releases me and stumbles backward, his body taut, his hand touching the empty sheath. I hold the sword up so he can see it, then slide the blade into the brackets and pull my arm free.

  The soldier points a finger at me. “You are in a mighty heap of trouble, sir.” More soldiers round the corner, some with spears, some with drawn swords.

  I cannot escape them. Nor do I want to. I swore to the Carpenter, upon the cold stones of a priory, that I would defend the afflicted. And I have kept my word. I am the champion of the dead.

  The soldiers advance, but I do not fear them. They will take me into the castle and Richard will speak with me. I will explain why I stopped his exhibition. I will tell him about Elizabeth, about the oath I made, and the cure that exists. And, together, he and I will repair this broken land.

  I hold my hands up, palms outward, so the men understand I will go willingly into their custody. I smile so they know I am calm.

  A familiar f
ace appears among them.

  “Put him in your arms!” The Italian mercenary pushes forward. “Put him in your arms, and kill him! Kill him with many blood!”

  The soldiers advance.

  I stop smiling.

  Chapter 15

  The Italian surges forward and swings his short sword into the air. The steel gleams. His face twists as he primes for the strike, but the blow never falls, because thirty heralds shatter the sky with their trumpet song. The sound is louder than cannon fire. The soldiers fall back from me and stare toward the trumpeters. The Italian looks too, his sword still high above his head.

  The king stands at the center of the jousting field, watching us with crossed arms.

  It is not the wisest or bravest or even the most sensible who lead; it is the loudest. Every person in the lower courtyard stares at Richard silently.

  When the fanfare ceases, there is only the sound of plaguers pounding upon the doors behind us, and the clank of the soldier’s sword in the bracket.

  The king stalks across the field toward me, the tip of his sword carving a long, rattling line in the earth. His body is rigid. The smile is gone. He passes the kicking body of his dying horse and halts a few paces from the trench. Jams his sword into the ground.

  His voice is a winter morning. “Bring him to me.”

  The Italian shoves me onto the planks. I hold my hands out to the sides again and walk across the trench, toward the King of England.

  He studies me for a time, squints. “I know you.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “No!” His anger startles me. “I am a king! You will address me properly.” He draws his sword from the clay and points it at the Italian beside me. “Tell him, Pantaleon.”

  “The King, he want that you call him ‘Your Majesty.’”

  I stare at the Italian. “Your Majesty?”

  “Also he does to allow, ‘Your Highness.’”

  The titles sound garish to my ears. Like something a doting minstrel might sing to his master. I have heard it said that Richard is fond of poetry and music, but this seems infantile.

  I bow toward the king. “Your Majesty.”

  He looks into my face for a time, then waves the sword at me. “Sir Edward. Sir Edward of Dallingridge.”

  I bow once more. “Yes, my . . . Your Highness.”

  “What are you doing on my tilting field, Sir Edward?” He rests the sword on his shoulder.

  “Your . . . Your Majesty.” The title sticks in my mouth. “These wretched creatures you slaughter are the people of England. I swore an oath, to you, Your Highness, and to God, to protect them.”

  The stable doors thud, and moans rise from inside. There is no other sound in the courtyard. Richard stares at me with no expression at all, and I shift under that gaze. A plaguer howls. The twisted, high-pitched inhalation common to all of them. The king glances at the stable, and laughs.

  It is a reckless laugh. Unfettered and entirely inappropriate. He doubles over with laughter, covers his face with one arm, and slashes at the air with his sword. Ice forms deep in my chest. This is not the king I once knew. I understand, in that moment, that Richard is plagued. The walls of Framlingham are thick as mighty boulders and high as ancient oaks, but there is no fortress strong enough to keep out the third plague. The scourge of madness.

  King Richard has lost his mind.

  “That sounded . . . that sounded quite dashing, Sir Edward.” Richard wipes at his eyes with his fingers. He points with the sword toward the stable. “Shall we speak with those people of England? Invite them to feast with us? Will you take one as a lover?”

  I clench my jaw and stare forward, think about the two-hundred men I need to reach Elizabeth.

  “If those are the people of England, then my kingdom is a sad one, indeed. Tell me, Sir Edward, do you think my kingdom is a sad one?”

  “There is no kingdom greater than yours, Your Majesty.”

  He rests the sword on my shoulder, the edge of the cold blade touching my neck. “So you agree that the creatures in that stable are not the people of England.”

  I do not like speaking with kings.

  “Why the silence?” Richard removes the sword from my shoulder and waves it as he speaks. “My question is simple. If England is the mightiest kingdom, then how can those things be its people?”

  I take a long moment to collect my thoughts.

  “All kingdoms suffer calamity,” I reply. “It is how we react to calamity that makes us great.”

  Richard laughs again. “Oh, but you are a clever one, Edward. Found your way out of that muddle didn’t you? And with such elegance. You sounded like a troubadour. Are you a troubadour, Sir Edward?”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  “I think perhaps you are,” he replies. “Or maybe you should have been. Sing those words, for me. The words you spoke about calamity.”

  I look at him to gauge his sincerity, but I find only madness. “I do not sing well, Your Highness. And I do not have much time. My wife is—”

  “Sing for me!” His shout echoes across the courtyard. There is no trace of good humor on his face, only fury. “Your king commands you to sing!”

  I clear my throat. If I live, Tristan will make certain this moment hounds me for the rest of my days. The Italian chuckles at my side and I send a withering glance in his direction. I will kill him with many blood when this is over.

  I do not truly sing the words. I warble them out, like a priest chanting at mass. Elizabeth heard me sing once, and she made me promise I would never do it again.

  “All kingdoms suffer calamity.” I chant. “It is how we react to calamity that makes us great.”

  Richard claps his hands and laughs. “You are right,” he says. “You are not a troubadour. I’m afraid I must command you never to sing again, Sir Edward.”

  I bow my head to hide my distaste. “Your Majesty, my wife is sick. She is plagued and waits for me in St. Edmund’s Bury. I was on my way there when—”

  “Nowel, nowel, nowel.” Richard sings an old minstrel’s song. “That is singing! Nowel, nowel, nowel.”

  His voice is rich and well-tempered, but I do not have time for this sort of madness. I force myself to relax my clenched fists. “Your Majesty, please. . .”

  He grins and sings more loudly, waving his sword to the tune. “Out of your sleep arise and wake, for God has made for mankind’s sake . . .”

  “Your Majesty, a knight and his men are trying to . . .”

  “. . . all of a maid who makes me knell, of all the women she is the belle.”

  I cannot help raising my voice as he continues to sing. “They’re trying to. . . They’re trying to keep me from reaching her! I need your help, Your Majesty!”

  “Nowel, nowel, nowel.”

  I stop talking and wait for him to finish, but he seems to tire of the song when I stop trying to compete with it.

  A silence falls and in that silence, the Italian speaks.

  “Your Highness, I make question to you?”

  “Pantaleon de Allesandria, do you have a song to sing?”

  The mercenary raises a hand in my direction. “This man, he put the harm on my face. I may be let to put death to him? He insult my body with the fists.”

  “You want to kill Sir Edward?”

  “With many blood, Your Majesty. With many blood.”

  Richard takes a slow step toward the Italian. The humor drains from his face. “Sir Edward has been a loyal knight for as long as I can remember, Pantaleon. He has been just and true to me, even though some of his friends have not. He is my subject and my kinsman.” He touches the tip of his sword to the mercenary’s forehead. “Your words are an insult to my ears. An insult!”

  The Italian takes a step back, flashes a convulsive smile. “I am . . . I am not want insult of you ears, Your Highness.”

  “You have insulted them,” Richard replies. The ice is back in his voice. “Take him down below and leg him. With many blood.”


  “No!” The Italian whirls away from the nearest soldier. “I do not meant I kill Edward. The language has many hardship for me. Please. Please!”

  Richard waves him off. “I’m tired of you, Pantaleon. You are a bore.”

  “Please! Please! Your Majesty! I make mistake!”

  I try to feel good about the Italian’s fate, whatever that fate is, but I cannot. Killing him in single combat would be satisfying, but to have him taken away on the whim of a madman is an injustice I cannot bear.

  “My lord,” I shout. “Your Highness. I don’t know what legging is, but he does not deserve it. The Italian was making a jest. A jest we started while sitting in the benches, before you arrived. There was no real threat. We are friends.”

  The soldiers pause and Pantaleon waves a hand toward me. “Yes! He talks what is true!”

  Richard studies me. I cannot tell what he is thinking and that terrifies me.

  He rubs at his bearded chin and smiles. “I have a proposal for you, Edward.” He points the sword toward the rattling oaken doors. “You believe those creatures in the stable are human. I know them to be demons.” He swivels the sword so it points to the mercenary. “You believe the Italian did not mean you harm. I believe he did. Let us put lance to our convictions. Three passes. If I am victorious, you stand by my side and we kill the plaguer demons and the Italian together. You will forget this silly business with your wife and remain here at Framlingham until I tire of you.” He swings his sword in long, lazy arcs. I wonder if everyone he tires of gets legged. I wonder again what it means to be legged.

  “And if you are not victorious?” I ask, watching him carefully.

  “If I don’t win, then my exhibition ends. You will have defended the good people of England, and saved a boring Italian mercenary.” He cocks his head as if remembering something. “Oh, and perhaps I will help you find your wife.”

  Chapter 16

  The lords and ladies in the crowd thunder their feet upon the benches. Some cup hands to their mouths and shout, others whistle and clap their hands above their heads. Perhaps they are glad that Richard has an opponent capable of striking back.