Pantaleon wrenches his arm free. “Even the Pope, he is saying the sick people should be kill.”
“Which Pope?” Tristan replies.
“Let’s go.” I stand and gauge the distance to the priory walls.
“I thought there was only one Pope,” Zhuri says.
“There is,” Morgan snaps. “We have only one true Pope, blessed and sanctioned by Christ Himself.”
“Yes,” Tristan replies. “But we’re damned if we know which one that is.”
Chapter 23
The priory is a small one. Just large enough to bury a small cardinal sin, or to clear the assorted moral debts of a dying nobleman. The place is nothing more than a dotting of small stone buildings huddled together, surrounded by shoulder-high walls. A tiny church—not much more than a stone hall attached to a Norman tower—hunches at the center of the complex.
“There are no bodies on the ground,” Morgan says.
“They must have fled before the plaguers arrived,” Zhuri replies.
“What plaguers?” Tristan asks.
A thin figure shuffles aimlessly along the grassy stretches between the outbuildings and the walls. There is no other sign of plague here.
“Let’s look for a safe place to sleep,” I say. “If we can’t find one here, then we keep moving.” The lack of plaguers worries me. These days it is in the calmest of waters that the worst dangers seem to lie.
“It’s strange that Richard’s men haven’t followed us through the forest,” Tristan says.
“It’s night,” I reply. “It would be difficult to find us. And we could take his men by surprise in the darkness.”
“We could surprise dozens of men in armor?” Tristan says.
I shrug. Despite the threat of ambush, Richard should have sent men into the forest. If I felt someone had wronged Elizabeth, I would hunt them through Hell itself. I do not know why the king’s men are not pursuing, and that, too, makes me restless.
The closest building is a small thatched structure set apart from the others. A battered door lies at an odd angle, twisted back and to one side because of a broken top hinge. I take hold of the iron latch and pull. Wood grates on stone as the narrow door straightens. I shove it forward, evenly, and it creaks open. The stench of rotting flesh wafts from the room. Moonlight streams through a glazed window, creating a silver patch on the floor but doing little to illuminate the room.
Tristan kneels and strikes a flint, showering one of our last firing cords with sparks. It takes a half dozen strikes before the powder on the rope ignites. He rises and thrusts the smoldering cord into the darkness.
A body lies on the floor. There is not much left of the cadaver. Bones and fabric, an open-mouthed skull. The carcass seems to twitch, but I realize it is an illusion created by the flickering light.
“Someone’s had a snack,” Tristan says.
“Have you no respect for the dead?” Morgan snaps. “Such a cruel bastard you can be.”
“Me?” Tristan replies. “I didn’t eat him.”
“Be prepared,” I whisper. “The door was shut.” Plaguers do not shut doors when they leave a building. Whatever fed upon this poor man is likely still inside.
Tristan swings the cord to the right. Shadows dance from four long-armed chairs sitting one in front of the other. Wooden boards rest across the arms of each chair. Polished oxhorns sit in round holes at a corner of each board. Tools lie neatly upon the makeshift desktops—awls, razors, pumice stones—and, tucked into a wooden stand on each, is a feather quill.
“Scriptorium,” Morgan says.
A place for writing. For days on end, monks sat in those chairs, dipping their quills into the oxhorn inkwells and scrawling out line after line of text. Father Aubrey, my priest at Bodiam, told me that it takes a monk thirteen months to copy a Bible. I try to imagine sitting in one of those chairs every day for a year, scrawling line after line. Beheading would be preferable.
I take the firing cord from Tristan and step into the room. Nothing approaches from the darkness. There is no sound in the room other than the scuff of my boot against the planks. The others follow behind me. A rat darts from the darkness and Pantaleon kicks it into the corner. The creature screeches and scampers in the darkness. “These are dirty creature,” he says. “They are many dirty.”
Tristan kneels beside the rotting body and tugs a leather pouch from the man’s belt. He looks inside and whistles. “I had no idea monks were so well paid.” He tips the pouch and four golden nobles tumble into his palm.
“I am accepting one of the gold money for the payment,” Pantaleon says.
“Hold onto them, Tristan,” I say. “Would you really sell your honor for just one golden noble, Pantaleon?”
“You speak the word again,” Pantaleon says, smirking. “Aw-nor. This is not a thing being real. I am not possible to touch it. Or look at aw-nor with eyes. I can to feel a coin. And the coin lets me to feel breast of the beautiful woman.”
“Lets me feel,” Zhuri says.
“Lovely,” Morgan says. “A Spanish Arab is teaching English to an Italian.”
“Keep quiet,” I say, extending the firing cord toward one side of the room, then the other.
“Someone must have shut the door from outside,” Zhuri says. “There is no one here.”
My teeth grind. I force myself to relax my jaw.
Shadows bounce as the light from the firing cord flares and dims. A modest bookshelf sits against the far wall, with six or seven bound volumes upon it. Pantaleon brushes past me and pulls one of the books from the shelf, flips through it, then grabs two more of the thick tomes.
“We are needing the sack,” he says. “To put inside this books.”
Another rat, or perhaps the same one, scurries out from the shadows. Pantaleon stomps at it several times before finally crushing its skull with his heel. “Dirty creature.”
Morgan takes one of the books from the Italian and studies it, flips open the wooden cover. “This is a book of hours,” he says. “I didn’t think you were a worshipping man.”
“I were.” Pantaleon grins. “I worship the gold. Books in this sort, they worth many gold. The paid from the books will let me to feel many . . .” He frowns.
“Will let you feel many,” Zhuri offers.
“You will not sell the Word of God.” Morgan places the volume back on the shelf. “And you will touch no breasts with money that came from selling sacred books. Put them back. All of them.”
“What about this one?” Tristan still kneels by the dead man. He holds up a book no larger than the palm of his hand. “Is this worth anything? The monk had it.”
“We’re not here to read,” I say. “Let’s make certain this room is safe and then barricade the door.”
Another pair of rats scampers from the darkness, and Pantaleon stomps at them. Morgan walks to Tristan’s side and takes the tiny book. “Edward,” he says. “If you would, please. Richard’s men didn’t return my Bible. I want to find another small one to carry.”
I give him some light. He flips through the pumiced pages, reading the tight black lines of text. “It’s in English,” he says. “Very rare.” He flips to the next page and shakes his head. “Just verses from the Bible. Must have been a selection of this man’s favori . . .” His jaw tightens as he flips to the next page, then the next. Even in the dim light I can see his face growing red. “This . . . this is filth! Utter filth!” He hurls the book across the room. It strikes the back wall and bounces halfway back.
Tristan steps forward and scoops it up.
“Leave it Tristan!” Morgan shouts. “Leave it alone!”
Tristan clears his throat and reads out loud: “‘Ezekiel 23:20.’” His eyes grow wide and he chuckles before reading the next line. “‘There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emissions were like those of horses.’” He laughs and holds the book up so we can all see it. “So sayeth the Lord!”
“That is filth,”
Morgan replies.
“But it’s God’s filth,” Tristan replies. “Are you saying the Bible is filthy?”
“No. I’m saying that dead monk was a lewd, disgusting and debauched sinner. He collected the filthiest verses for his own sordid pleasures.”
“Have you no respect for the dead?” Tristan says. “Such a cruel bastard you can be.”
“Calm yourselves,” I say.
But Tristan clears his throat and reads another line. “‘So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled.’” He raises one brow. “I had no idea the Bible was like this. It’s no wonder you read it so much, Morgan.”
Morgan snatches the book. “I’m going to burn this stack of excrement.”
“How dare you keep the Word of God from me?” Tristan says.
“God has better Words than these.”
Tristan lunges for the book, but Morgan holds it out of his reach. Zhuri and Pantaleon chuckle, and I cannot help smiling. Elizabeth will be cured. Morgan is back. And my heart sings again.
“You just want the book for yourself!” Tristan shouts.
“Shut your cave!” Morgan shouts. “If you want to read the Bib—”
“Mashalla!” Zhuri’s shout silences both of them. The Moor kicks violently. A rat strikes the wall with a squeal. “That dirty creature bit my boot.”
“Hungry, dirty creatures,” Tristan says.
Two more rats scamper toward us. Their oily fur glistens in the flickering light. Zhuri hops onto one of the chairs, and Tristan laughs.
“Laugh if you want,” Zhuri says. “Rats spread disease.”
More of the creatures patter out from under a great stack of collapsed shelves.. A half dozen pairs of eyes, glinting red in the smoldering flame. Their fur bristles in oily spikes. Large rats. Big as shoes.
Morgan kicks one. “They must be starving to come at us like this.”
I drive the point of my sword through one, pinning it to the floor with a thud. The rat squeals and thrashes. “Let’s find another building. One without vermin.”
Pantaleon walks to the fallen shelves from where the rats come. “I will to look here,” he says. “For only the moment. I find for more books.”
Tristan stomps, making another rat-shaped stain on the floor. “Maybe we should sleep on the chairs, eh Zhuri?”
“Leave it, Pantaleon,” I lift my sword and stab the rat again, but the creature continues to writhe under my blade. Tough animal.
“It is just one moment.” Pantaleon tugs at one of the shelves, recoils and makes a face. “I am seeing books. But such many dirty creatures here. Such many.”
A thought occurs to me.
I raise the sword again. The rat drags itself toward my feet, its jaws snapping. I slash at the creature, cutting it in half. The jaws continue to snap. The forelegs claw at the wooden planks.
“Pantaleon,” I call.
The rat drags itself forward toward my foot.
“Pantaleon!” My shout rings dully in the cramped scriptorium.
The stack of shelves topples with a crash and a billow of rats scurry from beneath the fallen planks. They swarm onto and around the Italian, crashing like an ocean wave, the flood of them carrying past him and toward us. So many of them. Pantaleon stumbles back and falls onto one leg, then springs to his feet again as more rats leap onto his armor. He howls and crashes toward us, slapping rats off his legs. He rocks madly as he steps on the scurrying creatures, their twisted squeals filling the air.
“They’re plagued!” I bellow. “They’re bloody plagued! Flee for your lives!”
Zhuri leaps so quickly that the chair he was standing on falls backward with a clatter, the tools and board jangling to the floor. Tristan accidentally slams his shoulder against the narrow doorway before stumbling out, sideways. Zhuri and Morgan plunge out after him.
I kick at rats as more and more of them pool around my feet. “Pantaleon!”
The Italian brushes past me screaming. He holds a leather-bound book under his arm and a rat in his hand. I shove him through the doorway and follow, feeling the scrape of claws on my boots. I brush at the vermin convulsively, panic sending fire through my limbs. Morgan yanks the door shut and leans back to hold it in place. He stamps his feet furiously at any of the creatures that comes close. Pantaleon drops the thick tome. He jerks and twists, kicks one calf against the other to knock a rat free. Tristan and Zhuri run in circles, stomping on the plagued vermin.
The Italian seems to remember that he still holds a rat in his gloved hand. He screams, a high pitched wail, and hurls the rat. The animal bounces off the ground, into the air, and scurries forward as soon as it strikes the earth again.
“Madre di Dio!” The Italian shuffles backward, but the rat leaps at him. I did not know rats could leap so far. It lands on his foot and scuttles up the long leather boot, winding around his leg. He runs, high-stepping and slapping at his legs. “Farlo fuori!” he shouts. “Farlo . . . Get it . . . get it from me! Get it from me!”
Zhuri and Morgan chase after him kicking lightly at his legs.
The donkey brays and flees as a rat approaches it. I take a great running kick that sends the rat into the wall of the scriptorium, leaving a red splotch on the stone.
One of Morgan’s blows finally connects with the rat on Pantaleon’s leg. The animal tumbles away, but charges the Italian again when it hits the ground.
“Get it!” Morgan shouts.
“Kill it!” Zhuri cries. “Stomp on it, Tristan, stomp on it!”
Tristan makes an attempt to stomp on the animal, but his heel glances off the oily fur. Morgan lunges forward and catches the rat’s rump with his heel. The creature screeches but tries to staggers forward again, pinned by the tail. Pantaleon leaps into the air and stomps with both feet, crushing the rat and releasing a spatter of black blood in all directions.
A silence falls upon us as we search the grounds for more rats and breathe heavily. We look at one another, eyes wide, shoulders rising and falling.
Tristan laughs.
He doubles over, hands on his thighs, and his laughter rings out across the priory.
“This is funny thing to you?” Pantaleon’s shout drowns out Tristan’s mirth. “If the dirty creature had to bite me, it would give to me sickness! And this is funny thing to you?”
Tristan raises one hand in conciliation, but does not stop laughing. “Sorry . . . sorry,” he takes great gasping breaths, then straightens and shakes his hands in feigned panic. “Get it from me! Get it from me!” He breaks down again, wiping at his eyes.
Pantaleon glares for a long moment, then smiles weakly. Shrugs. “Is funny a little. The animal, it does not stop at me!” He chuckles. “It come again and again!”
Zhuri chortles. “How was that, Edward?” He dons a terrified expression and mimics my accent. “They’re bloody plagued! Flee for your lives!” He laughs and Morgan, still holding the door, laughs too.
I slash two handed at a rat scampering toward me. “And who knocked over half the scriptorium trying to get out, Zhuri?” I snap.
Zhuri hoots and falls back against one of the walls, wipes at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “The rat . . . the rat was on Pantaleon’s pantalones!”
Tristan, doubled over, gasps as he laughs. “Stop . . . stop . . . I can’t breathe . . .”
The laughter creeps into me as well. I drop to a knee and shake my head and join them. It has been a hard day, and it feels good to jest. We laugh and laugh like bloody fools, the peals of it ringing out into the darkness.
Elizabeth will be healed. I know she will. I have no doubts. And Richard’s men have stopped pursuing us. All is well.
But my humor suddenly turns to something else.
I lurch to my feet and stare northward, toward Framlingham. Richard is no longer pursuing us. And I suddenly realize why.
He does not have to pursue us. Because he, like Gerald, knows where we are going. But unlike Geral
d, Richard has an army. An army that can defeat the ring of plaguers surrounding the monastery.
Richard is going to kill Elizabeth.
The laughter of my companions rings around me like mockery.
Chapter 24
The priory church is devoted to Saint Mary the Virgin, which does not surprise me. Mother Mary has followed me on my journey—so much so that sometimes I feel like a character from one of the Greek plays Elizabeth likes to read. The ones where gods move humans like chess pieces. Mary is not a god, but I feel her hand wherever I go.
We seal ourselves into a small room built against the church walls, just outside the nave. It is the prior’s chamber, I believe, and it is free of rats, so we pull the donkey inside and bar the door. Whoever left the supplies for Pantaleon only thought to give us four strips of dried venison and a cut-up loaf of bread. We eat all of it, and Zhuri shakes the bread bag over his mouth to catch the last of the crumbs.
Morgan applies his nightly coat of the pungent Malta fungus and is snoring on the floor in an instant. The others fall into the steady breathing of sleep not long after. I lie awake for a time, my body humming with exhaustion. I think about King Richard. Night makes certainty of my fears, and I almost rise and begin walking toward St. Edmund’s Bury on my own. But a night’s march when I am exhausted will leave me easy prey for the endless predators of Suffolk.
Richard will need time to ready his soldiers. And his men will need a night of rest. I calm myself with those thoughts and drift into a troubled sleep.
We rise when the first patches of sunlight creep under the door. My first thoughts are a jumble of dreams and regrets. Of Elizabeth and guilt. I should have been with her in St. Edmund’s Bury when the plague struck. I stayed behind, in Bodiam, to work on my castle.
My castle.
What use is a fortification when there is nothing for me to defend? My Elizabeth was in East Anglia, and I was building in Sussex. The ache of it is as strong as it was the day I found her plagued.
Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) Page 14