“The afflicted are demons,” Martin says. “And so we must curse them back to Hell.”
I shake my head. “The afflicted are not—”
“Shhhh.” The mayor points to the platform. “Here comes the defense.”
An old man steps onto the stage. He wears long robes, similar to the houpelande worn by the attorney.
“We didn’t have another attorney’s robe,” Martin says. “So we gave him one of Father David’s robes. It’s a fortunate thing priests and attorneys wear similar clothing.”
“And both occupations serve similar functions,” Morgan replies. “Both represent justice and mercy, and try to shepherd their charges toward a good judgment.” He grins, pleased with his metaphor.
Tristan nods. “And the more you pay them, the better the chance of a good judgment.”
Morgan crosses his arms. “Must you always be so wicked?”
“My apologies,” Tristan replies. “Attorneys do not deserve such cruelty.”
“Shhh!” The mayor points toward the platform again.
The clerk gazes at Reginald and Elenor on the bench, and clasps his hands. “I am terribly sorry for the loss incurred by Reginald and his wife. It is a tragedy. A horrible, grievous tragedy.” He turns to the crowd and holds a trembling finger to the sky. “But to try animals in a court is to imbue them with an equality to man. If beasts are capable of knowing right from wrong—and can incur praise and blame—then they are capable of being judged in the afterlife.” He stares into the crowd and lets the words settle. “If that is the case, then beasts would be a species of man, or men a species of beasts. And both of these propositions are incompatible with the Word of God!” The old man’s voice gains strength, he thrusts his finger higher into the sky and glares at the crowd. “Based on this argument, I call for the trial to be ceased, and these animals to be released!”
The whistles and boos begin even before he finishes the last sentence. Someone throws a carrot. Two soldiers wade through the crowd to restrain the vegetable hurler. I turn my back. The clerk is the only one at this trial who has spoken with any sort of sense, and he is being assaulted for it. I will not find horses for sale here, among this crowd. Only absurdity. It is time to search out the stables.
I glance toward the gate and spot a soldier sprinting toward us. The pommel of my sword touches my palm.
“Galfrid presents a most formidable defense.” The attorney is back on stage. “Well structured and delivered. But Galfrid is a clever man. He knows very well that we are not judging the animals before us, but the demons that lurk beneath their flesh. And those demons must be expunged! I say to our honorable councilmen, find these animals and their demons guilty and justice will be done!”
The crowd roars at the words.
“An unassailable display of logic,” Tristan says.
Martin clambers onto the platform and raises his hands to quiet the crowd. He turns to the three robed men sitting on the wooden bench beside the platform. “What say you, councilmen?”
The men lean in and there is much nodding and whispering. I glance back again. The running soldier stops at the far edge of the crowd and searches for someone.
One of the councilmen, a stooped man with a long gray mustache, stands.
“We find the accused porkers guilty of willful murder. We further find that the pigs killed the child and ate of its flesh on a Friday, and it is expressly forbidden by the Church to eat meat on a Friday. Therefore, the pigs should have additional punishment before their execution.”
The men and women cheer again; some wave their arms wildly in the air or shake their fists at the squealing pigs.
I glance back again. The soldier shoves his way into the crowd.
“We have to go.” It is not possible to be overcautious when the King of England wants you dead.
“But you have been called to defend the afflicted,” Morgan says. “Or the anathema will not work.”
“Anathemas always work, Morgan,” I watch the crowd ripple as the soldier pushes his way through. “Locusts eventually leave. Caterpillars die off. And pigeons grow quiet when the rutting season ends. Now let’s get out of this village before it’s too late.” But I do not know in which direction to flee. The others look to me as I debate our choices.
The cheers of the men and women in the crowd are wild and shrill. The pigs squeal and buck, perhaps sensing the aggression of the crowd. Martin waves his hands again to silence the crowd. “The councilmen have spoken. The accused animals will receive ten lashes each, immediately, and then shall be hanged by the neck until dead.”
His next words are spoken quickly—almost mumbled—his hand making a cursory sign of the cross. “We do this in the name of the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.”
The spectators grow reverent for a moment. They bow their heads long enough to say amen, then cheer savagely again.
The soldier in the crowd finds Brian Nottynge and speaks to him, gesticulating madly. Brian’s gaze sweeps over the area slowly. His eyes meet mine and the surveying stops. He gives me a smile with far too much warmth, and whispers an aside to the soldier.
I set off at a brisk walk toward the gate and call back to the others. “Let’s go!”
Richard’s men must have arrived. They will either wait at the gate, or they will head to the platform to collect us themselves. Either way, we will have enemies at both sides. But I am guessing Richard only sent one or two men. And only two guards at the gatehouse. Much better chances.
“Edward, what’s wrong?” Morgan asks.
“Wait!” Pantaleon shouts. “The arse does not moves.”
“Ass,” Zhuri calls.
“Leave it,” I snap. “Leave it and move! Quickly!”
Brian Nottynge walks our way, his short sword out of its sheath. The soldier who spoke with him runs off in the direction that Sir George and his men walked only a few moments before.
A lashing whip cracks behind us. A pig’s agonized squeal tears at the sky. The crowd roars. Tristan glances back. “That will teach those porkers not to eat meat on Friday.” He grins, but there is concern on his face. “Brian Nottynge is following us with his sword out.”
Another crack sounds, followed by another squeal. The crowd cheers, wild and loud. And, like a demented echo, the plaguers by the gate howl.
Brian stops following and watches us. I pick up my pace, not quite running, but not walking either. Sir George and his soldiers hurry back down the crossroads toward the platform. The time for calm is past.
“Edward, what’s happening?” Morgan asks. “Say something.”
“Flee,” I say. “Flee for your lives!”
We flee for our lives, toward the gate.
Another crack sounds in the distance, and I can only just hear the squeal. The plaguers near the gate roar and yank against their chains. They pull as one . . . and take a step forward.
“How. . . how are they . . .?” Morgan stammers.
“The log!” I stop running, halfway between the gate and the crowd. “They’re pulling it out!”
“They’re going mad!” Zhuri shouts. “Why are they going mad?”
A pig shrieks again and the plaguers howl, pull the log out another few inches.
All of us turn, at the same time, toward the platform, where the pigs are being flayed. We look at one another, then at the plaguers. The blood. The afflicted smell the pig blood.
I look again to the platform. The crowd cheers. Sir George and his men are still a long way off. I look back at the distant plaguers. They strain and roar and claw at the air. They seem to lurch forward again, but it is hard to tell from this distance.
“That log is sunk deep,” Morgan says. “There’s no way they’ll get—”
The faint, ringing sound of metal shattering silences him. Plaguers crash forward, tumbling over one another and onto the road.
They are free.
They rise like Hell’s vengeance and lumber toward us, picking up speed with each stagge
ring step. I can just make out the glitter of a long chain dragging behind each one.
“The rusted ring,” Tristan says. “It’s a terrible weight to bear, always being right.”
“What do we do?” Zhuri asks.
I do not know what to do. We could avoid the plaguers. Race around them and escape in the madness that will soon fall upon Wickham Market. I think of Danbury, a village we doomed. One of my crowning sins.
“There are a hundred innocent men and women in this village,” I say.
“And four guilty pigs,” Tristan adds.
I think again of Danbury. If humanity is to survive, we must show ourselves to be human. I draw the hand cannon from my shoulder sack. Tristan watches, then draws his ten-shot hand bombard, the weapon named God’s Love.
“I thought you were the champion of the dead,” Tristan says.
“I am the defender of humanity, Tristan.”
I glance back toward the crossroads. Sir George and his men reach the platform. Brian Nottynge speaks to them and shouts something that I cannot hear.
I look back again toward the village gates. The afflicted stumble closer. Not more than fifty paces. A half-dozen soldiers from the long hall step out into the street. They stare wide-eyed at the afflicted, but do nothing to stop them. A knight wearing Richard’s crest on his tabard stands among them, watching as well. The cowards do not want the plaguers to turn their attentions toward them.
“This will be a misery of shit,” Tristan says.
“It always is,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I wish I had my helm.”
All of our helmets, and my shield, are in the canvas sack on Pantaleon’s donkey. Which is still by the platform.
We stand on the road, half-way between the village gate and the platform where the trial is taking place. Two hundred paces from each. Stranded between the afflicted and the healthy, fearing both.
I hand my cannon to Zhuri. “I hope you’ve gotten better with these.” Zhuri’s aim with hand cannons has been short of commendable. “It’s loaded. Aim for their legs. We want them stopped, not dead. These are people, not demons.”
Tristan hands Morgan his shoulder sack and the hand bombard. “Light a firing cord quickly.”
“I don’t want to fire a cannon,” Morgan replies.
“You don’t have a sword,” Tristan replies. “Be helpful. Fire the bloody cannon.”
“Christ is my sword.” Morgan takes the hand bombard and sighs. “If this gun explodes on me, I will haunt you forever, Tristan. I will make it rain on you for the rest of your days.”
“I live in England, Morgan.” Tristan draws his sword. “It’s already been arranged.”
Pantaleon steps up next to me, his own sword out, the massive steel pauldron on his shoulder facing the plaguers. “Perhaps Mayor will give to us the paid for help?”
“Everyone in this village is our enemy, Pantaleon. There will be no reward.”
I draw my sword, uncertain what I will do with it.
I am the wolf that slaughters the lamb.
But I can no longer tell the wolves from the lambs.
Chapter 28
The afflicted draw closer. I squint to get a better look at them. A man in rough linen trousers and no shirt limps at the front of the crowd. The white of a rib gleams from a bloody gash.
A girl of no more than twelve years walks just behind him and to his left. Her face is powdered black with dirt and grime, her lips drawn back in a snarl. Some lingering instinct from her healthier days makes her clutch at the hand of a woman beside her, but the woman yanks free each time.
Another woman in the marching throng wears a mesh caul that binds her hair. Through some oddity, the caul remains perfectly arranged, tidy on a head that has only one ear and massive gouges down both cheeks.
They lurch forward, all of them, along the tidy street and past the shining roses. A pair of pigeons coo and launch skyward at their approach, their wing beats like fluttering banners. I have faced more pitched battles in France than I can recall. Many times have I gazed upon the faces of my young enemies—at the humanity shining in their eyes—and felt a stirring of pity. To be born French is a curse, just as this plague is a curse to the afflicted. But the Frenchmen chose to take arms against us. The blighted enemies we face today never had that choice. There isn’t a dram of humanity in the eyes of the men and women that advance on us now. But I have never pitied an enemy so much.
I let out a long rattling breath. “Zhuri, Morgan, remember to aim for their feet.”
Morgan hands Zhuri a firing cord. “You’ll have to light me, Moor.”
Shouts rise up from behind us. I glance back. Sir George and his men are stopped on the road, fifty hundred paces from us. They have spotted the oncoming horde. One of the men crosses himself. Another places both hands on his helm. Sir George tugs at his surcoat and draws his sword.
Morgan steps forward and tips the bombard so the ten coin-sized holes point toward the plaguers’s legs. He nods to Zhuri, who dips the firing cord toward the touchhole at the top of the bombard.
“Say Hallelujah,” Tristan calls.
“Heavenly Father,” Morgan shouts, “please don’t let this cannon—”
Thunder sounds beside me. A streak of white smoke lances forward as God’s Love showers the plaguers. Screams rip through the mist of spent saltpeter, but I cannot see the people who make them.
I glance back. Sir George is on one knee. Most of his soldiers are hunched, or lying prone on the street. One of them is on hands and knees, arms cradling his head. They look more terrified at the gun blast than they did when they spotted the plaguers. I do not imagine many of them have seen a hand cannon at work.
The smoke lingers in the breezeless morning. White haze swirls and the woman with the caul staggers forward. Her hip gushes blood from where one of the ten gun stones pierced her. Bodies, just visible through the smoke, writhe upon the ground. Four or five of them. But dozens of plaguers are still on their feet. I hope Sir George decides to join us. We cannot hold off forty plaguers on our own.
The woman with the caul is five paces ahead of the throng and closing on us quickly. Her chain rattles along the earthen road.
“Put her down, Zhuri,” I shout.
“Very well,” he yells back, raising the hand-cannon. “You’re an ugly woman! And your caul is crooked!”
“Shut your mouth and fire.”
The Moor aims the hand cannon at the woman’s leg. Morgan dips the firing cord into the touchhole.
“Hallelujah!” Zhuri shouts.
The gun roars and belches a plume of smoke ten feet long. The road is smothered once again by a veil of white. We back away slowly, swords up, eyes straining into the bitter mist. Something moves toward us. The woman with the caul lurches out from the smoke. She has no new wounds.
“Zhuri!”
He glances at the hand cannon. “Something is wrong with this gun!”
“Yes,” Tristan replies. “It has a faulty Moor!”
“Forgive me.” The woman cannot understand my whispered words, but perhaps God will give her my message. I slash with all my strength. Saint Giles severs her leg just below the knee, and she topples to the ground, her chain clattering.
“Tighten up,” I say. “Don’t kill them if you can avoid it.”
Tristan and Pantaleon draw closer, so our shoulders touch. I take a deep breath.
“I wish I had my helm,” Tristan says again.
Sir George shouts at his men. Some of them stand and settle into a loose formation. Others back away.
We tense for the onslaught.
A crush of mindless humans—not demons, but sick humans—rush at us from the brimstone fog. They are like spiders from a web, the gossamer thread of chains dragging behind. Except they are not animals, either. They are humans. Not demons. Not animals.
But humans do not make the noises these things do. Humans do not hunger for blood. And humans fall when you cut at their legs. These things do
not. I am reduced to swinging wildly, aiming for whatever is closest. I ask Christ to forgive me as I cut down the people I am sworn to defend. There are too many. We have no helmets, so we cannot risk being overrun. Nor can we allow these plaguers to wander into the village. We back away slowly, keeping the horde in front of us and taking them down however we can.
Tristan shoves an old man to the ground. “What . . . what now?”
“I was hoping . . . Sir George would arrive by now.” I lop off a man’s grasping hand. He wears a badge from the shrine of Saint Edmund. Elizabeth waits for me beside that shrine.
Father Peter’s words echo in my ears.
You would not slay a madman would you? Or an imbecile?
Pantaleon drops to a knee and severs a woman’s leg. She shrieks and clutches for the leg, then topples sideways. They do not seem to think, these plaguers, but they feel pain, as we do.
They must be protected and healed
Where is Sir George? Has he decided not to help? I cannot spare a glance backward.
Zhuri is hunched over, shaking his head and reloading my hand cannon. Morgan crouches low and drives his shoulder into the hip of a thin woman, sending her sprawling. He rises and thrusts his wooden cross at another plaguer. It hisses and backs away from him.
Tristan guts a young man whose face is mostly skull, the skin torn and rotted away. The man grabs Tristan’s arm with both of his and pulls himself forward. Bony jaws open. The sword rips through the plaguer’s back, but he continues forward. Tristan wrenches his arms back, but the man will not release his grip, will not stop his advance. Only the sword hilt stops the plaguer, but he is close enough to take hold of Tristan’s spaulder. He leans forward, jaws snapping at the metal plate.
Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) Page 17