I kick at the young man, but a naked woman lunges toward me. Her pendulous breasts are withered and swing like half-empty sacks of grain. I hack, two handed, at her throat, releasing a spume of black blood, but she does not relent. A man whose scalp is flapping upward follows behind, and I am forced to scramble back quickly.
They are not to be slaughtered.
Pantaleon is a fiend among the plaguers. He holds his short sword in one hand and dagger in the other. Whirling, stabbing, slashing and killing with many blood. He is a lion, and he roars as he sends an old woman to the dirt with a kick. “I will have the paid for this!”
Tristan groans. He has dropped to one knee and released his sword. The weapon is still lodged in the belly of the young man, who lies writhing on his side. Two others reach for Tristan, and he shoves them back.
I drive my sword through the naked woman’s throat. All the way through, then wrench it back and forth, until her spine severs and she falls to the road. The man with the flapping scalp staggers toward me. I hold him off with one hand, kicking at the side of his knee with all my strength. The leg snaps, and I am at Tristan’s side before the man’s body strikes the road.
Tristan wraps his arms around a stout man with a long beard and drives him into the earth. I grab the hair of the other plaguer—a farmer with boils sprouting from his neck. The blade of Saint Giles plunges into the back of his neck, and the farmer collapses with a gentle thump.
Humanity is the triumph of will over instinct.
Tristan pounds the bearded man in the face over and again with his fists, blood trails painting the arc of each blow. A stocky plaguer in chain mail dives at him, but I am quicker. I lunge at the man, and we both fall to the ground in a clatter of plates and a shiver of mail. The creature snarls and rolls onto one of my arms. I throw one leg over him to pin him down and use my free hand to drive the dagger toward his face. But the plaguer grabs my wrist. It shocks me. I have never seen a plaguer defend itself. A man and a woman leap at me. I try to pull my hand free to ward them off. But it takes an instant too long to break the plaguer’s grip. Blackened teeth lunge toward my face.
And stop an inch from my cheek.
Bloody drool spatters my chin. I glance past the two plaguers. Morgan stands behind them, holding their chains. A woman with dead flowers in her hair lunges at him, but Pantaleon flashes his dagger and sends her to wherever the flowers have gone. Morgan groans and swings the chains of the man and woman he holds. The plaguers lose their footing and topple to the ground, howling.
Protect the afflicted, Edward.
Where in God’s holy earth is Sir George? I still have no time to look back. A dozen plaguers march through the hazy smoke toward us.
“Fall back!” I shout. “Fall back!”
The mailed plaguer growls and cranes his neck toward me, jaws open, bloody spittle dripping down his chin.
Make your promise.
I think of a poor carpenter hanging from a cross, of the oath I made to him.
“Forgive me.” I drive my blade into the man’s eye. He shrieks with pain, and I turn the blade as he spasms.
Shapes rush in from behind us. We have been flanked.
It is Christ’s swift retribution for my failure. I stagger to my feet and face the rear. How could we have been flanked by plaguers?
But the new shapes are not afflicted men. They are healthy, armed and armored. Sir George’s men have joined the battle. Finally.
Chapter 29
The battle ends quickly after our reinforcements arrive. Soldiers move through the plagued mass, swords and axes misting blood into the summer air.
When the carnage is complete, Sir George sweeps his gaze from one side of the road to the other. “Is that all of them? Are they all dead?”
I stare at the bodies lying upon the road. A few of them move, but most lie still as graves. I kneel and hold clasped hands to my forehead. These were not demons. They were people with an illness, and I helped strike them down.
A deep foreboding casts a shadow on my soul. A premonition that Richard will strike down my wife in the same fashion. That Elizabeth will be the price for my broken oath. I would pray to the Son of God and ask him to take me instead. But Jesus does not make deals. His way is the way of mercy. It is the Old Testament God that strikes bargains. So I whisper a prayer, quick as a breath, to the angry, vengeful God instead, offering myself as sacrifice.
I am an unworthy substitute for Elizabeth, but if a poor carpenter can save humanity, then perhaps an old English knight can save an angel.
Zhuri finishes loading my cannon.
“Is anyone hurt?” I call. “Anyone bitten?”
Sir George approaches Zhuri. “Is that a gun?”
Zhuri nods hesitantly.
“God’s Teeth, but what a weapon! Might I see it?”
Zhuri looks to me and I nod. Sir George’s men outnumber us, and we are exhausted. If we are to leave Wickham Market, it will not be through force. Best to be cordial.
Sir George takes the weapon reverently.
“The powder and the gun stone go in the barrel, with wadding.” Zhuri pours powder into the cannon, then wraps cloth around a gun stone and jams stone and fabric deep into the barrel with a wooden dowel. He takes the firing cord from Morgan and hands it to Sir George. “You use this to light the touch hole, there. The powder ignites, and the explosion sends the stone out faster than an arrow.” He shrugs. “These cannons are wildly inaccurate, though.”
“Only if a Moor is holding them,” Tristan says.
The knight I saw earlier—the one wearing Richard’s sigil—approaches from the gate. He is confident enough, now that the fighting is finished. He seems to be whistling, though it is hard to tell from this distance. He strays to one side of the road and casually kicks the head off a rose.
Sir George hands one of his men the firing cord and looks up from the hand cannon. “King Richard wants you dead,” he says. “All of you.”
I look from cannon to Sir George. Is the gun his price for letting us go? It is a steep price.
My companions gather around me, all with weapons in hand, save Zhuri.
“King Richard is a madman,” I say. “We won’t let you hand us over to him. We will fight. Men will die.” I toss the pouch with the four nobles at his feet. “We’re going to run. All I ask is that you don’t chase us. And we’ll need that cannon back.”
Sir George’s lip curls upward. “Do you think I would sell my honor?”
“We would never ask you to do such a thing,” Tristan replies. “But perhaps you could lease it to us for a period of two hundred paces?”
Pantaleon scoops up the pouch and waves it toward me. “This is being the paid for me, for the lives of you.” He turns to Sir George and waves toward the dead plaguers littering the road. “Are you to give to me the paid for this?”
“What?” Sir George peers at me.
“He wants payment for saving the village,” I say. “Give me the pouch, Pantaleon. You’ll have your the paid when I reach my wife.”
“Payment?” Sir George glares at Pantaleon. “You will not get a penny! Not a half-penny! You will get justice, you poltroon!”
“Ave, Sir George!” The approaching knight has long golden hair. His smile is as bright as his unblemished breastplate.
Sir George lays the gun on his shoulder, so that it points up toward God, and nods to the knight. “Sir Michael.”
“We’ve been scouring the land searching for these churls. King Richard will be pleased. Very pleased.” Sir Michael addresses us in a flat, almost bored voice. “Put down your weapons and you will live.”
“Put down yours, and I’ll let you keep one of your legs,” I reply.
Sir Michael walks toward me slowly, a grin on his face. “Are you Sir Edward? The one with the sick wife in St. Edmund’s Bury? Do you know that Richard is assembling an army? He’s going to kill every rotter in that city. Every last one.”
“His name is John,” Sir George says
.
“Is that what he told you? Then he’s a liar as well as a murderer.” Sir Michael stops several paces from me. His eyes flit down to my drawn sword and he edges back a half step. “This man is Sir Edward Dallingridge, and he killed Good Queen Anne. Willfully poisoned her.”
“Who’s lying now?” I try to keep my voice steady. Somewhere, deep in the folds of my heart, I had hoped the king would not remember where Elizabeth was. I should never have mentioned it. But how else could I have secured his assistance? “I tried to help Queen Anne. She was plagued, and I tried to help her. Which is more than King Richard has done for his people. He kills peasants who come to him for protection. Executes men he grows tired of. His own uncle was in a dungeon, dying in agony, the flesh and muscle stripped from his legs. You serve a madman.”
“I serve the king,” Michael replies. “And the king may do as he wishes. He can torture his entire family if he wishes to, because God made him king. And he can kill as many peasants as he wants, because men follow him. He is powerful. That is how the world works now, Sir Edward. There are no laws anymore. There is only strength and weakness. There are those who take, and those who get taken. The predators and the prey. And Richard is a predator. But he is a predator with a heart. He kills peasants because Framlingham is a small castle. There is no room for the great, stinking masses. If he let the commoners in, there wouldn’t be enough food. Everyone would starve. So you see? He does protect his people. He is a generous hunter. A merciful butcher.”
I catch Tristan’s eye and nod to him, look into the village and back at him. He turns his gaze back toward Sir Michael and nods so slightly that it is almost not a nod at all.
Sir George scoffs. “If Richard is the king, then those peasants are his people, and he owes them just as much protection as he owes his friends. So which is it, Sir Michael? Is he a king who kills his own people? Or is he simply another of the cruel warlords who have risen across England?”
Tristan watches Sir George but taps Zhuri with his hand, sending a quick glance into the village. Zhuri takes a deep breath, nods.
“He is your king,” Sir Michael replies. “You swore an oath to him.”
Zhuri touches Morgan with an elbow, then gestures with his chin toward the village center. Morgan nods.
“Aye, he is,” George replies. “But King Richard swore an oath, too. I was there. ‘True justice and equity towards the people committed to his charge.’ That’s what he swore, before God and the archbishop. Commoners are included in the people committed to his charge. Yet, Richard slaughters them. Is that justice, Sir Michael? Is that equity?” His face grows a brighter red with each word. He takes a step toward Sir Michael, and there is venom in his next words. “Eight of my men died here not a fortnight ago defending this town, and if it were up to Richard, their widows would have starved.”
“People die for their king,” Sir Michael takes a step back, holds out a warding hand. “Thousands have died for him in France and Scotland and even Ireland. Why should it be any different here in England? You are all sworn to King Richard. And that means you can die wherever he chooses. And your widows can, too.”
Morgan taps Pantaleon’s leg with his foot, jerks his head toward the village.
“Why is it that you kick at me?” Pantaleon asks.
Sir Michael and Sir George look at the Italian.
“But according to you, Sir Michael, there are no laws anymore.” I say it louder than necessary, firing a glare at Pantaleon. “If there are no laws, then our oaths are no longer valid.”
Sir Michael twists a strand of his hair between his fingers as he thinks. “Necessitas non habet legem,” he says finally. “Do you know what that means? It means, ‘necessity has no law.’ It means Richard does what has to be done. He protects his people in whatever way he can, because he is strong enough to do it. Strength. It is the oldest of all laws. Even the animals follow it. If those peasants want to get into Framlingham so badly, they can band together and try to take it by force. That is how it was done in the old days. The strong survived by doing what is necessary. It is how the Danes conquered much of England. It is how the Normans took this country from the Saxons. That is what our kingdom has become again. A lawless place where the strong survive and the weak perish. Where only the people willing to do what is necessary survive. Necessitas non habet legem. All softness and frailty is being wiped away. Perhaps that is why God sent this plague. To prune the weak, and to make England strong once more. God sees the necessity. Do you see it? His only law is to do what is necessary. God loves the nobility, Sir Edward, and he hates peas—”
Sir Michael’s face shatters.
And God strikes me blind and deaf.
EPISODE 6
Chapter 30
The ringing fades from my ears. Smoke swirls.
Sir Michael lies dead upon the road.
“Oh thank God,” Tristan says. “I thought he would go on blathering forever.”
The cannon trembles at Sir George’s shoulder. His face is twisted with red rage. One of his men stands with one arm over his face, leaning away from the cannon, the firing cord gripped in a trembling hand.
“You . . . you killed him,” Morgan whispers.
“Necessitas non habet legem.” Sir George hands the cannon back to Zhuri. “God has pruned a little more weakness from England.”
I stare down at the mess of Sir Michael and wipe my blade on his tabard. The acrid stench of saltpeter lingers on the road.
Tristan glances back at Sir George. “I thought you said Wickham Market is a lawful village.”
“It is a lawful village,” Sir George barks. “And that man was lawless. He admitted to slaughtering peasants.” He straightens his tabard. “I gave him justice.”
“Justice,” Pantaleon repeats. “This word is like the honor?”
“It means people get what they deserve,” Zhuri replies.
“I do not get the paid still,” Pantaleon says. “This is justice?”
“You’ll get what you deserve,” Tristan replies.
Sir George turns to the soldier who holds the firing cord. “Let’s get these rotters off the road. Martin will have to postpone the anathema. He’ll not be pleased.” He spits to one side and points with his chin toward Sir Michael. “And get this varlet’s body stripped and taken to the square. Looks like we found new blood for the gibbet after all. We’ll hang him outside the gate so everyone can see what lawless men will find in Wickham Market.”
“The justice?” Pantaleon offers.
“Too right,” Sir George replies. “Lawless men will find justice here. Wickham Market will be an island of law in the seas of tyranny.” He joins his men, who drag plaguers onto the grass, crushing the roses along the path. I nod to Tristan and walk quickly toward the village gate. The others follow.
“Where are you lot going?” Sir George snaps.
Tristan and I exchange glances.
“You said you wanted horses, didn’t you?” Sir George walks toward us, wiping blood from his mail with a rag. “I know where you can get them. But I’ll need something in return.”
“One day, I will find someone who does something for me out of simple kindness,” I reply.
“Not today,” he replies. “I need you to relay a message for me. Will you do that?”
“I have somewhere to get to, Sir George.” I will no longer tell people where I am going. “And I have to get there quickly. Who’s the message for? And what is it?”
“The message is for the Duke of Hereford. And don’t fret. I believe he’s more or less on your path to St. Edmund’s Bury.”
I breathe out a long sigh. Everyone seems to know where I’m going anyway. “Henry Bolingbroke? John of Gaunt’s son?”
“Elizabeth of Lancaster’s brother?” Tristan adds.
“The very same. He’s back in England. The message is this: Wickham Market is with you.”
“What does that mean?”
Sir George reaches into the cuff of one of his boots
. “It means that we will help him overthrow Richard.”
I stare at Sir George for a long time while he fishes in his boot. Henry Bolingbroke. I cannot escape that name. Something is driving me toward that man.
John of Gaunt spoke of Henry in the cells of Framlingham. And the king’s new marshal, Simon of Grimsby, asked me when we first met if I was with Henry. Even Richard asked about Bolingbroke after we jousted. Has he truly returned from France to overthrow Richard?
Sir George draws something out of his boot. “Tell him we could use some soldiers, if he can spare any. And when you see him, give him this. He’ll know what it means.”
I reach out my hand, and he places something small and cold in it. I hold it up and laugh. Sir George and the others look at me curiously, but all I can do is shake my head.
Gleaming in my hand, carved from the finest ivory, is a statuette of the Virgin Mary.
Chapter 31
Henry of Bolingbroke, as far as Sir George knows, is in Stowmarket with an army of two thousand men. About the same number of men that Richard has in Framlingham.
The town of Stowmarket is less than ten miles away and directly on the path to St. Edmund’s Bury, and Bolingbroke will likely have hundreds of horses.
We recover our donkey and leave Wickham Market under Sir George’s unwavering gaze. One of the soldiers at the gate flashes the book of lewd verses at us and grins.
The heathlands around the village are vast and open. I tug my cloak tight around me and scan the horizon as we walk across the patchwork fields and tiny slopes of Suffolk. I think about Sir Gerald’s men. They were in this area a few weeks ago. Perhaps they hold a fortress nearby. If they come for us, we will never outrun them on foot.
It will take much of the day to reach Stowmarket without horses. I wonder if the king’s army has left Framlingham. Richard refuses to defend England from the forces of Hell, but he will lead two thousand soldiers to destroy my Heaven.
The land stretches away from us, tumbling lightly in sea-swells of brown and green, lush forests frothing in the distance.
Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) Page 18