by Veras Alnar
“And I,” Fulk said, a slow evil smile growing, “woke up in Durgia's bed.”
Everything went red. Amis flung himself at Fulk and they both crashed into the wooden shelves shattering the crockery on the threshed flooring.
“Will you two stop it!” Lord Guain said, separating them violently.
“As if that were true,” Fulk said, laughing “have you ever seen her father? Big man and very angry, would kill you soon as look at you. I'm a bit smarter than Amis here, who was caught stealing the milk from the cow by the very same.”
“I hate you!” Amis said, “Curse you! Curse every step you take, devil himself take you!”
“Put it behind you Amis,” Guain said sharply, “everything we've seen suggests the unfortunate woman died of plague like all the rest. It's terrible to say but it's probably true. There's no point in arguing over the dead, it's finished now. Both of you must put the past behind you where it belongs. There are other matters of greater importance than one lost girl!”
Lord Guain had been shouting near the end and Fulk was a bit red on the cheek from where Amis had hit him. Amis was heaving, his breath rattling violently in his chest.
“Neither of you could ever understand love,” Amis said, “and I wouldn't expect either of you to try.”
Storming out of the manager's cottage Amis took some steps and then simply stopped. The nothingness of the sky stretched before him, where could he run to? The brook was no longer a haven where he could hide and drink his purloined wine from his father's house. There was no market day or fair where he could catch a glimpse of Durgia wearing her hair down under her white cap and see her talk with the knights who had come from other fiefdoms on the feast days. He'd never loved Garstwrot but now with it all in disarray, there were a few good memories to miss. There was no one left to recall them but the three of them and it was such a devastating blow that Amis felt hot tears slip down his cheeks before he could stop them.
“Amis,” Lord Guain said, “come. We've got more houses to look at.”
Amis wiped at his face, disgusted with himself. No one had cared about his feelings or ever had cause to pity him, except one person who was now dead. And in the end, her kindness hadn't mattered a wit to anyone but him.
“All right,” Amis said, his voice a hoarse whisper, “I'm coming.”
From one house to the other, they found more and more. The stories played out differently in each case, the man of the house dead at the gate or the children shriveled up in bed while the mother died at her evening sewing. But the result was the same; a silent, deathly still town filled with dried corpses and rotten, ash covered food.
The fifth house they went to belonged to a man Amis had known well. He had been the stall owner of the market and a purveyor of salted pork, one of his father's many tavern friends.
“His name was Degen,” Amis said, “he had a slaughterhouse in the field behind. Five children and a wife.”
“Second of two. First wife died,” Fulk said, “he tried to short me on the payment so I only buried her three feet instead of four, letting her go to rot. Her body popped in the graveyard loud enough to make a fart.”
“I can't imagine why Amis would ever find your person so disagreeable,” Lord Guain said, sharply.
Amis wasn't paying any attention and had wandered through the gate into the pigpens. After the first house it wasn't so shocking now that he knew what to expect. Though it was still dispiriting; a dead man on a battlefield after a fair fight was another matter compared to dead villagers his father had known and they'd had supper with, even if he hadn't particularly liked any of them. It was a pitiful sight, Degen had fallen face first into the earthen floor he had made himself just last spring.
Behind the gate were the pigs or what was left of them. Their bodies had long ago burst and desiccate into a similar sorry state as the human citizens of the village. But strangely, Amis noticed there were feathers here and there scattered around. As he drew closer he realized they were not feathers but the desiccated bodies of birds. Hundreds stretching across the field as though they had descended in a throng to dine on dead flesh but had never flown away.
Glancing back at Lord Guain who was examining the tensed legs of the deceased and questioning Fulk on matters of putrefaction, Amis now understood Fulk's caution. These were not natural deaths for man or beast, no plague could have caused it. The bodies were as if they had been months in the air, which would be impossible without some strange interference.
“I think,” Lord Guain said, loudly enough for them both to hear, “the town has been poisoned.”
It was a relief to hear Lord Guain say it, Amis hoped it attested to his innocence. They would both be very much in trouble if the Lord of the keep turned out to be a murdering sort.
“I think so too,” Amis said.
“But why?” Lord Guain said, “That's the question, isn't it?”
The glance at Fulk was a suspicious one and Fulk merely stood his ground with a plain expression.
“Can't imagine why anyone would favor our town,” Fulk said, “unless they were in league with the King.”
Fulk turned his scrutiny on Lord Guain, who returned the look with one of disbelief.
“I certainly hope you're not casting aspersions on myself,” Lord Guain said, “this is my hold and I take my duties very seriously.”
But as they had continued slowly wandering down each lane, Amis came upon a familiar and miserable sight.
“Shut up,” Amis said, “this is my house we've come to.”
The creaking door gave away to the four roomed house inside, it was modest and undecorated. His step-mother was laid out on the floor. Lenna had loved to cook, though it had never been very good in Amis' opinion and lacked any real flavor. Along the wall sat on a shelf were her pots all decorated in gaudy colors with old men's faces decorating the spouts. She had said they were very fine and had been gifted from the manager's wife who had got them from Lady Fairfax herself when she had gone to church. Unlike his father, his step-mother liked fine things and came from some respectable means but she hadn't liked him and that's what had mattered in the end. Amis' favored step-brother, Enda was laying in his room with his wooden horse and his three step-sisters Lyra, Ira and Mod had collapse in a strange heap. It was as if Ira had got up to run away and the other two had pulled her back. It was most disturbing and uncanny.
“Your father's not here,” Fulk said, surprising him, “he must have been elsewhere.”
“Alehouse, perhaps,” Amis said, “by the river.”
When he checked his own room which was to the back out by the pigs, he saw his meager belongings in a pile in the center of the room as if someone had been sorting through them. There was the tile Durgia had mischievously pulled from Fairfax church she had given him with a horse on it and the wooden sword he had been given when he had first arrived, by Conrad. There was also the finely made pin he wore to close his woolen cloak in winter that was badly bent. He had pilfered it from the road as a find. Lastly, a few rough looking shirts and trousers. None of it really mattered now, not since he had a chest of fine clothes to pick from back at the keep. But he did take one thing and return it to his bag, the tile from Fairfax. It had been too heavy to take with him before, when he had fled without much thought.
“That step-m'am of yours,” Fulk said, “is long dead. Along with the rest of her kin.”
“I'm so sorry,” Lord Guain said, “if there's anything I can do-”
“Stop,” Amis said, “they weren't anything to me, and I was nothing to them.”
“The grit of your teeth says otherwise,” Lord Guain said, “but as you wish. We'll go to the inn now to be sure about your father.”
The alehouse was a ramshackle structure that had connected to a very squat, roughshod inn owned by a woman named Tilly. Where she had come from Amis couldn't entirely say but like most of the ruffians of the village including Fulk, her beginnings had probably involved coming off the barge from the
river. She had done all right by Amis and hadn't charged him what she probably should have, commenting on his down turned face being off putting to her customers so it did her favors to upturn it. Her roughness was at least, kindly and not entirely cruel. It was in the alehouse that Amis had unfortunately met Fulk for the first time and sadly, Tilly had met her end before either of them. She had been lying stretched out on her bed with a switch meant for prodding the fire. Inside the inn were four other men that Amis had no dealings with and Fulk didn't recognize as anyone of note. They had likely been passing through the town and met their unfortunate end with everyone else.
In the tavern part were several men and women, their children and overturned cups. The corpses were like the rest, the people in strange positions, and Amis to his sick acknowledgment did in fact find his father sitting at a table in the midst of them, gambling.
Clutched in his withered hands was a playing cup holding several dice and together with the dice on the table they made three sixes.
“Ominous,” Lord Guain said, “don't you think?”
“By our rules he would have won the table,” Fulk said, “shame he didn’t' get to enjoy his winnings.”
“They look like they died in the midst of the evening,” Amis said.
Amis remained quiet while Fulk snatched up the dice. As they were about to leave Fulk grabbed his shoulder.
“Check your father's pockets,” Fulk said.
“Why should I,” Amis said.
“Because what's his is now yours,” Fulk said, “could be gold.”
Amis made a disgusted sound and shook him off. Fulk wandered outside to relieve himself against a hedge while Amis looked at the corpse of his father and felt very little beyond a slight twinge. They had not been on easy terms for a long time. With some trepidation, Amis did indeed check his pockets and found something quite valuable. It was a small prayer book, very fine. Black leather and gold lining, something so extravagant that Amis couldn't imagine his father ever owning it. He was an imminently practical man, annoyingly cheap and had at one time switched Amis' legs for buying a fancy cut shirt with his own money. It was slipped into Amis' coin purse and just barely fit. He would not tell anyone about it, as no doubt it would only end up in Fulk's hands by some trickery.
The worn paths through the houses were growing thinner, they were almost to the fields now. Getting closer to the tanners, the cattle farms and the blacksmith's.
“This is the one,” Fulk said, “shall you or I go in first?”
Lord Guain respectfully allowed them to have a moment to themselves as he stood near the fence. It was a strange sight that a man in such fine clothes would be hovering at the edge of the cow pasture.
“I'll go,” Amis said, “I want to go first.”
“You're white as a dove,” Fulk said, “let me.”
“No,” Amis snapped, “you've stolen more than enough from me, let me have this.”
The door to the blacksmith's home was rickety and worn with black soot. Amis pushed it open and braced himself for horrors but there were none in his immediate sight. It was an empty smithery with nothing but dust and blackened walls covered in rusting implements. The smell was strong but not unusual for a place that had fired metal. He looked at the foul water in the plunging bucket and the hammer and tongs that had been set aside. It was as if things had been put away and then left in a hurry but with hope that they would return to be used the next day.
Further beyond the door at the center of the hearth a different tale began to emerge. Amis clapped his hand to his nose, the smell wasn't horrific but it was pungent. Rotten food that had cooled and gelled into a mass of rot in the pot it had been cooking in. A woman was sat at the hearth but it wasn't Durgia, it was her maid. An old woman from the neighboring town who had been hired to tend after the children when the smith's wife had suddenly died, Amis had hardly met her but she hadn't like the look of him, he could tell. The poor woman's shriveled body was collapsed at the very edge of the hearth, as though she had merely sat to rest and never got up. The bodies in the bed were bleak; Durgia's two young brothers and her eldest sister had been sleeping and had never risen again.
“Go on then,” Fulk said.
They both stood outside the door to the main sleeping chamber, Amis his hand poised above the door. Here her father slept and the rest in a small adjoining room with the maid and brothers. Amis pushed it open and saw what he could. He turned around in a daze feeling weak.
“She's dead,” he said, hand at his mouth.
“So she is,” Fulk said.
There in her bed was her desiccated body, legs spread apart and shriveled face contorted. In between her thighs was a half packed bag, as though she had been of a mind to leave home but had been caught by surprise by death's cold hands and had simply fallen over.
“She's dead,” Amis repeated.
Fulk put his hand on his shoulder.
“She is,” Fulk said.
Amis let out a terrible sound that resembled a gasping cry. He didn't hide the tears that went down his face, it had been so much pain and so much agony and all for nothing. She'd never had the chance to escape. Staggering outside he managed to sit on a broken crate and clutch himself while he trembled, unsure if he were going to be sick or not.
Shoved in front of his face was his pipe that Fulk had stolen.
“It'll help,” Fulk said.
Amis snatched it back and struggled to light it. To his irritation, Fulk sparked off a rock and used a sprig of hay to light it for him since his hands shook with ferocity.
“I wish we could give her proper respects” Lord Guain said, “for what it's worth, I'm sorry.”
Amis had calmed himself with his pipe and was as gloomy and steady as he had been before.
“I wouldn't have ever asked to marry her,” Amis said, “I knew better. But I wish I had asked, just to hear what she would have said.”
No one said anything to that, it was the only thing Amis could say, he just hoped she could still hear him say it wherever her soul had went. Once Amis had recovered, they made to leave the town.
“Unfortunately as the town's fate is clear,” Lord Guain said, “I require your services once again Fulk.”
Fulk said, “and in what way might that be your lord.”
“We must close up the town as best we can,” Lord Guain said, “and retrieve any valuables. We may not know what situation we find ourselves in during the coming months. I believe the town has been poisoned by some known enemy and we are now, possibly, in a state of war. That means the gates of Garstwrot keep must be shut tight, until we know better of what we're dealing with.”
The rest of the town was left as it had been, doors shut up as best they could in case any kin should come looking for them. It was slow and heart rending work, so many dead and so few who would ever care about them. Once they had made it to the inn, it wasn't so horrific any longer and only tiring.
“Could shed a tear for her,” Amis said bitterly.
“It won't do her any good now, will it?” Fulk said, “her soul has met her maker and rests in purgatory and all we're left with is the rotten husk. Pray for her in the chapel in Fairfax if you ever get to it, she'll need it more than salty water shed around her putrefying corpse.”
Amis wanted to fight but all the fight had left him some hours ago when they had sparred in the manager's house. He felt weak and pathetic and terribly sad. Glancing over his shoulder, Lord Guain was checking the body of Amis' father with quick precision. Out of the corner of his eye, Amis noticed him searching by his father's curled hands. Lord Guain's expression shifted for a moment into one of irritation when he turned up nothing but what looked like a wooden coin but despite its worthless value, he pocketed it. After finishing with his task he spoke with them.
“I shall leave you to your work,” Lord Guain said, “I'll carry with me what I can but the keep requires my urgent attentions, the stores have to be checked and the lower levels secured. Once you're finishe
d, return to the keep and we can close the gates together. It's clear no more survivors will be forthcoming from the town and we must protect ourselves.”
As they wandered house to house, shutting them up with ropes or whatever they could find and covering the denizens with their own bed clothes, Amis could only try and keep up with Fulk's long steps.
“He's bloody typical isn't he,” Fulk muttered, “shoving off and leaving all the work to us.”
“I don't know what you expected,” Amis said, wiping his brow, “he is what he is and we're the only two left to do the work.”
Halfway through the village, Fulk stopped sharply when exiting a house and nearly smacked Amis in the face with a closed door.
“What's the matter with you?” Amis shouted, annoyed.
“There's a man,” Fulk said, “out there.”
There was a man standing in the front garden, his hands old and gnarled and his face very worn. His hair was going white, the part was severe and the ends dark and straight. His eyes were not kind but rather grim and his mouth was pressed in a thin line. His clothes were very rough and his boots looked very worn, if he had walked from somewhere it must have been a very great distance.
“Is this Garstwrot?” the man demanded.
“Yes, it is,” Fulk said, “who goes there?”
“The Bishop of Elaine,” the man said, “and who are you?”
The announcement was like a thunder clap, it was a man from King Hune's own court which in light of their current circumstances put them both on edge.
“Fulk the grave master,” he said, “and this is Amis of the town.”
“I suggest you cease your work,” the Bishop said, “these poor souls won't mind if you escort this old man to the keep. I'm tired and I've walked many days as my exhausted feet would attest.”
Fulk grinned, an ugly thing.
“And how would we know you weren't dying of the plague,” Fulk said, “and to leave you out here with the crows.”
“Fulk,” Amis said, “for god's sake-”
“Keep your trap shut, Amis,” Fulk said.