The Martyr and the Prophet (The Lost Testament Book 1)

by C. B. Currie

  His daydreaming ended with the crunch of boots on soil behind him. ‘Mount up,’ the knight said, ‘Longbeam isn’t far.’

  The town of Bruan’s Beach was a rough-looking fishing village with a single pier and no large craft. Like the one where the sailors had tried to rob and kill him, there were nets and racks for drying spread along the shingle beach, where small boats were pulled up and grubby children played. The sky was showing slashes of blue that poked through, and the slowly scattering clouds were tinged with pink. The town had no palisade and the watch, what there was of it, rode out to meet them.

  ‘Greetings, brother knight,’ the guard captain said. He was an ageing man with grey stubble and missing teeth. He had no armor save a domed helm, though the scabbard at his side was of fine quality, suggesting the sword at least was a good blade. Algas was mildly concerned that someone may be in from Saddleshore, the village where he’d been attacked, but also grateful that the knight told him they were headed inland the next day, and would not follow the coast any further southward.

  The only tavern in Bruan’s Beach had rooms, and served surprisingly good ale and food. The taproom was small, with a low ceiling and only half a dozen small, round tables. However the hearth was large, with a blazing fire against the gathering chill and upstairs there were four rooms with beds. It was aptly named the Drunken Boatman and there were enough of these to fill the place in the evening, though they drank sullenly. Beland and the Northman rented one of these.

  The knight sat across from a fisherman and his red-headed son. The two were recently returned from ferrying a minor noble from parts south and had gossip from the ports they had visited.

  ‘The king is getting weaker,’ the fisherman told him. ‘Spends all his time on his knees and the great landlords wonder whether he cares for the Chapel more than his own country.’

  ‘And the sickness?’ Beland inquired.

  ‘It has spread to all the cities The king’s own daughter died from it, but all he does is pray and issue edicts about heresy.’

  ‘Heresy?’ Beland asked, trying to sip his ale nonchalantly. His belly was already full from the excellent dumpling stew the tavern served, and he never drank much in any case.

  ‘The archbishop in Castlereach has been beheaded. He and some priors and priests here and there. But the nobles are worried.’

  Beland risked a more specific inquiry. ‘Havenside Priory? Have they been there?’

  The Fisherman shrugged. ‘In the midlands? My boat doesn’t sail overland.’

  Beland did not press the matter. ‘What of the landlords then?’

  As if worried, the fisherman looked around for a moment to make sure they were not overheard. ‘They tire of the king. The one I brought north said there’s rebellion afoot. The southern landowners don’t want deacons sniffing around their parishes and they think the Scourge is Heaven’s punishment for the king’s weakness.’

  ‘Scourge?’

  ‘The sickness. It has felled hundreds already in the cities. I’ll not leave port now till it passes.’

  It was the fisherman’s turn to drink now and the knight sat back and contemplated the man’s words. He was interrupted by a commotion coming from the stairs near the bar. A woman’s angry voice and the sound of something thrown against the wall preceded the Northman, hurrying into the taproom and heading for the door, shirtless and holding up his breeches,

  ‘What is this?’ The innkeeper interjected. He was a sour-faced man, tall, thin and balding, who stood in a perpetual stoop due to the low ceiling.

  ‘Blew his load inside me he did!’ Came the accusative voice of the harlot. She was hard-looking; not old, but haggard, weathered and painted too much. Beland shuddered at the thought of mounting such a creature, even as he blushed at her frankness.

  ‘He was supposed to pull out and spray it on me tits, but he just emptied his sack inside me cunny. I don’t need any more mouths to feed!’

  ‘Well did he pay?’ one of the customers asked teasingly, and others laughed.

  ‘You’ve paid for your share at times, Balbry, and your brothers,’ the whore snapped back. ‘Careful I don’t tell your missus!’

  The other patrons laughed again, and the heckler fell silent. Then the painted woman turned on the knight. ‘He came with you, and now I have to visit the hag! I want double me rate.’

  Beland didn’t know what to do. The Northman had fled outside and surely would not sleep in the cold. But until he returned the wench was suddenly his problem. He had worked with laymen before and understood the soldier’s need for whoring. Warriors seemed to have little better to do with their pay than drinking, swiving and gambling. The only thing he could think of was to pay the harlot to leave. He gave the barman’s son more coin and the lad passed it to the woman as she stomped upstairs, head shaking and muttering curses.

  Beland got up to fetch the Northman and tell him they would not stop at any more taverns and he would not waste his money on any more women.

  And then he sneezed.

  Twenty-three

  The Scourge, as the new archbishop was calling it, was at first ignored by the great and powerful. Although Lord Dorand had left for his country estate, the other important men of Bastion had stayed put, and it seemed they cared little for what harm the disease caused the paupers and whores, but for when they could blame it on heretics and sinners. Then slowly they too began to take ill and the bells pealed for their funerals almost daily.

  Haendric was not afraid of catching the affliction himself. He had feared it early on, as all folk must. He had feared it as a healer, but he had healed many people over many years and had only ever caught colds. If this disease were to take him then Heaven had ordained it. Stripped of his position in the clergy and forced to live as a fugitive he had precious little to live for anyway but the duty he had taken on to ease the passing of the sick. In truth he thought that self-appointed duty might have been all that kept him going.

  Some came in and seemed to be better in a few days. Most got the boils and died in the same space of time. Reeve Cerlic was not immune. First his two sons had taken sick and both died within a few days. They were buried in the cathedral graveyard and those of the good and noble townsfolk who still dared venture out had turned up for the ceremony, presided over by the new archbishop. Then the Reeve himself had fallen ill and passed a few days later. Haendric had his hands full at the makeshift chapel in The Gutters, where only the common folk came to die, so he heard of the reeve from the local folk who brought him news and more bodies.

  Brother Januth had died as well. He’d had a fever and the boils across his back and coughed and wheezed his way to the grave, leaving Haendric to tend to the House of Enduring Grace under the guise of Brother Handers. He did not give funerals as an ordained priest might be expected to. Even at the new burial ground outside the walls, where the dead gutterfolk were tossed into anonymous graves, he felt that might draw too much attention. Instead, dressed as a commoner, he carted them out and dropped them off like sacks of grain to be delivered to the afterlife. The pony and cart had been requisitioned from the home of a cloth merchant. That whole family had died and the house stood empty. He was still helped by Gildreth, though she was so adept at caring for the dying he no longer cared to wonder where she had spent her youth; any help was appreciated.

  Help was sorely needed. The bodies were piling up and the small converted warehouse in the Gutters had buried forty people in the grounds outside the town in only a fortnight. The taverns were closed, the priory was overrun and houses were inundated with the sick. The lord still had not returned to the city and the watch was confined to barracks; not least because several of their number had already perished and twice as many had fallen ill.

  He cursed under his breath, no longer concerned to chastise himself for harsh words and thoughts, and he locked up the pony in its stable. There would be no shortage of hay for the beast in the countryside, but what he was short of was people to bring it, for the roads
were closed. Much as he’d wanted to leave Havenside, he now longed for his old cell and comfortable bed at the priory. He wished he could relax by the fire with some wine and a blanket. He thought he’d grown so soft and a month ago could not have imagined living such a cold, frugal and harsh existence as this. He came around to the side door to find Donnal waiting.

  ‘Still well?’

  ‘Aye,’ the knight answered. ‘But they hanged two more heretics this morning at the barracks, and apparently their interest in the books is renewed.’

  ‘Come inside,’ Haendric said.

  They went straight to the bedroom just inside the door and Haendric tried to shut out the coughing and moans from the converted barn down the hall. He lit a tallow candle and he and Donnal sat on the two rickety beds that were the only furniture in the room.

  ‘I thought they’d forgotten me.’ The priest snorted, reaching for a bottle of wine beneath the bed.

  ‘That was when they thought Prior Algwyn and the old archbishop were ringleaders.’

  ‘What of the archbishop, then?’ Haendric feared he already knew the answer.

  ‘Killed too. Beheaded in the capital, blamed for the Scourge.’

  Haendric made the holy sign. ‘His library?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they heard the books were to be sent to, Wellstone is it? They have dispatched Deacon and some men to the north to retrieve them. I don’t know what Beland will do.’

  ‘Likely hand them over if he’s told to,’ the old priest chuckled grimly, pouring two cups. ‘I can’t imagine him arguing with a deacon.’

  ‘So they know of the books?’

  ‘They think they do.’ Haendric confirmed, passing the bottle to Donnal.

  ‘They do,’ the knight said and took a swig. ‘But they don’t know you still have one. What’s in it?’

  Haendric was a little surprised for Donnal had seemed uninterested in the contents of the book until now. ‘The one I have? I don’t know. The others had much healing lore and some poetry and song.’ Then he reached under the bed and produced the leather-bound tome. ‘This one seems to be the life of some pious fool. He was a healer too, but his recipes aren’t in there. Just good with his hands I suppose.’

  ‘The Prophet Celimar could work miracles.’

  ‘So they’ve always told us and time was I was inclined to believe them. If the Prophet would only come back down from Heaven and start performing them again…’ and there the priest stopped. He went suddenly quiet.

  ‘Father?’ Donnal stood, worried.

  Haendric flapped a hand. ‘Oh sit down man, I’m not about to start coughing too.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘Miracles,’ Haendric answered, and took a swig.

  Donnal drained his own cup and reached for more, shaking his head, ‘Priests.’

  They both laughed, though Haendric’s was a little more strained and thoughtful than the knight’s.

  Haendric sent Donnal away on the excuse that it was still potentially dangerous to be seen together. More so, the holy knight was his only protector and Haendric did not want him too near the sick for fear he might take ill as well. But now he needed to be alone and he thumbed through the tome and his own book of notes and translations to find what it was he had been looking for. It was there, buried in only a few lines of the nameless man’s tale, a paragraph he had translated months before, early in the summer, when the events at Havenside and the coming of the Scourge had been in a future he never could have anticipated.

  He traced a finger over the almost beautiful characters of the Qureshi tongue, feeling the imprints where the ink had long ago soaked into the pages, and then cross-referenced his own scribbled hand. The words spoke to him now as they had never before.

  He stayed in the village of the stricken for half a moon, tending to those who needed him and those who would no longer. Their bodies were swollen and their breathing was weak, but he looked to the sky and found inspiration in the clouds. He would spear the impurities and give relief to their suffering by draining them of corruption. Then he lay his hands upon them and touched them with such mercy that they were risen from their infirmities.

  It was so fitting Haendric wondered why he had forgotten it, though in hindsight he hadn’t thought to look for medicine in what appeared to be a moral treatise and full of metaphor. He had certainly benefitted from the other texts he’d read, but those were devoted to healing. If the boils caused such suffering and the bursting of them came just as death gripped the victims, then surely he could ease their suffering by lancing the swellings early. At least that might clear the beds for more patients or even reduce the number of people it spread to, though he still had no idea how it spread. He would like to have separated the patients better but there was nowhere else to put them.

  He went to the chapel floor to find Gildreth and asked her to show him the patients whose boils had just started to show. The first was a young woman who might have been pretty. She still had the powdered cheeks and shadowed eyes of a harlot, but sweat and tears had made the face paint run and, beneath she had the lines of a woman who had lived a hard life despite her short years. Gildreth rolled the fevered girl gently and showed the priest the growing welts and pustules on her lower back. They seemed to be spreading to the right and would eventually cover her back, reaching over her shoulders and around to her breast.

  For some, the welts stopped early, but if they were very old or small children that did not usually save them. A strong youth might be expected to recover if the boils never spread. Some came and left with nothing but a fever, though Haendric liked to keep them as long as possible after for fear they might still be carrying whatever curse it was. But by the time the boils had reached a patient’s neck and chest they were large and swollen angrily. Every one of the victims who had gotten to that stage had died. He was determined to stop it early.

  So he had the woman boil some water and bring some rags. He used a thin knife dipped in the hot water to cut open the sores one by one. Some blood and pus leaked out and Gildreth was left to wipe the wounds and clean them as Haendric moved on to the next patient, another sailor. He had a fresh pot of water boiled for each and most did not feel the searing knife cut in their delirious states, or only moaned softy at what little pain managed to seep into their fevered dreams. After seeing to the easiest cases, he moved on to those at the more advanced stages, with larger, bulbous sores. These spewed vile-smelling black and yellow bile. Those who had arrived only with a crippling fever had to wait for this new attention; some would recover on their own but most would eventually show signs of the boils.

  The House of Enduring Grace had in harsh times offered meals for the poor and there were two large soup cauldrons in the small room that passed for a kitchen. Gildreth boiled water in these over the fire pit and those bedclothes and other cloths that could be were washed in the hot water. Those that were too deeply stained, slick and wet with blood and pus, would be burned, but waste was something that the House could ill afford.

  Within a couple of nights, a good portion of those he had treated seemed to be on the mend. Almost all of those who were far gone got worse or died, but of those he caught early, about half seemed to improve, which was better than before. Again a young strong adult would be most likely to survive. Even the harlot improved, though Gildreth had scornfully declared she’d likely been so pox-ridden that any new disease would kill her more quickly than the others. Then, on a cold quiet morning when frost settled on the rooftops and the slush was turning to ice, Haendric put on a hooded cloak and made his way through near-deserted streets to the Order of the Chalice’s chapter house.

  ‘We lost a brother knight this week,’ Donnal informed him. The captain smelled faintly of cider, but then he always did, and who could blame him for taking a morning cup in such times? Haendric was too excited to accept the offer of a drink for himself.

  ‘Should have sent him to me,’ Haendric chastised.

  ‘That would have been u
nseemly. The priory took him, though enough of the monks have died as well. His body will be taken to Juniper Keep.’

  ‘I have found a way to save some. More than a few I think.’

  The knight was intrigued. ‘Tell me more.’

  I have found that lancing the swellings and removing the fluids helps some recover quickly. Perhaps about half, as long as they’re young and strong.’

  ‘Half is a tidy number,’ Donnal agreed. ‘They say more than a hundred are dead in the city now and several times as many ill.’

  ‘Who is keeping count?’

  ‘The archdeacon and the bishop, sorry, archbishop. They call it their Ledger of Sin. Once the Great Chapel opens again the city will be in for a browbeater of a sermon.’

  Haendric chuckled coldly at the small comfort Donnal’s frankness gave him. Such cynicism was hardly conventional, but in his career the knight had earned it. Then Donnal asked, ‘Where did you come across this method?’

  ‘I read it in the book, the Qureshi one. It says it quite plainly, that the swellings are to be drained. It works!’

  Donnal rolled his eyes. ‘The heathen book? You must keep it quiet. You should really take the book away from here, and yourself with it.’

  Haendric shuddered, remembering how the condemned Prior Algwyn had begged him to do the same. Then he composed himself and remembered his responsibility. ‘Donnal, I need people to know. The monks, the prior and priests…’