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

by C. B. Currie

  ‘Don’t be a fool!’ Donnal snapped. They would ask, someone would ask, and it would lead back to you. Then when the bishop comes and orders us to arrest you I cannot refuse.’

  ‘But the sick…’ the old priest protested.

  ‘The sick will die as they always have. This is not the first time a plague has struck the kingdom. Those of us who do not so easily succumb must go on. You’ll do no good with your head on the executioner’s block for heresy.’

  Haendric slumped in the chair. He considered asking for a drink now, but pride stopped him. At that moment it felt like it would be conceding that Donnal was right, which he was.

  ‘Look, Father, I will bring those I can to you. The knights under me will not ask questions and they don’t know you in any case. But only those who come into our care. There will not be any nobles, rich merchants or officers of the king. Just the usual peasants and beggars. Save those you can and wait for time to spare the rest.’ The knight drained his cup. ‘And burn that damned book for your own soul’s sake.’

  Twenty-four

  The warm weather continued over Brookleith and the fair, with the entertainment of the Wayfarers, was an uncommon success. Older townsfolk said they had never seen so many people come in from the hamlets and steadings nearby, nor so many fat pigs and healthy cattle, so much grain and fresh fruit. It was a bountiful harvest and promised a bountiful autumn to come, with laughter and song in the taverns, the tumbling and cavorting of the Wayfarers at their shows, and, to the chagrin of the elders, much flirting and coupling among the young folk.

  Caera had managed to keep her dalliances with the bard secret enough. She’d told her friend Ellie, who was not one to share such stories with tongue wags like Petal Harnith, and she hadn’t told everything. When she could slip away from her chores she would meet him by day, across the high fields at the edge of the woods. The last of the season’s apples from the grove had been collected and nobody had much cause to go there anymore. They sometimes took walks to the little stream that formed a border one side where it trickled out of the forest. They’d sit down in the long grass and sometimes he’d strum his lute softly and sometimes sing to her. She let him kiss her and his tongue was warm and moist. They would meet in the evenings as well, embracing out behind the barn near the well. One night a drunk had almost bumped into them there but it was just a crofter from a distant farm who was in town for the fair, and he did not recognize either of them in the dark.

  Vanis told her of his life in Deywich, a town she’d never heard of. He came from a mercantile family and even his mother and sisters could read. He had run away rather than be sent to the clergy or to war and was determined to know all about the world. He promised to teach her to read, that they could travel together; that he’d take her away, or that after the Wayfarers moved on he’d stay, or that he’d go with them and come back for her someday. She believed all of these things for what would a worldly young bard from some distant southern city want with a simple girl like her, but to whisk her away?

  Sometimes they’d do more than just kiss and she was ever pushing away his wandering paws. But day by day, night by night his persistence and her own urges wore her down and one bright afternoon under cover of the copse she allowed his hand between her thighs and the next she took all of him and in her reckoning for better or worse, she became a woman. It had been painful the first time, and when they’d done it again the following night in a hayloft. But after a few days she became used to him and started to feel some relief from the pressing heat he aroused in her.

  It was exciting, an adventure, and though Petal claimed to have known plenty of boys, Caera was sure at least she had never been in love. She enjoyed keeping this secret from her family and friends. The rush she felt when sneaking off to meet him. It felt like these warm autumn days of holding hands and making love under golden leaves and bright blue skies would go on forever, but by the end of the week it began to cool, and menacing clouds gathered over the distant hills and the ducks from the brook flew south. It was then the first villager took ill in Brookleith.

  The man was a tenant farmer who worked a patch of fields half a day’s journey along the road to Bastion. The trail wound through wooded paths and past farmsteads and crofts to the lowlands of Somersvale Shire that everyone called the Breadlands, where the land was a patchwork of fields and hamlets. His was on the way to the Crossroads Inn and Stables, which Caera had visited once with her father, when he delivered a cart of fruit and brought back malt and barley. He had arrived midway through the fair and after taking ill, was brought to the small stone chapel where Father Birgald, thin, balding and middle-aged, was the first to examine him. His fever had made him delirious and his skin was hot and flushed. He was given to fits of coughing and sneezing and the leading men of the village knew well enough that a fever could spread in the overcrowded lofts of the taverns and inns, so they had him tucked away in the chapel infirmary, a spare room at the back with a few beds.

  But the following evening, under gathering rainclouds that seemed to hover only a few feet above the bent pines at the edge if the fields, several more sick folk were brought. One of them was the cider maker’s wife, whom it was said was the real pair of hands behind the village’s popular brew. She was fevered and racked with coughing fits. Others were sneezing uncontrollably. The priest however had looked them over and simply ordered them to bed at home.

  Caera met Petal at the well when she went to fetch water.

  ‘My brother has taken ill,’ Petal told Caera gravely, when they met by the well behind the tavern. Petal’s brother Cedric was a couple of years younger: a tall, strong lad who helped his father at the forge.

  ‘Surely it’s just a chill,’ Caera said, trying not to betray her fear.

  ‘He’s feverish and the priest said to keep him in bed.’

  ‘There are some more like that,’ Caera noted, but did not want to say that he mother reckoned they’d be dead in a week.

  ‘Drunith told my mother that the best thing to do is give them stingwort mixed with dog hair.’

  ‘That old woman and her potions again?’ Caera chided. Drunith lived in a small cottage on the edge of the high fields and sold apples from her tree. People also went to her when they needed remedies, but Caera’s mother said Drunith was a swindler who cheated fools out of honey, eggs, flour and for those who had money, the occasional copper.

  ‘She helped Ellie’s sister when she couldn’t have a child,’ Petal reminded her. ‘She and her husband tried for years and it was one of Drunith’s drinks that finally did it.’

  Caera had heard from others that it was a traveling tinker who had finally done it and the woman’s husband was still none the wiser, but did not wish to share that information.

  ‘And a girl or two has visited her to have more than that done, you know, when she didn’t want a child.’

  ‘Like who?’ Caera asked, strongly suspecting petal of exaggerating again.

  ‘I can’t say.’ Petal answered meekly, then changed the subject. ‘Father says we might go to Havenside till the sickness passes. It depends on Cedric.’

  ‘How long will you be gone?’ She and Petal were not especially close, but they got on well enough and she didn’t want to see any fiends leave Brookleith.

  Petal shrugged and picked up her pail. ‘We’ll know tomorrow, and there’s a meeting at the chapel tonight.’

  ‘Are you going?’ Caera called after her.

  ‘No, mother says we should stay in and look after Cedric. In case anyone else is ill.’

  ‘Then I’ll see you after?’ Caera asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Petal said, but her voice was fearful. They embraced and she left Caera to her chores.

  A messenger rode in from Juniper Keep that very afternoon and spoke with the elders and the priest. Talk was of a growing sickness and folk dying in the cities. The roads had grown quiet and people feared to leave their crofts. A meeting was held in the stone chapel as rain began to patter on the
tiled roof and folk huddled under warm cloaks or shawls to discuss what must be done.

  ‘It’s the Selevians,’ complained the baker’s wife, who had always been a prude and a gossip. ‘They travel from town to town with their filthy dogs and grubby children…’

  ‘You keep dogs,’ Caera’s father reminded her.

  ‘It’s not the same. Heaven knows where they’ve been or what they’ve touched, all covered in scabs.’

  Caera had seen the dogs perform and they looked healthy enough to her. So did the Wayfarers’ children, who appeared to be well washed and dressed always in clean, if colorful clothes. But for the darker shade of their skin they were no different to her than her own younger siblings.

  ‘A few nights ago we were all at their tent watching them juggle and tumble,’ said Deryld, a local landowner who often spoke for the townsfolk at court. He was a big man, thick-necked and flat nosed who had been a soldier and brawler in his youth, but his eyes showed fear now. ‘We could all be sick tomorrow and not know it today!’

  Voices chattered and hollered in alarm and Father Birgald on his pulpit called for calm.

  ‘Those who are ill will recover,’ he assured them. ‘I’ve tended to them, prayed for them and have seen worse. They will be on their feet in a day or two.’

  But the baker’s wife had a following among the women and those of their husbands who Caera thought showed no mind of their own. She could not be so easily reassured. ‘Those wayfarers are heathens I tell you, they worship that eastern god is what I heard. They cavort and dance and show too much skin and their womenfolk spread a pox wherever they go.’

  Caera wondered how much of that was jealously, for Petal, ever fond of telling tales, had named several men who had been seen going to the tents of the wandering women every year, some of who were married.

  ‘They bring filth and plague, they must go!’ a male voice repeated, and again the crowd was reduced to a cacophony of people trying to be heard over one another.

  Berryck, the strong lad who was keen on Caera, stood nearby and whispered to her, ‘Told you they were no good.’

  She turned, blinked and looked back to the front. She wondered where he’d come from and did not recall him ever discussing the wayfarers with her. It wasn’t worth answering him, foolish village boy. She would soon be away with her handsome bard and they’d have a clutch of children together and live free on the roads just like the Selevian songs he’d played for her. She was jolted out of her dreaming when the crowd went quiet again. The priest had both hands in the air and was calling for silence once more.

  Just then the chapel doors opened and the crowd hushed as Jandryl Faldon strode in. The local landlord was handsome for his age – tall with short brown hair and a long moustache. He wore his swords at his side as a matter of course but nobody had ever seen him draw it. Faldon was a knight who had served the king for many years and owned much of the land the village farmed. He was the most important man in the district and lived in a large stone manor a half-hour’s walk to the southeast, just off the road to Bastion. He was dressed in his customary deep blue coat over a leather jerkin and tall riding boots. Faldon had warred in his youth, and the reward for his military service had been the quiet pensioned life of a rustic landlord. He arrived with one of his sons, also tall and handsome and similarly dressed and armed.

  Jandryl took off his riding gloves and stalked to the front of the nave. Hats were removed, small bows made and greetings of, ‘Milord,’ made as the crowd parted respectfully ahead of him. Jandryl smiled and nodded dutifully at his tenants and yeomen as they received him, then turned to face the crown when he had reached the pulpit.

  ‘My friends,’ their better said, addressing the crowd. ‘I rode in as soon as I could for there is ill business about the shire of late. A scourge stalks the city, with many taken ill in Bastion. Now we have some sick here and they must be separated and cared for.’

  The crowd murmured and heads turned, though in their lord’s presence they were not as rowdy as before.

  ‘I have spoken with messengers from Bastion and I have dispatched a rider to get word from the capital. Until then we must wait and see what will happen. I urge you all remain calm and go about your business, but please make sure those who fall sick are cared for away from the company of others so as not to spread this plague.’

  The murmuring became louder for folk wondered openly how they might contain the sickness in their own homes without carrying it out to their neighbors.

  He raised a hand and the chapel fell quiet again. ‘Those of you who have come in for the festivities must return to your cottages and farms. Those from Regent’s Sanctuary or other villages should make haste back to your own folk. As for the rest, you would be well advised to remain in Brookleith and cancel any travel you have planned. It will not be safe to be abroad.’

  ‘What about the Selevians?’ someone called. The knight turned back to the priest. Caera recalled that Jandryl and his wife had come to watch on the first night and had cheered and clapped heartily. The knight had even had words with the Wayfarer headman, and it was rumored he had gifted him with supplies.

  A cluster of the senior men including Deryld and her father had gathered around him. It looked as though they’d just come to some conclusion. He was a popular landholder, and almost every family could recount a time when he had helped them with advice, connections, favorable rulings, loans or even gifts of money or grain. Whatever Jandryl proposed, the town would do without question.

  ‘The Selevians must go tomorrow,’ Jandryl said. ‘Father Birgald will carry the news to their headman tonight.’

  Caera felt her throat catch. Would her Vanis leave with them? She hurried out of the chapel ahead of the rest.

  Drelo had already seen the way the wind was blowing. When the first person in the village had gotten ill, he’d called a meeting of the men. Vanis had been there, and had not understood a word, but Drelo had explained to him beforehand and afterwards as well: when illness comes, folk were quick to blame the Wayfarers. They’d been run out of villages before and must be prepared for the same again. When the next few fell sick, Drelo had said he was sure they would be asked to leave.

  By the time of the chapel meeting and under a chill rain, the Wayfarers had already started to pack up. The main tent had been taken down in the afternoon and several more fires were lit to aid work into the night. There was no singing around the campfire. Women busied themselves gathering belongings and preparing for an early departure. All that would remain for the night would be the tents and shelters they’d sleep in. Those would be folded and stowed in the morning and the whole clan would be gone by shortly after sunrise, for what little sun could be seen if these grey skies continued.

  Vanis was helping to load one of the colorful carts with tent stakes and bundles of wooden planks that had made up the benches, when Caera came to him in the rain, with a cracking voice and pleading eyes.

  ‘You’re leaving tonight?’ She demanded, her voice raised over the rain as it spattered them.

  ‘No in the morning. I was going to come and tell you.’ He was not sure that was true for they had not planned to meet that night and he’d expected to be away early in the morning. ‘The wayfarers weren’t staying much longer anyway.’

  ‘They’ll let you stay. You’re not sick, not Selevian…’

  One of Drelo’s sons overheard and looked coldly at her has he passed by about packing up.

  ‘They won’t.’ Vanis said. ‘They’ll want us all gone. If I even get a slight chill and cough or sneeze…’

  The girl burst into tears and fell into his arms. ‘Then take me with you,’ she sobbed. The idea that he could run off with the lass without her family or the town militia chasing after them was ludicrous. He hoped she knew that.

  ‘You can’t come,’ he said holding her awkwardly.

  ‘Tell me you’ll come back for me,’ Caera cried, her face buried in his chest. He stroked her hair and looked about, for he kn
ew some of the Selevians would see. They were hundreds of paces from the houses though and few townsfolk were out.

  ‘Of course,’ he said soothingly, ‘as soon as people are well again.

  ‘Where will you go?’ Caera asked, pulling her tear-streaked face back to look at him.

  ‘Probably Regent’s Sanctuary,’ he said. It was a lie he told only so as not to alarm the girl. He had no idea where he would end up.

  ‘Don’t you care about me? After everything?’

  ‘Of course I do Caera,’ and he reached for her again but she squirmed away, storming off through the rain and back to the village with her hands over her face.

  Vanis wondered why she was being so temperamental. He understood she was hurt but events were what they were. He was starting to miss the calm reasoning of experienced women like Gilene, who’d asked for nothing in return for her affections. Why couldn’t Caera have simply seen it for what it was?

  The morning grew clear as the caravan made its way down from the hills around Brookleith to the flat plain of the Breadlands. The roads were wet, rutted and deserted, though Vanis had only the Wayfarers to assure him this was unusual, for he had never traveled this road before. The dull weather and the mood after their expulsion dampened the Wayfarers’ festive spirits and there was no song this time. Because the long trail of bodies was slow to move, with children, the elderly, animals and carts, it took until sundown to reach the Crossroads Inn.

  It was a large wooden house, with stables housing a few horses beside. It was surrounded by fields and distant steadings, making up a small hamlet around the way station. He’d heard the inn was a famous stop for travelers: friars, sellswords and pilgrims, where news from all over the realm passed people’s lips, but it seemed quiet enough this day. Drelo went to the door, spoke with a man who met him outside and they greeted one another like old friends, who’d gone sour.