Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) (12 page)

The two knights at the stable lift a thick bar of wood and pull open the doors. I wonder if Richard’s opponent will ride from the cottage. What an odd way to make an . . .

Realization comes to me like a shower of molten lead. I understand why there are no dividers. I stop cheering. Bile rises in my throat.

“No.” I can only manage a whisper.

The first of the plaguers lurches out. An old man wearing a torn robe. Blocks of sandstone prevent the doors from opening too wide, leaving only one direction for the old man to walk—over the planks and into the tilting field. He takes a staggering step forward, his gaze jerking from one side of the courtyard to the other.

The knight holding the sack draws out a dead, bloody chicken and hurls it over the trench and stone wall, into the tilting field. The old plaguer takes a step onto the planks and raises his nose to the scent. Before he can take another step, a rush of plaguers shuffles from the stable and onto the planks. I count ten, but they are massed together so it is hard to tell. The old man is knocked into the trench as the others rumble across the makeshift bridge. His screams ring out across the lower courtyard.

Simon laughs behind me. “Stakes in the trench,” he says. “We always get a half-dozen rotters falling in. I imagine they are bored to death down there, eh?” I do not laugh and he mistakes my silence for stupidity. “Do you see it? I said
bored
. The spikes?”

The trumpets ring out again. Richard’s horse tosses its head. The king lowers his lance, gives a muffled shout, and slaps his knees against his charger’s armored flanks. The animal springs toward the plaguers with a snort.

“He musn’t do this!” Morgan shouts. “Those plaguers are not animals!”

“He’s right,” Tristan adds. “They’re not even French!”

“Simon!” I shout. “Tell him to stop!”

Simon laughs. “Tell the King of England to stop? You jest, of course.”

The king’s horse picks up speed, cantering with the metallic rhythm of barding and armor. Its hoof beats are like distant cannon fire.

“There is a cure!” I shout. “Those people can be cured!
In the name of God
, tell Richard to stop!
Stop
!”

I howl the last word because Richard is almost upon the first of the plaguers—a woman in a blue dress who stumbles across the field with her arms flush against her sides. Richard’s lance takes her in the chest. Blood and bones explode from her back as the steel tip slashes through her. Her shriek sounds almost human. The king releases the spear and draws his sword. The woman topples backward but the tip of the lance enters the earth, and she is held suspended over the grass. She slides slowly down the shaft, completing her fall one inch at a time.

I take great gasping breaths. “This is murder.”

“We’ve killed scores of them ourselves,” Tristan says.

“Not like this,” I reply. “Never like this.”

I have killed plaguers to ease their suffering or to defend myself and my friends. Never have I slaughtered them for entertainment.

Chaucer chants softly:

“And high above, depicted in a tower, sat Conquest, robed in majesty and power. Under a sword that swung above his head, sharp-edged and hanging by a subtle thread.”

Richard’s blade flashes in the sunlight, ends life in careless sweeps. I do not see demons dying on that field. I see sons and uncles. I see fathers too sick to care for their families. I see good men, like the mercenary we had to kill on the Roman road. But it is the women that pain me the most. Angels, like my Elizabeth. Saints, like Morgan’s Matilda. King Richard’s sword extinguishes hunger. Erases words from this world. He is the wolf that slaughters the lambs.

And I am sworn to stop him.

Chapter 14

I vault off the platform and shove through fondling couples and bench-side dice games. Tristan’s footsteps rumble behind me. Simon shouts to me but I am not listening. I hop to the grass in front of the benches and sprint toward the trench that surrounds the tilting field. The ditch is a little wider than a horse is long, a jump I could make without much effort in a tunic and breeches. But it will take a great effort to make the jump in my armor. I hesitate at the edge, absently noting the tips of sharpened stakes that line the bottom. A group of soldiers sitting on the front-most benches watch me closely, so I try to strike a relaxed posture, and watch the action on the field. Tristan takes position at my side.

The king nearly severs an old man’s head. The blood sprays in a dozen streams, like sunset rays in a misted forest. A woman wearing bloody blonde plaits at either side of her face takes hold of Richard’s armored leg. He hacks off both her arms with one swing, then stabs her in the face several times. The blood flows down her cheeks like tears.

“No.” My words push out through clenched teeth.

Richard cleaves the top of the woman’s head and she topples backward stiffly.

Morgan’s voice rings out from somewhere behind me. “This is mortal sin! These are God’s creatures he murders! They can be cured!”

The king’s horse falls to its forelegs as plaguers find gaps in the barding. Richard swings out of the saddle and sheathes the sword, draws a maul from the dying horse’s saddle. No more careless sweeps. Death comes for the plaguers on the end of a five-pound slab of metal. Their bodies are mashed and spattered onto the field. He destroys them. Strives to rid the tilting field of all humanity.

A wounded plaguer in a herald tabard rises behind Richard. The king spins as the afflicted man crashes into him and the two fall to the ground.

King Richard roars and rolls so that he is on top of the plaguer. He holds the maul’s handle at the very top, so that his gauntlets are above his head and the thick head of steel down by his chest. Another shout resounds across the lower courtyard as he buries the man’s skull beneath five inches of steel and three inches of Norfolk clay.

Richard whirls to face the crowd. He raises the maul crosswise over his head and howls once more.

If there is cheering, I do not hear it.

All I hear are the boisterous swells of conversation and the sharp laughter of the nobility. The king holds his pose for a few heartbeats. The frog-helm pivots so he can take in one end of the crowd, then the other. He jogs the maul up and down a few inches again, as if the crowd might notice the motion. But they do not.

He hurls the maul to the ground. The weapon bounces, ringing off the grass. The king throws off his gauntlets and twists four bolts on his shoulder. He removes his helm and tosses it to the ground, fumbles with the cords of the leather cap he wears.

Richard is not as handsome as his father was, but he possesses a fineness of features that Elizabeth says makes him attractive. Those fine features glisten with sweat today. His body is slender, so slender that his secret nickname among many knights is, “The Damsel.” He wears a mustache and trimmed beard, and a thick mass of unruly black hair falls to the nape of his neck.

The king motions toward the squires. “Come!” he shouts.

One of the young men shoves planks across the trench and another squire crosses the boards, holding his arms out for balance. Richard waves toward the stable where the two knights are posted. “More!” he shouts. “No breastplate or helm this time.”

One of the knights holds up a fist toward the king to acknowledge the instructions. The squire begins unbuckling the straps of the king’s breastplate.

He wants to do it again. He wants to butcher more men and women, and I cannot allow it.

I am the champion of the dead.

The wide trench stands between me and my oath. I back up three steps, take a long breath, and run at the ditch. Three paces. One. Two—

Something crashes into me. I stumble to the side and put my hand down to keep from toppling into the trench. A soldier in chain mail grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet.

“Where are you off to, then?” he asks.

“To stop a terrible mistake,” I say.

Another soldier arrives, takes my other arm.

“Why don’t we watch from the benches, eh?” the first soldier asks.

“Because I won’t sit idly while people are butchered for sport.”

“So sayeth the Lord!” Tristan shouts from behind us.

The first soldier’s hand tears free from my arm as Tristan hammers him to the side. The second soldier seizes Tristan and, while they struggle, I leap.

I strike the far wall of the ditch and the breath explodes from my body. I flail wildly, remembering the spikes, dig my armored fingers into the clay. Soldiers shout behind me, but a more immediate sound draws my attention. I glance down into the steep-sided trench. The sharpened stakes are set in rows along the bottom of the shaft and, impaled upon two of these, is an afflicted woman. She is a skeleton wrapped in wrinkled flesh. The black eyes look unusually large in the withered sockets. She hisses and writhes against the spikes.

They left her there.

I see another plaguer, impaled face-down a few yards away. And yet another a little farther out.

They leave them in the trench.

The afflicted fall in and no one takes them out. They are left to rot, in agony. I wonder how long this poor woman has suffered.

Something buries itself into the earth next to my arm. A crossbow bolt. I dig my toes into the trench wall and drag myself up onto the far side, an arm’s length from the wall of piled stones.

Past the wall, and far to my right, Richard stands on the field with his arms out. The squire fumbles with the straps on his shoulders. Both seem oblivious to my presence on the near side of the trench.

Sir Simon’s voice calls out from behind me as I scramble to my feet.

“At this range, my bolt will cut through your armor as if it were cheese.”

“Cheese can’t cut through armor, Sir Simon.” Tristan is held by two men in chain mail and seems to have lost his awe of the marshal.

I turn to face them. The king’s marshal keeps the crossbow trained on me.

“Hop back over, Sir Edward,” Simon calls. “We can drink mead and taunt the Italian until Richard is done.”

I hear the squeak of the stable doors again, hear wood crash against the sandstone blocks. There is no time for strategy.

“Your bowstring’s wet,” I say.

There is only the briefest flicker of Simon’s eyes toward the crossbow. Tristan kicks the marshal an instant before I throw myself sideways over the stone wall. The bolt clicks as it skims off the steel greave upon my shin.

I roll to my feet and run hunched toward the stable. The crowd cheers. I am certain they are celebrating my unexpected arrival on the field. And, in all likelihood, Sir Simon’s unexpected attempt to kill me.

I glance back. Richard raises an arm to the lords and ladies. He thinks they are cheering him. The squire removes the engraved breastplate, and Richard slaps his unarmored chest a few times, raises his arm again.

I turn away and sprint toward the stable. One of the knights peers from behind his door at me. But I am not interested in him. What interests me is the dozen soldiers running from the benches. They sprint along the other side of the trench, pointing at me and circling toward the back of the stable.

The crowd hoots and stomps as I near the planks leading to the stable. Their wild applause is like hail on cobblestones. A dead chicken soars over my head. The second knight stiffens as he notices me for the first time.

Broken, shuffling footsteps sound from inside the stable. They are coming. The afflicted are coming.

I pass the stone wall, hop on the wobbling planks, and bound across the trench.

“You can’t be here!” The chicken-hurling knight ducks behind his door and peers at me over the edge.

I take hold of the door and slam it shut, turn to the other knight.

“What do you—”

I tear the door from his hands. But the plaguers are upon me. Glinting eyes of polished ebony. Heads jerking from side to side. They come with open mouths and black, jagged fingernails stretched toward me. I know now that they are not demons. They are simply sick people.

But they are terrifying sick people.

I put my shoulder into the door and drive it back as hard as I can. Bodies thud against the oak and fall away. The doors meet and I shove my arm into two of the brackets that once held the barring plank.

The doors shudder. The steel of my vambrace takes most of the pressure, but only a few of the afflicted are pounding. I will not hold off nine or ten bodies shoving in unison.

The two knights stand motionless. They stare at me through the open visors of their bascinets. “Get the plank!” I shout. The door shudders again, and this time the steel vambrace digs painfully into my arm. “
Get the plank
!”

The first of the soldiers from the benches rounds the corner of the stable. He is young and badly trained. His instinct is to grab my shoulders, which allows me to pull his sword from its sheath with my left hand. He releases me and stumbles backward, his body taut, his hand touching the empty sheath. I hold the sword up so he can see it, then slide the blade into the brackets and pull my arm free.