Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) (18 page)

“What’s happening down there, Italian?” he calls. “Thomas said Sandre is dead. And why are these people out of the dungeon?”

Pantaleon makes calming motions with his hand. “I tell to you all.” He draws near and, in one motion, unsheathes his own dagger and stabs the man in the throat. Blood sprays the Italian as he twists the blade and shoves the guard to the floor.

Pantaleon takes keys from the man’s belt and releases us from our bonds. When we are free, he hands me the dead porter’s dagger, draws his short sword, and gives his own dagger to Tristan. “Some people take the horses away from castle and we find with them later. But now, we are killing more people.” He motions to the door. “Outside.”

I do not want to
killing more people
, but we have no choice. The constable will be on his way to the prison chamber soon, and the entire castle will be alerted to our escape.

I let out a long breath and prepare to take more humanity from the world.

Chapter 22

The price of our escape from Framlingham Castle is four more lives: two guards outside the prison chamber and another two at the postern door leading out of the lower courtyard and into the countryside. Four more souls.

The prison at Framlingham was built beyond the curtain walls, which is a sound strategy for preventing escaped prisoners from taking over the castle. It is, however, a poor strategy for recapturing escaped prisoners. We trot across a stone bridge that spans the northern ditch, hunching low and hugging the stone ledge. Our caution is unnecessary. The men in the northern watchtower stand with their backs to us, laughing and passing what appears to be a wineskin. We clear the bridge and find ourselves on an old trail leading to the vast deer-hunting park north of the castle.

A horn sounds when we are a quarter mile from the curtain walls. Our escape has been noted.

We run faster, past thick clusters of elm and ash, a half mile into the lush hunting grounds of Framlingham.

“A friend to me hided horses!” Pantaleon calls as he runs. “And all that we are to be need!” He points to a stand of alders rising by themselves in the distance. “There! Five horses are being there, behind the trees! And six soldier men with the chain mail and the weapons. They friends to me and are to help.”

More horns sound behind us. I glance back toward the castle. No one pursues yet. We round the stand of alders.

A thin donkey chews grass and stares at us absently. Beside the animal lies a large, canvas wrapped bundle—wide as a carriage wheel and high as my waist. If there are horses, and men with armor and weapons, they are cleverly hidden. I look at the Italian.

“No!” He spins in a circle, hands in the air. “No! There were to be the men! And the horses!”

“Perhaps they are in the sack,” Tristan offers.

“Are you certain this is where they were meeting you?” I ask.

“Yes!” The Italian shouts. “
Sono idioti
!
Idioti e vigliacchi
!” He slashes the cords holding the canvas together and pulls the bundle open. Two suits of armor gleam in the last breaths of daylight. Mine, and Tristan’s. Our two hand-cannons are there also, and our shoulder sacks, swords, helmets, pouches, and all of our clothing. There are also two linen sacks. I open one and discover dried strips of meat. Tristan opens the other and finds bread, cut into squares.

At the center of the pile, tied to a leather cord, is Elizabeth’s cure. I lift it from the stack and clench my hand around the ampoule. How much did we go through to find this? How much humanity did I take in my quest for this cure? How much humanity did I lose? And what was it worth?

Nothing at all. Because the cure is useless to Elizabeth.

I push thoughts of her out of my mind. They will cripple me. I have a duty to Tristan, Morgan, and Zhuri. Only when they are safe can I surrender to my grief. The linen-wrapped jar of dragon blood lies at the bottom of my shoulder sack. I take it out, run my fingers across its surfaces to make sure it has not been damaged. The men of England may need this jar. Only the men. I swallow the wave of sorrow that rises in me once again.

“Couldn’t they have found me something decent to wear?” Morgan asks. “New robes at least?”

The “clerical vestments” that Morgan has worn since leaving Hedingham are filthy and covered in dried blood.

“Leper robes are meant to be dirty, Morgan.” Tristan pulls his breastplate from the pile. “At least Edward and I have armor again.”

“You are not want the big armor,” Pantaleon says. “It turn you slow.”

“It does not slow us down at all,” Tristan says. “My armor was designed to fit me perfectly. I can dance in it. Now ask me how I know that. Ask me.”

“Quiet, Tristan, ” I say. “There is no time to put the armor on. We have no horses and a dozen knights are about to storm out of Framlingham. Pantaleon, thank you for your help. Good luck in your endeavors.”

“You will give to me the paid, no?” Pantaleon asks.

“Give you the paid?” I ask.

“I take you from the smelling room. I take all into the free. You give to me the paid?”

“You expect to be paid for freeing us?” I sputter my words. “I saved your life!”

“Yes. For you, there is being no paid. But the friends of you, yes. I take them into free. I put Pantaleon into the danger.”

I try not to think about Elizabeth, but I know her fate colors my words, imbues them with more anger than I feel. “I saved your bloody life! Have some dignity!
Some honor!
”

“Honor?” he asks.

“Yes, honor,” I snap. “Respect for others and for doing what is
proper
without seeking reward. Honor.”

The Italian scowls. “
Proper
is to get the paid when I take people into the free. Only the paid makes good in the life. Only the paid.” He draws Tristan’s ten-shot hand bombard from the pile. “Perhaps this is the paid?”

Tristan pulls the cannon from the Italian’s hands. “Perhaps bloody not!”

“Payment is the only good thing in life?” I say. “That’s absurd. What about justice? What about love? What about chivalry?”

The Italian grins. “You can eat the
justice
? You can drink the
love
?” He chuckles. “This
chivalry
, can you to fuck on it?”

“You are filth,” I say. “And you have no honor.”

“I maybe own the honor before,” he laughs. “But I sell it for the whore money, maybe. I walk beside you until the danger go. And then you will be giving to me the paid.”

“I will be giving to you a broken skull,” Tristan says.

“We don’t have time for this foolishness,” I say. “Take what you need from the pile, all of you, and put the remainder on the donkey.”

We pull our boots on, sling shoulder sacks and strap on sword belts. I draw my shield from the stack, and Morgan finds his cross. Zhuri flips open a leather poke and takes out the last spare ampoule of the Syrian cure. We have two doses left, and no one to give them to. I think about the dying mercenary—the one escorting the pilgrims—and I clench my fists.

The last item in the canvas sack is a coil of rope. We tie the sack again and use the new rope to secure the great heap of armor and supplies onto the donkey’s back.

Two horn blasts shatter the twilight silence of the deer park. Horsemen finally burst from the postern door of the lower courtyard and storm across the long bridge leading to the park. Two dozen at least, holding torches or lanterns.

We stumble in the dark, toward the northwest corner of the deer park. There is silence around us, save for our breathing and the muffled clank of armor in the canvas bag.

We reach the timber fence bordering the park. If we were deer, the fence would trap us in the killing grounds of Framlingham. But we are men, and desperate ones, so we pull down the damp stakes, push through the gaps, and slip quietly into the night.

We wind around the great mere, hunching low and swatting at the donkey when it brays. My feet sink deep into the marshy ground and squelch when I draw them out.

A great forest lies to the north of Framlingham, and we creep into it, hearing the mad tolls of distant church bells. Richard is alerting the countryside to our escape.

The forest is black as my mood, but we pick our way through, stopping every hundred paces or so to ensure that no one is lost. I have never taken a donkey through a forest, and it is an experience I hope never to repeat. The animal balks at every log, scrub or jutting stone we come to. I would release the creature, but only a fool makes decisions based on inconvenience. In this plague-swept kingdom, flesh is the new coin. Horses are the golden pound, and pack animals the shillings. This donkey represents wealth, and we need that to escape Richard’s net.

Morgan winces and limps sometimes as he walks, but the damage from the plague seems to lessen with each hour. He speaks to Pantaleon often, perhaps to take his mind from the pain of raking branches and tearing scabs. Their conversation turns to the plaguers plowing the fields outside of Framlingham and how Pantaleon became acquainted with King Richard. The Italian tells him that Matheus, the man from the new Holy Lands near Boxford, became plagued. This comes as no surprise to us, since it was Tristan who secretly infected him.

Hugh the Baptist, the plaguer whose ability to speak convinced an untold number of pilgrims to afflict themselves, lost his lower jaw. Pantaleon tells us it simply rotted away. With no talking plaguer and no Matheus, the pilgrims stopped coming, and Pantaleon was forced to find new ways to get
the paid
.

“Your Majesty, the king, he buy many rotters from the man, Matheus. So I make path to the castle of Framlingham, for finding the work.”

I have harbored doubts about Matheus since the day I met him. He was a persuasive man, and a part of me always wondered if he was telling the truth; if perhaps we are dead already, condemned to wander purgatory, surrounded by demons, until we are deemed worthy enough for Heaven, or unworthy enough for Hell. But Pantaleon’s words strike the wonder from my heart. Matheus was a merchant, selling the afflicted. Profiting from the faith of pilgrims, as so many others have done before him.

“King Richard bought plaguers from Matheus?” I ask. “As if they were slaves to be sold?” It should not surprise me after all that I have seen this past day and night.

Pantaleon nods. “This Matheus, he sell the rotting people to many another. And in paid, he receive many gift.”

In this plague-swept kingdom, flesh is the new coin. Even rotting flesh.

“And how did he buy you?” Morgan asks.

“With the things of important,” The Italian replies. “The drink, the women, and the horses.”

“Sounds like quite a night, Italian.” I can almost hear Tristan’s smirk in the forest darkness.

“The name I have is Pantaleon di Alessandria.”

“I know your name, Italian,” Tristan replies. “But it’s a silly one.”

Pantaleon does not reply for a long moment, and when he finally speaks, his voice is low and fierce. “It is great name. It is meaning
the lion
.”

Zhuri chuckles. “In Spanish,
pantalones
means pants.”

Tristan laughs quietly with the Moor. “Are you named after breeches, Italian? Did your mother name you while doing the wash?”

There is another long pause in the darkness, the only sound our footsteps
shushing
through leaves or snapping twigs.

“My name is meaning
lion
.” There is something menacing in his voice.

“What’s your brother’s name?” Tristan asks. “Tunic?”

Zhuri and Tristan muffle their laughter with their hands.

“Do you mind if we call you Trousers?” Zhuri asks.

“Quiet, both of you,” Morgan snaps. “Richard’s men may be in this forest. And you should leave this man alone. He saved our lives.”

I nod to Morgan, although I doubt he can see me in the darkness. I do not like this Italian, but he saved our lives. More importantly, I worry that he might try to kill Tristan and Zhuri if they continue. Although perhaps that would finally quiet them. The two of them are adding mirth to an otherwise dark night, but their laughter grates upon me. My Elizabeth is lost forever, and I may never laugh with them again.

A horn sounds in the distance. Am I to always flee from horns now? I do not know if Richard’s men are in the forest. No sane man would send men into a dark wood, where ambush lurks around every tree. But this is the new Richard. I cannot assume he will do what is wise.

The forest thins out after two or three miles and we break onto a field made bright and colorless by a three-quarter moon. A square tower rises in the distance, black, save for a glimmer of moonlight along one side. A church, no doubt. No bells ring from it, so either Richard’s men have failed to reach the place or the inhabitants do not care about his quarrels. He is the King of England, so I can imagine only one reason for them not to care.

We march through a furrowed plot that has been left fallow and, as we draw closer to the distant tower, walls become visible. Another priory.