Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) (19 page)

“You English possess many church,” Pantaleon says. “Many church.”

It is true. We do.

When commoners commit a sin, they seek a confessor. They divulge their sins and pray for God’s forgiveness. Or, if the sin is grave enough, they make a pilgrimage to beg a saint for salvation.

It is not so for the ruling class. When nobles sin, they build churches. They bury their transgressions beneath flint and oak, and the greater the evil, the greater the church. The sins of our rulers are endless, and so churches rise everywhere, usually on the very spot that the sin occurred. The churches stand like gravestones, monuments to the evil in men’s hearts. Each holy site blossoms like a flower from the offal of nobility, from the fecal remains of lambs those wolves have slaughtered.

If ever I decide to bury my sins beneath a church, it will take a hundred million flints to do so. The transepts of my creation will stretch the width of England, and the spire will be seen from Spain. I will call it St. Elizabeth, and I will weep at its altar for the rest of my days. I will weep for an angel I almost saved.

And God will almost forgive me.

We approach the priory, and I realize why the bells are not ringing. A great section of the outer wall has collapsed and a shape lurches out from the breach. The afflicted have overrun the compound.

We hide behind a short line of hedges and study the broken wall.

“If we are discussing this,” Zhuri says. “I would prefer not to enter that place.”

“We don’t have to enter,” I reply. “The four of you should head south. I’ll go west toward St. Edmund’s.”

There is a silence into which the donkey brays. The Italian smacks the animal’s rump.

“Why should the four of us head south, Edward?” Morgan asks.

I peer through gaps in the hedge. The afflicted man has turned to face us. Damnable donkey. I look closely at the plaguer. He was once a monk. Or is. I do not know anymore which term is appropriate. One of the monk’s arms dangles limply at his side.

“There’s no reason all of us should go to St. Edmund’s Bury.” I reach under my breastplate and draw out the cure, hand it to Tristan. “There’s no purpose to it.”

“I thought we discussed this earlier.” Morgan’s voice is strained.

“We did, Morgan. But that was when we thought . . . we thought she could be healed.” I curse myself for the break in my voice.

“And we think differently now?” Zhuri asks.

“Of course we do,” I snap. “The cure only works on men.”

Morgan shakes his head. “Edward—”

The plagued monk growls and stumbles toward us.

“What nonsense are you speaking, Edward?” Zhuri cocks his head to one side.

“It’s not nonsense, Zhuri. I have seen it. Two men have been healed by the Syrian cure, and two women turned into abominations. I won’t have my wife become one of those things. Best she . . . best she take her place in Heaven than live in that Hell for the rest of her days.”

 “Edward, the cure works on men and women,” Morgan says.

“It’s not true, Morgan! I won’t do it to her. I won’t let her . . . I won’t let her become . . .”

I drop my head into my hands and take deep breaths.

Morgan grasps my shoulder. “It works on women, Edward. I have seen it. And so has Zhuri.”

I look up, glancing from one to the other, daring them to convince me.

“He speaks truthfully,” Zhuri says. “One of the nuns at Hedingham was healed, just after Morgan took the cure. She spoke and laughed and was completely sane.”

“Completely sane,” Tristan repeats. “This said of someone who no doubt believes that a man loaded two of every animal in existence onto a boat.”

“Shut that heretic mouth, Tristan,” Morgan replies. “If you doubt Noah did what is written in Genesis, then explain how all of those animals survived the great flood. Go on. Did they tread water for months? Tell me Tristan. How?”

Tristan opens his mouth, leaves it open for a long moment before speaking. “I’m not sure it’s even possible for you and I to discuss this, Morgan.”

“And me,” Zhuri says. “‘you and
me
to discuss this.’”

Their conversation seems to fade away. They argue and laugh and shout, oblivious to the impact of their words. A woman was healed by the Syrian cure. They have seen it. There is hope! There is blessed, Godly hope!

I snatch the ampoule from Tristan’s grasp and study it closely. There is either Heaven or Hell in that ampoule. Life or a horrible death. The world hinges always upon two opposing outcomes.

But it might still hold my Heaven.

Women can be cured.

Joy floods through me like a hot spring, bubbles to every corner of my body.

Women can be cured.

Sometimes.

The hot spring cools, then freezes.

I will give Elizabeth something that will either save her or damn her. My heart is a smith’s hammer in my chest.

I will save her or destroy her, but I have hope again. Blessed Mary, I have
hope
.

The plaguer snarls again. He is not more than twenty paces away.

Pantaleon stands and draws his short sword.

Morgan and Tristan glance at me, then at the Italian.

“Put it away,” Morgan says.

Pantaleon glances at the blade, then at Morgan. “The demon, he comes to here. We must to kill it.”

“They aren’t demons,” Tristan says. “Put the sword away.”

Pantaleon scoffs, gestures toward the plaguer. “I not know why you say such. The rotter will eat upon us. It is demon.” He throws his hands upward in frustration. “The bishop of England, he tell the people to kill these!”

“Yes, but he was speaking figuratively.” Tristan lays his lays his hand on the Italian’s arm and pushes the sword down.

Pantaleon wrenches his arm free. “Even the Pope, he is saying the sick people should be kill.”

“Which Pope?” Tristan replies.

“Let’s go.” I stand and gauge the distance to the priory walls.

“I thought there was only one Pope,” Zhuri says.

“There is,” Morgan snaps. “We have only one true Pope, blessed and sanctioned by Christ Himself.”

“Yes,” Tristan replies. “But we’re damned if we know which one that is.”

Chapter 23

The priory is a small one. Just large enough to bury a small cardinal sin, or to clear the assorted moral debts of a dying nobleman. The place is nothing more than a dotting of small stone buildings huddled together, surrounded by shoulder-high walls. A tiny church—not much more than a stone hall attached to a Norman tower—hunches at the center of the complex.

“There are no bodies on the ground,” Morgan says.

“They must have fled before the plaguers arrived,” Zhuri replies.

“What plaguers?” Tristan asks.

A thin figure shuffles aimlessly along the grassy stretches between the outbuildings and the walls. There is no other sign of plague here.

“Let’s look for a safe place to sleep,” I say. “If we can’t find one here, then we keep moving.” The lack of plaguers worries me. These days it is in the calmest of waters that the worst dangers seem to lie.

“It’s strange that Richard’s men haven’t followed us through the forest,” Tristan says.

“It’s night,” I reply. “It would be difficult to find us. And we could take his men by surprise in the darkness.”

“We could surprise dozens of men in armor?” Tristan says.

I shrug. Despite the threat of ambush, Richard should have sent men into the forest. If I felt someone had wronged Elizabeth, I would hunt them through Hell itself. I do not know why the king’s men are not pursuing, and that, too, makes me restless.

 The closest building is a small thatched structure set apart from the others. A battered door lies at an odd angle, twisted back and to one side because of a broken top hinge. I take hold of the iron latch and pull. Wood grates on stone as the narrow door straightens. I shove it forward, evenly, and it creaks open. The stench of rotting flesh wafts from the room. Moonlight streams through a glazed window, creating a silver patch on the floor but doing little to illuminate the room.

Tristan kneels and strikes a flint, showering one of our last firing cords with sparks. It takes a half dozen strikes before the powder on the rope ignites. He rises and thrusts the smoldering cord into the darkness.

A body lies on the floor. There is not much left of the cadaver. Bones and fabric, an open-mouthed skull. The carcass seems to twitch, but I realize it is an illusion created by the flickering light.

“Someone’s had a snack,” Tristan says.

“Have you no respect for the dead?” Morgan snaps. “Such a cruel bastard you can be.”

“Me?” Tristan replies. “
I
didn’t eat him.”

“Be prepared,” I whisper. “The door was shut.” Plaguers do not shut doors when they leave a building. Whatever fed upon this poor man is likely still inside.

Tristan swings the cord to the right. Shadows dance from four long-armed chairs sitting one in front of the other. Wooden boards rest across the arms of each chair. Polished oxhorns sit in round holes at a corner of each board. Tools lie neatly upon the makeshift desktops—awls, razors, pumice stones—and, tucked into a wooden stand on each, is a feather quill.

“Scriptorium,” Morgan says.

A place for writing. For days on end, monks sat in those chairs, dipping their quills into the oxhorn inkwells and scrawling out line after line of text. Father Aubrey, my priest at Bodiam, told me that it takes a monk thirteen months to copy a Bible. I try to imagine sitting in one of those chairs every day for a year, scrawling line after line. Beheading would be preferable.

I take the firing cord from Tristan and step into the room. Nothing approaches from the darkness. There is no sound in the room other than the scuff of my boot against the planks. The others follow behind me. A rat darts from the darkness and Pantaleon kicks it into the corner. The creature screeches and scampers in the darkness. “These are dirty creature,” he says. “They are many dirty.”

Tristan kneels beside the rotting body and tugs a leather pouch from the man’s belt. He looks inside and whistles. “I had no idea monks were so well paid.” He tips the pouch and four golden nobles tumble into his palm.

“I am accepting one of the gold money for the payment,” Pantaleon says.

“Hold onto them, Tristan,” I say. “Would you really sell your honor for just one golden noble, Pantaleon?”

“You speak the word again,” Pantaleon says, smirking. “Aw-nor. This is not a thing being real. I am not possible to touch it. Or look at aw-nor with eyes. I can to feel a coin. And the coin lets me to feel breast of the beautiful woman.”

“
Lets me feel
,” Zhuri says.

“Lovely,” Morgan says. “A Spanish Arab is teaching English to an Italian.”

 “Keep quiet,” I say, extending the firing cord toward one side of the room, then the other.

“Someone must have shut the door from outside,” Zhuri says. “There is no one here.”

My teeth grind. I force myself to relax my jaw.

Shadows bounce as the light from the firing cord flares and dims. A modest bookshelf sits against the far wall, with six or seven bound volumes upon it. Pantaleon brushes past me and pulls one of the books from the shelf, flips through it, then grabs two more of the thick tomes.

“We are needing the sack,” he says. “To put inside this books.”

Another rat, or perhaps the same one, scurries out from the shadows. Pantaleon stomps at it several times before finally crushing its skull with his heel. “Dirty creature.”

Morgan takes one of the books from the Italian and studies it, flips open the wooden cover. “This is a book of hours,” he says. “I didn’t think you were a worshipping man.”

“I were.” Pantaleon grins. “I worship the gold. Books in this sort, they worth many gold. The paid from the books will let me to feel many . . .” He frowns.

“Will
let you feel
many,” Zhuri offers.

 “You will not sell the Word of God.” Morgan places the volume back on the shelf. “And you will touch no breasts with money that came from selling sacred books. Put them back. All of them.”

“What about this one?” Tristan still kneels by the dead man. He holds up a book no larger than the palm of his hand. “Is this worth anything? The monk had it.”

“We’re not here to read,” I say. “Let’s make certain this room is safe and then barricade the door.”

Another pair of rats scampers from the darkness, and Pantaleon stomps at them. Morgan walks to Tristan’s side and takes the tiny book. “Edward,” he says. “If you would, please. Richard’s men didn’t return my Bible. I want to find another small one to carry.”

I give him some light. He flips through the pumiced pages, reading the tight black lines of text. “It’s in English,” he says. “Very rare.” He flips to the next page and shakes his head. “Just verses from the Bible. Must have been a selection of this man’s favori . . .” His jaw tightens as he flips to the next page, then the next. Even in the dim light I can see his face growing red. “This . . . this is filth! Utter filth!” He hurls the book across the room. It strikes the back wall and bounces halfway back.