Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) (43 page)

I smile, but it is a fleeting thing, a caterpillar crushed by a cold granite block.

An executioner. He looks like a bloody executioner.

Two knights shove a woman toward the cedar stump. A canvas sack covers the woman’s head and torso, and is tied around her waist. My breath catches. The destrier seems to sway beneath me.

“Are you unwell, Sir Edward?”

I wave my hand at him and watch as the knights pull at the canvas from the woman’s head. They have found Elizabeth. They are going to execute her, here, in front of me. They are going to do it before there are any negotiations. I raise my reins, knowing I will never reach her in time. My vision blurs. The knights pull the canvas away from the woman.

And I release a long, rattling breath.

It is not Elizabeth.

 “What are they doing?” Sir Bidwell asks.

Trying to destroy me.

Trying to drive a dagger through my heart.

Trying to damn me for eternity.

“They’re beheading that plaguer.” Do they think the woman is Elizabeth? “Leave her be!” I shout across the field, but I know my voice will not carry far enough.

I look for Henry at the rear of our army, but I cannot see him through the soldiers.

Richard’s knights kick the woman to her knees, then shove her shoulders down, so that her neck rests on the stump. She flails and writhes. I imagine she is shrieking.

“He has to stop,” I mutter. “That’s a woman. A sick woman.”

The executioner’s axe gleams in the setting sun. It rises and drops with a brutal efficiency and the woman’s struggles cease.

“Murderer!” I shout. “
Murderer
!”

I know Richard could not have heard me, but he steps forward, removes his helm, and looks directly at me. Perhaps he smiles.

And I see, for the first time, the long line of afflicted women standing by the monastery wall. They are tied together in groups, arms pinned to their sides, fabric over heads and torsos. Knights use staves and spear shafts to keep them huddled in place.

“He’s going to kill them all.” I search for Henry again and this time I glimpse him, far behind me. He is surrounded by priests and knights, his horse facing the abbey church.

I look at the plagued women. The executioner’s axe ends the life of another one, and the knights cut another woman free from the queue. They strip off the canvas sack and drag her by the hair to the stump.

I do not see Elizabeth among the plaguers, but the oath I swore stings my eyes. I stare at the crosses rising between the two armies. I imagine a thousand carpenters nailed upon them, each one staring blankly at me.

 I am champion of the dead. But I can do nothing.

The heralds are still upon the field. They laugh and bow and make flourishes with their hands while afflicted women add blood to the sacred soil of Saint Edmund.

I watch and offer a prayer to the thousand crosses, ask the Carpenter to forgive my failings. I try to put the oath out of my mind. Try to forget about the promise I made.

But the Lord reminds me.

A blue dress near the back of the first column of plaguers.

The cusp of a bow just visible beneath a canvas sack.

I forget how to breathe.

My Elizabeth.

A red storm rises in my soul.

Who can stand before his indignation
?

My sword rings as I draw it free.

Who can endure the heat of his anger
?

I made an oath, and the God of the Old Testament is testing my resolve. The voices of the choir rise ever higher, resounding across the churchyard, drawing out one final word: “
Hallelujah
!”

I drive my remaining spur into the destrier with such force that the animal bellows and rears before leaping forward. My voice rips across the battlefield, louder than any choir, louder than any horn, louder than the very thunder of Heaven.

“
Elizabeth
!”

My horse vaults a wooden cross and we are away, galloping across a field of the dead. Across the sacred ground of Saint Edmund. Across the last three hundred paces of my journey.

“
Elizabeth
!”

My cry is the loudest sound on the battlefield, and the echoes of it rumble back at me. I am so focused on the blue dress that, at first, it does not strike me as odd that my echo should rumble. And then it does.

I glance back over my shoulder.

Henry Bolingbroke’s army charges after me, like a biblical flood. The steel of their killing tools shine in the setting sun. They howl, and hurdle crosses, and kick through the carcasses of slaughtered cattle. They shout for Henry Bolingbroke. They shout for England. They shout for Saint George and Saint Edmund.

But most of all, they shout for me.

I glance back at them for a heartbeat, then turn and lash my warhorse’s reins.

Men will follow anyone
.

Chapter 53

Richard’s peasants flee our advance like mice from the plow. Like dust in a whirlwind. Judgment Day has arrived, and they are not ready.

A plague of locusts fills the air. One strikes my shield with a flat clank. Arrows. Richard’s archers.

I duck behind the shield as my horse gallops on, and two more arrows strike. Their bodkin tips drive through the layers of leather and wood, and glint in front of my eyes. I pound the shield with my fist and roar. Sometimes the old things are the best.

My horse cries out and stumbles. Crashes onto its forelegs. The world tips upward and I leap from the saddle. Hit the earth with a sickening crash that sends lightning through my body. I tumble along the ground, clattering. One of my couters sails free from my elbow and bounces away. My left shoulder burns. I cannot draw a proper breath, but I stagger to my feet, wheezing. The sword of Saint Giles lies beside my dying horse. Arrow shafts jut from the destrier’s flesh. I do not have time to end the animal’s misery. An arrow clanks off my shoulder, spinning me. I gasp for breath, take up my sword. The biblical flood crashes around me as Henry’s men finally catch up.

Richard’s footmen rumble forward.

And the two armies collide.

I have difficulty focusing on the clashing men about me. Perhaps it is the fall I took. Things happen too quickly. My vision skips, like the words of a stutterer, images seem to halt—as if time itself had stopped—then move forward too quickly. The roar of battle assaults my ears at an impossible volume, then fades to nothing, before rising to an unbearable roar again. Metal clashes against metal. Weapons squelch against flesh. Men cry out for pity. But there is no pity here, only pain. When coin has no value, ransoms cannot exist. Everyone dies like commoners.

Someone shouts my wife’s name and drives a war hammer deep into a knight’s chest. One of Richard’s men-at-arms lunges with a spear, shredding an infantryman’s thigh. The infantryman opens his mouth in a howl, but there is no sound. Again my hearing falters and the world returns to silence.

I swing my sword at a footman wearing a kettle helm, my stroke impossibly slow. The sound of my battle cry comes and goes, as if it is tapped out on a broken horn. My blade gashes through leather. Blood sprays leisurely from the wound, like spores floating in the breeze.

Something strikes me in the side, making me stumble. I whirl in time to take the next axe blow on my shield. One of Henry’s knights crumples the axe man’s helm with a five-foot war sword. The knight has a castle on his helm. Sir Jason Bidwell.

He points to the mark on my shield, where the axe struck. “Sometimes the old things are the best!”

“Sir Edward is not
that
old!” Tristan appears at my other flank, holding a poleaxe.

“This is holy ground, Edward! We cannot fight here!” I do not have to look to know that Morgan is behind me. “It is against the laws of God!”

I shout back to him: “
Necessitas no hab
—”

A spear skims my great helm. Tristan buries his axe in the spearman’s shoulder. Morgan lunges with his sword. Drives it under the soldier’s chin, releasing a tide of blood.

I shove past a surrendering peasant and look back toward the cedar stump, twenty five paces away. The executioner has not stopped. He has not stopped.

Richard rolls his hand in the air and the knights hurry forward with the next woman, dragging her by the hair.

My left side burns. I glance down. Blood flows from under the fauld at my waist and runs along my right leg. The axeman’s blade found flesh. I raise my shield arm, touch my side and find broken mail and more blood.

A man-at-arms with a war sword swings at me. I duck under the blow and explode into him, shield first. He sprawls backward and Tristan splits his face with the poleax.

“You wounded, Ed?” Tristan calls.

I shake my head and press forward.

There are only six women ahead of Elizabeth. My limbs twitch with panic. The Old Testament rises like brimstone in my soul, gives me the strength of fury. Sometimes the Old things are the best.

A man in chain mail lunges at me with a spear. I duck behind a stone grave marker and swing with every ounce of strength I have, howling. Spilled blood takes my footing. I skid and Saint Giles’s sword shatters the top of the gravestone.

His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken to pieces by him
.

 Sir Jason and Morgan batter the spearman and I slip past them. My side aches. Blood washes over my right leg, leaves a trail behind me.

Elizabeth
.

I throw myself forward, toward my wife. Ever forward, ever onward toward her. There is no battle. There are no enemies. There is nothing but Elizabeth, and judgment for those who stand between us. Saint Giles sings his song of madness, and I dance through the horrors of war. Men fall before me. Blood makes a marsh of the churchyard. The screams of my enemies are a choir, and their hymns are Elizabeth’s salvation.

I am the wolf that slaughters wolves.

I am the savior of England.

I am the angel of death. And I kill
with many blood
.

Only five women stand between Elizabeth and the executioner’s blade. Richard smashes a gauntleted fist into his palm and bellows at his knights.

A man crashes into me and we both go down. I roll onto my side and crush his throat with my elbow. Stagger to my feet and drive my shoulder into a footman holding a poleaxe. He topples and Tristan pounces on him.

“We’re clear!” Morgan shouts. “We’re clear!”

War still rages behind us, but a dozen of us have stabbed through the entire army. We have broken through the lines.

Only two dozen paces separate me from my wife.

Less than thirty paces from my Elizabeth. I pound my breastplate with the hilt of my sword, feel the reassurance of her cure.

Richard, guarded by twenty dismounted knights, looks at me and dances, his hands waving to some imaginary rhythm.

My heart pounds. Not because I face the King of England, but because the King of England stands between me and Elizabeth.

Richard gestures to the horde of afflicted women and shouts. There is too much noise to hear him, but I read the words on his lips. “Kill them all!”

Half of his knights turn and advance on the rows of women. I roar and sprint toward them, but one of the knights strides out to meet me. The visor of his bascinet is carved to look like a savage, roaring ape, his tabard bears three roosters.

“This is the last time we meet, Edward!” Sir Gerald twirls a mace in his hand. The sun’s rays shimmer along the sharp flanges. He shouts back toward Richard. “I will kill him!” His carved visor turns back my way, then he flinches and adds, “Your Highness!”

“Do it!” Richard screams.

The knights who advanced on the plagued women do their best to help the executioner. They attack at random, crumpling skulls and severing spines. Tristan, Morgan and Sir Jason charge past me, toward the knights, with a half dozen of Henry’s footmen at their heels.

I throw my shield aside and try to join them, ducking past Sir Gerald. But Gerald of Thunresleam is fast. He hammers me in the back with the mace. My bones tremble. I tumble to the earth with a groan. Roll to one shoulder. The mace rises high in the air. The ape mask roars at me. I swing my leg, catch Gerald behind the knee and send him sprawling to the earth.

We rise at the same time, both swinging. His mace crashes against my spaulder and my blade clicks off his helm. It is a bone pain I feel. A deep, burrowing agony that numbs my entire left side. Gerald’s bascinet has a new gouge, but he seems otherwise unaffected by my strike. I stumble and look at my weapon.

The sword of Saint Giles has saved me more times than I can remember, but an arming sword is a poor choice against well-made plate armor. I consider dropping it and finding a better weapon, but Saint Giles is my saint. He has never abandoned me. So I grip the hilt tightly and send an overhand cut at Gerald’s head. He lunges out of the way. My blade clatters off his arm.

I glance behind him while he regains his balance. There are only two women ahead of Elizabeth in the queue. Behind them, a fierce battle rages for the mass of plagued women still bound together. My allies do not realize that Elizabeth is not among the larger group.