Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) (44 page)

“She’s in the queue!” I shout. “She’s—”

Gerald roars and takes a running swing at me. I drop to a knee and duck beneath the blow. Batter the steel skirt beneath his breastplate. My blade mars the metal, nothing more. Gerald spins and swings in one motion. I dive to the ground and the flanged mace knocks the unicorn crest from my helm.

“Satan protects you!” Gerald clenches his fists and growls. “You are no better than those demon women behind Richard!”

I do not waste my stuttering breath on a response. The wound in my side seethes. I am losing too much blood. My head swims. I rise to a knee. The Old Testament has burned through me. There is nothing left. No whirlwind. No storm. Not even a hint of indignation. There is only terror for Elizabeth.

One woman now. Only one woman stands in front of my wife. The executioner has not stopped. My friends fight a furious battle with Richard’s knights. I pray that even one of them breaks away and helps Elizabeth. A few of the plaguer women have gotten loose, or been cut free. It is a chaos of bodies, steel and blood.

Gerald checks a swing and surprises me with a kick to the face when I duck. The world turns red. My nose is burning copper. I fall to one side, unsure of which way is grass and which sky. Gerald’s shadow falls upon me. I try to scramble to my feet but the mace finds my side. Armor crumples. Ribs splinter like glass.

Elizabeth
.

I crawl toward the cedar stump.

Elizabeth
.

“When I am done with you, I will rape your wife with a poleaxe.” Gerald kicks at my wounded ribs and I cry out, my voice hoarse with pain. He laughs.

I claw at the earth. Reach with a quivering hand toward my wife.

Elizabeth
.

She is next. No one stands before her. Only the executioner. I sniff at the air, searching for the scent of lemons and strawberries. She is so close. So close.

“Tris…Tristan.” I try to shout, but only a gasp comes out. I point a trembling, finger toward the cedar. “Morgan. She’s there…she’s there…”

I put both fists on the grass and push myself up, onto one knee. Sir Gerald raises the mace in both hands and takes a stride toward me. He is faster, better armed, and younger.

I watch him approach. And at the last instant, I tuck my shoulder and roll toward him. He grunts and tries to stop himself, but his momentum carries him toward me. He hops to avoid tripping, and I thrust the blade of Saint Giles upward, under his fauld. I drive the blade of madness with all of my remaining strength. The tip is not sharp enough to cut cleanly. It splits flesh, crushes cartilage and bone, destroys all manhood, and widens his filthy canal.

Sir Gerald is faster, better armed, and younger, but I have fought in more battles than he has even heard of.

Sometimes the old things are the best.

He tumbles to the ground, shrieking like a plaguer, his armor clanking along the grass. He rolls, gasps out a choked scream, his hands clutch at his groin. Blood fountains from beneath his mail.

I stagger to my feet. My breath comes in ragged sweeps. The wound at my side does not hurt anymore, and that is not a good sign. Six of Richard’s elite knights stand beside him. I glance toward the plagued women. The small group of my allies has been reduced to Tristan, Morgan, Sir Jason and a man-at-arms wielding a battle axe. They fight a furious, clanking battle against four more of Richard’s men. I lurch toward the cedar. The executioner grabs Elizabeth by the hair and drags her off her feet.

“Don’t you touch her!” I roar. “
Don’t you touch her
!”

I rush toward the executioner but Richard’s six knights step forward to block my path. They are a wall of steel and axe blades. My Elizabeth is in the executioner’s hands, and a half-dozen soldiers keep me at bay.

“Sing for me, Edward,” Richard cackles and twirls in a circle, just behind the knights and only a few paces from the executioner. “If you sing me an apology, I may spare your life.”

The executioner, fingers wound in Elizabeth’s hair, drags her toward the stump. I duck low to follow his progress behind Richard’s men, then hurl myself at the wall of knights. They shove me backward and I topple onto my back. A few of them laugh. The wound at my side burns and more blood washes over my leg. I do not have much time, but Elizabeth has even less. I roll to my side, stagger to my feet.

“Go on,” Richard says. “I want you to beg. Sing a song of your wretchedness.”

The executioner pushes Elizabeth onto the stump.

I call to God.

I call upon Saint Giles and Mother Mary.

I call upon the clan of the wolf, upon the old magic, and the gods of the stone circles. Upon the stars, and reason, and science, and the Carpenter on his cross. I call upon every one of them and cast my gaze to the skies.

The cross atop St. Mary’s glitters gold in the fading light. Swallows fly in circles around the church. Eight more crosses glow orange upon the battlements.

“No song?” Richard shrugs. “Then die, Edward Dallingridge. Speak your last words, troubadour.”

I point. My arm shakes like an old man’s. The Lord gives me strength for one good scream, and I find the perfect words.

“
Kill the hairless carrot farmers
!”

A steel rain falls upon the knights. Some scream, but most simply crumple silently. Every one of them is struck, save King Richard, who looks at his fallen soldiers as if God struck them down.

And perhaps He has.

“No!” Richard shrieks. “Those were terrible words!
Terrible words
!” He spins in a complete circle and raises both fists into the air. “
No
!”

I nod to the Genoese on the battlements. Frederico salutes me and shouts down, his voice distant and tiny above the battle, “
So sayeth de Lorda
!”

Beyond the king, the executioner stares at the crossbowmen on the battlements, one of his sweating hands holds Elizabeth down, the other grips his axe. There is uncertainty in his eyes, and that is good. Elizabeth’s life depends upon uncertainty.

Richard backs away from me, glancing to either side, his face twisted and flushed. None of his knights are standing. He rips the crown from his head with a roar. His hands curl around the metal so tightly that the edges gash his skin. Blood washes over the circlet of gold.

“A crowned heartache!” His howls turns to sobs. “A dead prince’s shadow!”

I barely hear the king. My life is Elizabeth, and her life hangs by a thread.

Tristan limps to my side, his left arm tucked against his chest gingerly. He glances at Sir Gerald. The knight has thrown his helmet off, but still writhes on the grass, blood soaking his crotch. “They should remove one of the cocks from the arms of Thunresleam,” Tristan says.

I barely hear him, too.

Richard thrusts the crown out to me. “Take it! Seize the crown, cousin! They wanted an Edward. Give them one!”

The crown glitters at the corner of my vision, but I want no part of that shackle. I shove Richard aside and lumber toward the cedar stump, still trying to soothe the executioner.

My closest friend in the world speaks to Richard. “They haven’t had a Tristan yet.”

I stumble forward toward the king and the cedar stump, holding my hands up, palms outward, toward the executioner. He tenses as I approach. Raises the axe.

“Wait!” I hold up a hand to stop him, my voice echoing against the walls of St. Mary’s. “
Don’t
!”

I leap.

The blade drops with brutal efficiency.

Chapter 54

I have an instant to savor the feel of Elizabeth’s body against mine, before the bearded axe splits the back of my breastplate.

The pain shatters my mind.

I am back in Bodiam, showing Elizabeth the foundations of our castle.

No one can harm us when this is built
.

Pain makes the vision billow, like reflections in a rippled pond. I will die. The executioner ’s blow will kill me. But I will break death’s bony fingers and hold him off long enough to give my angel her cure. And, if she returns to life, I will laugh and drink a toast with death.

Agony enters my bones. It is as if I have tumbled from the abbey tower. I cannot feel my body. Only the reverberations of pain.

I roll to one side. The executioner’s axe lies on the ground two paces from me. I follow the haft to his hand. The man lies on his side, his eyes open wide, gazing past me. Blood washes from a ragged hole in his cheek. An eighteen-inch crossbow bolt, thick as a wagon spoke, lies buried almost to the vanes in the earth beside him.

I look toward the battlements. Magnus grins and holds up the monstrous siege crossbow. A terrible weapon. My spine throbs with pain.

Elizabeth is on her feet, hissing, but Morgan holds her tightly, whispers soothing words. I look toward the battlefield. Richard’s men are routing. Henry’s army roars toward us, the first rank less than a dozen paces away.

Sir Gerald screams. He forms no words, only echoing shrieks. Two freed plaguer women have found him. They kneel beside his head. One yanks his hair back. The other bites a chunk from his cheek. His screams are louder than I have ever heard. He is a few moments from Hell, and the dead and dying men of Richard’s army will follow him there.

The king sits an arm’s length from me, rocking, arms around knees. No. Not the king anymore. The gold circlet is gone. Tristan kneels beside me, his helmet off and the crown of England on his head.

King Tristan I, of England.

“You’re going to need a new breastplate,” King Tristan tells me.

But I barely hear him.

It takes an effort to struggle onto my knees. Perhaps I will live, after all. My shattered breastplate falls away, thumps to the grass. Elizabeth snarls and paws at me with long, slender fingers.

Elizabeth
.

I work the straps of my great helm, pull it off my head and toss it to the ground. Morgan lays Elizabeth on the grass with a gentle firmness.

My Elizabeth
.

My fingers fumble for the cure, draw the ampoule out from under my mail. I yank, hard enough to snap the leather cord. The ground seems unsteady under my feet. I hold the ampoule in trembling fingers and break the ceramic seal.

Dear God. How I have dreamed of this moment.

How I have dreaded this moment.

I cannot think about what I must do, I must simply do it.

But I cannot.

My arm trembles so much that I fear I will spill the cure. I hold it in both hands. Recall the scuttling horror in the cellar of the alchemist’s tower. I think of Good Queen Anne, strapped to a cross. Withering, teeth sagging and falling from her gums.

I draw my dagger. If the cure goes badly, I will send my angel to Heaven, and follow Gerald to Hell. I have delivered the cure to an alchemist, and protected the lambs from the lions. But only Elizabeth’s life can cleanse my soul.

Mother Mary
.

I can only say her name. There are no prayers strong enough.

Mother Mary
.

Elizabeth howls and I tip the ampoule into her mouth before I can deliberate any further. Morgan pushes her chin upward and holds her jaws closed.

Oh dear God. What have I done?

Tears come to my eyes. Breaths become sobs.

My Elizabeth. My angel. My wife.

Tristan places a hand on my shoulder.

What have I done?

A voice rises in song beside me.

“
Nowel, nowel, nowel
 . . .”

The mad king Richard.

The crowned heartache.

Elizabeth struggles against Morgan, thrashes her head from side to side, but he will not relent. I gaze into her midnight eyes.

“
Out of your sleep arise and wake
 . . .
”

Her throat pulses. She has swallowed the cure. It is too late. Too late.

I stroke her face. She snaps at me, hisses. I take her hand, feel the long, pale fingers against mine. She draws in a screeching breath. Her back arches and she falls to her knees, lurches onto her back and flails.

“. . . God has made for mankind’s sake . . .

Her thrashing slows.

I stare into her eyes. Are they lighter?

“Eliza . . .” My voice breaks. I stifle a sob and start again. “Elizabeth, I . . . I met Geoffrey Chaucer. And . . . I saw a real dragon.”

Her breathing grows softer, more rhythmic. Her eyes close. The snarl fades.

“. . . a
ll of a maid who makes me knell . . .
”

“I’m here, my lady. I’m here, my bride.” I run my hand over her head softly.

And the first clump of hair falls out.

Chapter 55