The Scourge (Kindle Serial) (26 page)

I’m a fool for having stayed this long.

“Ride!” I shout, feeling the rumble of horses in the distance. “Ride!” I kick my heels into the golden mare but it is too late. Ten mounted knights charge south on the Roman road toward us. They are on great warhorses, thundering along the muddy road. They are still a half-mile away but I know we will never outrun them with Zhuri’s horse.

The knight with the horn pursues us, drawing a long-handled war hammer from his saddlebag. I peel off and circle back to him, drawing my sword and waving the others onward. But Tristan and Morgan join me.

“Meet you in Chelmsford!” Zhuri shouts as he gallops westward.

The knight with the war hammer checks his approach when he sees that we have stopped. He waits for the other knights — only a few hundred yards back now.

“Is the hand bombard ready?” I ask.

Tristan nods. He lights a new firing cord and hands it to Morgan. “We didn’t have time to load Morgan’s cannon. And Zhuri has the Spanish gun.” He gestures toward the charging knights. “Shall I shower them with God’s Love?”

“I just want to scare them.” I say. “They are human and humans shouldn’t kill other humans these days. Not when there is a chance to rationally discuss their differences.”

It is a ridiculous statement. The knights gallop toward us at a full charge. Some of them have lances or spears leveled. Others have swords or axes in hand. Their war cries tear through the English afternoon as they approach.

“Is that a joke, Sir Edward?” Tristan asks.

The knights are close enough that I can feel the tremor of their horses’ hoofbeats, can see the tabard that each of them wears. I see the tabard of the leading knight and curse.

Tristan sees it too. “Dear God,” he says.

The knights are like a thundering rockslide. A glistening sea of steel. Every ounce of sense in my body says I should run. “Fire, Tristan, fire!”

Tristan raises the hand bombard. Morgan rides close with the firing cord. “I thought humans shouldn’t kill other humans,” Tristan says.

“Not when there is a chance for rational discussion,” I reply. I know now that there is no chance of that.

Because Sir Gerald has come for vengeance.

Firearms in the Middle Ages were unreliable at best. The hand-cannons that our heroes carry in this episode are all very real. You can see pictures of many of these hand-cannons, hand-bombards and culverins on the web or view them in person at institutions like the National Firearms Museum. Although the firing power of these weapons has been debated, they must have seemed like the God’s fury to people in the Middle Ages. There were no jet engines or freight trains or explosives in their society. There really were few things that could generate the noise that cannons could. Can you imagine the shock they would have felt when that sound was accompanied by flames and a thick, gunpowder smoke that settled over everything? It’s no wonder that guns became such an integral part of warfare in the century that followed.

Zhuri, the Moor, made a long appearance in this episode. He is from Spain, and that country has a fascinating history. For me, the period between the eighth and sixteenth centuries is particularly interesting. Yes, this is a long stretch of time. But those years mark the Reconquista — the time in which the Spanish rose up and took back their lands from the Muslim forces that had occupied them. You may wonder why it took eight centuries for them to take back their lands. I could talk about the ideological differences between the various kingdoms, and the alliances forged between Spanish lords, and Spanish lords and Muslim ones. I could speak on the fortified castles built by the Moors throughout Spain and the vast repopulation that the Spanish had to undertake to secure captured lands. But I prefer to think that the Reconquista took so long because the Christians of Spain were, well, Spaniards.

And Spaniards don’t rush anything.

Zhuri, the Moor in this episode, is from Granada, which was the last Muslim city to fall in the Reconquista. In his day, Christians and Muslims would have lived in relative peace. The Spaniards imposed ever more restrictive laws and requirements on the Muslims, but the Muslims were tolerated, even as more and more of their lands were taken.

And, as Zhuri laments, the Christians wouldn’t let the moors have guns.

The riders pound toward us, their horses’ hooves shaking the earth. Many of the knights approach at a hand gallop, swift but controlled. Sir Gerald does not. There is nothing controlled about his approach. His destrier rages ahead of the rest, its head dipping low, clumps of clay showering back from the beating legs. Only two of the other horses can come close to matching his destrier, and even these fall away slowly.

There is little in this world more terrifying than a rank of charging knights. I have seen entire companies of men rout at the sight of it. Gerald brings only ten knights with him, but it is enough. It is enough.

Tristan breathes in short blasts as he tries to calm himself. He lifts the hand bombard and struggles to steady it. Morgan leans past him and stretches the firing cord toward me.

“Take it!” he shouts.

At first I think he is frightened. Perhaps his hands are shaking too much to light the gun. So I take the burning cord from him and hold it over Tristan’s hand bombard. I do my best to still my own trembling arm and keep the flame over the touchhole.

Sir Gerald narrows the gap between us swiftly. The others aren’t far behind. A scatter of rabbits dart madly away from the charging knights.

Morgan reaches into his tunic and draws out the wooden cross. He slips the leather thong off his neck and holds the piece of wood out toward the approaching knights, his arm straight as a spear, his jaw set. He looks like the statue of some holy martyr.

“Fire, Tristan,” Morgan says. “God’s loving hand will guide your blast.”

“Not yet he won’t,” I say. “Wait, Tristan. And aim for the horse.” It is a beautiful black destrier and I lament its fate, but we have no other choice.

When I can see the horse’s white, rolling eyes, I nod to Tristan and dip the cord into the touchhole. There is a heartbeat before the gun fires. A frozen moment of time in which I consider how much is riding on this shot. In which I think briefly about fleeing. Morgan’s eyes are locked on Sir Gerald, his lips move in a silent prayer as he holds the wooden cross in an outstretched hand. Sir Gerald is thirty paces away. His lance head gleams in the morning light. Three of his knights ride a short distance behind him. The rest ride in a mob even farther back.

The cannon’s explosion is not as loud as it was in the manor. Or perhaps I am merely growing accustomed to it, because two of the knights in the mob break rank at the sound, at the belch of smoke and fire.

The smell of sulfur burns at my nostrils. Tristan’s horse rears at the sound of the cannon and bolts toward an expanse of trees on our right. My mare tries to do the same and I think about letting her. Nothing happened to Gerald’s horse. How can ten shots all miss? But Morgan hasn’t moved. The faint morning sun glimmers off the lacquered cross. A gust of wind blows the smoke from the cannon swiftly toward the approaching knights.

“It missed, Morgan. Let’s go!”

The sound of hoofbeats on the mead drowns out my words, but Morgan isn’t listening anyway. And it is too late for us to retreat.

Sir Gerald bursts through the blowing smoke. I shorten the reins of my mare and draw St. Giles’s sword. I long for a pike. Or a lance. Or another five cannons.

Sir Gerald’s horse takes one more stride, then collapses onto its forelegs in full gallop. Its head strikes the grass and skids. The back legs still pound at the turf. Sir Gerald abandons the horse in an explosion of flapping armor as the destrier tumbles forward. The animal slides on its back and pirouettes onto its rump with its legs beating the air, then tumbles once more and collapses ten paces from us.

The three riders behind Gerald can’t avoid the fallen horse. Two of their steeds tumble to the grass in a flash of horseshoes and arched necks and gleaming armor. The third horse leaps over one of the knights and passes to the left of us, its rider hunching low to stay in the saddle.

The pack of knights in the rear reaches the catastrophe of fallen horses. One of the knights is unable to avoid the spill and he joins the tumbling mass. The remaining knights veer around their fallen comrades and ride past, parting around us like Moses’s sea. Morgan doesn’t stir until the last of them is past. Then he quietly loops the cross around his neck and tucks it back under his tunic.

“God’s loving hand guided the blast, Sir Edward.”

“Morgan, go!” I jerk the reins and kick my heels into my mare and she scrambles toward the forest. Tristan’s horse had the right of it after all.

Except that it doesn’t.

The horse stumbles in its wild flight and I hear one of its front legs crack.

A rabbit hole. We used to set bright linen flags around them in Bodiam to warn riders. I should have cautioned the others when I saw the animals darting on the field.

Tristan and his horse crash to the ground near the forest. I goad my mare to Tristan’s side and vault from the saddle. His gelding lies on the grass, flailing and screaming. It tries to stand but its shattered front leg crumples and the horse falls again, its flanks heaving.

Tristan rises slowly to his feet, retrieves the hand bombard, then returns to the horse and strokes its nose. A clod of grass is wedged above the visor of Tristan’s great helm. Morgan rides to my side.

“Horses,” Tristan says. “Don’t like cannons.”

I motion for him to get on my horse, but a half dozen of Sir Gerald’s knights surround us before he can. I draw St. Giles’s sword. If I can buy some time, Tristan and Morgan can escape into the forest. But it is Tristan who buys us time.

He stands and holds up the hand bombard. The knights spin their horses away from us. But when Tristan doesn’t fire, they turn toward us again. The knights spread out and glance at one another but hold their ground.

“Back away!” Tristan shouts. “Back away or my hand dragon will melt your faces!” He stomps forward and jabs the gun at them. I would smile if our situation weren’t so dire. We don’t even have a lit firing cord.

The knights fall back even farther, but they don’t flee. Silence falls on us, except for the thrashing horse’s nickering. Morgan unsheathes Tristan’s sword. One of the knights advances, but Morgan holds up a hand and gestures to the wounded gelding. The knight looks at the horse, then nods.

Morgan strokes the beast’s neck, then slits its throat. We watch the blood flow from the wound, all of us. Until the horse’s struggles cease.

A seventh horseman canters our way. It is Sir Gerald on a new steed.

“I’ll hold them,” I whisper. “You two get into the forest.”

Sir Gerald slows the new horse and lifts the visor on his bascinet, revealing his snarling face. He shouts at the other knights. “What are you doing? Don’t stand gazing! Take them!” He points a finger at us. “It is time to answer for your crimes!”