Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) (40 page)

I release him, rub at the blood on my hand. “A lunatic knight. The men who hit you and killed Sister Mildred serve him. He was likely in here, himself.”

Philip shakes his head. “Those men did not serve this . . . this Sir Gerald.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because, as I said, they serve the king.” He rubs his hands on his robes. “They serve King Richard.”

A veil tears away, and the wind that has torn it howls into me. I understand what has occurred. King Richard must have sent men ahead, on fast horses. A sensible thing to do. He knew that I did not have an army, and so surmised there was another way into the abbey. Perhaps he knew about the tunnel all along. He’s the bloody King of England. How many times has he been to St. Edmund’s Bury? Prior John may well have told him about the hidden passageway.

The men arrived at the town gate, announced themselves in the name of King Richard. Gerald would have had no choice but to let them in, and the men would have ridden directly for the tunnel.

But Sister Mildred thwarted them. Elizabeth slipped through their grasp. Richard’s men might be searching for her outside the gates right now. But I do not think so. It is more likely that they are riding back to Richard’s army, with news that Elizabeth is among the plaguers now.

And when they left, Gerald set a trap for us. His men are not in the monastery because Elizabeth is not here.

I look at Brother Philip. “Why are the afflicted in the monastery?”

One of his eyebrows twitches. “They are attracted to the cows and pigs, I think.”

The urge to slap him again is almost irresistible. “
How
did they get in?”

He shrugs, and his eyebrows twitch convulsively. “I . . . I let them in.”

I stare at him.

“When the men went to St. Mary’s, I opened the pig hatch. So the men would leave.”

The pig hatch. A tiny door on the south side of the monastery, used to load pigs onto wagons. Plaguers would have to squeeze to get in, but the opening is wide enough. I cannot decide if Brother Philip’s actions are the embodiment of stupidity or brilliance. He called on God’s army to protect him.

“How many got in?”

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“How many got in before you shut the gate?

His head shakes slightly, almost not a shake at all.

“I never had the chance to shut it,” he replies. “The gate is still open.”

Chapter 49

The first blush of sunlight paints the eastern sky as we leave the abbey church. There are more plaguers in the church yard. Too many to count. Magnus and I each hold one of Riggio’s arms. The others follow behind, swords drawn, heads turning from side to side as they track the approaching plaguers.

We help Riggio past St. James’s Church with its stone cockleshell sculptures, across the great court, to the Abbey Gate. This is a massive gatehouse—as big as some keeps—rising three stories. Statutes of bishops and abbots and great lords stand in niches on every side of the stone tower. I pull open the thick oaken door at the side. We climb a set of cramped spiral stairs into the barracks chamber above the arching gate.

There is nothing left in the chamber but a table, three chairs, and broken bits of wooden furniture. A dove flutters madly through an arrow slit and out of the tower. I help Magnus set Riggio down, then run back to the spiral staircase and continue climbing. Tristan and Morgan follow. We do not stop until we have reached the battlemented roof of the structure. I place my hand on one of the merlons and stare out across St. Edmund’s Bury. My eyes shut and do not open for far too long. I open them, shake my head to shed fatigue.

Richard’s army glows in the distance, marching toward the town. Gerald’s army is nowhere to be seen. God’s army stands at the monastery walls, growling and hissing, scraping at the stones with bloody hands. Elizabeth must be among them.

I lean through a crenel and stare down into the town square. It is called Angel Hill, that square, but I see no angels. I see no long golden hair. No blue dress with a bow on the back. Dawn battles night in the east, but darkness still sucks all color from Angel Hill. Shadows make it difficult to tell man from woman.

I walk to the opposite side of the gatehouse and stare down into the abbey’s great court. Not many plaguers have reached the northern section of the monastery. Only three that I can see. A dozen cows and countless sheep linger in a walled enclosure at the rear of the churchyard. One of the sheep bawls into the night.

“I could live here,” Tristan says. “Lovely gardens. Fascinating history. Plenty of alehouses.” He glances down at the horde along the abbey walls. “Shame about the neighbors.” I look at him, and something in my eyes makes him place a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll find her,” he says quietly.

An opening in the crenelations leads to a narrow wall-walk that spans most of the compound. We step through the gap and hustle along the battlements until we reach the Norman Gatehouse. I glance down at the yawning arch beneath us, barred by double portcullises. There is as much darkness here as anywhere. I cannot see her.

“Not so many plaguers inside the monastery as I would have thought,” Morgan says. “If that pig door is still open, why haven’t they overrun the abbey?”

I walk to the opposite side of the Norman Gate and stare down into the church yard. Beyond the charnel house is the great cemetery. The wooden crosses glow in the moonlight. They look like hilts in the night, like swords plunged into sacred soil, like a war between the living and the dead.

Only twenty five or thirty plaguers linger in the churchyard.

 “Let’s have a look at the pig hatch,” I say.

We walk the battlements to the corner of the monastery, where St. Mary’s church stands. This was where Elizabeth joined the afflicted throng. I stare down into that throng with such intensity that my eyes water.

Where are you, Elizabeth
?

I close my eyes, feel her long, cool fingers against my cheek. Smell lemon and strawberry. See her crooked smile. When she is happy, truly happy, she looks sad. As if the surge of emotion is too much for her. As if she cannot believe that such joy is possible. I see her sad bliss, feel her lips against mine. And I open my eyes.

Moonlight glitters on golden strands of hair. For the briefest of moments, there is a bow, and then it is gone.

“Elizabeth!” I shout down. “Elizabeth!”

Morgan and Tristan pull me back from the crenelations.

“We’ll find her, Edward,” Morgan says.

“She’s going to be coy and difficult tonight,” Tristan says. “Let’s find her some flowers before we start shouting across the entire town, eh?”

They are right, of course. If Gerald hears my shouts, he will know we are alive. I step back to the crenelations and gaze down once more. Did I imagine the bow? Even if I did not, there must be hundreds of bows in that crowd. Her scent lingers in my mind.

“Pig hatch?” Tristan says.

I nod.

We enter the church tower through a tiny wooden door, and emerge from another, which leads to the abbey’s southern wall. Tristan stops after twenty paces and laughs.

I follow his gaze down toward the pig hatch and understand why there are not many plaguers in the abbey. Morgan sighs.

An afflicted woman, fat and draped in luxuriant fabrics, has wedged herself in the gate. She is on hands and knees, half in and half out, motionless like an animal resigned to a trap.

“She’s a savior,” Tristan says. “If the alchemist girl succeeds, I think we should cure that woman first.”

The abbey is safe. Gerald likely thinks it has been overrun, but a portly noblewoman has secured our fortification. I stare back toward the town, across the rippling waves of plaguers.

The abbey is safe, but we are trapped inside.

Elizabeth waited for me in this abbey for months. I travelled a hundred and fifty miles, through demon armies, angry knights and mad kings. I faced every imaginable obstacle to reach this town, with a cure in hand. And now it is I who am trapped in the monastery.

And Elizabeth is outside.

All but one of the Genoese are asleep, on the floor, when we return to the Abbey Gate. Domenic I son watch. He stares at the door from a wooden stool.

Morgan sits against a wall and tries to say a prayer for us, but his words grow further and further apart until they become snores. Tristan turns the old table upside down and lies inside, taps one of the upward-facing legs. “A four-poster.”

He grins, and is asleep before I can take three breaths.

I gesture to Domenico and raise a forefinger. “If I fall asleep, wake me in one hour. Understand?
Uno ora
.”

The Italian nods. I sit against a wall and think of Elizabeth. She is outside, alone among thousands of the afflicted, and I do not have much time to find her. Richard’s army will arrive tonight and, in the morning, he will set his men to the slaughter. I must . . . wake early. And . . .

I yawn.

I must wake early and find . . . wake early . . .

I open my eyes. A shaft of sunlight streams through an arrow slit, painting my face. Domenico is slouched on the stool, asleep.

Morning!

I jump to my feet. My bones pop and grind. Muscles burn with yesterday’s exertions. Elizabeth is outside. I rush to the battlements. Clouds smother the sky, but the day is bright enough to make me blink. Elizabeth. I will find her now. The blue dress and the bow, the radiant blonde hair. She will be outside the walls.

I lean over the parapets and look for an angel on Angel Hill.

And see no one.

I stare from one side to the other. The streets are empty.

There are no plaguers outside the monastery.

Chapter 50

No
!

I lean forward so far that I almost fall from the tower. Angel Hill is empty. How can it be possible? Richard! Oh dear God, he slaughtered them all in the night! He slaughtered them and I heard nothing!

 I fall to my knees, raise clasped hands to the sky, but can think of no prayer to offer. How can army slaughter thousands of plaguers without—

Faint snarls and howls rise in the distance.

I scramble to my feet and look eastward. The abbey walls block my view, but I can hear them! The plaguers have moved toward the east gate. I run along the narrow battlement and look down toward the town gate. And I breathe a sigh.

Tristan and Morgan emerge from the Abbey Gate and stare down onto Angel Hill. Both of them flinch at the empty street, then run along the battlements to my side.

“Remember when we did that in Falaise?” Tristan laughs and addresses Morgan. “Roger Miller—one of our footmen—fell asleep one day at his post. So Sir Robert moved the entire army to a forest a quarter-mile away. Do you remember the crazed expression he had when he finally found us, Edward?” Tristan chuckles. “Even the French were laughing, up on the walls.”

Morgan nods, but does not smile. “Why did the plaguers move?”

I let out a long sigh. “What could lure five thousand plaguers away from an abbey full of livestock?”

They look down toward the East Gate.

“An army of four thousand men,” I reply. “Richard is outside the town gates.”

We stare down on Mustow Street. Plaguers are packed onto the road, between the abbey walls on one side and the rows of tightly packed cottages and shops on the other. The front of the column is pressed against the town’s East Gate, snarling and reaching through the bars of the portcullis. The rest of the plaguers stream back for hundreds of paces, shoving and hissing into the air.

Richard’s army stands outside the gates. I stare down at the banners and spot one with three roosters upon it.

“Gerald’s with Richard, now,” I say.

“I wonder if he makes Richard call him King Gerald,” Tristan says.

“I wonder how long they’ll stay outside.” I try to keep my voice from trembling. “Once that gate opens, it will be a massacre.”

“I didn’t think he would really do it,” Morgan says. “Richard has brought an army here to kill your wife. He’s mad. Completely insane. Can’t those soldiers with him see that?”