Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) (7 page)

Chapter 8

“How?” I throw my arms around Morgan and embrace my old friend. “How are you healed?”

Morgan groans and pulls away from my embrace. “Still healing,” he says, wincing.

Zhuri grins a wolfish smile and opens his mouth to speak, but Peter herds us out of the galley. The Moor tries to speak to me once more as we walk but Peter speaks first.

“You must be hungry,” he says. “Come with me to the refectory. We don’t have much, but we can take the edge off your hunger.” His voice is taut. He glances back toward the gaping faces of the huddled families in the galley, then shoves us onward as servants come to clean the blood from the foyer. I believe Father Peter is more concerned with Tristan’s cursing than with our hunger.

The briny scent of stew greets us as we enter the sparse refectory. The other monks are already at the table, eating a leek pottage and black bread while scripture is read to them. I am not certain how early it is, but I imagine they have just finished matins, the first service of the day, which is practiced two hours after midnight.

The monk reading scripture falls silent as we take seats at the long, bare table. I smile at Morgan. I cannot stop smiling.

Morgan has been returned to us.

He was afflicted because of me. Because I chose to involve him in this quest. A plagued animal bit him and he spiraled into the darkness. We were forced to leave him in a black cellar, at a convent in Hedingham, and Zhuri was his only light. The Moor stayed behind to watch over him while Tristan and I continued to St. Edmund’s Bury.

We left Morgan in a cellar, like a wild dog, and the thought of him in that dark place weighed upon me like a dragging anvil. Like God’s finger pinning my tabard to the soil.

But he is healed.

Perhaps I am being forgiven for the countless sins I have committed on my journey. I do not feel forgiven, but a ray of God’s light has broken through the clouds.

Tristan claps Morgan on the back and the old knight winces.

“Heaven’s gate, Tristan!” Morgan shouts. “My entire body is an open wound!”

Tristan laughs and fills Morgan’s bowl to the brim with leek stew.

“What is that smell?” Zhuri asks. “Like some sort of flower.”

“It’s lavender.” I smile at Tristan.

“I don’t smell anything.” He scoops out more stew.

“One ladle only, please!” Father Peter says. “We do not have much.”

“This man has come back from the dead,” Tristan replies. “I hardly think Jesus was restricted to one ladleful when He came back, do you?”

Peter hisses and the other monks cast angry glances at Tristan.

“Tristan!” Morgan shouts. “You are in God’s house!”

“Well, God should keep His pantry better stocked.”

One of the monks stands, his chair groaning across the wooden floor, and jabs a finger angrily toward Tristan.

“You have offended Father Jacobus,” says Peter.

Tristan smirks. “Are your monks under vows of silence?”

“They’re not monks,” Morgan replies. “They’re Premonstratensians.”

Peter nods agreement, and Tristan barks a laugh that makes him snort. “You just made that word up. Admit it.”

I know Morgan is not making it up. He is a second son, and so was sent to the priesthood when he came of age. When his older brother died, Morgan gave up the cloth and took up the sword.

“Premonstratensians,” Morgan says, “are canons. Priests living under Saint Augustine’s Rule.”

“And they can’t talk?” Tristan asks.

“Most can,” Peter says. “But mine have taken vows of silence. They will not speak until God has lifted this scourge from the land.”

“It’s not a scourge,” I say. “It’s a plague. Archbishop Hartley is calling it a plague now.”

Peter shrugs. “Plague or scourge. They are the same, are they not?”

Tristan holds up a hand and squints. “So God will notice that your monks aren’t talking and suddenly decide to lift this plague?”

“They’re not monks,” Morgan says.

“Have you ever considered a vow of silence, Morgan?” Tristan replies.

“Their silence is a sacrifice,” says Peter. “A show of devotion. If these devout men do not utter a word for one full year, do you not think God will notice? How can He overlook such sacrifice? I only wish more people were as devoted. Perhaps God would have lifted this curse already.”

Morgan crosses himself. “You speak truly and righteously, Father Peter.”

Tristan looks as if he is going to speak, but Zhuri interrupts them with an impatient wave of his hand. “Listen!”

Everyone quiets. Morgan and the Moor exchange grins. Zhuri extends a closed fist, palm up, and opens it. Inside is a ceramic ampoule with Arabic writing upon it. He laughs, shifts in his seat with excitement. “Do you have any idea what I hold in my hand?”

Tristan studies the object carefully. “Judging from the ceramic used and the shape of the ampoule, I would say it’s some sort of cure for this plague. And based on the style of that writing, I assume it has come from Syria.”

Zhuri’s smile vanishes. “How could . . .”

Tristan holds up his ampoule—an exact copy of the one Zhuri holds.

“Where did you get that?” Morgan asks.

“The more important question,” I say, “is where did you get yours?”

Morgan pours most of his stew back into the kettle and jerks his head toward Zhuri. “He can tell it better. I wasn’t there. Besides, I get too angry when I talk about it.”

I look to Zhuri, who puts the ampoule away and brings a bowl of stew to his lips. He slurps, then wipes at his mouth with a sleeve. “Gregory the Wanderer.”

Of course.

Gregory the Wanderer. It could only have been him. An old man who steals relics from churches and sells them. I was told that he traded with a ship’s captain from Syria for the cure to this plague, then traded a few batches of this cure to the alchemist. I recovered three of the cures from the alchemist’s workshop, after he was murdered by monks.

Gregory is the source of all the Syrian ampoules we have found. But the old man had something else that he claimed could cure the plague. Phials of a liquid that he traded to us when we first met him. But those phials did not contain a cure at all; they contained plaguer blood. And through our good intentions, we infected an entire village. Morgan had fallen in love with a woman in that village, and Gregory’s cure took her away.

Tristan ladles out more stew and pours it into Morgan’s bowl. “You need nourishment,” he says. “I don’t want to argue with you while you are feebleminded with hunger. It’s less fair than usual.”

“Gregory the Wanderer,” Zhuri repeats. “The old bastard drove . . .” He pauses and holds up a warding hand to the scowling canons. “The old
man
drove his wagon directly up to the convent. Wanted to trade with us.”

Father Jacobus smacks Tristan’s hand and the ladle drops into the kettle before yet another serving of stew can be drawn out.

“Zhuri should have blown that old thief’s head . . .” Morgan looks at the priests and clears his throat. “He should have captured the old man and held him at the convent until justice could be delivered.”

“Which is what I had set out to do,” Zhuri adds. “I recognized Gregory’s wagon from your description and loaded my hand cannon. Sister Margaret let him in, and the moment he stepped off his wagon I put the barrel to his forehead.”

The pottage glugs and splashes as Morgan again pours some of it back into the kettle.

“And what did Gregory do?” I ask.

Zhuri shrugs and tears a chunk from a loaf of black bread. “Not much. I will give him his due. He looked at the cannon and asked me if it was a gun. I told him to shut his mouth and prepare to go to his God. Sister Margaret tried to make me put the weapon away, but I had sworn to be Morgan’s protector, and to take on all debts and debtors. And this Gregory person owed Morgan a life.”

“I wish I had been there,” Morgan shakes his head. Tears brim in his eyes, and I know he is thinking of his Matilda. “I wish I had been there.”

 “So you killed him?” I ask.

“The old man looked directly into my eyes . . . well, looked with one eye, the other was staring toward Sister Margaret. And he said, ‘If you give me that cannon, I will give you a cure for this plague.’”

“And you believed him?” Tristan asks.

“Absolutely not,” Zhuri replies. “I remembered about the last cure. The phials full of plaguer blood. And I reminded him of that. I said that his cure was the reason I was going to blow a hole in his ugly, wrinkled . . .” He pauses and gives the priests a tiny bow. “Ah . . . the reason I was going to imprison him in the convent and . . . wait until . . . until justice could be delivered.”

“But this one was a real cure, Edward,” Morgan says. “Zhuri had nothing to lose, as I was plagued already. He made the old man give me the cure and waited until I was healed before handing over his cannon. And he asked for a second ampoule. For Elizabeth.” His eyes drift down toward the table. “I . . . I am truly sorry about your lady, Edward. I have prayed for her every night since I received the news.”

“Your prayers have been answered,” I say. “We have the cure.” I look to Zhuri and give him a solemn nod. “Thank you, Zhuri, for thinking of my Elizabeth.”

Zhuri returns the nod, a twitch of a smile tugging at his lips. He is proud of himself, and he should be.

The priests exchange glances with one another. Father Peter stares from one to the next, making subtle calming motions with his hands. We should not have spoken of the cures so openly. But I am beyond caution. Morgan is back, and Elizabeth will be in my arms soon.

 I sit forward in my chair and address Zhuri. “When you gave him the cure, how did it happen? How long did it take?”

Zhuri chews a mouthful of bread, swallows. “Thirty breaths, Edward,” he replies. “Thirty breaths before Morgan returned. It took four nuns and the porter to hold him down. I poured the elixir down his throat and held his mouth shut while he bucked like a wild horse. But I held on. I watched the black of his eyes drain away to red, then white. His thrashing slowed. His breathing grew more regular. Then . . . then he spoke.”

Tristan takes hold of the ladle again and draws out more pottage. “Did he speak fondly of me?”

Father Jacobus grabs Tristan’s wrist.

Morgan closes his eyes.

“It was just one word,” The Moor’s gaze falls to the table.

I know the word.

It is the hunger that burns in Morgan’s belly, and I am responsible for its absence. I am responsible for the absence of so many words. But Morgan’s word did not need to die. There is a cure, but we did not know of it, so we erased his word from the world.

Tristan tries to pull his arm out of Father Jacobus’s grip. The priest loses his balance and falls forward, upending the kettle. The priests leap to their feet and pull back from the benches as the green stew sweeps across the table and down in thick streams to the wooden planks.

Father Jacobus, his face red and trembling, points a hooked finger at Tristan and shouts, “Damned fool!”

A chorus of hisses erupts from the other priests. They point at Jacobus, who places both hands over his mouth.

“
Damnable
fool,” Zhuri says into the silence.

Morgan does not move. He shakes his head softly and whispers.

“Matilda.”

Chapter 9