Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2) (24 page)

Tristan stares at wagon wheel. “This isn’t the North, we’re not dead, and this bell won’t frighten off evil spirits, it will attract them, silly woman.”

“Why must you always be so unpleasant in your blathering?” Belisencia says. “Why must you always disagree with what I say? You can be a vile, arrogant, cruel, and disagreeable man.”

“You go too far, woman,” Tristan replies. “I don’t blather.” He leans low in the saddle and squints at the wheel. “Maybe we can take one of the strips off and replace it near Norwich.”

“There is no way of replacing the metal strip if we take it off,” I say.

Tristan shrugs. “I’m going to scout ahead.” He sends a dark gaze toward Belisencia and whips his reins. “Maybe I’ll spot the evil spirits as they flee from us.” His horse gallops from us swiftly. We watch him for a time without speaking.

“How about that?” Belisencia finally says, her arms crossed. “The bell works.”

When we are a few miles outside of Sudbury, we veer off to the northeast. I learned, early in my travels through this plague-swept England, to avoid cities and large towns. The afflicted haunt these places, either because it is easier to find food here than in the fields and forest, or because of some dim, half-remembered attachment to their homes. I do not know why they stay. All I know is that in this plague-swept kingdom, cities and towns are death.

We spot plaguers wandering through dying furloughs of beets and barley. Only a scattered few swivel their heads in our direction and lumber after us as fast as they can, but the cart is too swift for most of them.

A plagued man wearing rusted mail walks into our path a dozen paces away. The skin of his face is cracked and marked by scores of blood-ringed yellow boils. He hisses at us, his teeth black and shattered into sharp edges. Tristan hunches low in his saddle and canters at the man, sword flashing to one side of the horse. Blood spits from the man’s throat as Tristan rides past. The plaguer’s black eyes stare at me as he falls to his knees. I think he tries to hiss again, but all he manages to do is spray another gout of blood from his wounded neck. He thumps forward like a bag of barley dropped on the road. The wagon wheels chime as I veer the cart around him.

The skies darken as we ride. We have little sunlight left, but I do not plan to stop until we are well on our way to Norwich. We find the Roman road a few miles farther and follow it eastward. Boxford and the Holy Lands lie somewhere to the south. I lash the horses with the reins and stare into the distance as if I might see Hugh the Baptist lurching toward me with his cracked lips and bishop’s hat. We pass south of Edwardstone, and I listen for the sound of bowstrings, but all I hear is the rattle of the wheels and the ceaseless chime of the simpleton’s cart.

Tristan rides at our side and stares southward. “Do you remember Gilbert?” he asks. “All that talk about
reason
.”

“I remember,” I say.

“And yet, he’s nothing but charred bones now.” Tristan shakes his head. “This plague doesn’t care what you believe in. It eats priests and philosophers alike.”

“It is not death that matters,” Belisencia says. “It’s what happens after death that is important.”

“Yes, it’s better to rot in a coffin than on a wet field,” he replies. “Tidier.”

“Someday you will die, Tristan. And you will come face-to-face with God. You will bear witness to the Divine Being that you have denied for so long. And what will you say then?”

Tristan shrugs. “I will thank him for not making breasts a sin.”

She shakes her head. “You will regret your constant blasphemy. Sometimes you are worse than the barbaric pagans.”

“Barbaric?” Tristan asks. “And why are they any more barbaric than Christians?”

Belisencia scoffs and looks away. “There’s no sense talking to you about it.”

Tristan laughs. “Go on, tell me. I would like to know what’s more barbaric than drinking the blood of our savior every week. Or eating his flesh.” He laughs again and sweeps his hand to encompass the countryside. “Maybe all of these plaguers are just good Christians that got carried away. They’re drinking
everyone’s
blood. Maybe they are more devout than any of us.”

“Stop it, Tristan,” I say.

“Jesus should have been more precise in his instructions. I’m certain he knows how easily confused we mortals are.”

I turn to Tristan and scowl, but he pretends not to see me. He is having too much fun to acknowledge me.

“What was it Jesus said? ‘Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life.’” He waggles his finger and frowns as if lecturing us. “But please, good people, this only works with
My
flesh and blood. Not each other’s. Are we clear on that? Do not force me to make another commandment. I am trusting that all of you will remember the distinction. I will be most annoyed if I return from heaven and find all of you shambling around eating one anoth—”

“
Stop it
!” Belisencia’s scream is like a thunderclap. “Stop your blasphemy! You may have no respect for God and Jesus and Christianity, but I do. Did no one ever teach you to be silent when speech might offend?”

“Yes,” Tristan replies. “The same priest who taught me that I should pluck out my eye if I look with lust upon a woman. And I didn’t take that very seriously either.”

The day dies slowly as we follow the Roman road for four milestones. We turn at the fourth stone and leave the road, traveling northward upon the flat heaths of northern Suffolk. It was my first time on that particular Roman road, but I have been told it ends after five or six miles at a place called Coddenham. It is a large town, no doubt drowning in plague, and I want no part of it. Cities and towns are death.

A soft rain falls once more. After another mile or so, we turn eastward again until we find yet another Roman road that leads north, to Norwich. I have been on this one.

My wrist is red and painful I feel the stirrings of another fever, and it makes me irritable.

“Are we still rolling straight into the city with our musical wagon?” Tristan asks.

“We won’t go to the very gates,” I say. “Two hundred paces away is fine. We can drop a few walnuts before we start.”

“Such a shame,” Belisencia says. “I would love to see the beauty of Norwich once more. Have you ever been there, Edward?”

“Once,” I say. “But I couldn’t appreciate the beauty.”

“Why not?” Belisencia asks.

“Because I was there with John of Gaunt.” The name twists venomously in my mouth. John of Gaunt is uncle to my king, Richard II. I spent three nights in a dungeon because of John and have challenged him to a duel three times.

“You do not like John of Gaunt?” Belisencia asks.

“He is the worst of men,” I reply. “Scheming and avaricious. A man who cares only for himself. A man who bullies the weak and cowers before the strong.”

“Edward and John are old friends,” Tristan says.

The metals chime as I spit. “The worst thing about him is that he is always at King Richard’s ear, weakening the boy.”

“Is it he that weakens the boy,” Belisencia replies, “or is Richard simply a weak boy?”

I open my mouth to speak, then close it and look at her for a long moment before responding. “Richard is my king. And yours too, my lady.”

“If he is my king,” she replies. “Then where is he?”

“Not knowing where he is doesn’t strip him of his crown.”

“But I have heard you ask it yourself,” she says. “Where is Richard? Where are England’s armies? I would like to know this also. Where is Richard? Where were England’s armies when the nuns of my convent were being eaten alive?”

“He is our king,” I say. “I’m sure that whatever delays him is no fault of his.”

“Of course not. According to you, it’s never Richard’s fault. All of this must be John of Gaunt’s fault.”

I yank the reins hard and stop the wagon, turn to face her. “Listen to me, woman. Perhaps you have listened to too many stories. There are schemers everywhere in the kingdom. Men who would pull a kingdom from the hands of a boy simply because he is a boy. Richard is inexperienced, but he is brave. He rode out among ten thousand angry peasants when he was fourteen years old and had them cheering for him by the time he was done. It is not lack of courage that keeps him away. It is death, injury, or the pig-licking John of Gaunt that keeps him from acting. Richard is still king, and you would do well to remember that. Do not meddle in affairs that have nothing to do with you, silly girl.”

Belisencia’s face is flushed red, her lips drawn tight. One of her brows twitches, but she says nothing. She looks away from me and stares at the horses. I feel Tristan’s hand on my shoulder.

“Let’s talk about something less offensive, eh?” he says. “Do you remember the man buggering that mare on the roadside? That was something, wasn’t it?”

I take a long, deep breath and flick the reins. The animals hesitate, so I shout to get them going. They are not wagon horses, and so are not used to the trace and collar. I shout again and they dig into the Suffolk clay and drag us forward once more. Belisencia’s gaze never wavers from the two geldings.

We travel for another half mile before darkness consumes the world. I take the wagon far off the road, to the edge of a sparse forest, and unharness the horses. We rub them down and tie them to a grizzled oak. Tristan and I stack rocks and logs on either side of the horses and the cart; with luck, the obstacles will slow plaguers if we are found.

Belisencia sleeps in the bed of the wagon. The space is not long enough for her, so she has to sleep with her knees curled. Tristan volunteers for the first watch, and I am grateful. I strip off my armor and crawl beneath the cart. The last thing I see before sleep claims me is the bottom of the wagon bed, wooden planks that make me feel like I am inside a coffin.

Chapter 35

The night is blessedly uneventful. We hitch the horses to the wagon again and set off at first light. The day has dawned bright and clear, but this is England and I know the clouds will gather soon. I apply more of the salve that the nun gave me at Hedingham. My wrist looks even worse today. The pain has returned to my head. I remember the words that Paul the Doctor spoke to Tristan:
The stars are against your friend. He will probably die in horrible pain.

Doctors.

Belisencia does not speak to me, nor even look in my direction as we ride. It is probably for the best. I do not want another discussion about the king. Richard lives under the shadow of his father, the Black Prince—may God bless his soul—and his grandfather, Edward III. Both were great men. And though Richard has stumbled at times, I always remind myself that he was only ten years old when the crown was placed on his head. King Richard has his father’s blood in him, and with the right guidance I know he can be a mighty king like his grandfather. But he does not have the right guidance. He has John of Gaunt.

Thick, black smoke columns rise in the distance, to the east and north. More of England returning to dust. We pass an abandoned field of barley, the ridges and furrows arching gently in S-curves. I remember my ploughman at Bodiam making those same curves when working the manorial fields. He would drive the oxen onto the fields at an angle, let them drift back to true by midfield, then slowly angle them again for the next furrow. His passes would trace gentle, perfect curves upon the land. I miss Elizabeth, and I miss Bodiam. We had the perfect life and I was completely unaware of it.

Our cart chimes past deserted villages. Millhouses still run but grind nothing. The fields are riddled with skeletons that have been picked clean. There are so many bones that I stop noting the differences between animal and human: they become another part of the landscape. Like hedges and flints.

Our pace is good and sometime in the afternoon we pass out of Suffolk and into the windswept chalklands of Norfolk. We ride ever northward, the winds snapping Belisencia’s robe and fluttering the tops of the walnut sacks. A relentless wind that brings earaches and tears.

We make Caistor St. Edmund a few hours before sunset. Caistor is an old Roman village, and I have heard stories that it was a stronghold of the British tribes who were here even before the Romans. I passed through it when I came to Norwich with John of Gaunt. It is large enough that I fear the plaguers that might wander its streets, so I turn the wagon off the road before we enter the village.

I gaze toward Caistor as we pass it, squinting, searching for any life. I spot something near a thatched cottage on the outskirts of the village. A shape moving toward us. The figure stops and watches us pass.

“Is that a plaguer?” Tristan asks.

I shrug.

Another shape limps toward the first. Both are dressed in white and blend in with the pale daub of the cottage. We watch them and they watch us, until the cottage fades from view.

After another mile, we reach a river, the Yare I believe, and I stop the wagon at its bank.

“Norwich isn’t far,” I say. “We should settle our plan.”

“A plan?” says Tristan. “We have a plan?”

“We’re going to come at the city from the east. I’m going to bring the wagon as close to the gate as I can. But there will be plaguers. Tristan, you keep them off the cart. When there are too many of them to fight, I’ll turn the cart around and we can ride toward the fortress. Belisencia, for every ten chimes you hear, take a walnut out of the bag.”

“A fine plan,” Tristan says. “Nothing could possibly go awry.”

“Do you have a better plan?”

“Yes. We start our journey to the island a mile away from the city. How many walnuts can there be in a mile? Twenty? Thirty? We throw twenty or thirty walnuts out and avoid the city completely.”

“And what if it’s fifty?” I say. “What if it’s eighty? We could miss the island completely.”

“What’s the difference?” Tristan replies. “We’ll hit the coast and be within fifty or eighty walnuts of the island.”

“No we won’t,” I say. “If we turn our cart at the wrong point and go two miles, we could end up a long way from the island. And we don’t even bloody know if we have to turn north or south. How many miles would we have to cover then, Tristan? Five miles of coastline? Ten? And Norfolk is full of swamps and rivers. What if we come to something impassable? We could end up on the wrong side of a river and have to travel back for miles before we found a ford.” I shake my head. “This mad ritual with the walnuts was created for a reason. It probably navigates past all the obstacles. We are going to do this as accurately as possible.” My breath is coming too fast. My chin touches the bevor at my neck and the metal feels icy against my fevered skin. “We are going to get as close to the gate as we can. And we are going to do this properly.”