Nostrum (The Scourge, Book 2) (29 page)

“How bad is it?” Tristan’s jaw is tight as he glances back at me.

“Perhaps there will be another doctor at the island fortress,” Belisencia says. “We should pray for that.”

“Yes,” I say. “That’s precisely what I want to pray for. Another doctor.”

The nun draws a walnut from the bag every ten chimes. The constant rattle of the wagon makes me restless, so I sit up and watch the flat landscape.

The walnuts run out about five miles from Norwich and I feel a welling of disappointment from deep within my marrow. We are still far from the coast. If we turn to the northeast or southwest, as the painted wagon tracks show, and travel two miles like the boy at Bure said, we will still be far from the coast. I know from my last visit to Norwich that the shore is nearly ten miles from the city.

“I knew this wouldn’t work,” I mutter. “A bag of walnuts? What in God’s teeth was I thinking?”

“Settle down,” Belisencia says. “The boy said that we had two more miles after the walnuts ran out. We have to turn the cart and keep going.”

Fever and failure form a noxious cloud in my mind. I turn on Belisencia. “Until what?” I shout. “Two miles will put us more than three miles from the coast. Or didn’t they teach you nuns to count? We’ll still be in the middle of nothing after two miles! There are no islands in the middle of Norfolk, Belisencia! There are only fields. Endless fields and hedges and flowers and great heaps of bloody nothing! Look around you! What do you see? Fields! Tell me if you see an island. Tell me if you get the scent of the ocean. Tell me if you catch sight of a single bloody gull! We have failed! We are landlocked, don’t you understand that?” It feels good to shout, and I want to continue shouting, but Belisencia is not looking at me anymore. She is staring over my shoulder, eyes wide.

I whip my head around, but there is only a half-ploughed field and endless stretches of flatlands. The woman must be going mad.

And then I see it.

Cutting through the middle of the farmer’s plot is a square sail. It drifts westward across the field and into a meadow that brims with tall stalks of red valerian. I point to the sail, feeling like an idiot for pointing when the others have clearly already seen it. But I cannot stop pointing. A sail is cutting through a meadow. Does this ceaseless Norfolk wind allow sailors to tack through farmland? Could the specter of a dead sailor’s ship haunt these plains?

I follow the square sail with my finger as it turns southward. A midge buzzes into my open mouth. I spit it out and watch with my mouth closed. A second sail comes into view in the farmer’s plot.

I look back to my companions. Belisencia looks at me with no expression at all.

I scowl at her. “Stop being so bloody smug.”

Chapter 43

Tristan gives a shout and flails the horses with the reins. He sends us toward the sails and I do not stop him. I want to know how ships can cross meadows.

I get my answer when we are a fifty paces away: a narrow channel of water has been carved into the land. The channel is steep-sided and invisible from a distance, and the two clinker-built cogs sail westward through it.

Both ships are on fire.

“This is like some bizarre dream,” Belisencia says. “Are we going insane?”

“Allow me a moment to consider this,” Tristan says. “You have been witness to a plaguer that talks, a dragon that eats virgins, and a chain of crying men and women who dance themselves to death. And this is where you begin to question your sanity?”

Belisencia sighs. “They weren’t virgins, Tristan.”

He barks a laugh.

“The ships aren’t burning,” I say.

Something has been attached to the boats. Rails of some sort that extend from the hulls. The rails encircle the cogs completely, and it is these rails that are on fire.

“I wouldn’t be amused by those if I were a plaguer trying to board,” Tristan says.

“Exactly,” I reply. “Those captains are used to sailing through plaguer-infested waters.”

We could overtake the ships if we tried, but I do not want to try. There is no way to tell how many men are on board and what their motivations are. I have a suspicion that the ships are coming from the fortress. I do not know why; I simply have a feeling. Perhaps we are not as far from the coast as I had thought. Hope blossoms. Even the fever seems to have weakened.

We ride back to the place where we first spotted the sails. I find the plank of wood and hold it in front of Tristan with the painted tracks curving left. The horses turn to the northeast and, with a glance back at our tracks, we begin our two-mile journey to the island fortress. In two miles, I pray I will learn that my Elizabeth can be cured.

It is roughly a mile and a half before my hopes dwindle again. The landscape has not changed. There is no island. No smell of the sea. Not even a single bloody gull. We are still miles from the coast. It has been a colossal waste of time. The walnuts. Norwich. Everything. I have squandered two days of Elizabeth’s life. I understand now that I am not worthy of her. Another knight would have found the cure by now. Another knight would not have wasted two days riding in a chiming cart and tossing walnuts from a sack. We ride the remaining half mile in a tense silence. Tristan does not stop. He keeps the horses moving long after we have traveled the two miles. Our heads swivel from one side to the other as we search out anything that might lead us to an island.

“Stop the wagon,” I say.

Tristan does not stop the wagon.

“Tristan…”

“Maybe it hasn’t been two miles yet, Edward.”

“Let’s go back to where the walnuts ran out,” I say. “We can try turning the wagon to the southeast.” I am not hopeful. Northeast was where the ships came from. It was our best chance.

“Just a little longer,” Tristan replies.

Black smoke rises a few miles to the east of us. Another village consumed by hellfire. I spot an old monastery far to the north. Just walls and a glittering spire from this distance.

“There!” Belisencia says. “A monastery. We can talk to the people there. They might know something useful.”

“Yes, good thinking,” Tristan replies. “Pardon me, but have you seen an island in your fields? Or perhaps your vineyards?”

“And
your
plan consists of riding aimlessly through Norfolk,” she replies.

“I’m not aimless at all.” Tristan points forward. “I’m going that way.”

“Go to the monastery,” I say. “Maybe they’ll have a surgeon.”

Tristan turns the horses northward. Something in my memory nags at me. I once heard something about an abbey east of Norwich. Yes. Richard FitzAlan, earl of Arundel, spoke about this abbey. His family gave vast amounts of money for its construction. I try to remember the name of the place. Was it St. Benedict? St. Bernard? Lord Richard told me he visits the monastery once a year, when the abbot holds a feast for its patrons. Perhaps my family’s ties to the earl will be helpful in procuring a surgeon at this abbey.

More of the narrow channels crop up in the fields, and those fields become more and more sodden. The land becomes a swamp. Our horses have to work hard to keep us moving. I fear for their safety in the treacherous muck.

A vast, muddy pit becomes visible to the west, and one of the narrow channels of water passes to one side of it. I remember Lord Richard telling me about the peat mines in the area and imagine a hundred mud-caked diggers cutting peat sods from that massive hole and loading them onto barges in the channel.

The spire of the monastery church glints in the late-afternoon sun. I see thick curtain walls and a gatehouse to the northwest, where the main entrance lies. A river flows between us and the monastery, but a triple-arched stone bridge just west of the abbey crosses the waterway. The wagon wheels spin and hiss in the wet soil as we ride toward the river. Our horses snort and take careful steps in the slick mud. The cowslips and daisies give way to fen orchids and fleabane. For the first time, I am thankful for the strong Norfolk winds; without them the midges would feast on us.

It is an elegant stone bridge. The three arches are reflected in the water below, completing the circles and looking like an elaborate pillory. Tristan glances back at me and I nod. The horses lower their heads and heave the wagon onto the bridge. The wheels rumble and grind along the thick sandstone blocks. When we have crossed, we turn toward the monastery.

A portion of the river has been diverted toward the abbey so that the water forms a moat around the curtain walls. The gatehouse is opulent as only buildings owned by the Church can be. Statues of dead men who were famous long ago fill the niches on either side of a massive arched window at the top of the gatehouse. Tracery of limestone and knapped flint covers the spaces above the niches and at the crest of the structure.

Tristan stops the wagon at the moat, directly in front of the entrance. The thick, oaken drawbridge is raised. I wonder that there are no plaguers out here. Surely a place this large must be full of villagers and townsfolk.

I peer upward at the central window. Is there movement there? I stand and cup my hands to my mouth. “We seek entry to the abbey!” The shouting makes me cough, and I have to sit again. The fever has returned, like a hot tide coming in.

Tristan gives me a worried look, then calls up to the gatehouse. “Open the gates! We’d like to buy indulgences! And tithe! And donate ale!”

“That won’t help,” I say.

But perhaps it does, because a woman pushes open one side of the hinged windowpane and leans out. I can only see her head, neck, and one shoulder, but she appears to be naked.

“Good day!” She laughs as the other pane opens and a stout man, also seemingly unclothed, leans out and kisses her on the mouth. They appear to be drunk as well as naked.

“What sort of abbey is this?” Belisencia asks. She cups her hands to her mouth and calls up, “Stop your lewdness at once!”

“Yes!” Tristan shouts. “You’ll catch a terrible bout of Original Sin!” Belisencia glares at him. He shrugs. “And leprosy!”

The man looks down at us and calls back. “We ain’t allowing carts in through the main gate no more. Everything gets loaded by ships now, on the River Bure.”

All three of us fall silent. We gaze at each other and I know the same thought has come to us all.

“What did you say the river is called?” Tristan shouts.

“You have to unload on the river,” he calls back. “We’ll send a ship.”

“I understand that!” I shout. “What is the
name
of the river?” More coughing.

The man says something to the woman beside him. She laughs and he addresses us again. “The Bure,” he says. “Just go back over the bridge and wait at the riverbank.”

My breath catches. Tristan gazes at the moat, then turns to me. “Do you think that moat goes all the way around the abbey?”

I understand what he is implying. My heart rumbles, thunder in my chest. “It would be useless if it didn’t.”

I stare at the crenelated curtain walls. At the hulking gatehouse and the thick-planked drawbridge. It is fortified, this abbey. And it is completely surrounded by water. Tears sting my eyes.

We have found the island fortress.

Chapter 44

“In the name of King Richard and the earl of Arundel, I order you to lower the drawbridge,” I say.

The smile leaves the man’s face. He looks at me, brows drawn downward. “King who?” He laughs loudly, and the woman at his side joins him. Is it a sin to despise people you have never met?

“You will open the gates, or will you hang for treas…” I cough and do not stop coughing for a long while. Belisencia helps me sit down in the cart and wipes at my forehead with the hem of her robe.

“He is sick,” she shouts. “He needs a surgeon.”

The man shakes his head. “We don’t need plague here.”

“It’s not plague!” Belisencia shouts. “He has a festering wound.”

The man looks down at us silently.

“We can pay,” Tristan says.

“Did you say the earl of Arundel?” The man replies.

“Yes, he did,” Tristan says. “He is good friends with the earl.”

“You aren’t here to cause trouble? Because we will hang you and flay your skin and torture you if you are.”

“No trouble,” I call, my voice gravelly.

“I’m sorry,” Tristan says. “Did you say hang, flay, and
then
torture?”

“We’ll make you very unhappy if you try to hurt anyone here.”

“Please don’t take this badly,” Tristan says, “but this
conversation
is making me very unhappy. Can you open the gate, please?”

The man frowns and says something to the woman at his side, then calls down, “You said the earl of Arundel is your friend?”

“Like brothers,” Tristan says. “Brothers who really like each other.”

“Wait there.”

He disappears, and the woman entertains us by singing an out-of-tune Norfolk tavern song of some sort.

It takes a long time for anything to happen. I doze in the cart and dream of clawing hands and eyes black as a sinner’s soul. I wake with a start when Belisencia touches my shoulder.

A deep rattle of chains and the clanking of a massive windlass resound across the countryside. The drawbridge tilts downward. Thick chains guide the oaken platform until it rests on the damp soil. Four men wearing hardened leather vests and holding halberds stand in the gateway. The thickset man from the window stands between them in linen breeches and a loose tunic of wool.

“Is the alchemist here?” I ask as we roll into the gatehouse. Despite my fever, I tremble at the thought of being this close to Elizabeth’s salvation. No one replies to my question. Instead, they inspect us. They do not seem surprised at the walnuts in the cart, but they are impressed with the two hand cannons. Tristan draws his dagger when one of the halberdiers walks away with both guns. The window man holds up a hand. “You’ll get them back. No weapons allowed in the monastery. I’ll have your swords and daggers, too.” His breath smells of wine.

“You’ll give us back our cannons now,” Tristan says. “And maybe we won’t kill all of you.”