The Plague Knight and Other Stories Read online

  The Plague Knight

  and other stories

  by Richard Lee Byers

  First publication May, 2013.

  All stories © Richard Lee Byers. All rights reserved.

  “The Plague Knight” originally appeared in Space and Time #82, Gordon Linzner, editor, in 1993.

  “Kingsfire” originally appeared in Tales of the White Wolf, Edward E. Kramer and Richard Gilliam, editors, White Wolf, 1994.

  “Castle of Maidens” originally appeared in Grails: Quests, Visitations, and Other Occurrences, Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg and Edward E. Kramer, editors, Unnamable Press, 1992.

  “The Salamander” originally appeared (in slightly different form) in Sword of Ice and Other Tales of Valedemar, Mercedes Lackey, editor, DAW, 1997.

  “Death in Keenspur House” originally appeared (in slightly different form) in Crossroads and Other Tales of Valdemar, Mercedes Lackey, editor, DAW, 2005.

  “The Cheat” originally appeared (in slightly different form) in Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar, Mercedes Lackey, editor, DAW, 2008.

  “Light and Dark” originally appeared (in slightly different form) in The Crimson Pact: Volume 2, Paul Genesse, editor, Alliteration Ink, 2011.

  “Acorns” originally appeared in Pawn of Chaos, Edward E. Kramer, editor, White Wolf, 1996.

  “St. Paul’s Churchyard, New Year’s Day” originally appeared in Excalibur, Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg, and Edward E. Kramer, editors, Warner Books, 1995.

  The character of Elric and certain names and places referred to in “Kingsfire” and “Acorns” are copyright and trademark Michael Moorcock.

  Cover by Jamie Stubkjaer.

  Table of Contents

  Martin Rivers

  The Plague Knight

  Kingsfire

  Castle of Maidens

  Selden

  The Salamander

  Death in Keenspur House

  The Cheat

  Light and Dark

  Other Stories

  Acorns

  St. Paul’s Churchyard, New Year’s Day

  Author’s Note

  The Plague Knight

  Count Ulrich held the tournament at Shrovetide, when people sin as lustily as possible in anticipation of the austerities of Lent, and the feast that followed the first day's jousting was as lavish a revel as I'd ever seen. Goblets clinked, and knives scraped plates. The drone of a hundred conversations, boasts, bluster, and banter, flirtations, gossip, trade and political discussions, and pious denunciations of simony, indulgences, and all the other iniquities of the modern world, filled the hall, drowning out the pages and maids-in-waiting chirping gamely away at madrigals in the clerestory. A legion of torchbearers, expensive, impractical, and therefore fashionable, stood along the walls, their brands shedding a light so bright I could read the arms on the shields and banners hanging in the farthest reaches of the chamber. Mounted knights in gilt armor clopped about before the high tables, serving our host, the highest-ranking members of his household, and his lordliest guests from salvers attached to the ends of their lances, while villeins clad in slashed, parti-colored doublets and poulaines scurried round the lower benches, dishing out heron, eel pie, peacock with cabbage, and a score of other dainties to the likes of me.

  On another occasion it might have irked me that the servants were better dressed than I was, but that night I was as merry as the rest. I'd fought well that afternoon, unhorsing two opponents, who now owed me ransom for their steeds and mail. If my luck held, by the end of the week I could win enough money to live for months, with a bit left over to send home to my mother in England.

  Determined to make mortal certain it held, I emptied my cup and set it on the table upside down.

  Sir Gunter, the huge, red-bearded Saxon on my left, gaped at me. "What's the matter, Martin?" he slurred. "This's the best God-rotting claret I ever tasted."

  "It is good," I agreed, "but I won't joust well tomorrow if I toss back any more."

  He snorted. "Rubbish. A knight should drink all the wine--and ale, and spirits--he can lay his hands on. It strengthens the sinews, and makes your blood lively. Let me tell you about something that happened last year in Lyon. I was just coming out of a tavern, heartened and refreshed from a good night's tipple, when a dozen bandits--"

  More interested in my supper than his story, I glanced to see if dessert was on its way. And so I chanced to be looking at the high table when the gauntlet appeared.

  A patch of air shimmered. Mistrusting my eyes, I blinked, but the flickering remained, then suddenly coalesced into a snow-white gaynpayn, which tumbled down directly in front of the Count. It looked like ivory or enameled wood, but it rang like a piece of ordinary steel armor when it struck the floor.

  I confess I started, jostling Gunter, who cursed. He wasn't alarmed, and neither were most of the others. Most of them hadn't even noticed the apparition, and perhaps many of those who had were so tipsy they took it for a harmless conjuring trick, for all that the jugglers had already come and gone.

  But Count Ulrich was terrified.

  He goggled for a moment, his bulldog mouth hanging open and his bald, fleshy face nearly as white as the gaynpayn. Then, lacking a better weapon, he snatched his eating knife and sprang to his feet. His high-backed chair crashed backwards off the dais.

  Everyone turned to stare. Except for the hiss of the torches, the hall was silent.

  After a few seconds, when nothing else happened, a little color crept back into Ulrich's face. He straightened out of his knife-fighter's crouch and glared at the old man seated at his far right.

  "You did this," he growled.

  The old man stared back in surprised dismay. I hadn't paid him any attention before, but now I marked how preying-mantis thin he was, and the slant and luster of his long amber eyes. He had Faerie blood, and whatever title he bore to appease the Church, no doubt he was Ulrich's court magician.

  "No, my lord," he replied in a reedy tenor. "I don't play pranks and I would never mock you."

  Ulrich stalked down the platform, knife still raised. "No one else could. Admit it, Hans, or I swear I'll cut your heart out."

  I thought he meant it, and I'm sure that Hans did too. But the old man didn't cringe. "Strike, then."

  The Count did strike, but with his empty hand. The blow threw Hans out of his seat. Ulrich grabbed his arm and jerked him to his feet. "I wish I didn't believe you. I wish I didn't need you, so I could kill you anyway." He dragged him off the dais and through a door behind it.

  After a few seconds, I thought to look back at the floor. The gauntlet had vanished.

  Everyone began to babble at once, but, at least at my table, no one could interpret what we'd seen. But I was sure of two things. Count Ulrich thought he understood exactly what the apparition portended, else he wouldn't have been so frightened. And a hurled gauntlet signifies a challenge, whether the hand that casts it is visible or not.

  Neither Ulrich nor Hans reappeared before the feast concluded. When we'd eaten and drunk our fill, when we'd voiced every wild hypothesis we could concoct and repeated every bogle legend we could recall, we sought our beds. None of us tourneyers was craven enough to flee the castle, and the Count's largesse, simply because a piece of armor had appeared and disappeared mysteriously, but most of us uneasy in our minds.

  I slept poorly, hagridden by dreams of my father's death. The funeral bell tolled mournfully, and when I awoke, it seemed to be tolling still.

  For a moment I believed I was seven again, that Papa had fallen from his horse only a day before. Then I realized that too many bells were ringing, and not in the measured cadence of a death kn
ell but in a frenzied clangor of alarm.

  Wiping tears from my eyes, I rolled out of bed and groped my way to the window. The sun was just rising, and I could see down into the town below the battlements. The great bronze cathedral bells winked light as they swung back and forth. People milled in the streets. Three houses were afire, sending columns of smoke into the gray and crimson sky, each ringed by citizens gathered to watch.

  Geoffrey emerged from his pallet and tangle of blankets, brushed his long, straw-colored hair out of his eyes, and stumbled up beside me. Geoff was my man-at-arms, valet, scutifer, and groom, in other words, the sole retainer I could afford. He performed his many duties, and endured our frequent penury, with grumbling good cheer, secure in the inexplicable confidence that I was going to be a great seigneur someday.

  "What is it?" he asked, hugging his lanky body against the chill draft blowing in. "War? Riot?" I shook my head. "No one's fighting."

  "Just a fire alarm, then."

  "Not that either. They aren't trying to put them out. It looks like they set them deliberately. I don't know what's happening. Get dressed."

  As we pulled our clothes on, the castle grew noisy. Shouts echoed, though maddeningly, I couldn't quite make out what anyone was saying. Just as I was lacing my shirt, running feet pounded by outside. A woman wailed.

  I snatched up my sword and threw open the door. Those who'd dashed past were already out of sight, but the thing they were fleeing was still there.

  Lurching down the narrow corridor, staggering so badly she caromed from wall to wall, came a slender young woman with long brown braids, one of the cooks, to judge from the stains on her apron. Yesterday she had probably been pretty. This morning, however, her face was contorted in anguish. Yellow matter dripped from her eyes and mouth, and she'd ripped through her dress to claw at the sores on her shoulders. She stank of shit and something more, a rottenness, as if she were already dead and moldering in the ground. When she saw me, she whined, and raised one bloody-fingered hand; perhaps she was no longer able to speak.

  I took a step forward, and Geoff grabbed my arm. "Don't touch her!"

  I didn't want to, but in that instant, I felt I had to. I tried to shake him off, and he tightened his grip. The woman vomited blood and fell dead at our feet.

  "Plague," said Geoff.

  I nodded. "The townsmen were burning the homes of the first to sicken. Pack."

  By the time we reached them, the courtyard and stables looked like a broken anthill. Frantic servants scurried everywhere, lunging in each other's way, cursing and shoving as they readied coaches, litters, carts, horses, and mules for departure. Their masters and mistresses stalked behind them, hectoring them along, and occasionally even lending a hand with the work.

  It was the only time I was ever glad to be poor. Geoff and I would be long gone when the great peers and rich guildsmen were still loading their baggage and ordering their retinues.

  Or so I intended. But as we pushed our way toward the stables, trumpeters blew a fanfare. I turned to see Ulrich and his warlock hastening out of the keep, and at that same moment I realized a curious thing. All the guests were preparing to leave, but the Count's vassals weren't.

  The two men made their way past mumbling chaplains telling their beads, falconers soothing the hooded birds on their wrists, huntsmen struggling to control their prancing hounds, dressmakers, bailiffs, equerries, and clerks to the center of the throng. There Ulrich climbed up on a wagon laden with trunks, bales of red and yellow velvet, and someone's chapel furniture.

  "Knights, squires, men-at-arms!" he bellowed. "I beseech you not to go. I need your help."

  Raymond of Cyprus, a bandy-legged barrel of a man and one of the best fighters in Europe, was standing by the wagon tongue. Supposedly the sword at his side was Regret, the cyclops-forged blade that Julius Caesar bore. "But, my lord," he replied, "reflect, and you'll see that there's nothing we can do. We're not doctors, to heal the sick, nor priests to grant them absolution. You come away with us."

  "There is something you can do!" said the Count. "This is no common sickness but a bane brewed of black magic, a bane that will end when someone destroys the brewer."

  "How can you know that?" a spearman called.

  "By now even those who didn't see it must know about the prodigy of the gauntlet, a portent that something unnatural would occur." The crowd murmured; it was plain that everyone did know, even if most had forgotten it in their panic. "My court physician"--he shot old Hans another venomous glare--"labored through the night, scrying, charting the stars, and interrogating his familiar demons, trying to discover what the omen meant. And he succeeded."

  Ulrich drew a deep breath, wiped sweat from his brow and crown. "I once had a vassal named Enguerrand Cale,” he continued. I’d heard the name. Reputedly a skilled warrior and tourneyer, Enguerrand had been Ulrich's boon companion from their youthful days as rutters, when they'd made their livings fighting for anyone who'd pay them, and by extortion and brigandage during times of peace, till he'd died of a seizure several years before. "I thought him an honest Christian knight, but it's plain now he must have harbored some foul secret stain on his soul, because he's returned as a fiend from Hell to torment the living."

  A knight in a blue and green surcoat said, "My lord, no man here doubts your word, and if you said you'd beheld this lych yourself, I swear by Christ's holy wounds that I'd believe you. But why should we trust a creature with no soul--"

  "Because his kind can See! And he's Seen that Enguerrand abides in Hell by day, but haunts the place of his death from dusk to dawn. There we can put him to the sword, and banish him and his pestilence forever."

  "Banish him yourself," Geoff muttered. "That's why you keep household troops."

  "I beg you," Ulrich cried, "ride forth with me tonight! If the spirit doesn't appear, you can leave tomorrow. But if he does appear, those who vanquish him will win eternal fame. The chroniclers will rank you with Perseus and Lancelot, who slew the spawn of Night when the world was young. What's more, I'll give you gold. "So. Who's with me?"

  More murmuring. Then Louis de Harsignay swept out his sword and saluted. He was a golden young knight from Bordeaux, no older than I but already a famous paladin, godly to the point of sainthood, and, in my opinion, dense as lead. It was no wonder that he'd pledge himself to war on the Devil with scarcely a moment's hesitation.

  Raymond frowned. "It had better be a lot of gold, and I expect to see it even if your phantom doesn't show."

  "You will," said the Count.

  "All right." He flourished his weapon.

  Inspired or shamed by his and Louis' example, over the next few moments nearly all the remaining warriors did the same, myself included. People cheered.

  But Geoff hadn't drawn his sword, and as the Count began to thank us, he drew me away to the foot of the wall, where the crowd thinned out and no one was likely to overhear us. "This is mad," he whispered.

  "Oh, I don't know. Assuming Enguerrand really exists, as odds are, he does, I suppose he has terrible powers, but it'll be one of him against a small army of us."

  "You might not live to find out if he exists. You could take sick and die any second."

  I shrugged. "I know. But I've spent the last two years trying to attract the notice of some great lord--"

  "There'll be other chances. The Truce can't last forever."

  "Perhaps, but there's another side to it too. When they made me a knight, I swore to fight for God and Justice. Now in the general run of things, knights don't have to worry about such vows. We fight for money, land, and pride, and questions of Good and Evil don't enter in. But if there's an actual demon abroad in the land, spreading a pestilence that could kill countless innocents, then I'm duty-bound--"

  He hawked a gob of spittle into the dust. "You sound like that ass de Harsigny."

  My face grew hot. "Dear Mary, I do, don't I? Sorry. Look, I don't want to argue. I pledged to stay, and I'm going to stay. That's it. But you're no bo
ndman, and if you want to leave--"

  "Bugger that. If you stick, so will I, though I expect I'll regret it. But it's a pity that none of you gentles has the brains God gave a rabbit. You'd think the Count would have sense enough to run."

  I shook my head. "He knows it wouldn't do him any good. Enguerrand didn't come back just to do ill to mankind in general, and Hans didn't learn all about it just by peering into his specula. He and the Count were expecting him. Cale has a score to settle with them, and if they fled, he'd simply follow."

  Those who still wished to leave were gone by midmorning; Geoff watched their departure with a wistful eye. Then Ulrich's vassals sealed the gate, probably a pointless precaution, considering that the pest was already in our midst.

  Men, women, and children sickened throughout the day, just as Geoff had foreseen. Some died almost instantly, and, dreading to touch the corpses but more afraid to have them among us, we cast them over the battlements. Others lingered, in delirium and torment, and these we quarantined in the castle dungeons. Meanwhile, the sun shone in an azure sky. Larks and finches perched on the crenels singing, and the breeze bore the scent of fresh spring verdure along with the tang of smoke. Nature mocked our distress.

  Some knights spent the day praying, fasting, confessing, and hearing mass. Others drilled at swordplay, or told tales of heroes who'd vanquished trolls and enchanters in the days when all the paths to Faerie stood open. A fourth contingent, Gunter prominent among them, roistered furiously.

  I set out to learn what I could about Enguerrand.

  I wanted to speak with the Count or his sorcerer, but the former was busy readying his household troops and the latter was closeted in his tower, presumably chanting cantrips to ensure our victory. So I wound up questioning the servants.

  I discovered they'd all respected Enguerrand, but they hadn't liked him. When Ulrich assumed his title and estates, after a succession of fortuitous deaths and a savage campaign against the only other surviving claimant, he'd made his old friend his marshal, and thereafter Cale had proven as harsh, haughty, and vainglorious, obsessed with pomp and prerogatives, as, perhaps, only a rapacious mercenary jumped up to a high station is likely to be. His heart had failed without any warning during another Shrovetide tournament, held at a now-abandoned tiltyard that the Count had built in the woods to the west.