The Plague Knight and Other Stories Page 3

  "Do you think there's anyone left?" asked Geoff.

  "I don't know," I said. I urged my dappled gelding toward a hanging sign with a fat monk chasing a rooster painted on it. Geoff followed, leading the destriers.

  The sign creaked in the wind as we rode beneath it. Beyond it was a courtyard, littered with stinking corpses like the streets. The mule tethered there brayed as though it hoped we'd come to feed it, and the horses in the stable chimed in a second later. In the far corner, beneath a cherry tree, stood a gaudily painted wagon with two masks, one grinning and one dolorous, limned on its side.

  "Thank God," I said. "I knew a horde of minstrels and players had come for the tournament. I prayed they hadn't all fled away."

  "Those who didn't run could well be dead," said Geoff.

  "That's all right; the dead ones can still help us." I swung myself down off my horse. Still too warm, I took off my mantle and draped it over my saddle, then moved to the back of the wagon and climbed inside.

  Within lay the half naked remains of a scrawny old man, his torso crawling with chancres and a harp clutched in his cold, stiff fingers. Silently begging his pardon, I pried the instrument out of his grasp, then rummaged through boxes and sacks till I found a tawdry scarlet and green suit, almost motley, really, that seemed likely to fit me.

  Geoff goggled when I emerged. "What do you think?" I asked. "Do I look convincing?"

  "You look like you've gone off your head."

  "Maybe I have." I hauled myself back into the saddle. "I daresay we'll find out when we reach the tiltyard."

  But before long, I realized I might not live to reach it.

  As we rode, I grew too warm again, then chill when the heat receded. My joints and bowels began to ache, my eyes, to run and burn. For a few minutes, I told myself I was just sick with weariness, or that my fear-fed fancy was deluding me, but once my shoulders started itching, I couldn't deceive myself any further. I'd finally caught the plague.

  "Get away!" I shouted. "Leave me, I've got it!"

  Geoff laughed wildly, a horrible, croaking laugh, and rode up beside me. His face was white as paper, striped with the yellow corruption oozing from his nostrils, mouth and eyes. "I was just going to say the same thing to you!"

  "Forgive me," I said. "If we'd gone when you wanted--"

  "Perhaps we would have sickened anyway. Only God knows." He rubbed his eye, smearing scum across his cheek. "What do we do now?"

  "Do? I . . . don't know."

  "Then think! You're supposed to be the leader!"

  I gave my head a shake, tried to clear it of horror, remorse, and fever. Taking stock, I decided I wasn't likely to fall dead that very second, though I felt so miserable that the prospect wasn't entirely unappealing. "I guess we might as well go ahead with the plan."

  "Makes sense. God's teeth, what have we got to lose?" He spurred his horse.

  We rode over fields, then picked our way through the trees, avoiding the road so we wouldn't encounter Ulrich and his troops. They'd spared us once, but we might not be so lucky a second time, and even if they didn't harm us, they might prevent or give away my masquerade.

  As we neared the tiltyard, I heard them them talking softly, their horses snorting, their mail rustling, saw their lanterns glowing like fireflies. Perhaps fearful that, should he choose, Enguerrand could engulf them in another tide of plague even if they engaged him singly, perhaps merely unwilling to subject themselves to his virulent presence before it became necessary, they'd taken up a position just outside the glade. From there, no doubt, they ventured in one at a time.

  Geoff and I stopped in a hollow where the mounts could stand concealed. An enormous spiderweb strung from one oak to another glittered in the feeble evening light. When Geoff dismounted, he clutched at his palfrey's neck.

  I gripped his shoulder. "Are you all right?"

  "No," he wheezed, "but there's nothing you can do about it. Go play your idiot trick, whatever it is; I can still mind the animals."

  I removed my sword-belt and seized the harp, then stumbled up the rise into the clearing. Apparently I'd arrived between battles. Three more warriors lay dead in the center of the field, and Enguerrand sat at his ease on his charger, knight and steed both shining like the moon.

  "I thought they'd come at you without a break, try to wear you down," I said.

  "I think they're each receiving last rites just before they ride in," the lych replied; the white horse stepped forward. I was feverish again, but I still shivered at the encroaching cold; I resisted a panicky impulse to recoil. "Who are you?"

  I essayed a player's bow, servile, but with panache, and almost fell on my face. "Martin Rivers, my lord. Minstrel, actor, and poet, at your service."

  He couched his spear. "Have you come to beg me to heal you? I wouldn't even if I could. If you'd prefer a cleaner death, I suppose I can grant you that."

  "No! I mean, thank you, but I'd just as soon live as long as I'm able. But I do wish to plead for another boon."

  The white horse eyed me balefully, as though it had penetrated my disguise even if its master hadn't. "And what might that be?" Enguerrand asked.

  "All my life I've wanted to compose a great ballad, or drama, or epic, something folk would remember long after I'm gone. But I never managed it rehashing the legends of the Round Table, or reworking any of the other tales that a thousand monks and troubadours have picked over before me. I need something great and new to write about. Tell me your story, mighty spirit!"

  Enguerrand laughed. "You wouldn't last long enough to set it down."

  "I might. My people are hardy. My mother says it comes from eating lots of apples."

  "Well, I don't care to bother with you anyway. You're naught but a mountebank, by the look of you; the greatest trouveres in Europe will celebrate me. If you truly aspire to live a while longer, go."

  I bowed my head, began to turn away. "Very well, my lord. I don't blame you. I should have known that an emissary of God would spurn a miserable sinner like me."

  He cocked his head. "What did you say?"

  "That one of the Four Horsemen--"

  "Is that who you think I am?"

  "Yes, my lord, the rider of Pestilence, come early to test our faith. Count Ulrich said so."

  I held my breath. I'd baited the hook as well as I was able. If Enguerrand was as vainglorious as the servants had said, he wouldn't be able to bear the thought that here he was, defeating warrior after warrior, destroying an entire populace with the black miracle of his plague, and no one but Ulrich and Hans knew that he was the one doing it. He'd feel compelled to tell me his story, and then perhaps I'd discover his weak point.

  On the other hand, if he suspected I was lying he'd cut me down.

  At that moment, Louis rode into the yard. I never learned why he hadn't fought first. Perhaps others had clamored to do so also.

  I cringed, certain he'd shout out Enguerrand's name, or recognize me and hail me as "Sir Martin." But however given he was to pious bombast on other occasions, he was all business now. He didn't waste breath talking; he simply charged.

  The specter wheeled his mount and galloped to meet him. In the first course, their lances glanced off one another's shields. When they charged again, Louis dropped his weapon like a page who'd never held one before. He tried to veer out of Enguerrand's path, but his horse couldn't turn in time. The ghost knight's spear split his shield and tore into his breast.

  Well, now I knew that whatever it took to breach the warding, it wasn't fearlessness or purity of heart.

  Enguerrand cantered back to me. "Did you see that? No one else fights like that, no mortal man and no figment out of your Bible. I'm Enguerrand Cale!"

  “Cale, my lord? Forgive me, but I don’t know the name.” My belly cramped. I grunted, nearly doubled over.

  He swung himself out of the saddle. The white horse was always unnaturally still when it was simply standing, but now it seemed to freeze into absolute immobility, as though it had no life
when he wasn't astride it. "Well, that will be remedied. I will tell you my story, and you spread it far and wide in the time that's left you." He paused. "Sit if you like."

  Eager both to ease my failing body and to withdraw a step from the chill that surrounded him, I did. "Thank you, my lord."

  "Once I was a living man," Enguerrand began, a faraway note entering his voice. "I rode with a Free Company, and Ulrich was the captain of that band. He was also my sworn brother-in-arms, and over our long years of campaigning I saved his life at least a dozen times.

  "In time, the two of us wearied of fighting for hire. We wanted lands and titles, and why not? We were better men than any of the fools who employed us. So we made a pledge. If ever we saw a chance for one of us to seize an estate, we'd both do all we could, run any risk necessary, to enable him to grasp it. And once he had it, he'd use his newfound wealth and power to help his comrade win holdings of his own.

  "Years later, we wintered in Erfurt, and there I met Simone. She was just another whore I bought to pass an idle night, pretty enough in her dusky way, but not a jot different from the countless other slatterns who'd preceded her. I should have forgotten her as quickly as I had them, but instead I awoke the next morning and found I was in love.

  "In the week that followed I spent every free hour with her, and loathed every minute we were apart. Whatever she wanted, I eagerly gave. I even planned to ask her to marry me.

  "And then I came to my senses; my soul was abnormally strong, you see, strong with the might of a sorcerer born, strong enough to finally break her spell. Once I understood that she'd bewitched me, my first thought was to cut her throat the moment I next laid eyes on her, my second, to see her tried and burnt. But then I remembered my pact with Ulrich.

  "That night I tied her to the bed, whipped her with my belt till she confessed everything I wanted to know. After that I killed her, then went to find her master. When I told him what I'd done and why I'd come, he laughed. He initiated me into his coven, and taught me my first enchantments, that very night."

  I opened my mouth to speak, discovered my throat was raspy and clotted with phlegm. I spat the mucus out and tried again. "What was that like, studying magic?"

  Enguerrand shrugged. "At first, it was hard. I was afraid of damnation, afraid of goblins, too, like a sniveling child, and some of the things I had to do seemed vile. The first time I ate baby flesh, I nearly retched. But eventually a sort of succubus chose to foster me. When she first appeared, she came in the form of Simone, Simone all rotten, with her head flopping on her ragged neck. I futtered her anyway, and after that, she liked me well. Under her tutelage, I soon learned how a scion of Hell should think and feel and behave. By the time I left in the spring, I was well on my way to becoming an adept."

  "But what secrets did you learn? How does your thaumaturgy work?"

  "You wouldn't understand. Once we were on the road, I told Ulrich about my new capacities. At first he was aghast, but when he discovered that I intended to use my magic to fulfill our ambitions, his horror quickly gave way to avarice.

  "I didn't have even a tenuous connection to any estates. Ulrich did, to these bounteous lands in which we're talking now; the only bars to his ascension were a dozen claimants in line in front of him. So we decided I'd use magic to kill them off. It took a few years, but eventually I nailed them. All but the last; for some reason, he never would die. We finally had to slay him on the battlefield."

  My shoulders itched fiercely, like every flea on earth was feasting there. I squeezed the harp till it creaked, fighting the need to scratch, afraid that if I started, I wouldn’t stop until I’d flayed my skin to tatters. “I suppose in the meantime, you wove other spells, to aid you in the campaigns your company was fighting."

  "Oh, no," the specter lied. "Didn't you see how easily I bested de Harsigny? I may be the finest fighter in the world. I never needed wizardry to prevail in simple warfare.

  "Anyway, once Ulrich claimed his title, once his lands recovered from the devastation the fighting had wrought and his coffers were full again, I expected that he'd honor his promise, that we'd ride out to conquer my estates. But now that I'd handed the bastard his heart's desire, he simply wanted to sit back on his arse and enjoy it; he didn't have the belly to risk it aiding me! And so he kept putting me off. The time wasn't propitious for such a venture, particularly when I lacked even a semblance of a legitimate claim to any holdings anywhere. Couldn't I rest content as his lieutenant for at least a little while longer, taking pleasure in all the spoils we'd won together?

  "No! I couldn't! Not when I'd dreamed my whole life of being my own master. Not after I'd bartered my soul for it. Not when I'd promised my Mother in Darkness that I'd seize the governance of a province, and institute her worship at its court. Not when he'd sworn! I started pressing harder, started reminding him of just what my necromancy could do."

  The lych sighed. "But the threats were a mistake. Instead of capitulating, he found another warlock, to murder me. The elvish whoreson gave him a draft of venin de crapaud, oil distilled from toads that have eaten arsenic, and the first time I called for refreshment at that year's Shrovetide tourney, the cupbearer served it in my wine."

  I wondered if he was still susceptible to poisons, and imagined myself trying to force a goblet to his lips. At that moment, the image seemed so ludicrous, I had to bite my tongue to keep from giggling.

  "As soon I drank it, I fell off my horse," Enguerrand continued, "but unfortunately for Ulrich, I didn't perish right away. As I lay thrashing in a puddle of horse piss, my oath-brother stooping over me in a pantomime of concern, I had time to realize what had happened, and with my dying breath I cursed him.

  "I whispered that I'd come back, to destroy him and all I'd given him; that was only justice, do you see? I also told him that when the time came, he could be rid of me for good if he or one of his henchmen bested me in single combat, and that was mockery. I knew no one could beat me, and he did, too. That, along with fear of my magic, and need to conceal both his plotting murder with a demonolater and his betrayal of a lifelong friend, was why he'd struck me down in the foul, unknightly manner that he had.

  "His new wizard wove spells to hold me in Hell, and I snapped them one by one. And now here I am, exacting vengeance, poisoning Ulrich's world the way he poisoned me.

  "That's my tale. Go tell it."

  "But . . . there's so much more--"

  "You're running out of time, fool." Raymond rode into the tiltyard. Like Louis, he didn’t acknowledge my presence; he probably didn't even see me sitting huddled in the darkness. "And I have to fight. Begone." He vaulted onto the white horse, spurred it into motion, and he and the living knight crashed together a moment later. Raymond's lance splintered.

  Mechanically as automata ratcheting across the face of a town hall clock, Ulrich's warriors advanced into the glade, and regular as clockwork, Enguerrand knocked them down. That seemed hilarious, too. Laughter bubbled up in my throat again, and I realized I was sinking into delirium.

  Well, what did it matter? I'd gulled the specter into spinning me his story, but he was either too vain or too wary to even admit that he was warded by magic, let alone hint at how the defense could be negated, and so my imposture had accomplished nothing. I might as well descend into madness; it might make my death easier to bear.

  Raymond turned his mount, cast aside the stub of his spear and unsheathed Regret. "This is a Faerie blade," he called, "specially forged to kill creatures like you."

  Perhaps Enguerrand thought I'd already obeyed him and departed, or perhaps, at last, he simply spoke without thinking. At any rate, he snickered and answered, "No arm ever made can harm me." They charged again.

  For a second, I didn't grasp the import of what I'd heard. Then I lurched up, lost my balance and fell back, sprang up again and staggered for the trees. Behind me, steel hammered steel. As I left the clearing, Raymond screamed.

  I blundered by Geoff, now writhing unconscious on a crack
ling bed of dry leaves, and on toward the road. I'd done my bit, ferreted out the intelligence we needed. Someone else, someone still hale, could do the actual fighting.

  But when I arrived, I discovered there was no such person. Except for scattered corpses, the Count's and Hans' among them, lying in the dust, that section of road was empty, though mocking hoof beats drummed just around the bend. Evidently, as they'd waited, the plague had resumed cutting them down, until finally, with men dropping by the minute, with their leader dead and their two finest champions fallen, the survivors had lost their nerve and run away.

  I knew I wouldn't live long enough to tell someone else what I'd learned. If anyone was going to put it to use, it would have to be me. Cursing, I picked up a lantern and stumbled back into the woods.

  My search through the underbrush seemed to take forever; I believe I passed out once or twice. But eventually I found a broken sapling nearly as long as my lance, and a pair of fallen branches that would do for cudgels. The lengths of wood had sprigs protruding at inconvenient places, but I didn't dare snap them off for fear that then my makeshift arms would qualify as weapons made.

  I made my way back to the hollow, saddled Ebony, and struggled into my mail. It had never felt so heavy, not even during my first weeks of training; it stabbed pain through my joints and ground at the galls on my shoulders. When I mounted, the world spun, and I almost fell right off again.

  I bit my tongue again, this time trying not to break down and weep. All right, I told myself, maybe I was sick, and bearing crude, pitiful weapons, but damn it, I was a more skillful fighter than Enguerrand. And when that thought failed to cheer me, I reminded myself of what Geoff had said: I didn't have a thing in the world to lose.

  For some reason, that morbid reflection did hearten me. Eyes bleary and burning, the stink of my own illness vile in my nostrils, I kicked Ebony into motion.

  I hoped to catch the ghost knight off guard, dismounted or with his back turned, but I didn't. He was still astride his horse in the middle of the field, alert and lance in hand; perhaps he didn't know there were no more living foemen on the road. I couched my crooked spear and charged immediately; maybe he wouldn't have time to notice exactly what I had in my hand, and with luck, maybe that would make him reckless.