The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“We have no livestock with us,” Ildoin said to the lady, “only horses. Horses do not take up the contagion, so you are safe from us as will be those we seek shelter with in the days to come.”

With that their hosts had to be content.

In the morning Severus took a dozen men as attendants and rode west, leaving his factor, by name of Arcod, Brother Ildoin, and ten rough-looking clerics who seemed as much at ease with a spear as with a holy book to escort Alain on the southerly route.

“Where is Brother Severus going?” Alain asked Ildoin as they left the besieged manor house behind. “I thought he meant to return to Darre, too.”

Ildoin had a way of lifting his chin, like a man recoiling from a sharp blow, when he was surprised by any comment or unexpected sight. “Brother Severus is a great and holy man, one of the intimate counselors of the skopos herself, may she remain hale and hearty and live many long years under God’s protection. We do not question him! However, he is a powerful man in more ways than that of intrigue and wise counsel—”

“Brother Ildoin!” Arcod drew up beside them. “Idle chatter is a breeding ground for the Enemy’s maggots. We will ride in silence, or sing Godly hymns, if you please.”

Alain was content to ride in silence. They made a peaceable caravan with the pack mules ambling along in the middle of their group and the hounds padding alertly to either side of him. It was a lovely spring day, the sky strewn with broken clouds. At first, birdsong accompanied them and a skeane of geese honked past above. But as the morning passed, Alain noticed that the joyous noise gave way to an uneasy hush. Midmorning they passed an abandoned hamlet, where a scatter of huts lay empty beside the road. A thread of smoke drifted heavenward a short distance off the road; otherwise there was no sign of life.

“Should we investigate?” Alain asked.

“No,” said Arcod. “It’s none of our business. Our business is to take you to the skopos.”

They hadn’t gone much farther through open woodland before a second clearing opened before them. Judging by the well-thatched longhouse, fenced-in garden plot, rubbish pit, and three pit houses, a prosperous farming family had once lived here. Stakes lined the roadside, four posts staggered on either side of the track, set there as a warning. On each stake a sheep’s skull was affixed, glaringly white against the lush green eruption of spring growth all around. Some of the skulls had a bit of flesh left, but most had been picked clean by carrion crows still flocking among the buildings. Here, too, they saw no movement, heard no welcoming hails, but the porch of the longhouse was swept clean as though its occupants had only recently departed.

The clouds drew in darkly. A chill wind blew up from the south as a mist began to fall, trailing off at intervals only to spatter down once again, inconstant and irritating.

“Another one!” shouted the cleric riding at the front of their party. He’d been chosen for this duty because he could speak Wendish. “Ho! Well met! Are there any folk living here?”

As they rode into a new clearing, they saw a scattering of huts, an empty chicken coop, a small roofed paddock, a trough half full of water, and an abandoned plow sledge. Four stakes pounded into the ground at the four corners of the paddock bore animal skulls, one sheep, two horned cattle, and something that looked remarkably like a dog with a patch of skin and pale fur hanging from the muzzle. Dried plants had been woven into the eye sockets, and a tangle of tiny carved wooden figures dangled down from the gaping jaw on a leather strip.

Rage barked once. Sorrow whined.

“Some witch has sullied her hands with magic workings and amulets,” said Arcod. “No wonder they were struck down by God’s anger.”

“Do you think so?” asked Alain. “Perhaps they were only trying to protect themselves.”

“Then they should have called for a deacon or a frater, not this unholy weaving and binding.”

Their party did not tarry but rode past nervously. There was not even a carrion crow in sight. Alain heard no birds at all. Once the clearing lay behind them, Ildoin looked back at Arcod, who was riding at the back of the group, before judging it safe to speak to Alain.

“I’m glad your hounds are with us. It fair gives me the creeps, it’s so dead and quiet here. I wonder where all the farming folk have gone.”

“Fled, most like,” said Alain. “Gone to find kinfolk who will take them in. If anyone will take them in. Didn’t you pass this way just a fortnight ago?”

“In rain and wind,” agreed Ildoin, scratching his stubbly chin. Like the other clerics, he was letting his beard grow rather than struggle to keep it shaven on the march. “We were housed and fed hospitably enough. By Vespers we should come to a little river where there’s a village. They put us up for one night. When we came north, the murrain hadn’t reached them, although we brought them rumor of it from what we’d seen on our journey south of the river.”

“I wonder where the birds have flown,” said Alain, “and what they’re so afraid of that they’ve stopped singing.”

The village had a tiny wood church, a mill, and six houses in addition to the dock where a ferryboat was tied up, but it had no people and not even dogs or chickens. Every door had a wreath of plants and carved amulets hanging above the threshold, but these protective measures had not spared the inhabitants. There was no sign of any living thing.

They hurried through the commons and down to the riverside. The hounds were skittish, sniffing the air as though they sensed danger but could not place its locus. The sturdy ferry rope should have ridden taut between the deeply driven posts on either side of the narrow river, but it had been cut. The near end flapped in the current, dancing in water running high with spring rain and distant snow melt. Alain dismounted and drew the cut line up to shore. The end had frayed with the beating it had taken in the river, leaving a sodden mass of splitting rope in his hands. To cross the river they would have to row, or swim. He examined the silent village while Arcod sent two pairs of men to reconnoiter. The hounds would not sit. Rage growled low in her throat. Sorrow whined nervously.

“There’s a trench dug out there.” Ildoin pointed to a patchwork of fields beyond the outermost house. “It looks fresh.”

“Mayhap there’s a shovel to be found—” said Alain.

“No need to probe so closely,” said Arcod. “You and I and the lad will go. The rest can stay here to watch over the horses.”

Leaving the other clerics in the road, Alain, Ildoin, and Arcod walked out across four unplowed fields laid down in long strips, to the fifth field, which was still stubbled with the remains of last autumn’s wheat. The smell hit before they got close enough to see what the long mound of fresh dirt concealed. The stench of burned flesh was made worse by the stink of putrefaction. Ildoin gagged as all color washed out of his face. Arcod covered his nose with the tip of his sleeve.

“Rage! Come!” Alain commanded, but she sat down at the edge of the field and whined, head cocked in the direction of the men waiting by the horses.

“It is the murrain,” said Arcod as Sorrow got the top layer of dirt dug away. The smell of burned flesh billowed up from the trench. Sorrow nosed among the tangled, scorched legs of sheep with strips of skin still hanging from bone. The poor sick creatures had been burned in haste and buried before the job was properly finished. But the hound scratched, seeking another scent that teased and eluded him. As the dirt spilled down on either side, maggots swarmed out of the earth, a writhing mass of them that scattered to safety and vanished back into the disturbed earth. At the sight of them, Ildoin staggered back, fell to his knees, and vomited onto the ground.