Chapter 27: Plague on You!

(Lord William Archer narrates)

I arrive in Oaklea on foot, bent over almost double and leaning heavily on a long stick, the true nature of the stick hidden by wrappings around of short strips of muslin, half coming undone, reminiscent of a leper suffering from deep neglect and long past caring about appearances.

About my person is wrapped a long cloak, with a full cowl completely obscuring my face, and reducing my scope of vision, although, as I descend the hill past the church, my workshop and the smithy, I take in all that I see through my woven window. There are sixty or seventy plus men on view around the Inn, and possibly archers behind the windows of the Inn, staying back in the shadows where I cannot see them. The men gathered here, I see, are a mixture of Knights, Lords and men at arms. Every one of them is my enemy today, who will pay dearly for this treachery, if not in this life, though it may take me years to track down them all down, then I can only hope Alwen is right so I can pursue them in the next. My dear wife believes in the next life, to the comfort of her heart and mind; for me, I mean to dish out purgatory in this world, as I have no confidence that just desserts will follow in some unknown paradise or hell that is promised by blind faith to come.

I see a series of oak execution blocks set out in the road, complete with an executioner, replete with leathern helm and huge broadsword, far too cumbersome to take into modern battle, except light wooden ones in the plays that travelling players put on for children’s amusement from village green to castle bailey up and down the land. No doubt they want to put on a show to terrify me and spread fear amongst those of the common folk who will witness, and pass on the detail in amplified terms around the countryside, of the terror inflicted by this motley bunch of traitors, fuelled only by greed.

Now I see a man dressed in lordly finery, of ermine fur and fine broadcloth cloak interwoven with threads of gold. He has just walked out from the shelter of the Inn’s cool main hall, into the brightest glittering sunshine that the spring so far this season could boast.

No doubt this is the mysterious Count, that his temporary soldier spoke of, some friend or possible cousin of the Lord Wellock who, even with a cursory glance around the assemblage, reveals to me he is conspicuous by his absence. Perhaps I was mistaken in my opinion of that Lord, that he is not one of the traitors but one who has been taken in, duped, and has given shelter and armed with his own spare soldiers, by way of common curtesy to an honoured and hard-done-by guest.

Behind this Count De La Warre I see six helmed Black Knights arrive quietly and ride two abreast over the bridge from the west and spread themselves out across the road and halt there. They are as far behind the Count they no doubt support, as I am in front of the Count. They wait like reserve cavalry in battle, for the foot soldiers to wear down the attack, and ready to charge in to save the day should they be required, or chase down those fleeing their lost cause, to be cut down like sheaves of humanity and their bones winnowed from their flesh by the heavy hooves of their black mounts. If there is one colour that shows the spillage of blood much less readily than any other in battle, by choice it is black.

My dear Alwen, and her steward Stephen, a capable and likeable young man, his head wrapped in bandages which weep blood and clearly unaware of where he is and what is happening to him, are dragged around the far end of the Inn. No doubt they have been kept in the brew house, being the only building in the village under lock and key. Our villagers are friends and fellow contributors to this wonderful life we are harmoniously carving out for ourselves. They are honest to a man or woman, but leaving many gallons of some of the finest ales ever brewed in this fair land, open to indulgence, is a temptation too far for any mortal man to endure. So the brew house has always by local custom been under lock and key, and therefore ideal as a temporary prison in desperate circumstances.

I stop walking, with my shuffling gait, and push back my cowl to reveal my reddened face, covered as it is in the ugliest of red spots, raised and angry, like the very essence of a Pestilence from Hell.

“Plague!” cry a few of the more excitable in the crowd. There is general panic! Some break ranks and plunge for haven into the sanctuary of the Inn, others cross themselves as if this gesture had any restorative qualities in the face of plague, while one or two even drop to their knees, deep in prayer.

Before I can even move a muscle, and I can see the whole thing replayed in my mind, while I was partly diverted by looking at this Count manhandling my wife by pulling her up off the ground, my peripheral vision sees the glint of flashing sunlight as the executioner’s broadsword is raised and dropped. The head of poor Stephen loped off cleanly like the stalk end of a ripe pear, and rolls along the ground in front of Alwen. Her face is ashen, she has no muscle control over her jaw, which flaps open like the parody of a troubador’s comic pissflap.

“Hold there!” says the Count, who recovers from the shock first, dragging Alwen to a block of wood in the street outside the inn. He flings my dear, heavily pregnant Alwen to the block, and that same hooded executioner chains her to it.

The executioner steps back, lifts his great blade about his head in readiness to strike her sweet head from her shoulders, but then staggers for a moment.

A white rose appears at the front of the executioner’s throat, or at least that is what it looks like. A white rose, with a hint of pink at the base of the petals, a pink that takes on a redder hue, a blush which gradually, fascinatingly, spreads to the tip of each rose petal. A clever trick, all who observe may think; magic, others might say, but the redness keeps on coming and now red is spraying down the executioner’s chest. A splatter at first and then another. Further rhythmic spurts and splutters turn into a stream, a torrent flowing down his chest and belly. His arms relax and he drops the great sword behind his back, too heavy for weakening limbs and nerveless fingers to hold any longer. At the same time, his shoulders release his arms which drop down to his side. His knees buckle and his eyes, that were once wide open in surprise, relax as if he is preparing his readiness for a long, dreamless sleep. As his knees crumple beneath him, he half turns, revealing that, protruding from the back of his neck, is a long thin rod, about 30 inches in length, with a glistening iron barbed point on the end. Then it become obvious that the ‘white rose’ petals at his throat were in fact goose feathers, now stained bright red with the executioner’s final heartbeats. He crumples in a heap on the floor without even a twitch, as the lifeless nerve endings give up the battle to maintain the executioner’s life force, as a lost cause.