Chapter 6

On the advice of the Captain of the garrison in Esala, Stefan and Gregor chose a longer, but safer route back to the fortress Sardaford. Instead of toiling through the mountains and thick forest, they turned due south and followed a road that led to the eastern most stretch of the King's Highway. From there they would turn west and continue directly to Sardaford. Fewer vagabonds and bandits traveled the southern road because there were fewer places to hide along the mostly flat plateau.

On their third day out, Stefan awoke to Gregor's rambling curses. The sun had yet to tip the horizon, and Gregor's string of babbling anger grated against the symphony of bird calls that echoed across the flat land. Stefan grunted in dismay. The blond guardsman was standing to the side trying to take a pee, and was obviously encountering difficulties.

Stefan had been dreaming of a soft bed with the delicious smell of a passionate woman enticing his lust when the cursing jarred him from his fantasy. With one eye open, he watched his companion jump around in a circle, dancing an un-choreographed depiction of pain.

"Methinks that thou dost receive the naked judgment of Venus upon thy person?" Stefan proclaimed with false gravity as he sat up, and rolled the kinks out of his neck.

"Oh shut up!" Gregor snapped, "My cock burns from the inside out. That last bitch must have poisoned me with her quim. To think I was so nice to her, giving her an extra copper and a kiss. May the gods shrivel her snatch and anvil her anus with painful pustules of pus. Ahgg!"

Stefan had heard it before, and was neither impressed nor looking forward to weeks of complaint, "Your masterful poetry is wasted on the beasts of the field. Maybe a healer in Sardaford can give some relief, but until then, you will have to bear the pain."

"Healer?" Gregor snapped. "You bed a healer for two nights and now they are the answer to all of the ills of man. I'll take my chances with a physician; at least they were trained at the college."

Stefan didn't rise to bait, "Perhaps you can visit the barber and let him cut out the offending pain."

Gregor snorted but found himself without a clever retort. They ate, rounded up their horses, and rode. Three more days with Gregor carrying on about the pain when pissing and the retribution he would heap upon "the bitch", Stefan was ready to stop up his ears with cotton to drown out the whining. He preferred to gaze out upon the peaceful sights that spread out before them. The land was blissfully untended and had the look of good pastureland though they saw no flocks about.

At midmorning, both spotted a manor house in the distance with a stone fence marking a wide swath of cleared land. Two large trees with spreading canopies graced the front of the cut stone building.

Neither of them had to say a word; they simply turned their horses onto the path and walked up to the large house. Their anticipation tempered considerably as they pulled closer and saw no person, and heard no sound. A manor house should be bustling with activity during the day.

Instead of dismounting, the two split up and made opposite circuits around the building, noting the barn and separate wattled servant's quarters in the back. When they met up again, they couldn't decide whether the inhabitants had fled or died on the premises. Full of trepidation, and with their swords unsheathed as if their sharpness would protect them, the two men entered the house.

The smell of rotting flesh was almost overpowering in the stifling air. The master and his wife had died in their bedroom, with their four children near. The servants were a little more spread out around the house. While Stefan stepped back and away from touching anything, Gregor poked through the master's room looking for loot. Someone had beaten them to it.

Gregor was not deterred though. He rushed out the back and onto the servant's quarters and gave a yell of success. Stefan, who had held back from entering another infected space, doggedly walked into the room and followed the tip of Gregor's sword to the dead body lying on a dingy mat of straw.

"He's holding the master's jacket," Gregor hissed. "Notice all of the brocade on the sleeves; the master was probably retired from the ranks of the military, the real military."

"Why is this thief holding the master's jacket then?" Stefan was loath to step any closer.

Gregor shook his head with mild disgust, "The stupid bastard loaded up his master's gold, and, I think, the lady's jewelry, and carried it out of the house in the jacket."

Gregor kicked the dead man's arm and jingle of coins rang softy.

"Stupid fool," Gregor declared. "Where did he think he was going to spend his master's fortune with the plague percolating in his body? I would call this pathetic, wouldn't you?"

Stefan shrugged noncommittally. His fear of the plague was thoroughgoing, and Mirela had drilled her knowledge of the plague into his thoughts. He wanted to back out of the room and run for his horse. He wanted to quit this open-air graveyard and flee for the pristine pastures. As much as Stefan had become more cautious, Gregor had become more cavalier. He charged into these plague tainted environs without hesitation.

Stefan didn't fail to see the gleam of greed in his companion's eyes.

"There are no survivors in the manor," Gregor started just as Stefan knew he would. "There are no more heirs and no witnesses. We have found abandoned wealth and by all legal requirements, it is ours to keep, Stefan."

Stefan nodded his head in partial agreement, but not enough to show clear acquiescence. Gregor was acting true to form; he loved money and what he could do with it. The man missed his father's own manor and wealth. It was easy for both to gauge that even half of the contents of that brocaded jacket were the undeniable ticket to reclaiming a manor born position.

"We aren't going to get rich on a soldier's salary, Stefan," Gregor continued. "We won't even be able to retire when our commission is complete. This is our gift of the gods!"

Stefan rubbed his toe in the dirt floor of the room, "I agree, but that wealth is wrapped in plague. I fear, with good reason, that if we attempt to remove the gold and jewels, we will become the next victims of the plague."

"I'm not a dunderhead," Gregor roared. "We're not going to touch the dead man. We are just going get that twice cursed jacket out from his arms. The king gave us swords with our commissions, we use them to hack off his arms and drag the jacket out of here."

Stefan grimaced, "That is still too close for the fleas to leap upon us."

"Fleas?" Gregor let his astonishment become a mask of ridicule, "You believe your breasted healer that pathetic little fleas will give a man the plague? She did more than screw your cock, my friend, she screwed your good sense."

Stefan held up his hand, "Regardless, I will not step nearer to that corpse."

Gregor vacillated between frustration and disgust, "Okay, what do we need to do to get you to work with me on this little project?"

"If you get the coin out of here, I will not carry any of it until it has been boiled to purge it."

Gregor took a small sigh of relief that his companion was willing to cooperate in some small manner, "Fine, I will do the dirty work of getting the coin out of here, while you get a small fire going and a pot of water. But I get two thirds for doing the dangerous work."

Stefan nodded, wishing that Gregor would just leave the coin where it lay. But the stubborn intent was obvious; Gregor would not be swayed.

"I agree without reservation, Gregor. I'll meet you across the way."

Stefan turned, and as he stepped back into the sunlight, the rasp of a sword leaving its sheath reached his ears. He practically ran to escape the imaginary cloud of pestilence that billowed in the servant's room. He started a fire and brought a clean pot from the kitchen, filling it with water from the creek behind the barn. By the time he returned, Gregor was dragging the jacket with his sword, keeping well clear of the infected fabric.

"Well, at least you didn't touch the jacket," Stefan complimented. He stared at the blood and gore that stained the brocade from Gregor's hacking of the limbs. "Leave it there, Gregor, far away from where we are going to sit and wait for the water to heat. I'm going to the barn to find a shovel. In the meantime, why don't you go to the creek and wash yourself with some of the soap we brought from Esala?"

"Bah! I'm not going to scald my skin again. You might as well invoke incantations and sprinkle fairy dust on me," Gregor blustered.