‘We’ll need to take turns on watch,’ I said.
‘Why?’ He asked. ‘I mean, you and me, we can take what, five of the bastards? Better to die.’ He shook his head. ‘Like the end of the world. Maybe it is. Mayhap-’
I reached over and flicked the end of his nose.
‘Eh!’ he bridled. ‘No call for that!’
‘We’re not dead yet. Nor are our companions. Let’s do our best.’ Christ, I sounded pompous, even to me.
That was a long night. Christopher made his apologies and withdrew to his little fortress on the hill.
I sat by the fire with de Charny’s dagger and some tow, some lard and some powdered pumice. I meant to get the stain out of the blade. I knew I’d be up all night, and my head was doing some strange things.
Richard fouled himself and had to be cleaned. I suppose I could have left him. In fact, I thought about leaving him in his own dung. By the Virgin, I even thought of getting Goldie and riding away.
Instead, I cleaned him and dripped some warm rabbit broth into him.
John awoke and demanded food. He looked like a monster in the glow of the fire, his eyes wild, his long hair everywhere. I gave him a joint of hare and some broth — he vomited bile and sat suddenly, then rolled over and threw up everything he’d just eaten, before falling forward into it.
I cleaned him.
Sam sat up and looked at me. In a perfectly normal voice, he said, ‘I have the Plague, don’t I?’
I got up and went to him. Christopher had set the tents up like awnings, with one side lifted on poles, so the air could pass through easily and I could go from man to man. I could see them all from the fire. I went and knelt by him. ‘I think so,’ I admitted.
He shook his head. ‘I’s salted. Had it as a young’n. Ain’t right.’
That put the chill of pure fear into me.
‘You had a bad fall-’ I said.
But he was gone again, his eyes closed, his breathing coarse, like a man snoring.
John staggered to his feet — I assume with some notion of going somewhere to be sick — and vomited all over himself, then fell headlong across the fire. The burning coals galvanized him, and he leaped to his feet again before collapsing.
I poured water over him, but not until I’d found embers in the pitch darkness and put them together carefully, found bark and made up the fire again, adding twigs and small bits of oak.
Thank God it wasn’t raining. Thank God.
I thought of Master Peter. Hiring me because I could start a fire.
‘What happened?’ asked Christopher out of the darkness.
‘John fell in the fire,’ I said.
Christopher came into the edge of the firelight. ‘Need. . help?’ he asked.
‘John just threw up all over himself and then fell in the fire. Sam’s raving. Richard may be dead. I haven’t been to sleep-’ My voice was wild.
I tried to get control of myself.
Christopher grunted. ‘I’ll clean John,’ he said.
‘He has the Plague,’ I said.
Christopher came into the firelight and sat on his heels. ‘Maybe not,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Sam doesn’t have a pustule on him, does he?’
I hadn’t checked in hours, but I looked — high and low, so to speak — while Christopher held a lit taper.
‘None,’ I said. ‘And he said he was salted.’
‘There you go, then.’ He looked at John. ‘John’s got something bad, but it’s in his guts.’
‘Rob died of Plague,’ I said. ‘I know what Plague looks like.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ll take my chance,’ he said.
There are many forms of courage.
When the sun rose, Christopher was on a pallet of ferns. He was hot all over and had swellings in his armpits. He lay there, saying ‘fuck’ over and over, then he was silent.
The shattering work came to an end. I made them as clean as I could. I burned what they had been wearing.
About noon, a dozen armed peasants came. I heard them, but I didn’t have the energy to get into my harness, so I walked to my bedroll — still roped tight — picked up my beautiful longsword and drew it.
They came down the forest trail. The leader had a good brigantine and a fine helmet. In fact, he had Peter’s helmet.
The men behind him had a wide variety of arms and equipment, but the last fellow wore the red and blue hood of the Paris Commune.
‘Stop where you are,’ I said. In French, of course.
The leader paused.
‘We have Plague,’ I said.
They all froze.
‘Fucking Englishman is just saying that,’ spat the third man in the line.
‘Want to come look?’ I said. I think my voice and my fatigue must have carried conviction.
‘May you all die of it,’ said the leader.
Then they walked away — quickly.
I drank the rest of the broth and ate the cold rabbit. Then I went to my bedroll and took out the cheese and sausage I had there and ate it all. I didn’t feel sick, which was a miracle.
Then I drank the wine I had. It wasn’t enough.
I cleaned them all and tried to give them a little white wine that Richard had.
Then I sat by the fire, polishing Sir Geoffrey’s dagger. When I couldn’t face that any more, I said my beads. The beads made a tiny, regular noise as I told them, almost like a weaver’s shuttle moving against the loom.
I prayed a long time. I lost myself in it.
I came out because Sam was asking for water. I had filled all the leather bottles, so I took him one and he drank deep. ‘Fever broke,’ he whispered. ‘Sweet saviour, I’m weak.’ His eyes met mine. ‘I want to make my confession,’ he whispered.
‘I’m no priest,’ I said.
A tiny smile flickered around his eyes. ‘Just go and fetch one for me, sir?’ he said.
I heard his confession. Like most of us, he’d gone through the commandments pretty thoroughly.
That’s between him and God.
The thing that did me a world of good is that as he spoke, his voice got stronger. I left him for a few minutes to hold Richard’s hand, and when I came back, he was up on one elbow.
‘Master William, I think I may stay in the vale of sin,’ he announced.
I wanted to kiss him.
In the morning, he was able to move around. He helped clean John and Christopher.
About noon, Christopher died.
I just sat by the fire for a while. ‘Is it the Plague? What the hell is this?’ I asked.
Sam just shook his head. ‘Soldiers get sick,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have the Plague, but Chris did. Look at him.’
He stank.
I carried him, wrapped in his cloak, and buried him by Rob. Something had tried to dig Rob up, but failed.
I spent time putting Chris just as deep.
You know how long it takes to dig a hole for a man?
I stopped twice to go back and check on the others. Sam was better each time, and by the third evening he was boiling water, setting out tapers and cleaning the camp.
On the third morning, Richard was better. John ate and didn’t throw it up.
We were two more days there.
I hadn’t lost a man in months of campaigning, and in four days I lost Peter, Rob and Chris.
We were thin when we rode on. Goldie had lost weight, but we now had enough horses — sad, but brutally necessary.
We rode along the Seine, riding as hard as my recuperating men could handle, and came to Poissy by evening. They made a long chalk of letting us in the gates, but in the end we satisfied them that we weren’t carrying Plague and that we were English. I put Richard and John into the charge of the nuns, and rode off with a potboy from the hospital as my page, and Sam, armed to the teeth, to find Charles of Navarre. The garrison was petrified by the peasants’ attacks — easy pillage had turned into hard duty. They weren’t even looking over the walls.