The Scourge (Kindle Serial) Read Online Free PDF Page A

patience.”
    “I’m not certain of
that, my lord,” I say.
    Lord James splashes
the child a little more forcefully, the holy water spattering the boy’s face. The
earl dips the aspergillum into the bucket again and splashes again. The boy
flinches at the cold water but doesn’t stop biting. Lord James splashes the
child over and over again, each swing more forceful, the earl’s face tightening
with each stroke until he is scowling. “Faith!” he shouts into the boy’s face.
“Faith and patience! Faith and patience !” The last sentence is shouted so
loudly that the guards peer into the room. Lord James doesn’t notice. He grabs
the bucket and dumps the holy water over the child’s blond curls with a growl,
then tries spattering the boy with what is left on the aspergillum but clips
the child in the jaw with it instead. The boy cries out with pain, then
continues to snap his teeth. Lord James strokes the child’s chin where he
struck it. He leans in close and whispers, as the boy shakes away the water
dumped over him, “Faith and patience, little one.”
    “My lord,” I say, but
am unsure of what to add.
    Sir Morgan draws a
small Bible from a leather pouch at his side and approaches the child. “Praise
the Lord, oh my soul,” he reads, “and forget not all his benefits who forgives
all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion.”
    “I have tried
scripture,” Lord James says. “I have tried exorcism. I had a dozen priests
chanting over these poor people. But none of it has yet worked.”
    I notice a
bare-chested man among the afflicted. He bears a burn in the shape of a
crucifix upon his left breast. I let out a long sigh. “My lord, I need a boat
to cross the Thames, and some men to cover us while we climb the northern
banks.”
    Lord James walks past
me as if I hadn’t spoken. He caresses the face of the woman tied to the iron
ring. She snaps at his hand with her toothless jaws and snarls at him. “Don’t
judge her by how she looks now,” he says. “She was ravishing once.”
    “Was that your wife,
my lord?”
    “That is my
wife, Sir Edward. And I will pray until God lifts this terrible affliction from
her.”
    “My wife is in Saint
Edmund’s Bury,” I say. “The plague may not have gotten to her.”
    Lord James steeples
his hands in front of his wife and closes his eyes. “There is nothing but
plague in the North. Your wife is like mine now.”
    “Perhaps she is not.”
    “I am sorry for your
loss, Sir Edward.”
    “Then lend me a boat and
five crossbowmen,” I say. “Give me the chance to pray for my wife as you now
pray for yours.”
    Lord James opens his
eyes and looks at me. “Travel north of the Thames is forbidden. God has
destroyed the North, like Sodom and Gomorrah. And he has forbidden us from
traveling there.”
    “My wife is there,” I
say.
    “Perhaps your wife is
a pillar of salt,” Lord James says, and he laughs. I hear the madness in that
laugh.
    “I need a boat and
some crossbowmen, my lord.”
    “I will give you a
boat and soldiers,” he says, “if you agree to let my surgeons take out your
teeth.”
    Sir Tristan snorts.
“You can have Sir Morgan’s teeth.”
    Sir Morgan glares. I
would smile if my Elizabeth wasn’t a hundred miles away. “There is a cathedral
in Saint Edmund’s Bury,” I say to Lord James. “And in that cathedral is the thighbone
of St. Luke.”
    Lord James opens his
mouth then shuts it. “St. Luke the healer?”
    “The very same.”
    The earl looks at the afflicted
along his walls. He looks at his wife and runs a hand along her cheek as she
snaps and strains against the silk cord. “You would return with this relic?
Give it to me?”
    “Yes, m’lord.”
    He turns to look at
me, and there is a guarded hope in his eyes. “How can I be certain that you
will honor your word, Sir Edward? That you will return with the relic?”
    I stare into the earl’s
eyes and