The Scourge (Kindle Serial) Read Online Free PDF

shrug slowly. “Faith, my lord.” I look at his wife, bound and snarling
by the wall. “Faith and patience.”

Chapter 7

    So now I must steal a
holy relic from the cathedral at St. Edmund’s Bury. When I am done with this
journey, I believe I will have broken each of the Ten Commandments. Several
times.
    The boat turns out to
be an ancient barge scarcely big enough to carry our horses. It is narrow, with
rotting planks, and sits low in the water. Four drunken sailors are at the oars.
The barge is bad, but it is better than the crossbowmen they have provided. Four
runty men in padded frocks. I can’t see their eyes beneath the kettle-helm rims,
but I can see the fear in their postures. One of them trembles and sweats as we
board the barge. The others take deep breaths and grip their crossbows tightly.
    The barge is so small
that Sir Tristan and Sir Morgan need to sit beneath my horse. Three of the
crossbowmen squeeze in beneath Sir Tristan’s mare. I sit on the prow, with my
legs dangling over the water. The last crossbowman does the same on the stern.
    One of the oarsmen
pushes us away from the docks, and the barge cuts into the fog-shrouded Thames.
I take a breath and catch the scent of brine and dead fish. The night is cool
and overcast but the three-quarter moon smoulders through the clouds.
    The sailors get three
strokes in before the first body bumps gently against the side. A man, dead and
bloated. A rower shoves him away with his oar. A vagary of the river currents
makes the dead man’s arm wave in the water.
    “Morgan, there’s a
rooster on the boat.” Sir Tristan points to the stern. Sir Morgan turns his
head to look, and my horse’s cock brushes against his upper lip. Tristan and
the three crossbowmen under his horse laugh as Morgan spits and rubs at his
lip.
    “Always the child,”
Sir Morgan says. “Always the fool. Fools don’t get into heaven, Tristan. Fools
rot in purgatory.”
    “We’re all going to
rot,” Tristan says. “There is only one heaven, and that is between a woman’s
legs.”
    We get closer to the
far bank. I see the body of the man farther downstream. It is not the river
currents making him move. He is moving on his own. I sit up to get a better
look.
    “You’re wrong, Tristan.
Heaven exists. Our Lord and Savior died for our sins. All our sins. Even
yours.”
    “Perhaps he did,” Tristan
says. “Perhaps I am wrong. I freely admit it. But what makes you so certain
that you are right?”
    “Because of the
scriptures, Tristan. Because of the miracles and the saints and the martyrs.
Because of the priests and because of the Holy Spirit. I can feel the Holy
Spirit, Tristan, because I have faith. I pity you, because you will never know
the joy of it.”
    Another body washes
against the barge. A man in a long tunic. I lean toward the upriver side to get
a better look. The man’s ghastly hand takes hold of the rail. It shocks me to
silence, so all I can do is point as the afflicted man tries to pull himself
onboard. A rower cries out and smacks at the plaguer with an oar. I draw my dagger
but I can’t get to the threat. One of the soldiers under Tristan’s horse fires
a panicky shot that buries a bolt in the lurching man’s shoulder. The plaguer
cries out but pulls his upper half into the boat. The horses clatter their
hooves as he nears them. One of the crossbowmen, the one at the stern, throws
up over the side of the rails.
    A head peers over the
prow of the boat and I almost fall overboard at the sight. It is a
water-bloated woman, her color drained to a pallid white by the plague and the river.
Her lips have been ripped open on one side, revealing skeletal jaws. One armpit
rests on the boat’s railing, one shriveled claw reaches toward me. A gaudy ring
of gold and ruby winds around her finger. It makes her flesh seem even paler. She
shrieks. I raise my dagger and plunge it into her skull as she claws at my arm.
She spasms and I hear a horse crying out behind me. Soldiers