Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

Not all bad days are born of ill beginnings. The bright blue sky that had come with the dawn yielded to heavy, sullen clouds by mid-morning, and I found myself testing the chilliness of the wind as I rode, in fear of yet more snow. It was too warm for snow, however, and the truth of that was shown when a heavy spattering of fat raindrops swept from the west and rattled audibly against my helmet. I wrapped my cloak more tightly about my shoulders and rode on, but the rain held off.

I arrived at the site of the Red Dragon hostelry well before noon, after a two-hour ride, to find Liam, Shelagh and their escort already awaiting me. Of the hostelry, however, all that remained was a black pile of charred and broken beams covered by icy, brittle-crusted snow. The fire that had destroyed it had obviously occurred before the onset of winter, and I assumed the Berbers had been responsible. Angry at being thus bereft of the few moments' rest and warmth I had anticipated, I controlled my ill-humour and issued my new orders. Since Rufio reported that his party's progress had been uneventful, I sent the escort on to Glevum, where they could camp with their companions and enjoy a break, no matter how short, from the tedium of the journey. I kept back only Rufio himself to ride with me in company with Shelagh and Liam's wagon. The ride to Mordechai's colony was short from here, less than ten miles, and I saw no reason to expose our men either to contagion or the fear of it. We four would arrive well before nightfall, I estimated, unload the wagon, eat and sleep, and be ready to return again at first light.

The rain began to fall as we sat by the ruined hostelry and watched our men march off to be concealed by the forest that encroached here to the edges of the road. I glanced down at the cobbles between my horse's feet, seeing the raindrops overpowering the shrinking gaps of dryness on the stones, and saw a tiny sapling growing there. I immediately remembered Benedict's prediction and agreed with it, knowing conclusively that this road on which we sat would be destroyed and vanish completely within a hundred years. Behind me, I heard Liam click his gums, stirring the wagon horse to movement, and then the iron tyres began their clamour over the cobbles.

We soon discovered that Lucanus's worst fears had been justified and exceeded. Mordechai's colony lay empty and abandoned, all signs of life extinguished. I knew from the first moment, looking down into the tiny dell from the hillside above through a driving downpour, that we were far, far too late. There is an aspect of emptiness that speaks eloquently of abandonment rather than temporary relocation, and it consists largely of an impression of neglect; it is a visual impression, difficult to define yet unmistakable. This place had lain untended for long weeks, perhaps even months.

I had told Shelagh and Liam the tale of Mordechai Emancipatus on the journey from the ruined hostelry, and now we sat at the top of the rise for a long time, ignoring the rain since we were long since drenched, each of us wordlessly inspecting the scene below. Finally, faced with the choice of simply riding off without a closer look, or making some attempt to discover the when and how of things, I kneed my horse forward, bidding Liam remain where he was with the wagon. Shelagh and Rufio accompanied me, but I alone dismounted when I reached the threshold of the longhouse, with its sagging, open door. Full of the fears that had all but overwhelmed me on my first visit to this place, I held my breath and leaned forward to look inside the long, low building. There was no one there. I called aloud, still making no attempt to enter, and my voice echoed back to me.

Sighing, but relieved of the fear of having to enter, I turned away and swept my eyes around the grassy bowl that formed the common ground. Nothing. And then I saw the pot, the new one we had brought from Camulod on our first visit. It sat where I had seen it last, amid the long-dead ashes of the cooking fire, and it was scaled with rust, accumulated over months. Rufio spoke from behind me.

"How sick were these people, Merlyn?"

"Very sick, some more than others. Why do you ask?" I looked up at him, to see him staring off along the far side of the longhouse. He nodded in the direction of his gaze and I moved to where I could see what he was looking at.

"There's still a lot of snow piled up in there, out of the sun," he said. "They must have had it even worse than us these past few months. Some of them must have died."

"Aye, that's a fair assumption." I was eyeing the pile of snow uneasily, wondering what might lie beneath it.

"Then where are they?" Rufio asked, reinforcing my dismay. "There's no bodies lying around. The ground would be as hard here as it was in Camulod."

"You think they're there, under the snow?"

Rufio shrugged as I turned back to him. "They could be. They must be somewhere. And some must have survived and moved away, otherwise there would be at least one corpse lying around. The last one to die. No one would have dragged him anywhere."

"Aye, you're right, Rufio." Feeling immensely relieved at that realisation, I went directly along the side of the longhouse to the piled up snow, looking for some means of shovelling it aside, closing my mind resolutely against the fear of what might lie concealed therein. An old, broken shovel leaned against the wall and I seized it quickly, using it to scrape the surface snow aside and then digging carefully until I reached bare soil. There were no corpses there. I rejoined the others and swung myself up into my saddle.

"Nothing there at all, but you're right, they must be somewhere. Stay here, I'm going to look around."

I found nothing but the long-dead body of the horse we had left the lepers, but Rufio had ignored my order to stay where he was, and it was he who found the burial place. I heard his voice calling me from the woods opposite the longhouse, and arrived there to find him still astride his horse, a handful of his cloak held to his mouth. The pity of the scene was as overwhelming as the stench of it. A row of bodies lay arranged alongside each other, thirteen of them, each laid out in a semblance of decency and good order. Close by them someone, Mordechai, I had no doubt, had attempted to dig a pit large enough to inter them. It was wide and long, but less than a short-sword's length in depth, and its bottom yet retained the chipped, hard-broken look of frozen ground.

"Mordechai," I said. "He must have gone in search of help."

"Aye, but not long ago. Look at that one." The last body in the line closest to the unfinished pit looked different. We moved closer.

"This one's new dead, Merlyn," Rufio said, his eyes sharper than mine. "He's still fresh. Look, the skin's not even livid." I looked and it was true. This corpse could have been no more than eight or ten hours old, which meant that Mordechai could not be far away, since it must have been he who dragged the body here. As I sat there, feeling my heart accelerate, we heard Shelagh calling to us and kicked our horses to a trot, making directly for the sound of her voice. She was in front of the longhouse, in the act of swinging herself up into the saddle when we broke from the trees, and her excitement was clearly evident.

"Someone was here until this morning," she called as we approached. "Could it have been your friend Mordechai? I smelled fresh smoke inside the house, and sure enough, the ashes of the fire there are still warm. Whoever was here might still be close by, unless he had a horse."

"No, the only horse they had is dead," I answered her. "I found it over there, in the brush. It must have frozen in the storm. If this is Mordechai— and I would guess it is, for he's not among the dead—he'll be on foot, and probably extremely weak, since he'll be starving. Damnation! Where should we even begin to look?"