Jack Whyte - The Saxon Shore

"Rufio looks upset," Luke said from above me.

"Aye, something's wrong."

When he reached us he reined his horse in a tight circle before speaking, so that none of the men behind us might overhear his words.

"Lepers, Commander, up ahead. A large group of them."

"How many?" This was Lucanus.

"About fifteen, I think. We came on them unexpectedly and they ran.

There's a house of some kind, built of logs, half buried in the ground. No way of telling how many there are inside. Not without going in." His tone made it clear that was beyond consideration.

"Stop looking like that, man, you have no need to fear anything," Luke snapped. "They won't contaminate you. These are the people I have come to see. Stay here with the others, if your fear is that great. I'll ride on alone. Who else was with you when you found the colony?"

Rufio was gazing at Luke as though the physician had lost his mind. "Prince Donuil," he answered. "He's still there, watching the place."

"Why?" Luke's scorn was withering. "Does he expect them to attack him? Sick people?" He turned to look at me. "Would you like to accompany me, Commander Merlyn?" He paused, awaiting my response, and I swallowed hard before nodding, unwilling to trust my tongue. He smiled and turned again to Rufio. "Where are they?"

An hour later we approached the lepers' place by a narrow but well- trodden path that struck away from the main road for half a mile, so that the dwelling place of Mordechai Emancipatus and his charges was well hidden from the eyes of passers-by. Donuil and Rufio had found it simply because they were scouting, on the lookout for anything unusual. Lucanus steered the wagon carefully as we made our way forward and Donuil, pale and tense, now rode beside me.

The path led us into a tiny, bowl-shaped depression too small to be called a valley, floored with fine, white sand that gleamed like snow through the grass that fronted the log structure housing the lepers. The building, of the type known as a byre or longhouse, was built, as Rufio had said, into the side of a low hill. Flanked by two rough outhouses of the same construction, it looked both large and ancient, its walls—those portions of them that projected far enough to be seen—thickly crusted with lichen and mosses. Its roof sagged dangerously in the middle, weighted down with the accretion of years of moss and weeds, so that it would have been invisible from any angle but the one from which we approached. A large cooking fire was smouldering into ashes in front of it, but apart from that sign of life the place appeared to be abandoned. The sight of our scouts, Lucanus assured me, would have driven the lepers inside, to the illusory safety of the building. He drew rein less than twenty paces from the only doorway and climbed down from his seat, slinging his big leather physician's satchel over his shoulder as he did so, and told us to remain where we were for the time being. I was appalled by the place, but it was Donuil who spoke out.

"You're not going in there?"

Lucanus looked up at him and smiled. "I am indeed. Are you suggesting I should come all this way for this sole purpose and not enter? Of course I'm going in, and I'm coming out again. Then you can help me unload the wagon." He lowered his heavy satchel to the ground and crossed to where I sat watching. "Can you reach inside the wagon and hand me down that big pot, Merlyn?" Transferring my weight to one stirrup, I stepped from my saddle onto the wagon platform and leaned inside, up-ending the pot gently to allow its contents to fall out undamaged, before handing the vessel down to him. He carried it to Donuil, grinning widely. "Here, fill this with clean water and set it on the fire there. I'll need it later."

As Donuil slowly dismounted, his face darkened by a troubled scowl, Lucanus picked up his bag again and slung it back over his shoulder. He approached the building and knocked heavily on the door, and I heard a surprisingly deep and normal male voice shout to him to go away, that they were unclean. Luke's only response was to step forward and push against the door. It swung open slowly, and he disappeared inside.

I leaned closer, trying to pierce the darkness beyond the doorway, but could see nothing. I turned then to Donuil and we looked at each other in dismay, but neither of us voiced his thoughts, and Donuil went off on his quest for water.

How long I sat there before Lucanus came out again I do not know, but it seemed like hours. Finally, however, he emerged and approached us, stopping first by the fire where he tested the heat of the water in the pot with his fingertip. When he reached my side he looked up first at me, then at Donuil, and then at me again.

"Merlyn," he said at length, "I am going to invite you to come with me on a journey into Hades, and you will see the true value of the gifts you have given these poor people."

I heard his words without surprise, for I had long since ceased to be surprised by the depths of this man's humanity and compassion. My sole wonder about Lucanus nowadays was due to my own remembrance of the time when I had thought that he was humourless, inhumanly cold and efficient, and that he and I could never be friends.

"Will you come?" He was still gazing at me.

I nodded. "Of course I will."

"Merlyn—" Donuil again, his voice sounding agonized. I cut him short.

"You stay here, Donuil. Don't let that fire go out."

On the threshold, my heart thudding loudly in my ears, I paused and drew a huge, deep breath of clean air. Then, holding it in my lungs as though it were the last I should ever know, I followed Lucanus into the darkness.

I did not know then, nor can I now imagine, what I really expected to find inside that place. A charnel house, perhaps; a hell pit of some description. What I found was Stygian blackness after the bright light of outdoors. I stopped inside the threshold, still holding my breath, and gazed around me, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. The stillness inside those walls was absolute. No one moved, and no one spoke. My head began to swim from the effort of holding my breath, and as my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, I exhaled noisily, explosively, then fought down a surge of panic as my lungs sucked in more air. . . contaminated air. I began to discern the shape of Lucanus, standing just ahead of me, and long lines of military- looking cots extending along both walls, right and left, the way they did in Lucanus's own sick bay in Camulod.

Lucanus spoke into the silence.

"You may light the lamps, Mordechai. This is Caius Merlyn Britannicus, my Commander. You have nothing to fear from him."

When he had finished speaking, the silence returned, and then the sharp sound of a flint striking metal made me jump, so close was it beside me. Recoiling instinctively, I turned quickly to my right and saw sparks falling, and then a tiny glimmer of light that grew into a small, bright flame. A thin wax taper dipped into the flame and caught, and then its unseen bearer moved away from me, cupping the flame in one protective hand and receding in silhouette against its flickering brightness, lighting a series of lamps down the length of the room, which emerged gradually into view. As the brightness grew and my eyes adjusted, I stared in amazement. The place, for all its Spartan bareness, was meticulously clean and neat. The floor of hard-packed earth was swept bare of dust and dirt, and strewn down the central aisle with fresh, carefully aligned, new-dried rushes. The beds along each wall were uniform; plain, unvarnished, hand-planed wood frames furnished with thin mattresses, and on each mattress sat or lay a human form, most of them swathed in long, voluminous drapery that covered their limbs and faces as well as their bodies. The air I breathed smelled clean. There was a smell, to be sure, and it hinted of sickness, but there was nothing about it of rot or filth, of carrion or contagion.