The Fifth Knight(20)
She had to repent, and repent quickly, for her sins before those knights, those brutal men, came for her, bringing whatever torments they had to find out what she knew. But she would resist them. Resist them to the end, even if that end meant death.
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The early sun warmed Palmer’s face and neck as he ran down the rough track to his tumbledown home. He clasped the dish in both hands, unable to believe his luck. A quick glance down told him it was true. He had a pudding for his father, a rich, sweet pudding, all the colors of the rainbow. This would do it, would make Father eat, would make him well. Palmer pushed open the sagging door, his eyes still blinded from the light outside. “Father, Father! Look what I’ve got you.” No answer. He squinted hard.
His father lay on the earth floor, silent and still.
Palmer put the dish down and went to his side. “Father?”
Father’s eyes opened, and he forced a small smile. “You’re a good boy, Benedict. But ’tis too late for me. Bring the pudding to your mother; she needs it or all will be lost.”
“But Father — ”
His father groaned and arched his back in sudden agony. “I’m full, boy, full. Can’t you see that?”
Palmer gaped as his father’s ragged tunic fell open. He backed away. He could count his father’s ribs in his thin, thin chest, see them move up and down with fast breaths. And he looked like he was about to birth a child. A lump the size of a baby’s head stuck from the paleness of his stomach.
“Full,” his father gasped. “Now go.”
Palmer snatched up the bowl and ran from the cottage, haring past it to the meadow beyond. Mother and his sisters walked right at the top of a steep, steep slope, specks against the blue sky. “Mother!” He called, he ran, but the field seemed to rise up under his feet. His mother and sisters walked on, backs to him, not hearing him. He stumbled on a thick grass root, and the pudding flew from his hands and splattered across the grass. He struggled to his feet to set off again but fell over another root. A buzzing came from it. It was covered in flies. As was another and another. Palmer stood in the tipping meadow, flies all around him. It wasn’t grass roots, it was the arms and legs of dead soldiers, cut down not by battle but by the bloody flux. A fly buzzed into his face. He swatted at it with a yell and turned to run, to flee from this meadow full of disease and death. Another fly hit his other cheek. And another and another, filling the air with blackness and noise.
Palmer awoke to darkness on his narrow rush bed. Sweat coated his whole body. He’d no idea how long he’d slept, but the night was still pitch.
The loud buzz carried on. De Tracy made even more noise asleep than when he was awake. His snores fair echoed off the walls in this room. Le Bret slept in the other corner. What he lacked in noise, he made up for in stink.
Palmer looked into the darkness, rubbing his face dry. When death came knocking, give him a straight fight any day. Disease and sickness were no way to be taken, silent enemies that got you without your seeing them come. The dream was still crystal, but the terror faded. A miracle pudding, eh? He rolled his eyes at his own foolishness. He must have had a real skinful. He tested the inside of his mouth with his tongue. Tasty as the bottom of a birdcage and twice as dry. He had to find some water. The upside of going to bed so drunk was he was still fully dressed. He roused himself from the rumpled bed and made his way over to the door, careful not to wake the other two.
Out in the corridor, a number of small sconce lights lit the way. He went down a couple of flights of the stone spiral staircase. He’d try the hall first. The servants had left jugs of water with the wine. Not that he’d drunk any water. He’d been too busy emptying de Morville’s fine cellar. If there were no water left, he’d go to the kitchens below.
Palmer spotted a door ajar through which dim light shone. This must lead to the hall. He stepped through. No, he’d gone in one too soon. This led to the empty minstrel gallery. He looked down at the quiet hall, the table cleared, the lights quenched, and the fire burning low. No chance of water there; he’d carry on down to the kitchens.
As he went to retrace his steps, he stopped in surprise as a voice floated up to him.
“I don’t agree. Palmer wasn’t a mistake.”
Fitzurse. He was being discussed. Had he fallen short? With a silent oath, Palmer crouched down behind the low, tapestry-hung wall of the gallery. He couldn’t be about to be dismissed. Could he?
“I bloody think he is.” De Morville’s familiar whine slurred at the edges from drink.
Palmer took a cautious look over.