Red He Wept
by David Samuels
Moralt is an Infirmarian at a medieval military hospital. He has become disillusioned with religion and deities that seem to permit or even encourage humanity’s endless grind of self-inflicted suffering in war. When a report comes of a weeping statue, Moralt feels he owes it to his skepticism to go and investigate it. He is joined by Arabelle, who is an imp’s advocate sent to verify the claim of miracle.
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 |
part 5
“Infirmarian Moralt!” called Benfrey. “I didn’t expect to find you back so soon. Your shift doesn’t start for a few hours.”
“I’m waiting for the imp’s advocate to return from the city. Until then, I figured I would make myself useful.” Much as I wanted to discover who’d purchased the ruby sap, I couldn’t neglect other obligations. Besides, working now might spare me trouble later.
“Sounds good to me.” Benfrey gestured to a recovery tent across from us. “You should check up on Bombardier Arnolt. He’s been meaning to thank you.”
“For severing his leg?” My voice cracked with surprise.
“For saving his life, Moralt.” Benfrey squeezed my shoulder. “Stop being so hard on yourself. You’re working miracles of your own over here.”
Gratitude was the last thing I expected from Arnolt. Much less for him to shower it upon me the moment I stepped inside his tent. He called me a hero and a savior with all the frequency of a god’s name in a chant.
“Glad to hear it,” I broke in, “but the operation is a simple one. Anybody could’ve done it.”
Undeterred, he went on: “You know what? I bet this is Divine Galvin’s way of thanking you. He’s giving you the holy touch because you’re helping prove that the miracle is real! You and that imp’s advocate! I bet all your patients are healing just fine.”
Faith. Too much of it drove the Gastons of the world to madness. Too little plunged me and countless others into the gloomy depths of doubt. But for people like Arnolt, just enough faith offered a curative power. One that I hated to take away. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the miracle was a fraud. Not until I discovered the perpetrator.
UQ... UQ. The initials rattled through my mind as I reapplied bandages, prescribed dosages, and attended a range of other duties I’d come to loathe. Could the letters stand for an alias? Just when I’d exhausted a list of words that start with Q, I heard the clanking approach of plate-armored knights. Three holy servitors marched down the row of tents with Arabelle close behind.
Face contorted with fury, she said, “That cousin of yours has much to atone for!”
“Don’t I know it.” I drew her into my operation tent. One of the orderlies was stitching the gash in the canvas. A swift order from me sent him packing.
After recounting my confrontation in Luthos’s command tent, I told Arabelle about the initials.
“Are you sure?” She pulled apples from her robes and chomped into it. Through a mouthful of white chunks, she said, “Let me see.”
I removed the ledger from my apron pocket and handed it over. She squinted at the pages and surprised me with a chuckle. “And I thought my handwriting was bad. Add that to poor eyesight, and it might look like UQ. But here. Close the top of the U, widen this part of the Q, and what do we have?”
“OG,” I said in a voice thick with awe. “That could only mean...”
Our eyes met for a heartbeat before we burst out of the tent and towards the city with the servitors in close company.
* * *
Olvara Gordon, proprietress of Oldchapel Tavern, was wiping an empty counter when we burst through the door. Two servitors marched ahead of us, each to snatch one of her arms. An uninformed observer might’ve found such a scene absurd: a middle-aged widow detained by knights of the faith. But we couldn’t be too careful in the face of the occult.
“Mama?” A boy poked his burned face over the loft, his browless eyes scrunched in concern. “What’s happening?”
“Stay in your room,” she said in a flat voice. “I don’t want you to see this.”
Arabelle lifted the ledger in front of Olvara. “Care to explain why you purchased ruby sap from Blue Elayne?”
Olvara frowned at the entry. “Because ruby sap adds a little zip to my drinks.”
“You don’t say.” I weaved around the tables and stopped short of the counter. “That’s odd. See, my superior spends all his off-duty hours here. You probably know him. Surgeon-Commander Benfrey? Maybe we should ask him if he’s ever tried this special of yours.”
One moment she was scowling at the stone floor, and the next she glanced at me with tears in her eyes. “Do you know, Moralt, what it’s like for your entire life to go down in flames?”
“Erm, well, I can’t—”
“In the past year, my son has seen more tragedy than most men endure in a lifetime. When I tucked him in at night and he asked me why the gods hated us, what was I to tell him? That the gods are all bastards? No! I rolled up my sleeves and worked a little miracle of my own.”
“Did you do it for your child,” said Arabelle, “or to accomplish something more sinister?”
Olvara tilted her head and wrinkled her brow. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” Arabelle tossed the ledgerbook onto the nearest table. “You were here when Fergus mentioned that hog you sacrificed.”
Olvara’s dry laughter shocked us all. “Where would I find the time to kill that fool’s hog? I hardly ever leave this place as it is. If you don’t believe me, just ask my son.”
“But if you didn’t kill the hog,” I muttered, “then who did?”
The silence stretched tight between us until the basilica’s belltower rang in the distance. Not the usual, balanced toll to mark the hour, but the rapid clamor of a call to arms.
“Of all the times the Patronists could’ve chosen to attack!” Turning to Arabelle, I said, “Benfrey will need me in the encampment.”
She bobbed her head in agreement. “Attend to your duties. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on this one.”
Although to be honest, I wondered if Olvara was the one we had to fear when the actual cultist was still at large.
* * *
If there’s a darker sound than the tumult of battle, then I hope never to hear it. One step outside Oldchapel, I thought my eardrums would explode. Bugles from the encampment rolled over the shouts of enemy soldiers beyond the walls. Cannons fired from the ramparts and sent rumbles underfoot. The vibrations urged me off at a rapid clip through the smoke-embittered streets.
Sticking close to the walls, I wound up colliding into a soldier. His top-heavy chestplate sent him sprawling on his rear. I offered my hand, but he swatted it away. “Why don’t you watch where you’re—”
But he got no further before an ear-ringing blast shook the ramparts. Chunks of masonry rained down from above. Only by stumbling aside did I dodge a jagged rock the size of a barrel. The soldier wasn’t so lucky, guessing from his blood-curdling screams.
I squinted through the smoke to find him face up on the cobbles. One of his hands had been crushed beneath a chunk of stonework. The red splatter above his wrists contrasted sharply from the chalk-white dust everywhere else.
“Stop screaming and help me move this thing.” Not the best bedside manner, but it did the job. Together, we shoved the rock off his mangled hand. He clambered to his feet, gave a brief nod, and turned toward the gatehouse.
“You can’t fight in that condition.” I clapped a hand on his pauldron. “Come with me to the infirmary so I can treat that hand.”
Such was how I met my first patient of the day.
The first of far too many. The next hour passed in a blur as I splinted broken legs and rinsed blood from gashes. Through it all, my mind never strayed far from my talk with Olvara. Part of me was glad that we’d caught the one responsible for faking the miracle. But what about whoever sacrificed Grizzled Fergus’s pig?
It may sound irresponsible to have let the investigation occupy my mind while a battle raged across the river, but such thoughts kept me from losing my nerve. Each time I left a patient’s tent, I’d glance toward the riverbank, fearing that the Patronists would send boarding parties our way.
Luckily, our encampment sat downriver from the city proper. If the Patronists managed to steer a craft around the walls, they’d need to survive the archers stationed behind riverfront barricades. More archers were posted near the boardwalk, although none of them tried to stop townsfolk from fleeing in their rowboats.
Between patients, I caught sight of a certain bearded farmer sprinting that way with his daughter.
“Fergus!” My shout carried over the clamor.
He paused to turn around, piglets squirming in both arms, and widened his eyes as soon as they met mine. In the next moment, he and his daughter turned tail for the pier.
No way could I let the last key to this mystery elude my grasp. “You!” I tossed a roll of bandages to the nearest orderly, who juggled it until he gained a grip. “Tend to the patients for me. And if Benfrey asks, let him know I’ll only be a moment.”
Far from ideal, but I’d already wasted precious time. Fergus’s livestock hardly seemed to weigh him down as he hustled for the boardwalk. My calves burned with the effort it took to halve the distance. I’d almost caught up with him when he veered around the corner of a warehouse.
I swore under my breath, sped up to the corner, and took a wooden paddle to the cheek. It sent me reeling against a bollard that secured a rowboat nearby. From the rear bench of the craft, Fergus’s daughter tried to quell the piglets. They continued to squeal louder than the ringing in my ears.
I glanced over my shoulder to summon the nearest archers, but none were in eyeshot. Maybe if I shouted loud enough....
The oar jabbed my chest and robbed my lungs of air. My body doubled over as I wheezed through the pain.
“Just leave us alone, alright?” he shouted hoarsely.
It took a moment to recover my breath. Another to hunt down the right words. “Listen, Fergus, why don’t you put that down? I only want to talk.”
“You want me to burn at a pyre, is what you want! Same with that imp’s advocate. But I’m an innocent man, you hear?”
“Innocent men don’t run from authority.” Much less bash authority figures in the face. “But I’m willing to hear you out to help clear your name.”
The oar wavered by a fraction. “And why would you do that?”
“Because I don’t think a cultist would sacrifice his own pig and then report it later. When you came into Oldchapel that day, I saw real fear in your eyes.” Only the world’s best actor could have faked the bloodless pallor on his face.
“What are you trynna say?”
“That someone forced your hand. Through threats or bribes, I don’t know, but somebody else pulled your strings. Tell me who so I can understand why.”
“I don’t have to tell you squat.”
“But—”
“But nothin’! I once speared m’pitchfork through a grizzly’s throat. What sorta chance does a varmint like you stand?”
Right after I snatched at his sleeve, the oar swept my feet out from under me. My shoulder bashed into the warehouse wall as I stumbled to the planks.
Towering over me, Fergus said, “You just won’t quit. I’m starting to warm up to the idea of putting you down. Can’t have you blabbing to your mistress.”
“Pa, behind you!” shouted the girl.
Two gauntleted fists wrested the oar from Fergus’s grip. Only when the farmer staggered aside did I catch sight of my savior. Behind the soldier’s T-slot helm, I recognized the birthmark on his cheek.
He pointed a sword at Fergus’s neck and kicked the oar towards me. With a wink, he told me, “Compliments of your cousin. He ordered me to keep an eye on you. I was afraid I lost your trail for a second, but—”
“Don’t hurt him!” The girl crawled out of the rowboat.
“Not to worry,” I said, rising to my feet. “He’ll get a fair trial. I promise. In the meantime, let’s move him to the detainment ward,” Too bad I couldn’t offer more consolation. I also wanted to put more questions to Fergus, perhaps lessen his guilt in the eyes of his daughter, but duty called.
* * *
Copyright © 2021 by David Samuels
