Abomination (4 page)

The beast stopped instantly. It had two men cornered and would surely have killed them both within moments, but instead it turned to face Aethelred, suddenly docile. Aethelred spoke in the strange tongue again, and the beast approached, seemingly compliant.

As it shambled toward the archbishop, Alfred and the other men standing nearby took cautious steps backward, but Aethelred raised a hand to reassure them. “It is all right,” he said. “It will not harm anyone else—unless I command it to. It is perfectly under my control, of no danger to us or our troops in battle. But set against the Danish horde . . . a very different matter.”

The beast stood at least seven feet tall and towered over Aethelred, who yet showed no fear of it. Alfred stiffened as the
archbishop reached out to pet the horrendous creature with the affection one might show to a beloved dog. In response, the beast gave a miserable whimper. To any sane man, the sight of this vile, wretched thing would inspire a combination of fear, pity, and disgust. Alfred saw the way Aethelred looked at it—in admiration—and he knew:
he has gone mad
.

Aethelred was so besotted with his creation that he did not notice the pikemen, now regrouped and taking position behind the beast. With a nod, Alfred gave them the order they were waiting for. They lunged as one, driving their blades hard into the creature’s back, finding the tender muscle and flesh between its thick plates of bone. The beast let out a hideous screech and sank to the ground, its limbs giving way. Before it could recover, the pikemen were climbing up onto its back to stab it again and again, driving their pikes deep. Aethelred protested, but none were listening. The beast finally slumped forward onto its belly, its tongues thrashing like rattlesnake tails for a moment longer. And then, at last, it was dead.

More pikemen rushed into the yard, attracted by all the screaming and commotion. Alfred pointed to Aethelred. “Take this man and place him in the tower under guard,” he ordered. The pikemen surrounded the archbishop, taking him firmly by each arm.

“You did not need to kill it,” said Aethelred, still thinking more of his precious experiment than of the four men who now lay dead. “There was much we could have learned from it.”

Alfred was barely able to contain his fury. “I have learned all I needed today. I learned that I have allowed these experiments of yours to go too far. Well, now I am putting an end to it. To all of it!”

“And discard all the progress we have made?” Aethelred protested. “This was my most successful subject yet. If you will only hear me out—”

“Nothing you can offer could possibly justify this atrocity!” Alfred bellowed, red with rage. “How many others have there
been? How many men did you mutilate before this poor bastard here?”

“None that you would not have put to death anyway,” said Aethelred. “All came from the lists of condemned men.”

“I would never condemn any man to such a fate as this! I tolerated this foul enterprise because of your assurance that it would allow us to wage war without spilling the blood of Englishmen!”

“Sire, one man transformed is worth twenty of any other! In strength, in resilience, in aggression! See here what this single one did, and imagine the havoc that a hundred such beasts could wreak upon our enemies! A mere hundred, compared to the thousands we might lose in a conventional battle.”

Alfred’s tone lowered, but he remained no less resolute. “I will not suffer this curse to be put upon even one more man, be he condemned or not.”

“The transformation need not be permanent,” offered Aethelred. “I assure you, given more time, I can find a way to reverse the effect—to restore them to their original form when they return from battle.”

With a heavy sigh, Alfred rubbed his brow. “I’ve had about as many of your assurances as I can take. Guards, see the archbishop to the tower. There he will stay, until I decide what to do with him.”

The pikemen marched Aethelred away, leaving Alfred to survey the carnage in the yard before him. He shook his head, cursing himself for being so foolish as to believe that this could ever have come to any good.

Barrick and Harding, the two largest and least obliging of Alfred’s jailors, marched Aethelred roughly up the stone steps of the spiral staircase. Torchlight flickered on the walls as Barrick unlocked the heavy oak door to the solitary cell atop the tower and Harding tossed the archbishop inside. He landed in a pile of dank straw, with barely time to right himself before the door slammed closed again and the key turned in the lock.

He dusted himself off and straightened his robe. For a moment he sat there in the dark, listening to the idle chatter of the two guards now standing post outside. And a thin smile played across his lips.
Alfred is more blind than I thought
, he delighted in thinking to himself.
After all that he has seen, he actually thinks that he can cage me
.

Alfred had convened his senior counselors in the war room. All by now had heard of the slaughter in the yard; some had seen it for themselves. Though months ago all had voted to explore Aethelred’s proposal, they had, like Alfred, grown increasingly uneasy with where it was leading. Today’s events had been the final straw. None needed convincing that it was time for this ill-advised episode to be brought to a close. Alfred had already ordered all record of it destroyed, including the accursed scrolls that had begun it all. The only question now was what to do with the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.

“He is finished as archbishop, and in the church. That much is certain,” the King declared to unanimous nods of approval. “The senior clergy will not dispute it. Many of them were also disquieted by what Aethelred was doing here. For that, I will apologize and ask them to put forward a successor of their choosing.”

“What, though, is to be his fate beyond excommunication?” asked Cromwell, one of Alfred’s high reeves and a trusted military advisor. “Is he to be charged with a crime? Is there to be a trial?”

“If Aethelred is guilty of a crime, then I am equally guilty for condoning it this long,” Alfred said. “And a public trial of such a . . . bizarre nature would only spread superstition and fear throughout the kingdom.”

There was a long pause before anyone spoke again. This time it was Chiswick, another of Alfred’s war counselors. His special responsibility was to manage the army’s apparatus of spies and
subterfuge, and he could often be relied upon to suggest unconventional solutions to difficult problems.

“Perhaps, then . . . an accident?”

Alfred and the others looked at him.

“It is well-known from here to Canterbury that the archbishop was engaged in dangerous work, though not the exact nature of it,” Chiswick went on. “Perhaps he died in faithful service to his church and his King. Aethelred is largely unloved. I doubt many would pry into the truth of things.”

All now looked to Alfred, who found himself disquieted by the notion. “I love the man least of all, but to simply execute him . . .”

Chiswick leaned forward. “It seems to me your options are few, Your Majesty. He cannot continue as archbishop, and a trial, as you rightly say, would be a catastrophe. And he certainly cannot be set free; this dark knowledge he possesses makes him far too dangerous.”

A cold shiver ran down Alfred’s backbone.
Yes, it does, doesn’t it? How could I have been so stupid?
He turned to the guard captain standing nearby with a sudden urgency. “Triple the guard on the tower! And I want the archbishop gagged and his hands bound! Do it now!”

Four guards raced up the tower steps. One of them carried a length of strong rope and a cloth for a gag. They did not understand their orders, but there was no question of their captain’s urgency. They took the steps three at a time.

They arrived at the top of the stairs to find the cell door at the end of the short hallway wide open and hanging half off its hinges as if it had been beaten down with bare hands, its heavy oak beams splintered and smeared with blood. But no ten men could have broken down that door. Stranger still, it looked as though it had been broken into from the outside.

They approached gingerly, swords drawn, calling out the names of Barrick and Harding to no response. The torch that lit the hallway had been broken free of its iron housing and lay on the floor, flickering. The frontmost guard picked it up and held it out to shine inside the darkened cell.

Something warm and wet encircled his arm. He dropped the torch in shock—and was pulled suddenly forward, disappearing into the darkness of the cell. And then came the screaming, while the man’s helpless thrashing was cast in shadow on the cell walls by the light of the fallen torch.

The screaming ended almost as quickly as it had begun; the shadows went still. For a moment, silence. The three guards outside the cell now had their swords drawn, yet dared not venture farther, their hearts pounding in their chests. And then they jumped back in alarm as their fellow guardsman fell forward out of the darkness and collapsed, blood spilling from a gash across his neck so deep that his head hung to one side, askew.

Barrick emerged from the darkness behind him. Or what had once been Barrick. Now he—it—was some kind of wolf-like monstrosity, its sinewy body covered in gray, matted fur. It walked on its hind legs with four more limbs to spare—long muscular arms with great razor-clawed hands.

What was once Harding slithered out from behind the wolf-thing and up the wall. Some kind of giant two-headed lizard, its leathery skin was covered with sharp, bristling spines, and a clubbed tail swished lazily back and forth as it crept toward the three guardsmen.

The closest of them panicked and foolishly lunged at it with his sword. The lizard easily dodged the blow, then responded by spitting a gob of sputum that burned like acid through the man’s breastplate. The guard dropped his sword, screaming, trying desperately to unbuckle his armor, but before he could unfasten even one strap, the acid was through to his flesh and he collapsed to the
ground, writhing helplessly, his final screams echoing along the stone hallway.

The two remaining guardsmen looked at their fallen friends in horror. And then Aethelred stepped out from the cell.

He smiled.

“Drop your swords, and you have my word that you will not die here today.”

They did as he commanded. Aethelred raised his hands and, looking into the eyes of the two men before him, began to recite the words he had spent months perfecting.

And within moments, they were his as well.

Two horsemen arrived atop a gentle hill and looked down at the open country before them, a sprawling valley of fields and farmland, dotted by a few modest cottages that could barely be called a village.

“This can’t be it,” said the first rider.

“The bloke back at the inn said this was it,” said the other. “Five miles along the only road east, you’ll see it when you get to the hilltop.”

“I know what a knight’s estate looks like. If there were one here, we’d be seeing it, believe me.”

They saw a lone man below, pushing a plow through one of the small farm plots the land was divided into.

“Let’s ask him.”

They rode down the craggy hillside, careful to avoid the rocks and divots. Many parts of England’s rolling countryside were picturesque and pleasant to ride; this was not one of them. One wrong footing on this terrain could mean a broken ankle for a horse and perhaps a broken neck for its rider.

Arriving at the valley floor, they cantered over to the man working the field, a powerful sweat on him as he drove a deep furrow through the earth with the plow. Cast in heavy iron, it looked better suited to be drawn by a horse, but the man pushed it along unaided, as though he knew no better. The two men on horseback
exchanged a look of amusement. Farmhands were not renowned for their intellect, but one that did not even know how to work such a basic tool? Wonders never ceased.

The peasant was turned away from the hillside and, consumed by his laborious task, seemed oblivious to the riders who had just arrived behind him, even as one of their horses gave a loud snort.

“Oi! You!”