Devil's Lair by David Wisehart Read Free Book Online Page B

page.
    Your metal must be sharp when words are
blunt.
    Set out, and let adventure vent your
rage.
    One cannot keep the hunter from the
hunt.
    Ride, and ride with God. Mount your
horse and saddle
    To field the cross across the field of
battle.
     
    Be a soldier. Put on your heraldry
    And rise above the rabble down below.
    Uncage your courage and ferocity.
    Imagine it: you’re camped on a plateau
    And there, not very far ahead, you see
    The foe on the March. You march on the
foe.
    Closer. Closer. The air is ripe. And
then—
    A thunderclap of steel, the test of
men.
     
    Two men meet on the field, two matadors
    Who came prepared to win, not
compromise.
    They might have shared some wine before
the wars.
    They see themselves in one another’s
eyes.
    Two men. Your life in his and his in
yours.
    Two men determining who lives, who
dies,
    United in the Devil's own endeavor.
    Just one man leaves. The other? Stays
forever.
     
    Be a soldier. Dismiss all your dismay.
    If you would brave the danger in the
dawn,
    If you would lose the night to win the
day,
    If you would ride across the Rubicon,
    If you would lead your brothers to the
fray,
    If you would be remembered when you’re
gone,
    Then yearn to fight and earn the right
to hold your
    Head up high. Live or die, you’ll be a
soldier.
     
    Nadja and William applauded.   Giovanni took a deep bow.   The hat tumbled from his head but he
caught it deftly, then flaunted it about as if to catch a shower of coins.   The drought persisted.   With no coins to cadge, the poet
returned his hat to his head and his ass to the earth.
    Marco refused to join the
claque. “A Tuscan, by the sound of you.”
    “A critic, by the sound of
you.”
    “Where were you born?”
    “I was born in bastardy and
raised in neglect. I made my bed in scandal, dipped my wick in wantonness, and
hung my hat in shame. Now I live in squalor. Welcome to my world.”
    The friar cleared his
throat. “I’m William of Ockham.”
    “A monk?” Marco asked.
    “A greyfriar of England.”
    The knight glanced at the
girl. “And you are...?”
    “Nadja.”
    He kissed her hand. “A
pleasure, my lady.”
    She blushed, and took her
hand away. “I’m not a lady.”
    “And he’s not a knight,”
Giovanni said.
    “I met her in Munich,” said
William. “She predicted the pestilence three years ago.”
    Marco asked, “What
pestilence?”
    The others fell silent.
    The knight seemed to realize
his mistake. “How long was I in darkness?”
    “Two days,” said William.
“But the world has been two years in darkness. Do you not recall the great
mortality?”
    “Vaguely.”
    Giovanni glanced at Nadja,
who seemed as confused by Marco’s words as he was.
    “You are addled,” William
said. “That is to be expected. It will all return in time.”
    Nadja said, half in a
whisper, “Some things are better forgotten.”
    Giovanni could not forget.
When the pestilence had first laid siege to Tuscany, he had asked God the
reason for their suffering, and found no answer. Asking men, he learned more.
Merchants from Genoa and Venice told Giovanni what little they knew, and much
that they suspected. There had been for many years, they said, a pestilence in
the East, in Cathay and Tartary and places with no names, in strange and
terrible lands that had never felt the touch of Christian grace. Some merchants
told of quakes and cataclysms that broke the world asunder, releasing the
Devil’s breath from the bowels of the earth.
    Whatever the merits of these
traveler’s tales, this much seemed certain: the great mortality was spread by a
miasma, a foul air that entered through the nose or the mouth. It filled the
lungs and spread rapidly throughout the body, creating painful tumors on the
inner thigh or under the armpit, or revealing itself in black or purple spots
on the skin, or sometimes only by a bloody cough which expelled the bad air out
of the lungs and onto another person, and another, and another. In this way