Page 78 of Bold Angel
“Richard! Come quickly!”
The steward saw the jester hurrying toward him. Since the night of the feasting, the atmosphere in the hall had been so tense Lord Ral had bade the troubadours remain.
“What is it, Ancil?” Richard caste a worried glance in the younger man’s direction.
“Cottars from the village. They have come to see Lord Ral. They say at least half of their cattle are infected with murrain.”
Murrain.A disease that destroyed whole herds of cattle and left the people starving in its wake.
“Where are they?” Setting aside the checklist he had been making, Richard hurried in the lad’s direction.
“The other side of the drawbridge. The men whose cattle remain well demand Lord Ral lay waste to those that are sick.”
“If truly it is murrain, Lord Ral will have no choice. We must destroy the infected to preserve the healthy.” Purposeful strides carried Richard out of the hall and across the bailey. Beside him, Ancil hurried along in shorter but equally determined paces. Strangely, Richard found he was glad to have the youth along.
“Over there.” Ancil pointed toward the trees.
Richard nodded. He had almost reached the villeins when heheard a deep voice behind him and the tramp of heavy feet.
“What goes on here, Richard?” Ral caught them in several long strides.
“Murrain, my lord. The cottars say there may be a coming plague of it.”
Murrain.Ral took the news like a blow to the stomach. Without the livestock, there would be no butter, no cheese, no meat for the winter. Losing the cattle was the last thing he needed.
He spoke to the men who waited across the drawbridge, then returned to the keep for his horse, choosing the lean sorrel stallion instead of his powerful black. Along with Richard, they followed the cottars back to the village, making a stop at each small wattle and daub hut along the way. At the sight of so many sick animals, Ral grew more and more depressed. The signs of murrain were unmistakable. Worse than that, not half but nearly all of the cattle in the village were infected.
“God’s blood,” he muttered, “what curse has been set upon us?”
“’Tis the way of things, my lord,” Richard said. “Bad luck seems to swell instead of fade.”
“’Tis truth, my friend, and a more unpleasant one could not be spoken.”
“’Tis certain this will add to the burden of the winter.”
“Aye, and then some.”
Ral felt weary and defeated by the time they finished their inspection of the village and the surrounding villein’s huts. He wished he had someone to talk to, someone who might help lift his mood.
He thought of Caryn, of how it would feel to have her small soft arms around him, of how he might lose himself inside her, forget his troubles for a time. He remembered how, in the past, she would have shared a little of his burden.
“They’ll have to be destroyed,” he said to Richard.
“Aye, my lord. ’Twill be done in all haste.”
“Post a severed head at the crossroads.” It was the sign all knew, warning travelers with cattle away. No trade would be allowed for miles around.
Richard nodded. “Aye, my lord.”
His mood growing darker by the minute, Ral wheeled his stallion away. When he returned to the bailey, he saw the little jester, standing beside the guard at the drawbridge.
“What do you, lad, out here?”
“Nothing,” the jester said. “I merely pass the hours of the day.” But it was certain that the lad watched for Richard.
Ral frowned. His seneschal’s interest had never seemed to lean in that direction. Still, he didn’t know for sure and he had seen the pair speaking together often.
Ral shrugged. What his steward did was his own concern. Still, it would have made him happy to see the man settled with a wife and strong sons.
