The medics did their best-shaving the infected area, burning the infected blanket, setting the men to kill flies with swats and sprays-and for a while Yanderman had expected a false alarm. After all, as Duke Paul himself argued, Ampier had been a sick man, badly wounded, weakened by long and free bleeding. A bull of a man like himself would toss off the infection easily.
Not true.
Shaving and antiseptics, first to be tried, failed first. Up till then the Duke had easily been able to disguise his condition-his hair and beard were so dense and matted he could simply comb over the shaven area to hide it. Then the fresh outbreaks rendered that impossible; there had to be bandages, and the staff officers had to know the minimum fact that the Duke was being attended by the medics.
All the strong liquids, all the curative powders, all the ointments, were tried in turn. They slowed the mould. For a night Yanderman would sleep peacefully, thinking the trouble was over because all day the Duke’s head had been free of the creeping evil.
But in the morning, a dozen more patches of the stuff.
They tried, at last, the desperate expedient of cauterisation, burning away the skin with hot irons while the Duke sat in his great chair, impassive except that his knuckles showed very white on his clenched fists. It was while the cauterisation was actually proceeding that they discovered the mould on the whites of his eyes …
Even then Duke Paul would not admit defeat. He still addressed his officers as though his plans were to go ahead; he still disputed with the heartsick Yanderman about the likelihood of people surviving within the barrenland.
Meantime, the news spread as the green mould spread-unstoppably, every advance reflecting a weakening of the infected body. In this case it was the entire army. Granny Jassy was plagued with requests for charms against sickness. Under their breaths at first, then openly, men voiced the opinion that this disease had been visited on the Duke because he planned to invade the barrenland.
If, at that point, the Duke had been able to go out and speak to his men as he would speak before a battle, fill them with the excitement and crazy courage he alone could inspire, the situation could have been saved. But he could not. He was in his tent, alone but for attendant medics and the ever-present secretary Kesford, his shaven, burned head turning into a nauseating mass of green mould.
It was just after midnight when a white-faced soldier called the sleepless Yanderman from bed to see the Duke at once.
As he ducked under the door-flap he could not repress a gasp of dismay. The disease had progressed with unbelievable rapidity in the last few hours.
The Duke caught the sound and gave a rasping wheeze which might have been meant for a chuckle. “I guess I look pretty repulsive by now, Yan!” he whispered. “That’s the only consolation-I can’t see myself in a mirror.”
Indeed, from under his brows to his cheekbones the orbits of his eyes were now unrelieved masses of the green mould.
“I shall die tonight, Yan,” he added abruptly, in a tone more like his normal voice. “I
Yanderman tried to say something reassuring, but the Duke cut him short.
“I
Numbly, Yanderman waited for the words he feared. They came.
“Kesford!” the Duke whispered. At once the pale-faced secretary came alert, having to swallow hard as he forced himself to look at his master.
“Kesford, you have the draft with all those legal terms-read it over. Yan, hear what’s said and repeat it. Let me hear you repeat it!” On his couch the Duke tensed as though to-draw himself up, but he was too weak now. Beads of sweat wandered over his forehead and lost themselves among the foul greenness covering his eyes.
Kesford began to recite monotonously, a phrase at a time. “I, Jervis Yanderman, loyal subject of Esberg and of the Grand Duke Paul Manuel Victor Mark, and of his designated heir Victor Gort Fury Mark-”
Tonelessly, as though the Duke were speaking for him, Yanderman echoed each phrase.
“-do receive into my charge command of and authority over all forces of the city Esberg and all goods chattels livestock and other appurtenances whatsoever at this present time in the neighbourhood of the town known as Lagwich adjacent to the so-called barrenland situate-”
Yanderman had to wipe his face at that point. Kesford went on: “And do undertake to direct the said forces in all respects as far as my ability shall allow as my master the Grand Duke may while in life instruct me-”
Yanderman stopped there. He said in a thin voice, “No!”
“What?” Now the Duke did rise up on his couch, his horrible blind head turning to seek the source of Yanderman’s voice.
“Sir, I–I can’t undertake to lead them into the barrenland!”
“You must! You
Yanderman took an involuntary pace backward. Glancing about him helplessly, he caught the eye of the medic in his green gown standing at the head of the couch.
Yanderman hesitated, torn between personal loyalty and his deep-rooted unwillingness to make promises he knew he could not keep. The hesitation was too long.
While he was still forming the lie, the Duke screamed. He fell back on the couch, choking and gasping for air. The words he forced out were barely comprehensible.
“Take him-traitor-Yanderman-lied to me-burn him-nail him at the city gate-curse his name and his family name-burn his house-find me a man of honour-am I the Duke or am I a mud-grubbing peasant-traitor- weakling-!”
The tirade lost itself in a bubbling sound so loathsome it was barely conceivable a human throat could utter it. Yanderman’s heart lurched. Frozen, he watched as the medic picked up from a table beside him a long thin razor-sharp knife.
“I witness-” That was Kesford, clutching his note-board as though it was a plank supporting him in time of shipwreck. “I witness this to be your duty, and affirm the Duke’s command. Sir!”-to Yanderman, turning. “Say the same!”
“I witness this to be your duty and affirm the Dukes command!” Yanderman gulped, and added to the medic, “Is there no hope now?”
“I saw Ampier die,” the medic answered, and plunged the knife home.
Mechanically Yanderman attended to the formalities; Kesford had them stored away in his capacious memory. Send to the town to recall the liberty-men; detail an honour guard for the tent, to stand with arms reversed till the funeral; detail a pyre-party to assemble fuel on a scale fit for a princely corpse; post general orders for funeral drill at dawn, a funeral as soon thereafter as possible because of the risk of keeping the body unburned; carpenters to make a coffin, tailors to make a shroud-which would have to be draped over the remains, not wrapped around them, for the medics forbade it …
An officers’ parade to pay posthumous respects, during which certain incongruous whispers were uttered regarding relief at the end of the Duke’s mad plan, resentment at his allotting command to Yanderman instead of a regular officer …
A session with Granny Jassy to try and stop her filling the men’s minds with nonsense about this being a supernatural vengeance upon the Duke, ending with the threat of scourging despite her sex and age which sent her away tight-lipped and white with fury …
And all the time frantic casting about for a way to avoid the ultimate showdown and the risk of mutiny.
The chance never came.
Or rather Yanderman was unable to make it come.
The rush of the night’s events had left him no time to spare for the process of adjusting emotionally to Duke Paul’s death. That adjustment came in one blinding second, leaving him at the mercy of his own fury and
