grip of the black pestilence. Hands reached out from windows, doorways and gutters, begging the passing friar for succour, for prayers, or, at the least, for the last rites, but Wynkyn had ignored them.
They were all sinners, for why else had God’s wrath struck them, and Wynkyn was consumed by his need to get north as fast as he could.
Far worse than the outstretched hands of the dying were the grasping hands of the bandits and outlaws who thronged the roadways and passes. But Wynkyn was sly—God’s good gift—and whenever the bandits saw that Wynkyn clasped a cloth to his mouth, and heard the desperate racking of his cough, they backed away, making the sign of the cross.
Yet even Wynkyn could not remain immune to the grasping fingers of the pestilence forever. Not at his age.
On Ember Saturday Wynkyn de Worde had approached a small village two days from Nuremberg. By the roadside lay a huddle of men and women, dying from the plague. One of them, a woman—God’s curse to earth!—had risen to her feet and stumbled towards the friar riding by, but as she leaned on his mule’s shoulder, begging for aid, Wynkyn kicked her roughly away.
It was too late. Unbeknown to the friar, as he extended his hand to ward her off the deadly kiss of the pestilence sprang from her mouth to his hand during the virulence of her pleas. He planted his foot in the hateful woman’s chest, and when he raised his hand to his face to make the sign of the cross the pestilence leaped unseen from his hand to his mouth.
The deed was done, and there was nothing the angels could do but moan.
The peal of mourning bells covered Nuremberg in a melancholy pall; even this great northern trading city had not escaped the ravages of the pestilence. The only reason Wynkyn managed access through the gates was that the town desperately needed men licensed by God to administer the last rites to the mass of dying. But Wynkyn did not pause to administer the last rites to anyone. He made his way to the Dominican friary in the eastern quarter of the city, his mule stumbling with weakness from his journey, and demanded audience with the prior.
The friary had been struck as badly by the pestilence as had Nuremberg itself, and the brother who met Wynkyn at the friary gate informed him that the prior had died these three nights past.
“Brother Guillaume now speaks with the prior’s voice,” the brother said.
Wynkyn showed no emotion—death no longer surprised nor distressed him—and requested that the friar take him to Brother Guillaume. “And help me carry this casket, brother, for I am passing weary.”
The brother nodded. He knew Wynkyn well.
Brother Guillaume greeted Wynkyn with ill-disguised distaste and impatience. He had never liked this autocratic friar from Rome, and neither he nor any other friar in his disease-ridden community could spare the time to attend Wynkyn’s demands.
“A meal only,” Wynkyn said, noting Guillaume’s reaction, “and a request.”
“And that is?”
Wynkyn nodded towards the casket. “I leave in the morning for the forest north of the city. If I should not return within a week, I request that you send that casket—unopened—to my home friary.”
Guillaume raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Your home friary? But, Brother Wynkyn, that would surely be impossible!”
“Easily enough accomplished!” Wynkyn snapped, and Guillaume flinched at the brother’s sudden anger. “There are sufficient merchant bands travelling through Nuremberg who could take the casket on for a suitable price.”
Wynkyn reached inside his habit and pulled out a small purse he had bound about his waist. “Take these gold pieces. It will be enough and more to pay for the casket’s journey.”
“But…but this pestilence has stopped all traffic, and—”
“For the love of God, Guillaume, do as I say!”
Guillaume stared, shaken by Wynkyn’s distress.
“Surely the pestilence will pass eventually, and when it does, the merchants will resume their trade, as they always do. Please, do as I ask.”
“Very well then.” Guillaume indicated a stool, and Wynkyn sat down. “But surely you will return. You have always done so before.”
Wynkyn sighed, and rubbed his face with a trembling hand. “Perhaps.”
And perhaps not, Guillaume thought, as he recognised the feverish glint in the old brother’s eyes, and the unhealthy glow in his cheeks.
Guillaume backed away a few steps. “I will send a brother with food and ale,” he said, and scurried for the door.
“Thank you,” Wynkyn said to the empty air.
That night Wynkyn sat in a cold cell by the open casket, his hand on the closed book on his lap. Because there was no one else, Wynkyn carefully explained to the book the disaster that had befallen mankind generally, and the Keeper of the Cleft specifically. The popes had abandoned the directions of God and the angels for the directions of the French king. They did not know the secrets and mysteries of the Cleft or of the book itself, for neither angels nor Wynkyn dared reveal it to them. Through his ignorance, the current pope—Clement VI—had not selected the man to follow Wynkyn.
And a woman—a woman!—had passed the pestilence to Wynkyn!
In the past few hours, as he sat in his icy cell shaking with fever, Wynkyn had refused to come to terms with the fact that he was dying. There was no one to follow him; thus how could he die?
How could he die, when that would mean the demons would run free?
In his decades of service to God and the angels, Wynkyn had never come this close to despair: not when he had first heard of his mission; not even when he had seen what awaited him at the Cleft.
Not even when the first demon he encountered had turned and spoken his name and pleaded for its life.
But now…now, this silent misery in a cold and comfortless friary cell…this was despair.
Wynkyn lowered his head and wept, a hand still on the closed book, his shoulders shaking with both his grief and his fever.
Peace.
At first Wynkyn did not respond, then, when the heavenly voice repeated itself, he slowly raised his face.
Two arm spans away the far wall of the cell glowed. Most of the light was concentrated in the centre of the wall in the vague form of a winged man, his arms outstretched.
As Wynkyn watched, round-eyed with wonder, the archangel, still only a vague glowing outline, stepped from the wall and placed his hands about Wynkyn’s upturned face.
Peace, Brother Wynkyn.
“Blessed Saint Michael!” Wynkyn would have fallen to his knees, but the pressure of the archangel’s hands kept him in his seat.
The archangel very slightly increased the pressure of his hands, and love and joy flowed into Wynkyn’s being.
“Blessed Saint Michael,” Wynkyn whispered,
