Autumn, 1363 AD, Night, Britain
The fever burned relentlessly even as the chills racked his broken body. It amazed Brother Lawrence that one could be so hot, yet so cold at the same time. For the better part of two days, Lawrence had steadily distanced himself from St. Bartholomew Abbey and made his way toward the high ground off to the west, using the dense forest as cover.
By means of the waning moonlight spilling through the canopy overhead, Lawrence could make out the spike of wood that had been his constant companion ever since the events that had changed his life forever had taken place, exactly two nights ago. The jagged plank still jutted out from his blood-encrusted shin, fulfilling its only useful purpose by acting as kindling; albeit, not the kindling of a wood fire, but the slow and steady kindling of Lawrence's fever. Both the entry and exit wounds excreted a putrid, green and oozing puss that, upon inspection, didn't take a professional healer to foresee that a crisis was fast approaching for the haggard monk.
Another crisis was fast approaching as well, thought Lawrence. He had sensed their presence on the very dawn that he had first made his escape from the Scriptorium.
Lawrence had deduced this from his feeling of stirring beneath him as his hunters attempted to scry his whereabouts. Such an attempt was not apt to succeed unless Lawrence, also, was drawing upon ; something that he was desperately trying to avoid for reasons beyond the giving up of his own position.
In the first hour of his flight, mind racing, Lawrence had assumed that the rest of the traitors had remained behind to try and save the Scriptorium and salvage whatever they could of its priceless contents. From what he had seen during his one last, long and sorrowful glance back at the library; there wouldn't be anything of substance left to save.
After hobbling along for three hours on that first morning, Lawrence had gratefully come across a familiar stream that he had encountered several times before, during one of his many wilderness wanderings. Risking a brief rest, he had attempted to dislodge the shard from his leg.
The attempt nearly caused him to faint, outright.
Although he had used every ounce of his strength in the attempt, the gargantuan splinter never gave an inch. So, for the next day and a half he dragged his broken leg behind him, staff in hand, as he wove his way through the increasingly unfamiliar forest; thankful that he was being followed by monks, not trackers. Lawrence mused on more than one occasion that it was only the mercy of Jesu that enabled him to elude his would-be murderers. It surely wasn't his speed.
At various points during his escape he had attempted to disguise his trail by fording streams and creating, what to Lawrence seemed like, very unconvincing switchbacks. In the end, he was forced to concede that subterfuge was just as much a lost cause as speedy flight. At the rate he was able to hobble by means of his shattered shin, it was only a matter of time until the murderous monks caught up to him; and then ... what?
More treachery? More death?
His commitment to the precious books that he had been lugging around to the point of utter exhaustion, remained stalwart. At all cost, they must survive. At all cost, they must not return to his new-found enemies. But, in order to ensure this outcome, he simply to move faster.
Which meant that the shard to be removed.
Which meant that he to do what he had known from the beginning that he needed to do.
, Lawrence thought, resignedly.
Both pain and the inevitable revealing of his whereabouts to those seeking to snuff out his life. Heaving a great sigh, Lawrence set about making preparations for the deed that he knew needed to be done. He returned to the small stream that he had forded a few short minutes ago and, after hanging his bulging satchel onto a tree branch and removing both of his sandals, he cleaned the wounds at the entry and exit points of the shard to the best of his ability. This done, he sat upon the fallen husk of an old oak lying parallel to the bank of the meandering stream and lifted his wounded left leg, inch by excruciating inch, onto the length of the decaying trunk. Finally, dangling his good, right leg over the side of the trunk, he made certain that it could reach all the way to the muddy ground, inches away from the water's edge. Once settled, he ground his right foot into the cool, slick clay at the base of the fallen tree ... and prayed.
Stolen story; please report.
Biting down on a short stick that he had picked off the ground moments before, Lawrence began to draw into his body through the juncture of foot and clay. He knew that he had just given away his whereabouts, but there was nothing for it. Continuing to draw up steadily, he reached out with both of his trembling hands and grasped the two ends of the troublesome shard. Eyes lifted heavenward and teeth biting down hard on the stick, he released the through his fingertips, thus producing a brief burst of power sent directly into the shard itself. Red lightning licked the visible edges of the wood's surface for just an instant before reducing the entire shard to ash in one sudden flash of white.
Lawrence screamed aloud as the searing entered his body. Forcing himself to remain conscious, he rolled off the log and dragged himself, hand over hand, back into the awaiting stream, submerging his now blistered leg entirely into its blessed waters.
He wasn't sure how long he stayed there, sitting motionless on the muddied stream's bottom and allowing the tepid water to soothe and rinse the open wound left in the absence of the incinerated shard. But, Lawrence knew that such brackish water would do little to cure the infection that still ravaged his fevered body. So, steeling himself once more, he climbed from the stream and made his way back onto the muddied surface of its bank.
Not waiting for his leg to dry, he touched both ends of the open wound with the fore and index fingers of each hand and drew back into himself once more. Again, through trembling hands he drove living torrents of into the gaping cavity of his flesh until, in one brief burst, had completely cauterized the wound.
Suddenly, off in the distance Lawrence thought he heard a wretched, bloodcurdling scream and he stopped to ascertain it's source.
Only then did he realize that the scream had been his own.
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Lawrence awoke from his pain-induced faint, what he hoped had been, only moments later. As consciousness slowly returned, the first thought that occurred to him was that he had to get moving. Pulling himself onto his knees, he lifted up his right foot and placed it firmly on the ground. Grabbing the trunk of the small sapling next to him, he raised himself to full height, swooning in the process, but maintaining his balance as he breathed the cool night air in and out, heavily. Only then did he dare to test out his tortured leg. The pain was only nominally better than before, but already he could feel the chills abating from his body. It would have to do for now.
Slowly slipping on the sandals that had been left at the foot of the fallen log, Lawrence reached out for the satchel and gingerly hung in over his right shoulder. With that, he grabbed the makeshift staff that he had garnered from the Abbey's wood pile and slowly continued his arduous climb up the hillside.
The immediate crisis of death-by-fever averted, Lawrence returned to his rumination concerning his preferred destination and future. In the end, what was he to do with the books? Whom could he trust? Should the hidden knowledge concerning be passed along to others - to good men who would protect it, even if they didn't have the gift to wield it? In his mind's eye, Lawrence visualized the tattered map of Britain in the Scriptorium that he had consulted often. There was the town of Chester to the south. There were any number of Abbeys and Convents within a hundred mile radius of Lawrence's current position. But, who could be trusted with?
These thoughts and others wormed their way, to and fro, through his wearied brain for hours, with no obvious course of action coming forward to assert itself. But, with the steady abating of his fever in the wake of scourging, clearer reasoning slowly returned and with it, more stable and logical conclusions about his next course of action.
?
The answer to this question was now clear - no one but himself. He was the last true left; and at present, be it from fatigue, fever or foes, his life was in grave danger. Therefore, priority number one, for Lawrence, in following through with his sacred trust to safeguard all came down to one, simple thing.
.
He to escape his pursuers, which meant that he to be able to rest and heal. Earlier in the evening, Lawrence had remembered that an old, abandoned tracker's cabin existed approximately twelve miles from the Abbey. In the early days of St. Bartholomew's, the monks had occasionally assisted the trackers in emergency or provisioning situations. Later, some brothers had used the cabin as a hermitage. At present it stood empty and dilapidated, but Lawrence surmised that it could still offer up a modicum of cover in order to rest his tired bones, bandage his blistered wounds and come up with a more comprehensive plan than his current one of just living through the night.
His immediate course determined, Lawrence lifted his face toward the moon, renewed his bearings and headed off into the night.
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Brothers Silas and Thomas, three miles miles away from their quarry, felt the stirrings of the fire beneath them and, as one, gazed in the vicinity from which they came. Shouldering their packs, they set out in the general direction from which the signature had come; black looks on their determined faces.
