it would not be forthcoming.
“Very well, then!” Aethelred declared, and he turned to the guards standing nearby. “Stand ready, if you please!” A dozen of Alfred’s best and most battle-seasoned pikemen were already in position, their arms drawn. All were hard men, but from their expressions it was clear they would sooner be patrolling the Danelaw border, freezing in some remote watchtower, or mucking out the castle’s pigsties. Anywhere but here. Nobody wanted this duty. Those who were assigned it rarely slept well.
Close to them was a small troop of servants carrying buckets filled with water, ready to douse anything that the archbishop’s beast might set ablaze. That lesson had been learned hard, when one of the first “infernals,” as Aethelred liked to call them, put a torch to the courtyard’s old wooden stables with a single breath. The fire might have spread and consumed the castle’s kitchens and library but for the fast response of a hastily improvised bucket brigade. The stable was beyond salvage; on Alfred’s orders, its blackened timbers were left standing as a reminder, and now the dousers stood ready before every incantation.
Satisfied that all was ready, Aethelred signaled the apprentice across the yard who manned the gate to the pen that held the test animals. The apprentice raised the latch on the gate, and as it swung open with a rusty groan, Alfred shuddered; he had come to abhor that sound. He had heard it many times: it was the sound that presaged the squawking and screaming as some poor, damned creature found itself transformed via Aethelred’s words. What manner of beast has he selected for today’s bloody show? Alfred wondered.
For a moment, nothing happened. Alfred was puzzled; usually the penned animal emerged immediately into the yard, happy to be released from its confinement, unaware of the grim fate that awaited it. He glanced at Aethelred, who appeared briefly embarrassed before gesturing impatiently at his apprentice. The apprentice looked at first hesitant, but in the face of the archbishop’s glare, reluctantly stepped inside the pen to coax out its occupant. He disappeared briefly from view, but Alfred could hear him cajoling the beast. Get out there, go on. Go on! The archbishop is waiting! Don’t you dare embarrass me or I’ll see you gutted!
Alfred blinked in puzzlement as another man emerged from within the pen. Stripped to the waist, barefooted, rib-thin, pale, he looked as though he had not eaten in days. The apprentice was behind him, shoving him toward the center of the yard.
Alfred turned to Aethelred. “What is this?”
“A breakthrough,” replied the archbishop.
Alfred looked back at the half-naked man, and now recognized the signs: the emaciation, the faraway look, the whip scars across his back. The leggings were those worn by his own infantrymen. The man was a captured deserter, one of many who routinely languished in the castle’s stockade. Desertions had risen lately, particularly here at Winchester, as men increasingly decided they would rather take their chances on the run than risk being assigned to yard duty under Aethelred and subjected to the nightmares that had traumatized so many of their comrades.
“Explain this now,” Alfred demanded.
“I have observed that transformation greatly diminishes the base subject’s cognitive faculty,” said Aethelred. “A dumb animal, even a well-trained one, retains not enough intelligence to recognize even basic commands. But a man . . . a man survives the process with intelligence to spare. Enough, I believe, to be reliably controlled.”
Alfred’s face turned a paler shade. He stared at Aethelred, aghast. “You cannot be serious.”
“Our mistake was using animals to begin with,” said Aethelred. “We learned much that was useful, but this practice was never intended for use on the lower forms of life. I am sure of that now.”
Alfred glowered at Aethelred. “I will not permit this.”
“Sire, must I remind you what is at stake here? The godless barbarians in the Danelaw are growing in strength, and awaiting their moment to launch a fresh attack upon us. With Guthrum dead or dying, that moment will surely come soon. We must use every means at our disposal to defend this realm and our faith, or risk seeing them both destroyed by a race of heathen savages.”
“I was uncomfortable enough with you experimenting on beasts,” said Alfred. “I will not abide this . . . this witchcraft to be practiced upon men!”
Aethelred raised an eyebrow. “Witchcraft? Your Majesty, this is the very farthest thing from it. The discovery of the scrolls was no accident. It was a gift from God himself. He favors us with this knowledge—this power—and intends for us to use it. He has seen the crimes these Danish heretics have perpetrated against his church. Monasteries razed to the ground, holy relics destroyed, good men of cloth put to the stake and burned. Theirs is a war against God himself, and he has blessed us with the means to smite them in his name.”
“The God I believe in would never mean for such blasphemies to walk upon his earth,” said Alfred. “Whatever the origin of those scrolls, this cannot be their purpose.” He had grown tired of his word being challenged. He turned to the pikemen standing nearby and gestured to the ragged prisoner standing in the center of the yard. “Send this man back to the stockade. And see that he gets a hot meal.”
As the pikemen moved to take the prisoner away, Aethelred drew back his arms and began an incantation. He had become well practiced, and more than proficient enough to say all the words he needed in just a few moments. Alfred, though fast to realize what Aethelred was doing, was not fast enough.
“Stop him!” he shouted to the guards, who raced toward the archbishop. But Alfred could see that the prisoner’s body was already contorting, racked by a sudden onset of painful convulsions. Aethelred completed the incantation just as the guards seized him by the arms. He did not resist; his eyes were locked on his subject, now doubled over in agony. The poor man’s eyes bulged as though they might burst, and he opened his mouth wide, letting out a tortured scream.
Alfred grabbed Aethelred by the collar. The deserter was on his knees now, arms folded tight around his midsection, and he stared blindly at the ground, apparently trying to cough up something caught in his throat.
“Undo it now!” the King commanded.
“I cannot,” answered Aethelred, as he watched with fascination. “It must take its course.”
Helpless, Alfred looked back at the prisoner. All eyes in the yard were on that man now. He had fallen onto his side, and now he convulsed, kicking wildly in the dirt as he clawed at himself, raking bloody fingernails across his chest and neck as though trying to crawl out from inside of his own fevered skin.
And then he did exactly that. His rib cage swelled against his chest, then burst clean through it like the points of a dozen bone swords. One of the fire dousers dropped his bucket of water and fled; the others backed away in horror as the prisoner’s entire torso seemed to turn itself inside out. He wailed in agony, his organs spilling out onto the dirt as some dark, wet thing emerged in their place. And then the rest of him began to split open and come apart, the skin of his arms, legs, and head peeling away as pulsating, bloody shapes sprouted from within.
Alfred stared at the thing that just moments ago had been a man. It reared up on new hind legs while tentacled appendages slithered and unfurled and felt around at the ground beneath them. The man no longer had a head; instead, a tangled cluster of long saliva-coated tongues protruded from the riven stump where his head had once been. They licked and lashed around the beast’s shoulders, which were now covered by some kind of armored bone plating. What little was still recognizable as a man hung limp around the creature’s misshapen waist, a macabre belt of flayed human skin.
The beast made a sound not of this world, a dreadful, tormented howl. Alfred felt as though an ice-cold stone was growing in the pit of his stomach. “Kill it,” he cried out. “For God’s sake, kill it!”
Several guardsmen moved to surround the abominable creature, pikes thrusting outward to hold it at bay. It roared and lashed out with a tentacle that wrapped around the staff of the closest pike and pulled, bringing the pikeman along with it. Before he could retreat,