"Have you ever thought about how you want to die?" Shlomo asked.

Giradin, Shlomo, Mu, Fulk, Sir Bertran, and Father Hewlett rode together on the backs of horses, off to investigate a report of plague in a town called Neuhausen. All wore their black, waxed-leather uniforms and bird-like masks, with weapons strapped to their belts and over their backs.

The Jew's question caused Giradin's jaw to drop, and he caught a stronger whiff of the flowers and sweet-smelling herbs in his mask.

"Personally--" Shlomo continued, "--if I could choose how I die, it would be like this: I reach old age, having helped rid the world of this awful plague. As I lay on my deathbed at... oh... say... one-hundred years old would be nice... children come to see me. Children I've never met, but my efforts saved their lives. Christian children, Jewish children, Muslims, all manner of children from all over Christendom and beyond! And they all look at me with such affection as I give up the ghost."

Father Hewlett snorted a stifled laugh. "That's a fairy tale if I ever heard one."

Shlomo shrugged. "Hey, I'm not asking how we think we'll die, but how we would want to die. Have a little fun with it, Father!"

"I'll bite the hook," Mu interrupted. "You ever hear of an herb called a 'Black Jerusalem?'"

Sir Bertran chuckled.

Mu turned his beak to him. "Ah! I see you have heard of it! When one eats just a little Black Jerusalem, colors all start to look more beautiful, and everything tastes better. Have a little more, and you'll start dreaming while still awake. Some people have claimed to see angels after eating Black Jerusalem. So, here's how I'd like to die. On my seventieth birthday, I close and bar all the doors to my home so no one can interrupt me, I take six doses of Black Jerusalem, then smoke as much opium as I can find. After that, I just sit there, waiting to slip away into the great unknown."

Father Hewlett grunted. "So, your ideal death is suicide?"

Mu laughed out loud in his mask, his voice somewhat muffled. "A most spectacular suicide, Father."

Father Hewlett shook his head. "Does the Koran not forbid suicide?"

"Don't know, Father," said Mu. "Never read it, and never paid too much attention to the imams either. What about you, Fulk?" Mu's beak turning to the bald murderer (hidden behind a doctor's mask) riding to his left. "If you could choose how you die, how would it be?"

Fulk grumbled something incoherent for a moment, followed by, "The same way I was born. Writhing and screaming in a pool of blood."

A long silence followed Fulk's comment. Deep dread seeped into Giradin's heart, and while he kept his nose pointed straight ahead, his eyes swiveled behind those dark lenses to keep watch on Fulk.

Finally, Shlomo said, "That old cliche? You have no imagination, Fulk!"

Mu, Shlomo, and Sir Bertran all laughed. Fulk remained unreadable.

"There's Neuhausen!" Interrupted Father Hewlett. He pointed his gauntleted hand at the church steeple in the town ahead of them. "Save your morbid jests for another time."

The dull gray clouds over Neuhausen gave way only occasionally to the golden rays of the sun. The light shone down into the town in streaks, illuminating the foul dust in the air.

Giradin had heard all about miasma from Father Hewlett, who described it best as, "Bad air." The herbs and flowers in his mask were supposed to block out the miasma, but even the priest himself admitted they didn't always work right.

Giradin's every breath was now a leap of faith.

Father Hewlett raised his hand and the plague doctors brought their horses to a gentle halt just on the outskirts of town. Father Hewlett dismounted first, and the rest of the doctors followed. Giradin watched them for cues, and saw that they went to tie their horses' reins off at the nearest tree. Giradin looked at them, then looked down the long road to the center of town.

"We're not taking the horses with us?" Giradin asked.

Father Hewlett shook his head. "No. As a team, we've agreed to Shlomo's standards of cleanliness. It's served us well so far."

"It's not my standards, it's the Torah," said Shlomo. "Anyway, Torah says to keep... well, shit out of wherever you camp. Horses shit everywhere, so it's best we not bring them into town."

Sir Bertran gestured to Shlomo. "That's been the greatest boon. Most plague doctors have to revisit the same town over and over, but whenever the villagers listened to Shlomo about how to stay clean? They stay uninfected from then on. Since we've started telling people to listen to Shlomo, we haven't had to go back."

Mu leaned in closer to Giradin and whispered, "That's why we don't tell any townspeople that Shlomo's a Jew. So they'll listen to--"

"Quiet!" Father Hewlett hissed, and the group fell silent as they strolled into the town square.

Giradin found it was already harder to follow his orders than he expected. He did all he could to keep his eyes straight ahead, on Father Hewlett. But every now and then, against his will, his pupils would wander off to the hills and woods outside town, where he knew two more teams of plague doctors lay in wait in case any infected should try to run.

And he'd jerk his pupils back to Father Hewlett again, so as not to give away his comrades' positions.

Father Hewlett reached the center of the town square, marked with a wooden pole from which hung a bell. It was only then that Giradin dared to take his eyes off the priest on purpose, for he had to see what Hewlett was looking at.

All of the men in town, as well as their eldest sons and their biggest dogs, stood outside the doors of their homes. The men rested their hands on barrels, crates, or on their hounds' leashes. The hounds licked white saliva from their lips, and watched the plague doctors with their ears perked up. Through the open windows behind the townsmen, Giradin saw women, children, and elders peering back.

Straws fell from the thatch-roofed homes, into the dirt roads covered in waste and urine.

Shlomo stared at that same spot, where the straw fell. Giradin could almost swear he saw Shlomo's hand start to tremble before it became a fist. Some sort of prayer fell from Shlomo's lips. It wasn't for many years that Giradin would learn what they were, and remember them. "Baruch atah, Adonai, Elohaynu Melech ha'Olam..."

Ding Ding!

Giradin jumped at the sound, and his head jerked back toward it. Father Hewlett had rung the bell in the center of town. "I understand I am to meet Father Gervis here," the priest shouted. He turned to the others and, in a hushed tone, told them, "Crossbows out!"

Each of the plague doctors drew the crossbows down from off their backs and aimed them at the ground. Bolts sat ready for the trouble afoot.

Giradin's hands shook as he drew the crossbow from his back. Once he had it out, the thought that it might go off by accident and shoot one of his fellows entered his head. His heart screamed with fright, and he forced the weapon down toward the ground.

Why can't we just use swords? he thought. No one ever got accidentally shot by a sword.

The church door flung open, and two common men in filthy tunics strutted out, dragging with them a bald man bound and gagged. The men, both far bigger than their captive, sneered at the plague doctors as they drew near and threw their prisoner on the ground before them.

"HERE is Father Judas!" the taller of the two men shouted. He had a crooked nose which looked like it had been broken before, and was missing his pinky finger on his right hand.

The other brute spat on the bound father.

Giradin's finger inched toward the trigger of his crossbow, but slipped away again. He recalled what Father Hewlett had told him; only put your finger on the trigger when you're ready to shoot. Giradin peered around at the townspeople. Their eyes betrayed a deep rage, a hatred beyond mere words. The lids on their barrels and boxes had slid open, and inside Giradin could see wood-cutting axes and wooden clubs.

His eyes fell on another common man who stood with a sword in his belt and one hand on its pommel.

Either the sheriff or local militia...

Whatever the case, the swordsman with hair like hawk's feathers was surely someone with authority, but he did nothing to help Father Gervis as the nine-fingered man kicked the priest in the ribs.

"Stop that at once!" Father Hewlett barked, his crossbow raising just an inch.

Sweat soaked Giradin's gauntlets. The townsmen had their clubs and axes in hand, and their grips on the leashes loosened.

"Blasphemers!" the nine-fingered man bellowed. "These folk will tell you they got authority from the Pope himself. They may even show you a seal on a piece of paper you can't read, but they are partners with Christ-killers!"

"Jew-lovers!" one of the other townsmen shouted.

"Christ-killers!" shouted one of their wives.

Father Hewlett gestured his hand to Sir Bertran, who stepped forward and produced a medallion from his pocket. "You may not listen to your priest, but you will respect a knight hospitaller, sirrah! I fought in the crusades to keep you safe from the Saracen Empire, and for the glory of Christ, who Himself was born of a Jewish mother!"

"Lies!" the nine-fingered man roared.

"Filth!" shrieked an old woman in one of the cottages.

Above all the other noise, what Giradin heard most was his own frantic breath within his mask. White mist started to creep over the lenses, fogging his vision.

"These people are with the Anti-Christ!" shouted the nine-fingered man. He gestured with the wooden club in his hand. Giradin saw the weapon move and looked to Father Hewlett for the signal to take aim. A signal the priest did not yet give. "They would turn us away from our Lord and Savior to worship the Devil with the Jews. Christ is the true emperor of Rome, and the Empire would return with Him if only He were on the throne. Mother Church has betrayed us, and no longer speaks for Christ! This is why the Saracens defeated we who marched to crusade!"

Sir Bertran's body jerked at the words.

Are these men... disgraced crusaders? Volunteers back from the war?

"Well doctor?" the nine-fingered man snarled. "Speak your blasphemies again! I dare you!"

Father Hewlett sighed and turned to Fulk and nodded his beak. Fulk shook his head. Father Hewlett nodded again.

The murderer obeyed on the second command, and stepped forward with his crossbow raised as high as the nine-fingered man's shins.

Giradin saw the townsmen grip their weapons with both hands.

Father Hewlett snapped his attention to Giradin, and the cobbler's heart raced. The priest held up his left hand and bent all his fingers at the knuckles to form an arch.

The signal to start looking for shelter?

Not the signal to get ready to flee?

Father Hewlett didn't think they were going to be able to escape. The only reason he'd tell Giradin to seek shelter was if they planned to stand and fight long enough for reinforcements to arrive.

If you force your enemies to come through one doorway you can face them one at a time, Father Hewlett had said.

Fulk glared at the townspeople through his mask. Though his face was hidden, something in the way he held his shoulders gave an aura of bubbling rage.

Fulk growled, "I don't have time for mass right now, you rotten shit! If you folk don't have a plague problem don't waste our time!" The murderer pointed at the nine-fingered man. "And you! If I ever see your face again..." Fulk raised his crossbow a little higher, until it pointed at the nine-fingered man's groin. "I'll skewer both your balls, gouge out both your eyes, break all your fingers, and feed you to the pigs." Fulk snorted and screeched like a boar. Giradin couldn't tell if it was meant to be funny or chilling.

Giradin spotted an outhouse just a few strides away, and the tall, scrawny man with a pitchfork guarding the way.

The nine-fingered man raised both hands, the wooden club high in the air. All the plague doctors raised their crossbows to knee level, and Giradin followed suit. "What can mere man do to me, for the Lord is my shield! My rock! My fortre--"

A loud snap.

The nine-fingered man doubled over on the ground with a painful yelp. Like the townspeople, Giradin craned his neck to see what had happened. When the nine-fingered man rolled over, they beheld a crossbow bolt impaling the bloody groin. The nine-fingered man rocked his body and screamed, and the townspeople watched him with horrified eyes.

Some of the townsmen took two steps back. Others glanced back and forth at each other, wincing in sympathy at what had happened to the nine-fingered man.

Fulk loaded a new bolt into his crossbow and turned the crank. Sir Bertran followed as Fulk stepped forward to stand over the wailing man with all nine fingers on his crotch. Fulk shook his head. "I really hope you're the last person I do this to!" he growled loud enough for all nearby to hear. He took aim at the wounded man's groin and pulled the trigger again, putting the second bolt through his right hand as well as his pelvis.

The townspeople recoiled in horror and disgust. More of them fell back, away from the town square.

Father Hewlett breathed a sigh of relief, and Giradin soon followed.

The nine-fingered man sputtered, choked, then cried out, "Deus vult!"

The frightened faces of the townsmen turned to the fiercest scowls. They thrust their weapons in the air and cried out, "Deus vult!"

Father Hewlett raised his crossbow to chest level, and all other plague doctors did the same, aiming their weapons at the crowd. Giradin took aim at the tall, lanky man between him and the outhouse.

"STAY BACK! I WARN YOU!" Fulk barked.

"Hold until they charge," Father Hewlett said in a hushed voice.

"Deus vult!" the townsmen shouted again.

"Kill the Jew-lovers!"

"Avenge our Lord!"

"Drive the Heathen Church from Christendom!"

Giradin stared down the end of his crossbow at the tall, lanky man between him and the outhouse. The weapon trembled in his hands as he studied the slender stranger's sunken-in face, which he now believed to be far younger than he'd previously thought. No, this lad was younger than Giradin. A mere boy, despite his unusual height.

The boy lunged forward.

And Giradin pulled the trigger.