Reign Read Free

to them,” she said. “Nothing will stop it. What do they want from us?”
    â€œWe must keep sacrificing to them,” Gerard announced. “We must…”
    He trailed off, uncertain. As Gerard looked out over the crowd, his eyes met Claude’s. His upper lip curled in a sinister smile. He still held the dagger he sliced the mare’s throat with, the end of it dark red. “We will do whatever it takes! They need more to be appeased.”
    A horrible noise was coming from the mare. It was still struggling. Claude turned away, unable to look. Instead, he picked up his pace, nearly running past the tiny Catholic church, which was now abandoned. Nothing had stopped the plague, and the survivors had lost faith in their prayers. They turned instead to the pagans in the village, hoping they could give them answers.
    When Claude reached the well, he worked quickly, trying to forget the sight of the dying mare. He tried to forget the bodies by the river and the pile of dead goats next to the stone altar. If only he could forget two days ago, when he’d buried both Jacques and his mother in the woods behind their house. He’d left one wooden cross on each of their graves. He had to believe in some greater power.… It was all he had now.
    There was only an inch of water in the bucket, but he brought it inside anyway, hoping it might be enough to wet their throats. Enzo was lying on a mattress on the floor. His neck was swollen, his fingernails black. He twisted and turned in his sleep. Claude dipped a cloth in the bucket and ran it over Enzo’s lips, then rested it on his hot forehead.
    â€œWater for you,” he said as he entered the back room. He knelt beside his father’s bed. He was worse than Enzo. The plague had infected him two days before the boy, and he was further along. He couldn’t speak. He could barely keep his eyes open to look at Claude.
    Claude dipped a cloth in the bucket, then squeezed it, letting the water drip into his father’s mouth. He tried to swallow, but he couldn’t. He was wheezing, the thick fluid in his lungs making it hard to breathe. As many times as Claude had wished his father dead, he knew now he’d never meant it. The past days had been horrible to watch. “I’m here now,” Claude said, trying to comfort him. “I’m with you. Be at peace, Father, be at peace.”
    He was slipping away. Claude knew what it looked like now. He knew how everything in the body slowed, how it stopped. He’d seen it in his mother and Jacques. He combed his father’s hair away from his face. Then Claude picked up the wet cloth and squeezed the last of the well water into his father’s mouth.

Chapter Three
September 22, 1517
    Claude brought the soiled, sweat-stained clothes outside and dumped them on top of the bloodied sheets. There were his father’s shirts, his mother’s horsehair brushes, the boys’ shoes and toys. He’d emptied the house of all their things, just as the townspeople had ordered. He went inside and grabbed one of the candles, then set the whole pile ablaze.
    There was some relief as he stood there watching it burn. Jacques’s favorite pair of red pants. His mother’s apron. The scarves she used to tie her hair back when she cooked. The rope dolls Enzo liked to pretend were soldiers, even though Claude was certain they were meant for a girl. And his father’s clothes—among them the executioner’s hood. No, he was not sad when the fire consumed it all.
    The cottage was one great reminder of what he had lost. Living alone the past weeks, he saw them everywhere. Here is where Jacques had said his first words. There, at that corner of the table, was where his mother had given Claude the clay statues he’d played with as a child. That corner of the bedroom was where Claude had slept beside Enzo, who always talked in his sleep.
    Then there were the other memories…