(Originally posted on Discovering Diamonds)
Read the Story
Guess the Song
here's a clue...
Whenever Ramón de Oto’s father returned
from a violent spar with enemies in Cerdagna or Vallespir, the boy was flooded
with an odd mixture of relief and excitement. Relief because his father had
come back to him alive. And excitement because his father was a very fine
storyteller. Without fail, within a day or two of his return, the baron would
call for his son and the two of them would savor an evening in front of a
blazing fire.
Ramón’s favorite was a ghoulish tale about the plague. The story was downright terrifying, especially when it spilled from the lips of his fierce-eyed father, enthroned on an oak chair before the massive hearth, a wolf-pelt draped over his shoulders. There was something eminently comforting about sitting on his father’s knee, watching the flames dance, listening to words so familiar he could recite the entire tale himself—and often did, when his father was away at battle.
Ramón’s favorite was a ghoulish tale about the plague. The story was downright terrifying, especially when it spilled from the lips of his fierce-eyed father, enthroned on an oak chair before the massive hearth, a wolf-pelt draped over his shoulders. There was something eminently comforting about sitting on his father’s knee, watching the flames dance, listening to words so familiar he could recite the entire tale himself—and often did, when his father was away at battle.
During the first wave of the Black Death,
his father would begin, their family had managed something extraordinary.
Thanks to their ancestor Baron López de Oto, the house of Oto had not only survived
the plague, it had soared to a dizzying pinnacle of power.
The disease had destroyed the very fabric
of society all over Aragón, Ramón’s father explained. Thievery and murdering
became the norm. There was no end to the violence, and no way to bring
criminals to justice. Any fine house that was shuttered during those dark days
would soon be looted. It became
commonplace to see street urchins parading around in stolen finery.
But in their remote mountain castle, the de
Oto family lived as they had always done, out of reach of these horrors. And
perhaps they would have escaped the plague unscathed if the baroness had not
gone to visit Lady Almaz, the wife of one of their vassals, who was expecting a
new baby. When the baroness did not return as promised a month later, Baron López
de Oto sent a pair of guards to bring her back. But they failed in their
mission, saying the ferryman refused to transport them across the river that
lay between the baronial lands and the Almaz home. The town on the opposite
river bank had been struck by the plague, the guards explained. Fires burned
day and night there, incinerating corpses and sending a nauseating stench across
the land.
López de Oto armed himself and ordered the
men to return with him to the river. Promising the ferryman a pouch of gold coins
(and liberally applying the sharp point of his longsword to the man’s chest),
he led his horse aboard the craft and bade his guards to follow.
Once across the water, they learned from
one of the town’s few survivors that the magistrate, the bailiff, and the
notary had all perished. Quickly they spurred their horses south along the dusty
roads, not pausing until the stone walls of the Almaz home rose up before them.
No guards blocked their way. Indeed, the massive oak doors of the house were
ajar and no servants were about.
The scent of death hung in the stale air as
López and his men stalked through the silent corridors. Striding upstairs to
the bedchambers, López discovered corpses that had already begun to rot in
their beds, their bodies covered with the pus-filled boils that were the
hallmark of the Black Death.
In her oak bedstead, Lady Almaz lay dead,
her baby still in the womb. López stood over her, tempted to cut it out with
his dagger to see if it was still alive. He had heard the story of a long-ago
king of Aragón who emerged from his dead mother’s womb in this fashion. A band
of lance-wielding Moors had attacked the royal party as they were passing
through a peaceful valley, and the pregnant queen was left dead on the road. A
quick-thinking baron cut the baby free after happening upon the scene of the
massacre. Judging from the corpse on the bed in front of him, Lady Almaz had
been dead for days. There was no chance any life still pulsed within her womb.
He moved from room to room until he found
his wife. She lay contorted on top of the bedcovers, her face twisted in a
macabre grimace. The sight of her disheveled nightdress and the tangled hair
that lay across her face made him shudder with distaste. She had borne him
several sons, but he had never held the woman in his heart. After all, she was
from Béarn, over the mountains, a foreigner who had been traded to his family in
return for prime grazing lands in the Pyrenees. He would soon find another,
younger wife.
Hastily he rolled her body inside the
bedsheet, heaved it over his shoulder, and lugged it outside. Within an hour López
de Oto and his men had removed all the bodies from the house, piled them in a
stubble field, and lit them on fire.
Watching black spirals of smoke sail into the cloudless sky, López folded his arms and waited for the charred skeletons to crumble into ash. Then the wind shifted and dark smoke coursed toward him. Eyes watering, he wheeled and returned to the house. Standing in the empty hall, he eyed the wooden chests that squatted against the stone walls. They were locked. He strode to the armory and pulled a battle-ax off the wall. With two decisive strokes of the ax, he smashed the iron lock on the first chest and flung it open. It was jammed with silver plates and cups. He decided to carry the family’s valuables back to his own home for safekeeping.
Watching black spirals of smoke sail into the cloudless sky, López folded his arms and waited for the charred skeletons to crumble into ash. Then the wind shifted and dark smoke coursed toward him. Eyes watering, he wheeled and returned to the house. Standing in the empty hall, he eyed the wooden chests that squatted against the stone walls. They were locked. He strode to the armory and pulled a battle-ax off the wall. With two decisive strokes of the ax, he smashed the iron lock on the first chest and flung it open. It was jammed with silver plates and cups. He decided to carry the family’s valuables back to his own home for safekeeping.
And so began the baron’s struggle to
safeguard the possessions of Aragón’s noble houses. He began a regular practice
of forays through plague-stricken lands, flanked by guards wearing battle armor.
While the epidemic raged and more families were struck down by its horrors, López
grimly patrolled the fields and valleys, checking on widows, finding homes for
orphaned children. In the case of a family being completely obliterated, he
would dismiss any surviving servants and collect all the valuables he could
find.
Time went on. The baron remarried and sired
more sons. In his later years, he quietly loaned the royal family funds to prop
up the foundering kingdom of Aragón and was gifted land, castles, and ships in
return. When the plague was only a distant memory, López de Oto looked back at
his actions through a pragmatic lens. He had simply rescued the wealth of fellow
nobles from the grasping hands of thieves and murderers. The loot was, of
course, returned to those families whose heirs survived. But when entire
families had been wiped out, there was nothing to do but keep their
possessions. Without any heirs to claim it, the wealth belonged to no one.
Despite the obvious heroism displayed by their ancestor, Ramón’s father always concluded it would not do to speak of the man’s deeds to anyone but a son of the house of Oto. Each time he told the tale, he ended it the same way. He would lean so close that his beard brushed against Ramón’s cheek, and he would growl into his son’s ear. Some things, he warned the boy, were best kept within the family, passed down from father to son. And this tale was one of those things.
Shuddering with dread at his father’s menacing tone, Ramón always nodded shakily and vowed to keep the story to himself.
Then his father would ask him, “What did
you learn from López de Oto, my son?”
And in his best imitation of a man’s strong
voice, Ramón would reply, “Fortune favors the bold.”
His father would smile in satisfaction and drape
an arm around the boy. At this moment, when the time for talking was over,
Ramón always experienced a deep peace that he rarely encountered again during
his lifetime. Relaxing against his father’s warm bulk, he would drowse until
bedtime, the companionable silence broken only by the crackle of fire and the
faint moan of wind slipping through chinks in the castle’s stone walls.
© Amy Maroney
Amy Maroney is the author of the Miramonde Series, which tells the story of a Renaissance-era female artist and the young scholar on her trail. She lives in Oregon, U.S.A. Her latest novel, A Place in the World, was published by Artelan Press in September 2019. Learn more at amymaroney.com
Did you guess the title?
Chris De Burgh - Don't Pay The Ferryman
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| website amymaroney.com |
Amy Maroney grew up in a family of bookworms and was happiest perusing the shelves of her local library, checking out the maximum number of books each week, and harboring dreams of writing her own novels one day. She studied English literature at Boston University, and worked for many years as a writer and editor of nonfiction. Now she lives in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. with her family. When she’s not diving down research rabbit holes, she enjoys hiking, drawing, dancing, swimming in mountain lakes, and—of course—reading.
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Excellent, love the way this story is told.
ReplyDeleteSO atmospheric. I was right there! Fabulous story.
ReplyDeleteI shuddered reading your terrific and terrifying story, Amy. To think this dreaded scourge is still around. Will there be be any bold men left? Or just marauding hordes?
ReplyDeleteA great read. And I hope little Ramón headed his father's advice.
ReplyDeleteI do love a good Chris de Burgh song! Fabulous story and lovely to be transported back to this world again, having read all the books!
ReplyDelete