Vastare.

Wasted.

Many regions were marked with this word, indicating lands that had been laid waste by war or pillage. But two entries had been inscribed entirely in crimson ink. One described a desolate island that lay between the coast of Ireland and the English shore. Martin approached the other place now, ordered here to investigate at the behest of the king. He had been sworn to secrecy and given three men to assist him. They trailed behind the wagon on their own horses.

At Martin's side, the driver twitched the reins and encouraged the draft horse, a monstrously huge chestnut, to a faster clop. As they continued forward, the wheels of the wagon drove over the twitching bodies of the ravens, crushing bones and splattering blood.

Finally, the cart topped a rise and revealed the breadth of the rich valley beyond. A small village lay nestled below, flanked by a stone manor house at one end and a steepled church on the other. A score of thatched cottages and longhouses made up the rest of the hamlet, along with a smattering of wooden sheepfolds and small dovecotes.

"'Tis a cursed place, milord," the driver said. "Mark my words. It were no pox that has blasted this place."

"That is what we've come to discern."

A league behind them, the steep road had been closed off by the king's army. None were allowed forward, but that did not stop rumors of the strange deaths from spreading to the neighboring villages and farmsteads.

"Cursed," the man mumbled again as he set his cart down the road toward the village. "I heard tell that these lands once belonged to the heathen Celts. Said to be sacred to their pagan ways. Their stones can still be found in the forests off in the highlands up yonder."

His withered arm pointed toward the woods fringing the high hills that climbed heavenward. Mists clung to those forests, turning the green wood into murky shades of gray and black.

"They've cursed this place, I tell you straight. Bringing doom upon those who bear the cross."

Martin Borr dismissed such superstitions. At thirty-two years of age, he had studied with master scholars from Rome to Britannia. He had come with experts to discover the truth here.

Shifting around, Martin waved the others ahead toward the small hamlet, and the trio set off at a canter. Each knew his duty. Martin followed more slowly, studying and assessing all he passed. Isolated in this small upland valley, the village went by the name Highglen and was known locally for its pottery, forged from mud and clay gathered out of the hot springs that contributed to the mists cloaking the higher forests. It was said that the town's method of kilning and the composition of the potter's clay were tightly guarded secrets known only to the guild here.

And now they were lost forever.

The wagon trundled down the road, passing more fields: rye, oats, beans, and rows of vegetables. Some of the fields showed signs of recent harvesting, while others showed evidence of being set to torch.

Had the villagers grown to suspect the truth?

As the wagon continued down into the valley, lines of sheep pens appeared, fringed by tall hedges that half hid the horror within. Woolly mounds, the bloated bodies of hundreds of sheep dotted the overgrown meadows. Closer to the village, pigs and goats also appeared, sprawled and sunken-eyed, dead where they'd dropped. Off in a field, a large-boned ox had collapsed, still tethered to its plow.

As the wagon reached the village green, the town remained silent. No bark of dog greeted them, no crow of rooster, no bray of donkey. The church bell didn't ring, and no one called out to the strangers entering the village.

A heavy silence pressed down over the place.

As they would discover, most of the dead still lay within their houses, too weak at the end to venture out. But one body sprawled facedown on the green, not far from the manor house's stone steps. He lay like he might have just fallen, perhaps tripped down the steps and broken his neck. But even from the height of the wagon, Martin noted the gaunt stretch of skin over bone, the hollow eyes sunken into the skull, the thinness of limbs.

It was the same wasting as in the beasts of the field. It was as if the entire village had been under siege and had been starved out.

The clatter of hooves approached. Reginald pulled beside the wagon. "Granaries are all full," he said, dusting off his palms on his pants. The tall, scarred man had overseen campaigns by King William in the north of France. "Found rats and mice in the bins, too."

Martin glanced over to him.

"As dead as everything else. Just like that cursed island."

"But now the wasting has reached our shores," Martin muttered. "Entered our lands."

It was the reason they'd all been sent here, why the village road was under guard, and why their group had been sworn to secrecy with binding oaths.

"Girard found you a good body," Reginald said. "Fresher than most. A boy. He's set 'im up in the smithy." His heavy arm pointed to a wooden barn with a stacked-stone chimney.

Martin nodded and climbed out of the wagon. He had to know for sure, and there was only one way to find out. As royal coroner, this was his duty, to discern the truth from the dead. Though at the moment, he'd leave the bloodiest work to the French butcher.