Widow's Welcome

by D. K. Fields

  I felt something brush against my leg, and then Brin was rushing across the washed wooden boards. She went straight to one corner of the lower deck, barked, then with bouncing ears she hurried to do the same in the other corners. The ship thus marked, she made her way below deck. In a strange way this show of superstition – from an animal, no less – settled me. I strode onto the ship.

  The pitch and roll were far more extreme than that of the barge, but the journey from Bordair had gone some way to prepare me. I went directly to the railing, and the view was quite astonishing.

  Break Deep. The effect it had on me was impossible to fully comprehend, let alone share. A painter might be able to, perhaps, but their canvas would have to be enormous, for that is what Break Deep was: a vastness beyond reckoning. It made me feel small, but that was only part of the sensation. That its beauty was a kind I had never seen before meant I could make no worthy comparisons. You had to see it. Be in its presence. Only then could we have spoken of Break Deep, and likely we wouldn’t speak at all.

  Night, day, dawn and dusk, I stood there or thereabouts and just watched it whenever I could. I never tired of its rolling fields and rainbow colours and razor-edged horizon.

  The salt was something I had not been expecting. No adventure story said anything about salt: in the air, in the water, on every surface. Over the next few days it was always in my hair. I tasted it when chewing food and when my mouth was empty. It crusted my nostrils.

  The first time I went below deck I stowed my bag and prepared myself – both mentally and, as to my wounds, physically – for the captain’s dinner. I was pleased to find the ship’s sense of space extended to the sleeping quarters. While there were a great many hammocks, fewer were accounted for. I dithered as to which I should choose, before realising the choice had been made for me: Brin was lying beneath a well-positioned hammock with plenty of space on either side, and even a low shelf nearby for some of my things. I ruffled her head as I settled in. I was vaguely aware of people playing dice somewhere, but they did not disturb me.

  My wounds were healing well, in part thanks to my discipline in not scratching at them. In a few days I would remove what salve remained and, if necessary, apply a fresh mix. There would likely be other crewmen of a weaker character who would need further assistance.

  I had just finished applying a fresh bandage when I heard shouts above me. I hastened on deck to see what was the matter, dreading another dweller attack.

  Instead I saw the dock, barge, and shoreline already some distance away. A great sail was now employed and swelling with a lively breeze.

  ‘I didn’t expect us to leave so soon,’ I said to Mona, who was also on deck watching the receding shore.

  ‘Captain won’t waste any time.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  She didn’t answer. That she didn’t want to talk, for whatever reason, soon became apparent. I left her there without any ill feelings; I understood well the need for solitary moments, especially when surrounded by the rest of the crew. I hoped the ship would afford me some such moments.

  I wandered on deck for a while, as ever making sure I wasn’t a nuisance to anyone with real purpose, and awaited the summons to the captain’s table. At least I was hungry. But when Perse tugged on my sleeve to awaken me from a gazing stupor, he led me forward, not aft.

  ‘Where are we going, Perse? What’s happened?’

  ‘Eliza is dying.’

  *

  She was in a cabin below deck. Too big for the bench-like bed, one of her arms was hanging over the edge. As well as the bed there was a small table with a lamp, and a barrel full of water. I checked her pulse and found it still reasonably strong and regular. But she was sweating profusely.

  ‘Eliza?’ I said. ‘Can you hear me?’

  She gave no response.

  ‘Perse, will you fetch the captain?’

  ‘Captain knows,’ Perse said.

  ‘Yes, but will you bring her here? Please, this is important.’

  With the boy gone I stripped Eliza, except for her necklace. This was no easy task as she was much bigger than I, and quite the dead weight. I inched off her boots, then her leggings, and let out a sigh of relief when her feet were unmarked. I checked her hands too, and then her whole body just in case. I could find no black marks. She had been lashed on the shoulder by the dweller, and her wound had an angry purple colour once I peeled away some of the salve. It could have accounted for her fever. I drew some water from the barrel, so as to be ready for the moments when she did surface from the fever. All I could do was wait. And hope.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ I said.

  When the door didn’t open, I went out myself. The captain was waiting some distance away.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I said.

  ‘You wanted to see me.’

  I looked from her to the door and back again. ‘You won’t come in?’

  ‘How is she?’ the captain said.

  ‘In full fever.’

  ‘How long has she got?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I think you heard me, Sanga.’

  ‘It could be just a fever,’ I said, struggling to keep my voice calm. ‘She was bitten by the dweller.’

  ‘And if not? When will we know?’

  ‘Are you asking me when Eliza will die?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘I will try everything I can to save her.’

  ‘You are to stay here, Sanga, until I say otherwise. I will have your things brought.’

  ‘You must have known this might happen.’

  She turned and walked away.

  ‘We have to go back,’ I shouted into the silence.

  A groan behind me made me jump. Eliza was struggling to sit up, weak as she must have been, struggling perhaps in a fever dream. But her eyes were intent on something. I brought her a cup of water and she drank greedily. I filled it once more, but she ignored me. She was reaching for something, a low wail coming from her that grew and grew. She was trying to reach her toes.

  ‘No, Eliza,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing there.’ She kept straining to see. ‘No Black Jefferey,’ I said, though it pained me. She stopped her struggles and blinked slowly. I repeated what I’d said, and she slumped back against the bed.

  She didn’t wake again.

  *

  I watched her the whole night. I still believed it was just a fever until, right in front of me, there came a black spot on the bony tip of her ankle. I rushed from where I was sitting and pulled the lamp closer. I rubbed my eyes, waiting for those earthly stars to disappear, and then looked again. Had the spot grown already? It was now the size of the fingernail of my little finger.

  This was an opportunity. I had the wherewithal to realise that, and also to realise how ghastly a thought it was. With Dahey, and the family that came after, I had no idea what was happening. With Eliza, once I had accepted what the captain had already, I could make some study of this Black Jefferey and, in doing so, perhaps help the poor woman.

  I counted a slow thirty and then compared the mark with my fingernail. It was now easily as big as my thumb – not just the nail, but my thumb from my knuckle upwards. I checked the other ankle and found another, smaller mark. Eliza was still in the grip of the fever, still sweating, which was different to Dahey’s dryness but close to the little girl’s condition. I tried to wake her, but to no avail. I futilely pressed a wet cloth to her forehead. With equal futility I looked in my bag. I knew of no herb, no mixture, no tincture for this plague. I picked up vials and packets only to toss them back. I caught the edge of my bone saw and quickly withdrew my hand. Not yet. But it did give me an idea: if I had nothing to give Eliza, perhaps I could aid her by taking something away.

  Scalpel in hand, I stepped softly towards her. The blade was within inches of the black mark before I remembered exactly what that mark represented: dead flesh. I had a bottle ready under her ankle to catch the blood, but t
here wouldn’t be any blood, not from there. Given the marks were closest to the feet, I decided to let the blood from other extremities. Eliza had good, clear veins and there was no difficulty in making an incision at the wrist. The blood flowed weakly at first but grew steady.

  ‘There we are then,’ I murmured, in reply to her feverish whimpering.

  When the bottle was almost full I bandaged her hand, pressing down for a few long minutes to stem the flow. I took the bottle over to the lamp, though the flame was low and I would need more oil soon enough. I turned the bottle in what light I did have. Were there black specks there, or was it my imagination? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. No. It was just blood – a solid, unblemished red.

  I took a strip of paper from my bag and dipped it into the bottle. The blood was a little thin, perhaps, but there was nothing unusual I could see. I slumped back against the wall and waited. It didn’t take long.

  She bled from her eyes, just as Dahey had. I crawled to her side with a hastily snatched vial but couldn’t catch the trickle down her cheek to her ear, where the blood pooled briefly, before falling like a drum beat on the floor. Then it came from her mouth.

  In the end she bled from everywhere – from her face, from the wrist I held, from between her legs. The air of the small cabin was like a forge: hot and sharp to taste. When she was dead, I cleaned her and the bed as best I could. Watery blood seeped between the floorboards. I pictured it finding its way through, somehow, to Break Deep and mixing with the water. That was more comforting than the reality of it pooling somewhere below me. I closed her eyes, breaking the crust of dried blood.

  With a clean cloth over my mouth I picked her up under her arms. It was not as dignified as I would have liked, but she was bigger than me. I apologised and, shouldering my way through the door, dragged her out of the cabin. Unable to carry her further I laid her down.

  And then I noticed him: my second patient – second victim – aboard the ship.

  *

  Harry was shivering, his hands tucked under his arms, his teeth chattering. I had not seen this in a patient yet. He was curled on the floor, eyeing me with a mix of emotions about his face that I could not fathom.

  ‘Can you walk, Harry?’ I said, my voice muffled slightly by the cloth. I doubted my ability to lift him. I was beyond tired.

  ‘Sure,’ he stuttered. ‘No dancing, though.’

  I helped him to his feet and, with him leaning heavily on me, we entered the cabin. He didn’t want me to see, kept trying to hide them, but his fingertips were black. This time I didn’t shut the door: I wanted to see who was delivering my patients, and what they might do with Eliza. Once Harry was on the bench, I took out a sheet to drape over her body – she deserved much more, but there was little I could do. I left her necklace in place.

  Harry had his hands in his armpits again. ‘No, Sanga,’ he said when I tried to look at them.

  ‘I want to help you, Harry. That’s all.’

  ‘Won’t cut ’em off, will you? I’ll need them with the Audience.’

  I stared down at this young man, with his closely shaved head and line of ear piercings, and was surprised by his inciting old-fashioned dogma. The belief that we joined the Audience in the same shape in which we died had, even in terms of Bordair’s slow moving superstitions, fallen out of favour.

  ‘I won’t cut them off. I just need to look at them.’

  He waited a moment before deciding I was sincere. The blackness had spread to all of his fingers, some as high as the second knuckle.

  ‘Have you bled from anywhere?’ I said.

  He sniffed in way of an answer.

  ‘I want to try something, Harry, but it won’t be pleasant.’

  ‘“Pleasant”,’ he echoed hollowly. ‘You talk strange, Sanga. Captain said not to say anything about that, but what’s it matter if I get in trouble?’

  ‘Talk strange?’

  ‘Do what you got to, Sanga. Just keep me whole for the Audience.’

  I nodded and went to my bag. I mixed together a syrup of ipecac root and poppy milk, diluting it a little further, and gave it to Harry.

  ‘Guessin’ I don’t want to taste this?’ he said.

  I couldn’t help but smile at his spirit. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  He threw the mixture back. It didn’t take long to work, and I was ready with a bucket. He purged until there was nothing left. He slumped on the bed and his breathing was so loud I could hear nothing else. I didn’t have to look very hard at the contents of the bucket to see streaks of red. Beyond the blood there was little in there that was noteworthy. I put the bucket out the door, as far from the cabin as I dared to go.

  He took water gladly, though I stopped him at three cups. I asked him to take off his clothes, assisting him with his trousers and boots. To see his feet and ankles clear of black marking was of little consolation, given how the corrosion was creeping rapidly over his hands. His shivering grew more violent and I covered him as much as I could. His breathing was not only loud now, but also ragged and wet. I rubbed his arms hoping to aid the flow of blood and make him at least feel warmer. But where my hands had been he was covered in bruises, as if a person much stronger than I had intended him serious harm.

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ I mumbled, quite in shock.

  I watched him sleep, my eyes weary and itchy. I considered waking him and giving him more ipecac, but I couldn’t see what that would achieve other than to make his last hours more miserable.

  Eventually he stopped shivering. Then he stopped breathing.

  That was when Fian came.

  *

  I was sitting beside the open door with my back against the wall. I must have dozed off, though I felt no more rested. I was woken by the noise of something heavy hitting the floorboards. My first thought was that Harry had rolled off the bed somehow. But he was still there, curled in on himself as if in his last moments there had been great pain. His eyes were clear of blood, at least. Fian was staring down at the sheet-covered shape of Eliza.

  I scrambled to my feet.

  ‘Fian, you have to…’

  ‘Have to what?’ she said, not looking up.

  There was a woman already deep in fever lying on the other side from Eliza.

  ‘Help me,’ I said. I could think of nothing else, nothing specific, that she – or I – could do and she knew it.

  Fian turned away, ignoring my pleas. But she returned soon enough, carrying a second woman; this one shivering like Harry had.

  ‘This can’t go on,’ I said.

  The look she gave me made the stupidity of my statement clear.

  ‘Captain says they’re to come down here. Says you’re to stay here too.’

  ‘And Eliza? And Harry?’ I said.

  ‘Overboard. What else?’

  I opened my mouth to protest, but, as she had said, what else could be done on a ship? In the close cabin, with its walls and door, and the desperate intensity of seeing to the patients, I had all but forgotten we were sailing Break Deep. How many miles had we travelled? How far behind us was the safety of the known? Even if Fian would tell me, what good would it do?

  She picked up Eliza as if the dead woman were nothing more than a tired child.

  ‘I’ll need more water,’ I said to Fian’s back. ‘And sheets.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And you should cover your face.’

  I waited for her in the doorway, as certain she would come back for Harry as I was that I could do nothing for the two women lying there. I punched the door frame, suddenly frustrated by my own uselessness. I wiped away my tears when Fian returned. She was wearing her bandanna across her face. Without too much effort she carried two buckets full of water, topping off the barrel in the cabin, and some sheets that may or may not have been spare sail. She also had some stale bread and bruised fruit for me. I tore into both.

  ‘I can’t stay down here all the time,’ I said between mouthfuls.

  She grunted as she
braced to lift Harry.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I’ll talk to the captain,’ she said.

  Harry flopped limply over her shoulder. There was little room and, though I pressed myself against the wall, Fian brushed past me. She smelled of salt, from Break Deep, and her own sweat.

  ‘Wait!’ I said.

  She stopped; as much, I think, because of my frantic tone than any impulse to follow my orders. I pushed Harry’s head to one side. There, just below the crown, was a cluster of red pinpricks, like bite marks. Beguiled as the Picknicker, I ran a thumb over them but they were hard to feel through Harry’s rough stubble. They didn’t fade at my touch.

  ‘He’s not getting any lighter,’ Fian said.

  ‘Of course.’ I patted her shoulder.

  She left, carrying Harry to his watery grave.

  I rushed to my bag, my paltry dinner already forgotten, and found my shears. Both women had long hair tied back in one manner or another. To save any argument I approached the feverish woman. The other watched, wide-eyed but silent, as I went to work. The hair was tough and matted in places, but I had a habit of keeping my shears sharp. I went as close to the skin as I could without cutting it; I didn’t want to look for red bites in thin sheets of blood. Finished, I grasped her uneven skull in my hands. I couldn’t help registering, as inconsequential as it was at that time, that she must have suffered quite a blow as a child. I soon found what I was looking for.

  A smaller grouping than on Harry, but the bites were there nonetheless. I scratched at my own scalp – a gesture I could not avoid, and it did little to reassure my other patient. The bites were once again raised, quite fierce in appearance, but I saw no blisters or pustules. The skin of the surrounding area might have showed evidence of scratching, but it was hard to say for certain. I met the other woman’s eye and felt we shared a moment of understanding. Lice.

  I moved the lamp closer to the pile of discarded hair. With great care I felt my way through the dark strands, alert for any white specs or anything dust-like. When I pulled apart the more matted sections there was indeed something there, but under close inspection it resembled dead skin more than lice eggs; at least, that was my opinion. The other woman was in no state to give hers. I let the hair drop to the floor. Straightening, I took up my shears.