In the female treatment hall where Pakka was not such a motivated Good-doer, the treatment of the sick was less careful, but since there were twenty more patients’ beds, time was scarce. The patient Hesta was gasping, close to her last breath. Another woman lay dying beside the doorway. Her bed had not been changed for three days since each time it was laid with clean linen, the woman pissed it again. Cleanliness therefore did not seem essential. The rash across her breasts and belly, and the dark bruises spreading from her neck, seemed impossible to treat after four long days had passed.
Pakka said, peering down at the unconscious woman, “I thought she’d fallen from the back of a train. Or maybe beaten by her husband. But those bruises don’t fade.”
Another Good-doer was passing, carrying pillows in a bundle. She glanced over. “Yuck. Looks like the pestilence to me. Don’t touch her.”
“But she’s got no buboes. No black lumps. I’ve looked.”
The other woman stepped back, staring. “But if she’s got it, it’ll spread. It’s really rather frightening. I’ve never seen a patient with the Black Plague before so I can’t be sure. I know there’s no plague in the village.”
The patient did not move. Pakka sniffed and hurried back away from the bed. “I’m going to get rid of her, just in case or all in the whole building will die one after the other, including us and Priest Fope.”
Where do we put her? “Into the forest?”
“Into the cesspit.”
The second woman dropped her pillows and had to scramble after them, looking up from the floorboards. “But wait. If there’s no one else with it – the dreadful plague - it’s never just one person.”
Pakka shook her neat black coif, and put her finger to her lips. “There always has to be a first. This one is nearly dead anyway. It’s an act of heroism to throw this body on the rubbish heap, and that means we’re saving everyone else including ourselves.”
“Must I help? I don’t want to touch her.”
Grabbing one of the pillows, Pakka pressed it over her patient’s head, and wrapped the rest of her body in the piss stained sheet. She then grabbed a cleaner sheet from the bed next along, where the patient was asleep. With this as a complete cover, Pakka and her Good-doer friend lifted the half dead patient and hurried outside. The large rubbish dump was at the back, piles of heaped muck covering the cess pit. The stench rose in clouds, smelling of excrement and other filths. They tossed the body into the centre, and hurried away.
The squelch of weight sinking into the ooze echoed for several moments.
“That stink will finish her off if she’s not dead yet.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“Of course I won’t.”
They returned to the kitchen and helped themselves to a small cup of brandy each. It seemed to help.
Welba was sitting on Thribb’s bed while talking to him and tucking him into a second warm blanket, when the commotion outside began to echo with the whoop of a horn and the blasting of drums. Any one even remotely alive stared up, tried to sit, or hurried to the front door. A small cavalcade was approaching, two soldiers with horns and one with drums, then a middle-aged woman riding a very tired horse, two other women close behind, and then three armed guards. This seemed too small a cavalcade for an official inspection, but no other kind of visit had been announced. The Good-doers left their patients and flurried, tripping over their hems in the panic, and arranged themselves outside the huge front doors. In spite of the wind, they kept the doors open.
With a sigh of exhaustion, the middle-aged woman, grandly vivid in scarlet velvet lined in white rabbit fur, and with the help of one guard and the two other women, dismounted and staggered towards the doorway. The horse neighed and was then led away by one of the armed guards to graze. As the extremely plump woman came closer and the shadows of the hood melted away, it became obvious to most observers that this was a lady of considerable importance. It was the priest, tall in his white robes, who seemed to know who the lady was and quickly pushed everyone else out of the way as he stepped forwards with a deep bow.
“Your majesty.” Straightening up, Priest Fope, the singular master of the hospital, held out his hand and the small dumpy queen took it and managed to stagger inside where the warmth blew in a delightful cloud against her face. Queen Denda breathed in relief. The cold from the doorway was quickly shut out.
Her majesty turned to the priest. “I wish first to speak to your senior Good-doer,” she said softly. “I shall speak with you afterwards, sir. But another female first, and the best nurse you have.”
The Good-doers clustered around, but Fope nodded towards one woman standing at the back. “Your majesty, may I introduce you to Mistress Tandy who is the leader within the female ward. She is a remarkable doctor.” The woman stepped forwards and curtsied.
“Very well. But alone,” said the queen. And Mistress Tandy led her towards the clinical chamber, where a small bright fire crackled, and on a long table the salves, tonics and general medicines were mixed. A cask of water was on a trivet over the fire, the water boiling with a hiss, washing aprons, sheets and bandages. Another tub, even larger, stood ready to take the place of the first once the washing was considered done. With two hundred and forty bed sheets, a thousand bloody bandages, and a heap of other items, the daily washing was an enormous task.
A comfortable chair stood near the fire. Tandy turned the chair to face the other away, and her majesty sat there with an enormous release of breath and tension.
“I am,” she said quietly, “interested in matters of health and the details concerning one specific circumstance.” The queen’s hands were crossed lightly over her belly. “Beneath a copious cloak it’s not easy to see, but I need to tell you, I’m pregnant. You are almost the first person in the country to know this.”
The Good-doer fell to her knees. “But this is glorious news, your majesty, and the country will celebrate. Is there a problem?”
“Only that it’s not the king’s,’ muttered the queen. “And since he can’t fuck his own hand, he’ll hardly be fooled into thinking it’s his.”
The other woman blanched. “I am at your service, your majesty. What do you wish – to do?”
“Alternatives are numerous,” sighed the queen. “I could ask you to terminate the damn thing. But by the time I was sure of my condition, I’d got rather fond of the bump. It’s a sweet little bump. I could have it, with all that pain, and then give it up for adoption. But what a daft idea. I’m already fond of it, but all I’d get is the bloody agony and no bump.”
“May I point out, your majesty, that your age is somewhat against such a procedure. Indeed, I’m a little surprised – how long has it been, do you think?”
“I’m fifty-one,” said the queen. “And the last bedding I managed was nearly six months ago. I should have realised before, but I honestly thought it impossible. After all, we stop our monthly courses around this age anyway. Of course, I thought that was it, and I just had indigestion. But then my sweet little lump started moving. A bit of a shock. Serious indigestion perhaps. No, because it started kicking. Frink told me I was getting fat and to stop eating so many cherry dumplings.”
“May I ask,” asked Tandy, embarrassed, “when was the last occasion on which his majesty successfully managed – that is –,”
“Two years ago. Can we claim delayed impregnation, d’you think?”
Interrupted with one sudden and shocking scream, Tandy’s reply became simply a mumble. At first it might have seemed like the wind, and the queen wrapped her scarlet velvet tighter around her shoulders, but Tandy said, “I think just a passing train, your majesty. Their horns are very like screams sometimes you know.” But then the wail of desperation, echoing and vibrating, was repeated and repeated again and others throughout the hospital sat or clambered out of bed. “A train accident perhaps,” Tandy went white, fearing a hundred dead or dying being carted to their doors, and ran to the one small window.
The
outside doors were rattling, and the scream was closer. Tandy, Priest Fope and the Good-doer Baska ran to open the main doors. The queen opened the door to her own room and trotted along the corridor, peeping out beneath the priest’s shoulder.
A half-naked woman lay on her front, pushing up on the ground with both hands, her face tearful and desperate. Her hair and the rag of a partly torn sheet were trailing in muck. The woman stank. There was shit in her hair and bird droppings around her eyes. She stank of a hundred sorts of dirt, and slime covered her neck, her back and her arms. She smelled, still sobbing, and tried to lift one arm.
The priest gulped and raced back, squeaking, “It’s a demon from hell.” With a muttered prayer of protection, he disappeared into the chapel.
Two Good-doers, both Pakka and her friend, hurried after him and in the opposite direction from the crawling monster at the door.
Only Queen Denda and the nurse Welba hurried forwards and knelt beside the creature at the door. Denda drew in a deep breath and immediately vomited. She then wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, turned aside as though nothing had happened, and murmured to the monster, “You seem very ill, my dear. Don’t be frightened. I shall get you all cleaned up and then tuck you into a nice warm bed.”
Without any idea of who Denda was, although clearly a wealthy woman, Welba called over Denda’s head for a low body-cart, and when it was immediately brought, helped the weeping body onto the flat wooden planks, and both grabbed the rope pully, tugging it towards the medicine room where the queen had just been sitting. Hurrying to join them, Tandy and Baska, chief of the male ward, followed into the small chamber and shut the door behind them. One large cask, often used as a bath by the Good-doers, was rolled into the space before the fire, and gradually filled with clean hot water, then topped with cold, more hot, more cold, until the queen upped her thumb in approval. Already the patient stood entirely naked, her fouled sheet and ripped shift having already been thrown to the flames, boosting both the heat and the stench. Milldy, as she whispered her name, was half helped, half carried and plopped into the water. She squeaked a little, unused to the heat, but then sank to her shoulders, bent her knees and disappeared to her chin, as a slow smile spread across her bedraggled face.
The queen patted the filthy top of Milldy’s head. “All the way down for a moment,” she said. “That hair certainly needs washing too.” Then, glancing at the hand she had used, the back still showing signs of her own vomit and the palm streaked with slime and muck, her majesty popped her arm into the burning water, and wriggled it up to the elbow. Then, staring into the water, she noticed something. With a spontaneous squeak, she rummaged deeper, soaking the edges of her sleeve. “What’s that?”
“Your majesty,” choked Tandy, grabbing the queen’s other arm, “the water is already contaminated. Please, leave all this to me.”
Denda ignored her. “Look,” she demanded, holding up one tiny straggling legged thing, smaller than her fingertip, black and alive. “This had burrowed into poor Milldy’s waist. Drinking her blood, I’d say. A beetle or an ant. No, a vile spider.” Black legs flared. With disgust, the queen flung it to the floorboards, raised one smartly booted foot, and crushed the tic-spider with one forceful stamp. She looked back at the woman soaking in the water, who was now peering over the top of her tub. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what made you ill. Or did you get it from the rubbish dump?”
Bewildered, Milldy stared around. “I was in bed. I know I was sick. Look,” and she stood half out of the water, exposing the rash and the bruises. “I felt so sick and dizzy and my knees got so painful I could hardly move. Then I woke up in a pile of muck. Perhaps someone thought I was dead.”
“Certainly not,” said Tandy. “For those sad patients who do not survive, we use the funeral pyre, just like everyone else across the land.”
Hardly a murmur, Milldy whispered, “Am I dying then? What was that beetle thing? Crawling back here from the muck was so difficult and painful.”
“It was painful just seeing you,” said the queen. She sniffed at the water, which was thick with dirt, slime floating on the top. “I’ve heard of this sort of thing before. I was born in the south, you know, where we know about insects that live in the water or on the backs of animals. They like to hop onto people and drink their blood. Nicer blood, I suppose. After a few days, the person can get very sick. I knew someone who died.”
“Am I better now?” begged Milldy.
Milldy and the three Good-doers were all staring at the queen. Tandy asked, “How do we cure this young woman, your majesty?”
“The only thing the southern doctors have discovered,” Queen Denda replied, “is to stick on another sort of tic-spider. It’s green and lives in mud. It’s not very nice and it sucks your blood too. But it’s little tongue has some sort of special touch, or a salve or something. When it sucks, that salve goes into your blood, and kills the disease. Takes a day or two, and then you pick off the green beetle and you keep it safe in a box so you can use it again if you get another patient. Of course, you have to remove the other beetle thing first, and kill it. Well, we’ve done that. So yes, my dear girl, the cure has begun.”
Milldy had climbed very carefully from the tub, and two of the Good-doers were drying her firmly, removing both water and remaining scum. It was suddenly Welba, bending over Milldy, who said, “And this one is green.” She held another beetle between finger and thumb, and its eight minute legs wriggled in complaint. Its back was deep green with a pale yellow stripe, and a tiny drip of blood fell from its head.
“Now that,” said the queen, “is quite remarkable. No, no, don’t crush it. Keep it safe and feed it a little blood every now and again. And I doubt it’s finished its job yet.”
Milldy shivered. “Must I have it back?”
“Bed first,” said Tandy. “And some hot soup, perhaps. A clean sheet and a clean shift. Then back goes the green beetle.”
“Just for a day or two and then you’ll be all better,” the queen smiled, passing Milldy a clean shift from a pile.
“I do believe,” said Baska, frowning, “something very strange seems to have happened. Firstly, we have a patient getting sicker and sicker, and quite beyond our knowledge to cure. Somehow, walking in her sleep or some other way, perhaps the hand of one of the gods, she is taken to the dump at the back, where all rubbish is discarded. There she lies until a magical qualities of a green beetle come to help. The green beetle has been hiding in the muck, waiting for dinner. And he finds it. Beginning to feel a little better almost at once, the patient manages to crawl back to the hospital, poor dear. Meanwhile we receive an unexpected visit from her majesty our benevolent queen, who is perhaps the only lady in the north who understands this solution, and can explain what has happened.”
The queen smiled. “Although not what I came for.”
“Already I can stand. I can walk,” said Milldy.
“And we must thank the god of this hospital,” said Welba with a little hop of excitement. “The deity of the sick, our sacred Tuskon-Pullar. The god we all worship. I must tell Father Fope.”
“He ran away,” said Tandy scornfully. “I dare say he’s hiding, shivering, in the chapel, praying for the monster to be destroyed.”
“I’ll tell him anyway,” Baska said, “after we’ve tucked dear Milldy up in a warm bed. I shall put a brick in the fire for her feet. And we shall consider this our most honoured patient.”
“Almost holy,” nodded Tandy. “I’ll order Pakka to make some lovely hot soup and bring a cup of good wine.”
Milldy was shivering, stuttering and looking around her. “First the bad luck, getting that vile tick spider. Then comes her majesty, and brings the miracle. I am – better! Bless her majesty.”
“The great queen of miracles.”
“While the priest runs away.”
The queen was grinning. Meanwhile Denda sat some time beside Milldy’s bed. “When you’re all better,” she said, “I shall offer yo
u a job at the palace.” Milldy nearly collapsed again while Pakka, carrying the large bowl of soup, and her friend bringing the wine, both scowled with silent fury, but also swallowed the tremendous relief that they had not been accused of anything.
Then Denda walked back to the medicine room, and sat down once more to talk about her most inconvenient pregnancy.
Welba returned to Thribb’s bed, and found him more alert than usual, eager for an explanation of what had been going on. Horns, drums, clomping feet, screams, the rolling of a cart on wheels, more noise and finally peace.
“It’s an interesting story,” Welba told him, and supplied the details as far as she knew them. “The queen has never been here before,” she added. “Nor the king. So nice of her to come but I don’t know why. Yet while here, she knew all about those horrible spiders that make you sick.”
Thribb’s eye socket was heavily scarred and his throat was neatly sewed with fourteen tiny white stitches all around his neck, but the damage inside made speaking extremely difficult. In a half growl, he managed to say, “I was in the south too. Ticks. Can kill. Queen born south. Knows ticks.”
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