Smoke should have been curling from the chimneys that protruded in random patterns from the steeply pitched roof, but I saw none. Even with the sun now rising, the temperature hovered around freezing, and of course fires should have burned to keep off the winter chill. But if there were no one alive to light the fires, or keep them burning—
I kicked my heels into my horse’s sides, spurring him into a startled canter. Brit lagged behind for a moment before he caught up with me.
“What’s amiss?” he asked breathlessly as he clung to the pommel. Obviously he had far less experience on horseback than I did.
“Far too much, I’m sure,” I replied, slitting my eyes against the freezing wind and praying for any sign of life from Lord Arnad’s home.
But I saw none. We came into a large courtyard bordered by what appeared to be the stables and the slave quarters. The entrance to the main house was some ten yards directly in front of me.
I dismounted, and began to unfasten the straps that held my medical kit. “See if you can put the horses in the stables—but look sharp. If there’s anyone inside, stay away, and see if you can find some other covered place to wait for me.” Once my satchel was free, I opened it and drew out two long strips of tightly woven linen, then handed one to Brit. “Tie this over your mouth and nose—like so.” And I fastened my own mask over the lower half of my face, not so tight that it would impair my breathing, but also not so loose I would have to worry about it slipping.
Brit gave me a dubious glance, then looked down at the strip of cloth he held. “What’s this for?”
“To keep out the infection,” I replied. I had no time to explain to him the Order’s theories on airborne contagion—and indeed we did not know for sure how exactly disease was passed on. But experience had proven that protecting one’s air passages in such a way greatly reduced the spread of disease.
At any other time, the alacrity with which Brit tied the mask to cover his mouth and nose might have amused me. Instead, I just shook my head. “Remember, stay away from anyone you see, even if they don’t look ill.”
He nodded, then took my horse by the reins with one hand and his own mount by the other. They walked slowly off in the direction of the stables, with Brit giving me one last uneasy look over his shoulder as he did so.
No help for it. He was safe enough for now, and I had work to do. Grasping the worn handle of my satchel, I turned and made my way to the front door of Lord Arnad’s home.
It pushed open at my touch, and I stepped inside, blinking a little at the sudden dimness after the bright snow-lit day outdoors. The interior was almost as freezing as the outside air, and after a second I found myself glad enough of it. Otherwise, the smell would have been unbearable.
Probably at one time it had been a pleasant room. At the far end of the hall stood an enormous gray stone fireplace, its hearth now choked with unswept ashes. Unlike Lord Shaine’s stone hall, this room had a floor of age-darkened oak, and a series of fine mullioned windows on the opposite wall. They let in a harsh stream of white morning sunlight that was unpitying in what it revealed.
The bodies lay huddled on the floor. A few had obviously succumbed as they sat at the long tables that stretched out in the center of the floor. Slave, noble, retainer—it had not mattered in the end. They all surrendered to death together.
I forced myself to take a breath, to swallow against the convulsive choking that seemed to seize my throat. These all seemed dead, but I had to make sure.
“Is anyone there?” I called out into the heavy stillness. “I am a physician. Brit brought me here.”
Silence for the space of a few heartbeats, and then I heard a low answering groan from the far end of the room. I hastened in the direction of the sound and paused, staring down at the ruin that was Lord Arnad.
Whatever happy confluence of symmetry that had once made him so handsome was now gone. His skin had a yellow, waxy cast, and that same jaundiced tone was reflected in the whites of his eyes. The skin underneath them looked bruised, the shadows purple-black. His mouth was slack and caked with dried spittle and black flecks that were probably blood. I heard his labored breathing from several feet away.
Knowing there was little I could do at this point, still I moved forward and sank down on my knees at his side. He had collapsed on the floor next to the head of the table. I had no way of knowing whether he had tried to maintain his status of lord of the hall until he was too ill to stand any longer, or whether he simply hadn’t the strength to go any farther than this.
“My lord?” I asked. “Can you hear me?”
A rattling breath, and the slightest movement of his head. It might have been a nod.
“It’s Merys,” I went on. “I’ve come to help. You sent Brit to fetch me.”
Again that slight shift in the angle of his head. The bleary eyes seemed to focus on me for a few seconds. “Too late,” he said, the words hardly more than a breath.
I feared he was right, but I had to at least try. From within my satchel I retrieved a pair of thin kidskin gloves and drew them on. Then I set to work on the fastenings of his doublet. When I saw what it revealed, I knew there was nothing I could do.
In the earlier stages of the disease, it is possible to lance the plague boil and drain off the infection in that manner. But in Lord Arnad the infection had already spread. On his pale and clammy skin I saw the telltale bluish rings across his flesh that meant it had begun to move through his blood. He might still breathe, and he might still have the power of speech, but he was already dead.
With a sigh I settled back on my heels. It was times such as these that I wondered why I had the learning I possessed, if it were still not enough to save the afflicted. Perhaps if I had even gotten here a day earlier, I might have been able to save him. As it was—
Feeling my mouth settle into a grim line, I reached once more into my satchel. The thin vial I found held a heavy derivative of the wild poppy that grew far to the south, in Keshiaar and beyond. A little would ease his pain. A bit more, and he would leave this world in gentle oblivion, a passing far more desirable than the wracking convulsions the plague would bring.
“Two sips of this, my lord,” I said, marveling at the steadiness of my voice.
He did not have the strength to sit up to accept the drink, so I slid one hand behind his head to lift it up slightly. Then I tilted the vial almost to his lips—taking care not to touch them—and watched the blood-colored liquid trickle into his mouth.
“Better,” he breathed, red-rimmed eyes closing as the drug began to take effect.
I knew when the life left him, could feel the sudden limpness of his body against my hand. Gently I laid him back down against the wooden floor, even as I fought to keep the tears from rising in my eyes. It was all I could do for him, and I wanted to scream out against my impotence.
After a few moments of silence—the only tribute I could offer—I stood and surveyed the hall. I saw no other movement, no other signs of life. But I had to make sure.
Moving slowly, I crossed the hall once more, to ascend the wide double staircase that dominated the other end of the room. I took the stairs to the left, choosing them at random, and climbed slowly, the weariness of the sleepless night and despair at what I had found weighting my limbs, making each step feel as if it were ten times as high as it really was.
But up on the second floor all I found was death as well. More slaves. Arnad’s mother collapsed in a pool of bloody dried mucus. A pretty dark-haired girl who looked to be Arnad’s younger sister. She seemed almost asleep at first; at least she had died in her own bed, the covers pulled up carefully to her neck. It was only on closer inspection that I noted the dried blood at the corner of her mouth, the black-blue splotches indicative of massive hemorrhaging marring the white skin at her throat.
Everywhere I looked I saw only death, until, overcome, I staggered back down the stairs and out into the bright sunlit courtyard. I pulled the cloth from my nose and mouth and drew in
huge gasping breaths of the icy air, feeling as if I were about to suffocate. Then I began to cough as the chill caught at my throat.
Brit’s voice, tentative. “Are you all right, mistress?”
I turned to see him peeking out around one corner of the stables. “I’m fine,” I said, realizing even as I said them how much of a lie the words were. Still, I didn’t know what else to say. “But they’re all dead.”
“All?” he asked, his voice cracking.
Belatedly I remembered that this had been his home, even if only as a slave, and there most certainly had been people here to whom he had been close. But hiding the truth from him would serve no purpose. I nodded, then looked back up at the house.
There had to be at least fifty corpses in there, and even if the ground were not frozen solid, Brit and I were too few to ever hope to bury them all. It had to be the fire, much as I hated the idea. My spirit quailed at the thought of moving all those bodies down to ground level for disposal. I had to think of a better way….
After staring at the building for a few moments, I nodded to myself. Of course. The disease had tainted every corner of the home. There was only one way to be sure.
“Brit, I need fire—torches, or lanterns.”
“But why—” Then he must have noticed the grim set of my mouth, for he said in faltering tones, “You can’t be thinking—”
“But I am,” I replied. “We must fire the house. All inside are dead. It’s not fit to live in.”
Reluctance palpable in his every movement, he looked from me back to the building that had been his home, and to me once more. Something in his eyes seemed to harden then, and at length he nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and darted off back into the stable.
Within a moment or two he re-emerged, two glass-paned lanterns dangling from one hand and what looked like a tinder box in the other. He set his burdens down on the ground, struck sparks from the flint he pulled out of the tinder box, and set both lanterns alight.
“Now what?” he asked.
I guessed that once we got the fire started well enough, the half-timbered structure would burn on its own, what with the wooden floors and exposed beams. But it would probably need some help to really catch.
“The kitchen,” I said. “We can use wine or spirits to set it off.”
Again that dubious look passed over his features, but he did not argue. I supposed that a lifetime of following orders kept him from questioning me. I certainly did not wish to re-enter the house, but we had no choice.
I reached up to re-tie the mask around my nose and mouth; Brit’s was still in place, so he waited silently until I was ready and then followed me as I moved around the side of the house. I guessed that there was a separate entrance to the kitchen somewhere in the back, and I did not want to return to the main hall until it was necessary. Sure enough, the kitchen and sculleries stood out somewhat from the main part of the house, attached on one wall but freestanding on the other three sides.
The door stood slightly ajar. I reached out to open it the rest of the way and choked back a gasp as the corpse that had been propped up in the doorway fell over in a heap.
“I can’t—” said Brit, looking down at the dead body, his eyes showing white with fear.
“I can’t do this alone,” I snapped, shock lacing my words with more tension than I had wished. Then I deliberately softened my tone, for I reminded myself that while these were merely corpses to me, to him they were people he had known, perhaps loved. “I’m sorry, Brit—I do need you to help me. Please?”
I fancied I could his heart pounding from where I stood. Then he nodded slowly, and I took a breath, forcing myself to step over the woman’s body in the doorway.
Nor was that corpse the only one. I saw two more, young girls this time, both huddled over the heavy wooden table that was pushed up against one wall—probably where the chopping had been done.
Gagging noises came from behind me, and I stopped and took a few steps back, laying my hand on Brit’s arm. “It’s better if you don’t look at them,” I said gently. “Where’s the door to the cellar?”
Thankfully he had not vomited into his mask, or I would have had to work fast to clear his airway before he choked on his own bile. Above the linen, his face looked almost as pale as the fabric that covered its lower half. Without speaking, he pointed at a stout door of barred oak set into the floor a few paces away.
I went to it and squatted, grasping hold of the heavy black iron ring to pull it open. A dark square yawned beneath me, and I was thankful for the already lit lamp I held. The stairs below were narrow and steep, and I was equally glad for my stout boots and the fact that I wore breeches and not my customary long gown.
The cellar smelled of damp and stone, overlaid with an odd musky odor. But at least I could not sense any of the ever-present scents of decaying bodily fluids and decomposing flesh that had settled like a miasma over the rest of the house. I descended carefully, holding the lantern aloft. The last thing I needed was to trip and fall down here, with only Brit’s dubious aid as insurance.
Bottles glimmered in the lantern light, racks covering all of the cellar walls save the one into which the steps were cut. Then I saw movement in the darkness, and a rough voice cried out, “Who’s there?”
He sounded faintly familiar, but I could not think who it might be, hiding there in the cellar. I said, holding the lantern up closer to my face, “My name is Merys. I’m a physician—Lord Shaine sent me here to help.”
Then he stepped forward into the lantern light, and I could see him clearly.
He was Dorus, Lord Shaine’s erstwhile steward.
Chapter 10
Shocked as I was by his unexpected appearance, I could only stand there, staring at him.
His eyes narrowed. “Merys,” he said. “Merys, the interfering bitch. Merys, the one who had me sent here—to this!” He flung out a hand, as if to indicate the plague-ravaged house above us.
I took a step backward. While I wished to retort that he had brought this on himself, what with his crimes against Raifal and the gods knew how many others of Lord Shaine’s household, I knew better than to give my tongue free rein. “Are you ill?” I asked, using the calm, matter-of-fact tones I usually adopted when working with patients. “Any fever? Nausea?”
“None of that, damn you,” he spat back. “I hid down here as it began to spread.”
No time to wonder at the capriciousness of fate, that would slaughter so many innocents above and yet allow this beast in man’s form to continue to draw breath. I could see the hatred in his eyes as he stared at me, and I began to be afraid.
“The very air here is tainted,” I said. “You cannot remain in this house.”
“I’m done with your commands, bitch.” He stepped toward me, and again I moved back up another stair, all the while wondering whether Brit could reach me in time if I called for his aid—and whether he would be of any use even if he did get there before Dorus could lay hands on me.
Then I had no time to wonder, for Dorus lunged forward and grasped my left leg a little below the knee, jerking me forward and causing me to lose my balance. I slipped and plunged down the remaining steps, straight into him.
He caught me, but there was no mercy in his touch. His hands grasped me around the upper arms, and he flung me down onto the stone floor of the cellar. By some mercy I was able to retain my hold on the lantern I carried in my right hand, but still I hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of me by the sudden viciousness of his movements.
Then he was down on top of me, knee pressing into my solar plexus as I gasped for air. I am not a small woman, but he was far taller and heavier than I, and, the occasional childhood skirmish with my brother notwithstanding, I had no idea how to defend myself against such an attack.
“Are you mad?” I gasped at last, once I had recovered enough breath to speak. “I came here to help!”
“I don’t need your help,” he snarled. And his hands
moved with shocking swiftness from my arms—now that he held me down with his sheer weight—to my throat.
The terror that surged through me gave me a strength I didn’t know I possessed. Apparently he hadn’t yet noticed the lantern I still held, and once my arm was free, I raised it as quickly as I could and swung the heavy glass and metal object into the side of his head.
The blow connected with a sickening crunch of bone, and he let out a shocked cry. Blinding anger seemed to flow over me and guide my arm as I drew it back and struck him once more. This time the lantern’s glass shattered, and the heavy tin itself dented slightly. Dorus slumped to one side, the sickening pressure on my lungs finally removed, and I pushed him the rest of the way off me with my free hand even as I used my legs to shove myself backward, away from him.
Gasping with pain and fright, I slowly stood. He remained where he was, blood slowly flowing from the wound at his temple. I didn’t know whether he was dead or merely stunned. At the moment, I didn’t care.
“Mistress Merys?” Brit’s voice came from somewhere above, sounding shaky and frightened. “Are you well?”
“I’m alive, if that’s what you mean,” I muttered, reaching up to touch my throat. It felt sore and tender; no doubt bruises had already begun to form.
Obviously he couldn’t hear me, for he asked again, “Mistress?”
“I’m all right, Brit,” I called back. “Don’t come down here—I dropped a bottle and there’s glass everywhere.”
“Yes, mistress.”
I took a breath and then looked around. Dorus showed no signs of stirring, so it was best I went about my business. A rack off to my right held some of the same clear spirits Lord Shaine had given me for cleaning wounds. No doubt it was highly flammable.
I lifted two bottles—one to use to aid in burning the house, and the other to bolster my medicinal store—off the shelf and turned to go. But my conscience stopped me. I knew I could never burn the house down over the head of a living man, no matter what sort of monster he might be.
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