A protracted silence then, one broken only by the faint ghosts of what I guessed must be a whispered argument amongst the stableboys who yet lived. They numbered four now, and I was sure all of them were more than a little discomfited by the fact that they had already lost a third of their small crew. I waited, knowing that in the end I was powerless to force them to do anything they did not wish to do. Wilys, perhaps, could have done so, but he was ill-suited for anything at the moment save lying in his own bed and fighting the infection in his own way.
At length two of the boys came forward, one so slight and thin I wasn’t sure whether he would be any great help in removing Grahm’s body, and the tall one with the firm chin who had once, in a time that now seemed centuries ago, confessed to kissing Irinna, who worked in the dye hut.
“Thank you,” I said briefly, and that was all.
They knew what to do; the taller boy took Grahm by the shoulders, while the thin one grasped the dead stablehand’s feet, and together they shuffled him away and out through the large double doors that led to the courtyard. We still had some wood left over, although I did not know whether it would be enough. I would have to ask Ourrel for more when he came to check on us. Luckily the door into the stableboys’ lean-to was on the opposite side of the building from the spot we had chosen for the funeral pyres. I had told Ourrel that everyone should stay as far away as possible from that side of the structure.
I knew the boys would tell me if the wood was insufficient, and so I went on, back into Wilys’ room, where he still seemed to have slept through everything. A quick touch of his forehead told me his fever appeared to be somewhat lessened, and I took some heart from that. His sleep had quieted as well; his hands lay folded against the dark wool of the blankets. Those hands were browned and covered with scars and calluses. Clearly he was not the sort of master who stood back and allowed his underlings to do all the work. No, those hands had seen hard labor, and they told me as much about the man as his actions and words had.
The window blazed with sudden orange and gold. Apparently the stableboys had found enough fuel to feed this last pyre. I stood in the center of the room, watching the false warmth of that fire limn the small modest room in shades of ochre and russet, and wondered where it would end.
By some miracle, Wilys lived through the night. I slept on my pallet on the floor next to his bed, starting at every sound, but in truth he was far less restless than I. And when a pale wintry sun sent its first tentative rays through the blurred panes of the window, I looked up to see the stable master still quietly, gently asleep. His broad, plain face was peaceful, and the breaths he let out sounded quite normal. Moving with care, I pushed my own blankets aside and stood, then placed a wary hand on his brow. I thought he still had a fever, albeit one greatly reduced from the day before.
He opened his eyes. They were blue—a bright blue, startling against his tanned skin. He looked from side to side, and his eyebrows lifted in an expression I would have found comical if it were not for the fact that I was so grateful he was alive at all.
“How are you, Master Wilys?” I asked.
For a moment he said nothing, but only lay there in his bed and seemed to consider my question. At least, his brow furrowed in quite a formidable way before he replied, his voice sounding quite strong, “I—I am all right, I think.”
I wouldn’t give in to the relief that passed over me. It happened this way sometimes, according to the accounts I had read. Live or die? Who knew? The gods, perhaps, but they never revealed their secrets.
If they even existed.
“May I see?” I asked Wilys, who looked confused at first, and then nodded and pushed the blankets away so I could take a closer look at the problematic spot in his armpit, where the infection was centered.
Only it wasn’t there. Oh, I thought I saw the barest reddish stain against his skin (which was far, far paler there than on his hands and face and neck, which were exposed to the sun day in and day out), but when I laid a gentle finger against that spot, he didn’t even flinch, and I could sense no hardening beneath the surface that would indicate the developing shape of a plague boil. Incongruously, I found myself glad that the boil had started to develop there, under his arm, and not in his groin as it had with Drym. Of course I knew all about the male anatomy—one could not preserve maidenly modesty for very long in my profession—but still, awkwardness could sometimes arise when a female physician had to treat a man with whom she’d had social interactions.
“Anywhere else?”
He shot me another of those perplexed glances.
“Any soreness in any other places?” I had read that sometimes the plague could play tricks, that it could travel from place to place within the body. Somehow I did not think that the case here. For one thing, his fever was greatly reduced, which indicated that his own natural defenses had somehow managed to fight off the invader, when for whatever reason the stableboys had been unable to do so.
His hands lifted from their resting place on the blanket and moved to touch his body, beneath the other arm, along his throat, and finally over his groin. He hesitated, then said, “I feel nothing, Mistress Merys.”
“You don’t?” It couldn’t be true. He had to have missed something. “If you will allow me?”
He nodded, and turned his face away as I ran professional hands over his neck, his arms, and his groin. Even though I studiously avoided his gaze, I saw a wash of red pass up over his throat and face, a flush that had very little to do with fever. As soon as I was able, I stepped back. I had been taught to keep my features cool and impassive, but I guessed that at the moment I was not very successful at doing so, for Wilys’ own face seemed to light up, and he asked, “Is it gone?”
“I don’t know if it’s gone, precisely,” I replied, “but you do seem to be much better. I have read that it happens this way sometimes. I believe you are a very lucky man, Wilys.”
“Thanks to you, mistress.”
I didn’t bother to disabuse him of that notion. If he wanted to think I had something to do with his apparently miraculous recovery, then so be it. I knew I had done nothing but help to bring down his fever. His own body had done the rest.
At that moment I heard a muffled pounding noise I couldn’t quite identify. The tall stableboy appeared at the door to Wilys’ room less than a moment later. “Mistress, Master Ourrel is asking for you. He says it’s important.”
That most likely could mean only one thing, but I wouldn’t allow myself to become agitated. I told the stable master to stay in his bed and that I would be back to check on him in a moment. Then I hurried through the stable and back into the stableboy’s lean-to. I cracked the door open less than an inch and looked up into the steward’s lean, worried face.
For once he seemed to have abandoned the niceties. “Merys, we have need of you.”
“What is it?” The fact that he had not bothered with my title was not lost on me.
“It’s Merime. She’s—she’s begun coughing. And she has a fever. She says it’s nothing, just a touch of the ague, but it seems much worse than that.”
“Coughing,” I repeated, my tone flat. The brief euphoria I had experienced at Master Wilys’ seeming recovery vanished as quickly as morning mist with the rising of the sun. “Anyone else?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Not yet, was what that really meant. For if Merime, who prepared the food for everyone in Lord Shaine’s household, was coughing, then it was only a matter of time before others—many others—fell ill. A very short amount of time, if what I had read was true.
“I must go to her,” I said, and opened the door fully. Ourrel took a step back, his normal dignity somewhat impaired by his haste to get away from me. “Don’t you see, Ourrel? It matters not whether I’ve been in contact with plague victims here, when someone in Lord Shaine’s immediate household is ill. No one is safe. Not I—not you.”
He paled as my words appeared to sink in.
“Come,
” I continued. “We have very little time.”
Chapter 14
Merime had been taken to her own bed in the small room off the kitchens where she had made her home. Even as I entered the chamber she began to fuss, saying it was foolish for me to be there when all she had was a touch of the ague, which came upon her each year at the same time. And then she began to cough, her round frame wracked by convulsions that brought up a phlegmy mass into the handkerchief she held against the lower part of her face.
I had taken the time to once again cover my own face with a strip of linen, even though I had abandoned the precaution after Master Wilys had fallen ill. But none of the stableboys had shown evidence of the airborne type of the plague, and so such measures hadn’t seemed necessary. Here, though, they were the only safeguard I could think of. As soon as I entered the building I instructed Ourrel to have everyone do the same. Perhaps it was a case of locking the safe after thieves had made off with the family fortune, but I could think of nothing else to do. I also informed him to spread the word that the residents of the castle should retire to their rooms and not venture forth for any reason. They all might have already been exposed, but I didn’t know that for sure, and perhaps the preventive measures I put in place would be enough to save even a few lives.
At least here I had ready access to the kitchen, and at once I put a pot over the fire to boil. The one thing all the plague victims had in common so far was a fever, and so I guessed that brewing up a large batch of the willowbark tea was a logical first step. When I brought a cup to Merime, she shook her head in between spasms of coughing and gasped, “I can’t—swallow—”
“Try, Merime, there’s a dear,” I soothed, and brought the cup to her lips. Truly, she wasn’t able to get down more than a sip or two before being wracked with coughs once again, but I waited for the paroxysm to pass, and then slipped down a few more swallows, and continued in such a fashion until she had gotten through half the cup.
She whispered, “No more,” and I took the cup away from her lips. It would have been better for her to have the whole dose, of course, but one of the things I had learned over the years was to stop when a patient had reached the end of her endurance.
Although her room was quite warm, backing up to the kitchen and the enormous double hearths there, I still asked her, “Are you warm enough?” For I knew well enough that the actual temperature in a room had very little to do with someone’s comfort when they had been overcome by a fever such as that which the plague brought on.
But she only nodded, and slid down a little on her pillows. Her eyes shut. I knew better than to hope for a miraculous recovery such as Wilys had made, however. When the illness reached the lungs, there was very little I could do except try to ease each patient’s suffering as best I could.
Once I had determined she truly was asleep, her breath coming in short pants as if she knew even in sleep that to draw in breath any more deeply was to invite another bout of coughing, I slipped out of her room and back into the kitchen. I had my satchel with me, of course, but ranged in the larder and pantry there were a great deal more supplies I could use to supplement my arsenal. Even so, if the whole household should fall ill, I didn’t know how long any of them would last. Still, it seemed best to take inventory now, before any more of Donnishold’s residents began exhibiting symptoms.
I fetched my little notebook and went to the pantry, then stood in the open door so daylight could illuminate the various jars of herbs and spices. Just off the kitchen was a small room that Merime and I had begun to share where we both hung herbs to dry, and I would have to take inventory there as well once I was done here. Things had been so scattered for the past weeks that I truly could not recall what I had set out there myself and what Merime had had the slaves gather.
Here was marigold, and feverfew, and stores of licorice root and burdock and dandelion. Almost all of them could be used in one way or another, and I sent an unvoiced thank-you to Merime for her organization. She had made things so much easier for me—even if she might never know.
“Merys.”
I turned at the sound of Lord Shaine’s voice, muffled now by the strip of linen he wore over his nose and mouth. His dark blue eyes were grave, and more shadowed than they had been two days ago.
Foolish that his voice could make my heart skip a beat, now when I had so many more important things to concern me. Somehow I managed to meet his gaze directly. “My lord.”
“Please.” He waved a hand. “With all that has come to pass, I think the time has come to dispense with formalities.”
“Very well…Shaine.” The word sounded oddly raw on my tongue.
He nodded, but his gaze was abstracted, his eyes not meeting mine. “How is Merime?”
“Not well.” I hesitated, then realized that I could only give him the truth. I had always been plain with him before this, and I vowed to remain that way, no matter what our end might be. “She has the pneumonic form of the disease.” At that remark his brows drew down, and I could tell he did not know the common word I had used. Most of our conversations were held in my native tongue, as he was so much more fluent in that than I in Selddish, but even his scholarship had its limits, I supposed. “It has gone into her lungs. I cannot say why—none of my studies have ever truly explained why the disease manifests in these different ways, or why it should afflict one person in one manner and another in one quite different. But this, I fear, is where the true danger lies. For once it has reached the lungs it has no cure, and it is far more contagious than the type of plague that affected the stableboys, and Wilys.”
Shaine’s head went up at that, and his frown deepened. “Wilys is ill?”
“Yes, my…Shaine. I thought you knew.” I hurried on, wishing to tell him at least one bit of good news, “But he has made a most miraculous turn, and I do believe he will recover. That happens as well, although it is the exception, unfortunately.” And I reminded myself that once I was done in the kitchen, I would have to return to check on the stable master. Just because he seemed to be on the mend did not mean I could leave him untended indefinitely. Perhaps I should have him brought into the castle; he certainly ran no risk of being infected anew, and I knew that very soon I would have little enough time to devote to running back and forth between the kitchen and the stables.
“That is something, I suppose.” He hesitated, and this time he looked on me squarely, as if trying to inspect me for any signs of illness. “But you are well?”
“So far.” I somehow managed a laugh, although it sounded false and tinny even to my own ears. “Don’t you know that I never get ill?”
“Never?”
“Oh, once or twice I’ve had a slight bout of congestion, but nothing beyond that.” Again I wondered at such a thing, for usually physicians of the Order would fall ill at least once a season. It was something that couldn’t be avoided, no matter what precautions we took. And yet invariably I had always been the one to nurse the others through their rounds of bronchitis and fever and flux. That great good luck, however, certainly couldn’t extend to the plague, but I wasn’t about to tell Shaine that. Let him think that I was miraculously immune. Perhaps it would give him some strength to face what lay ahead.
At least he looked healthy enough, straight and strong, with no trace of sweat or flush of fever on his features. Again I gazed on his tall form and wished things were different between us, that I could fold myself into those strong arms of his and find some kind of solace there, but I could not change what was. I had to keep my mind trained on the situation at hand.
I went on, my tone crisp and no-nonsense, even though I found I couldn’t quite meet his eyes, “Because Merime prepares the food for everyone, I must assume that all in the castle have been exposed in some way. She was careful, more careful than many cooks I have come across over the years, but all it would take is a chance cough into a pot, or her wiping her nose on her sleeve, and the disease would make its way around everyone who had eaten that food.”
“So there is no hope for us?”
On someone else’s lips such a question might have sounded self-pitying, but he seemed brisk and no-nonsense, only wanting to know how matters lay.
“I would never presume to say there was no hope. Only that now I am not sure how much I can do to stop the spread of the disease, as I have no idea who might have already been exposed to it. And, as I said, once it is in the lungs, there is not a great deal I am able to do, except ease my patients’ suffering.” I thought then of Lord Arnad, dead at my hand, and poor young Grahm as well. “Still, I believe that keeping people as isolated as possible can only help, and covering our mouths and noses, so that if someone does cough in our vicinity we do not breathe in their illness, is simply the sensible thing to do.”
“So it floats on the very air?”
“I believe so. I think that it is passed in other ways when we speak of the form of the disease that infects the blood and causes the lumps in one’s groin and armpit and neck.” For some reason I felt a bit of heat touch my cheeks as I mentioned the groin, and I hurried on, “We have done much research, but it still seems that the cause for these things lies beyond our grasp. Perhaps one day we will be able to say definitively why a disease is passed in a certain way, but for now I can only follow what has been proven to work in the past. There was a bad outbreak of an influenza strain two winters ago in Lystare, and those of us who muffled our noses and mouths as we are doing now stood a much greater chance of avoiding the sickness than those who did not protect themselves. Since that was what shielded us then, I can only surmise that it will help us now as well.”
“You will be our shield,” he said, and added, “I cannot help but think that the gods have sent you to us, Merys.” Those deep-set blue eyes caught mine, and held. His lips parted, and I waited, wondering if this time he might utter the words I so longed to hear. But then he looked past me, and added in a much more formal tone, “And you will of course let me know if there is anything else you require.”
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