I chanced a quick glance over my shoulder and saw that Ourrel had come in from the doorway to the kitchen gardens. He, too, had the lower half of his face covered. What he had been doing outside, I had no idea, but perhaps he had been performing his own inventory of the last of the straggling herbs and vegetables—a few rows of turnips and sprouts, a patch of rosemary that hadn’t quite gone dormant for the winter. At any rate, his presence explained the sudden shift in Shaine’s tone, and why he did not look at me directly now.
“I thank you, Lord Shaine,” I said, as proper as if I had never dreamed of what his lips might feel like on on mine.
He nodded, and acknowledged his steward with a nod before they both went out to the castle’s main hall. I watched them go, my spirit aching for just a few more moments with him, even if we could not have the contact I so desperately craved. And then I sighed, and turned, and went back in to Merime.
She died just after midnight, her breath strangling in her throat as she fought against the disease that slowly drowned her in her own mucus. Very gently I pulled up the blankets to cover her livid face. Black bruises girdled her throat, making it seem as if some invisible giant had placed his hands around her neck and squeezed until the life was driven out of her. And I knew she would not be the last, for as I sat wakeful at Merime’s bedside, wondering whom I should call to come and help with the body, Raifal had come creeping in to tell me that Lady Yvaine, Auren’s future mother-in-law, had begun to cough.
So soon? I thought, but that was how the accounts ran. One person would sicken, and then soon after a few more, and then more and more until sometimes entire villages died to the last man.
But not here, I vowed silently. Not while I still live and breathe.
I nodded at Raifal and told him that I would be up directly. He acknowledged my words with a slight nod, then turned and ran back out. Above the linen strip his face looked even more pale and pinched than normal, and I knew he must be wondering who would be next, and whether that person might be himself.
No point in faulting him for such thoughts; I myself had begun to worry as to when I would begin to show symptoms, and who on earth I could trust to look after the others if I did fall ill. The household had suffered a blow in losing Merime, for she had always been the linchpin around which the doings of the castle circled. And while I knew Ourrel to be steady and as trustworthy a man as I had yet met in three kingdoms, still he was not a healer. He would not know what to do.
No one would.
I will admit that I did not look forward to my examination of Lady Yvaine. She had made no secret of her dislike for me, although I still could not quite understand from whence her animosity came. Perhaps she was more perceptive than I gave her credit for, and had glimpsed some of my attraction to Lord Shaine. I supposed that might be basis enough, for one inclined to find trouble wherever she looked; after all, if the lord of Donnishold remarried and fathered a son, then Auren’s inheritance would be greatly diminished, and Lady Yvaine’s son Larol reduced to little more than a hanger-on in the household rather than its eventual lord.
But all that was a great deal of supposition based on what I guessed had been at most a few stolen glances in Lord Shaine’s direction, and it was entirely possible that her dislike stemmed from seeing a slave—even a former slave—given the sort of authority that his lordship had bestowed upon me. At any rate, it did not matter overmuch what she thought of me, or how unpleasant she made the process. She was ill, and I was a physician, and I had a duty to fulfill.
The castle felt oddly deserted, even though at that hour it normally would have been quite empty. But something about it seemed forsaken, as if I could sense just from walking through its open spaces that no one had gathered that night for a shared meal. Earlier in the day I had overseen the making of a large pot of stew, aided by two of the kitchen slaves, but I had returned to Merime’s bedside even as the slaves took the pot out to the hall, where people could fetch their portions one by one, or, in the case of Lady Yvaine and her family, have the food brought to them to be left outside the door to their suite. That precaution apparently had done no good, as the lady was the next one to sicken.
When I reached the suite the family shared in the east wing, I saw that the door was already open, and young Larol’s head was thrust out into the corridor as he looked this way and that. His expression of relief when he caught sight of me might have been comical, had the situation not been so grave.
“Mistress Merys!” he gasped.
“Lord Larol,” I said formally. But then I essayed a smile and inquired, “How are you, your lordship? Any fever, chills?”
“No, none at all,” he said at once. “But Mother—” His breath caught a little, and he went on, “That is, my mother began to cough a short time ago. She says it’s nothing—claims it’s the drafts, if you’ll beg my pardon. But we thought it best to call for you.”
“You did very well,” I replied. “And where is the Lady Yvaine?”
“In here.” He led me through a well-appointed receiving chamber, one that had finer furnishings than Lord Shaine’s private rooms. But perhaps he cared more for how he housed his visitors than for his own comfort. Off the main chamber were several rooms, one of which was the place where Lady Yvaine lay in an enormous canopied bed. In one wall of that chamber was a window, and there stood Lord Marten, his gaze fixed on the dark landscape outside. What he saw there, I do not know; perhaps he only wished to look at something besides his wife’s face.
For it was clear to me at once that she was very ill. Raifal had only said she was coughing, and Larol had revealed little more, but the candles burning in the chamber told the story well enough. Like Merime, she was flushed and kept coughing into an oversized handkerchief she held before her mouth. And, also like Merime, she tried to insist that she was fine.
“It’s this drafty castle,” she wheezed, before bringing the handkerchief up to her face and coughing into it for the good part of a minute. “Haven’t—felt—well—since I got here.”
I only nodded and made what I hoped was a properly sympathetic noise. That her statement was patently untrue, I did not bother to mention. No one wants to face the truth that they are dying, but some handle it with more grace than others.
“I would like to listen to your chest, my lady,” I said. “If I have your permission?”
She coughed again and made an impatient little gesture, which I took to mean that she would allow my humble self to approach her august person. I tried to remind myself of the vows of my Order, that all had a right to the same care, and that the physician’s personal feelings and opinions should never enter into the matter. With some it was easier to follow these strictures than others.
So I went to her bed, and leaned my head against her chest. She was swaddled in a heavy damask dressing gown even underneath all the covers, and a good deal of warmth from the fire in the main room made its way in here, but she shivered and shook like one who had been standing naked in the snow. And from her thin frame rose a heat to rival the fire in the hearth, and from within her breast I heard only gasps and wheezes, and the faint ominous rattle of airways being continually restricted.
I straightened, and saw Lord Marten watching me with a pinched expression. The gods only knew what he had glimpsed in my face.
“I have some tea for her fever,” I said calmly. “And a pack of mustard, I think, for the congestion in her chest.”
“And that will help her?”
There was a terrible hope in his face, and I realized suddenly that he loved her despite her high-handed ways. It would be easy enough for me to say a few calming words, and pray that I would ease his mind enough so he could sleep. With any luck, she would pass in the night, and then the horror of watching his wife slowly choke to death might be avoided. But it was also not in me to lie, not even when it might have been the more politic thing to do.
“It will ease her suffering somewhat,” I said, pitching my voice low as Lady Yvaine suffe
red another bout of coughing. I knew she could not hear me; indeed, her husband had to lean close to catch my words. “But there is nothing I can do save that.”
“You can’t—that is—I thought you were a doctor!”
“I am,” I replied sadly. “But doctors are not gods, your lordship. We can only work with what we have. And against the plague even we can do very little.”
He scrubbed his hands against his face, then passed a weary hand over his eyes. “I had worried it might be thus,” he said, so quietly that this time it was I who had to strain to hear him. “But I had hoped—I had thought—”
“I am very sorry,” I said. “But let me do what I can.”
And so I bustled about, heating the tea and preparing the mustard poultice. In between I inquired as to both Larol’s and Lord Marten’s health, and asked after the daughter Alcia, whom I had not yet seen.
“We are all well, or as well as we can be,” Marten told me. “Alcia is asleep. I made sure she had several cups of wine with dinner. This waiting and wondering has done none of us any good, and it is difficult for her, with us being away from our home and everything that is familiar to her.”
I looked from Lord Marten’s tired face to Larol’s big-eyed one, and thought it was probably for the best. They would all do much better if they retired for the night and allowed me to watch over Lady Yvaine, but I guessed that would not happen. I nodded, then went to get her ladyship to drink as much of the tea as she could, and afterward laid the poultice on her chest.
“That stinks,” she complained, her tone petulant, and she tried to push my hands away. But she had no more strength than a child, so I made soothing noises and did my best to get her to rest easily. It was not time for the poppy—and perhaps she would not need it, as Merime had not—but half a drop in the willowbark tea would have settled her down. Then again, I had only a limited store, and I did not know how much of it I would need before this was all done. Better to watch and wait. In the meantime—
“You must rest easy, your ladyship,” I said, in my gentlest voice, the one I used to soothe colicky babies and fretful children with toothache. “I know the smell is not the most pleasant, but it should help with your cough.”
As if to contradict me, her thin frame was overtaken by another spasm, and she had no breath for a reply. I took the opportunity to tuck her hands under the blankets so she could not interfere with the poultice on her breast. She struggled a little, but it was only a token protest, as all her will had already been directed inward, to the invader that was taking over her body. She coughed again, bringing up a quantity of green bile, and I went to fetch her a clean handkerchief and take the fouled one away. Knowing it would be of no use to anyone after this, I threw it into the fire, and then wiped my hands down with some of the alcohol from my kit.
The spasm seemed to have taken the last of her energy, though, and she subsided, her eyelids dropping from weariness. She would sleep fitfully, I thought, until the pressure to cough became too great, and she would wake herself by trying to clear the air passages in her chest. And so it would go, until her body had no strength to fight any longer, and she succumbed to the pneumonia that drowned her lungs.
I saw no need to say any of this to Lord Marten. Unfortunately, he would see for himself soon enough if he sat up with me through the night. To my relief, he did send Larol to bed, saying that the boy would do himself no favors if he deprived himself of sleep and thus made himself susceptible to the disease. That seemed to do the trick, for the boy bade me a distracted good night and then disappeared into his own room.
For a time Lord Marten and I sat quietly, I in a hard wooden chair next to her bed, he in a somewhat more comfortable one near the window. He had poured himself more wine and offered some to me, which I declined. It would not do for me to dull my wits thus, even though some part of me did crave the easing of care—however spurious it might be—that the drink might have provided.
Then he spoke, his tone musing. “Why do they do this to us, do you think?”
I turned halfway in my chair so that I could see him more clearly. “They who?”
“The gods.”
Without really thinking—perhaps I was more tired than I had thought—I answered by saying, “I don’t believe there are gods.”
That shocked him, I could tell. His eyebrows lifted, and he took a quick gulp of his wine before shooting an uneasy glance behind him, as if he thought perhaps Inyanna or Mardon was hiding behind the worn velvet curtains and was about to reach out and smite me for my blasphemy. “You cannot mean that.”
“I do,” I said calmly. “That is, I believe there may be some greater force in the universe that brought about the world we live in and all the wonderful things in it, but I do not believe such a force has anything to do with our daily lives. This plague, this devastation—” I lifted my shoulders. “It is only an accident of—of nature.” I had been about to say “of biology,” but I did not know the Selddish word for such a thing, or whether one even existed. The teachings of the Order involved a good deal of specialized nomenclature.
He said nothing at first, but only sat silent, one finger running up and down the hammered surface of the pewter goblet he held. “You are a very strange woman.”
I laughed then, but quietly, so the sound would not disturb the woman who slept so fitfully only a few feet away. “Perhaps I am, Lord Marten. You are not the first to say so. Even among my people some of my ideas were viewed as odd, or different.”
A corner of his mouth lifted the smallest fraction, as if that were the most energy he could exert to smile. “In truth, I am not sure which is worse—to believe as I do, that the gods control all things and so have brought this pestilence down upon us, or to see the world the way you do, and think that all which happens is merely coincidence, or accident. I will confess that I do not wish to see all this as random. The gods bring pain, but they also bring comfort.”
Perhaps that was true. I had seen it even in my own family. Worldly they might be, but I know my mother had invoked Inyanna’s guidance when my oldest sister went to her childbed, and offerings had been given to Thrane, lord of the land beyond death, when my paternal grandparents passed away. I had viewed such things as simple following of custom, but perhaps it went deeper than that. And if these practices offered some measure of solace, then who was I to say they were wrong?
It might have been easier if I did believe in the gods. At least then I could have railed at them, or offered sacrifices, or done something to invoke their guidance and support. As I regarded Lord Marten’s sad face and knew he was already saying his goodbyes to his wife, I felt only emptiness, and the sudden gnawing of fear. For I was alone in this, with no one to guide me, and I did not know what to do.
Chapter 15
In the end, Lord Marten did fall asleep, head nodding over his empty goblet. I took it gently from him and set it down on the table. By some miracle his wife also continued to sleep. Her breath came in a harsh rattle, and seemed shallower with every passing moment, but at least she hadn’t begun to cough yet. I wondered then if I should try to sleep as well. Over the years I had learned how to take short naps where I could grab them, and I had seen what looked like a relatively comfortable chair out in the receiving chamber, but somehow I couldn’t force myself to go in there and lie down. Despite my lack of sleep, my nerves thrummed with anxious energy, and I could not seem to rest. I knew the seeming peace of the castle around me was but a mockery, and that death moved amongst us, even if none of us had the eyes to see it.
So I was not overly surprised when a furtive knock came at the door to the suite in the dead hours of the night, and a young female slave whose name I could not recall peered up at me with dark, frightened eyes. “It’s Master Ourrel,” she said simply.
I would be lying if I didn’t say my heart sank, or that I felt a stir of irrational anger. First Merime, and now the steward? Perhaps Lord Marten was right, and the gods did have a hand in everything. It would be
one of their caprices to remove all those who were best able to manage the castle and the people who lived within, and to leave behind only the terrified underlings who would have no concept of what to do.
But I knew I mustn’t think that way. For Lord Shaine was still well, and I seemed to have escaped contagion for the nonce. And perhaps Master Ourrel had caught the less invasive form of the disease, and there was still hope…
Hope could be a treacherous thing, however.
I retrieved my satchel, then bent over Lord Marten and said quietly, “My lord.”
His eyes snapped open, and his gaze immediately went to the bed where his wife lay.
At once I said, “She still sleeps, Lord Marten. But I have been summoned to see to the steward, who has also been stricken. Can you manage here for a time? You can send one of the slaves to fetch me if there is any change in Lady Yvaine’s condition.”
For a second or two he hesitated, and then he nodded once, very slightly. “Of course, mistress. She does seem to be doing well. Perhaps even a little better?”
I wished I could tell him yes, or even tilt my head to indicate my agreement. Instead, I touched his arm, gently, and then turned and went to follow the slave girl to Ourrel’s quarters.
His rooms—for he had a small suite consisting of a study and adjoining bedchamber—were located in the east tower, and were in perfect order, of course. I caught a quick glimpse of a shelf of what were obviously much-loved books and a desk with papers neatly stacked to either side before I went on into his bedchamber, which I guessed would normally have been just as neat. Now, however, the clothes he had been wearing earlier in the day were thrown over the back of a chair, and I tripped over one of his boots as I entered the room. That mattered little, though, for immediately I heard him coughing, and knew that once again I was powerless to do anything.
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