Even from a foot away I could feel the heat coming off him, and indeed, he had pushed back the covers so that he was exposed to the chill air in the bedchamber. The fire in the other room had not been lit. What with the household in its current disarray, no slave would have come to tend it, and of course he was far too ill to do any such a thing. As I stood at his bedside, staring down at him in dismay, I heard the swift patter of light feet and knew that the slave girl who had brought me here had decamped, wishing to put as much distance between her and the sick man as she could.
Not that it would do any good.
“I’m here, Master Ourrel,” I said, and pulled the covers up over his chest. The linen sleep shirt he wore had ties to hold it closed, but he had either never fastened them, or torn them open while in the throes of his fever. I caught a glimpse of dark hair before I brought the blankets to his chin, and experienced an odd stab of shame on his behalf. The steward was always so fastidious, so proper in his dress and manner, that I knew if he had been in his right mind he would have been quite discomfited to be seen in such a state. As it was, such things mattered little now.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Ourrel gasped, and then began to cough, horrible wracking spasms that seemed as if they must shatter his very bones.
“No one’s dead,” I soothed, pulling fresh linen from my satchel to hold against his mouth. That was one good thing—we might run out of everything else, but we would have enough linen on hand to supply handkerchiefs for every plague-stricken man, woman, and child in Donnishold. As for this rest, it was only a small lie. True, two of the stableboys were dead, but I somehow doubted their fate was what concerned Ourrel so. The mind does odd things when caught in the throes of a terrible fever.
“Yes!” Another round of coughs, and this time I thought I saw blood mixed in with the bile he left behind on the handkerchief. How hideous a disease it was, and all the more pernicious in its frightening speed. I had seen the steward less than twelve hours earlier, and he had seemed in the prime of health as he left the kitchen in the company of his lord.
Icy fear seemed to squeeze my heart then at the memory of the two men standing next to one another. True, they had both worn masks covering their mouths and noses, but that didn’t seem to have done Master Ourrel much good. Why, even now Lord Shaine could be lying in his bed, coughing his way to a slow death…
I gave myself a little shake, and a warning to set my imagination aside. If the lord of the castle were ill, I would have been brought to his rooms posthaste, but I had received no such summons. I must focus on the matter at hand, and not let foolish fancies distract my attention.
As luck would have it, I still had willowbark tea left over from the batch I had brewed for Lady Yvaine, and so I poured some into the steward’s mouth, even as I fought against an overwhelming sense of futility. What good did it do to bring down the fever, when the rising tide of mucus in his lungs would slowly drown him, fever or no?
But it was all I could do, even as Master Ourrel choked and gasped and muttered more incomprehensibilities about someone being dead, and how he was needed, and couldn’t tarry here. For he attempted to rise from the bed, and even in his febrile state he was strong, so strong that I had to push back against him with every ounce of strength I possessed, my hands locked around his upper arms as I attempted to force him back down against his pillows.
Somehow I got him back down onto the bed, and this time I did spare the barest drop of the poppy to ease his ravings. He went limp almost at once, his breathing still coming in terrible rasps and gasps. I backed away from the bed, and noticed that my hands shook as I put the stopper back in the vial of poppy and returned it to my satchel. What would I have done if I hadn’t managed to wrestle the steward back into his bed?
You would have called someone to help you, the practical part of my mind told me, but still I couldn’t seem to rid my mind of the image of Master Ourrel sprawled on the ground, possibly with me trapped beneath him. And though he was tall and well-built enough, he was not an overly large man. What on earth would I do when confronted by a burly man-at-arms who could not be persuaded to take his rest?
All evils in their times. Perhaps I would have to face that contingency; perhaps not. For now, at least, the steward was quiescent, and I was more or less unharmed, although my apron would have to go the way of Lady Yvaine’s handkerchiefs. I reached up to untie it from about my neck as I went into the study. At least there was a goodly pile of wood in the basket near the hearth, and a tinder box on the small marble mantelpiece. Kneeling down and concentrating on getting the fire started gave me something else to think about besides the sick man in the next room and the others in the castle who no doubt were beginning to display symptoms as well. Once the plague had begun to spread, it was as quick and merciless and all-devouring as a forest fire.
From behind me I heard the door open and slam against the wall. I jumped at the sound and turned at once to see who had entered so precipitately. To my surprise, I saw Elissa standing there, a dark shawl wrapped around her nightdress.
“Oh, mistress!” she gasped. “They said I could find you here.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. I did not want to hear what she had to say. I did not think I could bear it.
“Yes, Mistress. It’s Lady Auren. She needs you.”
I could not get anyone to watch over Master Ourrel, for the simple fact that all around the castle, more and more people were falling ill. I would have to tend to all of them somehow, but no one could fault me for going to see Auren first. She was Lord Shaine’s daughter; of course she would have to be seen to before anyone else.
The stairs up to her room seemed interminable. My muscles ached, but I knew it was not from fever, nor the deep aches that came sometimes with the bubonic form of the disease. No, my current pain had everything to do with weariness and that little tussle with the steward, and nothing at all to do with the plague. And all the way there I could only hear the litany running through my mind: Not the lungs. Anything but that. Let there be a bubo. I can lance that. I can do what I can, as long as it is not in the lungs.
But then Elissa opened the door to Auren’s chamber, and I heard the familiar thick coughing from within. A wave of despair washed over me, so deep and so dark that some part of me wanted to turn and run, run far away where I would never have to hear that sound, nor see the imploring stares from people who couldn’t understand how someone who had cured their other coughs and chills could not give them the succor they so desperately needed now.
Of course I did not run. I clutched my satchel, and though I did not truly believe there were any gods to hear it, still I murmured a little prayer that somehow her cough was from something else entirely, that Auren did not have the plague after all.
A dark shape moved to one side, and I looked up into Lord Shaine’s haggard face. Worry seemed to have more deeply imprinted every line and shadow in his visage, even with half of it concealed beneath that strip of linen, and I longed to go to him—although whether to comfort him, or to seek my own reassurance, I could not say. I recalled Elissa’s presence, though, and also somehow knew that going to him in such a way would only cause him more worry. If we lived, perhaps…
It was easier than I thought to slip into the cool tones of the physician. “How long has she been coughing?”
“Not long,” he replied. “I sent Elissa out at once. I do not know why it took so long for you to come.” And with that he frowned at me, and his face might have been almost a stranger’s.
I reminded myself that whatever his feelings for me—if any—Auren was his daughter, and so of course she must be first in his heart, and in his worry. Still, an edge entered my voice as I said, “I was on the other side of the castle, tending to Master Ourrel. Perhaps you do not know he is ill as well.”
At once Shaine’s expression altered, but if anything, he appeared even more troubled. “No, I had not heard that. A bitter blow, if he is to follow Merime.”
“I fear he is.” Somehow I could not find the strength to say anything more, but instead moved away from him and went to Auren where she lay in her bed. At once I was forcibly reminded of the first time I had been brought to tend her in this very room, but the circumstances were far different. Then she had lain quiet, seeming far closer to death than the girl who coughed and gasped before me now, but appearances meant for very little in such things. True, her face was not quite as flushed as Master Ourrel’s had been, and her cough did not yet have the same horrifying rattle as Merime’s or Lady Yvaine’s, but that was most likely because I had come to see Auren before the disease was as far progressed.
“Stir up the fire, Elissa,” I said, and the girl ran to do as I said, even though I could tell she was shaking and afraid. At least, I hoped it was fear that made her hands tremble as she knelt to grasp the poker and encourage a bit more heat from the flames. She and Auren spent a great deal of time together in close company. If the daughter of the house was so ill, I did not think Elissa—frail, delicate Elissa, who never seemed to have enough meat on her bones—could be very far behind.
I busied myself with heating some water and pulling out both the willowbark and the ingredients for the mustard poultice. Perhaps if the congestion were caught early enough, it could be broken up before it truly caught hold.
“What is it you are doing?” inquired Lord Shaine.
As I worked, I explained how the tea made from the willow’s bark would bring down her fever, and how the mustard served as a powerful relaxant for mucus built up within the chest. Together, I hoped they would give her the fighting chance she needed to bring her own body’s defenses to bear, and that because she was young and strong, she might have a better chance than Merime.
Or Lady Yvaine, or Master Ourrel, I thought then, and wondered if either of them had died in my absence. Again I was struck by the thought of so many people contained within the castle, all needing my help, and all so difficult to reach.
Shaine said nothing but seemed to absorb my words, and watched quietly as I tipped some of the tea down Auren’s throat. It was true that she did not fight me as Merime or Master Ourrel had, and although she made a face, for once she did not complain about the taste or comment on how I must have become a physician because I certainly had no knack for cookery. And when I said I needed her to lie quietly as I applied the mustard poultice to her chest, she did as I bade her. From time to time she would cough, and then clench the blankets with her hand as if to show she had tried her best to keep the cough from disturbing me at my work.
These homely remedies did seem to help somewhat. As with Merime and Lady Yvaine, Auren slipped into a restive sleep a few minutes after I had finished with the poultice and laid a clean cloth across her breast to protect the inside of her nightdress from the mustard mixture. As I had told Lord Shaine, she was young and healthy enough. She might have a chance where others did not.
But she has been through so much already, I thought then, although I kept such thoughts to myself. She is only lately healed of an injury that could have killed someone else, and her body has been overtaxed. How much more can it take?
“She sleeps,” I said briefly, and straightened and brushed a stray lock of hair away from her brow before I turned to face Shaine. At that moment I couldn’t even remember the last time I had run a comb through my hair. I must look dreadful.
As if such things even mattered.
“And when she awakes?”
I could not meet his eyes. “It is too early for me to say.”
“And what of Lady Yvaine? Master Ourrel?”
“They are dying.”
Shock showed clearly in his eyes then. I saw his eyebrows lift, and he said, “You do not bother to equivocate, or say soothing things.”
“What would be the point?” Before the lines of worry could engrave themselves any deeper in the skin between his eyebrows, I added, “But I cannot say that is the case with Auren. I have come to her sooner than the others, and her condition does not seem as acute.”
He did not relax precisely, but his shoulders did appear somewhat less slumped. I wished I could say more to reassure him, but the truth was, our situation was quite as bad as could be, and not likely to get any better in the near future. Since my plan to keep everyone separate to avoid further spread of the disease seemed to have failed, it made the most sense to change course and arrange things so I could attend to as many people as possible. The only way I could make that happen was to beg for the lord of the castle’s assistance.
“There are more, and will be more,” I told him. “This is a disease utterly without mercy. I do not know how many I can save, or how much of a difference I can make. But with everyone isolated in their quarters, I can do hardly any good at all. We must set up the great hall as an infirmary, where I can tend to everyone at once.”
“But won’t that spread the disease?”
I lifted my shoulders. “Shaine, it has already spread. As I came here from Master Ourrel’s rooms, on all sides people came to beg me for help—and I had to say I would see to them later. Which was only right,” I continued hastily, for I saw the frown begin to crease his brows once again, “but it only serves to emphasize the fact that if I had everyone in a central location, I could see to many more at a time.”
“You would have my daughter down with the slaves, with the men and my other servants?”
It would have made the most sense to move her as well, but although I had come to know Shaine as a good and thoughtful lord, I knew that in this I was asking too much. Every man has his breaking point, and I thought with his daughter he had found his. And really, it would not be so bad if she remained in her room as long as everyone else was brought to the hall.
“No,” I said gently. “Of course not. I would not wish to move her, not when it seems as if she is resting quietly for now. But have I your leave to order the rest as I see fit?”
He paused. One hand went up to touch the linen that covered his nose and mouth, and his brows drew down as his gaze rested on the still form of his daughter in her bed. At length he nodded. “Do as you must, Merys.”
I bowed my head and went, knowing that he would stay there to keep watch over his daughter. There was no point in my telling him to stay away, that it was not safe for him to stay in her room. It could not be easy, to see his beloved daughter so ill, and less easy still for a man used to command, to having his own way in things, to see himself rendered so utterly powerless by a disease that brought low both the great and the weak.
As I had expected, I encountered some resistance to the notion of gathering everyone in the great hall, but as I reiterated that these were Lord Shaine’s express orders, eventually all who could move under their own power congregated there. They made a great jumble of motley bedsteads and cots and even pallets, but they all came—the boys from the stable, the women from the weaving and dyeing huts, the field workers from their dormitories. Even Master Wilys limped in, two of his stablehands lugging his bed between them.
“Ah, I am well enough,” he said, in answer to my worried question as to his condition. “Indeed, I am wondering what I did to so please the gods that they would let me off so lightly.”
I found myself wondering the same thing. As I laid my hand against his forehead, I felt no heat other than the flush which might have been caused by his walking over here. His pulse was strong, and the tenderness in his armpit had quite faded. Truly it was a miracle.
Miracle or no, I bade him to stay in his bed and not over-exert himself. A relapse would do neither him nor anyone else any good, and so he heeded my admonishments and clambered into his bed with nary a word to gainsay me. Of the boys in his charge, I was somewhat less sanguine: Two seemed well enough, but the third bore a hectic color and shivered overmuch, even for one who had walked through the snow to get to the hall. For the hearth was piled high with firewood, and between that and all the bodies packed into the space, it was quite warm—almost too warm, I thought, as I gri
mly untied my over-sleeves and rolled up the embroidered cuffs of my chemise.
All seemed as settled as it could be for the time. I had confirmed several new cases, and isolated them at the end of the room closest to the fire, and dosed them with willowbark tea. Thank goodness I had laid up a generous store against the coming of the winter months, with their various fevers and coughs. I would have to make up more mustard poultices, but luckily several of the women who still showed no sign of the illness had volunteered to help with that once I showed them the proportions of ingredients the treatment required. Everyone still wore the linen tied across their mouths and noses, and that was something, I supposed.
I deemed it safe enough to slip away to the suite where Lord Marten and his family were housed. I did not know whether he would accede to my request to come down to the hall, but I did know that Lady Yvaine was too ill to be moved. But at the very least I thought I should tell them what was happening in the rest of the castle, and let young Lord Larol know that while Auren had sickened, she seemed to be holding her own for the nonce.
The door opened in response to my knock, and I looked up at a red-eyed Lord Marten. From the little receiving chamber beyond him I heard the sound of a girl weeping.
“Lady Yvaine?” I asked quietly, but I knew the answer.
“Gone this hour,” Lord Marten replied. His voice sounded thick with unshed tears—at least, I hoped the roughness in his tone came from unspoken emotion, and not from congestion induced by yet another case of the disease.
There was never any correct thing to say at these times, but I laid a hand on his arm and murmured, “I am very sorry, my lord. May I come in?”
He bowed his head and stepped aside. I saw Alcia, his daughter, wrapped in a dark blanket and sitting in a chair as she rocked back and forth. Larol stood behind her, patting her shoulder. His face was very white, but he looked calm enough.
“You have all suffered a very great loss,” I said. Whatever I had thought of her—and she of me—it was clear that Lady Yvaine had been greatly loved by her family. “And I do regret not being here at the end. But I would say that Lady Auren, while ill, does not seem to be in any immediate danger.”
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