The Flame Eater

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Nicholas rolled over, found himself on the cold floor, and sat up wearily. “Are you awake, David?” he demanded.

  “How could I not be, my lord?”

  “Then go and murder the neighbours,” muttered Nicholas.

  His companion crawled to the door, reached up and removed the bolt. Before the door was fully open, two men tumbled through, each with his hands around the other’s neck. Both then stumbled to their feet and one stuffed his knife back into his belt and regarded his hosts. “This place is always kept empty,” he remarked with conversational interest. “Didn’t reckon on finding folks. You rent, or just squatting?”

  David said, “I own it, as my father did before me. But I don’t normally choose to live here, for obvious reasons.”

  “Had a choice, nor would we,” agreed the second man. “So why come back?”

  “None of your business,” Nicholas said, unmoving. “So get the hell out.”

  The second man sat down beside him on the floor. “That’s a mighty fine shirt, mister, for a gent has to sleep on the ground,” he said, squinting through the shadows. “Fine linen, by the looks of it, and well bleached. Stole it, did you?”

  “I did,” Nicholas sighed, moving a little further from the smell of unwashed toil. “I also stole a good steel sword, and with which I’m very well practised.”

  “Now, now,” said the first man, also sitting since a small circle was all the space available. “We quarrels together right enough, being brothers, which is normal. But we don’t have no quarrel with you.”

  “And,” said the other, stretching an appreciative finger, “them hose is the best I reckon I’ve ever seen. Silk, is they? And tight knitted?” His own legs, fat, squat and spread out before him, appeared swathed in a matted bulk of ill-fitting buckram. The man shook his head, accepting the three pairs of eyes now concentrated on his plump thighs. “I only got the old sort,” he acknowledged, “like me Pa afore me. Cut whole from a piece, shaped to a longer leg than mine and a larger foot into the bargain. Sewed up one side each leg, and neither stretch nor comfort to be had. Tis a fashion long gone for those with the coin to escape it. Now yours, my friend, being the new stretchy knitting, and worth a fair penny –”

  Nicholas leaned back against the wall. “I have a headache,” he said, “and a sore need to sleep. Take the remains of our pottage if you want, and go and eat it elsewhere. I don’t intend relinquishing either my shirt or my hose, and I feel an urgent need to be left alone.”

  David looked up suddenly. “A headache, my lord? How bad is it?”

  The first intruder blinked and recoiled. “A lord, is it then? So what sort of lord comes here to live in the slums?”

  “A sick one,” said Nicholas quietly. “So I advise you both to leave.” He turned, resting back onto the rough straw mattress.

  David had crawled over, staring down at him. “Could it be, do you know?”

  “I doubt it,” Nicholas answered. “But get those two idiots out, David, and let me sleep.”

  But David frowned. “I’ve known you ten years since you were bare sixteen years, my lord, and you’ve had two headaches in all that time.” He turned to the intrigued intruders. “There’s a candle on that shelf, and an oil lamp beside my bed. Light them both from the fire, there should be spark enough left. I need light, and I need quiet.”

  On his knees by the mattress, the first man held the oil lamp high. “Well now,” he said. “Seems you’ve been in the wars, my friend, with a scar on your face fit to break bones. Reckon it ain’t no wonder you’ve a headache. But I’m pleased to meet a real lord,” he announced cheerfully, “what I never have afore. The pox, is it? Influenza? Or the dysentery? My old Ma died of the yellow pox some years back. Stank terrible, she did.”

  David ignored both men, but was frowning, bent over his master. “My lord, you cannot sleep yet. I must know.”

  Nicholas turned his head from the light and closed his eyes. “The headache is worsening,” he admitted softly. “And I am hot, and sweating I think. The flame hurts my eyes. Leave me, David, and let me sleep. I shall know the truth by morning.”

  “The morning will be too late. I will search out a doctor now, if you need one.”

  “At midnight? Go to bed, my friend. No doctor can cure the pestilence.”

  The man holding the oil lamp recoiled. “Pestilence, you say?”

  His brother came forwards, holding the candle and its pale flame. “Now then,” he said. “I’m Rob, and this is Harry, and there’s been no pestilence round here for a good few years. Don’t reckon there’s no cause to fear it now. Aches of the head now, that’s common enough, be it from too much brewed ale or wine, and being woke in the night by two ruffians from the next hole along, well, that’ll do it every time.”

  “Throw the buggers out,” groaned Nicholas. “Let me die in peace.”

  Rob thrust David aside. “No point arguing the cock’s spur on it,” he said at once. “If it’s the pestilence, I shall recognise it, for I had it once, and came through safe. Most doesn’t, but I did, and can tell the signs. So, Harry, get that lamp up higher and stop quivering like the flea bitten tadpole you is, whilst I examines our new friend.”

  Harry shook his head. “I ain’t never had it, and don’t want it now, thanking you all the same. Friends, brothers or no – I’m off.” And he dropped the oil lamp on the ground and hurried out through the half open door, closing it hard behind him.

  Rob sighed as David took up the lamp. “Where’s you been, then, lords and all, to catch a thing like this and bring it here to us?”

  “My apologies,” David said, “but I must point out how you burst in here uninvited. We had no intention of speaking to anyone, or risking anyone’s health but our own. Five days gone, we were in close contact with some who died, and others who sickened. We’ve travelled a long cold journey to leave our friends safe from possible contagion, and had no thought to bring it here.”

  “Caught it a long way off?” nodded the man, lifting shirt and blanket from Nicholas’s body. “That’s good news, I reckon, and maybe it won’t spread. Now, let’s have a look.”

  Nicholas lay quiet, eyes closed. His breathing was shallow now, gurgling a little in his throat as gradually he seemed to sway between consciousness and sleep. But his body was unmarked, and the muscled symmetry of his chest was smooth in the flickering light. David exhaled, and sat back on his heels. “There are no signs – no rash – no swellings – nothing like the two wretched boys that died.”

  “Maybe too early,” Rob said, his hand to Nicholas’s forehead. “But this bugger’s burning up. Fever comes first.”

  David sat in miserable silence for one moment, then stood abruptly. “I’ll stoke up the fire,” he said, “and try to stop the draughts.”

  “That’s what them doctors tell us,” wondered Rob, “but is it right for a gent already on fire to warm hisself beside more flames? I reckon we should leave it be. But he needs beer or some such to drink, for the next sign is a thirst so terrible it cracks lips and splits the tongue.”

  “We have ale,” David said, taking up one of the saddle bags from a corner. “But we brought only as much as we could carry, and intended it to last three days until we felt safe enough to leave this place. And wine too – but that has another purpose. To die – in such pain – can at least be avoided, my master said, if enough wine is drunk to fall unconscious.”

  Rob shook his head. “Keep the wine for later then. But get that ale. Nor it ain’t three days you needs to worrit about, is it? ‘Tis now, and this gent needs ale to drink and water to wash him cool. You gets it then, and I’ll do it.”

  “He’s my master, and the man I love,” David said quietly. “Which is why I am here, to live or die by his side. And I shall do whatever is necessary to keep him safe.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was impossible to tell when dawn turned to day. No rosy light bathed the room nor sped sunbeams across those fitfully sleeping. So the disturbed night
led them to waking late, and it was Nicholas, still uncomprehending, his fever exacerbated, that finally woke them. He drifted between sleep and a plaintive, questioning murmur. “Is it true?” he asked. “Is it come?” Then he turned away and slept quietly, but suddenly woke once more, and tried to sit. “She is calling for me,” he insisted. “And the little ones are silent in their cribs. Does she know they have gone?”

  “My lord,” David said, leaning over him, “You must sleep. There is nothing to worry about, nor need to think on for now.”

  “Call me then,” Nicholas sighed, “when she wakes.”

  Rob had been snoring, half propped against the wall. Now he blinked one sticky eye. “Make sense, does he, your gent? Or is it babble he’s talking?”

  “Babble. Memories. Delirium,” David sighed. “So he is worsening. Yet I still feel strong. I have no fever – no headaches – no weakness or rash. So I will be nursing my lord from now until – until whatever comes. You should go, before you take greater risk.”

  “I’ll go when I’m ready, and I ain’t ready,” decided the other man. “Thing is – grand lords, whether living nor dying – and folks appearing sudden in the night – it’s interesting, you might say – in a mighty dull world.”

  David was washing his master’s face and neck, the water rolling down into the opening of his shirt where the sweat glistened like oil. He said, “If this wretched business seems interesting to you, then your usual life must be dull indeed.”

  “Well, as it happens,” admitted Rob, “apart from quarrelling with me brother – dull so it is. And I can never rightly remember what them quarrels is even about afterwards. ‘Tis a grey world and a grey life. No work to be had nor for pay nor for dinner, so all them dreary hours is spent chasing just enough to keep alive.” He paused, scratching his groin. “You say your Pa had this dump afore you? Old man Witton, was it? Worked at the charcoal in the old woods out beyond St. John’s, didn’t he? Bit of a bastard, but then, aren’t we all! Being your name’s David, reckon I remember you as a little lad. Never liked you much. Whined a lot, you did. ‘Spose you was hungry, like the rest of us.”

  David had pulled the cloth from the window, and a greasy pale ooze was puddling across the floorboards. “Yes, I’m David Witton,” he said, “And I certainly remember being always hungry. But I don’t remember you.”

  “Robert Bambrigg. Ten year older, more or less, and ten year wiser no doubt.”

  David smiled faintly. “Probably true, since you were wise enough to stay right here, and I was foolish enough to leave, to travel, to educate myself and finally to find employment at Chatwyn Castle in the Midlands.”

  “The Midlands, eh?” Rob shook his head. “Don’t trust them northerners. Funny lot.” He thought a moment. “Though your Pa were a funny bugger too, if I remembers right. Weren’t it your old man stuck your Ma’s hand in the fire when he found her pissed, passed out downstairs with her skirts up round her neck and some old beggar climbed on top, with you as a little lad bawling your eyes out beside her?”

  David stiffened, his expression changing. “As I told you, I left. I had many reasons for leaving.”

  Rob interrupted abruptly. “Your gent,” he said, squinting through the gloom, “reckon he’s not too well again. Worsening, pr’aps.”

  Nicholas appeared agitated, his eyelids fluttering as though in dreams. He spoke suddenly, crying out. “She is bleeding – from here – and here. Her mouth is full of blood. Her eyes bleed. Her fingers – look – the nails peel away and there is blood beneath.” And then he was silent again and slept as though unconscious.

  David dropped to his knees beside Nicholas, fingers to the collar of his shirt. “It’s the marks of the pestilence. Vile, creeping bruises.” He thrust his hands under the shirt’s hem and pulled it up. Both men peered down. David sighed again. “Bad. But not as bad as I’d feared. The marks are shallow and light, and there are few of them.”

  The rash, a dusky sepia in the low light, dappled the skin in shadows, creeping around the rise of his chest, fading out below the arms, more lurid across the ribs. Flat blotches, some larger, others smaller, uneven and misshapen, straddled his upper body. His nipples stood like tiny brown islands in a weeping sea of poisons.

  “Nort to do but wait,” nodded Rob. “It’ll get worser. Or it’ll get better.”

  Nicholas groaned in his sleep, wandering through an inconclusive misery, grasping at sudden visions, then losing his way in darkness and confusion. He believed he struggled, climbing hills of rock and shingle where his bare feet slipped, and tore on jutting stones. Turning aside, he saw his mother beckoning. But when he followed her, she collapsed dying at his feet, calling out for her babies and for the help he could not bring her. Then finally he saw another woman, russet haired and dark eyed. He could not remember her name or who she was, but watched as she smiled, and came close, and lay beside him. He slipped his hand inside the open neck of her gown, his fingers tingling at the firm smoothness of her breasts. Then pain convulsed him, and a burning heat, and he drifted into delirium again.

  The new day was as cold as the night had been but they did not build up the fire at once. Instead they plugged the gaps beneath the door and around the window, using the straw fallen from the third pallet bed. Yet as the chill crept around them, draughts quickly reassembling through the straw plugs, finally David said, “It’s fire we need after all. Will you light it?” Rob piled the ready faggots, creating a small dazzle across the hearth. David then boiled water, and reheated the remaining pottage for their dinner. The freeze ebbed and Nicholas continued to sweat. He moaned a little, and tossed, eyes firmly closed, while muttering to himself. When the wind gusted outside, the building swayed, creaking like a ship under sail, its planks and boards shifting and shifting back. The window frames rattled and bursts of dust hurtled down the chimney, twice obliterating the fire. Finally, during the afternoon, the winds quietened as a hazy sunshine took its turn.

  David sat long hours, clenching his fists, knuckles white. He and Rob talked sometimes, quietly and with no particular purpose except passing time, for waiting was the only possibility, and waiting in silence created the whispering ghosts of hopelessness; the other contagion.

  The busy lives of the cramped dwellings echoed from outside, thumping from stair to overhead and back again. The noises reverberated continuously, the wailing of small children and cursing of those older, the ringing of pot on trivet and the clang of ladle on cauldron, the endless squabbling, a husband’s fist sending his wife to the ground and the heavy thwack of her falling body, then the cursing again, complaints, and tearful pleas of forgiveness. David sat hunched over the pallet where Nicholas lay. Rob trotted from hearth to table, and from stool to mattress.

  Biting his lip, David muttered, “There is no change. It has been a long time with no result.”

  “Better no change than a worse change.”

  “I need to know.” David looked up, bleak. The flesh of his face seemed to hang wearily as if it now lacked the strength to stay tight to its bones. “I show no signs – no illness. Yet I sat by the dying boys before his lordship came. Should I not have sickened first?”

  “Ain’t no knowing how it spreads, nor what makes one get it, and another not.” Rob sat cross legged on the ground beside him. “The air, some says. It’s in the air. But you both left that air behind long back. Maybe your lord swallowed the air, and you didn’t.”

  “He touched the boys. I did not.”

  Rob shrugged. “Some folks burn the clothes after a death. Is that because of touch? Or because the air’s in the folds? Not even the doctors agree. ‘Tis a shame for them nice hose and fancy shirt, if theys what holds the pestilence to the body.”

  “Should we strip him then? Burn everything? He’s only recently recovered from a fire that near killed him, so it would be an irony and for what? Guesses? I do not know.” David shook his head. “My lord believed there was a set time between contact with the disease, and showing signs of catc
hing one from the other. Five days he said, six at the most. Seems he was right on that.”

  “A gent can count. Doctors and priests – they sees more of the sick than the rest of us – and they reckons on the days between sick and sicker too. I heard three and I heard six as the time it takes to grow inside afore showing.” Rob shrugged again. “But I ain’t sick. And you ain’t sick.”

  Nicholas breathed with a steady and guttural wheeze, and did not open his eyes. The shadows, pale in the sallow light seeping through the window, crept in and shrank back, moving and assembling around the bleak and empty corners. Across the hearth the flames burst bright, then crackled low into spark and spit. Sudden warmth and sudden chill, light then dark, and through it all his breathing, rhythmic and hoarse, marked the day’s passage.

  “You’re not sick,” David told Rob, “because you never saw the two dying children up north. If you catch it at all, it would have to come from my lord, and the days between catching and showing have not yet passed. For me it’s different. Surely I should have been ill by now, if I had it.”

  “It’s enough to make me head spin,” Rob objected, “like sums in the market. A penny for this and a penny for that – well, it’s gonna cost two penny. I can do that. But when it’s a pie, hot and juicy, with a stalk of radish, a cup o’ beer and a basket of cabbage greens – well, that’s got to be added all together. Head spinning stuff – like this. So many days to catch and so many days to wait. Then is it touch or swallow, or is it the air over your head or the doublet off your back? Well – I’m telling you – I don’t bloody care. I ain’t got it. I never got it last time and I ain’t gonna catch it now. The pestilence don’t frighten me.”

  “Don’t mention hot pies,” mumbled David. “Is that watery pottage hot yet?”

  Rob staggered back up to his feet and peered into the cauldron. “Simmering. Hot enough. Don’t smell particular appetising, but food’s food and it’s two days without none so I’m starving. Where’s your trenchers?”