by L. E. Waters
Mother walks back to Hadrian’s outstretched hand and is lifted up to her seat. They start away, leaving us helplessly in the middle of the empty street. I go up to the house and hit the iron latch to open the door, but it’s bolted shut, and I have no key. Hadrian has locked the house up tight. I stare down at the sorry-looking children scratching their heads, which are full of lice, I’m sure. I give them both the last loaf.
At that moment, the abbey bells ring out purely. I grab the boys’ hands and walk toward the crumbling stone abbey outside of the city.
Chapter 5
Oliver and I take turns carrying Rowan, who is exhausted from his high fever.
“How old are you, Oliver?” I ask as he pants, trying to carry Rowan as long as he can to help me.
“My birthday passed a month ago.” He heaves the slumped Rowan up higher. “I’m seven.”
“I thought you were eight or nine!”
He looks up, and his indigo eyes sparkle proudly. We reach the abbey and walk through the open doors to the chapel.
The pews have been cleared to the side of the vast, high-ceilinged room. Bodies are everywhere, in every state of agony. The smell of the plague lifts into our noses, and Oliver holds tight to my dress as I take Rowan. The sick are everywhere, but there are no nuns to be seen. We stand there, waiting for someone to come and help us, while people cry out in the delirium that only high fever causes, crying either for water or loved ones, and some simply incoherent.
Right as I am thinking of leaving the horrible place, a nun in full habit comes hustling from outside with two buckets of water hanging off a stick on her shoulders. She puts the buckets down, takes a dipper, and proceeds to fill a wooden goblet repeatedly, while delivering it to each parched mouth. She is so busy and dedicated to the saintly task, she doesn’t see us standing there. After she has reached every thirsty soul, she stands up and looks satisfied with the way the sick have settled down. She spins around to grab a pile of cloths and dumps them in one of the buckets. Pulling each one out, she wrings them and places them on every fevered forehead. I know she is never going to stop her chores and notice us, so I step carefully around the bodies lying on rags on the floor and surprise her.
“Sister—”
She jumps and grabs her chest.
“Sister, I am sorry to startle you, but I need your assistance. These children have been orphaned, their mother died, and their father abandoned them.”
“We have heard that story before.” She doesn’t make eye contact, only goes back to her chores.
“The little one is sick with a fever and a bubo under his arm.” She now looks sympathetically upon Rowan’s sleeping face and holds her hand to his forehead. She traces her finger down the faint scar and smiles.
“I will make a small bed for him.” She goes out the back door and returns quickly with a handful of rags. They are torn scraps from discarded clothing but are crisp and clean.
I go to put Rowan down when she stops me. “No, the child needs to be cleaned first.”
She beckons me to follow, and Oliver tags behind. She has a wide basin in the back beside an open fire. She fills the basin with hot water from the cauldron and pours cold water in to make it an acceptable temperature. I wake Rowan while pulling his nightshirt over his head, and he cries groggily at the disturbance. All sorts of vermin go hopping off his body when the shirt is removed. The burlap shirt is stiff and scratchy; the roughness causes Rowan’s delicate skin to chafe. Seeing this, the nun takes his shirt as far away from her body as possible and pitches it into the fire.
I put Rowan in the warm bath, and judging by the layers of dirt on the child, I’m sure it is the first bath of his life. Oliver looks on with interest. The nun takes up a rough brush and begins scrubbing the filth off; her mouth pinches in hard labor, and the freckles disappear in the red flush of heat to her face. Rowan enjoys it until she pours water over his head and scrubs his scalp. He screams in protest.
Oliver tries to run away at this point, but I tell him to remove his shirt. I wrap Rowan up in a clean woolen shirt the nun has found for him and bring him inside to his bed. The nun orders Oliver to get in the tub in the background. Rowan settles immediately into the heap as the curls start to return with the warmth of his fever. As I walk back outside, I can hear Oliver hollering, “Quit it!” as she scrubs the lice off him. I help dry him off and hand him his shirt, knowing he thinks he is old enough to dress himself. I find his heap of rags and a large piece of wool for a blanket, and he looks relaxed for the first time.
After they are both asleep, I go out back to find the nun again, since she seems to be purposely avoiding me.
I walk up and say, “I am not ill but have some experience with caring for plague victims.” She still doesn’t stop her chores and keeps her back turned. “I was hoping that in return for shelter and some food, I could help care for the sick.”
Still with her back turned, she says, “You will need to talk to the Mother Superior about such matters.”
“Where can I find her?”
She points to a small thatched barn up the hill. I lift my dress off the ground and trudge up the hill. Reaching the fenced-in area behind the barn, I hear a great commotion of clucking and wings flapping. Peering around the large hexagonal chicken coop, I feel instantly intrusive upon spying an older nun with her habit tucked up into her undergarments, lunging wildly around after the scattering hens. After one awkward dive into the corner, she comes up with a flapping, fat hen upside down.
Seeing me, she laughs and says, “God’s work is not always pretty!” She walks around the coop to a broad stump, swiftly lifts a short axe, and with a clean chop, the life leaves the golden hen.
She walks up with the hen’s feet still kicking and asks, “How can I help you, child?”
“I have brought some plague orphans here for your care and was hoping I could stay to assist you with the stricken.”
She glances up to the sky. “Oh! The Lord is miraculous! We are in need of more assistance.” She looks back down at me. “God bless you, child, but you know you put yourself at great risk?”
Wishing I could somehow change my mind, I answer, “I have no choice, Mother. My husband deserted me when I tried to care for the children.”
She shakes her head. “We cannot all see the grace of God in such perilous times. Only the most devout can see the humanity behind the fear.”
Her eyes are small and so dark they reflect all light. She has a mole to the side of her right eye that gives her a painted look, and her smile is comforting.
She thrusts the dead chicken into my hands, tucks her dress farther into her breeches, and says, “Get busy plucking that one for our stew tonight. I have to go chop three more.”
The stew is delicious, and the children wake back up in time to have some for supper. I feed Rowan in his bed and make him swallow the contents of one of the vials Hadrian left me. Oliver and I join the two nuns by the fire. They say a prolonged grace and eat in silence.
At the end, Mother Superior calls, “Emeline, why don’t you take—I’m sorry child, what is your name?”
“Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth up to our quarters. Poor dear looks tired.”
I walk Oliver back to where Rowan sleeps soundly, and he looks nervous that I will be leaving them.
“I will only be upstairs with the nuns. You need to stay here to take care of Rowan. If he needs any help, you come find me.”
Being protective makes him understand why he has to stay, and without a word, he kisses his sleeping brother and lies back down on his rags. I follow Emeline up the narrow stairs to a few small rooms with narrow roped beds and hair mattresses.
She points to two of the rooms. “You can take your pick. Normally we have four nuns to a room…” She tries to choose her words carefully, and finding none, she finishes, “…Well, we can all have our own rooms, now.”
I take the room closest to me. It makes me nervous to think so many nuns sacrificed themse
lves to help others, nuns who slept in this very bed. When I lie down on the lumpy mattress and pull up the wool blanket, I wonder how my life has changed so much in one day. I feel alone for the first time in my life, and cry as I realize that I have no idea what I am doing with two small children.
I wake up to someone knocking on the door.
Oliver is there, sniffling, and I whisper, “What it is, Oliver?”
“Rowan is very hot, and he isn’t waking up.”
I run down the stairs, getting my shoe caught in the hem of my kirtle, and fall at the base of the stairs. I hurry to Rowan’s bed and see that he is murmuring restlessly between chattering teeth.
Emeline rushes down behind us. “The child is burning up. We need to get him into cold water.”
“My husband is a doctor, and he said the only cure for fever is bloodletting. We need to flush out the impurities.”
She sneers at my idea, grabs Rowan up, and carries the child out back. Emeline pours water straight from the well into the basin and places Rowan into the cold water. She reaches for a rag and keeps wringing it over his head. Baths are known to bring on disease and death. Why would she think submerging the child would save him?
I go to Mother Superior and find her leaving her room. “Mother, Sister Emeline is killing Rowan!”
“Calm yourself, dear. Sister Emeline has been taking care of the sick since she first arrived here at fourteen. She may have strange customs, but more people have survived under her care than any other nun. Trust her as I trust her.” She calmly walks down the stairs and out to the chapel, where she kneels with her rosary and puts her hand up to bring me on my knees with her . “The best thing you can do is pray to God to allow him to get better.”
I kneel with her for some time, and when I open my eyes, I’m surprised to see Oliver by my side in prayer also. I’m not sure if it was the praying or the bathing, but Rowan’s high fever breaks that night, and he improves steadily. Rowan begins to get up and run around with Oliver again, and in the midst of great suffering, it’s nice to hear the happy chatter of children playing. I do everything Emeline asks from that point, although she does let me show her how to cauterize the buboes and nods in thanks for the helpful instruction. I also get permission to bring the children up into my bed and looked forward to their little arms and legs draping over me every night.
Every few days, the monks come from the municipal almshouse to deliver goods they produced from their acres of wheat, barley, and fresh vegetables. One monk stands out to me. He never makes eye contact with me and gravitates toward assisting the neediest victims. He brings soup to the hungry, cradling their heads in his arms and smiling as they manage to swallow. He sweetly and lovingly caresses fevered heads while giving the sickest their last rites. He performs the most difficult acts, such as washing infected feet, changing soiled sheets, and wrapping seeping pustules, with great compassion.
One day I try to talk to him as he is washing the floors.
“Brother Simon?”
His sparkling green eyes dart up to me. “Yes?”
I grab a rag and get on my hands and knees to help him scrub. He looks like he’s uncomfortable seeing me get down in the wetness in my velvet kirtle. I hadn’t planned far enough to answer him, so I awkwardly don’t say anything. He stares at my left hand on the scrub brush for a moment and seems nervous with me so close.
“You bring such comfort to the dying,” I finally say as I keep scrubbing.
“I wish I could do more,” he says as he reaches over to pull the veil from my headdress out of the bucket.
I feel childish as I sweep it off my head, releasing my long, four-plaited braid, and wring the veil out swiftly. He puts his hands out to carry it to the table for me. Taking up the brush again, I try to scrub away my embarrassment. He takes his place on the floor again, and after a thick pause, I try to return to our conversation. “I wish I could bring such comfort.”
He looks up, catches my eyes, and then fixes his gaze back on the floor. “Mother Superior told me you left your husband to care for orphans.”
“They are over there.” I point to them right as Rowan jumps on Oliver’s back, sending Oliver careening into the ground over in the corner of the chapel. Both of them giggle hysterically.
Simon smiles, and I notice a slight gap in his front teeth. “Looks like you have brought much comfort too.”
That one sentence makes me feel more important than anything else in my whole life. I help him finish the entire room.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Every morning it’s a somber job to see which tired soul has expired in the night. Sometimes we’re prepared for it, seeing someone in particular distress. Other times we’re caught off guard. The occasional patient will look as though he’s improving and will be found cold unexpectedly. Malkyn, the Mother Superior, will say a prayer over their lost battle and cover them with a shroud.
The unfortunate job of instructing the sexton is mine. It’s the same steel-eyed, vile sexton who buried the children’s mother, and they run whenever they see him coming. He shows up this grim morning with a completely loaded cart—shirtless, even though there’s an autumn chill in the air.
“Oh, the sun is already shining!” he calls out upon seeing me. “My little burgundy hen waits for me.”
With only one kirtle to wear, I’m in burgundy daily.
“Sexton,” I holler up, “we have three this morning.”
“You, sweet wench, can call me Ulric.” He wipes his hands on his hairy chest. “Little ones or fat ones?”
Disgusted by his question, I spit, “What difference does it make?”
“Easy there I simply might not have the room for them, is all. I’ve had a busy morning,” he says as he smiles and pats his full purse.
“I am sure they will fit.”
He climbs down from his cart, picking his teeth, then shifts some of the dead bodies to make room. I turn away as I see him unbutton a leather vest, off one of the dead.
“He won’t be needing this where he’s going.” He chuckles.
When I look back at him, he is wearing the vest. Putting both hands on the sides of the vest he says, unashamed, “Don’t I look like a nobleman now?”
I guffaw.
“I’m not keeping it. I sell the nicest pieces at a good price, you know.” He looks down at my kirtle. “I do have some fine kirtles and can give you one for free if you’re nice to me.” He leers as I stand, unamused. He shrugs and moves another body. “This plague’s making me a very prosperous man, young maiden.”
“Matron,” I correct.
“Matron? And living in a convent?” He sighs. “And all this time I was worried you were wasting your young maidenhead on God.”
I decide I’m not going to talk to him anymore. I point to the shrouded bodies outside by the garden. He yanks off the shrouds, balls them up messily, and tosses the partially rigid bodies over his shoulder. Ulric throws the bodies down like sacks of flour and stashes the shrouds in the front of his cart.
I break my promise. “Those shrouds are for their burial!”
He chuckles as I snatch them back, climb the gruesome pile, and cover those I fed broth to only days before.
“How about a little bas on the cheek for my kindnesses?” he says, pointing to his filthy cheek. “You do know I do this for the sisters out of the goodness of my heart?”
“That and you find out who these people are and collect the death tax for the city for a fair price.”
He smirks. “You are a feisty one, aren’t you?” he says as he leaps back up on his cart. “No wonder your husband gave you to the nuns.” He drives off.
I’m always relieved when he leaves but know all too well he’ll be back tomorrow to ferry more to Smithfield’s plague pits.
Chapter 6
That day Malkyn speaks of the recent Papal Bull that has been granted in these extraordinary times of the Great Mortality.
She says to us at breakfast, “His
Holiness has purchased new cemeteries and consecrated the grounds to help lessen the need for the plague pits. Due to the great number of priests dying from the plague, the Pope has granted blanket absolution.” She turns to me and explains, “Now, anyone can give the last rites. So ladies, I will instruct you. I disagree with the Holy Father’s next grant.” She shakes her head. “He has waived the autopsy ban so that doctors can learn more about the pestilence. Lastly, there are those in other countries that are blaming the pestilence on the Jews in their midst. The Pope has condemned all attacks on them.”
She makes the sign of the cross, and we all continue to care for the ever-increasing sea of sick.
There is barely any room between each rag heap. I give water to a young maiden with a bubo on her neck so large that it contorts her head to the side. She whimpers in pain. I look up to see Simon standing there. He bends down to hold her hand.
“What is your name, maiden?”
“Helena,” the redhead answers weakly. “I think I need to be sick.”
Simon reaches for the water bucket next to me and holds her up to purge. Vomiting is another torturous side effect of the disease. Sometimes victims will vomit for days. I watch him as he dabs her mouth with a rag and lays her back down gently.
She tries to speak, and Simon puts his finger up to her lips to rest, but she continues, “You can’t let those wretched rustics come and throw my body in a pile with no feeling!” Her hazel eyes spin wildly. “Then the pigs come out at night, advancing upon the newly dug graves to feast on our corpses!”
“Calm now, lady, you have nothing to fear. His Holiness himself has purchased consecrated ground to make sure every last one has a dignified burial, free from vandals. Never you think of that anyway; the soul is granted eternal life, and the body returns to ash.”