Connie Willis - Doomsday Book

"My stomach," she said, putting her hand to her middle. "And my head. Sir Bloet told me the fever makes men dance. I thought it was a tale to frighten me. He said they danced till blood came out of their mouths and they died. Where is Agnes?"

"In the loft with your mother," Kivrin said. She had told Eliwys to take Agnes and Imeyne up to the loft and shut themselves in, and Eliwys had without even a backward glance at Rosemund.

"My father comes soon," Rosemund said.

"You must be quiet now and rest."

"Grandmother says it is a mortal sin to fear your husband, but I cannot help it. He touches me in ways that are not seemly and tells me tales of things that cannot be true."

I hope he dies in agony, Kivrin thought. I hope he is infected already.

"My father is even now on his way," Rosemund said.

"You must try to sleep."

"If Sir Bloet were here now, he would not dare to touch me," she said and closed her eyes. "It would be he who was afraid."

Roche came in, bearing an armload of bedclothes, and went out again. Kivrin piled them on top of Rosemund, tucked them in around her, and laid the fur she had taken from the clerk's bed back over him.

The clerk still lay quietly, but the hum in his breathing had begun again, and now and then he coughed. His mouth hung open, and the back of his tongue was coated with a white fur.

I can't let this happen to Rosemund, Kivrin thought, she's only twelve years old. There must be something she could do. Something. The plague bacillus was a bacteria. Streptomycin and the sulfa drugs could kill it, but she couldn't manufacture them herself, and she didn't know where the drop was.

And Gawyn had ridden off to Bath. Of course he had. Eliwys had run to him, she had thrown her arms around him, and he would have gone anywhere, done anything for her, even if it meant bringing home her husband.

She tried to think how long it would take Gawyn to ride to Bath and back. It was seventy kilometers. Riding hard he could make it there in a day and a half. Three days, there and back. If he were not delayed, if he could find Lord Guillaume, if he did not fall ill. Dr. Ahrens had said untreated plague victims died within four or five days, but she did not see how the clerk could possibly last that long. His temp was up again.

She had pushed Lady Imeyne's casket under the bed when they brought Rosemund up. She pulled it out and looked through it at the dried herbs and powders. The contemps had used homegrown remedies like St. John's wort and bittersweet during the plague, but they had been as useless as the powdered emeralds.

Fleabane might help, but she couldn't find any of the pink or purple flowers in the little linen bags.

When Roche came back, she sent him for willow branches from the stream, and steeped them into a bitter tea. "What is this brew?" Roche asked, tasting it and making a face.

"Aspirin," Kivrin said. "I hope."

Roche gave a cup to the clerk, who was past caring what it tasted like, and it seemed to bring his temp down a little, but Rosemund's rose steadily all afternoon, till she was shivering with chills. By the time Roche left to say vespers, she was almost too hot to touch.

Kivrin uncovered her and tried to bathe her arms and legs in cool water to bring the fever down, but Rosemund wrenched angrily away from her. "It is not seemly you should touch me thus, sir," she said through chattering teeth. "Be sure I shall tell my father when he returns."

Roche did not come back. Kivrin lit the tallow lamps and tucked the bedcoverings around Rosemund, wondering what had become of him.

She looked worse in the smoky light, her face wan and pinched. She murmured to herself, repeating Agnes's name over and over, and once she asked fretfully, "Where is he? He should have been here ere now."

He should have been, Kivrin thought. The bell had tolled vespers half an hour ago. He's in the kitchen, she told herself, making us soup. Or he has gone to tell Eliwys how Rosemund is. He isn't ill. But she stood up and climbed on the window seat and looked out into the courtyard. It was getting colder, and the dark sky was overcast. There was no one in the courtyard, no light or sound anywhere.

Roche opened the door, and she jumped down, smiling. "Where have you been? I was — " she said and stopped.

Roche was wearing his vestments and carrying the oil and viaticum. No, she thought, glancing at Rosemund. No.

"I have been with Ulf the Reeve," he said. "I heard his confession." Thank God it's not Rosemund, she thought, and then realized what he was saying. It was in the village.

"Are you certain?" she asked. "Does he have the plague- boils?"

"Aye."

"How many others are in the household?"

"His wife and two sons," he said tiredly. "I bade her wear a mask and sent her sons to cut willows."

"Good," she said. There was nothing good about it. No, that wasn't true. At least it was bubonic plague and not pneumonic, so there was still a chance the wife and two sons wouldn't get it. But how many other people had Ulf infected, and who had infected him? Ulf would not have had any contact with the clerk. He must have caught it from one of the servants. "Are any others ill?"

"Nay."

It didn't mean anything. They only sent for Roche when they were very ill, when they were frightened. There might be three or four other cases already in the village. Or a dozen.

She sat down on the windowseat, trying to think what to do. Nothing, she thought. There's nothing you can do. It swept through village after village, killing whole families, whole towns. One-third to one-half of Europe.

"No!" Rosemund screamed, and struggled to rise.

Kivrin and Roche both dived for her, but she had already lain back down. They covered her up, and she kicked the bedclothes off again. "I will tell Mother, Agnes, you wicked child," she murmured. "Let me out."

It grew colder in the night. Roche brought up more coals for the brazier, and Kivrin climbed up in the window again to fasten the waxed linen over the window, but it was still freezing. Kivrin and Roche huddled by the brazier in turn, trying to catch a little sleep, and woke shivering like Rosemund.

The clerk did not shiver, but he complained of the cold, his words slurred and drunken-sounding. His feet and hands were cold and without feeling.

"They must have a fire," Roche said. "We must take them down to the hall."

You don't understand, she thought. Their only hope lay in keeping the patients isolated, in not letting the infection spread. But it has already spread, she thought, and wondered if Ulf's extremities were growing cold and what he would do for a fire? She had sat in one of their huts by one of their fires. It would not warm a cat.

The cats died, too, she thought and looked at Rosemund. The shivering racked her poor body, and she seemed already thinner, more wasted.

"The life is going out of them," Roche said.

"I know," she said, and began picking up the bedclothes. "Tell Maisry to spread straw on the hall floor."

The clerk was able to walk down the steps, Kivrin and Roche both supporting him, but Roche had to carry Rosemund in his arms. Eliwys and Maisry were spreading straw on the far side of the hall. Agnes was still asleep, and Imeyne knelt where she had the night before, her hands folded stiffly before her face.

Roche lay Rosemund down, and Eliwys began to cover her. "Where is my father?" Rosemund demanded hoarsely. "Why is he not here?"

Agnes stirred. She would be awake in a minute and clambering on Rosemund's pallet, gawking at the clerk. She must find some way to keep Agnes safely away from them. Kivrin looked up at the beams, but they were too high, even under the loft, to hang curtains from, and every available coverlet and fur was already being used. She began turning the benches on their sides and pulling them into a barricade. Roche and Eliwys came to help, and they tipped the trestle table over and propped it against the benches.