All Fall Down (29 page)

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 grimly 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.”
 

Larol’s eyes brightened at my words, but his sister continued to weep into a handkerchief, and Lord Marten’s dull expression changed not at all. Well, I probably should not have hoped for anything more than that.

I continued, “Because there are now so many whom I must treat, all the residents of Donnishold have gathered in the main hall. I have come to ask you to join them, but of course I cannot compel you to do so.”

“E - everyone?” inquired Larol. Again his expression lightened a little.

“Almost everyone,” I said gently. “Lord Shaine does not want his daughter moved from her rooms, and I agreed that disturbing her as she seems to be holding her own is not the wisest course. But yes, everyone else is there.”

“I won’t!” Alcia burst out, emerging from behind the handkerchief. Her face was mottled red and blotched with tears. “I don’t want to!”

Lord Marten said, “If we are well, I do not see the need for us to go among the others. Surely that is only further risking our health.”

Some part of me wanted to tartly reply that staying in these rooms with the plague-ridden and now decaying body of the late Lady Yvaine was also not something conducive to their health, but I managed to hold my tongue. After all, they had just suffered a loss, and of course they were probably not thinking clearly. Still maintaining as mild a tone as I could, I replied, “Of course I cannot compel you to come down and join everyone else. But I must also impress upon you the fact that I may not be as available to you as you would like, should any of you fall ill.”

“Is that a threat?” Lord Marten’s face darkened with anger.

“Of course not.” I did not bother to tell him that I had no need of threats when such a calamity had overtaken all of us. “Merely a statement of fact, my lord. But I must return to my other charges, now that you know how it goes within the castle. Would you like me to see if I can find someone to—to take care of Lady Yvaine for you?”

At those words the anger appeared to pass as quickly as it had come, and he lifted a shaking hand to his temple. “If you could. I—I do not think I could manage that.”

“No one would expect you to.”

And so I bowed my head and took my leave, wondering who I could enlist for such an unwelcome task. Truly, it would be easier to get some of the field hands to help with removing bodies from the hall, as no one would wish to share quarters with a corpse. But I could see how some of them might think little of having to remove the lady, as she lay dead far from any of them, sequestered in the rooms where her family had chosen to isolate themselves.

Luckily, though, I came upon Raifal and another of the kitchen slaves as I descended to the hall, and although they seemed less than enthusiastic at my request, still they agreed to it.
 

“Better than sitting in the hall and waiting to see who gets sick next,” said Raifal, and I found I couldn’t disagree with him.

I looked in on those gathered in the hall, and luckily no one else seemed to have sickened in my brief absence. The women who had volunteered to prepare the mustard poultices had gone ahead and applied them to those suffering from coughs, and I experienced a flash of intense but very welcome relief. I had thought I would have to do this all by myself, but I had forgotten that even though none of these people were trained physicians, still they had nursed one another through various illnesses over the years, and the simple tasks they could manage quite well on their own.
 

As they seemed to have the matter in hand for the nonce, I thought I had better run back up to Auren’s room to see how she fared. It would only take a moment or so, and I thought my heart would be lightened to know that she still slept, and showed she might somehow fight off the disease, impossible as that might seem.
 

But I met Elissa on the stairs, her face pale above the candle she held. “Oh, thank the gods, mistress!”

“What is it? Has Lady Auren taken a turn for the worse?”

Her breath hitched, and for one horrible second I thought she, too, had sickened, and begun to cough. Then I realized it was only a sob caught halfway in her throat. “She has wakened and is coughing. I gave her more tea, even though it went cold, but it didn’t seem to help. But oh—that’s not the worst!”

“No,” I said, and shook my head. “No.” Surely if I denied it strongly enough, I could make it untrue.

“It’s Lord Shaine,” Elissa said. “He’s come down with it, too.”
 

Chapter 16

I wanted to scream, to fall to my knees and rail against—what? The gods? But I didn’t believe in them.

As Elissa had said, Shaine had taken ill. Worse than that, I found him sprawled across the rug, face down. Heedless of all else, I flung myself down beside him and turned him over. His face was flushed, and even through the thick wool of his doublet I could feel the fever heat coming off him in waves.

“What happened?” I demanded of Elissa, who had paused a few paces away, her hands knotted in the folds of her nightdress.

“I—I don’t know, mistress, truly I don’t!” In the flickering illumination I saw glimmers of reflected light glint off her cheeks, and I realized she wept. “He had gone to look at Auren, touched her cheek. Then he put out his hand, and if trying to reach out to something in front of him, and he just fell. I didn’t know what to do, so I came to find you.”

He was still and slack beneath my hands. At least he was not coughing. With a feverishness that had nothing to do with the plague and everything to do with urgency, I tore open his doublet, felt of his body. There was nothing of desire or passion in my touch—I only wished to discern if he had a plague lump. And he did, rising in his left groin. As I passed my fingers over it, he twitched beneath me and let out a sharp little cry that did not sound as if it could have come from his throat.

“We cannot leave him here,” I told Elissa. “Go down to the hall and look for Raifal. Tell him that his master has been taken ill and needs to be brought to his own bed.” For I knew I could not risk having Shaine carried all the way into the hall, and yet of course he could not remain sprawled as he was on the Keshiaari rug I had thought so fine only a few months ago. Taking him down the one flight of stairs shouldn’t put him in too much peril.