“What’s the matter?” he asks.
“One of your crew,” I say. “By the wall.”
“Oh, Gilbert. He wasn’t feeling well—thought it might be something he ate.”
“Did you go over to see if he was all right?”
“He said he needed some shade,” Mason says dismissively.
“Mason. Someone needs to check on him. I saw blood.”
No more needs to be said. He leaves immediately and pulls Joan aside. He takes her place serving the pottage while they bring Gilbert to the infirmary, and the rest of the day goes on with games and music and little babies crawling around, pulling up handfuls of fresh grass while their mothers let them wander.
The next day, Gilbert Carpenter is dead.
The day after that, one of Joan’s assistants is, too.
* * *
—
The builders are at it again, digging two graves next to the father and son, this time for one of their own. The funeral bells ring and Mass is said for the carpenter and the healer. Father Johannes presses the round wafer into my grateful hand, this single item that grounds me in reality, in the here and now. This time, there isn’t simply pity, but confusion. The priest chants the prayers a bit faster than usual.
Afterward, the custom of silent work is broken, as everyone wants to hash out their theories. Yes, Joan and Alice and Gilbert had all been near the sick father and son. But that was only a few days ago. And the carpenter died first, even though he wasn’t around them as long as the assistant. And what of the physician herself? She was treating them directly, and she’s fine. So is Alice.
At Friday’s chapter meeting, nobody can keep order.
Joan speaks up. “The best thing to do right now is to eat and drink moderately. I believe the entire community should refrain from any meat or fish, and eat simple vegetable pottage.”
Unusually for Joan, she concludes with a bright smile. “I see no one sick here. Perhaps it ran its course with the last two.”
So it seems. For a week, we eat simply, and drink hot water steeped with fennel. The ale is diluted, and the ration of bread is halved. It must be working. During the whole week and more, no one falls ill, not even with a sniffle.
— 26 —
This morning, the bell at the largest parish church in Thornchester rings at an odd time. An hour later, it rings again.
Two more times, the bell tolls between offices.
The funeral bell.
* * *
—
During the Eucharist, Brother Timothy collapses to the floor. Joan fetches a stretcher, and it takes her, Agnes and two other robust women to carry Timothy to the infirmary. Mass continues until the end; it has to. Father Johannes can’t very well leave the Body and Blood on the altar. He continues the service, glancing through the rood screen at the fray. The rest of the congregants say their prayers shakily, some with tears, some with stoic focus. Immediately after the Amen, I hurry to the scriptorium to escape to my work, and to think. Whatever this fever is, it’s come close now, right through my own door.
Brother Timothy’s got rather bad work habits. His desk is always cluttered. The quantities of paint he orders are never accurate; either he orders too little and Bridgit and I must hurriedly grind more, or he orders too much and it dries up and goes to waste. That’s what I find as I stare at his work area now. Several pots of paint are already evaporating, and I know he won’t be back to use them.
But as disorganized as he seems, Brother Timothy’s work is masterfully precise. A lively illustration of Bryonia dioica is in progress, its vine snaking across the page and sprouting fuzzy flowers of the palest green. I recognize the steady verticals of Anne’s letters, the title in red, the text in black. But this page will never be finished.
There’s still paint left over, so I take a piece of fresh parchment and begin to draw. I re-create the comet, its beams radiating out in curvy waves, its inner circle opening like a flower, and I ink and paint over the lines of the drawing. I sit back and look at my work, and decide to go see Brother Timothy.
Flitting like an insect about the infirmary is Joan. She’s all energy, shouting one-word commands at Alice, who’s doing her best to keep up. Joan bounces from book to bowl, grinding powders, mixing them with liquid, pouring them on cloths and handing them to Alice to poultice Brother Timothy’s skin. Joan’s salt-and-pepper hair is bound up tightly but uncovered, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows.
Behind the curtain, the sounds coming from Brother Timothy are unbearable, like five men howling from within his one body. All I can do is stand in the doorway holding my painting, watching Alice and the physician trying in vain to comfort the old man.
“Give him this, and make him drink it down,” says Joan, handing Alice a glazed cup. “Make him!” She notices me standing here. “What do you need?” she grunts, not looking at me.
“May I see him?” Hearing the question come out of my mouth makes me wish I had never asked it.
Joan barely looks up from the heavy leather-covered manual she’s reading. “At your own risk,” she says. “Just don’t get in the way. And cover your nose and mouth.”
Brother Timothy is calming a bit, by the sound of things. Whatever Alice gave him is taking effect. As she pulls aside the curtain, I duck in.
A single candle on the bedside table illuminates the tiny cell. The air is close in here, helped only by a small hinged window above. The stench is horrible. I know the smell of death; who doesn’t? But Timothy isn’t dead. He’s tranquilized, but still aware. He struggles to breathe. He looks at me and begins to weep. The monk tries to speak, but his words tumble out of his flabby lips in gibberish.
Timothy’s neck is covered with purple splotches rising to white, as though his ink pot exploded under his skin. He begins to cough and covers his mouth with the rag he’s holding. Alice bursts in, almost pinning me to the wall. She lifts Timothy’s head to make him drink. When he puts down the rag, it’s covered with spots of blood. Alice holds out his bedside basin to collect the rag and gives him a clean one. She glares at me in alarm. Joan calls her and she leaves the cell.
Timothy reaches out his hand to me, his eyes pleading, like he wants me to simply embrace him, but I’m too afraid to come close.
“I made you something,” I say instead. I feel stupid—what difference does a painting make to a dying man? I slip the picture of the fireball into his outstretched hand, and he draws it close to his face. His eyes open wide, and he nods, as though he knows exactly what the painting means, even if I don’t. He parts his lips and mutters, the words barely intelligible—