“I’ll go,” I consent. “And, Joan—I know you’re stretched, tending to the sick. I want you to know that I’m looking in on Alice. She’s going to be all right.”
“Thank you, Edyth,” she says. “That means a lot.” The physician puts her veil back on, but not before I see her eyes well with tears.
* * *
—
With the rain finally over, it’s blazing hot. On my way down to the gatehouse, I stand at the north wall and peer down at the town encircling the priory hill. As far as I can tell, nothing moves but stray animals. Except for the trickle of pilgrims coming in through the gatehouse, the once-bustling town is eerily quiet.
Thornchester has a permanence that half-timbered, one-story Hartley Cross never did. Its bustling, dirty, colorful streets, its hundreds of stone buildings anchored in the land, give you the feeling that nothing was different before you, and nothing will change when you’re gone.
What I see once I’m through the gates is completely different.
It is a cesspool. The ditches run over with filth, and I have to hop between one shit puddle and the next. Bodies are everywhere—cast outside of front doors, lying in the street, facedown in the rain-sodden alleys, piled in the churchyard. Doors swing open on their hinges. No one, alive at least, is out in the marketplace. Dogs bark or sniff at the dead and generally trot up and down the streets, loyal to no master.
The only sounds of human activity are muffled wails inside houses, muffled cries to God or the Virgin, gibberish like Brother Timothy’s—like a patchwork quilt of old, fraying linens.
Joan’s right: the shops are abandoned, somewhat looted, but not too badly—death comes so fast with this sickness that few people would care about grabbing baubles on the way out of life. I leave a couple of coins anyway, for honesty’s sake.
I take shade from the heat at the closest of the two parish churches, Saint Mary’s, under the stone archway into the churchyard. Voluminous sprays of white roses on the vine erupt their perfume, but it’s mixed with another smell, the toxically sweet aroma of death. I round a holly bush toward the church door and stumble on three corpses, two women and a man, flies buzzing at their eyes. I gag and cover my nose and mouth, thanking God for the burst of white stars that at least gives me something else to see.
The side door of the church is open, and I walk right into the nave. It’s intimate and cool, like Saint Andrew’s back home. There’s movement toward the front—a priest waddles out from the sacristy carrying the holy elements, a small glass pitcher of wine with a round glass stopper, a silver box containing the bread. I begin to walk toward the priest, startling him.
“Don’t come any closer!” He puts out his hands to stop me, holding the box and pitcher out to me like an offering.
“Where is everyone?” I ask. “Why haven’t you rung the bell for nones?”
“Rung the bell? For whom?” the priest scoffs as he begins laying his things on the altar.
Slowly I advance toward him. “But you’re putting out the Eucharist,” I protest.
“That’s my duty,” he says, nervous as a rat. “If anyone dares come, they can get it right from here. Come and take it if you want. It’s consecrated. But I won’t be here.”
“Wait, where are you going?”
“Away. Away! Now get out!”
I know this priest. I’ve seen him before on feast days, eating and drinking with the prioress herself. Once or twice he served at the altar in the priory church when Father Johannes was traveling or ill. He always had a friendly piety—nothing like the sharp hostility coming from him now.
The whole way back to the priory, I’m dodging mud and muck in my stupid sandals. I can’t believe how much Thornchester has broken down since I was there in spring, and I yearn for the safety of the priory confines.
Now I have a true sense of things. The state of the fields fills me with a sick churn. Barley lies broken and sodden. A wandering cow grazes on the stubble. A chicken shrieks from somewhere in the hayfield. The scent of baking grass is barely enough to push down the smell of decay rising from the churchyard, from the town, from everywhere.
I’ve seen crops fail a few times; probably one year out of every three is a bad year for someone. You find other ways to bolster the losses, stored goods to pull from, wool to weave and sell. There’s the motivation to not starve, to push through the lean winter until another chance comes. And your neighbors recognize that their own bad year could be next—someone always steps in with mercy to get a struggling family through the winter.
But this? This is entirely different. In a normal year, at least people fought against hunger.
In a normal year, every other person was not dropping dead.
Thank God, it’s cooler in the refectory. At least there’s still food, and someone’s cooking it. But a brazen mouse lugs a chunk of bread right across a shaft of sunlight, and no one flinches. Everything is filthy.
There are only a few people in the hall. A smattering of sisters huddle over bowls of thin gruel and hunks of bread. None of them sit together. On a table near the dais is a pot, a stack of wooden bowls and several large loaves. No one is here to serve or to clean up the piles of dirty dishes. Apparently Cook has taken the same approach as the priest.
I slip two loaves into my basket, one for Alice, one for me and Mason to share. Just then, the prioress comes in, with Agnes at her arm, and my back stings with memory, dashes of purple darting in the corners of my eyes. I’m glad to see the Pri walking, but she looks more tired than a body should be. She sits at the dais, and Agnes goes to the kitchen, bringing up the prioress’s meal, more substantial than the common gruel.
It’s strange to sit in this hall chewing bread while the world is ending all around me, not knowing what I’m supposed to do about it. I ladle some soup, tear off a piece of bread, pour some ale and watch.
Around the room, no one raises their head to acknowledge me, not even the prioress or Agnes. We all eat prayerlessly, clear our places to the dirty dish table and leave in haste, as though trying to occupy as little space as possible, breathe as little as possible, fearing to make one misstep and enter into a pocket of the bad air.
— 32 —
The only thing to do is throw myself into work. As I make my way down the cloister corridor toward the scriptorium, I see Bridgit walking ahead of me about twenty paces, staggering like a dancing drunkard, her skirts swaying. I’ve almost caught up with her when she falls hard to the stone pavement.
“Bridgit!” I call out. “Help! Somebody!” But my voice echoes off the stone vaults. I bend over her—she’s unconscious, with a sheen of sweat over her face and neck. I’m about to shake her, to try to wake her up, but I stop myself. Something tells me not to touch her.