Dirtnap - The Black Death Pt. 05

The girl crept through the short alley to crouch in the shadows of it's mouth on the far end. She shifted the armload of old hay she had pilfered from the stable up the road. Gazing over it, she watched the inimitable figure of Dick the ratcatcher pushing a wheelbarrow. She had been hiding amongst the stretching racks behind the skinner's shops when she spied the exterminator.

An idea had cropped up. Hardly even an idea, really. The sucking emptiness of her guts had bypassed her conscious brain, pulling strings in her reptile brain to start her body moving. Where there was a ratcatcher, presumably one would sooner or later find rats. A week earlier this line of reasoning would have motivated her to redouble her efforts to find other sources of sustenance. Only a few days ago she had seen him headed North toward the gates of the city, two rats dangling by their tails from his hand. Her hunger had not been as needful then. She had thought, why? Why did this unspeakable, untouchable man walk about, while her parents, for all their attempts at precaution and all their religious adherence, were dead and gone?

Now her thinking was poisoned by hunger. The itching bites of the mites in the hay hardly registered. Likewise the cuts on her bare feet. Even the lingering pain of her swollen glands was a dulled, background thing.

She continued carrying the hay out of some vague sense that it was important, having lost track of her original intent. Said intent being to hide the swollen glands on her neck. Several days before, a man had noticed her huddled against the lee side of a boarded up public privy. She'd been scraping marrow from a bone found on the ground outside a butcher's shop. The man had seen the clear signs of infection and begun shouting for help. Telling her to stay where she was.

She had run and hidden. And she had since been much more careful about her movements. That was, until this driving hunger had overwhelmed her. She had filched the hay, knowing nobody would question why she was walking around with it.

Across the road, Dick turned into another alley. The girl stood -- too quickly -- and her vision swam. Light headed, she stumbled against a wall. Her pulse beat like a drum in her head.

And then, after an indeterminate interval, her dizziness passed. Trembling, she opened her eyes and waited in a daze while they focused. Shortly she realized that she was looking down at the mass of hay she had dropped.

Can't leave that.

Heedless of the rough stone of the wall abrading the skin on her shoulder, she let herself slide back down into a squat. Scrabbling possessively without knowing why, she gathered the dirty hay into her arms. When she had most of it, she stood -- slowly this time. Suffering only a momentary dizziness, she shuffled out into the street.

* * *

Lovekyn rested his elbows on his desktop. He settled his chin in one hand and gestured to the door with the other. Guardsman Barker nodded and exited the room. There was little to fear with this one -- unless perhaps he held forth at such length that it drove one to leap from a window. Looking at him, the Lord Mayor thought this might be a real possibility. From his dull but precisely fitted clothes to his overly earnest demeanor to the way he kept both hands on the bundle of charts he carried, everything about the little man radiated officiousness. In his head, Lovekyn could hear the man's voice already.

"I'm afraid I can't keep track of all my appointments these days. What is it you wished to see me about, Mister...?"

"Reed Combury, Lord Mayor. I'm a scribe by trade, m'lord." He said this with the proud solemnity of one who is absolutely certain that their work is a sacred calling, and vitally important to the continued existence of civilization.

Oh good, thought Lovekyn, another with more education than common sense. If the man had more of the latter, he might consider relativity before putting on that disdainful expression when dealing with people like Barker. For instance, his size and muscle mass relative to that of the guardsman's. But then, maybe the man didn't realize what his face looked like. It wouldn't surprise Lovekyn to learn that the scribe had no wife to tell him.

"Very good, scribe Combury. What is it you wish to complain, er, converse about?"

"Lord Mayor, surely you are well aware that all efforts to forestall The Mortality have come to naught."

"I'm sure I've heard something like that, yes."

"And has it occurred to you, m'lord, that these surgeons and doctors may be doing more harm than good?" Combury continued.

It might have done when I was about eight years old and they fed me all that oil on account of our potato rich diet had me bound up tighter than a shark's arse, Lovekyn thought. Oh, and every time they blithely cut a bit off some poor devil because it's gone a different color. But you didn't say so, because they were still better than the alternative. At least some of the time. And, like with the speeches he gave, the doctor's at least gave you someone else's word to take so you could get on with things. At least they eased the damned worry and uncertainty of waiting to see if you coughed yourself to death or exploded.

"I've seen the afflicted, Mr. Combury. I think it would take some effort to make things worse for them."

"My Lord, some of them are lancing the swellings and packing them with... with..."

"Apple tarts?"

"Feces!" Combury's voice rose to a squeak.

Lovekyn blinked. He was not accustomed to being squeaked at.

"Yes, well, if the afflicted or their kin place themselves in the care of one of these fellows, there's really nothing I can-"

"No, no, that's beside the point. Just an example," Combury interrupted, having lost sight of who he was speaking to in his righteous frustration, "Don't you see? They work in vain. Nothing they do will affect the spread of The Mortality. They look in the wrong places. It's all in the stars!"

Lovekyn frowned. He was quiet for a long moment, eyes wandering, in case something should occur to him which would lend sense to the scribe's rambling.

"Er, this isn't about those traveling performers..."

A troupe of five had passed through last year. The three men had played while the two women danced. As he recalled, they had worn shiny bronze stars pasted over their-

"No, no! It's all here, look."

Combury stepped to his side and ruffled through the charts he carried. Setting the lot down, he smoothed one large sheet overtop. From somewhere he produced a slender wooden stylus, the very sight of which grated on Lovekyn's nerves. He wondered momentarily if he could convincingly claim he took the scribe for an assassin. The stylus could be mistaken for a metal skewer or similar. Who would blame him for braining a hypothetical assailant with a jug of ale.

Emerging with a faint smile from imagining the scenario, Lovekyn realized the scribe was talking again.

"The Ascendant is the only candidate for Hyleg. And see," the officious little man officiously tapped a spot on the chart with his stylus, "it's in a malefic sign and conjunct another."

Lovekyn squinted at the indicated spot and wondered if he should recognize any of the terms the man had just used.

"Ah." he ventured, since Combury seemed to be waiting for something.

"Exactly! And see here, the Piscean Mercury is Lord of the Eighth House." He said it in a manner that suggested the phrase 'and to top it all off,' folding his arms over his chest, satisfied, perhaps, that he had made his point.

"And that's... bad?" the Lord Mayor guessed, based largely on the fact that nobody had brought him any good tidings in weeks.

"It was most dire for Byzantium. Now that you see the precedent, you'll recognize the seriousness of the signs recorded back in 1345. Now, we may all be inclined to doubt the competence of French astrologers, but some of our own..."

Combury busied himself thumbing through the stack of charts and moving a smaller, newer-looking sheet to the top. He slid the tip of the stylus about on the chart, tapping here and there while expounding on the portents mapped in the astrologer's mysterious mathematics. Lovekyn let the obtuse terminology wash over him and fervently hoped that Astrology would not increase in popularity, but thought that it probably would.

* * *

Felix stepped into the room and moved to one side to allow Fox entrance. Even as he did so, he knew. When one has spent enough time in his line of work, one eventually developed a sensitivity to a certain kind of stillness. He sighed.

"This one has passed." he said quietly.

Fox stopped and looked back sharply.

"Are you so certain?" he was understandably skeptical.

Still carrying his doctor's bag, Felix stepped around Fox and lay the fingers of his right hand over the man's throat. He waited a moment, then nodded.

"Not long ago. He is still very warm."

He saw the look on the boy's face.

"We did everything we could. Had we been here sooner, it would not have changed the outcome."

Fox nodded, but continued to stare at the body in the bed, his jaw set. In England, at this time, there were precious few not acquainted with the grim realities of life and death. Still, seeing it up close was another thing. And beginning to feel that you had a handle on things because of the medical knowledge you were beginning to absorb, only to have death swoop in and lay waste to delusions of control -- that was another thing again.

Felix sympathized. He had become jaded early in his studies. Then he had apprenticed to a master whose tutelage had allowed him to move beyond jaded -- to develop a more enlightened approach to such things.

But he sympathized. So he offered insights he had been given in a similar situation.

"Lesson... nine? If it bothers you, let it bother you. There is no more worthy cause for concern than the suffering of others."

The boy's expression softened a bit.

"Were you a philosopher before you took up medicine?"

"Not at all. Rather, I believe chronic philosophy is a common side effect of the physician's work. If you ever have questions regarding the mysteries of life and death, skip the priests and ask a midwife." Felix replied.

"Hm. I shall keep that in mind."

Felix thought a moment. There was nothing to be done for the deceased, but that didn't mean he couldn't potentially be of some use. This would require taking some samples. A process he would rather not try to explain. The boy was open to logic and scientific thought, but Felix thought it best not to test him just yet. When indoctrinating a pupil, it was easiest to start in childhood. As the twig is bent, and all that. If starting later, after any number of influences may be affecting the pupil -- consciously or otherwise -- Felix had found it was best to go slowly. To stack the concepts of logic and methodology like tiny ingots on one side of a scales, until suddenly, perhaps without the pupil even being aware of a change, they are thrust up on the other side. Up out of presumption, superstition, and petty influences. Up into an open minded readiness.

"I don't suppose you knew this fellow in life?" he asked.

"No. Before now I've only briefly visited London. On holidays, or for weddings and funerals. Mostly. I run the so-called Ancestral Home, in Broadmire."

"Ah. From the clinking I've been hearing, I assume Miss Myra is still trying to get some chicken broth down the valiantly persevering Mr. Thrup across the hall. Go and ask her if I can trouble her for a minute of her time, would you please?"

"Certainly." Fox looked curious, but held his questions for the moment.

As soon as the young Rubbery had left the room, Felix set his doctor's bag on the floor and opened it. Moving quickly and deftly, he drew out a felt sleeve, and from the sleeve, a syringe. There was a lump of cork stuck on the end of the needle, which he promptly pulled off with his teeth.

The bubos would have been a convenient deposit of blood, albeit intermixed with puss. But they had lanced and cleaned this fellow's swollen glands while treating him. And a fresh needle mark on the neck might be noticed. So Felix pulled the bed clothes down. Finding the body naked to the waist, he moved his left hand lightly up the torso, pressing gently to locate the sternum. Without hesitation he inserted the needle at an angle, a couple inches lower, on the midline of the body.

Felix drew on the plunger until the glass cylinder was full, then drew the needle back out. He jabbed the tip back into the cork and returned the syringe to it's sleeve, and the sleeve to his bag. Finally, he drew the bedclothes back up. It was done quickly, but smoothly, without hurrying. He looked up when Fox returned with Miss Myra en tow.

"Ah, Miss Myra. Sorry to call you away. I was hoping you might know if this man has family in the city. Or if he made known any preference regarding the treatment of his body."

Miss Myra's eyes went from Felix to the recently deceased man in the bed.

"A wife. And two little ones." Her voice carried a tempered sadness. "They were already... gone."

Felix waited what seemed a polite interval before speaking again.

"Do you sew, Miss Myra?"

Having spent many hours over the last year working in the presence of Lord Rubbery, Myra was somewhat more accustomed to non-sequiturs than the average person. She had eventually given up on trying to figure them out. She simply answered, assuming that if she was meant to understand, someone would explain.

"Not to speak of. Put patch to a few blankets when it was needful." she replied.

"Ah. Excellent."

"Excellent?" she frowned.

Felix opened his bag and shifted the contents. He drew out a coil of silk thread and a curved suture needle. Myra eyed the gleaming crescent of the needle and began to reconsider her method of dealing with non-sequiturs.

"Yes. Please stitch this unfortunate soul in his bedsheets, then have him taken to one of the pyres outside the city walls. If there is no means of transport here, I am given to understand there are carters making the rounds, who will do the job."

"Well, yes, I suppose." Myra accepted the thread and needle, turning the latter in her fingers curiously.

"Let us consider this the normal procedure under such circumstances from now on. His Lordship can afford more sheets, and I expect the remaining clothiers will be thankful for the custom." Felix continued brusquely.

He began to turn to Fox, then stopped when he noticed Myra hesitating.

"If his Lordship questions you, do tell him that you are acting on my orders, and I claim all responsibility."

Myra shrugged.

"That's alright then." While Felix turned to speak to young master Rubbery, she began adjusting the bed clothes and threading the needle.

"Master Fox, you have the makings of a fine apprentice physician. I'm grateful for your help thus far, but now I have a favor to ask."

"Of course. How can I help?"

"Please find someone trustworthy, or Rollo," Myra emitted what might have been a sniff, and then again might have been a snort, "and send them along to my lodgings to feed my mule, Caesar."

"Oh. Uh, certainly." Fox sounded faintly disappointed.

"Never fear, there will be more lessons on the morrow if not before. If I do not have cause to pose requests of a more heroic nature in the coming days, I will be very surprised."

"You'll not find me wanting." Fox smiled, turning to go.

Felix listened and, yes, the sound of the young man's steps paused at the curtain, then shuffled a couple steps to pause again at the font of spirits, before carrying on up the hall. Lifting his doctor's bag, Felix stepped to the door.

"I'll be seeing to the rest of the patients now, Miss Myra. Call if you need anything."

"Mm."

Felix moved to the next room to look in on a more hopeful case. A young woman perhaps a year older than Fox Rubbery, who Myra referred to as Sister Angela. In an uncommon display of good sense, the girl had sought help at the first signs of illness. And despite being a nun, or perhaps a nun in training -- Felix was a bit spotty about the practices of nuns -- she had left her abbey and come to Rubbery Hall to do that seeking.

She had contracted the common bubonic strain, which was terrible. Unless compared with the pneumonic strain, which spread by means of the moisture in a carrier's breath and left very few survivors. Rubbery the elder and his nurses had lanced and cleaned the girl's swellings and treated them with compresses of breadmold, ginger, and garlic. Thankfully they managed this without introducing the disease into her blood, which would have eventuated the third form -- septicemic. The Mortality in it's bloodborne form left less than very few survivors. It left precisely zero, in fact.

That last fact galled Felix greatly, but it was a difficult thing to study, let alone combat. Just as the pneumonic and the septicemic strains killed progressively more of their victims, they also killed progressively more quickly.

But here was a consolation in the form of a willowy, hundred pound girl. If she survived, Felix would suggest that the Lord of the house offer her a position nursing the patients alongside Myra. Regardless of whether or not the church was willing to have her back after she deserted to seek secular help, the story of her recovery could give a powerful boost to the morale of those still fighting the plague.

A bedside table was strewn with the makings for more compresses. Garlic cloves, a lump of ginger, a small knife, strips of linen, and what was probably more moldy bread folded in a linen handkerchief. This in addition to one half burned candle. Nearby was a low chair. Felix sat, setting his bag down, and started by laying a hand on the girl's forehead to check her temperature.

Hot, as expected, but not dangerously.

He went through the motions, checking her for signs of secondary infection or organ failure. Taking her pulse. Checking for excessive sweating and to see if she had urinated. Little chance she had soiled herself, being several days into a mainly chicken broth diet.

Finally he removed the girl's bandages, and the compresses covering the opened swellings under her arms. Holding the mass of dirty linen in one hand, he took up the candle from the bedside table and brought it closer. Unmindful of the dribbles of hot wax that spilled over and onto his hand, he peered closely at one wound and then the other.

"So far, so good."

Replacing the candle where he had found it, he left the room. After disposing of the old linen, he returned with a spirit soaked rag and wiped the girl down from neck to navel. He took his time crushing garlic and cutting slivers from the ginger. Adding lumps of moldy bread and dividing the results into two folds of linen. As he began applying the new compresses, the young woman stirred.

She murmured unintelligibly, but her eyes remained closed. Felix watched, then leaned close and spoke softly.

"Shh. Rest easy, child."

He waited to see if she would wake fully, but she soon subsided again. Felix finished securing her new bandages. He drew the blanket back up to her neck before delving into his bag and coming up with a small clamshell tin. Opened, it revealed a mother of pearl lining, and a dollop of pure beeswax loaded into one half. Scooping out a bit of wax, he warmed it between thumb and fingertip, then carefully smoothed it over the girl's parched lips. As an afterthought, he repeated the process, this time applying a protective layer to her reddened nose.

Felix tucked the tin away and latched his bag. He slipped out of the room and into the next, where he more or less repeated the same work, though with a less hopeful outlook. The man had been a foreman among the shoremen down at Three Crane. Felix saw distinct signs that his health had been less than perfect before The Mortality found him. Over the past few days, the man's fever had broken twice, only to return hours later.