The city was breaking apart into two camps: those who blamed the plague on spiritual corruption and those who believed it was just an ordinary disease, no more selective about who it struck down than Reikflu. The religious-minded either kept to their homes, fasting and praying, or else prowled the streets in penitent mobs, lashing themselves with whips and preaching that the judgement of the gods was upon mankind. The threat of the world’s ending, however, only made those less spiritually inclined increase the magnitude of their debauchery. ‘Eat, drink and love,’ was their mantra. ‘For tomorrow, we feed the rats!’
Walther gritted his teeth as he considered the horror of such a toast. As the people of Nuln became fewer, the number of rats had swollen to fantastic proportions. With the cats and dogs culled by superstitious peasants, the vermin roamed the streets with unprecedented boldness. There had been hideous stories of rats creeping into cradles and gnawing the infants inside. Bodies left out in the gutter would be picked down to the bone in a few hours.
The rat-catcher shook his head. At one time he would have considered the ferocity and fecundity of the vermin as good for his business. He didn’t feel that way any more. He appreciated the suffering of his fellow man better than before the plague had come. To profit from another’s misery would make him nothing better than a parasite. Besides, the Assembly had stopped issuing bounties for rats. The problem was simply too big to solve that way. Like everyone else in the city, the nobles had resigned themselves to sitting back and waiting for events to run their course.
In the alleyway, a big black rat scurried through the snow, so confident that it didn’t even twitch a whisker as it passed near the Black Rose. Walther watched the repulsive rodent wend its way towards the street, diverting its course only when it drew near a beggar slumped in a doorway. Apparently the wretch was still healthy enough to be a poor prospect for the rat’s appetite.
‘Herr Schill?’ a muffled voice called out from the darkness. Walther turned away from the retreating rat and turned around. A gasp of alarm automatically escaped him. As the speaker stepped out from the shadows, Walther found himself confronted by a tall figure enclosed within a black gown of waxed canvas. A wide-brimmed leather hat fitted to a waxed canvas hood covered the man’s head while a grotesque mask with a protruding beak concealed his face.
‘You… you are the doktor?’ Walther asked. The ghoulish apparition sketched a slight bow. The rat-catcher felt anger swell up inside him. ‘You were asked to be discreet, not come dressed like a raven of Morr!’
The plague doktor shrugged. ‘You cannot pay me enough to take any chances,’ he said, his words all but smothered by his mask. ‘The graveyards are filled with imprudent men.’
‘Get inside, before someone sees you!’ Walther hissed. He reached for the plague doktor, but the man brushed his hand away with the heavy walking stick he carried.
‘I said I do not take chances.’ The doktor pointed with his staff at the tavern. ‘Lead me to the patient, but do it without touching. I try to limit physical contact when I can.’
Fuming at the plague doktor’s condescending tone, Walther showed him through the tavern’s side entrance. At this late hour even the Black Rose was without a crowd. The cook and his assistants had retired, leaving just Zena to attend the few patrons still abroad. She nodded when she saw Walther appear at the door, motioning that it was safe to come in. The rat-catcher and the plague doktor swept past her. Walther pulled open the trap in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the cellar below. Zena and the plague doktor followed close behind him.
The cellar was filled with casks of wine and barrels of beer, provisions Bremer was hoarding against the day when quarantine conditions would kill all traffic from the rest of Wissenland and force Nuln to survive on what was already within the city walls. Walther circled through the confusion of boxes, making for a faint glimmer of light at the back of the cellar.
A section of the room had been partitioned off by a ragged curtain, behind which Hugo lay sprawled on a pallet. In his fever, he had pushed away the mass of furs and blankets Zena had provided to keep him warm. Despite the frosty chill which gripped the cellar, Hugo’s nightshirt was soaked with sweat, fairly plastered against his chest.
Walther shook his head sadly as he gazed down at his friend, then his lip curled back in anger. Several rats were circling around the pallet, gnawing away at the rushlights they had knocked down. One of the rodents had even started on the stem of the only light still held fast to its fixture. Walther shouted at the loathsome vermin, but the bold rats didn’t so much as glance in his direction. Only when he started forwards and caught one of the rats with a kick did the scavengers retreat, fading into the blackness with instinctive ease. They didn’t retreat far, their beady eyes gleaming from the shadows as they watched the people gather around the sickbed.
Walther hurriedly righted the remains of the rushlights, pushing them back into their stands with frustrated violence. ‘Why weren’t you watching him!’ he snarled at Zena when he had the tapers lit once more. ‘You should never leave him alone! The rats…’
Zena stepped to Walther’s side, laying her hand against his chest. She knew he didn’t mean the unjust accusation, that he was simply lashing out because of the helplessness he felt. He was powerless to stop Hugo’s decline and that was something Walther couldn’t accept.
While Zena consoled Walther, the plague doktor stood over Hugo, the glass eyes of his garish mask reflecting the fires of the rushlights. The invalid recoiled from the dreadful apparition hovering over him, but didn’t have the strength to ward away the doktor’s staff as it jabbed at his nightshirt. The copper talon at the end of the stick hooked the fabric of the nightshirt, peeling the garment back and exposing the sick man’s chest. A smell of vinegar exuded from the bird-like mask as the doktor peered closer at his patient.
‘Plague,’ the physician declared, tugging his stick free from Hugo’s clothes and retreating from the man’s bedside. He turned his back to the pallet and concentrated on holding the copper talon at the end of his staff in the fires of the rushlights.
Walther’s fists clenched at the plague doktor’s callous attitude. ‘Do something for him.’ He pulled away from Zena’s restraining arms. ‘You’re supposed to be a healer! Help him!’
The bird-like mask turned and the glass eyes fixed upon Walther’s enraged features. ‘I’ve heard too many pleas, too many threats, to feel anything. If you are appealing to the better angels of my nature, I’m afraid you are too late. They flew the coop months ago.’ The plague doktor drew the copper talon away from the flame, inspecting the hot glow of the metal. ‘After a dozen deaths, you learn not to care. After a hundred, you can’t even if you wanted to.’
‘You must be able to do something,’ Walther growled.
The plague doktor looked past the rat-catcher and his woman, staring at Hugo’s wasted frame. The physician’s gloved hands drew a tiny clay bottle from a pouch on his belt. Grimly, he set it down on one of the boxes. ‘You’ve paid me well, so I leave you this. It will make his going swift.’ He tapped the neck of the little bottle. ‘By Verena, if I only had more of it. Enough for everyone.
‘I won’t inform the Hundertschaft about this,’ the plague doktor said, his tone becoming harsh. ‘By law, I am required to. By conscience, it is my obligation. But, I suppose it makes no difference. The gods have decided that we’re all going to die. It is only a matter of time.’ He turned away, walking back across the cellar towards the ladder. On his way, he snatched a bottle of wine from a rack against the wall. ‘I’m going home to drink this and in the morning I will have forgotten I was ever here.’
Walther didn’t move until the plague doktor was gone. His eyes were fixed upon the bottle the physician had left.