Jory jumped to his feet, holding his hand up as if to ward Lucian away.
‘It’s plague, Lucian.’
‘What?’
‘Not the whole camp. They think they may have contained it. To one cave. But I don’t want you to come near me in case I’ve got it.’
The boy was wild-eyed. Full of fear, but not for himself.
‘Talk to me, Jory,’ Lucian said, walking to the lad. ‘Don’t be frightened. Just talk.’
‘Stay away, Lucian. I beg of you.’
‘Where’s my wife, Jory? Where’s Phaedra?’
Jory seemed confused. Dazed. He pointed back to the camp across the stream, his arm dropping with a fatigue of spirit.
‘When we arrived this morning it was all so normal,’ Jory said, ‘and I stopped a moment, you know. I didn’t mean to but I stopped a moment to speak to Kasabian because I try so hard with him, Lucian. Phaedra had gone into Angry Cora’s cave and later, when I went to enter, Phaedra yelled at me. “Stop Jory,” she said. “We think it’s plague. Call Matteo who has seen plague himself.” ’
Jory shuddered.
‘Rafuel or Matteo or whoever he wants to be, he went to the cave but didn’t go inside. I saw him from the entrance, Lucian. I saw his face. I thought his heart had stopped beating. He ordered the camp leaders and Harker and Kasabian and everyone away. “Plague,” he shouted. “Plague.”
‘Harker had to be held back. “You can’t keep me away from my women,” he shouted. But Rafuel picked up a sword and said that the next person to pass him would die with a sword through his heart. “Plague is plague,” he said. Everyone was ordered back to their caves. Rafuel told Donashe that the women had to be isolated, “They can’t just stay there in the middle of us all and spread their stinking disease.” He was like a madman, Rafuel was. Phaedra came to the entrance and said that she would take the women further down the stream and that perhaps in that way, they’d contain it. And I called out to her, Lucian. Truly I did. I said, “Phaedra, you’ve not been there long. You can stay with us because it can’t catch you that fast. Not if you haven’t touched them.” But she wouldn’t come, Lucian. She said that if she returned with me and brought plague to the mountain and to the children, she would never forgive herself and nor would you, Lucian.’
Jory looked back to the Charynite camp again, as if willing Phaedra to walk through the trees.
‘So now they’re downstream and Phaedra said that each day she’ll write a message outside a cave wall up high with an ochre stick, the writing big and bold.’
‘Write what?’ Lucian asked, horrified. But he didn’t need to hear the answer.
Phaedra would write the numbers of the dead.
Despite Jory’s pleas to keep away, Lucian crossed the stream and approached Rafuel, who was standing in a huddle with the rest of the camp dwellers. Lucian grabbed him, shaking him hard.
‘How many of them are there?’ he asked.
‘Six.’
‘Take me to her.’
‘And what?’ Rafuel spat. ‘Get yourself killed. Have you ever seen plague, Mont. I doubt that in your cosy Osterian hills. If I take you to her cave, Lumatere will be annihilated within weeks. I was there six years ago. I lived through the last plague we had.’
Rafuel turned to the others. ’I say this to you all. The first man or woman who travels past me to that cave downstream will catch an arrow to their heart. The first man or woman who does not report a sign will catch an arrow to their heart.’
‘Are you camp leader all of a sudden, Matteo?’ Lucian demanded.
Donashe stepped forward. ‘We stand by Matteo’s threat,’ he said.
Rafuel stared at Lucian. ‘If you cross the stream again then you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were, Mont.’
Lucian stayed with Jory on the Lumateran side of the stream for days. When he saw Yael coming down the mountain on the third day he called out to his cousin to stay away. Although he strongly suspected that he and Jory were not in danger, he couldn’t take the chance. The only good news was that none of the cave dwellers had reported symptoms, although there were those who, according to Rafuel, reported anything from a sneeze to an itch.
But on the fourth day the true horror began. Downstream from where the women had moved, two markings on the outer wall of one of the caves appeared. Two dead. Lucian held his vigil with Jory. Across the stream he saw Harker and Kasabian and the husband of the lazy girl Ginny, waiting. Two days later Rafuel reported two more markings on the cave walls. On the seventh day Rafuel travelled to the caves with his body wrapped and every part of him covered but his eyes. Lucian and the world of the valley prayed, dreading the news. And later that afternoon, they all saw the flames from a distance.
‘Not good,’ Kasabian muttered. ‘Not good.’
Rafuel returned and Lucian crossed the stream with Jory, to join Kasabian and Harker. He could see that Rafuel’s face was ashen, his eyes everywhere but on the men who stood before him.
‘Matteo?’ Kasabian asked. ‘Speak, Matteo.’
And the moment Rafuel’s eyes met Lucian’s, he knew.
‘All of them?’ Harker asked, his voice broken. Rafuel nodded. He looked around to where a crowd was gathering.
‘But not Phaedra?’ Lucian said.
‘All of them, Mont.’
Lucian shook his head, not wanting to believe.
‘I want to see her,’ he said, pushing past Rafuel.
‘You can’t. The corpse of a plague victim carries disease. I had to burn them.’
Jory grabbed Lucian, trying to drag him back.
‘Mont, don’t risk our lives,’ Donashe ordered.
The cries of fear and grief stopped Lucian.
‘You had no right to do that,’ he accused Rafuel. ‘She was my wife. You had no right.’
‘I had every right in the world, Mont,’ Rafuel shouted. ‘What were you going to do? Bury her in the ground. We don’t honour our dead in such a way.’
‘She was my wife!’
‘She didn’t belong to you any more,’ Rafuel said. ‘She didn’t belong to her father. She belonged to this valley and I had every right in the world. These people are frightened. They’ve lost Phaedra and they believe your queen will exile us for fear of spreading the plague.’
‘I want to see my wife,’ Harker said. ‘I want to see my daughter! Take me to them!’
Rafuel went to walk away. ‘You know that’s not possible.’
Harker leapt on Rafuel, beating him with a rage beyond anything Lucian had seen amongst these people. It took four men to drag him from Rafuel and they tied his hands and legs. ‘You had no right to take them from me,’ Harker wept. ‘No right. I want to see my Florenza. I want to see my Jorja.’
In the mountains when Lucian and Jory returned, the Monts were waiting for them. Yael and his wife were there, overjoyed to see their son alive and well.
‘Where’s Phaedra?’ Tesadora asked, and Lucian saw tears in the eyes of a woman he had believed would weep for no one.
‘Lucian!’ Japhra and Constance and the novices grabbed at the fleece of his coat as he walked towards his cottage. ‘Where is she, Lucian?’
He continued walking, leaving behind their cries.
Later, Yata and Tesadora came with supper and they ate it quietly.
‘Foolish girl,’ Tesadora said. ‘Foolish girl.’
Foolish man, Lucian thought, who took a year to realise he loved his wife and never said the words to her.
‘Tomorrow you go to Alonso,’ Yata said quietly. ‘Her father needs to know.’
As Lucian set off the next day, Jory and Yael were waiting for him outside Pitts’s cottage.
‘We thought we’d come with you, Lucian. To keep you company, cousin,’ Jory said, and Lucian thought how young he looked. Still a boy.