Harry shook his head. “I ain’t never had it, and don’t want it now, thanking you all the same. Friends, brothers or no – I’m off.” And he dropped the oil lamp on the ground and hurried out through the half open door, closing it hard behind him.
Rob sighed as David took up the lamp. “Where’s you been, then, lords and all, to catch a thing like this and bring it here to us?”
“My apologies,” David said, “but I must point out how you burst in here uninvited. We had no intention of speaking to anyone, or risking anyone’s health but our own. Five days gone, we were in close contact with some who died, and others who sickened. We’ve travelled a long cold journey to leave our friends safe from possible contagion, and had no thought to bring it here.”
“Caught it a long way off?” nodded the man, lifting shirt and blanket from Nicholas’s body. “That’s good news, I reckon, and maybe it won’t spread. Now, let’s have a look.”
Nicholas lay quiet, eyes closed. His breathing was shallow now, gurgling a little in his throat as gradually he seemed to sway between consciousness and sleep. But his body was unmarked, and the muscled symmetry of his chest was smooth in the flickering light. David exhaled, and sat back on his heels. “There are no signs – no rash – no swellings – nothing like the two wretched boys that died.”
“Maybe too early,” Rob said, his hand to Nicholas’s forehead. “But this bugger’s burning up. Fever comes first.”
David sat in miserable silence for one moment, then stood abruptly. “I’ll stoke up the fire,” he said, “and try to stop the draughts.”
“That’s what them doctors tell us,” wondered Rob, “but is it right for a gent already on fire to warm hisself beside more flames? I reckon we should leave it be. But he needs beer or some such to drink, for the next sign is a thirst so terrible it cracks lips and splits the tongue.”
“We have ale,” David said, taking up one of the saddle bags from a corner. “But we brought only as much as we could carry, and intended it to last three days until we felt safe enough to leave this place. And wine too – but that has another purpose. To die – in such pain – can at least be avoided, my master said, if enough wine is drunk to fall unconscious.”
Rob shook his head. “Keep the wine for later then. But get that ale. Nor it ain’t three days you needs to worrit about, is it? ’Tis now, and this gent needs ale to drink and water to wash him cool. You gets it then, and I’ll do it.”
“He’s my master, and the man I love,” David said quietly. “Which is why I am here, to live or die by his side. And I shall do whatever is necessary to keep him safe.”
Chapter Fifteen
It was impossible to tell when dawn turned to day. No rosy light bathed the room nor sped sunbeams across those fitfully sleeping. So the disturbed night led them to waking late, and it was Nicholas, still uncomprehending, his fever exacerbated, that finally woke them. He drifted between sleep and a plaintive, questioning murmur. “Is it true?” he asked. “Is it come?” Then he turned away and slept quietly, but suddenly woke once more, and tried to sit. “She is calling for me,” he insisted. “And the little ones are silent in their cribs. Does she know they have gone?”
“My lord,” David said, leaning over him, “You must sleep. There is nothing to worry about, nor need to think on for now.”
“Call me then,” Nicholas sighed, “when she wakes.”
Rob had been snoring, half propped against the wall. Now he blinked one sticky eye. “Make sense, does he, your gent? Or is it babble he’s talking?”
“Babble. Memories. Delirium,” David sighed. “So he is worsening. Yet I still feel strong. I have no fever – no headaches – no weakness or rash. So I will be nursing my lord from now until – until whatever comes. You should go, before you take greater risk.”
“I’ll go when I’m ready, and I ain’t ready,” decided the other man. “Thing is – grand lords, whether living nor dying – and folks appearing sudden in the night – it’s interesting, you might say – in a mighty dull world.”
David was washing his master’s face and neck, the water rolling down into the opening of his shirt where the sweat glistened like oil. He said, “If this wretched business seems interesting to you, then your usual life must be dull indeed.”
“Well, as it happens,” admitted Rob, “apart from quarrelling with me brother – dull so it is. And I can never rightly remember what them quarrels is even about afterwards. ’Tis a grey world and a grey life. No work to be had nor for pay nor for dinner, so all them dreary hours is spent chasing just enough to keep alive.” He paused, scratching his groin. “You say your Pa had this dump afore you? Old man Witton, was it? Worked at the charcoal in the old woods out beyond St. John’s, didn’t he? Bit of a bastard, but then, aren’t we all! Being your name’s David, reckon I remember you as a little lad. Never liked you much. Whined a lot, you did. ’Spose you was hungry, like the rest of us.”
David had pulled the cloth from the window, and a greasy pale ooze was puddling across the floorboards. “Yes, I’m David Witton,” he said, “And I certainly remember being always hungry. But I don’t remember you.”
“Robert Bambrigg. Ten year older, more or less, and ten year wiser no doubt.”
David smiled faintly. “Probably true, since you were wise enough to stay right here, and I was foolish enough to leave, to travel, to educate myself and finally to find employment at Chatwyn Castle in the Midlands.”
“The Midlands, eh?” Rob shook his head. “Don’t trust them northerners. Funny lot.” He thought a moment. “Though your Pa were a funny bugger too, if I remembers right. Weren’t it your old man stuck your Ma’s hand in the fire when he found her pissed, passed out downstairs with her skirts up round her neck and some old beggar climbed on top, with you as a little lad bawling your eyes out beside her?”
David stiffened, his expression changing. “As I told you, I left. I had many reasons for leaving.”
Rob interrupted abruptly. “Your gent,” he said, squinting through the gloom, “reckon he’s not too well again. Worsening, pr’aps.”
Nicholas appeared agitated, his eyelids fluttering as though in dreams. He spoke suddenly, crying out. “She is bleeding – from here – and here. Her mouth is full of blood. Her eyes bleed. Her fingers – look – the nails peel away and there is blood beneath.” And then he was silent again and slept as though unconscious.
David dropped to his knees beside Nicholas, fingers to the collar of his shirt. “It’s the marks of the pestilence. Vile, creeping bruises.” He thrust his hands under the shirt’s hem and pulled it up. Both men peered down. David sighed again. “Bad. But not as bad as I’d feared. The marks are shallow and light, and there are few of them.”
The rash, a dusky sepia in the low light, dappled the skin in shadows, creeping around the rise of his chest, fading out below the arms, more lurid across the ribs. Flat blotches, some larger, others smaller, uneven and misshapen, straddled his upper body. His nipples stood like tiny brown islands in a weeping sea of poisons.
“Nort to do but wait,” nodded Rob. “It’ll get worser. Or it’ll get better.”
Nicholas groaned in his sleep, wandering through an inconclusive misery, grasping at sudden visions, then losing his way in darkness and confusion. He believed he struggled, climbing hills of rock and shingle where his bare feet slipped, and tore on jutting stones. Turning aside, he saw his mother beckoning. But when he followed her, she collapsed dying at his feet, calling out for her babies and for the help he could not bring her. Then finally he saw another woman, russet haired and dark eyed. He could not remember her name or who she was, but watched as she smiled, and came close, and lay beside him. He slipped his hand inside the open neck of her gown, his fingers tingling at the firm smoothness of her breasts. Then pain convulsed him, and a burning heat, and he drifted into delirium again.