The new day was as cold as the night had been but they did not build up the fire at once. Instead they plugged the gaps beneath the door and around the window, using the straw fallen from the third pallet bed. Yet as the chill crept around them, draughts quickly reassembling through the straw plugs, finally David said, “It’s fire we need after all. Will you light it?” Rob piled the ready faggots, creating a small dazzle across the hearth. David then boiled water, and reheated the remaining pottage for their dinner. The freeze ebbed and Nicholas continued to sweat. He moaned a little, and tossed, eyes firmly closed, while muttering to himself. When the wind gusted outside, the building swayed, creaking like a ship under sail, its planks and boards shifting and shifting back. The window frames rattled and bursts of dust hurtled down the chimney, twice obliterating the fire. Finally, during the afternoon, the winds quietened as a hazy sunshine took its turn.
David sat long hours, clenching his fists, knuckles white. He and Rob talked sometimes, quietly and with no particular purpose except passing time, for waiting was the only possibility, and waiting in silence created the whispering ghosts of hopelessness; the other contagion.
The busy lives of the cramped dwellings echoed from outside, thumping from stair to overhead and back again. The noises reverberated continuously, the wailing of small children and cursing of those older, the ringing of pot on trivet and the clang of ladle on cauldron, the endless squabbling, a husband’s fist sending his wife to the ground and the heavy thwack of her falling body, then the cursing again, complaints, and tearful pleas of forgiveness. David sat hunched over the pallet where Nicholas lay. Rob trotted from hearth to table, and from stool to mattress.
Biting his lip, David muttered, “There is no change. It has been a long time with no result.”
“Better no change than a worse change.”
“I need to know.” David looked up, bleak. The flesh of his face seemed to hang wearily as if it now lacked the strength to stay tight to its bones. “I show no signs – no illness. Yet I sat by the dying boys before his lordship came. Should I not have sickened first?”
“Ain’t no knowing how it spreads, nor what makes one get it, and another not.” Rob sat cross legged on the ground beside him. “The air, some says. It’s in the air. But you both left that air behind long back. Maybe your lord swallowed the air, and you didn’t.”
“He touched the boys. I did not.”
Rob shrugged. “Some folks burn the clothes after a death. Is that because of touch? Or because the air’s in the folds? Not even the doctors agree. ’Tis a shame for them nice hose and fancy shirt, if theys what holds the pestilence to the body.”
“Should we strip him then? Burn everything? He’s only recently recovered from a fire that near killed him, so it would be an irony and for what? Guesses? I do not know.” David shook his head. “My lord believed there was a set time between contact with the disease, and showing signs of catching one from the other. Five days he said, six at the most. Seems he was right on that.”
“A gent can count. Doctors and priests – they sees more of the sick than the rest of us – and they reckons on the days between sick and sicker too. I heard three and I heard six as the time it takes to grow inside afore showing.” Rob shrugged again. “But I ain’t sick. And you ain’t sick.”
Nicholas breathed with a steady and guttural wheeze, and did not open his eyes. The shadows, pale in the sallow light seeping through the window, crept in and shrank back, moving and assembling around the bleak and empty corners. Across the hearth the flames burst bright, then crackled low into spark and spit. Sudden warmth and sudden chill, light then dark, and through it all his breathing, rhythmic and hoarse, marked the day’s passage.
“You’re not sick,” David told Rob, “because you never saw the two dying children up north. If you catch it at all, it would have to come from my lord, and the days between catching and showing have not yet passed. For me it’s different. Surely I should have been ill by now, if I had it.”
“It’s enough to make me head spin,” Rob objected, “like sums in the market. A penny for this and a penny for that – well, it’s gonna cost two penny. I can do that. But when it’s a pie, hot and juicy, with a stalk of radish, a cup o’ beer and a basket of cabbage greens – well, that’s got to be added all together. Head spinning stuff – like this. So many days to catch and so many days to wait. Then is it touch or swallow, or is it the air over your head or the doublet off your back? Well – I’m telling you – I don’t bloody care. I ain’t got it. I never got it last time and I ain’t gonna catch it now. The pestilence don’t frighten me.”
“Don’t mention hot pies,” mumbled David. “Is that watery pottage hot yet?”
Rob staggered back up to his feet and peered into the cauldron. “Simmering. Hot enough. Don’t smell particular appetising, but food’s food and it’s two days without none so I’m starving. Where’s your trenchers?”
“There’s no bread, neither fresh nor stale for trenchers. But platters are here,” and he brought two over, and spoons for them both.
They conserved their candles for the small room took light when the little fire blazed, but the gloom dragged into the dismal hours of a dismal afternoon, even when sunshine flickered sometimes through the cloud. It was near supper time when Rob marched off to speak to his brother, but returned quickly, saying only, “Well – like I said afore. ’Tis a dull life for dull folks.” He looked across at David, and at Nicholas beside him. Rob said suddenly, “By the by, your gent’s waking.”
David leaned over in a hurry. “My lord?”
Nicholas had opened his eyes, frowning as he tried to wedge himself up a little against the sweat sodden bolster. “David?” He rubbed his eyes, trying to focus. “Is it dinner time? I smell food, but I’ve no appetite for it. Has something happened? Have I been trampled by horses? And who the devil is that?”
“More a saint than a devil.” David smiled, immediately reassured. “It’s my neighbour, Rob. Don’t you remember him from last night? But you’ve been ill all day, my lord, and dinner time is long gone, with the pottage you smell long eaten. Through all that time you’ve been unable to sit, unable to speak, and the pain, I believe, has kept you unconscious. That at least was a gift of salvation. But now it seems you are a little – just a very little – recovered. I pray that’s true.”
Nicholas fell back on the straw, lost again within the shadows. His voice was soft, as though he had no strength for louder. He murmured, “I’ve been ill then? Nor fight nor battle? I hurt in every limb, as though kicked and battered.”
“My lord, with your permission, I’ll examine you. Where does it hurt?”
After a pause, Nicholas said, “Everywhere,” and closed his eyes.
David searched him, once more pulling up the soiled shirt, and calling for Rob to bring a candle. With trembling and gentle care, he traced the flattened muscles across his master’s chest, barely touching and quickly drawing back. Finally he said, “It’s true. I’d swear the rash is already fading, and the bruises beneath the skin are pale and shrinking. There are no new marks and the flush and heat is lesser too. There are without doubt neither buboes nor swellings of any kind.”
“Your fingers at my groin,” Nicholas told him faintly, “are most disconcerting. Whatever you’ve lost, my friend, you will hardly find there.”