“Mother of God, help me, help us,” he exclaimed. He knelt beside her, sponged her brow, made her chew on the twigs. Their juice also fought fever, though how much it could do against such raging heat he did not know.
When he had made her as comfortable as he could, he rushed out again, to the home of the district medical officer. That worthy was a small, delicate-featured man named Arethas Saronites. He looked tired unto death. When the magistrianos stammered out that his wife was sick, Saronites only brushed back a lock of his light brown hair from his eyes and said, “You’re Argyros, from the street of the pillowmakers, aren’t you?”
At Basil’s nod, the medical officer said, “God grant her healing,” and made an addition to the long list on his desk. I le looked up, surprised to find the magistrianos still there. “Will there be anything more?”
“A doctor, damn you!”
“One will be sent you.”
“Now,” Argyros said in a voice like iron. Of its own volition, his hand slipped toward his knife. Neither the tone nor the motion affected Saronites. “My dear sir, one in ten in the city is ill, maybe one in five. We do not have the physicians to treat them all at once.”
Deaf to his words, Argyros glanced into the hallway. “You had better desist, or Thomas there w ill put an arrow through your brisket,” Saronites warned.
The archer had his bow drawn and aimed. “You are not the first,” Saronites said kindly. “How can I blame you for trying to help your loved one? You will get your physician in your proper turn, I promise you.”
Shamed and beaten, Argyros gave a brusque nod and left. When he got home, Helen was sitting in the parlor, nursing Sergios. “Have a care, darling, or he may catch your sickness,” the magistrianos said. I le refused to say “smallpox”—if he did not name it, he could still hope it was not there. Except for two spots of hectic color high on her cheeks, Helen was very pale. Her eyes glittered feverishly. But she was not shivering anymore, and she answered him steadily: “I know, Basil, but he can starve too, and my breasts have milk in them. Do you think I could get a wetnurse to come into this house while I’m ill?”
Argyros bit his lip. No woman would risk herself thus, and he knew it. Nor could he condemn them for that, just as Saronites had not grown angry when he tried to take more than his due to Helen. “Cow’s milk?” he suggested at last.
Helen frowned. “It gives babies a flux of the bowels,” she said. After a moment, though, she muttered, half to herself, “Well, that’s a smaller chance to take.” Her voice firmed. “Yes, go get some. But how will you feed it to him? They take so little, sucking at rags soaked in milk.”
Argyros knew she w as right about that. He plucked at his beard. His time as a scouts officer had got him used to improvising, to using things to fit his needs, no matter what they were intended for. And unlike the routineers who staffed most of the Roman bureaucracy, he had to stay mentally alert to do his job. So—
He snapped his fingers. “I have it! I’ll use an enema syringe. By squeezing the sheep’s bladder, I can make as much milk as Sergios wants flow through the reed into his mouth.”
Sick as she was, Helen burst out laughing. “The very thing! What a clever husband I have. Oh—buy a new one.”
“Yes, I suppose I should, shouldn’t I?” Argyros smiled for the first time that day. As he went out again, he felt a small stir of hope.
Constantinople’s dairies were small, because there was not much room for grazing in the city. For the same reason, most of the dairies were at the edge of parks so the cattle could crop the grass there. The magistrianos hurried to the park where he had cut off the willow shoots that morning. He waited impatiently while the dairyman squeezed out a jug of milk. “You have a sick child?” the man asked.
“No—his mother.”
“Christ grant she get well, then, for her sake and the lad’s.” The dairyman and Argyros crossed themselves. The former went on, “Terrible, the smallpox. Me, I spend most of my time praying it’ll stay away from my family.”
“So did I,” the magistrianos said bleakly.
“Aye, and many besides you. I’ve more praying to do, though, for my wife Irene’s given me three sons and five daughters.” The dairyman bobbed his head. “I’m Peter Skleros, by the way.”
Argyros gave his own name, then said, “Eight children! And all well?”
“Aye, even little Peter, my youngest. He’s only three, and just starting to help get the dung out of the barn. Poor little fellow got a blister last week and had us all with our hearts in our throats, but it was only the cowpox.”
“What’s that? I never heard of it,” Argyros said.
“You’d have to be a dairyman or a farmer to know it. Mostly the cows catch it—you’d guess that from the name, wouldn’t you?” he chuckled,”—but sometimes them as keep ‘em get it too. I had it myself, years ago. But that’s not here nor there—we’re all well, and if God wants to let us stay so, why, I’ll keep on thanking Him and praising His name. And I’ll add a prayer or two for your family while I’m about it.”
“I thank you. May God hear yours more than He has mine.”
“You pray for yourself, sir, too,” Skleros said. “I can see by looking that you’ve not had the smallpox. It’d go hard if it came on you along with the rest.”
“Yes, it would.” The magistrianos shook his head; he had not thought about that. I le made himself put the worry aside. Short of fleeing his wife and child, he could not lessen the chance he would take the disease. He clapped the lid on the jar of milk, tucked it under his arm, and headed home.
“I hope I see you again,” the dairyman called after him.
“So do I,” Argyros said.
But when he got home, he forgot about Sergios and what his son needed, though the baby lay howling in his cradle. Helen must have set him down before she tried to return to her own bed, but she had not made it there. Argyros found her sprawled senseless on the floor. When he touched her, he swore and prayed at the same time: her fever was back, worse than before.
She was a dead weight in his arms as he picked her up; absently, he wondered why unconscious people seemed so much heavier to carry.
She half-roused when he set her on the bed. “Go away,” she muttered, “Go away.”
“Hush.” He did leave her for a moment, to soak a rag in a ewer of water. On the way back, he blew on it to make it cool, then set it on her forehead. She sighed and seemed to lose touch with the world again. He sat beside her, took her limp hand in his.
So passed the day. Argyros stayed by his wife, sponging her face and limbs with moist cloths and holding her still when the fever made her thrash about. She came partly to herself several times and kept urging him to get out. She would not listen to him when he told her no, but repeated her demand over and over.
Finally she revived enough to ask him, “Why won’t you go?”
“Because I love you,” he said. A smile lingered on her lips when she lapsed back into stupor. He had said that dozens of times while she was unconscious; it warmed him that she’d finally understood. He left the bedroom only when Sergios cried. He was clumsy cleaning the baby—Helen had done most of that—but he managed. Before he gave Sergios the milk-filled syringe, he smeared the tip of the tube with honey. The old midwife’s trick made the baby suck lustily, though he did make a face at the unfamiliar taste of his food.