She had pushed Lady Imeyne's casket under the bed when they brought Rosemund up. She pulled it out and looked through it at the dried herbs and powders. The contemps had used homegrown remedies like St. John's wort and bittersweet during the plague, but they had been as useless as the powdered emeralds.
Fleabane might help, but she couldn't find any of the pink or purple flowers in the little linen bags.
When Roche came back, she sent him for willow branches from the stream, and steeped them into a bitter tea. "What is this brew?" Roche asked, tasting it and making a face.
"Aspirin," Kivrin said. "I hope."
Roche gave a cup to the clerk, who was past caring what it tasted like, and it seemed to bring his temp down a little, but Rosemund's rose steadily all afternoon, till she was shivering with chills. By the time Roche left to say vespers, she was almost too hot to touch.
Kivrin uncovered her and tried to bathe her arms and legs in cool water to bring the fever down, but Rosemund wrenched angrily away from her. "It is not seemly you should touch me thus, sir," she said through chattering teeth. "Be sure I shall tell my father when he returns."
Roche did not come back. Kivrin lit the tallow lamps and tucked the bedcoverings around Rosemund, wondering what had become of him.
She looked worse in the smoky light, her face wan and pinched. She murmured to herself, repeating Agnes's name over and over, and once she asked fretfully, "Where is he? He should have been here ere now."
He should have been, Kivrin thought. The bell had tolled vespers half an hour ago. He's in the kitchen, she told herself, making us soup. Or he has gone to tell Eliwys how Rosemund is. He isn't ill. But she stood up and climbed on the window seat and looked out into the courtyard. It was getting colder, and the dark sky was overcast. There was no one in the courtyard, no light or sound anywhere.
Roche opened the door, and she jumped down, smiling. "Where have you been? I was — " she said and stopped.
Roche was wearing his vestments and carrying the oil and viaticum. No, she thought, glancing at Rosemund. No.
"I have been with Ulf the Reeve," he said. "I heard his confession." Thank God it's not Rosemund, she thought, and then realized what he was saying. It was in the village.
"Are you certain?" she asked. "Does he have the plague- boils?"
"Aye."
"How many others are in the household?"
"His wife and two sons," he said tiredly. "I bade her wear a mask and sent her sons to cut willows."
"Good," she said. There was nothing good about it. No, that wasn't true. At least it was bubonic plague and not pneumonic, so there was still a chance the wife and two sons wouldn't get it. But how many other people had Ulf infected, and who had infected him? Ulf would not have had any contact with the clerk. He must have caught it from one of the servants. "Are any others ill?"
"Nay."
It didn't mean anything. They only sent for Roche when they were very ill, when they were frightened. There might be three or four other cases already in the village. Or a dozen.
She sat down on the windowseat, trying to think what to do. Nothing, she thought. There's nothing you can do. It swept through village after village, killing whole families, whole towns. One-third to one-half of Europe.
"No!" Rosemund screamed, and struggled to rise.
Kivrin and Roche both dived for her, but she had already lain back down. They covered her up, and she kicked the bedclothes off again. "I will tell Mother, Agnes, you wicked child," she murmured. "Let me out."
It grew colder in the night. Roche brought up more coals for the brazier, and Kivrin climbed up in the window again to fasten the waxed linen over the window, but it was still freezing. Kivrin and Roche huddled by the brazier in turn, trying to catch a little sleep, and woke shivering like Rosemund.
The clerk did not shiver, but he complained of the cold, his words slurred and drunken-sounding. His feet and hands were cold and without feeling.
"They must have a fire," Roche said. "We must take them down to the hall."
You don't understand, she thought. Their only hope lay in keeping the patients isolated, in not letting the infection spread. But it has already spread, she thought, and wondered if Ulf's extremities were growing cold and what he would do for a fire? She had sat in one of their huts by one of their fires. It would not warm a cat.
The cats died, too, she thought and looked at Rosemund. The shivering racked her poor body, and she seemed already thinner, more wasted.
"The life is going out of them," Roche said.
"I know," she said, and began picking up the bedclothes. "Tell Maisry to spread straw on the hall floor."
The clerk was able to walk down the steps, Kivrin and Roche both supporting him, but Roche had to carry Rosemund in his arms. Eliwys and Maisry were spreading straw on the far side of the hall. Agnes was still asleep, and Imeyne knelt where she had the night before, her hands folded stiffly before her face.
Roche lay Rosemund down, and Eliwys began to cover her. "Where is my father?" Rosemund demanded hoarsely. "Why is he not here?"
Agnes stirred. She would be awake in a minute and clambering on Rosemund's pallet, gawking at the clerk. She must find some way to keep Agnes safely away from them. Kivrin looked up at the beams, but they were too high, even under the loft, to hang curtains from, and every available coverlet and fur was already being used. She began turning the benches on their sides and pulling them into a barricade. Roche and Eliwys came to help, and they tipped the trestle table over and propped it against the benches.
Eliwys went back over to Rosemund and sat down beside her. Rosemund was asleep, her face flushed with the reddish light from the fire.
"You must wear a mask," Kivrin said.
Eliwys nodded, but she didn't move. She smoothed Rosemund's tumbled hair back from her face. "She was my husband's favorite," she said.
Rosemund slept nearly half the morning. Kivrin pulled the Yule log off to the side of the hearth and piled cut logs on the fire. She uncovered the clerk's feet so they could feel the heat.
During the Black Death, the Pope's doctor had made him sit in a room between two huge bonfires, and he had not caught the plague. Some historians thought the heat had killed the plague bacillus. More likely his keeping away from his highly contagious flock was what had saved him, but it was worth trying. Anything was worth trying, she thought, watching Rosemund. She piled more wood on.
Father Roche went to say matins, though it was past midmorning. The bell woke Agnes up. "Who knocked over the benches?" she asked, running over to the barricade.
"You must not come past this fence," Kivrin said, standing well back from it. "You must stay by your grandmother."
Agnes clambered onto a bench and peered over the top of the trestle table. "I see Rosemund," she said. "Is she dead?"
"She is very ill," Kivrin said sternly. "You must not come near us. Go and play with your cart."
"I would see Rosemund," she said, putting one leg over the table.
"No!" Kivrin shouted. "Go and sit with your grandmother!"
Agnes looked astonished, and then burst into tears. "I would see Rosemund!" she wailed, but she went over and sat down beside Imeyne.
Roche came in. "Ulf's elder son is ill," he said. "He has the buboes."
There were two more cases during the morning and one in the afternoon, including the steward's wife. All of them had buboes or small seedlike growths on the lymph glands except the steward's wife.