“Many believed them creatures of great power, once,” Isadora says, studying the dead newts. “And some still do. The sickness that is killing them would, if such people are right, seem likely to have considerable power of its own. It’s possible, however, that it is an illness of their kind alone. Whatever the case, study your own bodies: if any of you feel ill, or feverish, or if you discover these sorts of sores upon your skin, and it happens that I am not here, then, Anje, fetch a healer from the Third District — they are all indebted to me, and will come. Speed is vital. Do you understand?”
Anje looks increasingly worried, but nods. “Of course, Mother.”
“We must burn these two now.” Isadora sees the children have built a small fire within walls of piled stones. “You have prepared a pyre, then — good. We must maintain it, and anything that you find dead, whether on the soil or in the water, burn it, respectfully and completely. Then mark the spots where you bury the ashes, so that you will not later disturb those already in the ground.”
Golo, the son for whom words come as readily as the grumbling of his belly at mealtime, twists his face into a mask of incomprehension. “‘Disturb’ them? But they will be dead and burned, by then, how will we disturb them—”
A rapping at the arched door in the garden wall interrupts the forthright boy: someone outside, on the Path of Shame, is in distress of some kind, that much is readily apparent. “I’ll answer it!” Dalin shouts, taking two quick steps before being nearly lifted off his feet by a strong hand that snatches the collar of his tunic. The boy then turns, with no little shame, to see that it is his sister Anje who has stopped him so decisively.
“Not so quickly, little man,” Anje says, heightening Dalin’s mortification. “I’ll see who’s there, lest you start telling strangers that your family is acting like ‘pagans’ …” Having pulled Dalin back, Anje completes his humiliation by slinging him into Dagobert’s strong grip.
“You just keep quiet, brother,” Dagobert says, not cruelly, but with authority against which Dalin cannot rebel.
Anje unbolts the garden door, but only after loudly demanding through the banded wooden planks that the caller identify herself, for a weak woman’s voice is the only answer she receives. Opening the entrance to permit a quiet, brief exchange, Anje holds up a hand, asking the woman to wait, and then bolts the door once again.
“Mother,” she says, returning uneasily. “There is a woman outside. She’s with child, and claims to live off the end of the Path, by—”
“By the southwestern wall of the city,” Isadora says, nodding; for she has recognized the voice that came through the seams of the doorway. “Her name is Berthe. I have consulted her about the birth — the child was badly positioned, but I thought we had attended to it. Is that why she—”
“No, Mother,” Anje interrupts. “She’s come about her husband.”
Isadora sighs, exasperation and impatience blending to form the sound. “Hak. Another useless drunkard — Emalrec,† he’s called. Dagobert?” She turns to her eldest son, indicating that she wishes him to accompany her. “As for the rest of you …” Isadora glances about, then asks, “Anje — will you take the others in to Nuen, and ask her to get them ready to sup?” Anje nods obediently, and herds her younger siblings to the house as her mother walks toward the garden door. “Let’s see what evil foolishness the poor girl has been subjected to, now …”
Having quit the garden, mother and son join the waiting woman, who has withdrawn some dozen paces from the Arnems’ doorway. Her dress is shabby, even by the standards of the Fifth District, just as her body is sorely in need of a scrubbing. But she is pretty enough that she must have been truly desperate to have braved the Path, on a night such as this one: for there are few drunkards on the avenue who would scruple at marriage or motherhood, once they had determined to ravish a comely young woman.
Isadora approaches the woman, whose face bears the expression of fear common to nearly all honest (or at least sober) women in the Fifth — women who can never be certain whether they face greater danger in the streets or in the homes that they share with drunken, cruel husbands. Berthe’s body is covered by a simple piece of sackcloth gathered at the waist, which serves as both tunic and skirt, and is poorly stitched, with no smock beneath it to ease the perpetual chafing of such rough material.‡
“Berthe?” Isadora asks, touching the woman’s shoulder. “Is it the baby? Or has that husband of yours been at you again—”
“No, Lady Arnem,” Berthe says quickly. “The baby has calmed, at last, thanks to your help. No, it is Emalrec, my lady, just as you say, but — not in the way that you suppose.”
“Is it the drink? Has he brought no food for you and the children? You must eat properly, we have spoken of this—”
Berthe shakes her head. “No, Lady Arnem. He is ill — very ill. I thought it was the drink, at first — he took such a fever, and his head was near to bursting. But he could bear no wine — he spat it up right away, and continued to vomit through the night. Then, this morning, his belly began to swell, and—” Berthe looks about, afraid to finish her tale.
Indicating to Dagobert that he should keep watch, Isadora urges Berthe toward the shadowy garden doorway. “Tell me,” Isadora asks more gently. “What worries you so much that you cannot speak of it on the street?”
Berthe swallows hard. “This afternoon, with the fever still on him, he began to show — sores, my lady. On his chest, and soon on his back.”
Isadora’s face betrays alarm: “Do you suspect plague,† Berthe?”
“No, my lady!” the young woman whispers desperately. “I did suspect it, until tonight — but the spots haven’t spread, and they remain red. Painful, and terrible to look at, but — there is no blackness to them.”
Isadora considers, recalling the sores upon the salamanders. “You think it the rose fever, then.”‡ Berthe nods, saying nothing — for the rose fever can spread through a city as quickly as the plague (even if it is not so deadly) and create panic that transforms all too quickly into violence against those afflicted. “Then we must have a look at this husband of yours.” Isadora takes Berthe’s hand. “For if it is the rose fever, or any of the tens of diseases that resemble it …” She signals to Dagobert with just a nod, and he joins them. “Dagobert,” Isadora says, taking him a few steps aside and speaking urgently. “Tell Nuen to get some of my old robes out — a few light woolen things, soft and warm, and a smock. Then get some of the clothing that you all wore when you were younger. It’s stored below my bridal chest. Also blankets, strong soap — and have cook put aside a pot of the venison stew that I saw her preparing for supper, and wrap it with the lid on tight so that I may take it to Berthe’s home.”
“Mother—?” Dagobert replies. “What are you planning to do?”
But Isadora’s attention has drifted. “If my suspicions about this business are correct, it may offer the chance to bargain from a position of greater strength — or, at least some strength …” She shakes herself back to immediate concerns. “I will go and see what is taking place in Berthe’s home and neighborhood, and try to determine just what it is that ails her husband. It’s not so very far from here, although it will plainly be a perilous trip. Still, I must be certain of the nature of the sickness, before I attempt the more uncertain venture that will follow. And so — have Bohemer and Jerej† bring the litter here.” Isadora speaks of the family’s two male servants, who are guards as much as anything else. Massive, bearded bulger‡ warriors, originally from the tribes far to the southeast of Broken, the men do perform heavy tasks as required about the house and its grounds; but far more often, they accompany Sixt and Isadora Arnem, and often their children, into the city, the various straps that gird their bodies holding small armories of weapons. “They are to guard Berthe and wait while I pack my healing kit and change my clothing. Tell them that I am going abroad in the city and that they should prepare themselves.”