Hope of Earth (54 page)

“We must get out of Kaffa,” Flo said. “We have been lucky so far, but there is too much of it; we’re bound to be caught if we stay.”

But they couldn’t leave, because Ittai’s ship had not yet come in, and there was no passage on any of the others. Everyone wanted to get out of the city!

A neighbor came. “Please—my husband—he will die. You are a healing woman; you can help him!”

“All I know is caring for my family,” Flo said.

“And they are all healthy.”

What could she do? “I’ll try.”

The man had a huge black swelling on his neck: the bubo. He was writhing and groaning continuously. Flo put her hand on his head, but couldn’t keep it there because of his motion. One touch sufficed, however: he was burning hot. He smelled, too; he had defecated in his clothing.

“Get him clean,” Flo said. When the woman seemed not to understand, Flo tackled the job herself. She drew the clothes off the man, stripping him naked. The woman did not protest. One advantage of being fat was that one had no sexual attraction, so was considered no threat to anyone else’s man. She fetched a bucket with water, and used a large sponge to wash the soiled region.

The man relaxed, and fell into an uneasy sleep. Flo realized that the coolness of the water must have done it. So she rinsed out the sponge and washed his whole body. His sleep became less troubled. “Keep him clean, keep him cool,” she said. “Maybe it will help.”

The woman nodded, and Flo returned to her own house. But she visited the neighbor man several times thereafter, mainly to offer moral support to the distraught wife.

The man’s fever continued, and he sweated copiously, and the sweat carried its own stench. So did his very breath. The woman was keeping him clean, now, but everything about him stank of the plague. The discoloration of his skin spread out from the bubo, the splotches ranging from red to black.

On the third day the bubo on the neck broke open and thick pus welled out. Flo clenched her teeth and mopped it up. After that the man seemed able to relax better, as if the illness was draining from his body. In two more days the fever faded, his skin cleared, and he began to take an interest in food.

“He is mending!” the woman cried. “You did it! You saved him!”

Flo shook her head. “I just tried to make him more comfortable. He threw off the malady himself.” But she was glad to have helped.

Meanwhile the city was in a siege of another kind: terror. Everyone wanted to escape, but could not. Panic was endemic. The overland route away was too dangerous; even with the Mongol siege lifted, the terrain was hardly safe from the wrath of the khan, and anyway, the plague was there too.

Then Sam got the plague. He developed a swelling in the armpits, and ran a high fever. He made it home under his own power, and to the bed, then collapsed.

“I can take care of him,” Flo said grimly, knowing how horrible this was going to get.

“No, it’s my job,” Snow said.

Flo didn’t argue. She had made the offer, expecting it to be turned down. “Then Lin should take care of Sid.”

Snow paused, then nodded. They knew that there was no point in exposing the baby to the plague. Snow would continue nursing him, but at other times he would be kept away from her. There was no problem; Lin had cared for him before, when Snow was busy.

They closed off the chamber where Sam lay. Snow was the only one to enter it. So far the plague did not seem to travel from person to person, but there was no point in taking chances.

The next day Dirk fell ill. Did he, too, have the plague? They moved him in with Sam, and now Flo entered the chamber, because it had become her business.

They used clothes and cool water to bathe their men constantly, trying to ease the fever. It didn’t seem to help much. Both men just seemed to get sicker.

Sam’s armpit swelling expanded, turning deep red. He flung his muscular arm out, groaning. “What is it, my dear?” Snow asked helplessly.

“The bubo hurts,” he said, grimacing. “Cut it out!”

Snow looked helplessly at Flo. “What can I do?”

Flo considered. When the neighbor’s bubo had suppurated, he had started mending. Maybe that was the key. “We will drain it,” she said.

She fetched a sharp knife with a thin, almost needlelike point. She sponged off the swelling. “This will hurt, a moment,” she said. “But it may help.”

“Do it!”

“Snow, hold his arm,” she said. “So I can work.”

Snow took hold of Sam’s arm, clasping it to her generous bosom. Ro aimed the knife point, then stabbed it precisely into the center of the bubo.

Sam grunted. His arm swept down, hauling Snow with it, so that she landed across his chest. Ro barely got the knife out of the way in time.

Then Sam relaxed, and Snow recovered her balance. Ro lifted the arm away, and he did not resist.

Her aim had been true. Blood and pus were welling out of the hole she had made. “The pressure is off,” Sam said. “It doesn’t hurt as bad.”

“It is draining,” she explained. Then, to Snow: “Let it drain. Keep it clean. Better that poison come out, than stay in his body.”

Dirk was more fortunate. His fever broke, and there was no bubo. He was ill with something else, and was recovering. That was a relief.

Sam mended, and Dirk did. The draining of the bubo seemed to have been the turning point for Sam. Ro knew that it might be coincidence, but she was glad that her experience with the neighbor man had given her the hint.

Then Ned came down with the plague. He had gone to the wall to see to the unfinished work of the other two, because though the Mongols appeared to have given up the siege, that could be a ruse. Now he had the swelling in the neck, and the fever.

“We know how to tend him,” Flo said.

“My turn,” Wildflower said. “Please.”

“Girl, this is ugly business,” Flo warned her.

“I know. But if I stand idle, and he dies—”

“We’ll do it together,” Flo decided.

They moved Sam out. He remained weak, but could walk, and was no longer in danger. They left Dirk for another day or two; his illness was routine, but debilitating. Ned took his brother’s place.

Wildflower had been somewhat prepared by the body they had hauled out of the street, and by discussion of Sam and Dirk’s illnesses. But Flo feared she was not ready for the malady in Ned. So she kept a close if unobtrusive eye out.

“We shall have to strip him and bathe him,” Flo said. “I can do it—”

“No. I will do it.”

“He will stink. It is the odor of the plague, coming from his breath, skin, spittle, and all else. It must simply be endured.”

“The smell carried through the house,” Wildflower said, wrinkling her nose as she smiled.

“He will foul himself. We must simply clean it up.”

“I will do it.”

And Wildflower bravely did the required jobs, leaving Flo to tend to Dirk. Flo hoped it wouldn’t extirpate her feeling for the young man, because the more this former princess buckled to the noxious task, the better respect Flo had for her.

Ned’s fever was high, and in the throes of it he cried out in delirium. “Wona, no! Don’t make me do it!”

“Who?” Wildflower asked, perplexed. “Do what?” But he was lost in some other realm.

“It may be time for you to know,” Flo said. “But you must never repeat it.”

“Repeat what?”

“Ned was seduced by Sam’s first wife, a beautiful and faithless woman. He could not break her hold. So we sent her away, and Sam found Snow instead. Sam does not know, and Ned feels guilt. So if you have a relation with him—”

“That could be a problem,” Wildflower agreed. “But if he didn’t rape her—”

“She raped him, really.”

“Then I understand well enough,” the girl said grimly. “Better than someone else might.”

“We do understand about rape,” Flo said.

Then at last the ship came in. Ittai and Jes arrived home in style, as befitted their status as proprietors of a merchant vessel. He wore a short buttoned tunic of intricate pattern, divided down the center into opposing colors, with a fringed collar and a long pointed hood. Beneath it was a long-sleeved shirt with decorative buttons and armbands with descending cloth streamers. He wore a jeweled girdle about the hips, and hose with each leg a different color. His pointed shoes buttoned at the ankle and the top of the arch. Jes’s hair was too short to be braided, but she wore a pretty tiara. Her gown was sideless and sleeveless, and laced with fine ribbons from shoulder to hip. Flo knew they hadn’t worn those elegant outfits on the ship; they had changed just before disembarking.

The family made immediate arrangements to embark. But Captain Ittai balked. “We can’t take a man with the plague on the ship! The crew would mutiny.”

Flo realized that it was true. “Then we shall have to wait.”

“The crew is not eager to remain in port any longer than necessary. We can’t delay more than a few days.”

“It will have to do.”

For several days Ned’s outcome remained in doubt, as the bubo on his neck swelled and his skin spotted. He stopped fouling himself after the food that had been in his system cleared, but the stench of his body was awful. Flo and Wildflower took turns going out so as to have the relief of fresh air. They took turns sleeping too, because Ned’s case was worse than the others. Flo lanced the bubo, but it didn’t seem to help. His body seemed to be wasting away.

“I can’t hold the crew much longer,” Ittai warned them.

Flo shook her head. “I think we had better prepare ourselves. Ned is going to die.”

“No!” Wildflower protested. “He must live!”

“You don’t know that he will value you, if he lives,” Flo said, trying to soften the blow rather than to be cruel. “Maybe he doesn’t really want to live.”

“I understand that too. But he is my hope. I must save him!”

“Girl, I wish you could. But I don’t know how.”

Wildflower’s face was desperate. “By loving him!”

Flo did not argue. It seemed that the strain of this siege was affecting the girl’s mind.

Wildflower sponged off Ned’s face. “You think you are evil, because of Wona,” she told him. “But you couldn’t stop her. You are not evil. You think no one will love you, but someone will. I will love you. I will love you.” Then she kissed his wasted lips.

Ned’s eyes opened. “But you are my sister!” he protested.

“I am not your sister!” she retorted. “Could a sister do this?” She kissed him again.

Flo kept her silence. There was no real logic to Wild-flower’s words or actions, but they were probably as close as she would ever come to the love she craved.

Yet they did seem to have some effect on the man. Ned relaxed, and fell into what seemed to be a less tortured sleep. Flo marveled, wondering whether it was possible. Was Ned expiring from guilt as much as from the disease?

It was, indeed, the turning point. The next day Ned’s fever was down somewhat. He took water and a bit of food. The day after, he took more.

Then he became conscious of his surroundings. “Who has cared for me?” he asked Flo, for Wildflower was now sleeping in the next room.

“We have,” Flo said. “Wildflower and I.”

He looked wary. “I had a strange dream. Did I say something?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say something?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head, electing not to pursue the matter.

Now they could depart this cursed city. The crew might not like it, but Ned was obviously recovering. So probably he would not spread the plague to anyone else, even if it did pass from man to man, as seemed doubtful. Two of them had been stricken, and been lucky enough to survive; Flo was sure that luck would not hold much longer.