Page 65 of Last of His Blood
How long had it been since he slept? What would happen if he took ill? He was not a young man, and Master Brestle was run just as ragged. Two herbmen for three thousand people, with a half dozen journeymen to support them. Why hadn’t they sent for more healers sooner? Never mind the Tower, if they were going to be so petty and vicious as to refuse aid, weren’t there any other temples nearby? Lords who might be persuaded to lend them for gold?No one?
The machinery of her mind felt jammed. People were talking around her, but she didn’t hear them. She was lost in a strange, shocking new world, a world where death wasn’t a thing that happened to other people far away, but was happening here and now to people sheknew.She was following the new paths of these terrible thoughts, and realizing that sheshouldhave contemplated these dreadful things. She should have asked herself,what is the worst thing that could happen?She had seen those starved children from Meinhem. One month of good food would not have repaired the damage to those wasted little bodies.
Oh, stars, how many more of them might die? What were the stars of healing? What could be done, they were already sick, what could Genon do that was not already being done?
“Have we more healers coming?” she asked abruptly, turning to Clovin, one of Edemir’s secretaries. “Have any been found yet?”
“We have sent out inquiries, my lady,” he said. “It takes time to investigate them.”
“Only His Grace’s healer and mine need investigation,” she said. “Send out more. What’s the largest town in Firkane? What about Sir Edemir’s family? We can’t afford to wait. Pay any price.”
She saw all of them blink, exchanging glances. This might seem like she was exceeding her current emergency mandate, but Ophele did not think she was.
She turned to Genon.
“What happens if you get sick? You are over sixty yourself. Can your journeymen take your place? Is there ever more than one plague per winter? And Sir Huber…His Grace said there were four hundred and fifty people between Isigne and Selgin. Four hundred and fifty men, women, and children who might be starved and sick and weak from the cold, and they might come any time now in the middle of a plague. Mightn’t they?”
She saw the shock of it strike them all. That was it. That was the worst thing that could happen.
“I will send someone,” Clovin said into the silence. “I will send a messenger. The nearest academy of healing is in Lusse, in Firkane. It could be they will lend us a few healers for a sixmonth, or a year.”
“Yes, do,” she agreed. Temporary help was better than none. “If the people from Isigne and Selgin arrive,” she said, looking from Auber to Genon, “then what will happen? From the beginning. They will send a signal…”
“We’ll just hope the weather is clear enough to see it.” Auber sat down at the table beside her, and the secretaries brought out more paper. “But it might not be. We had a couple blizzards a month most winters, as far as I remember.”
“And a few smaller storms in between,” Jinmin agreed, his chair giving a creaking protest as he sat. “Might not have much warning.”
“Then we will send someone to warn them, as soon as they are sighted,” Ophele said, nodding. “To tell them there is sickness, and to keep their faces covered. But what if there are sick and injured with them?”
“They can’t be put in the infirmary,” Genon said immediately. “They’ll only get the fever there. We’ll need a separate building. The cookhouse?”
“There should be enough room for everyone there, if we take out the tables,” Auber agreed. “I’ll get some of the lads to do that now, it’s not as if we’re all sitting to supper anyway…”
All afternoon, they were planning for this possibility. Including Huber and his men, there might be five hundred people entering the town, an increase of more than twenty percent of their population. It would be a strain on every resource, food, medicine, firewood, and though there were ample raw materials, the trouble, under conditions of plague, was distribution. How to get the food from the kitchen to the people. How to prepare enough food in the first place, when they daren’t let anyone touch it if they showed the least sign of sickness.
Was there awordfor this sort of limitation? If only she knew more! It was her devil maps all over again, trying to invent a solution when other, better methods already existed, if only she knew them. Why didn’t she know them? Why had she been spending weeks learning how to curtsy instead of how to take care of her people?
“You must both take care of yourselves, too,” she said severely as they were wrapping up. “Mr. Henghest. Mr. Brestle. Have either of you slept? What will happen to us, if you collapse?”
“We will, my lady,” Genon promised, and outside the tavern, everyone bowed and parted in the pale twilight.
At least she saw no more small corpses being carted out of the cottages on the way to the cookhouse. But when this was over, she would have to go to them and apologize and beg pardon before the stars that she had not taken care of them better.
“Try not to take too much on yourself, my lady,” said Auber as he dismounted by the cookhouse. “It’s like Genon said. Sometimes people die, no matter what we do.”
“I know,” she said, mutinous.
“My lady. No matter what you do, people will die.” Auber took her hand, arresting her. He was as well-wrapped as everyone else against the cold, his eyes looking directly into hers. “You’ve done more than most, coming to help. But you need to set your mind to it now, that there will be some folk that die tonight, and tomorrow, and maybe we could’ve saved them and maybe we couldn’t. We won’t know until it’s too late. Because that’s how the world is.”
He was right. She knew he was right; Remin had told her the same sort of thing before, more than once. But Ophele couldn’t accept it. This wasn’t like a war, or an accident at the wall, or devils coming to tear people apart. Sickness was treatable, preventable, wasn’t it? If they had only seen it coming, and prepared better, or thought harder, this wouldn’t have happened.
Back at the manor, she and Emi divided up supper and went back once more into the cold, setting out small crocks of stew, medicine, and bread on the steps of each cottage. Frechard was back at the stable, with no good reason for his absence, but Ophele could not care enough to shake the truth out of him.
“Azelma, here’s your supper,” she called, knocking at the door. Smoke rolled up from the chimney, steady and reassuring.
“Thank you, my lady,” Azelma said from within, but even through the solid door, Ophele could tell that her voice was thick. She froze, one hand gripping the door handle.
“You’re—you’re not sick, are you?” she asked, the words falling in leaden syllables.
