Chapter 6 – The Place of White Stones #6
“Yes, my lady.” He looked terrified to be otherwise.
“Your throat doesn’t hurt? You haven’t been coughing?”
“No, my lady.”
“You must tell me if you do,” she said. “And Adelan. Like Sim did, remember? Do you know if Sim is still feeling poorly?”
This was not so much to gather information about Sim as to come at the problem of Magne from another direction.
Sometimes he needed circular handling. Once she got the old man wagging his head over Sim, who was also in bed and coughing loud enough to disturb the whole servants’ quarter, then Ophele managed to get Magne to own that why, yes, there was a little tickle in his throat.
“But I haven’t coughed,” he assured her.
“I am glad,” she said grimly. She was beginning to be alarmed. Especially when she went into the solar to find Justenin setting the table for breakfast with nose and cheeks red with cold, and sunken, red-rimmed eyes.
“His Grace is ill,” she told him as she sat down, observing the warning indications in his lean face. “Magne may also be coming down with it. The valley fever?”
“It seems likely,” Justenin said, with a distinctly nasal note. “It often comes with a change in the weather. It is miserable, but rarely fatal. His Grace is still abed?”
“Yes. And if you are unwell, I hope you will go there, too,” she replied, with a flat golden stare that, had she known it, born an uncanny resemblance to Remin’s basilisk glare.
“Someone else will fetch supper, if necessary. I should not like people in my household to insist on going out in the cold when they’re sick, and it cannot be good for them. ”
The corner of his mouth quirked upward.
“It does sound a foolish thing to do,” he agreed, and sat down, rubbing his head. “Then I will beg your pardon for the insolence of asking you to serve your own food, my lady, and mine as well.”
“Because you’re a vector of plague?” Ophele had never forgotten Wen’s picturesque phrase.
“That is what Genon calls it,” Justenin agreed as she opened up the crocks to find porridge, stewed peaches, and the familiar eggs and sausages.
“It seems some illness can be transmitted by touch, or sharing the same air. Genon is always reminding everyone to wash their hands, and cover their noses and mouth, so as not to share the bad air. Pardon me,” he added, and demonstrated by turning his head to cough once into a handkerchief.
“If there were any other beds available, my lady, I would caution you against sharing one with His Grace. The fever is particularly hard on those who have not had it before.”
“I will cover my face,” Ophele promised as Lady Verr entered, took one look at Justenin, and sat down at the far end of the table.
It was an unsettling morning. After breakfast, Emi appeared with the news that Peri was also ill, and had not come because she feared to pass it on to her mistress.
“I hope she will stay in bed until she is better,” Ophele replied. “And you, too, Emi. If you feel the slightest bit sick, then stay home. The house will not fall apart if the dusting is not done for a day. And perhaps…perhaps you will be needed to help, if Peri and Sim and Magne are all sick.”
“I will, of course, my lady,” answered Emi, opening her blue eyes wide. “Do you think it will come to that?”
“I don’t know,” Ophele replied honestly, looking at Lady Verr as the nearest thing to an expert at hand. But Lady Verr shook her head.
“I would help if I could, Your Grace, but my knowledge of healing does not extend far in this direction, I am afraid,” she said regretfully. “There are many types of ailments. I know only the simplest herbs for sickness.”
She did not protest when Ophele suspended lessons for the morning and instructed them to dress her to go out of doors.
How fortunate that Master Tiffen had come, with his woolens and velvets, and especially the marvelous underclothes that Lady Verr said were a scandal and worse, hideous.
But they were so very warm: a close-fitting woolen undertunic and trousers that went over her underclothes, and then her chemise, and then layers of combed wool and velvet, with fur lining the high neck and sleeves of her gown.
All of it fitted together without a single wrinkle when Lady Verr was done, and once Ophele had on her cloak, muffler, gloves, and new fur-lined boots, she felt prepared to face any weather.
Remin was coughing in his sleep when she looked in on him, and Ophele paused to look at his sweating face, worried.
Genon must come and see him. It seemed impossible that a fever could fell Remin Grimjaw where poison, war, hunger, and assassins had all failed, but he had not been sleeping well, and he had been out in the cold. ..
She should have insisted yesterday that he stay in bed. Ophele pressed her lips together and went to set the crock of porridge by the fire, where he could find it if he woke, then locked him in the room.
“You needn’t come out yourself,” she told Lady Verr as she wound her muffler about her neck, over her face, and around her head, leaving only a slit for her eyes. “I would not like you to take a chill.”
“Of course I must go,” said Lady Verr, who was repeating the same operation. “I am not meant to only be your companion, my lady. I am your secretary, your counselor, and whatever else you need me to be.”
It was breathtakingly cold outside. It was a mercy that there was no sign of clouds on the horizon, but Ophele thought with renewed anxiety of Miche and his men, already miles away from the shelter of Tresingale.
She and Lady Verr slipped and slid over the icy mud and paused first at Azelma’s cottage, so Ophele could repeat Sir Justenin’s instructions to cover her face and wash her hands through the door, and Azelma could assure her that she felt perfectly fine.
“You needn’t fret, child, I will not die for lack of society,” she said tartly. “And what are you doing out in this weather? Get inside by a fire.”
The interview with Adelan—also through the door of his cottage—was disheartening.
He himself was feverish, and had checked in on all the servants to find that Jaose had started coughing, and so had one of the laundresses.
Sim, Peri, and one of the stable boys rounded out the tally.
None of them felt so poorly that they could not fend for themselves, but Adelan apologized that most of the chores would go undone.
The other stable boy was isolating himself in the tack room of the stable, which had an iron stove for the sake of the leather, and hoped he would be spared to take care of the horses.
Ophele was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed.
“Oh, no, not you too,” she said, despairing, as Davi cracked open the door of the cottage he shared with Leonin, to reveal one shadowy eye. “Both of you?”
“Leonin is worse,” Davi said, and his voice didn’t sound too bad. “What are you doing out by yourself, my lady? Saving your presence, Lady Verr.”
“Everyone else is sick,” Ophele said, with a thrill of real fear. “I want to go see Genon and fetch medicine. And I must know who else is sick in town, and at the barracks, to make sure they are all looked after.”
What if the cooks got sick? What if people became too ill to fetch water for themselves, or food, when it was so cold?
What if it snowed again, and everyone was too sick to clear the roads?
How would they get food then? And firewood, the pageboys and the peasant boys had been doing much of the hauling from the huge piles seasoning about the town, but who would do it if they fell ill?
“I have to go,” she said, more to herself than Davi or Lady Verr. Her mouth set in a firm line. “Davi, are you very sick? Tell me the truth.”
“I am not,” he said, meeting her eyes squarely. “No fever, my lady, only a scratchy throat.”
“Please dress as warmly as you can,” she said, already planning ahead. If he became too sick to go out, then she would get Auber, or Tounot, or Jinmin. “We will be in the stable, it’s warmer there.”
He didn’t argue. Leonin would have, on the grounds of propriety and because Remin was likely to be very, very angry if he learned she had been gallivanting about town while there was a plague on, but Davi was practical to his bones.
“Perhaps everyone should get food once a day, and heat it over their own fires,” she said as she and Lady Verr shoved open the heavy barn door together, and hauled it shut again.
“Soup and bread will do; we cannot afford for the cookhouse to get sick. Or Wen,” she added, her heart contracting with sudden fear. What would they do, if he did?
“We ought to see what herb stores Mr. Hengest has, my lady,” said Lady Verr. “It is tempting to give medicine to everyone at the first sniffle, but you would be surprised how quickly it goes.”
Ophele exhaled, a white cloud rolling upward.
“I wonder if ink will freeze in this weather,” she said.
The stable door opened behind them, and there was Davi, lanky and reassuring, wrapped up as thoroughly as Ophele herself and steady as a stone.
“Genon first, hey?” he asked, looking between the two women.
And as they were gathering their horses and tack, Ophele found a parting piece of insolence from Miche in the second to the last stall: a certain golden Gevalle mare with gentle eyes, who stuck her nose over the door of her stall as if she had just been waiting for Ophele to find her.