Infinite Sacrifice (27 page)

I follow, saying, “Are you all
alone, little one?”

The air is thick
with the smell of excrement and urine. On the floor by the window
are two piles of straw with moth-eaten woolen blankets, most likely
the children’s beds. The adjoining room behind is full of
livestock. Chickens perched and clucking, a fat sow grunting, and a
small pony eating soiled hay. Through the open back door, a skinny
cow groans to be milked. There are gaping holes in the thin walls
of the wattle-and-daub house, from which three fat rats are coming
in and out. I see one monstrous dead rat under the small table in
the front room. Full chamber pots, and items
used
as chamber pots, are strewn
about the room. I put up both my apple and a sachet of rosemary to
keep from gagging on the horrendous smell.

Turning into a dark, windowless
room in the back of the house, I gasp as I see the little child
tucked under the arm of a woman lying on the bed.

“Oh! I am very sorry, mistress; I
thought the child was alone.”

She doesn’t move or
reply.

“Mistress?”

Stepping forward, I smell the same
putrid odor released when I cauterized the bubo at the noblewoman’s
house. I instantly know she must be very sick. I step back to leave
but see the little angel poke his head out to look at me, and I
can’t go. I go up to see how sick she is and peer over to search
her face. I gasp as I see a black-splotched face and pale blue
skin, her eyes and mouth open. She must have been dead for
days.

Shaking, I try to pull the child
away, but he clings on to her tightly. When I walk back to the
door, I turn to see he is lovingly smoothing her hair behind her
pointed ear. Feeling sick to my stomach, I have to get some air and
figure out what to do. I walk out the door and take a deep breath
outside. How strange that the cesspool air of Cheapside would ever
be refreshing! I notice out of the corner of my eye that the older
boy is leaning on the side of the house, starring at me.

“Is this your house?” I
ask.

He kicks a pebble with his ragged
shoe and doesn’t answer. I take a moment to think of something else
to say.

“Is your mother sick?”

He looks up. “She’s dead, and my
father’s gone.”

I pause, then ask, “Do you think he
will come back?”

“No.” He looks down again, but
continues, “Once he saw that Rowan is sick now too, he told us we
were all going to die.” He gazes down the street where his father
disappeared.

“Do you need some help?”

He nods slightly, seemingly unsure
of what I meant.

“Can you help me get Rowan to leave
your mother?”

He nods, happy that it’s something
he can do. He disappears into the house to come back with Rowan
awkwardly dangling in his small arms, both children smiling. I bend
down and feel Rowan’s head; he’s hot. His cheeks are flushed, which
gives him beautiful contrast to his pale skin. I lift up one of his
arms, look down his burlap nightshirt, and see a small bubo
forming. The little angel has the plague.

“What is your name?” I ask the
older boy.

“Oliver,” he answers. Rowan’s
getting too heavy, and he places him back down.

Rowan must be four or five years
old. Oliver runs after him dutifully, trying to keep him out of the
street, and herds him back toward the house. Rowan giggles while
trying to escape, amazing me how much energy he has, being sick as
he is. Something catches my eye at the end of the lane; it’s the
same gravedigger I ran from before. I can see he’s been busy since
I last saw him. There must be five more bodies piled up on his
cart.

I hurry. “Children, please go
inside right now and go play with the animals.” Oliver obediently
takes Rowan’s arm and pulls him begrudgingly back into the house. I
don’t want them to see the cart full of death.

“Sexton! Sexton, I need your
service!”

He looks up in an annoyed manner
and doesn’t increase his pace in the slightest. He takes what seems
like hours to reach where I am standing. I cover my mouth and nose
again and try not to look at the grotesque bodies staring out
through stiffened limbs.

He pulls the horse to a stop and
gets down, wiping his sweaty, dirty head. He’s covered in every
kind of filth and smells worse than he looks.

“It’s going to cost you.” His
steel-grey eyes look not of this world. I step back, wanting to put
as much space as possible between us.

“I only have a single
pence.”

He sees the wrapped parcel tucked
under my arm. “Is that fresh bread there?”

“Yes, four loaves of fresh wheat.”
I want to save two loaves for the children.

“No forr, I will take your dead for
the pence and the bread, but only because you’re such a lovely
little blossom.”

He gives me a leering once-over. I
point inside the house, and he thankfully leaves to fetch the poor
woman’s body. I take out two loaves and tuck them into my
underclothes. The sexton comes out backward, dragging the
corpse.

“Take keep! Take keep!” he’s
shouting, trying to dislodge Rowan as he clings to his mother’s
chest. The sexton drags both of them off to the cart.

“Momma! Momma!” the child’s
frantically crying.

Oliver is torn between not wanting
his mother being taken and understanding she must be taken. He
keeps trying to pull his little brother off as tears silently runs
down his dirty face.

The sexton gives one strong kick to
the clinging child. “Away, wenchel!”

Rowan falls off howling, and Oliver
tries to pull him up to comfort him.

Oliver spits toward the sexton,
“He’s a boy!”

The sexton shrugs before hoisting
her limp body clumsily, and without sympathy, onto the top of the
heap. Oliver shuts his eyes and leans over Rowan so he can’t see.
The sexton holds his hand out for payment. I tuck the coin into the
package and hand the bread over. He greedily takes it and pulls out
a loaf with the same hand that just handled days’-old plague
corpses. He tears off a huge piece and chews it with his mouth
open.

“I usually get peasant rye, but
this wheat’s a fine treat!”

I walk away from him toward the
children while he gets back up on his cart.

“To which cemetery are you taking
the children’s mother?”

He laughs. “No room left in the
churchyard. We have to bury them in Smithfield.”

“Smithfield?”

“The king’s set aside a whole
cemetery for burying the victims of the Great Mortality.

Today’s a slow day.”

Makes me wonder what a busy day
would look like.

“You’re lucky she won’t be thrown
into the pits. Get her own box, she will.” With that, he whips his
horse, and the grim reaper creaks away.

I go back into the house to see if
the children have anything they can bring with them, and I see
nothing. Everything is crawling with fleas and vermin. I open up
the gate for the animals to be released to fend for themselves. I
shoo the children back out and then slap off the fleas that are
biting my ankles. I take each child’s hand but remember the loaves.
I pull one out, tear it in half, and the grateful, salivating look
on the children’s faces tells me that they haven’t eaten for days.
I start to walk with no destination in mind as they happily chew on
their bread.

Where am I going to take them? Who
will take in plague victims?

I reason the only thing to do is
bring them to Windsor with us. We can surely find one of our serfs
to take them in once they’re cured. No one better to cure them than
a surgeon! I see a loaded cart in front of our city house. Mother’s
on the cart bench, and Hadrian’s making sure the items in the cart
are tied down tightly. Mother, looking put out at my long absence,
grows livid when she sees whom I brought back with me.

She yells, “Hadrian, fetch her at
once!”

Hadrian glances up and looks
confused at my company. He walks toward me briskly and
reproachfully. “Where have you been? We sent you out for breakfast,
and it is nearly midday now!” He looks down disdainfully on the
children. “Why are these beggars with you? These are plague times,
Elizabeth!”

He grabs my arms, shakes the
children loose violently, and pulls me to the cart. The children
hug each other in fear.

Mother shouts, “Elizabeth! Get on
this cart at once! Have you lost your senses?”

I pull back from Hadrian with all
my strength and he yanks back with a drawn face. “Get on the cart
and do as I say!”

“Can we bring these poor orphans?”
I try.

He doesn’t even look at them. “Stop
this nonsense!” He pulls me again.

“Their father has left them and
their mother has died of the Black Death!” I plead.

He freezes at
this. “You mean to take in
plague
children! What is the matter with you?” He casts
off my arm like it’s ridden with plague vapors and pulls his apple
out of his pocket to his mouth and nose.

Mother, overhearing this, pounces
down from the cart and marches over to me, fuming. “Stop
embarrassing me and your husband with your foolishness! Come at
once!” She stomps her foot to emphasize the last word.

“I cannot leave these innocent
children to die in the streets. We can take them, cure them with
our antidotes, and find homes for them among our servants in the
country.”

“I will not put those filthy
children on my cart or in my house,” Hadrian says from his
distance, as Mother nods in full agreement.

I fold my arms. “Then I will not go
with you.”

Mother drops her head in total
disappointment, and Hadrian smirks. I worry at what I just said. I
hold my breath, hoping that he will give in, since I didn’t
consider how I could possibly take care of myself.

“Oh!” He starts
laughing. “So you think you can fend for yourself? With no money or
help in a city riddled with
plague
!” He walks to the back of the
cart and opens his trunk. Chuckling to himself, he pulls out some
of his vials and closes the trunk.

He hands me the vials and says,
“God save you.” He then goes to ready the cart.

“Elizabeth, get on this cart at
once!” My mother rages but I only shake my head. I have never
behaved so defiantly, but once I start, I cannot stop. “Elizabeth,
what has come over you?” She throws balled fists down on her thick
skirts.

Hadrian commands, “Leave her,
Jacquelyn! I will not tolerate such disobedience! I will not stand
for it!” He sees my mother’s hesitation. “She’s steeped in plague
now. Who knows what filth she’s waded in to drag out these
miserable creatures? Bringing her with us now could be a death
sentence!”

Mother turns back to him. “Should
you at least open the house for her?”

Hadrian shakes his head with stern
speed. “And leave my estate open for all the scourge in Cheapside
to enter? No, she can find shelter with the nuns.”

Mother reaches around to hold her
veil in front of her face, pulls out the few coins she has, puts
them in my hand, careful not to make direct contact. She looks me
in the eyes and says, “Foolish child.”

Mother walks back to Hadrian’s
outstretched hand and is lifted up to her seat. They start away,
leaving us helplessly in the middle of the empty street. I go up to
the house and hit the iron latch to open the door, but it’s bolted
shut, and I have no key. Hadrian has locked the house up tight. I
stare down at the sorry-looking children scratching their heads,
which are full of lice, I’m sure. I give them both the last
loaf.

At that moment, the abbey bells
ring out purely. I grab the boys’ hands and walk toward the
crumbling stone abbey outside of the city.

Chapter 5

Oliver and I take turns carrying
Rowan, who is exhausted from his high fever.