Widow's Welcome

by D. K. Fields

  I first took her protests to be the kind of violent shivering Harry had experienced near the end. But then she managed to croak, ‘No need, Sanga.’

  She pulled up a shirt sleeve, her movements awkward and jerky to the point where it was easier for me to help her. She wanted me to take off the bandage, which I had presumably applied after the dweller, though I had no recollection of her or her wound. There had been so many that night.

  ‘What is your name?’ I said.

  ‘Merith,’ she said with some difficulty.

  I fetched her water, by which time she had unwound the bandage and held her arm up for me to see. Bites. I almost dropped the cup. That they were the same as those on the other woman’s scalp, and on Harry’s, was clear.

  ‘When did you notice these?’ I said.

  ‘I told the Picknicker a day or so ago.’

  ‘But you have been scratching for longer?’

  She nodded, looking as if I had just said something to chastise her. I made sure my tone was soft and kind.

  ‘How long, Merith?’

  She took a moment to think. ‘Three days.’ She sounded sure of herself.

  ‘And how long have you been shivering?’

  ‘Started just this morning, Sanga, honest.’

  ‘I need to check your scalp,’ I said, reaching for my shears.

  ‘No! Sanga, don’t send me to the Audience without my hair!’

  Another bargeman with outdated beliefs. I wondered if Captain Cope attracted such types, or sought them out specifically.

  ‘I have to, Merith.’

  ‘No, look.’ She rolled onto her side awkwardly and pulled up the hair at the base of her neck. The bites were clear to see.

  ‘And these? How long have you been scratching them?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t know, Sanga, my head’s always itchin’.’

  I sat back, trying to think. I had to assume Merith wasn’t unique: that the bites weren’t always localised to the scalp. Her arm was not particularly hairy. Many of the crew had complained about itching; my own leg itched from the dweller. I resisted the urge to check beneath my bandages, reassuring myself that I would later when I wasn’t being watched by a patient.

  ‘Sanga,’ Merith said quietly. She was looking at the other woman. From her expression I knew what I would find.

  I wiped the blood from the woman’s eyes and covered her body in a sheet. As delicately as I could I dragged her to the other side of the space outside the cabin.

  ‘We’ll go inside,’ I said. Merith was one of the smaller bargemen but she was far from frail. I reached beneath her knees and shoulders and, with her hanging onto my neck, I staggered into the cabin. Placing her down as gently as I could, I had to steady myself against the wall until my dizziness passed.

  ‘You don’t look so well, Sanga,’ she said.

  I waved away her concern. ‘Where are you marked?’ I said.

  ‘Ain’t got marks.’

  I raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Look all you want,’ she said, presenting her hands. They were indeed free from the blackness. I took off her boots and rolled up her trousers. Nothing on her feet or ankles.

  ‘Something for the cold, Sanga?’ She was shivering badly again.

  I fetched all the sheets I had and folded them. ‘Best I can do,’ I said.

  I gave her water when she wanted it, and made her drink when she didn’t. I ate the rest of my bread and fruit – she wouldn’t take any. Though she wasn’t able to talk for long, when she was awake she was keen to listen. She asked me about my life in Bordair, about being a sanga, about my parents. I could tell what she wanted to ask but, uncharacteristically for a bargeman, she was being tactful. I told her the little I knew. She wasn’t surprised to hear my father was not a Casker, but couldn’t believe I didn’t know where he was from.

  ‘It’s okay, you not wantin’ to tell me,’ she said, her voice laden with coming sleep.

  ‘I would if I could, Merith.’

  I watched her sleep, as I had the others, and waited for it to happen. But there was another knock before then.

  *

  I inched open the door, dreading how many I might find lying there. Instead, the space was empty. Lara – I asked Merith the dead woman’s name – was gone. Fian had clearly made an effort to scrub the blood stains from the floorboards. Now, she was waiting in the shadows, propped against the opening that led to the rest of the ship. I raised the lamp to get a better look at her, but she was too far.

  ‘Captain says you can come up. Only for a short while, and you stay ahead of the foremast.’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘The mast at the front,’ she said tersely.

  As I followed the hulking master-at-arms I imagined this was not quite what she signed up for. Seeing this kind of death was not easy for me; it must have been horrendous for her. Had these corpses been barge-raiders or Seeder bandits she’d taken a machete to, or driven through with a spear-pole, our roles may have been reversed. As it was, she was shaken. Stepping on deck I could tell she wasn’t alone in that.

  All eyes were on me, and I felt them. Those up in the rigging, Darcie and the captain at the helm, and the rest of them on deck. No one was working beyond the foremast but I almost broke into tears when I saw Mona there, waiting for me. She was smiling, though I could tell it was strained. Fian leant against the mast and gestured me forward.

  I took a great lungful of salty air and found the breeze on my face to be fantastic. I felt lighter there and I stretched my back, wondering if I had been hunched the whole time below deck.

  ‘Hello, Orin,’ Mona said.

  I blinked at my own name. How long had it been?

  ‘Mona,’ I said, moving towards her. But she took a step back. As much as that hurt I could not blame her. Looking down at myself, I saw I was covered in other people’s blood, Harry’s sick, and the Audience knew what else. I must have appeared the very agent of the Pale Widow. To Mona’s credit, she hid the horror from her face though it was still difficult to look at her knowing I could not touch her, not kiss her. So instead I gazed out at the endless rolling of Break Deep.

  ‘Your readings said it would be this bad.’ I made sure there was no note of accusation in my voice.

  ‘I’ve said the whole time. Cope listened in her own way.’

  ‘And yet you came anyway,’ I said.

  ‘So did you. It’s no better at home.’

  That was a terrible thought. I was a man with few friends, and no family, but there were people I was fond of in Bordair.

  ‘I can’t do anything for the crew,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And the captain?’

  ‘They call it a skeleton crew. We will go on, however few are left.’

  ‘There’s nothing out there, is there?’ I said.

  She didn’t answer. We both stared at the waves. Even in those moments they were growing, swelling, finding an energy from somewhere. Mona looked on with a calmness that came from this being all as she’d divined. If I were a superstitious man, I might have said she was stirring the water as she stood there.

  *

  I was back in the cabin with the sleeping Merith when the storm hit. She slept longer than I thought possible in the heaving and rolling of the ship. I wedged myself beside the bed. As far as I could see she had stopped shivering, but it was difficult to be sure when the whole cabin shuddered with every wave.

  And the noise. How could she sleep through the noise? The creaking, groaning and sometimes cracking of the ship was such an enormous sound it allowed no room for anything else. As bizarre as it may seem, there was one other situation where I felt the same kind of concentration of sound – as if the world had only one focus for all its cacophony – and that was assisting in childbirth. The difference, beyond the obvious, was how active I was in the face of that focussed sound. With the pitching ship all I could do was ensure the lamp remained intact, that my bag was secured, and that I myself was not
a danger to any other. A far cry from aiding the birth of a new life.

  The storm, however, outlasted my patience and better judgement. I made sure Merith was comfortably asleep, then crawled to the door and opened it. The space beyond was dark, but I could see there were no new patients waiting for me. I made it to the opening of the crew’s quarters before Fian said, ‘That’s far enough, Sanga.’ She lit a lamp, revealing her hulking figure still swaying on a hammock.

  I had the clear impression she was guarding me and not my patients who were, after all, unlikely to stroll up on deck. At least she wasn’t armed. She looked tired, her eyes sunken and hollow, her wide features thinner, more pinched than I remembered. I was suddenly embarrassed by my crawling to her, animal-like, and tried to sit with as much dignity as I could muster.

  ‘There aren’t any more patients,’ I said loudly over the storm.

  She shrugged. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  ‘Is everyone all right?’ I said.

  ‘All below deck,’ she said.

  I waited out the storm with her in silence. I tried to sleep but couldn’t; there were too many dead faces behind my eyes. No matter how hard I tried to reason it through, I couldn’t remove the guilt I felt about them all. It was just a name. I knew I had nothing to do with this plague. But there was a power in names. If the captain and Mona were right, if this Black Jefferey was running as rampant in Bordair as it was through the ship, then it would be remembered for a long time, long after I was dead. Long after any who knew me were dead. That was a heavy thing to bear.

  Fian’s hand on my shoulder woke me from a kind of waking-sleep. I had been staring at my hands but not really seeing anything at all.

  ‘Storm’s over,’ she said, and stood there expectantly.

  I rose, my knees shaking and feet alight with pins and needles. Fian had her mouth covered. I shuffled back to the cabin: sick bay and brig.

  Merith greeted me.

  She was sitting upright on the bench and smiled through the effort.

  ‘I’m hungry, Sanga.’

  I felt her forehead, which was warm but not overly so. She wasn’t shivering or sweating and her pulse was strong – or felt so to someone who for days had only taken the weak pulse of the dying. Before I could ask, she displayed her hands and feet to me, even wriggled her toes. We both laughed at that. It was gloriously strange to laugh, and I had to stop myself before it became sobbing.

  I hurried to the crew’s quarters, calling for Fian the whole way. My throat was raw and my voice weak but without the storm the ship was coldly silent. I paused only a moment at the threshold before pushing onward, confident the news of Merith would eclipse my flouting of the captain’s orders. The quarters were empty. I was almost on deck when I saw them. Lines of them.

  The ship had run out of sheets; some of the bodies were covered by their own clothing. There were gaps, of course, but the feet were all covered as were the faces.

  I counted nine.

  If the sweat running off Fian and her panting were any indication, nine was not the beginning or the end of it.

  ‘What?’ I said lamely.

  ‘Passed during the storm.’

  I caught hold of her arm but I may as well have tried to slow the wind. ‘Why weren’t they brought to me?’

  ‘They’re dead. What good are you going to do?’

  ‘Merith has recovered,’ I said.

  Fian grunted and lifted another body.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ I shouted at her back as she climbed the steps to the deck. The head of a man jiggled against her shoulder, as if he were laughing at me. ‘Merith survived.’

  ‘I’ll tell the captain.’

  ‘She needs food,’ I said.

  ‘There’s plenty.’

  That was as close to permission as I needed, or would get. I passed the steps round to the mess. While there were clear signs of use, the polished surfaces and unsullied pots gave me a sad kind of impression. As did the quiet of the place. I did not tarry there long and took Merith some of the better bread and fruit. She was resting – I made sure it was only sleep – so I left the food by the bed.

  When I returned there were six bodies still at the bottom of the steps. I made myself watch Fian carry every single one, beyond caring that I was unable to help her. With the last I followed her. I had arguments ready for her objection – arguments I’d had nearly an hour to rehearse. I was almost disappointed when she said nothing.

  The clear skies were a mockery of all that had come before; the Audience had a wicked sense of humour, as if our tales weren’t pitiful enough already. The warm sun on my face produced a brief happiness I had no business feeling. The scene in front of me soon chased it away.

  Captain Cope was administering the Widow’s last rites to the partially wrapped body. Her voice had no intonation as she spoke. Mona was there too. She sprinkled something from a bottle over the corpse before it was lowered over the edge of the ship and down to Break Deep. Fian was working the winch.

  Eventually I was noticed.

  ‘Merith is alive,’ I blurted out, before I could be banished back below deck.

  ‘That’s good,’ the captain said, without much enthusiasm. ‘Come with me, Sanga.’

  *

  The captain’s quarters on the ship were uncomfortably large. The table would have amply accommodated the senior crew as it was back on the barge, but now we would only huddle at one end. Simply put, the room was empty. Empty of character, empty of warmth, empty of purpose. The same could be said for the whole ship.

  ‘How did this happen?’ the captain said. She looked blankly at me, giving no hint, no indication of her meaning. The silence between us stretched on until I could take no more.

  ‘How did what happen, Captain?’

  ‘How did you save Merith’s life?’

  I considered lying but found scant benefit in doing so. ‘I did nothing.’

  With a nod she acknowledged my honesty. ‘Then why Merith?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Sanga, what do you know?’

  I was about to say, ‘Nothing’, but that wasn’t entirely the case. I told her of the bleeding of Eliza, and the voiding of Harry, and that I could see nothing in either. That neither act helped the patient. I told her of the two states that every patient experienced one of, but not the other: the shivering, dry chill and the sweating fever. Both led to the same end. And I described that end, which so frequently resulted in bleeding from the eyes. Finally, I told her of the bites.

  ‘Lice?’ she said.

  ‘I found no eggs in their hair. Mites or fleas from rats would be more likely.’

  ‘We have no rats aboard, Sanga.’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that.’

  ‘I can,’ she said. ‘I can be sure. It best be you that does it.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

  ‘Make sure the rest of them don’t see.’

  ‘See what, Captain?’

  ‘We don’t have rats, because we have Brin,’ she said.

  *

  I had time to compose myself but that was little help. I wandered through what felt like an abandoned ship with a heaviness in my stomach and in my step. If I saw the captain again I may have tried to argue against what I knew to be a necessary course of action. As it was, I saw only Darcie at the helm and Fian sound asleep below deck. Brin was lying under a hammock: the one that had nominally been mine. Somehow that felt like loyalty, but I did not dwell on it. The salted meat in my hand ensured she padded along behind me.

  Merith was awake, though weak, in the cabin. She smiled at the sight of Brin but then remembered where she was.

  ‘Brin’s not sick, is she?’ Merith said.

  ‘No, not sick. She’s going to help me with something.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she said, in the voice that people reserved for animals. She rubbed the water-dog’s head until Brin decided she’d had enough and pawed the floor. The sound of he
r claws cut right through me and I had to look away.

  ‘Captain wants to see you,’ I said with some difficulty. ‘Now you’re better.’

  Merith left looking steadier than I felt and every part of me wanted to call her back.

  Brin sniffed the room, no doubt disliking what she found but that was a water-dog’s lot, wasn’t it? She was sitting calmly in the centre of the room waiting for whatever duty came next.

  Duty was the word. I rolled it around my mouth as I opened my bag. I found it bitter tasting and were I to swallow it there would be no lasting satisfaction. I took out a wide, thick-handled knife, knowing this was no job for a scalpel and feeling sick at that knowledge.

  She didn’t look at me and in a moment of cowardice I was relieved she didn’t. I knelt in front of her muzzle and stroked her tight, curled fur, wondering if even then fleas were migrating from Brin to me, if this little act of kindness would in the end condemn me. I whispered words to sooth us both.

  I thrust the knife into her heart.

  I did it quickly, before she could see the knife and know. Just behind the front leg; I felt the knife glance from a rib.

  And then I held her to me. I held her for a long time.

  *

  I was there when Fian came for the corpse. The captain must have told her as she made no comment on finding Brin carefully wrapped. I had wept my eyes dry. We exchanged no words as I followed her up on deck.

  Brin wasn’t the only one to be consigned to Break Deep that day; there was another by the winch. They had found hemp sacks from somewhere to wrap the body. I hadn’t thought of that, and it was better than the partial covering of clothes.

  Mona and the captain were at their ceremonial positions with their faces ceremonially set. The captain was saying something. I looked up to the helm: Darcie was still there, his emaciated limbs and nodding head making him appear all the more like the effigies the Lowlanders put in their fields. Scarecrows, Mona called them. I shied away, despite there being a good distance between us. And then I realised. Fian, Darcie, Mona, and the captain.