Hope of Earth

by Piers Anthony

  “That’s where this curse started,” the man replied. “I’m glad I’ve got my magic amulet.” He touched a wooden charm strung around his neck. “I don’t want to die of that thing.”

  Jes had little faith in amulets for protection. She had experimented with one as a child, and found that she was as likely to get hurt with it as without it. But maybe she hadn’t had a good one. “So it’s worse in the port city?”

  “For sure. The ships are coming back with it too.”

  That did it They turned away, and returned disconsolately to their apartment in Athens. It was too late to go back to work, but they would do so the next day. Crockson’s generous gesture had not helped them after all.

  “I don’t want to catch the plague,” Wona said, looking nervously around. She dug out the amulet she had bought and put it on.

  Jes didn’t comment. But she was not easy as she sank into sleep that night.

  The next day they went to work. “It was too late to go,” she explained to Crockson. “But we thank you.” She gave him the bag of silver, which she had never opened.

  “May Athene preserve you,” he said simply.

  Jes did not have a great deal of faith in the beneficence of the gods, either, but it wasn’t politic to say so. “Thank you.”

  More women came down with the plague, and Jes saw them back to their hovels, one by one. But there was hope, because the majority of people did not come down with the malady. Maybe the siege of illness, like that of the Spartan army, would ease without becoming total. Stories abounded, accounting for it. “The Peloponnesians poisoned the cisterns,” a woman whispered fearfully. “I don’t dare drink from one.” She was referring to the mechanism that collected rainwater, because no new wells had been sunk to provide water for the massive influx of people. Jes didn’t believe that, because there should be no Spartans inside the city. “It is the wrath of the gods,” another woman said. “Especially Apollo. He did it to the Greek host before the city of Troy; now he’s doing it to us. The oracle said it would be so!” But Jes remembered no such pronouncement by the oracle. The woman was insistent: “My grandfather recalls it from the time of his youth.” She went into a singsong. “The Dorian war will come, and death along with it.”

  “No, it was ‘dearth,’” another woman protested.

  “It was both,” a third said. “And we will pay the price. We should never have gotten into this war.”

  With that Jes was inclined to agree. She had learned from Crockson, who had an interest in contemporary politics, that Athens had been arrogant. Sparta had committed sacrilege against the god Poseidon, who had punished the city with a series of earthquakes a generation ago, sending it into decline. Athens had taken advantage of the situation to increase its own power. It had built a large navy to defeat the dreaded Persians, and expanded it thereafter. Other cities in the Delian League were nominally equal, but Athens had increasingly treated them like subject states. Athens had used the money from the League treasury as her own, claiming it was to ensure their protection. Three years ago Athens had banned Megaran traders from Aegean markets and instituted an embargo against Megaris itself. Athens had also intervened in disputes between Corinth and Corcyra, and forbade Potidaea from choosing its annual magistrate from Corinth, as had been the custom. So Corinth had made it clear to Sparta that they must go to war, or face the dissolution of the rival Peloponnesian League. Thus had the war been joined. “And it wouldn’t have happened,” Crockson concluded, “if Athens had not gotten too pushy. You can’t do that to other cities, without building resentment. Now look where it’s gotten us.”

  Indeed, they were in trouble. Jes was sure that the refugees had brought the plague with them. If there had not been war, there would not have been refugees, and then there might have been no plague. But of course it was too late to complain.

  The moment the siege lifted, they would leave Athens and seek a husband for Wona in a city that was free of the plague. It wasn’t just that the war had siphoned off most of the worthwhile men, but that the plague had caused an almost complete breakdown in order. Jes would have much preferred to walk alone through a forest infested with vicious wild animals, than on a city street. Almost every day she had to use her club, and sometimes her knife, to defend Wona and herself from ruffians. How she longed for the calm island of Euboea!

  Then Jes abruptly felt strange. She found herself blinking repeatedly and rubbing her eyes, which were stinging. She felt cold and unsteady. Then she smelled her own breath, which was unnaturally fetid. “Oh, no!”

  Crockson heard her exclamation. He came over to check. “Dust blow in your eyes?”

  “I think I’ve got the plague.” For she had seen the symptoms often enough in others, during the past few days.

  He put a hand on her forehead. “Fever, inflamed eyes, bad breath. I agree. You have the plague.”

  “I must go home before—”

  He shook his head. “I think not. You must remain here.”

  “But others will catch—”

  “We don’t know how it spreads, but it isn’t necessarily from one person to another, or all my workers would have it now, instead of only a quarter of them. I suspect it is bad water. In any event, if it spreads from person to person, you got it from someone here, so it is my responsibility. I will take care of you. You can stay in the back storage chamber.”

  “But Wona—she can’t go home alone.”

  “She will remain here too, to bring you food and water and change your clothing.” He smiled, very briefly. “I think you would rather have her do some things for you, than have me do them.”

  Wona came up. “Yes, I will do them. I can’t go out by myself.”

  Jes was too distracted to protest further. She allowed herself to be guided to the back room.

  Her fever got worse. She lay on a pallet, shivering though Wona piled blankets on her. Her tongue swelled until she feared she would choke on it, and her throat became so sore that breathing was verging on painful. Wona brought a basin of water and sponged her face, but it didn’t make her feel better. Then, by uneasy stages, she stumbled her way into sleep.

  She woke sneezing, and each sneeze burned her throat, mouth and nose horribly. The room looked red, because of the inflammation of her eyes. She tried to speak, and her voice was hoarse. “I hate this!”

  Wona appeared. “Rest, Jes. That is all you can do.”

  Indeed, that was all she was capable of doing, other than suffering. Wona gave her water to sip, and she managed some, but had no appetite for food. Wona helped her use the pot, because she was too unsteady to manage it on her own. Then she sank back into a tormented haziness that lasted the night. Her dreams were scattered and senseless, with inexplicable things like the cracking open of bones to reveal horrible jelly inside, and seeing a woman crack open similarly, jelly squeezing out of her, that assumed the form of a baby. But it couldn’t be, because they left it there on the ground and walked away. Then a fire blazing across a valley, and she was running right into it, her legs strangely thick. Huge Sam and little Lin dancing together, making people laugh. Paddling strange long boats along an unfamiliar shore. Building a house made of monstrous bones. Ned painting a picture on a big rock. And Ned again, trying to run, and Wona, pursuing him.

  She opened her eyes, and there was Wona. “You stole my brother!” Jes exclaimed in a fury.

  “Yes. I owe you for that.” Wona held a cup of water to her mouth. “Drink.”

  “I should have killed you!”

  “Instead you protected me. You are a better person than I am. Drink.”

  Jes drank, and faded back out.

  She wasn’t sure how much time passed, but it could have been several days. The plague reached into her chest, making her have a hard cough. Her chest got tired, but she couldn’t stop coughing. She had seen it in others, and wondered why they didn’t just stop coughing when it hurt; now she knew.

  She thought the malady was passing, but that was illusion. It
was merely retrenching. It reached into her belly and twisted her gut. She retched, vomited, and vomited again, spewing out whatever remained inside her, and when that was gone, she continued heaving dry. That wasn’t enough, and she kept heaving until it seemed she would turn inside out, finally managing to spit out foul-looking and -smelling bile. Wona cleaned it all up without comment.

  But the worst had not yet passed. After more scattered intervals of sleep, she developed the characteristic rash. It was awful. Her skin turned reddish, and was spotted with pustules and small sores. She hated the look of it.

  Wona put a hand on her forehead to check her fever—and Jes screamed. She was so hot that she couldn’t bear to be touched. “I’m burning, burning!” she moaned.

  “But you’re not at all hot,” Wona protested.

  That was what she thought. Jes’s heat increased, until she could not bear the touch of anything. Not a blanket, not even the lightest clothing. She threw everything off and lay naked, not caring whether Crockson might come in and see her. In her fevered memory, he had been in and out many times already.

  She woke again, intolerably thirsty. Wona was absent, but she couldn’t wait. “Water,” she gasped.

  After a time, Crockson did come in, carrying a jar of water and a cup. “Can you drink it yourself?” he asked, extending the brimming cup.

  She snatched it from his hand, spilling some, and jammed it to her face. She gulped it avidly down, but her terrible thirst was not quenched. Crockson poured more from the jar, and she drank this too, and then a third. Still she was not quenched.

  “That is enough, for now,” Crockson said.

  “But I need more—much more,” she protested, reaching for the cup again.

  He held it away. “You will drown in water, and never get enough. Trust me. I have seen it before. I will give you more later. Now rest.”

  She looked down, and saw her stomach distended from the water inside her, and realized it was true. This thirst could not be quenched.

  “Where is Wona?” she asked querulously. “Why isn’t she doing this?”

  He gestured to the far side of the chamber. There was Wona, asleep. “She has served you well, but she too needs her sleep,” he explained.

  “That’s more than I expected,” Jes said.

  “She needs you,” he said. “If you die, she is alone without having found her man. So she has done the best she can for you.”

  It did make sense. “And you—why do you help us so freely?” she demanded. “You know I will not stay to run your shop.”

  “I like you, Jes,” he said seriously. “You are my employee, but I regard you as a Mend. There are thousands of people in this city more worthy of dying than you, so I hope to keep you among the living.”

  “But you are too generous. That bag of silver—”

  “You returned it.”

  “Because we didn’t go.”

  “How many others would have done that?”

  Jes couldn’t answer, because she couldn’t think of any she knew here in Athens.

  He stepped back. “Now try to rest. This malady is not yet done with you.”

  “I can’t rest!”

  “That is part of it. But you must try. I will bring more water soon.” He left the room.

  Only then did she remember that she was naked. She hadn’t noticed, in her inordinate thirst. She suspected that he hadn’t noticed either. It wasn’t because she wasn’t much of a figure of a woman, especially in this grotesque illness; it was because he had no designs on her.

  But what about Wona? Had she bought his favor?

  Jes tried to sleep, but could not. She tried at least to rest, and could not. She knew that she would never be able to relax, no matter how tired she became. The plague simply would not allow it.

  After a time, Wona stirred. “Oh, you are alert,” she said, getting up.

  “Did you pay Crockson?”

  Wona laughed. “With what? We owe him silver already.”

  “In your way.”

  “Oh. No. I offered, but he declined. He said he preferred to be your friend.” She shook her head, bemused. “He doesn’t even want your body, just your respect. He is strange.”

  “Very strange,” Jes agreed. Some day she would find a way to repay Crockson for his kindness.

  She managed to eat a little, and of course she drank all the water they would allow her. It was more than she needed, because what she didn’t throw up or sweat away she urinated away. More than once she overflowed the pot; it seemed impossible to empty it as fast as she filled it. But her thirst remained.

  The violent spasms passed, but Jes did not feel very much better. She must have gotten snatches of sleep, because sometimes it was light in the chamber, and sometimes dark. Wona told her that seven days had passed since she first felt the fever. That seemed impossible; it was either far too long, or far too brief.

  The plague stopped bothering her skin so much, and her cough eased. But the malady moved deeper into her gut. Now she had diarrhea, and it was like the heaves, in that it wouldn’t stop. It turned black, and she knew there was blood in it, but she couldn’t stop it from coming. Wona took the pot out repeatedly, not complaining.

  Then Jes lost her strength, as she had not during the violent stage. She became so extremely weak that she could hardly stir herself to move. She lay there and felt her life fading away.

  At one point she heard them talking, but she lacked the strength to react. “What can we do?” Wona asked. “She’s so near death.”

  “This is the point at which she will die, if she is going to,” Crockson’s voice replied. “I am not a doctor, but I think it is the bleeding in the bowels that takes away the life energy. She must heal by herself—or fail to. We can only watch.”

  “I hate this!”

  “So do I. But there can be worse. So though I hope she lives, I would rather see her die, than—”

  “Than what?” Wona demanded, alarmed. “What could be worse than death?”

  “Some recover, but leave parts of themselves behind. The distemper can fix itself on some particular member.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It ruins the hands, making them permanently useless. Or the feet, so that the person can’t walk. Or the genitals, or the eyes, leaving them blind.”

  “Oh,” Wona said, appalled.

  “Or even the mind, so that they remember nothing, and neither know themselves nor recognize their friends.”

  “You are right,” Wona agreed. “Better she die, than that.”

  “But she is strong,” he concluded. “I think she will survive, and be herself again.” But he did not sound confident.

  “May I speak frankly?” Now there was a certain edge to Wona’s voice.

  “Of course. We have a common cause, in the saving of this person.”

  “Do we? I am not her friend, but am bound to her until I find a suitable man. She will be very glad to see me placed, so she is free. So the relationship between the two of us is understood. But you—why are you being so generous to us?”

  “I am generous to those I feel are deserving.”

  “By that you mean Jes.”

  “Well, I mean no offense to you. You are a beautiful woman, and you have done your part.”

  “I offered my body to you, in payment for our debt to you. Why did you refuse?”

  “It would not be right to take such advantage—”

  “And you have not taken such advantage of any of the other women who work for you. Many are married, and many are not pretty, so maybe that is understandable. But I am another matter. I owe you, and I am unmarried, and beautiful. You could legitimately take me. Yet you do not.”

  “You must remain chaste for the man you will marry.”

  Wona spat in negation. “You know chastity is not a word that ever applied to me.”

  “Still—”

  “Do you hold my nature against me?”

  “No, I understand it. You are as you
are, and you use what skills you possess to forward your security, just as others do.”

  “Why don’t you marry me? Then Jes will be immediately free.”

  “But you don’t want an old trader, you want a citizen with status.”

  “I am realistic. You are a good man. You would take good care of me.”

  “This is not feasible. You must seek a man better suited to you.”

  “Would you prefer Jes? She is slender where I am not. Some men like their women lean.”

  “I value Jes as a friend and a fine person. I would not—”

  “Because your true passion is not for girls at all,” Wona said. “It is for boys.”

  There was a silence.

  “And you took Jes for a boy, at first,” she continued relentlessly. “She passes for a stripling man, so that was understandable. But she needed no weapon to impress you.”

  “It is a respectable association,” Crockson said defensively.

  “Yes, in the cities. Less so, in the countryside. I am not condemning you, merely making sure I understand. You do for her what you would do for a young male lover.”

  “Yes. I wish I could have had a relationship with her. But I can love no woman, and she is a woman, no matter how she garbs herself. But if you feel you owe me anything, repay me in this manner: do not speak of this to her. I love her in my own fashion, which is not hers, and my love can never be consummated. I would not for all the world cause her the kind of distress such a revelation would bring her.”

  “As you wish. I make no claim to being any fine person, but I pay a price when it is fair. I will spare her this.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But if you married me, I would be tolerant and discreet. I have no more actual interest in sex with men than you do in sex with women. Except as an exercise in power over them. All I want is a secure, wealthy life.”

  There was a pause, as Crockson considered. “In another culture, I think I would find your offer attractive. But here in Athens there is not such need for concealment. I can sponsor my lovers openly, so long as I do not pursue the relationship past the age of maturity, which is thirty. The only exception is when I do not wish to hurt one I respect like Jes. I think I am better off single.”