In the Arms of Immortals

by Ginger Garrett

  “Flee? So you can come in behind me and claim this castle?” she called.

  “Don’t be a fool! I care nothing for your castle, or your wealth. If you do not leave tonight, I cannot guarantee your survival! Please go!”

  Fidato was losing interest in their conversation. He began nosing around the greens at his feet, investigating the area to see what might be edible.

  “What have you been doing in the village?” Panthea asked. She watched Fidato. He shouldn’t eat the wild onions. They troubled his stomach.

  “There is no time!” Armando called. He was getting agitated. It pleased Panthea. He needed to show more emotion.

  “Answer my question first,” Panthea called down. “What have you been doing in the village?”

  Armando did not look at her as he said something she couldn’t hear. Then he answered. “I have called for men who can assist me,” Armando called. “We are sealing up houses where victims are known to be. We are battling against bellechino, young men who steal, using their own illness as a weapon. Wolves have been seen in the city. The smell of the bodies is calling them. Villagers are frightened. If one survives this death, one must still face violence from men and nature.”

  “Thank you,” Panthea said. “Your report is as I expected. I, too, smell death, but to me, it smells like money.”

  Armando looked ready to strangle her. It gave her butterflies in her stomach. She had not toyed with him in days. She missed him so much.

  “Even now, as I stand here,” he called, “people are dying, and not always of plague. What is your answer?”

  “This is the reason I could never love you, Armando,” Panthea replied. “You see danger and you act. A real man would see danger and think.”

  “I am a fool to speak to you again,” he said, turning. “God be with you, Panthea.”

  “I don’t need God at the moment,” Panthea replied. “I have a cure. It is available to you, to all the villagers, for a reasonable fee. I didn’t even need a man to think of this plan for me.”

  He stopped.

  “The medicine woman is here, Armando. For a fee, she will heal those afflicted. She can even offer medicines to ward off the death, should someone come to her in time.”

  “This woman,” Armando said, “what is her name? Is it Gio?”

  She didn’t know how to read his expression. It looked like grief.

  “Yes, I think that is her name.”

  Villagers were coming up the path into sight. They were carrying purses.

  “Go fight your battle, Armando,” she said. “I have business to conduct. If you know of a knight who needs sponsorship, send him to me, won’t you? I can pay well.”

  “Medicine is needed in the village, Panthea.”

  “No, those medicines are needed by the villagers. A difference you have missed. All are welcome to come and buy. I withhold nothing.”

  “Think beyond today, Panthea! For once in your life, think without greed for more. If plague victims come here, you will die the same death.”

  He had underestimated her again.

  “They are allowed in the root cellar, not the castle. They enter and exit by a door that is well away from all living quarters.”

  Armando let go of Fidato’s reigns. He bowed to her, a cold, short bow as if they were done. He should be praising her for her wits, she thought. Someday he would count this money and laugh.

  It is odd, she thought, that Armando would see this crisis and show fear, when I see it too but feel power. More the pity, that he will not praise me.

  Unbelievable, Mariskka thought. The sun was setting late in the day, its horizon lavish red, just as in her own age. So many things were the same here. A sparrow looked the same as in her own century. Birds sang the same songs. The sun was still clean and warm on her skin, and baking bread made her stomach growl. Her mother’s generation had seemed like aliens to her, yet these people, centuries past, were as close to herself as any she could imagine. Their faces were no different, whether they comforted a crying child or went about their business.

  And the church bells—that constant low ringing she felt vibrating through her tired legs—was a nicer sound than the shrill alarms and constant beeps she was raised with. In her world, beeps and alarms were like little electronic bites, sharp punctures against the fragile skin of the harassed. Bells were a melancholy nod to each passing hour, and when they rang for the dead, everyone paused in respect, searching their hearts. Machines had marked all Mariskka’s hours and kept the watches of the night.

  Mariskka thought of how many nights she had spent at her nurse’s station watching the bank of monitors, each blinking screen representing a patient. She wished she could go back to those nights and unplug all the screens, all the machines. She would watch patients instead, looking into their faces for signs of discomfort, stroking their arms when the IV line hurt and they looked helplessly at it.

  How many times had they suffered alone in those sterile rooms? Only the alarm of a machine could bring Mariskka to their side. She regretted that.

  Three days had passed. Her body felt numb all over, the bruises already turning yellow at the edges. It hurt to bend over or move quickly; her ribs were hurt, but not broken. She was still able to take deep breaths and thanked God for that. She had been healed beyond her expectations, but she still hurt. Life hurt.

  Her first year as a nurse, she had kept vigils at bedsides. She had excused herself to the other, older nurses, saying she needed a soda, leaving that control room of monitors and screens. Mariskka had spent those secret moments at the bedside of her patients, especially the older women, women dying alone. She held their hands as they thanked God for little mercies. She understood these better now.

  Life hurt. Death was a relief to some of her patients, a conclusion they were ready for. It was as if those patients read only the end of a book, flipping through the other pages with little interest. They did not want to live.

  Mariskka had been changed, little by little, one by one, by those sorts of patients in her first years. One patient would open the window and chain-smoke all night, waiting for her breathing treatment in the morning. Another patient with coronary disease had beer and onion rings sneaked in by the lift team, those young college guys who roamed the halls at night, helping nurses lift and rotate bedridden patients. Sweet guys, usually, who just needed to earn extra money. They picked up plenty of business as bootleggers. Medicaid paid for you to get well, but that’s not what these patients wanted. Mariskka realized patients came to hospitals for treatments, not healing. Treatments made them more comfortable. People loved being comfortable.

  Mariskka had learned something more about those patients: They didn’t want to miss a new episode of their favorite CSI series, or that hospital drama with the sexy doctors and sexy patients and sexy nurses. TV seasons kept patients alive. They tried to hold out until the end of the season. Every summer there was a rise in deaths. Patients didn’t always have the strength to wait for the new season.

  After her fifth year, she transferred to a hospice. Here the understanding was implicit between patient and nurse. They were dying and she would let them. No one spoke about healing and she didn’t feel frustrated with them anymore.

  Church bells felt like kicks against her back, making her return, with fear, to the sights before her. The sun turned cold on her skin, making her shiver, unable to feel its warmth. Night was already in the air. Everyone could sense it coming like a storm, brewing just behind the horizon. The sun could not hold it back.

  Mariskka didn’t remember being this exhausted at work, but she had practically been a kid the last time she pulled back-to-back shifts with no sleep. She squeezed her eyes shut a few times to get her tears going, to moisten her dry eyes and clear her vision. The short walk to the church had loosened her stiff muscles. Strong-looking boys were
bringing pails of water into the square in front of the church. Lazarro was talking to them. They returned, walking back down the same path, keeping close together.

  Mariskka glanced at the torches surrounding the square. They would hold one more night.

  She turned her face back just in time to catch a slick blob of spit on her cheek. A man was cursing as she wiped the spit off with her sleeve. He was pointing to a child, a child with a burning red face, moaning, little bubbles forming on his lips. Mariskka pushed the father aside and went to the child, taking his wrist to feel his pulse. The father frowned and cursed her again. Mariskka pulled down on the boy’s under-eye skin, checking the colour, and then pulled up on his eyelids, checking his pupils.

  The father yelled at Lazarro, who turned to watch her, shaking his head.

  “She does no harm,” Lazarro said. “Let her work. We do not know where she comes from; perhaps she was trained in the Arab arts of healing.”

  He went back to lancing boils. He used the same needle for each patient, wiping it on his sleeve between each lancing. Mariskka was going mad watching him.

  Witness the birth of universal health care, she said to herself. She had to make herself laugh, otherwise she would be forced to strangle him.

  If she could speak, what could she say to him? He didn’t know there were germs and viruses. He would have insisted this was the hand of God, a judgment on sin. He would have refused her explanations because he had contented himself with his own. Knowledge was useless in the age of faith. At least when men thought faith meant the world held no more mysteries.

  “God help us,” Mariskka prayed, though no one heard. “They think they know You, and maybe they do. But they don’t know all of You.”

  Her prayer made her laugh. All those years, she thought. All those years spent battling in school, science fighting faith, as if they were enemies who could not be in the same room. Science is faith, Mariskka thought. Science is God beckoning us into further and deeper mysteries. God wants to be known, whether it is under a microscope or above our heads in the stars. God wants us to tear down the walls and root up the earth until we’ve found Him everywhere He can be found. We should be exhausting ourselves in the search for God, in our drug trials and labs, in our nurseries and hospices. God is too wild, too powerful, to ever be fully explained in our world of maps and measures.

  Yet she knew Lazarro could not see any of this.

  Oh, God, she thought, how You must be suffering today. None of these people should have to die. She wondered if prayers could horrify God, people moaning for deliverance when answers were all around them as they died.

  An idea wedged itself in, in between her prayers and worries. Mariskka jumped and ran across the street, irritated it had not occurred to her before. A baker had foods and seasonings.

  Inside his shop, she pulled out woven baskets, tossing supplies on the floor, jerking open leather satchels to see what they contained. Useless. Along the wall, dark glass bottles gave her hope. She yanked the cork free on each until her nose recoiled at the smell of one. Perfect. Lazarro had run out of his own.

  Running back across the street, she was careful to cradle the bottle close into her abdomen so she wouldn’t lose a drop. She stopped at the edge of the makeshift hospital, ripping off a section of her robe and dousing it in the vinegar.

  Looking to find one victim more alive than the rest, she picked her way to the woman’s side and pressed the vinegar against the hot swellings. A few had already begun to crack. The woman moaned, staring at Mariskka in confusion. Mariskka clucked her teeth at the woman to be quiet. Mariskka coated each wound in the strong fermented vinegar, moving on, down rows of the dead and dying, searching for someone who might be saved. She finished her walk of the rows with more than half the bottle still left.

  Mariskka wanted to cry. She wanted to sink to her knees and let this awful stinging apple that was lodged in her throat out. She had one thing that could help. It could not cure, but it could help. And there was no one left who could use it. Death was winning.

  Mariskka saw a young girl, with wide eyes and smooth hair, staring at the victims, her chin trembling. Mariskka stood and walked to her. The girl saw her coming but did not move. Her little chin just bobbed, and the corners of her mouth turned down.

  Mariskka clucked at her, taking her little hand and pressing it to her own chest. Feel my heart, Mariskka thought. She placed her other hand over the girl’s heaving chest, willing her to slow her rapid breathing. Every time the girl turned to look at the dying, Mariskka clucked at her to get her attention, to help her breathe, to calm her heart.

  This is the fight, Mariskka said to her in her mind. Do not give in.

  Dark spirits were circling the edges of the square, some swooping in and taking a bite as someone lay in pain, causing the victim to cry out. The spirits watched Mariskka with this girl. She saw their faces. They wanted this girl more than the others.

  Mariskka hugged the girl to her side and spat in their direction. She saw a flash of iron teeth as a freezing wind knocked her off balance, but they did not come closer. She had a feeling she knew them. How many times had they walked the halls of her hospice? How many times had they followed her into a room?

  They had been bold back then, when she read machines instead of faces.

  Her arms were still around the girl, who had stopped shaking. Mariskka could feel the girl leaning into her embrace, allowing Mariskka’s warmth to revive her, allowing Mariskka’s steady heart to slow her own down. Mariskka bent her head and kissed the girl on top of her hair. When Mariskka looked up, the spirits had moved on to find a new victim.

  The girl pushed against Mariskka and ran. Mariskka picked up the edge of her robe, trying to follow the girl through the rows of the dead and dying, which extended now in all directions. A cart was at the edge of the lane, and men were accepting gold from Lazarro. They were here for the bodies. Mariskka yelled at them, and they turned in her direction.

  They were picking up anyone who did not move, throwing them into the cart. Mariskka wanted to check vitals. Not everyone who was still was dead.

  She lost sight of the girl.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Gio loved that light. Every time they cracked the door open, the light illuminated the steps all the way down to her. She wanted to catch it, to reach up her arms and pull it in. Gio stayed at the bottom of the steps. Any closer, and they would have kicked her back down.

  She had taken light for granted.

  Her candle still had tallow left to burn. It could last for hours, but it was not light. It was not the sun. People moaned in the darkness all around her. It did not frighten her anymore. The healthy were dying just like the ones who stumbled down here already ill. Panthea had sentenced them all to death, taking their money and sending them to see her here. She had probably assumed they would leave once they got their medicine. Panthea did not understand how fast the plague could kill. Some fell dead before they reached the stairs to return.

  Gio had no marks upon her. Yet. She marveled at that.

  She was trying to piece together what herbs she had, trying to make sense of what could ease suffering. When the people had first come down here to her, they had not waited for her help. They had ransacked her herbs, drinking or mashing or burning whatever they thought looked potent, some stuffing it in their pockets, thinking they would escape, even as the black bubbles began to appear.

  She was not used to seeing all her work scattered, poured out at her feet. She tried to line them up, to make order from them. Perhaps if there was order, there would be understanding. She checked the pockets of the dead to retrieve a few herbs.

  The fools above had forgotten her mortar and pestle. Some of the harder stones and herbs were useless. What did they think she could do with nutmeg in its shell? She tried to bite it. Useless to her.

 
; She made some sense out of the dried herbs. Florals and peppers went together. Mustards were laid to one side. Gio tore her robe in uneven strips along the bottom. It was filthy, spotted with blood and cow dung from the festival streets. Gathering the chamomile and lemon balm in one hand, she twisted a strip of robe around it, tying it off. She did this until her floral herbs were gone, then she laid the mustard between strips of her robe and tied those into bundles with the mustard hidden inside. She did the same with the peppercorns, but then she smashed those underfoot. The smell was strong even down here, where she was overpowered by mould and damp earth.

  Gio picked a dying torch up off its bracket and felt her way along the walls, keeping her eyes down. There they were.

  She plucked the mushrooms up and stuffed them down her bosom, careful to get every one she could find, no matter how dead it looked. Any power left in it was power she needed.

  These she brought back to the other herbs and laid them out with her other medicines, in groups of three. God bless my work, she thought. Having one thing you must do—now that is salvation when the world falls apart.

  She cocked her head at a sound. She listened, trying to tell which angle it came from. She moved in that direction, keeping her feet quiet, listening, not even bothering with a light.

  Lazarro.

  She had to see him. She had to warn him. This plague was stirring violence in meek hearts. It was not safe for him, a gentle man of the cloth, to be out among them. He had to return to his church and pray. She looked at her piles and bundles of wilted herbs and mushrooms. In the firelight of her home, surrounded by her paintings and amulets, their magic was real enough to cure some. But here, alone in the darkness with the dying, Gio felt ashamed that she had asked so much of these little greens. What use were they for the real diseases of men?

  She pressed her ear to the cold stone, but it made his voice no clearer. Oh, God, she prayed, do not let him leave!

  She ran to the top of the stairs and pounded. “Do not send him down!” she shouted. “I will sell nothing to him!”