Infinite Sacrifice (Infinite Series, Book 1)

by L. E. Waters

  She closes her eyes and begins to breathe easier. I am convinced he is sent directly from God to ease all suffering. I can think of no one else in whose arms I would want to die. Malkyn begins to sing, Languisco e Moro, to ease the fears and give a respite of peace from our desperate situation. Oliver and Rowan find me and slip under my arms to listen to her angelic song. There is no other place I’d rather be.

  That morning I cringe as I see Ulric coming down the lane. It’s a sad morning, since Helena is one of the ten shrouded bodies waiting for transport. I hear him singing something jovially, and I can make out the words as he draws closer.

  “Ring-a-ring o’rosies, A pocket full of posies, A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down!”

  My face draws up in scorn as I realize what he’s making light of, and he notices. “My sweet blossom doesn’t like my little ditty?”

  I can’t hide my disgust. “You are vile.”

  “It’s a children’s song! Little wenchels are singing it all around the streets of London.” He laughs. “It really stays in your head.” He leaps off. “I have a special treat for you!” He goes behind his cart and pulls out an incredibly sick-looking woman from the death-pale lot. “A bubo-covered Winchester goose!”

  He laughs and explains, “Don’t you ever get out! That’s another name for the loose wagtails—”

  I put my hand up to stop him and help her into the abbey, and when I come back out see Helena thrown with her bottom up in the air on top of the heap, her beautiful red hair spilling out over the back of the cart.

  “Is there any way you could come here after your first run, when your cart has more room in it?” I ask as I cover her body with her shroud.

  “First run! This here’s my fourth for the day!” My mouth drops in surprise. “You nuns are working miracles in there, only losing five to ten a day. Elsewhere one out of every two people is dropping. Even on a good day, London loses a small village to the pestilence.” He throws another body next to Helena. “If I ever get this thing, I’ve told my wife to bring me here so my little burgundy hen can nurse me back to health.”

  I can’t imagine him having a wife, poor woman.

  Emeline goes to work stripping the Winchester goose, found to be named Gussalen. She holds up Gussalen’s discarded burlap kirtle, which is stained with blood from backside leakage, one of the worst symptoms of the plague. Gussalen keels to one side as we’re rinsing the dirt off, and we know to get her to a bed at once.

  We lay her down as she begins mumbling, “I did everything I was supposed to.”

  “Yes, you are fine.” I pull the wool over her.

  “No!” she shouts, violently yanking the blanket back down. “I crouched at the latrines, wafting the stinking vapors over me. They said that I would build resistance to the scourge.” She shakes her head deliriously.

  I’ve heard that many people are seeing nuns like Emeline and Malkyn who are surrounded by plague and think that instead of hiding from the pestilence, they would cover themselves in it. I pick up a ladle of water and begin pouring it into her blue-toned mouth, and she spits the water out in my face.

  “What is that? Are you trying to kill me? I need ale. Get me an ale!” Her front teeth are missing. I throw the ladle back in the bucket and try to mop the water off my face. “Ale is the thing that keeps the plague away. The more ale and food you consume, the better your health. I need an ale!” Her body goes rigid as she screams this.

  I walk away. I thought she was difficult the first night, but when her fever takes hold, she tests the whole chapel’s nerves. Her screams and groans rise to such a volume that the other sick beg us to remove her.

  Simon comes and carries her out into the small enclosure at the farthest end of the chapel, but we can still hear her screaming, “There is no God! Where is God? Here we are in His house and we all still perish!”

  Then she laughs, throwing her head back, braying. When she draws her last breath, all notice because it is finally quiet. The dying all clap.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  As Emeline and I are boiling the rags no longer needed by Gussalen, we see that a strange man has tiptoed into the chicken coop. Emeline runs to notify Malkyn, who comes out brandishing a pitchfork. We stand behind her as she jumps out at the man wearing a strange hat and holding three eggs he gathered from our roost. Seeing the armed Mother Superior, he throws down the eggs, puts his arms up, and pleads, “Please, Sisters, I beg you, forgive me!”

  “If you are hungry, why not come into our abbey and ask for a meal?” She brings down her fork. He lowers his hands by his side and drops to the ground to try to salvage the shattered eggs. “Forget the spoiled eggs. Follow us to share our supper.”

  On the way back, Emeline whispers to me, “He is a Jew.”

  Surprised, I ask, “How do you know?”

  “The hat he is wearing is a Judenhut, a Jewish hat.”

  Supper is served on the stone table beside the garden. Someone long ago had moved a massive rock between two long narrow stones, perfect for dining outdoors. We all say grace while the man hangs his head respectfully in silence during our prayers. When Emeline hands him a large bowl of vegetable soup with rye bread, he bows his head in thanks.

  “My name is Daniel. I have fled the persecution in France,” he says as if it’s a confession.

  Malkyn only nods her head slightly.

  “I am a Jew,” he emphasizes.

  Still Malkyn nods. Daniel looks shocked by this casual acceptance.

  “How are things in France?” she asks carefully.

  He shakes his head. “Terrible.”

  Malkyn changes the subject. “How do you make your living?”

  “Before I was chased out”—he sucks in a belch—“—excuse me, Sisters, I was a barber surgeon.”

  “How blessed for us!” She looks up again in direct communication with God. “We are struggling to care for the needy and sick, and in these times need every hand we can acquire.”

  He looks surprised. “You want a Jew to assist you in an abbey?”

  “There is no religious prerequisite for caring for the dying and salvaging life.” He looks amazed. “We can give you food and lodging in return.”

  He looks out past the abbey to the empty unforgiving streets and quickly says, “I would be a fool to turn down that generous offer.”

  Malkyn shows him to a side barn that would serve as his quarters while he’s with us. He bows three times to her as she walks away.

  The next morning, I’m slapping away fleas from my ankles and off the patients when Daniel comes up and says, “I know how to purge those vermin.”

  “How so?” I ask as he takes off his vest and rolls up the large sleeves of his shirt, exposing a large scar stretching from his wrist to his elbow. He leaves and comes back in an hour. He instructs me to make two large circles for him by moving the patients farther to the sides. He carries in stones and builds two high fireplaces into which he throws juniper and ash with sprigs of rosemary from Emeline’s herb garden. As soon as he sets them ablaze, the putrid smell disappears and is replaced by a comforting sweet smell. From then on Daniel keeps the fires lit, day and night. He also fumigates over the sick, purging the scourge. That alone improves the spirits of all who enter and languish there. It also cures us of the unrelenting fleas; the heat seems to keep them safely at bay.

  Chapter 7

  “—seven… eight… nine… ten—” I hear Oliver counting loudly as I creak the short door to the hayshed open enough to squeeze inside.

  I find a seat behind a wall of bales and try to keep from coughing on the hay dust I stirred up in the dark. Light filters in and disappears just as promptly, and I still my breathing to listen for footsteps approaching. Someone much taller than I expect yanks my braid and I turn to see Simon, half in shadow, with his finger to his lips. He sits down right beside me on my bale and fills the air between us with the sweet smell from gathering honey all morning. He points to the outside of the sh
ed, and I deduce Rowan and Oliver are close. We both look down at our hands, in the strange quiet moment we’re caught in. Our breaths are the only sound in the dark, but I become increasingly aware of how swift and loud my heart’s becoming. Can he hear it?

  The door swings open, chasing away the shadows, and Simon puts his warm arm around me, ducking us from their view. I’m there under Simon’s wing for only a moment before Oliver pounces out and screams, “Ah ha!”

  Rowan runs out from behind him, beaming to find Simon there with me.

  Oliver yells, “No fair! You can’t hide together!”

  “How did you know where Elizabeth was hiding?” Rowan asks as Simon pulls me up.

  Simon leads the way out and calls back behind him, “I was watching her from up on that hill.”

  “If you don’t play by the rules, then you can’t play with us.” Oliver crosses his arms.

  Simon says in a high voice, “Not even if I brought you both a present?”

  Rowan coos immediately, and Oliver quickly forgives him.

  “Is it an apple?” Oliver hopes.

  “Some figs?” Rowan guesses.

  Simon smiles and pulls out a small grey puffball of a kitten with golden eyes from his satchel.

  I couldn’t believe he had concealed that the whole time in the shed.

  They put their hands on him at once, and Rowan says, “His name is Mousie, because he looks just like a mouse.”

  Oliver laughs. “That’s a terrible name for a cat!”

  Simon bends down to Rowan. “Mousie is a fine name.”

  The children take the kitten away to play, and Simon says, “That’s to help with the rat problem.”

  The rats had been getting into the chapel in great numbers. Every morning I would find at least one dead in the corners of the chapel or out in our stock house.

  “Thank you, that will most definitely help and keep the children occupied.”

  We walk back together through Emeline’s garden. The trace of mint aroma hangs in the air. Simon ducks his height under the bended willow arch covered in lush rose-hipped branches, and opens the small wooden gate. Forsythia grows high all around the small boxwood-edged place, naturally enclosing the garden away from the world. We walk along the narrow graveled path toward the tall stone sundial in the very center. As in a dance, we both part round the dial and come back together as a swarm of birds returns to roost in a massive oak in the foreground, making a ruckus in the quiet peace of the moment. Simon strips a boxwood branch and sprinkles the tiny leaves over my head. I laugh and grab up a handful of dried leaves and throw them over his head as he tries to turn away. I dart out the opposite gated arch as soon as I see him grabbing up an even greater pile and make it into the abbey right before he releases them, catching Malkyn on her way out. Simon immediately apologizes straight-faced, as I hide my laughter behind the door. Malkyn can care less about the leaves and invites Simon to eat with us. I hear him walk off to assist Malkyn with supper.

  After our grace, Simon looks up and asks Daniel, “How bad were things in France?”

  Daniel looks up with one eye narrow and one eye wide. “You cannot imagine the horrors I have witnessed.”

  We all sit, quiet. Simon attempts again, “I only ask because I have heard rumors about what occurred in Strasburg.”

  Daniel dips his bread in the stew, pops it in his large mouth, and states, “They are not rumors. I was there.”

  We all wait for him to speak again; I wonder if he ever will.

  “It was Friday, the thirteenth of February, when they rounded us all up like wandering cattle, hitting us with sticks as they drove us toward the cemetery. I held in my arms my precious Rebecca, who was still asleep upon my shoulder, and my wife by my side. The sky was grey and dull, as the winter sun hid behind thick clouds, and we all cried out when we saw the massive bonfire burning among the graves. They forced us to strip our clothes. I woke up Rebecca, taking off her little dress and stockings, and she cried because she was cold.” He pauses with that difficult imagery.

  Moments later he continues, “The villagers pounced on our clothes after we threw them in a pile and stuffed their pockets with our savings we carried on us.” He turns to Simon with his finger pointing to the sky. “That is the whole reason they brought us there!”

  He breathes out, trying to calm himself. “They told us they were going to burn us to keep God from seeking vengeance for our sins and bringing the plague to their city. Jews tried to run in every direction. Many pushed through the mob and out into the streets only to be chased down and beaten with clubs in the sewers. They called out to us, ‘Either come and absolve your sins through baptism of water or we will baptize you with fire!’

  “I turned to my wife, and she shook her head stubbornly. But I could not think of Rebecca burning in the fire. It was a terrible sight, as devout Jews walked into the flames. I heard their screams of agony and smelled their burnt hair and flesh!” He pauses again, then continues, “I turned to take Rebecca over with me to the water, and Sarah grabbed her from me and leapt”–he begins to sob—“leapt into the flames with her.”

  We all wait with tears in our eyes as he pulls himself together again and blows his nose in a cloth he carries, in two loud trumpets.

  “I knew I disappointed Sarah greatly. She was the daughter of an esteemed rabbi and extremely pious. I was too much of a coward to join them in the flames and took conversion with a thousand other cowards as twice that number of Jews died for what they believed in. Coward. Such a coward.” He sits there shaking his head.

  Malkyn speaks, “God forgive them for such heinous acts upon humanity.”

  “All spring they were murdering Jews. Killing them, stuffing their bodies in barrels, and floating them down the Rhine. Even after I converted, they kept threatening me. But when the plague arrived and I treated sick Jews and gentiles alike, a mob came accusing me of murdering gentiles. Poisoning them with the plague! They dragged me down to the well and demanded I tell them what poison I put in. Of course I said, ‘I have no poison.’

  “They insisted I was on a mission to kill all the Christians to achieve world domination.

  “Domination!” He throws his hands in the air but lets them fall like soft snow.

  “They stripped me of my clothes, put a crown of thorns on my head, and smashed it into my skin with mailed fists. Then they made ropes of thorns and thrust them up into my genitals. Who wouldn’t confess after that?”

  Simon winces at this and nods in agreement.

  “So,” he continues, “I told them I didn’t put poison in, but I saw another Jew put poison in. They asked which Jew, and I described a plague victim dying in my care. They wanted to know what he’d done, so I told them he dropped an egg-sized tablet out of a wrapped package into the town well. When they demanded the name of the poison, I thought of belladonna, the only poison I knew. They refused to believe me, said this was a poison never seen before, and threatened to send me to hell.

  “They thrust the rope back up with such force, the roping caught in my skin. I told them what they wanted to hear, that the Jew said he made it from the hearts of good Christians and Holy Communion wafers.”

  Malkyn, Simon, and Emeline all look down at this.

  “The mob set on the man I described, and although he was half-dead, the look on his face as they beat him to death still keeps me from sleeping.”

  Simon rests his hand on Daniel’s slumped shoulder. “Though you have been tried and tested, the sins rest on those committing such acts.”

  Daniel’s shoulders still hang low, and judging by the constant circles under his eyes from then on, I would say he slept no better.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  I stand before a wall of fire; the heat makes it hard for me to open my eyes. I feel the weight of two hands. I look down to Rowan’s and Oliver’s sweet faces.

  Simon appears next to us and cries, “How strongly do you believe, Elizabeth?” then leaps and disappears
into the flames.

  I pull them back from the fire, but I hear, “Oliver! Rowan!” from behind us.

  Rowan and Oliver rip themselves from my grip and run into the arms of their father.

  I cry out, “They are mine now! You left them!”

  But he smiles and leads them into the fire.

  I wake up and clutch for the warm, floppy bodies beside me, only startling Mousie nestled into the space between the boys and me. He crawls up farther onto Rowan’s neck and curls his plumed tail around him out of my reach. Rowan’s sweet face shines serenely in the moonlight, and Oliver stretches but quickly settles back into his peaceful dreams. I let their slow and rhythmic breathing lull me back to sleep.

  Chapter 8

  Autumn gives way into winter but grants one last sunny crisp day in celebration of harvest’s end. The sunset has left a red haze across the sky. I take Oliver and Rowan outside at dusk to run around and they bring their little kitten out with them. The abbey is an island in a sea of wheat, left standing with no one to reap it. You can see the direction of the wind by watching the ebb and flow of the grain tides. Everything is gilded: the grain, the grass, and the trees in the distance. I’m taking in the beauty of the moment, tracing my gaze along the maze of stone walls separating various crops, when I feel the familiar tug on my braid. Simon stands behind me, grinning.

  “Your braid is as thick as a mare’s tail!”

  I run my hands along it, checking its girth as we walk the winding cart’s path through the crops.

  “I didn’t mean that in a bad way,” he says with a laugh.

  I turn back to watch the children running in circles with long sticks, which the kitten’s chasing wildly.

  He looks on as well and says, “Amazing how children surrounded with the threat of death ignore it in their quest for life.”

  He steps into the wheat and lies on his back, gazing up at the sky. I decide to lie down next to him. We seem hidden from the world under the thick tops of grain—our own secret place. He plucks a long stalk and twists it into two joined circles. He holds it out against the blue, then lets it pop out of his hands and fall to the ground next to him.