“Come in, Brothers! There’s a bit of cider left over from the autumn. It’s a little sharp, but it will still wet your throat. No need to have come so far. We’ve everything well in hand. There’s nothing here to see. Nothing. Nothing.”
A group of children of varying ages stared mournfully at them, keeping their distance from the hounds. The eldest was a girl; after she offered each man a wooden cup filled with sharp cider, she stared at them with a hopeless gaze, hands wrapped tight in her apron. She had warts all across the fingers of her left hand and her left cheek had a blistery rash. All of the younger siblings bore a similar rash.
“My good wife died two year ago, leaving me with all these young ones. There’s no wife to be had in these parts, all of them married and none old enough to wed for a good number of years. There was a widow last year, but she died of that flux that took off my youngest. I kept a man in to help me, an easterner, but he was no good. He took all of his things and six eggs yesterday morning and abandoned us. I suppose it’s him who spread tales.” He was skittish, but it wasn’t the hounds that scared him; he glanced once in their direction and then not again.
“Can we see the herd, friend?” asked Ratbold. “The good abbot has asked us to do what we can.”
The farmer looked ready to cry as he led them past his cottage, which was split into living quarters and a wintering stable for his livestock. The penned-in area beside the stable lay calf-deep in mud from the winter rains, but no sheep sheltered there now. They continued past the garden and the henhouse to a meadow where a bright-eyed dog and an older boy kept watch over the flock: three ewes and four lambs. The hounds ventured forward cautiously to view the other dog, who eyed them from a distance, growling softly but not leaving his station at guard over the sheep.
“It’s just the mud,” the farmer insisted. “That’s what made them go lame. That’s why I brought them out here, to get their hooves out of the mud. It’s only two I had to slaughter. I burned them, just to make sure, because I knew folk would talk. These others, they were right as rain this morning.”
Ratbold cursed. Two of the ewes were lying down and the third was limping badly. The lambs seemed unnaturally quiet where they lay beside their mothers, not romping, making no reaction at all as strangers walked up beside them.
Ratbold caught up to the limping ewe and grabbed a leg, cupping its hoof in one strong hand. “It’s the murrain, all right,” he said. “The blisters are hard to see. Here, all round where the horn joins the skin. Here in the cleft. Can you feel how hot the hoof is?”
The other ewes showed no blisters, although they refused to rise, gathering their hind legs far forward and going no farther up than a half crouch.
“Ai, God!” The farmer hovered restlessly at Ratbold’s back, struggling to hold back tears. “Is there any hope for it?”
“It’s breaking the king’s law to hide the murrain,” said Ratbold. “You must pen in all your animals and burn them after they die, put their skulls up on stakes as a warning—”
The farmer’s first sound was a wordless, despairing cry, followed by a burst of sobs and lamentation. “My good sheep! My good sheep! What will happen to us?”
Behind, the children began to blubber and weep. It was a cataclysm for this family, who would lose their flock and all the wool, lambs, meat, and cheese it brought them. The steading lay on the slope of hills with a dense clay soil; this marginal land was suitable for pasturage and a garden and not much else but still close enough to gain a substantial benefit from proximity to the monastery and its adjoining farms.
“Let me bathe their hooves,” said Alain. “Maybe some good will come of that. Have you wound-heal or sicklewort?”
The farmer could barely speak through his tears. “Nay. Nothing of that sort, Brother. I’ve never heard of such things. Is there any cure for the murrain?”
“You know there is not,” said Ratbold. “Now pray leave us, for Brother Alain and I must discuss what to do next.”
Weeping, the farmer retreated to the huddle of his children, watching helplessly as Ratbold scolded Alain.
“Brother Alain, it is a sin to raise false hopes. There is no cure. He’ll lose his entire flock.”
“I pray that he does not!”
“Once it strikes a herd, it strikes them all. This is truly the Enemy’s feast. All we can hope for is to kill this plague here so it doesn’t spread to the other steadings and the monastery.”
“Father Ortulfus said I should do what I can. Has anyone tried a bath of herb water, or an ointment?”
“Do you suppose they have not? If there was any healing that would banish the murrain, it would have been found by now. Do what you wish, but it will make no difference. We’ll have to pen in the animals and stay here to watch over them. We can’t trust him to follow the law. He knew it was the murrain—and was hoping to hide it. When the animals are dead, we’ll see them burned and then return to the monastery. That is the only way.”
“May I bathe their feet in any case, Prior? No harm will come to me, and it may ease their suffering.”
“It’s foolhardy—!” began Ratbold, but checked himself as if a voice too quiet for Alain to hear chided him. “Nay. Do as you wish, Brother Alain.”
“Coltsfoot may work as well,” mused Alain. Three of the children had sores around their lips, although he had never heard of murrain striking people. Yet the children, too, might benefit from Adica’s herb-craft, a mash to heal sores and ease rashes, an ointment to banish warts or soothe the eyes. Adica was gone, and his life with her had been obliterated in the white heat of the terrible spell she and her fellows had raised to destroy their enemies, but what he had learned from her would not perish as long as he lived and could pass the knowledge on.
The girl and the two youngest children trailed after him, keeping their distance from the hounds, as he gathered coltsfoot and violets. He showed the girl what he was doing, let her assist him. The flowers he boiled down into a syrup, the leaves mashed into a fresh poultice.
It was dusk by the time he sank onto a stool in the meadow and washed the hooves of the sheep. The animals were too ill to fight him, although the blisters seemed no worse than they had looked earlier.
“Will they get better?” asked the girl, crouching beside him. He had painted her warts with oil of gentian; purple dots speckled her hand, and a greenish plaster coated her cheek. She smelled medicinal, like a child who had rolled in the wild spring greening.
“I pray they will, but it’s in God’s hands now. I’ll sit up and watch over them.”
ld cursed. Two of the ewes were lying down and the third was limping badly. The lambs seemed unnaturally quiet where they lay beside their mothers, not romping, making no reaction at all as strangers walked up beside them.