“Mother of God!”
A red and pus-filled boil as large as a hen’s egg lay in the curve of Piero’s armpit.
“Thirsty.” Piero jerked his arm away and turned on his side. “Drink, Sanchia.”
“Right away, carino.” Sanchia moved toward the door. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Caterina followed her out into the hall and closed the door.
Sanchia whirled to face her. “Is it what I think?”
“I’m not sure,” Caterina said slowly. “I’ve never seen anyone who actually had it. I was only a child when it came to Florence in 1470 and it never spread to Mandara, thank God.”
“But I’ve heard stories.” Sanchia pressed her palms back against the panels of the door. “That’s how it starts.”
“Sometimes. Sometimes there are no boils at all.” Caterina turned away, her movement sluggish for someone who was usually so brisk and forceful. “I have to … to do something.”
“What?” asked Sanchia. “What can you do?”
“I’ll send someone to collect those blankets. No, I’ll do it myself. Perhaps it’s not too late.”
“I’ve heard anything spreads it. The wind … the touch of befouled clothing …” Sanchia’s eyes widened in horror. “The rags we took off Piero. I sent Rosa to burn them. She’ll be in danger too.”
“Rosa, Marco, Bianca, and you and me,” Caterina enumerated. “We all touched Piero. Perhaps even Lion … Who knows who’s safe from it?”
Sanchia closed her eyes and sank back against the door. “Pray God we’re wrong.”
“Well, we’ll soon know. The plague isn’t shy about making its presence felt.”
Rosa fell ill that night and died at dawn the next day. No one else in the castle appeared to be ill, nor was there any sign of illness in the city.
Caterina came into Piero’s chamber to give Sanchia the news that no one besides Rosa was ill. She lingered to stand looking down at Piero. “How does he?”
“I don’t know.” Sanchia shook her head wearily. “He’s in great pain. He wakes and sleeps and wakes again.”
“He’s fighting hard. It is said the plague has two heads and the one that produces the boils is not so deadly as the other.”
Two heads. It brought to mind a picture of a monster Medusa lying in wait to pounce on the unwary.
“I’ll prepare another poultice for the boils.” Caterina turned away. “And then return to sit with him while you rest.”
“No.” Sanchia sat down in the chair by the bed. “He knows when I’m not here and grows more restless.”
“You should—” Caterina shrugged. “Send word to me, if you change your mind.”
As she left the room, Sanchia leaned her head against the high back of the chair. Who would she send? Sanchia wondered dully. No servants would come near this chamber.
“Sanchia.”
Her gaze flew to Piero’s face. His lids had opened and he was looking at her with those brightly burning blue eyes.
“More water, love?”
He shook his head. “I’m sick, aren’t I?” he asked hoarsely. “Very sick.”
She nodded.
His jaw set stubbornly. “I won’t die. You’ll see, I won’t die.”
“Of course you won’t.” She smiled shakily. “You’re much too willful to allow any sickness to best you.”
“But it would help if you’d lie down and hold me. Would you do that?”
“Of course, carino.” She got up from the chair and lay down beside him on the bed. Her throat ached as she felt his arms go around her with the same loving protection he had shown the night before he had been taken away from her.
“I won’t leave you,” he muttered as his eyes closed. “I know you need me.”
“Yes, stay, love.” Her voice broke. “I do need you so much.”
“I won’t die …”
Piero died six hours later, after experiencing so much pain Sanchia was almost glad to let him go.
Caterina was there at the end, and it was she who closed the fierce blue eyes for the last time and led a numbed Sanchia from the room. “Can you weep? Sometimes it’s better if you can.”
Sanchia shook her head.
“Then keep busy. Wash him and prepare him and take him to the chapel. I’ve had several men building coffins for the last few hours. I thought we might have need of them.” She paused. “After you’ve finished come to Marco’s chamber. That’s what I came to tell you.”
“Marco,” Sanchia repeated numbly.
Caterina nodded. “Marco has fallen ill. He needs you. He needs us both.”
“Plague?”
“Yes. We aren’t as fortunate as I had hoped. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern about the length of time it takes to strike someone down.” She turned and her voice was slightly uneven. “I must go to my son. Come when you can. You’re needed there now and will probably be needed even more later.”
Bianca was in Marco’s chamber when Sanchia returned from taking Piero’s body to the chapel. In her yellow silk gown she looked as incongruously lovely as a buttercup. She insisted on staying in the chair beside Marco’s bed in spite of their protests.
At one point Marco begged Caterina to send Bianca away. “She won’t understand,” he whispered. “She’s not meant to.…” Once more he lapsed into unconsciousness.
“Bianca, do go sit in the garden,” Caterina suggested gently. “Sanchia and I will tend to Marco’s needs.”
Bianca shook her head, her hand tightening around Marco’s.
“We’ll take wonderful care of him.” Sanchia’s hand clasped Bianca’s shoulder. “I promise you, cara.”
“But why should I go to the garden?” Bianca glanced up at Sanchia in wonder. “Marco won’t be there. I can’t go there without Marco.”
Sanchia had a sudden poignant memory of Bianca and Marco laughing and playing on the flower-garlanded swing.
“Marco is sick,” Bianca said with dignity. “I’ll stay with him until he’s better.”
“But he may not—” Sanchia’s eyes widened. Bianca knew. The knowledge that Marco might not live was there in the serenity of Bianca’s face. Marco had been wrong about how much of the true world Bianca could understand. She not only had understood but had accepted.
Marco opened his eyes at that moment and Bianca turned swiftly back to him. “They wanted me to go to the garden. Isn’t that silly?” She smiled down at him. “We can always go to the garden another time when you’re well enough to paint me. You said you wanted to paint me in the swing, remember?”
“Yes.” His gaze caressed her face. “Beautiful. So beautiful …”
“But right now we can sit here and think about all the flowers and your lovely fountain, can’t we?” Her palm caressed his feverish forehead. “It’s so hot today. Why don’t you try to think of the water flowing and the smell of the roses?”
“I will.”
“And we’ll be sitting there on the bench together beside the fountain and you’ll be teasing me.”
“Together …”
“Oh, yes, we’ll always be together. God is good. He’d never make us part.”
His eyes closed. “Together.”
They were together four hours later when Marco died.
Caterina stepped forward and gently unclasped Marco’s hand from Bianca’s. “Take her to her chamber, Sanchia.” She closed her eyes tightly for an instant before opening them to say huskily, “I must stay here and prepare my son.”
Bianca nodded obediently. “Yes, I’ll go now.” She stood up and looked down at Marco’s face. “Arrivederci, Marco.”
Not good-bye. Just till we meet again. Sanchia was barely able to suppress her tears as she gently took Bianca’s arm and propelled her toward the door. Bianca’s step was unsteady and Sanchia glanced up, expecting to see her face contorted with sorrow. Bianca’s expression was serene. “Sanchia, I’d like to see the priest.”
“We sent to the cathedral for him several h
ours ago, but he didn’t come.” Sanchia added gently, “Marco was a good man, Bianca. God will accept him without the last rites.”
“God has already accepted him,” Bianca said. “The priest is for me. I’d like to take confession before I die.”
Sanchia gazed at her in shock. “Bianca, what—”
“I do not feel well. I told Marco the truth: God is good.” She smiled radiantly at Sanchia. “Together.”
Sanchia’s hand tightened on Bianca’s arm. “As soon as I put you to bed I myself will get the priest.”
Bianca collapsed on reaching her chamber and lingered for another two days before she was devoured by the monster ravaging Mandara.
It was proving to be a virulent, insatiable, indiscriminate monster, bringing down servants, soldiers, women, children. Fully half of those in the castle had been struck down by the third day and Caterina told Sanchia the townfolk had been as tragically affected. Sanchia was left with the nursing of Bianca while Caterina tried to ease the suffering of her people beyond the walls of the castle.
Sanchia was forced to send for Caterina at the hour of Bianca’s death.
“Dear God,” Caterina said softly as she opened the door and the foul stench assaulted her. “Dear God in heaven.”
“I need more water. The servants were bringing me a pitcher of water every few hours and setting it outside the door, but they haven’t come back since last night.” Sanchia was dabbing futilely with a towel at the black suppurations on Bianca’s body. “I’ve got to make her beautiful again. How can I make her beautiful, if I have no water to wash her?”
“Her boils burst.” Caterina swallowed hard and then came forward to stand beside Sanchia. “Most of them die before that happens.”
“I need water.”
“There is no water. The well in the city is fouled. I am permitting everyone to come to the castle and use the cistern in the courtyard for their needs. The cistern is dry now, too.” Caterina gently closed Bianca’s lips which were stretched wide in a silent scream. “We’ll have to take a wagon to the vineyard and bring back water from the well there.”
“I must get her clean. She was so beautiful …”
“Shh, I’ll help you.” Caterina took the towel away from Sanchia. “But this little cloth won’t do. I’ll try to find a sheet and perhaps some water in a ewer in one of the bedchambers.” She turned and left Bianca’s chamber to return in only minutes.
“She kept asking for the priest,” Sanchia said numbly as they washed Bianca’s pitifully boil-covered body. “I couldn’t tell her the priest was either gone or hiding, so I lied to her. When she was in such pain that she couldn’t tell the difference, I pretended the priest was here and took her confession myself. Was I wrong, Lady Caterina?”
“Caterina.” Lion’s mother shook her head. “I would have done the same. God is too busy striking us down to bother with confessions at the moment.” She turned to Sanchia. “You’ll have to help me build a coffin for her. The men who were building them in the courtyard appear to have run away, and there’s no one to do my bidding. Do you know anything of carpentry, Sanchia?”
Sanchia shook her head.
“Neither do I, but it can’t be so difficult if those cowardly louts were able to do it.” Caterina shrugged. “There must be some dignity in death. We’re not savages to pile our dead on the door stoops or leave them in the gutters as those beleaguered souls in the city are doing.”
“Is that what’s happening?”
Caterina nodded. “There is no sanity. There’s weeping and wailing from some and drunkenness and rape from others.” She straightened. “I’ll get my needle and thread and we’ll sew a shroud from this sheet. Then we’ll try our hands at fashioning a coffin. Where’s Anna? She can help us with the sewing.”
Sanchia tried to focus her mind on something besides the last harrowing hours with Bianca. She hadn’t seen Bianca’s maid, Anna, since a short while after Bianca collapsed. “I think she may have run away too. She was frightened.”
“We’re all frightened.” Caterina went to the door. “We’ll probably have to carry Bianca down to the chapel ourselves. Perhaps we’d better build the coffin in the chapel.” She opened the door and left the chamber.
Sanchia sat in the chair beside the bed and closed her eyes. Please, God, you’ve taken the innocent, the shining, the beautiful. Please, no more.
“Are you ill?” It was Caterina’s sharp voice behind her.
“No.” Sanchia opened her eyes to see Caterina in the doorway carrying her sewing basket. She straightened in the chair. “I was only resting a moment.”
“There will be time for rest later.” Caterina strode forward and set the basket on the bed. “Help me wrap the sheet around her.”
It was well after dark when Bianca lay secure in her clumsily crafted coffin in the chapel.
“Come, do not linger here. They’re no longer with us. Do you not feel it?” Caterina pulled Sanchia from the chapel and down the steps to the courtyard.
No torches lit the darkness.
No footsteps of grooms or guards sounded on the cobblestones.
Sanchia ran her hand wearily through her hair. “Perhaps I’m too tired to feel anything.”
Caterina nodded. “We must rest.” Her hand dropped from Sanchia’s arm. “But first come with me.”
Sanchia followed Caterina into the castle and up the stairs, but instead of going toward the bedchambers Caterina went to the door at the end of the hall leading to the tower.
“Caterina?”
“Come.”
Sanchia followed her up the steps, past the chamber where Lion had carried her the evening that seemed so long ago. They stopped at a door at the very top of the tower.
Caterina opened it and preceded Sanchia into the room.
It was the chamber of the Wind Dancer.
The statue was not in its chest but sitting atop a pedestal. Across the moonlit chamber the eyes of the Pegasus appeared to shimmer with life as it stared blindly at them.
Sanchia took an instinctive step back. “I don’t want to stay here.”
“Please, if you would be so kind. I need someone here with me. I’ll try not to be long.” Caterina’s voice was unsteady. “I have to say good-bye to my son. There’s been no time before this. Marco liked this room.”
Sanchia felt a rush of sympathy. Both she and Caterina had been forced to submerge their grief for the dead to help the living. She, too, had need to say good-bye. “Of course.” She shut the door. “We’ll stay as long as you like.”
“Sit down and rest.” Caterina indicated a chair across the room. She dropped down on the rug and leaned her head back against the stone wall. “And I’ll sit here. Have you ever noticed children will never sit on chairs when they can sit on the floor? I used to bring Marco here when he was a small child to see the Wind Dancer and we would sit here on the floor together for hours and talk and play games.”
Sanchia sat down beside Caterina. “I know. Piero used to sit on the floor beside my chair at the scribe table when I was copying and I would reach down and stroke his hair.” She had to stop for a moment to steady her voice. “His hair was as soft as spring air beneath my fingers.”
“Marco’s skin felt like rose petals to the touch.”
“Piero’s voice was hoarse as a frog’s when he first got up in the morning.”
“Marco’s fingers were always stained with paint when he came to meals.”
“Piero was so terribly stubborn.”
“Marco was so very gentle.”
There was a long silence in the room.
Caterina said, “I can remember how Marco used to stare at the statue and make me tell him all the stories about the Wind Dancer that Carlo’s father had told me. There were so many stories.… I was afraid I’d forget them, so I had a scribe set them down on parchment and had them bound in a book.”
“And you gave it to Marco?”
Caterina shook her head. “Lion has them somewhere
among his papers at the shipyard. By that time, Marco was no longer coming here. He had begun to paint and the Wind Dancer no longer gave him pleasure, only pain.”
“Why?”
“I asked him that question once. He said he knew he’d never be able to fashion anything one tenth as beautiful and the knowledge of his own inadequacy filled him with sadness.” Caterina paused, gazing at the statue. “It filled me with sadness too. For I knew I’d lost those hours with him and he’d grow away from me just as Lion was doing. Marco was never again as much mine as he was during those hours in this room.”
Sanchia’s gaze shifted from the Wind Dancer to see Caterina’s eyes glistening in the dimness of the chamber. She did not know what to say. “Marco loved you. He seemed to love everyone.”
“Yes, but Bianca most of all. I should not have tried to take Bianca from him. I thought it was for the best.” Caterina’s eyes closed. “Now I don’t know what is for the best. Nothing is clear.”
“No, nothing is clear.” Sanchia reached out tentatively and covered Caterina’s hand with her own.
Caterina stiffened and for a moment Sanchia thought she’d pull away. Then Caterina sank back against the stone wall, her fingers clinging to Sanchia’s. “Is it selfish of me to want to mourn my son when so many others are dying? Surely a son’s death deserves a private grief.” She paused and when she spoke again her voice vibrated with pain. “Marco!”
Sanchia could feel the tears running down her cheeks as the grief of her own loss welled up within her in an overwhelming tide. Her shoulders began to shake as great sobs racked her body and she wept for all of them. Piero and Bianca and Marco … and all those whose names she did not even know.
And the emerald eyes of the Wind Dancer gazed serenely at Caterina and Sanchia as they huddled together, silently sharing their grief, until neither had more tears to shed.
The next morning after waking from an exhausted sleep Caterina and Sanchia left the tower room and the Wind Dancer and went out again to face the Medusa.
The first order of the day was the fetching of the water from the well in the vineyards. They hitched a horse to a wagon and Caterina drove into the city.