Bram looked at the man on the cot. Hoark's thrashing had removed not only the sheet, but it had loosened the skin of his other leg as well. Bram bit his lip until it hurt as he watched a jagged split in the miller's skin race, like cracking ice, from groin to ankle. The flesh beneath it rushed up like red sausage released from a too-tight casing. The top layers of skin peeled back with the dry, crackling sound of old leaves. Finally, the man stopped thrashing and lay panting in a twisted mess of bedding and sweat and dead skin. Just as suddenly his breathing slowed. The young nobleman had to look closely to see the shallow rise and fall of the miller's sodden chest.
Bram jumped when the man's son dashed, breathless, through the doorway, trailing a length of coarse twine. 'He's so still,' Wilton observed almost distantly. 'Is he dead?'
Bram shook his head. 'No, but I don't think we'll be needing the rope anymore.'
'I got that water,' the miller's wife announced as she scraped her ample hips through the narrow doorway. Sedrette Sivesten gaped slack-jawed, all the stumps of her front teeth exposed when she saw that her husband was quiet. 'What did you do to him?' It was not an accusation.
Bram shrugged helplessly. 'I guess he got rid of all the skin he needed to.' He looked to the pot and cup she held. 'It probably wouldn't hurt to have him still drink some yarrow tea, what with all the water he's lost sweating.'
The miller's wife handed the steaming pot and cup to Bram. 'What is this, some kind of skin-shedding influenza?' she asked, moving quickly to reposition the filthy sheet that had slipped from her husband's torso. 'Is Hoark going to be all right now?'
'I… don't know the answer to either question,' Bram admitted. 'It's like no influenza I've ever heard of, but I think he's through the worst of it, whatever it is.' He pinched three fingersful of Nahamkin's dried yarrow bloom and dropped it into the mug, filling it only half full with warm water. It would be difficult enough to get the reclining, insensate man to drink without burning his chest.
Bram gave directions for the tea to the miller's wife. 'Get him to drink as much of it as you can, Sedrette. It should help stave off the return of a fever. Keep him warm, but don't try to roast him again.'
She nodded eagerly, relief evident on her chubby face as she walked Bram out of the sickroom. At the doorway that led outside, she pumped Bram's hand furiously, thanking him. 'You come to the mill any time, day or night, Bram DiThon, and we'll work your grain without taking multure-not a ring, or even a single bushel-for payment.'
Bram felt decidedly uncomfortable with the gratitude and the generous offer, but before he could point out that he had done little more than make tea, Sedrette Sivesten scampered on lighter feet back into the sickroom.
Bram's first lungful of fresh, cold night air blistered its way down his throat, making him cough until he was certain he'd expelled every particle of stagnant air inhaled in the sickroom. It was late, by sight of the risen moon, how late Bram couldn't tell. Snowflakes, dry as potash, swirled about in the wan moonlight. Bram was weary to the bone, and he headed straight home. Passing through the edge of town, where gates should have been but were not, he recalled the reason for his trip to Thonvil this day, his birthday still. With a start he had a memory of seed packets on the dry sink in Nahamkin's cottage. Bram sighed. It had not been the best of birthdays.
At least, he thought, the end of the miller's day had taken a turn for the better.
Chapter Seven
The following morning Bram received his second summons to help someone with the skin-shedding sickness.
He had been searching for panes of clear glass and planed wood to construct one of Nahamkin's hot boxes. The planks were no problem; he found all that he needed by dismantling several of the stanchions in the castle's nearly empty stable.
He was, however, having more difficulty with the glass than he'd anticipated. The windows in the abandoned solar were a complicated bit of tracery work, with ornamental ribs and bars breaking up the glass into sections that were too small for his purposes. Some of the decorative sections were missing entirely, which was at least half the reason the family no longer used the solar as a living room. The other reason, of course, was that the family no longer gathered anywhere for conversation or quiet moments by the fire.
Bram crept silently down the second-floor hallway, past the door to the study where his father spent most of his time in an irrational stupor caused by years of drunkenness. Bram was headed for the gallery, which sported windows that faced the afternoon sun across the Strait of Ergoth. The expensive glass had been added to the long, narrow, third-story balcony several generations before, in the time of Bram's greatgrandfather, when the family had been able to afford more than carrots for the table and the village had supported craftsmen of quality.
Gildee the cook (one of the few servants who remained, primarily because she had nowhere else to go), found Bram on the staircase to the third floor. 'Someone from the village came running for you, Master Bram.' The matronly woman's solemn tone and distressed expression told him the disease had struck a second time. Her words stopped his heart. 'It's Nahamkin. He's got the fever.'
Bram blinked at her in disbelief for just one moment, then sprang down the steps two at a time, stopping neither for herbs nor cloak. He was racing across the worn floor of the foyer when his mother's voice stopped him.
'Where are you going in such a hurry, Bram?' Rietta's words were light, but her tone was high, clipped as she strode into the circular foyer. The ragged hem of her cheap brocatelle dress, more gray now than lavender from repeated washings with lye soap, whispered across the stone floor.
In her midforties, Rietta had aged with the grace of the nobly born. Her skin was still remarkably wrinkle- free, though her shape was thinner than ever, thanks to a scarcity of high-quality food, and the worry over it. As always, she wore her dark, thin hair in a tight chignon covered by a strong veil of lace netting, and a long gorget around her neck.
Bram's mother settled light fingers on his arm.
'Mother,' he breathed turning away, 'I–I've got to go to the village.' His eyes were on the door that led out. Unconsciously he began to pull away from her.
'I have need of you here,' she said stiffly, too quickly.
He whirled around. 'For what? Retrieving winter squash from the root cellar?'
Rietta's green, feline eyes narrowed, and her thin lips pouted at the sarcasm. 'I just don't see why you have to go to the village again.'
'It's Nahamkin, Mother,' Bram said with forced patience, feeling the weight of time passing in the strained muscles of his neck. 'He's ill.'
'That old farmer?' she scoffed. 'Aren't there family members who can tend to him? What about Herus?'
'Perhaps they could,' conceded Bram, 'but Nahamkin has asked for me. I've got to try to help him.' He had no tolerance for her haughty attitude at this moment, which was why he couldn't help adding slyly, 'Just be thankful that the villagers no longer expect the lady of the manor to tend their ills, as in days past.'
Oblivious to his derision, Rietta bit her bottom lip until it was white, her brows furrowed with concern.
Is it that dreadful fever the miller had? I've heard Herus has returned and is treating him still.'
'I don't know,' Bram said, lying outright to give his mother hope as much as to gain his freedom. 'I won't know until I see Nahamkin.' He tugged his arm back gently, then put one hand unceremoniously against the small of her back to propel her along. 'I've got to go now, Mother. I may not be back for several days.' Uncharacteristically, Rietta resisted only briefly before bowing her head and retreating down the hallway that ied to the kitchens.
Bram bolted through the door and began the three- rod sprint to Nahamkin's tumbledown cottage.
Bram crouched in the cold and drafty loft, next to the cot that held the friend he knew must surely be dying.
The fever had passed two nights before, because of, or despite, Bram's herbal tea. It seemed to comfort Nahamkin, and that was reason enough for Bram to climb the rickety ladder to the loft four times an hour, round the clock, to bring more heated water from the hearth.
The young nobleman had tried to remain optimistic, to pretend even, that Nahamkin had a simple fever.
