numbing Kydd's senses.
He was placed on the ground while a bed was prepared. A corpse was carried away in a blanket, the ragged palliasse flicked over, the top vivid with dried discolouring. He was transferred, the bearers never once betraying a flicker of interest. They left the blanket rolled untidily at the foot of the bed and departed.
An orderly saw Luke and ejected him irritably, so Kydd lay alone, staring up into the void, the pain, sickness and despair creeping in on him. It was here that he would meet his end, not in some glorious battle but in the squalor and degradation of disease, in this pit of terror. His mind wavered and floated. The wasted hours, the unfulfilled hopes — those who loved him, trusted him. Emotion choked him. Kydd waited in the gloom for it all to end.
Black faces. Jolting, moving. Harsh sunlight. Kydd tried to understand. The lift and bob of a boat — he cried at the poignant motion. Luke's face, looking down, anguished. He smiled up at him and was carried on into an airy space. A woman took charge and gently but firmly removed all his clothes. A clean smell of hyssop and soap; he felt himself laid carefully on a sheet and the woman began to wash him. He couldn't resist. Modesty had no more meaning and he drifted into a febrile no man's land.
He woke — how much later he had no idea — in a small room, clean and well appointed. Next to his bed a woman kept up a lazy fanning, smiling at him, and on the other side Luke sat, keeled over in slumber.
'Who - er, what d' ye ...'
'Now, sah, be still, youse in mah hands, Mr Kydd, sah,' the woman said happily. 'Sis' Mary.'
The talk woke Luke, who sat up, confused.
A shadow darkened the door. It was Beatrice. 'Mr Kydd?' she asked timidly.
'Aye,' said Kydd, with as much strength as he could.
'Thank the Lord!' she breathed, and stood hesitantly at the foot of the bed, holding a lace handkerchief to her face. 'When we heard you were sick, we never thought — er, that is to say, we were led to believe by false witnesses that your sickness . . . had other causes.' Her eyes dropped. 'My father thought it best that you are cared for in a private way — it is the usual thing, you know.' She spoke more strongly: 'Sister Mary has nursed many a soul to recovery.'
'Ye need money f'r this,' he said feebly.
Beatrice smiled. 'Let us hear no more about that, Mr Kydd. You are in the Lord's hands and He will provide for His faithful servants.' Her fingers twisted together. 'I do wish you well — it is not over yet.'
But Kydd could feel the fever diminishing and elation built at his escape. He was ready to seize life again with both hands.
Sister Mary took gentle care of him, seeming to know what he needed before he could express it. She had an unvarying bright and sunny manner, not bothered by the violence of his vomiting or Kydd's shameful need for a bed-pan. After each spasm she bathed his burning face, whispering comforting words he couldn't understand.
The fever faded, the vomiting grew less, and Kydd thankfully slipped into a sweet sleep. On the morrow he would be on the mend.
He woke in the darkness of the early hours, feeling strange and giddy. A sharp bout of vomiting had him leaning over the bed. He pulled back in, and felt a warm wetness exude from his nose. It stank, and he wiped at it uselessly. His hand came away dark-stained in the semi-darkness.
'Mary!' he croaked fearfully. She was asleep in a blanket on the floor and didn't hear at first. Kydd called again, in his night-time panic hoarsely shouting her name. When she came to him sleepily she saw his face, and at once trimmed the light to full illumination. She tore back the single sheet and stared at his lower body. There was no sunny banter.
Kydd looked down and saw, oozing from his body orifices, a slow, fetid black bleeding. He sank back. Sister Mary set to work, sponging him, insisting he sat up in bed, placing supports around him. His vomiting was shorter, sharper — but now it was discoloured, black and foul. Kydd's thoughts became confused. As the morning light strengthened he saw Mary's figure distort and swell. He screamed and whimpered.
At times lucidity came, a strange calm in which he could see and hear but not respond. He heard Luke's broken, desolate weeping and a regular mumbling — it
