held him down. 'My family!' he gasped. 'My father, my mother—'
The healer-priest's haggard face was somber. 'Phos has called your mother to himself,' he said. 'Your father and sister live yet. May the good god grant them strength to endure until I recover enough to be of aid to them.'
Then he did let Krispos sit. Krispos tried to weep for Tatze, but found the cholera had so drained his body that he could make no tears. Yphantes, now up and about, handed him a cup of water. He drank it while the priest drained another.
He had to force himself to look at Phostis and Kosta. Their eyes and cheeks were sunken, the skin on their hands and feet and faces tight and withered. Only their harsh breathing and the muck that kept flowing from them said they were not dead.
'Hurry, holy sir, I beg you,' Krispos said to Mokios.
'I shall try, young man, truly I shall. But first, I pray—' He looked round for Yphantes, '—some food. Never have I drained myself so.'
Yphantes fetched him bread and salt pork. He gobbled them down, asked for more. He had eaten like that since he'd entered the village, but was thinner now than when he'd come. His cheeks, Krispos thought dully, were almost as hollow as Phostis'.
Mokios wiped at his brow. 'Warm today,' he said.
To Krispos, the morning still felt cool. He only shrugged by way of answer; as, not long before, he had been in fever's arms, he did not trust his judgment. He looked from his father to his sister. How long could they keep life in them? 'Please, holy sir, will it be soon?' he asked, his nails digging into his palms.
'As soon as I may,' the healer-priest replied. 'Would I were younger, and recovered more quickly. Gladly would I—'
Mokios paused to belch. Considering how much he had eaten, and how quickly, Krispos saw nothing out of the ordinary in that. Then the healer-priest broke wind, loudly—as poor Varades never would again, Krispos thought, mourning the veteran with the small part of him not in anguish for his family.
And then utter horror filled Mokios' thin, tired face. For a moment, Krispos did not understand; the stench of incontinence by his house—indeed, throughout the village—was so thick a new addition did not easily make itself known. But when the healer-priest's eyes went fearfully to the wet stain spreading on his robe, Krispos' followed.
'No,' Mokios whispered.
'No,' Krispos agreed, as if their denial were stronger than truth. But the priest had tended many victims of the cholera, had smeared himself with their muck, had worked himself almost to death healing them. So what was more likely than a yes, or than that
Krispos saw one tiny chance. He seized Mokios by both shoulders; weak as he was, he was stronger than the healer-priest. 'Holy sir,' he said urgently, 'holy sir, can you heal yourself?'
'Rarely, rarely does Phos grant such a gift,' Mokios said, 'and in any case, I have not yet the strength—'
'You must try!' Krispos said. 'If you sicken and die, the village dies with you!'
'I will make the attempt.' But Mokios' voice held no hope, and Krispos knew only his own fierce will pushed the priest on.
Mokios shut his eyes, the better to muster the concentration he needed to heal. His lips moved soundlessly; Krispos recited Phos' creed with him. His heart leaped when, even through fever, even through sickness, Mokios' features relaxed toward the healing trance.
The priest's hands moved toward his own traitorous belly. Just as he was about to begin, his head twisted. Pain replaced calm confidence on his face, and he puked up everything Yphantes had brought him. The spasms of vomiting went on and on, into the dry heaves. He also fouled himself again.
When at last he could speak, Mokios said, 'Pray for me, young man, and for your family, also. It may well be that Phos will accomplish what I cannot; not all who take cholera perish of it.' He made the sun-sign over his heart.
Krispos prayed as he had never prayed before. His sister died that afternoon, his father toward evening. By then, Mokios was unconscious. Some time that night, he died, too.
After what seemed forever but was less than a month, cholera at last left the village alone. Counting poor brave Mokios, thirty-nine people died, close to one inhabitant in six. Many of those who lived were too feeble to work for weeks thereafter. But the work did not go away because fewer hands were there to do it; harvest was coming.
Krispos worked in the fields, in the gardens, with the animals, every moment he could. Making his body stay busy helped keep his mind from his losses. He was not alone in his sudden devotion to toil, either; few families had not seen at least one death, and everyone had lost people counted dear.
But for Krispos, going home each night was a special torment. Too many memories lived in that empty house with him. He kept thinking he heard Phostis' voice, or Tatze's, or Kosta's. Whenever he looked up, ready to answer, he found himself alone. That was very bad.
He took to eating most of his meals with Evdokia and her husband, Domokos. Evdokia had stayed well; Domokos, though he'd taken cholera, had suffered only a relatively mild case—his survival proved it. When, soon after the end of the epidemic, Evdokia found she was pregnant, Krispos was doubly glad of that.
Some villagers chose wine as their anodyne instead of work; Krispos could not remember a time so full of drunken fights. 'I can't really blame 'em,' he said to Yphantes one day as they both swung hoes against the weeds that had flourished when the cholera made people neglect the fields, 'but I do get tired of breaking up brawls.'
'We should all be grateful you're here to break them up,' Yphantes said. 'With your size and the way you wrestle, nobody wants to argue with you when you tell 'em to stop. I'm just glad you're not one of the ones who like to throw their weight around to show how tough they are. You've got your father's head on your shoulders, Krispos, and that's good in a man so young.'
