“You could not find Petronus?”
“He was nowhere to be found.”
“Well, Colin is more than able. It is time he learned the facts about human reproduction and women’s anatomy.” He smiled at Nimue, and she returned it. Merlin never missed an opportunity to promote “Colin’s” cover.
He took her aside and quickly explained what was happening. “Dinadan wants me to cut open the womb and deliver the child in that unnatural way.”
“But what does
“It is our only hope for delivering the child whole and healthy.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Dinadan wants it to be male, and to be another Caesar.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“Let us concentrate on saving it, for the moment, and worry about that later.”
The two of them went back into the birth room. Fedora was there, on her knees beside Lady Dinadan’s bed. She looked up at them. “Thank the goddess you’re back.”
“You must stay here to assist us if we need you, Fedora.”
She showed him a scrap of cloth she had been holding to her chest. “I tied a strip of cloth into tight knots. It delayed the contractions.”
“Yes, of course it did.” He turned to Nimue and told her which surgical instruments he would need. “And send someone for more cloths. There is apt to be a great deal of blood. Fedora, you must be prepared to hold the lady down. This will be painful for her.”
Nimue went, found a servant, explained what was needed and was back beside him in only moments. Merlin took his sharpest surgical knife and went to work. A salve helped dull the pain she felt, but it did not do the job completely. Lady Dinadan cried out, shuddered, wailed almost unbearably. But, held down by Nimue and Fedora, she maintained as much composure as she could manage.
Thirty minutes later, Merlin was finished. The baby was indeed a boy; his father was happy. Fedora went off to find a wet nurse. Merlin attended his patients at their bedside. The infant, weakened by its difficult birth, had not cried once during or after the delivery; now it slept soundly at its mother’s breast. Merlin thought the child was still at peril, but he refrained from saying so. To Lady Dinadan he said, “You have done well. But you lost a great deal of blood. You must rest in bed for at least a week.”
“May I see my husband?” Her voice was weak, almost inaudible.
“Yes, of course. But not for long. Remember, you must rest.”
His job finished, he returned to his tower. There was no one above, to fire the boiler for the lift, so slowly, painfully, he made his way up the stairs. Reading Greek philosophy would relax him; it always did. He sat and pulled out a favorite manuscript-Plotinus. His raven Roc flew into the room, perched on his shoulder and rubbed his cheek with the top of its head. Before long, philosophy or no philosophy, he nodded off.
Then later, just before sunset, there came a knock at his door. It was Fedora, the midwife.
Merlin roused himself. “Fedora. You should not be here. Climbing all these stairs cannot be good for you.”
She smiled; most of her teeth were gone. “You climb them.”
“I live here. I have to. Besides, I have my lift. You should have ridden it.”
“Modern things.” She made a sour face and mimicked spitting.
He chuckled. “That is right. You believe in the old superstitions, do you not?”
“The babies I deliver all live.”
“Would this one have, do you think? If I had not come?”
“It died.”
“Oh.”
“When I got back with the wet nurse we found it lying quite still at its mother’s nipple.”
For a moment he sat silently, digesting this. “Well. It was such a difficult delivery… It was amazing that it was not stillborn. Or that we did not have to kill it to save its mother’s life.”
“The babies I deliver all live.” Her smile was gone. “Learn that lesson.”
“Superstition…” He let his voice trail off. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he felt inadequate. “At least we saved the mother.”
“She died, too. Not much later.”
“Oh.”
“I could have worked more charms. You wouldn’t let me.”
“Is that what you came to tell me? That scattering wolf-bane and sacrificing puppies would have saved them?”
“I am more than twenty years older than you. I know so much more. How can you have learned so little?” Suddenly, explosively, she laughed.
“What do you know, Fedora?”
“A midwife learns many secrets. We deal with birth. Next to death it is the one great fact in human affairs. I leave death to you and the king.”
“Do not bother me with this rubbish. Charms. Tying knots in strips of cloth. The human race is mired in rot like that. Hopelessly. Look at how Europe has declined. Can you do anything to stop this plague?”
Again she laughed at him. “I will go now. I am a tired old woman.”
“You are a perverse old woman. Leave me alone.”
“I tell you, Merlin, I know so many things that you don’t. Not for all your books and philosophers.” She pointed at the scroll in his hand.
“Of course. Get out of here, will you? Take the lift down. It should be ready; I had Colin fire the boiler.”
“I had rather walk.”
“Fine, but do not complain to me about your aching, arthritic knees.”
“The child is dead, Merlin, and its mother as well. Sleep soundly.”
The old woman left. Merlin stroked Roc’s head, and it cooed softly. Where was Nimue? Death. Plague. Murder. This night, of all nights, he needed company.
FIVE
Plague. The word, quite justifiably, caused panic.
More and more reports reached Camelot, often multiple ones in the same day. Dover was devastated; the disease spread more quickly there than seemed quite possible. Not everyone who was infected died; but the survivors, on the assumption they could not be reinfected, were pressed into service collecting and burying the dead in mass graves. In Canterbury, once it became inescapable that plague had arrived, there were riots. People hoarded food; robbers attacked the well-to-do and took their gold and their supplies of household goods, against the coming food shortages. The wealthy barricaded themselves in their houses, partly for protection from the mobs, partly in hopes of avoiding the disease.
Rumors of what was happening spread more quickly than the disease itself. There were riots in London days before any cases manifested there. Merlin and Britomart put up a map of southern England and kept careful note of outbreaks, riots and the other attendant horrors.
“Look,” Merlin said to her. “It is following the main trade routes-the roads. Spreading like a living thing, like a carpet of flowers.”
“Odd analogy, Merlin. But then, you always look at things in the most perverse way possible.”
“Perverse? If you say so, Britomart. But no one has yet found a way to combat this awful disease. It strikes so quickly, its victims are often dead before the physician can arrive.”
She pounded her fist. “We must have Arthur issue an edict. Have it proclaimed in every town and village in the country. No unnecessary public gatherings. Markets must be canceled. No festivals of any kind, not even religious ones. The people will want religion, for comfort, but they must pray at home, with their families, to whatever gods they choose to believe in.”
“Yes, Brit, of course. Those are all very sensible precautions. But…”
“Yes?”
“There are physicians in every town of any importance.”
“You’ve seen the reports. A lot of them have fled to the hills, Merlin.” She made a sour face. “Doctors.”
“Still, a great many remain. A network of communication among them must be set up, so that they can share information. If we can discover why it is that some people die of this disease while others survive and still others never get sick at all, it may give us a clue how to fight it. We must have Arthur send out riders to help establish the kind of communication this will take.”
“So the riders can bring the plague back to Camelot?”
He frowned. “It will come here anyway. We have sealed off the castle from unnecessary contact with the outside world, but it will come here anyway. It is as inevitable as sunset.” He sat down wearily. “So much for Arthur’s new England.”
“That is hardly the observation of a scientist, Merlin.”
“It is. Everything we have tried to do here-fairness, social justice, all of it-depends on a calm, prosperous society. This disease will undo that. Petty kings and warlords will reassert themselves. Central government will count for next to nothing.”
“It won’t be that bad. It can’t be.”
He looked at her. “
This was all too theoretical for Britomart. “I’ll meet with my senior officers. We’ll find a way to keep the plague out of Camelot, at least.”
“If it can be done, I am certain you are the one to do it. But I have my doubts.”
“It must be done. We are fighting for our lives. That’s when knights are at their best.”
The next morning Arthur summoned his closest advisors to a council on the crisis. Merlin was there, of course, with Nimue assisting him and taking notes, along with Britomart, Simon of York, and the most experienced of his knights, Sir Bedivere, Sir Bors and Sir Kay. Sir Dinadan would normally have been included, but he was in deep mourning over the deaths of this wife and son. Nimue and Petronus stood against a wall and listened, in case Merlin should need them.
Arthur was terse. “We all know the crisis we are facing. The question is what to do. I want to hear every idea you have.”
Merlin as usual took the lead. He laid out everything that was known about the plague-the symptoms, the rapidity with which it spread and the social fallout from it. “We do not know how this disease is transmitted from person to person. It may be airborne, as we believe malaria to be. It may be passed from one victim to the next by physical contact. We have no way of knowing. But not everyone who becomes ill dies. And not everyone becomes ill at all. That is our one hope. Both Colin and Petronus had close contact with the first victim, for instance. If we can discover what makes
