Nethra was spending most evenings helping Galla in the slums. The plague was spreading and a few of the worst affected were starting to die. The people in the slums didn't have much, but occasionally Nethra was given a small gift, or the odd piece of copper coinage. The problem of course was hygiene, or the lack of it. Once someone in a street caught the plague, the whole street went down with it within days. Nethra thought of herself as immune, surely chaos wouldn't mark her, curse her with prophecy and then let her die of the plague ?
"Thank you, there was no need."
The eldest daughter of the house had given her a precious piece of fresh fruit. The sensible thing would have been to accept the fruit and thrown it away later. But Nethra lived in the slums, it was her neighbourhood and she knew the value of such a small piece of fresh food to the family. She relied on her assumed immunity and ate the fruit, enjoying every mouthful. The eldest daughter smiled at her. She was a strong girl with no signs of the plague, nor had her two younger siblings. The eldest seemed quite capable of looking after the children, which was a good thing, because her mother wasn't likely to see another morning.
"Do you have a father ?" Asked Nethra.
"He's gone, left when I was small."
Nethra should have known the family, she was after all a slum girl herself, but the slums had become so full, families cramming themselves into every corner they could build a slat and mud shack. She looked at the mother, the main breadwinner of the house and saw a hybrid barely out of being a child herself.
"She's going to die isn't she ?" Said the eldest.
"Yes she is, I don't think she'll live until morning."
Nethra had long ago learned to be honest at such times. People appreciated the truth, it gave them time to prepare for the worst. She looked at the mother, still trying hard to breathe with clogged lungs, her eyes beginning to show signs of bleeding around the edges. Death from plague was never pretty or painless, but this time it seemed particularly unpleasant.
"When the times come," she said, "send for Podd. He won't charge you anything to take the body."
The eldest looked upset, they both knew Podd would put her mother in the fat boiler, but in the slums death was rarely dignified. Podd at least was a slightly better option than dumping loved ones in the river, especially when the river was your only water supply.
