She returned soon after dinner, pale and worn, carrying a basket of plum tarts. "I think I might be coming down with something." She muttered, leaving the basket on the table beside me. "Have one, they're quite good… I think I will lie down for awhile."
They were quite good, I had more than one, but they didn't stay with me long. I vomited them all back up a few minutes later, and felt none the worse afterwards. I settled my stomach with bread and cheese, feeding Bayard as I did so.
"Milady." My mother's maid, my father's mistress, both the same person, stood in the doorway. She smiled when I looked up at her, but she was concerned. "Your mother appears to be quite ill. We could send for a priest from town…"
"No. I will see to her. It's probably those tarts..." I motioned at the basket. "They made me quite ill. They should probably be destroyed."
"You don't seem ill."
"I am a paladin. We don't get sick easily…and don't stay it long. I will take care of her." I sighed, replacing Bayard in his cradle and climbing the stairs. She was much sicker than she had been just a few hours earlier, drenched in sweat and tossing. A simple prayer to heal would break this, no problem.
It didn't. Nor did the others I tried. When the prayers failed, which they had never done before, I resorted to herbs and poultices. They failed as well, and by midnight, I sent for Brill's priest. He took much more time than I had expected to arrive, and while I expected him to be sleepy from the late night call, I didn't expect the exhaustion he greeted me with.
"My mother is quite unwell." I stated, and he stared at me. "I have tried everything the Order taught me, and I cannot break this fever. Prayers, herbs…nothing seems to help."
"Then she is the same as half the town." He replied. "I will look, but if you cannot turn it with what you've told me, I have no other recourse."
"If the fever does not break soon…" I tried to get my mind around his words. "Half the town?"
"Yes. This sickness spreads quickly, and nothing seems to turn it. Are you well?"
"I felt unwell earlier, but it passed. It seemed to be just something I ate which did not agree with me."
"You have babes here, I hear." He began, a warning deep in his words. Anelas, Bayard… if I could not push this from my mother, then how could I hope to help them? I followed him into my mother, watching him. He did nothing for her, turning back to me. "Lady Clarimonde." He said slowly, and I recognized a shadow of Uther under his words. "Your mother has the undivided attention of a Knight of the Order here. I could bring her back to Brill, settle her in the Chapel with the others, and she will get what attention we can give her, alongside all the others. I feel you are better equipped to help her than we are. Just one thing…"
"What?"
"If she hasn't died by dawn, leave her and take those babes of yours away from here. I will send someone just after dawn, when the way is light enough for you to ride, to see if you have left her and she will be brought to Brill. Allow no one but yourself to handle those children. Don't feed the older one until you are well on the road, no food or water from here. " He stared at me. "And the younger, do you nurse him, or does he have a nursemaid?"
"I nurse him."
"Good. You should be immune." He nodded at me, and was gone. Two hours later, my mother was also gone, permanently. I left her room, wandering blindly, but the house was empty… what little staff we'd had was quite gone, fled. I locked the doors behind them, if they were gone; I wanted them to stay that way. I returned to the family wing, pacing the hallway, counting the doors. Hers. Mine. My father's. The guest chambers… spin, return, do it again. Bayard woke in the small hours, crying for me, and I slid into my dim chambers. They were the same ones I'd had as a child, crowded now with cradle, the cot that Anelas slept on, my bed, all my things. For a moment I was afraid to nurse, remembering my sudden fit of illness earlier, but Bayard was too small to let go without. He latched on, nursing with his normal vigor, all noisy breaths and swallows. Anelas slept, oblivious; face down on his cot, rump high in the air, when I heard the first noise. A thump…stealthy and slithery, and every hair on my body stood to immediate attention. It was wrong.
