The CRES code

Chapter Seven - Vix

It was growing dark when they finally set out from the barn in their potato sack clothes and the makeshift shoes they'd made by tying straps of the itchy, powdery cloth around their feet. Emily had to be helped back to her feet by Jane, but the younger woman was feeling none too good herself and had to keep stopping to get her breath back. In the end, Loach had to take over the task of helping Emily while Wilks helped Jane with an arm around her waist. Randall was also feeling weak and trembly, but there was no-one left with a spare arm to lend him and so he struggled along on his own.

"Are ell felks where yezz comes frem as feeble as the four o yez?" asked Wilks as they staggered along the path back to the bridge across the river.

"No," said Loach, whose knife was now hanging from his waist by a length of twine tied around the handle. "We're all ill. We're dying, in fact. All four of us only have a few months to live."

Wilks stared at him. "Dying?" he said. "The four o yez?"

"We were in hibernation," the crime boss explained. "In hypersleep. Until a time when medical science had found a cure for our conditions."

"Hibernation? High par sleep? Ye speaks a let a strenge words, mester. Whet's medical science when et's feeding the sheep?"

Loach stared at Randall, who stared back, equally at a loss. "Surely you must have heard of such things," the crime boss said. "Even if you shun the use of such technologies, you must have heard of them."

"Ay've never heard o' high par sleep, or any of these ether strenge things ye speak of. Mebbe the felks in yez part of the world hev sech things, but we've got no use fer sech things hereabouts. We sew the creps, we gether and hairvest when the days grow short. We go tae the temple en holy day tae thenk God fer the gifts of life and the world. Thet be mestly all thet folke dae araind here."

"So what do you do when you're ill?" asked Emily. "When you get a sickness."

"A sickness?"

"Like the flu. You know, when you sneeze and your nose runs. When you ache all over and you just want to lie in bed all day."

"Ef I lay in bed all day, who'd feed the sheep and tend tae the crops?"

"But you must get ill sometimes. Iberian fever? Bacman 87?"

"Maybe they're vaccinated against everything in childhood," suggested Loach. "A few quick jabs and they never need to worry about diseases ever again. Even in a place like this, I imagine they must have a doctor who visits the place on occasion. Sets up a clinic somewhere for people to bring their children."

"What about things like dementia? Heart disease? Arthritis?"

"A place like this, they might think that it's the will of God and just learn to live with it."

"Mister Wilks," said Emily, who was making an effort to walk on her own now. "What do you do if you suffer an injury? If you break an arm, for instance?"

"Then I gang tee the priest, en he fexes it. Broke me leg a cepple a summers agae. Went tae the priest an I were back on me feet and wairking the farm the verra next day."

"He healed a broken leg in just a day?" said Jane in astonishment.

"Advances in medical science," said Loach excitedly. "Maybe their priest is also their doctor. The outside world gives these people the benefits of modern medicine under the guise of religious healing."

"Or it's a genuine faith healing," said Jane, eyeing him defiantly. Loach just snorted with amusement.

"If man comes back to God, maybe God comes back to man," said Jane with rising anger. "God is real! He works miracles! Maybe, when we go to see this priest, you will see the truth of that!"