Page 125 of Malady

And now I cannot stop hearing her.

Only it is no longer the little girl from the dispensary whose voice fills my head. There is another child calling for me, her cries so familiar that I can almost remember the sound of her laughter…

“Papa, please!”

Gloucestershire, England — 1202

Sheets of rain lash across the road, blinding me as I struggle to keep the handcart moving. The wheels sink into another deep rut, and I throw my weight against the handles, boots slipping in the mud as I heave the wretched thing free. Water streams down my face and into my mouth, but I dare not stop to wipe it away, not when every moment wasted is another moment my little girl must endure that dreadful sickness in her chest.

A wet, tearing cough comes from beneath the canvas, so deep and ugly that I lose my grip on the cart handle for half a step.

“Papa?”

“I am here, my darling girl.” I lean over without slowing, lifting the edge of the sodden canvas. She’s tucked amongst the blankets, small and pale and watching me with fever-bright eyes. “Hold on a bit longer for Papa. We’re going as quickly as we can.”

Another cough takes hold of her before I can cover her again. It rattles through her chest, bending her forward beneath the blankets, and when she tries to breathe afterwards, the sound that comes out is nothing more than a wheeze.

I abandon the handles and hurry to her side, dragging the canvas back so I can gather her into my arms. Rain has soaked through the wool around her shoulders, and she is cold against me, far too light, her fragile ribs shuddering beneath my palm as I hold her upright and rub between her shoulder blades until the worst of the coughing begins to loosen.

When she lifts her head, my heart sinks. The skin around her mouth is darker, bluer, touched by a colour I have seen too many times before.

I have watched that colour settle over too many mouths while I stood beside beds with every remedy I knew and nothing useful left in my hands. Broth and honeyed water. Hot cloths. Prayer, when there was someone in the room who still believed it might help.

For three nights, I have kept her warm and held her through each fit until dawn crept grey beneath the shutters, but still the fever burns, and still her breath catches as though something inside her is tightening by the hour.

“It hurts, Papa,” she whispers, pressing a small hand to her chest. “You stay. Don’t go.”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m not going anywhere.” I take her tiny hand and press it to my cheek, forcing a smile I do not feel. “I only have to push the cart, see? Papa is right here.”

She gives a weary nod, her eyes already sinking shut as her fingers curl weakly against my face.

“There now. Back beneath the blankets for me. That’s a good girl.”

I settle her amongst the straw and draw the canvas over her again, tucking it close around her brittle body before returning to the handles. The wheels have sunk deeper into the mud while I have been stopped, and I have to brace my shoulder against the cart and wrench it forward with both hands before it finally gives, lurching free beneath my slippery fingers.

The priory near our village offered nothing but prayer, and the physician I sent for from Gloucester never came. With King John demanding men and silver for his wars across the sea, there is precious little help to be had anywhere, though I would surrender every penny I possess if it meant getting my daughter into steadier hands than mine.

So I have put my faith in Tewkesbury.

Another eight miles down the track, the brothers at Tewkesbury have an infirmary, and I have heard good things about the monk who tends their sick. I do not know whether he can do more for Avis than I have already tried, but if there is a remedy I have missed, some draught or poultice or merciful trick of the hands, surely he must know of it.

My wife Margery will be fretting herself half-mad by now. I had to leave her behind with Piers and the new babe, Joan, who is scarcely a fortnight old and still small enough to vanish in the crook of her arm. All three of them were crying when I loaded Avis onto the cart this morning, Joan wailing because the others were, Piers clinging to his mother’s skirts, and Margery standing in the doorway with her shawl pulled tight around her shoulders as though she meant to hold herself together by force.

She begged me to be careful with our girl. Made me promise I would keep her warm. Asked whether I thought we might be home before nightfall.

I told her we would.

But the sun is sinking behind the hills now, and the road ahead is turning dark, and I am beginning to fear I have promised her something I cannot give.

The road dips into a hollow where the rain has flooded the ditches and turned the track to yellow mud. The cart sinks almost at once, the wheels dragging deep enough that I have to lean my shoulder into the side of it and force it on by inches, my boots sliding beneath me, my hands slipping around the wet handles.

A man comes along the verge ahead, half-bent against the rain with one hand tucked beneath his coat.

“Good day!” I call, breathless as the cart lurches another inch through the mire. “I don’t suppose you could⁠—”

He steps off the verge and into the road. “Leave the barrow,” he says. “Walk away, and I’ll not hurt thee.”

The leather jack he wears might once have belonged to a soldier, though it hangs loose from his shoulders now, rain running through the cracked seams and dripping from his chin. His cheeks are hollow, his mouth drawn tight, and all the while I speak, his eyes keep sliding past me to the soaked canvas over the cart.