Nurse Tansi woke up suddenly, feeling troubled. There was a little gasp in baby Merri’s cry that was different.
Beyond the thick stone walls of Bankside, the city was quiet. The dreary rain that marked Kimalloa’s winter had been heavier than usual. The Binar frothed and rippled rapidly between the banks, lapping over them in some districts. Ships had difficulty docking. The wherrymen could not operate their ferries. The poor could not keep their fuel dry. They could not keep their clothes dry either, so they shivered into all types of sickness. The newest threat was the most feared. The spotpox was on the rampage. After two years of mildness and plenty, the grim claw of want had returned to the capital.
Despite the efforts of Elders to gain knowledge about spotpox, hope and prayer were still the main remedies. People had to take risks to work, to get food, and to tend others that were sick. The specter of death was a clinging companion. Elders worked night and day, tending fevered bodies and anguished souls. Mass graves had been dug outside the city gates, and carts driven by hooded men took bodies out to them, again and again. The city waited for the crisis to pass. The spotpox had come and gone before. Many would die. Many would live, although they could be disfigured or disabled by their scars. Children were most vulnerable, particularly the very young, those gurgling bundles of hope from happy reunions and new unions at the end of the war. The solid gates of Bankside could not keep out the spotpox. How it got through physical barriers was not known. Like an invisible tide it crept into the guardhouse, the kitchen, the laundry, and the accommodation of servants, soldiers, clerks, and officers.
Tansi jumped up to tend Merri. She could tell that the baby had it, although the spots had not yet formed. Merri felt hot. Tansi quickly poured cold water from a jug into a bowl and dipped some cloths into it. She started to pat Merri with them.
It was very early morning, but the Arbiter was up. He had heard the plaintive crying. He opened the door of the nursery, looking paler than usual. “Is it the spotpox?” he asked.
Tansi nodded.
Tears started to well in his eyes and run down his face. “Give her to me. If she is to die, she will do so knowing that her father’s heart beat for her to the last.”
