Later, when the three adults were conversing near the fireplace, Claude and I talked on the floor. A fresh dried log from the pile of woodbin was added to the fireplace and it crackled pleasantly with the different tones Woodrow, Wilbur, and Joan made.

I sat cross-legged, while Claude was sprawled beside me, his hands planted on the floorboards that did not creak. He inclined his head towards Woodrow. “His beauty will serve him well.”

“What?”

He spoke slowly. “My father said that we are born in this world with specific strengths and weaknesses, and we must use them to our advantage. Some, who are lucky, have more strengths than weaknesses, and some, who are unlucky… die an early death.” He scratched his chin. I appreciated his attempt at dark humor. “Your brother has the rare gift of beauty.”

Claude and I observed Woodrow’s features silhouetted against the soft fire. I had gotten so used to his appearance that it made no difference at all to look, so I shifted my perspective from Claude's point of view.

I instantly noticed the change. If I came from Claude's world of muck and mud and dirty clothes, I would no doubt be jealous. I saw how finely sculpted Woodrow's features were in comparison to the two. His aristocratic nose was graceful, his lips gleaming like dew. There was not a spot, not a mark on his pale skin. Wilbur was far from ugly, but he was nowhere near Woodrow's league. None of us were.

Other men had mocked him before; called him dainty and soft. More a maiden than a monk. He simply batted his eyes at them, and they shut up and faced away, undoubtedly confused by the irresistible pull they felt. Being the mischievous cat that he was, Woodrow paraded his bare torso under one bright moonlight in front of all those men camping near the monastic fields, close to a pond WIlbur had purified. The plan was to cease their insults forever--he was the one that was supposed to be taunting and provoking, not become the receiver of it.

It was a time for courtship, and the men were wooing some of the maidens. Woodrow appeared with the pretense of washing his robes, and as he undressed, men and women stared at his bare chest, the muscles under soft skin. All their eyes trailed down to his hips as he dipped into the water. The men clammed shut, looking worriedly at the captivated maidens they were pursuing, their progress thrown away by a chuckling Woodrow in the pond. All this he told us when we were working in the kitchens the next day.

The men never mocked Woodrow and anyone else that looked strange and feminine after that.

I realized then that it was jealousy that made them want to mock Woodrow in the first place and jealousy that stung them into silence.

Claude whistled appreciatively. “Still, that kind of beauty is rare. I do not think we have ever seen someone as beautiful as he. Like a painting come to life.” Claude poked the ground with his finger as he did outside using his staff. He was unsure how to proceed. “It’s good that you monks live in seclusion. I’d imagine the nobles would want to claim Woodrow as part of their House, or worse. Your vows of silence mean nothing to them. If he’d refuse, they may use force. They’re like little children that want to own the prettiest toys, nobles.”

Woodrow was now laughing. His slender fingers brushed his hair back, leaving a few strands to fall softly on one eye. “If I was that beautiful, I’d smile my way into the king’s court and make my fortune there.” Claude left the daydream hanging in the air, and then he yawned it away, his face cracking into a big smile after. He shrugged at me.

I seriously thought about it. The villagers who were pleasant enough to look at captured the interest of some of the richer folks, and they often bought them from their families as servants. Often, this meant that they can steal bits of food to send home, even though we fed them well. Food and perhaps spare coins. It did not sit right with me, but we monks were forbidden to interfere with their decisions in life. Though, Blake was displeased whenever one was taken away; which was why he tells Woodrow to charm them into making more babies for replacement. I just now remembered that. I shivered.

“Goodness, how will I fare? I may as well be dead.” I counted my weaknesses. “I am not as smart as Wilbur. Certainly not blessed with good looks like Woodrow.” I did not mention the names of the rest of my brothers, simply their qualities next. “I am not cunning, nor strong, nor fast… nor intimidating.”

He did not respond right away. I felt slightly stung. Then he shook his head. “You’re in the best position to learn from your brothers. You’re still young. My father says we young ones have time to learn and grow.” His head turned away from me, picking off a stray leaf from the floor. “I hope you do not think you are ugly. You may have…” he was trying ot find the right words, “a different appearance, but you are not grotesque.”

I definitely felt the warmth, then. I knew I was blushing. Me. Blushing. I bowed my head so low that I thought I would sink to the floor. We did not speak for a while until Claude coughed and pointed at Wilbur.

“You two are close. I’ve seen the way you lean against each other. You’re closer with him than you are with fire-head over there. How about his strength? He speaks like a scholar.”

The three stood and walked towards the sink. Wilbur was observing, already looking at how Joan pinched parsley and crunched garlic for their breakfast tomorrow. He touched the flower that decorated their other tables. I could have easily answered that, yes, he was indeed a scholar. He really was, in a way, but the image and title of resident scholar fell ultimately to Knox with his studies about history, politics, and—this surprised me the first time I learned of it—art. Should I say Wilbur is our scientist?

“He is our horticulturist.” I did not say alchemist, of course. Claude's brows would go through their thatched roof. He cocked his head to one side. I elaborated. “Our gardener. Our healer.”

Claude’s eyes widened. “Healer?”

And just right then, as if the word had power to wake the house, we heard a soft moaning, like a soft whisper of someone dreaming. All activity paused, all voices caught in surprised throats. Our eyes flew upstairs. Joan and Claude’s easy expressions and gestures vanished, and they looked at each other with such worry. Joan hurriedly excused herself, and the way she spoke was the softest I’d ever heard her voice. We heard her steps pounding the boards of the stairs and upper floor and then the soft swinging of a door. Claude himself shrunk in size, curling into himself as he assured us everything was fine.

“No, please.” Now that Joan was away, I felt I can now broach the subject. I was already looking at Wilbur and Woodrow, who both nodded at me to press him further. “If it is anything we can do, we will help.”

Those big dark brown eyes met mine. His lips trembled. “My little sister. She hasn’t been feeling well lately. She was just playing out in the field and then the shivers struck her.”

“How long has she been ill?” Wilbur was already on his feet.

“Seven days ago, and… and she hasn’t gotten any better.”

So that is why he was hesitant to speak her name a while back. And the way he looked at Xilthea in the sky and the talk about final harvests and children and offerings. They had offered a bowl of soup and bread on their windowsill after our meal. Joan quickly whispered a prayer, a mother’s request. She had knelt and bowed hurriedly, looking at the constellation above when she thought no one was looking.

I was amazed, and beyond touched. To think that they showed such hospitality and kindness to us strangers. Even when they had their hands full. Even when the war took fathers and brothers away with no assurance of return. To think that people have been so suspicious of travelers yet Claude insisted in keeping us away from further harm. To think he even wanted to offer sheep and cattle to help us start in our new home. To think Joan welcomed us inside their cottage and also insisted on supping with us, all the while caring for a sick child.

They have struggled. They have struggled enough.

Yes, other people behaved like madmen because of desperate times. But there were also others who still had their family, alive and well, who still had food to eat, courtesy of us monks, yet behaved stingy and cold. Joan and Claude has less, and still they gave what they had.

I feel blessed to know them.

“Take us to her. We may help cure her.” Wilbur says the word maybe as if there was any other outcome but to cure his sister. His eyes were set: Xilthea will not be taking another of Joan’s children tonight. Not if his remaining antidotes have anything to say about it.

And even if he hadn’t, Wilbur would collect all the juices from the petals available to him in this cottage. He taught me which plants stopped the shivers. Some of them were here, sitting on windowsills and hanging along with garlic and onions. The only thing missing was the diamond dust Wilbur gathered in his alchemy projects; the key ingredient that boosts all his herbal remedies. Without that, even the strongest concentration of plant juice would just be a potent yet primitive "cure". If he had no dust, then Wilbur would make do with other resources around the farm, such as animal fat and liver. Unfortunately, it could mean one or two amongst a hundred livestock would go missing…

But, of course, Wilbur said the word maybe because he was just being careful. Joan and Claude may not seem like the type to spread the miraculous news of their child’s speedy recovery, but one can never be too sure. Not that they would be celebrating for long, anyway, with Blake on the horizon. Besides, concealing ourselves from the rest of the world was a deeply ingrained habit.

Claude looked at Wilbur with guarded eyes—guarding the desperate hope swelling within. I know that feeling. He nodded and told him to follow. Claude walked up the stairs quietly, the wood creaking softly under his feet.

“Erin, follow. Woodrow, stay and keep watch.”

He didn’t need to tell me so. I was already behind him. We left Woodrow in the fireplace, his eyes again turning serious without the presence of other people. He stoked the fires and looked out the window, arms crossed.

_____

I hated to say it, but there was a stink emanating from the door. There was a charm nailed on its wooden surface, the same one that Claude hung on their porch. It seemed so intelligently designed with all its twists and turns compared to the usual ones made of twigs and stones and fiber. It looked like a sinister-looking letter and felt like you were looking down into a labyrinth. It made me feel uneasy, looking at the only object inside the house that felt out of place.

I wanted to ask Claude how they found it if only there wasn’t another pressing matter to attend to.

His hands pushed the door open.

We found Joan at the head of a large bed, looking tenderly at the mass of pillows and blankets that shook with staggered breath. Joan and Claude exchanged looks. She nodded at us to come closer.

Candles were laid on the floor near the bed, heating and bathing the whole room in a flickering warm glow. We tried not to disturb them as we closed the door behind us. The room was so stuffy that my tunic started to stick to my chest. It had one window, closed shut to keep out the draught. We walked like cats near the bedframe. There, sinking in the soft, thick quilt, was a girl so sickly-looking, one would say she was at Death’s door. She looked swollen, like a grapefruit gone bad. Her long hair was plastered to her face and arms.

“I know that this sickness is becoming common, but I tried very, very hard to keep her safe,” Joan murmured, her strong voice about to break. She shook her head and wiped her face. “No, that was a lie. I let her play around all day with her brothers. What kind of a mother allows that? No wonder they all sniff at me. They leer and say what a poor mother I am to allow my daughter to join them in the fields, learning carpentry and amateur swordsmanship from her father. I thought it was useful for her when she needed to defend herself from brigands and thieves someday. But then this…”

“Mother, please,” Claude began, but Joan shushed him.

I understood Joan. Blaming yourself adds to the guilt that will forever weigh down your conscience, and that weight will forever act as penance for your actions. Some preferred to willingly carry this burden.

But she is blameless. I knew what the stink was, and it came from the likes of Blake. And by association, it came from the likes of us. If she wanted to blame someone…

As we got closer to the girl, I felt the air thicken with that sickly smell we were all too familiar with—the stench of more than sickness. It was rancid purple against the candlelit yellow.

So, bits of the miasma had already come for this land. It either follows Blake or sweeps ahead of him.

But there was something else in the air, too. Wilbur and I breathed the perfume. “Is that incense and herbs?” Wilbur asked.

“It was the only thing we can do for her. My sweet baby.” Joan just stood, and in her face, she must also be thinking that the end of her daughter was near. Yet, she remained kind. She remained strong.

The bundle of blankets wheezed and coughed and gulped for air. Her purple lips opened and closed like a fish and she turned around, gasping for air. It sounded so horrible that I steeled myself to not look away from her. This is what your kind has done, I said to myself. I have seen it many times before, the look of the death-chill. But to see it on a little girl far away from the monastery. To see it and to now know that we were to blame. I wanted Wilbur to heal her quickly and end her suffering. Almost all pain and sickness were nothing for Wilbur’s powers. All of them were minor, temporary inconveniences.

“She was always a whirlwind of joy, my little Anika. All of my children are. But this one was a challenge even to Claude’s own energy.” She allowed a burst of laughter to escape from her lips. “She was always tagging along with him. Just like baby Tommy did. I’ve already lost one child and I won’t lose another.” She blew her nose on her apron. “It seems silly, I know, this mother’s vow. Not when children are dying, not when everyone is dying. But if only my words can have the power to take this pain away from her…”

“The doctors… your medicine men…” Wilbur’s finger was already inside his bag, feeling which medicine to give her. I can feel his mind working away: should I give her the bottle with the dried nettles and nectar? Or the one with garlic submerged in liquified ruby? Or perhaps a mixture of both with an additional spoonful of sapphire bits for purification?

Joan made another humorless laughter. This one drawn-out. “There is no actual doctor here. There was just the new priest that checked her. He only prayed and offered what we already knew to give her – plants and flowers and honey. We tried bleeding her already, but as you can see, she can’t afford to lose any more blood, the way she is.”

I saw Wilbur wince. Joan continued. “We haven’t much saved, but we didn’t eat for a while in order to sell enough meat and vegetables for some seedy merchants for coins. With those, we called a doctor from the nearest town before they quarantined. Claude fetched him on a donkey we rented for half a day while I took over his farm duties, and what did he do? Hid his look of disgust under this long black mask and barely checked my daughter. With two fat fingers, he held her arms and declared that we just needed to bleed her and keep her warm, and wait it out. And he had the nerve to demand the two honeyed vinegar that was promised to him on top of his steep fees!”

“I had to bribe him a little to get him to sit on the old cart,” Claude explained. “The moment he saw me until we closed the door on his face, he never once wiped that disgusted look. I pointed him to some of the beautiful attractions—the ones that are still standing, anyway, and he told me to quiet down and just drive the donkey.”

“That bastard simply stared at her, and if I had not insisted for him to touch her cheek and brow, he wouldn’t have. He quickly retracted his hand and wiped it as if my daughter was poisonous even though everyone knows that the shivers do not catch. He of all people should know that.” Joan rubbed her temples. “Forgive me monks, but I wished I put something terrible in that honeyed vinegar. Something that will ruin his insides for a week.”

There were a number of berries whose shade told you of their mild poisons. The doctor would recover eventually, especially with his own primitive brews, but he will likely find out who poisoned him.

I gnashed my teeth and drove my fingers on my palm as they told their story. But I tried to sound calm when I said, “it’s good that you controlled yourself. Folks like them usually don’t forget an affront. He would have hunted you down.”

The image of Woodrow suddenly jumped again in my mind, of how he nourished himself with my blood. What if the answer was actually to let her drink my blood instead of bleeding her out? No, I thought immediately. We were different. I could test it out first to prove this theory, but not on this little girl.

Wilbur stood on the edge of the bed. Suddenly he was taller. There was a change in the air. He looked at Joan. “I need to…” Wilbur’s hands motioned to the girl.

“Yes,” Joan said immediately. “Do you need me to wake her?”

“No, no,” Wilbur said.

There it is. This was Wilbur’s element. All his attention now focused on the girl that would not wake, who shivered endlessly under those mattresses. He looked at her as if she was his own child. She’ll be safe now, I thought. Joan’s hands were clutching each other, shaking. It looked as if she was praying. Her eyes were on Wilbur’s careful, tender movements. As Wilbur checked her daughter, she seemed to get calmer. That was Wilbur’s effect too, on the onlookers, at least before he sent them away as was normal procedure.

Even though Blake still persisted as our main problem, I sensed Wilbur put him away on the farthest caverns of his mind. Wilbur’s gaze was steady; there were no other concerns other than Anika. His soft, gentle hands examined her. His fingers pressed on her palms, then her wrists, then her temples. He arranged her clothes, and when he sat her up properly on the bed, she didn’t even wake up. No disgust, but the purest form of compassion and dedication was plain on Wilbur’s face. It was like when Woodrow lit his hair with the embers of the dying flame.

Claude simply looked at him. He marveled at how quick and sure Wilbur’s hands were. I knew it was unlike their medicine men. He said, “If only we met you sooner.”

“We’re here now,” I responded.

“I have something that can help her,” Wilbur announced. He stood and let Joan know of his findings. “The sickness has entered her lungs and blood. Her lungs are full of phlegm. And whatever is ailing her is no ordinary bile.”

Bile. He was using the words they would recognize, and yet he said more, probably because we all now knew that these were bright people.

“You might have thought that flowered scent may help. You may be right, but not these. None of the flowers that grow in the meadow can help her in this stage. They only prevent the sickness not cure it. Here, replace them with moly and kingsworth.” He was already checking his purse—the one attached to his belt, not his bag, and offered them to Joan. “But don’t throw these ones out yet. It may be useful for the other rooms. Put it inside Claude’s room and yours. This is the sickness that won’t catch, yes, but you can prevent other sicknesses from entering your house. It was smart to keep her isolated, by the way. Keep Anika here until she feels better. Do you have garlic and glensage? I need to make a brew right now.”

At the words, until she feels better, Joan stirred with renewed strength. “Yes, I’ll get them right away.” She hurried to the door, Claude quickly in pursuit.

Wilbur stopped them at the door. “Know this, you two.” His brown eyes shimmered. Sometimes, when he was in his element, he can hold you in place if he wanted to. “You two are not to blame for this.” They nodded and left.