Darkness

Gregor’s

He is deeply flattered. Not nervous, of course, my beloved has officiated various ceremonies in the past. He asks both Moses and Dalila if there are any particular words or rituals they would like, and Moses tells him that anything he thinks would be appropriate will be fine. Dalila briefly describes a ritual from her village, with a cord to be used to tie the hands of the new couple together, and I am able to provide a more detailed summary of the event, taken from her memories. By the time that dinner has ended and Gregor and Rosalind are preparing to depart, he is contemplating the best way to conduct the service, and starting to structure a sequence in his mind for a ceremony that will be brief but meaningful.

“We’ll see you on Tuesday morning, then,” Stephen says as they load the carriage.

“Don’t worry,” Rosalind tells Margaret and Dalila, “I’ll go into town tomorrow to place the orders. Everything should arrive Monday.”

Sarah is carrying Vernon, and after Rosalind climbs into the carriage, they both enter after her.

Gregor gives Ayola one last squeeze, and whispers into her ear, “Your mother could probably use some extra touching from you during the next three days, so she doesn’t feel too nervous waiting for the wedding.”

He is amused when she leans back, looks into his eyes, and says, with a mature and wry humor so unmatched to her tiny baby voice, “I know.” He chuckles, kisses her cheek and puts her down.

Climbing up onto the driver’s bench next to Jake, he asks the ladies, “Would you like to swing by the cabin on the way out? It’s not dark yet, we’ll still be able to see it.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Rosalind says from within the cab, and he laughs, guiding the carriage towards Moses and Dalila’s soon-to-be home.

The passengers all disembark, and Jake enjoys showing the ladies around the grounds where he helped with the planting today. Gregor brings them in to the structure to view the lodging, to much acclaim.

After giving them a brief tour, they return to the carriage. He hands the reins to Jake, tells him, “All right, remember how to do this? Let’s see if you can get us home without my help.” Jake is delighted to practice his new skill.

Although watching over Jake attentively, ready to assume control of the horse if needed, Gregor is engaged in discussion with me, as usual. “Let me know as soon as you get close enough to Natchez to hear what’s going on there,” he thinks silently to me. “I want to know how many patients Samuel has now.”

“Another few minutes, darling, and I will know.”

While waiting, he gives Jake another couple of pointers, such as suggestions about how to hold the reins in a more comfortable way. “You don’t want to hold them too high,” he remarks. “If you’re going for a long drive it would be very tiresome. You can just relax along an easy road like this one. The horse knows what he’s doing.” Jake nods, and lets his arms rest a little more loosely in front of him.

“I am ready, beloved. There are currently twelve patients in the infirmary. One more went home during the afternoon, but five arrived over the course of the day.”

“Are any of them very sick?”

I evaluate, taking my information directly from the doctor’s thoughts. “One seems very ill, dangerously so. Samuel is pessimistic regarding his survival.”

“Oh. I’d better get down there fast then. I’ll have to just drop off Jake and Rosalind.” He thinks about how over the past couple of days he had already come to rely on Harriet’s updates about what is happening in town, and how that was not possible today. “I suppose I shouldn’t have let myself get too used to that,” he muses. “It was nice, though, being able to keep track of what was happening in two different places.”

“For the immediate future,” I point out, “you will be together with Rosalind, either in Natchez, or at Homochitto the day of the wedding. However, there will certainly be other times when you leave Natchez without her, and Harriet will again be able to provide updates. And of course you’ll always know what is happening near Ayola.”

He leans to the side, to say down into the carriage, “Darling, I am just going to drop you and Vernon off at home, all right? I want to get Under-the-Hill right away, to see if Doctor Duncan needs my help again.”

“She wonders if there are many new patients.”

Phrasing it carefully, he replies to her unspoken question. “I imagine that he has a handful of new patients that came in while we were away today.”

“All right then,” his wife agrees, “you get on down the hill. I understand.”

“Would you like Sarah to stay to help you get Vernon settled?” he asks. “I can send someone up from the crew to escort her down later.”

“No,” she answers, and looks at the girl next to her. “You head on home, Sarah, we’ll be fine. I’ll need you to stay with Vernon tomorrow when I’m running all the errands in town that we were talking about today.”

The carriage arrives in front of the house, and Jake smoothly pulls the horse to a halt. “Well done, Jake,” Gregor praises the lad, “you’re quite the natural driver.”

Jake grins and climbs down to the ground. Gregor hops down to help Rosalind out of the carriage, kisses her and the baby, and asks, “Are you sure you’ll be all right here by yourself?”

She rolls her eyes. “Go.”

He smiles, kisses her one more time, climbs back on the seat, and guides the horse down the street. Rather than stopping at the stables, he takes the carriage all the way down the hill. At the boarding house he lets Sarah off, ties the reins to a post, and tells her, “I’ll send one of the men to take this back. Good night, Sarah, thank you very much for all of your help.”

“All right,” he tells me, turning to walk towards the infirmary, “now back to work. Anything new to report?”

I direct my attention back to the doctor, whose concerns appear the same. I expand my viewpoint, checking the patients themselves to see if there are any symptoms that Samuel may not have noticed, which Gregor should help with. And I discover something for the first time.

My beloved notices, as he is entering the front door, that I have suddenly realized something. He senses my dismay. He hesitates at the threshold. “What is it?”

“One of the patients, darling, is not somebody you are likely to wish to help.”

“What?” He cannot fathom why I would say such a thing.

“It is Smith, the patrolman who whipped you two months ago.”

“Oh.” It comes rushing back to him, not just the bare fact of the whipping, the thirty-nine torturous lashes, his dog being injured and it taking everything in him to find a way to heal the animal. He clearly recalls also the cruelty, the delight that Smith took in prolonging the beating, taunting Gregor with pauses of different lengths between each stroke, so that the anticipation of the blows was as agonizing as the physical pain. No, this is not a man that Gregor would ever wish to interact with, not ever again.

Nonplussed, he walks slowly towards the back hallway. “Well,” he says, “hopefully he’ll recover without my help. I’m sure he wouldn’t want me touching him any more than I would want to do it.” It almost makes him shudder, filled with revulsion at the idea of having to put his hands on the horrible man.

I would be perfectly happy for my beloved to ignore the instrument of so much suffering. However, I feel that I must be honest with my Seer, give him full information. “He is critically ill, beloved, in the final stages of the disease. He would not be aware of your presence in his current condition. However, I agree with you, it is repulsive to consider touching him. I suggest you leave him alone.” I do not say it, but Smith deserves what he gets. If he dies, and his Guardian collects his soul and rejoins the waiting mass of Guardians, I believe the humans remaining on earth would only benefit from his absence. It would be no loss to me or to my Seer.

Gregor is a more compassionate being than I am. I bitterly felt during the whipping that the humans deserved to feel the dread emotions spilling out from the Seer. And I remain bitter, not wanting the man who so hurt my beloved to benefit from his touch. Let him suffer. Let him die.

Gregor senses my disquiet, and he is disturbed by it. As much as he hates the idea of dealing with Smith, he also feels compelled to help wherever he can. He is torn, not knowing what to do.

“Just see how things develop,” I suggest.

Natchez

Samuel Duncan

I’m pretty sure that I’m going to lose the first patient of this outbreak. The patrolman has deteriorated over the course of the day. I haven’t been able to get his fever down. He has fallen unconscious, and I can’t get him to even swallow willow bark tea. Moistened cloths on his forehead and limbs, even immersing him in cool water with the help of two of Gregor’s crewmen, didn’t help. As a last resort I even tried blood-letting, something that I generally eschew, hoping that it would relieve some of the poison in his blood, but I see no improvement. I believe that his organs are beginning to fail. His pulse is weak, his respiration is labored, there is a rattling noise as he exhales. I am not sure he will last very much longer.

His companions came back briefly this afternoon to check on him, and I had to share the bad news. I asked them if he has any family in the area, and apparently he does not, but might have some kin in a town a few hours’ ride from here. I don’t know whether they decided to go notify what family he has, or whether they will wait to see whether he survives.

I have to see to my other patients also, to make sure that none of them descend to this dire level. I’m coming out of the room of one of today’s arrivals, when I see Gregor walking down the hallway, hands in pockets, a concerned look on his face.

“Hey, Samuel,” he says quietly. “How are things here today?”

I shake my head. “All right except for one patient who is very ill. I am afraid I won’t be able to save him.”

He nods, as though expecting to hear that. “How about everyone else?”

“There are four other patients who arrived today, who seem pretty sick, but not any worse than the other ones were at first. The patients who were here last night are all doing better, and I can probably discharge them in the morning.”

“All right,” he says, seeming somehow less enthusiastic than he has the last couple of nights. “Why don’t you go and have dinner and a rest. I’ll take over here.”

I hesitate, glancing down the hallway. “I don’t think I should leave, not while a patient is so sick.”

He sighs. “I’ll look after him too.” He looks at the floor, then back up at me. “Besides, I’ll bet you want to check on your cousin, and of course Ben. He’ll need some dinner too, maybe you can bring him something from the club.”

“Well, that’s all true,” I say. “Let me peek in one more time before I go.” I move down to the room with the sick patrolman, and glance in the door, Gregor looking over my shoulder. I hear an intake of breath from my friend. He probably isn’t used to seeing people who are this ill. The patient is lying still on the bed, except for a constant tremor, and his shallow breathing is raspy.

I look back at Gregor, and shake my head sadly. I can’t imagine that this patient will last the night. And I see an expression in my friend’s eyes of a deep sorrow, almost a pain. But he says, in a low voice, “Go, Samuel, I’ll take care of him.” He seems very affected by this patient.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” I tell him, and leave him lingering in the hallway, almost appearing reluctant to proceed. He must have had a long day. I didn’t even ask him how things went at my brother’s plantation. Well, I’ll just have to hurry through dinner, and rush through checking on Matilda and Ben. Maybe I’ll just take a very short rest, rather than a long nap.

It is only after I have walked out the door and am heading up the hill that it strikes me, like a bolt of lightning. The patrolman. I think it is the same one who whipped Gregor. Oh, god.

I stop in my tracks.

No wonder he was so reluctant, why he seemed so shocked when he saw the man lying unconscious on his sickbed.

I almost go back. But Gregor was right, I do need to check on Ben, and bring him some dinner. I resume my walk, more speedily. I just have to hurry.