Pestilence

The girl was wracked with fever. Her skin was slick with a sheen of sweat. Her limbs shuddered. She choked and gasped, desperate to force air past a knotted throat.

The plague witch coached her through the suffering. She brushed her fingers along the girl’s throat and down her sternum towards the belly. Eyes widened as the breaths finally came easy, a moment of respite before the stomach’s convulsions.

Latrine fever. It was an ailment she’d designed many years ago. Carried by flies, its purpose was to break an army in the days before a battle. Many suffocated in the early stages, decimating the ranks. Those who survived would reject any food or drink, leaving their bodies malnourished. The  muscle contractions ran steady for the length of the infection. When the it finally passed, the victim was left weak, tired, and unable to hold a shield. She’d brought entire kingdoms to heel with this single contagion.

Her apprentice’s resilience was impressive. The girl rode out the waves of nausea without complaint. She fought down bare sips of water. The witch mopped the sweat with a rag and wrung it into the stinking vomit bucket. The girl shoved the bucket away and sucked in deep breaths of winter air filtering through the curtains. Her breathing slowed and her limbs grew steady.

“You bear illness well,” the witch said.

“I am familiar with its bite,” the girl replied. She stood and retrieved a nightgown from where she’d tossed it in the throes of fever.

The witch knew little of the girl’s past. She’d come to her young, after a siege brought her city under the King’s yoke. She’d worn little more than rags, but there was a fire in her eyes. She could not tell if it was pain or promise. Even now, she was unsure.

“I have been working on my own design.” The girl spoke offhanded as she poured out the bucket into the alley below.

“I would see its bite,” the witch removed her shawl. The straw cracked and springs creaked as the sat on the old bed.

“You do not need rest first?”

“Does this ailment bring one so low?”

Something flickered in the girl’s eyes. Something she’d not seen before. She fought down a momentary unease.

“It is merely practice.”

The witch laid her head back and closed her eyes. A soft touch brushed her lips. Sores bubbled up along her gums. Her tongue swelled.

“Do you remember my mother?” The girl’s voice carried a singsong rhythm.

“We… did not…” She fought with her leaden tongue.

“You never knew her.” The girl finished. Those fingers ran along her arms and legs. Muscles began to tremble. “But you know how she died.”

A touch softened her bowels. Hot liquid stained the bedsheets. The symptoms were familiar. The touch hardened. The witch raised her shaking hands, but the girl grasped her wrists.

The witch tried to say war has killed a great many mothers, but her jaw locked and her tongue filled her mouth. Sores funneled down her throat and into the lungs.

“Mothers, fathers, children. Any who would not bend the knee to your King.”

The arms and legs seized, muscled contracted. Her knuckles popped as fists tightened. The girl released her wrists and ran her fingers along the sternum and the sides of the ribs. The sores burst. Thick pust filled her throat and leaked from her lips. Her lungs burned, but the diaphragm was a hard knot. She began to drown.

“She suffered for six days.”

The witch tried to move, tried to scream, but all she could do was twitch and squeak. The girl’s eyes showed no pleasure. Only promise.

She felt no anger towards the girl. To be a plague witch was to spread pain enough to break a people. It was only fair to be broken in return.

As the illness ripped through her, the witch’s final thought was one of pride – it was a damned good pestilence.