Their landlord was unhappy when he heard that one of his lodgers was sick, and Thomas had to pay an increased rent in order to stay, and eventually add the persuasion of his sword point to the exchange.
Food was left outside the door and they were abandoned to their own devices. Otto turned his head away from the bread and cheese that Thomas tried to feed him, but managed to swallow some water.
‘I should make my will,’ he croaked. ‘My throat feels as though a butcher’s been using it to strop his knives.’
‘Do not talk like that,’ Thomas said furiously. ‘And do not think I shall be a tender nursemaid either. I won’t let you go, even as you refused me that option in Prussia.’
Abruptly, he rose from the bedside and began pacing the room, too full of restless energy to sit still. Otto had been at his side all of his life. His earliest memories were of playing with him, tumbling like puppies in their mother’s chamber. Of learning together, competing with each other, but always side byside, with him the protective older brother, and Otto bound in loyalty. How much he had taken Otto for granted. To think of losing him was unbearable.
Hawise wiped Otto’s brow and brought him a soothing tisane. He struggled to a sitting position and took a few sips, even though it was obvious that swallowing was excruciating.
‘This will help you rest and sleep,’ she murmured. ‘My lady used to drink this to ease her if she had an ague.’
Otto forced another swallow of the tisane. ‘It is in God’s hands,’ he croaked.
‘Yes, it is, but we should help Him too,’ she said. She took the cup from him and straightened the sheet. ‘Rest now.’
His lids drooped, and within moments he had fallen into a heavy sleep, his breathing stertorous.
‘You should sleep too,’ Hawise said to Thomas.
He shook his head. ‘No, I will watch him as he watched over me. He is my responsibility.’
‘As you wish,’ she said, ‘but let others relieve you if you have need.’
‘You and John,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion, ‘you are part of my foundation and Jeanette’s. I swear I shall reward you if ever I am able.’
‘Let there be no talk of that now,’ she whispered. ‘We know and understand.’
Thomas settled himself to watch over Otto, observing each breath, each twitch and groan. He wiped his brow and packed up the pillows behind him when Otto’s throat rattled in his sleep like a bag of rusty nails. As the hours passed in agonising slowness, Otto woke occasionally to cough and retch. Hawise frequently came to check on him, and in between the racking spasms gave him more sips of tisane.
‘I’m not dead yet,’ Otto managed to rasp at Thomas towards morning. ‘You can stop looking at me as though I’m a corpse –but Christ, my throat. Someone’s lined it with iron filings!’ He drank again, spluttered, and drank some more.
‘Take off your shirt,’ Thomas commanded.
‘What?’
‘Take off your shirt. I want to see if you have the marks of the pestilence.’
Otto shuddered. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m finished if there are.’
‘Christ, man, come on, do it.’
Setting his jaw, his face filled with fear, Otto struggled to remove the sweat-soaked garment, but was too exhausted, and Thomas had to tug it over his head.
Hawise came to the bedside and examined him thoroughly. ‘Thank the Holy Virgin, I can see no marks on you,’ she said.
‘Are you sure?’ Otto anxiously peered into a hair-tufted armpit.
‘Yes, but you are burning and you are very sick.’ She turned to Thomas. ‘Keep cooling him with that cloth, while I make a herbal plaster for his chest.’
Thomas grimaced when she returned shortly with a pungent herbal mixture involving a lot of mustard to deal with his racking cough, which she spread on a bandage and wrapped around his chest.
‘I know,’ she said as Otto added a retch to his coughing, ‘I am sorry, but it will draw out the evil humours.’ She added a strip of parchment to the plaster on which was written a prayer to St Joseph to intercede and restore Otto to full health. ‘See if you can go back to sleep,’ she said. ‘I will renew the plaster in a little while.’
Otto closed his eyes, and Thomas resumed his vigil, his own good eye burning with fatigue, but not for a moment would he close it. He desperately needed his brother to live; to continue to be his rock, his stalwart, his companion. It couldn’t end here like this. When they fought together, they were in completesynchronicity, and he could not imagine doing that dance with a death-shadow at his side when there should be a whole man.
As dawn broke, Thomas stood up to stretch his cramped muscles. His bladder was twinging and he badly needed a piss, but was reluctant to leave Otto even for a moment. Perhaps they could find a physician to tend him, although given the reaction of their landlord, and the state of the city itself, it would take a miracle. All of those educated in treatment and healing of the sick had either already died from the pestilence or were too frightened of contracting it to come to the bedside of a foreigner.
