Breath (9781439132227) (14 page)

Today is worse.

Oh, Lord. The straw didn't work.

The floor is a mess of dried herb leaves. Großmutter sat on this floor and arranged them in strange patterns last night. Ava gets on her knees now and gathers them all into a clean bowl. She's right, of course. If they stay there, we'll just ruin them underfoot. I'll separate them later. It won't be hard—I know all the herbs so well I could do it in the dark, by smell alone.

Ava follows the trail of herbs, then gets to her feet, sucking in her breath loudly.

I look. Behind the churn, crushed into the corner, is a black hen. Feathers and blood. I remember the churn flying through the air last night—the churn and the pot and the bread bin. Was there a squawk?

Großmutter comes in the door. “Judith's baby
was born dead.” She walks to her chair and sits without taking off her cloak.

She doesn't glance at the corner. She doesn't know—and I can't bear to tell her now, when she's so sad.

I fill a bowl with stewed apples and set it in front of her. So many babies die at birth. And almost a quarter of those who live die before they're weaned, and another quarter die before seven, before the age of reason. Großmutter is used to this. But no matter how many times it happens, the deaths always leave her in gloom. I go to put my hand on her shoulder. Then I remember putting my hand on Father's shoulder the first night the ghost came—I remember the poker coming down on my head. I stand there, stupid.

“It's no ghost,” she says. “What's come to us is no ghost.”

Father shakes his head. “But it's not what the animals and the townsfolk have either. It's not the rat disease.”

He's got to be right. Even if the answer isn't in the straws, what plagues us comes with the beer somehow, and the animals don't drink beer.

Father taps his hand nervously on the table. “It's not that disease. My feet are fine.”

And oh, Lord, now I can see he's wrong. Because he's lying. Yesterday I heard Father curse as he rubbed his feet. They must be going numb—like the feet of the townsfolk. He's lying through his teeth because he's so afraid. It's not anything we're doing wrong with the new beer. It's the rat disease. It just took this long to finally get to us.

“You're sick,” says Großmutter. “We're all sick. All the farmers. All of them. Just like us. They rave at night. They throw things. They see images.”

I remember the night the lady came to us for help. She said her husband saw images. I didn't know my family saw images too. But of course they do. It's images that Father talks to every night—that he shouts at when he beats the wall.

No ghost. This is no ghost to be banished with the right kind of talk or with straw pentagrams over the door. This is something else, something more awful. If I had the power, I'd call all the rats out of hiding and I'd kill them, each and every one.

“Two infants died in town last night: a three-month-old, and a two-year-old.”

Bertram sits up at attention with a jerk. He leans forward over the table toward Großmutter.

She doesn't seem to notice him. “A servant died—a man. And his lord died too. His leg fell
off—completely off—and he died. Four people in one night. A crier came by Judith's at dawn. When he heard about how things were going, he stayed till the baby came out stillborn. Then he went off crying, ‘Five.'”

“Not everyone's sick,” says Bertram.

I hoist Ava into my arms and step behind Großmutter.

Großmutter sighs. “Not everyone, but almost everyone. The children on the farms seem healthy. At least the little ones. The four-year-olds. The five- and six-year-olds. They were running around Judith's house like normal this morning.”

The ones who don't drink the beer, I'm thinking. They aren't sick. But then, the townsfolk children are sick, and they don't drink the beer, either.

It can't be the beer.

No matter how I fight the conclusion, there it is: The rat disease has come to us finally.

“And Salz,” says Bertram. “Salz isn't sick. Isn't that funny? He's strong. As strong as Ava.”

I knew this was coming. I'm ready to race for the door.

But Bertram gets up and runs out the door first. Where's he going?

We have to hide.

Sweat breaks out all over me and the coughs come. This is the worst time for the coughs to come, the worst time ever. And they come in the worst way ever. I'm on the floor, my knees to my chest, coughing violently. And my gut hurts too. My body has turned against me.

Ava, where has Ava gone? I can't see her. I'm coughing. Where is she?

“Stand on your hands.”

I can't do anything but curl around my pain.

Großmutter leans over me. Her cloak covers me like wings. “Think of something, Salz. Get your mind on something so you can move past the pain.”

“Ava,” I try to say.

“No, not Ava, don't think of Ava,” says Großmutter. “Think of Kuh. Think of how he takes care of himself now. How he loves you. Calm yourself.”

I hear the door swing open and slam against something. I hear Bertram clumping across the floor. He has something in his hands. The scythe. He holds it ready.

“No, Bertram!” shouts Großmutter. “Salz is sick just like us. Hear him? Hear him cough?”

“We're not coughing,” says Bertram. He shakes his head slowly, then faster and wildly. His face
lights up and his eyes widen. “Coughing. That's what I heard the rat disease brings next. Coughing. That's what that priest said, the one who Pater Michael made come from Höxter. Once there's coughing, everybody gets the disease. Salz is coughing. He'll kill us all.”

“He's coughed all his life,” says Großmutter. “You know that.”

“Then, he doesn't have what we have.” Bertram laughs madly. “You can't have it both ways, old woman. And look at him. Look. He's sick. Sick! I know what I'm supposed to do. Get away.” He pushes her with one arm and swings with the other.

Großmutter screams. The scythe slices through her, cutting one hand off above the wrist, going cleanly through her cloak, lodging in her side. I can't see through the fountain of blood.

I haven't slept for two days. I'll never sleep again. I can't afford to risk dreaming. Two dreams have come true, even without my speaking them aloud.

We're in the churchyard. To one side of me stands Pater Michael. To the other stands Ava, both arms clasped around my hips. The others are walking away, but the three of us still stand here. The smell of the fresh dirt is so rich I think I can taste it.

Kuh digs into my shoulder. He's almost too big to ride there now, but I brought him along for Ava's sake.

Pater Michael holds my arm. “You're swaying, Salz.”

I didn't know that. Lack of sleep makes me not notice lots of things. But I can train myself not to need sleep. I have to.

Großmutter is buried. I'm crying again. She's gone. My grandmother is dead and gone. And I'm the one who dreamed the death dream.

“It's time,” says Pater Michael.

The words have meaning, though it feels like they shouldn't. It feels like nothing should have meaning now that Großmutter is dead. It feels like everything should stop.

“Come along,” says Pater Michael. “We have to go.”

He means to the
Rathaus
.

Bertram is in the
Hundeloch
—the dungeon under the
Rathaus
. He wouldn't be there if he had kept his mouth shut like Father told him to do.

Father had the whole thing planned. He was going to say that all of us were out and we came home to find Großmutter slain on the floor. We didn't know who did it. Some demented criminal.

But when we brought her body to the church in town, Bertram said he'd killed her. He just said it, before anyone else could talk.

Father said Bertram wasn't in his right mind, so the confession wasn't real. He protested so much that there's going to be a criminal tribunal. Now. That's where we're supposed to be going. Right now.

“Come along,” says Pater Michael.

I don't want to leave. My eyes ache from crying. Snot runs to my lip and dangles all the way to my smock. And this is a new smock—or new to me. I don't want to dirty it. But I can't help crying and snotting like a baby.

Judith's oldest daughter, Agatha, gave me this smock. She made all the people in her own family wash themselves for the burial of their unnamed baby. Then she came to our farmstead and made all of us wash for Großmutter's burial. Wash away the blood.

I try to suck back in the snot. Then I give up and wipe my eyes and nose on the smock sleeve. But there's no point to it; I'm still crying.

A cold drizzle starts. It makes my hair stick to my forehead. Kuh mews and presses into the base of my neck. Ava shivers against my thigh.

Pater Michael holds out his trembling hand. It's puffed up and the skin shines. He's been rubbing oil on the swelling so the skin won't split. I know that method—Großmutter used that on feverish people. “We have to go,” he says. “We'll be late to the inquest.”

“Go without me,” I say.

“Be sensible, Salz.”

I am sensible. “Father told me the judge will ask who has something to say. If he asks that, I will tell the truth.” I don't even know if what I'm saying is the truth. I say it more to hear the words—to see how I feel about them, to see how Pater Michael reacts. Could I really speak against my own brother? “Then Father will throw me out, and who will look after Ava?”

The raindrops come fat now. They chill to the bone.

If I don't tell the truth, how will Großmutter's spirit ever rest?

I pull Kuh off my shoulder with difficulty and tuck him inside my smock. He squirms, but I press on him till he yields. Then I peel Ava's arms from my middle and hold her by the hand. I stand there, ready, but unable to make my feet move.

Pater Michael takes my free hand and pulls us along, though using his own sick hand like that makes him wince. “Is it impossible for you to hold silent? Even thinking of Ava?”

Melis and Ludolf have asked me the same question, though not in so many words. But it surprises me that Pater Michael asks it. I don't answer. He
should know the answer. He should be concerned for Großmutter's spirit. And isn't he concerned for Bertram? Doesn't Bertram need to do penance?

“If you must speak up,” says Pater Michael at last, “you can take refuge with me. Both you and Ava. You don't have to go back home.”

“Father would be furious with you.”

“It's my right and duty to save souls. I can't be part of lying before God.”

He seems to have forgotten that just a moment ago he was ready to let the lies go if I was ready to. But if I were to confront him now about this, he'd only turn it around on me, leaving me confused, like he did after the live burial of the cow.

Corruption confuses.

Or maybe it's just life that confuses.

We go to the market square, to the
Rathaus
. We climb the stairs to the municipal courtroom on the second floor. It's a big room. Even still, it's full. I'm startled; we don't know half these people, but Pater Michael whispers to me that everyone loves a murder tribunal. The interrogation has already begun.

We stand in the rear, unable to see past the crowd. Someone steps back and squashes me against the wall. I manage to keep my feet forward,
though, so that my legs make an angled roof that Ava can crouch under safely. Kuh bursts free from my shirt with a little yowl and disappears into the sea of legs. I'll fetch him later, when this is over.

I can hear Father talking. He's saying that Bertram was going after rats.

A murmur of understanding runs through the hall. Everyone's been going after the rats, the damnable rats.

The rain has stepped up. It patters on the roof. I imagine rats running for shelter into every home and every business.

Father's still talking. He says that Bertram slipped. Großmutter happened to be in the way. It was an accident. He says Ludolf and Melis were witnesses too.

I knew he'd say this, of course. This is the pact they've sworn to.

The judge calls out Ludolf's name.

Ludolf confirms Father's story.

The judge calls out Melis's name.

Melis does the same.

The judge says, “I have one more name to call.”

I lean against Pater Michael. Could Bertram's life really be at stake? Would they give him the gallows, when Großmutter was such an old
woman? My chest is full of mucus. I can hardly breathe.

“Bertram, the prisoner,” says the judge.

So he hasn't called me. I cough in my relief. How little I know of things. I've studied theology, geography, architecture—nothing that seems to matter now, nothing that helps me understand. Of course Bertram has to be called, of course, of course. And he will give himself up; that burden is rightly his.

Bertram stands before the judge. People in the crowd make faces at him, sticking out their tongues and crossing their eyes. They act like he's already been found guilty. He keeps his own eyes on the judge, though.

“You confessed that you killed your grandmother,” says the judge.

“I did,” says Bertram.

“Was this murder or accident?” asks the judge.

“Accident.”

“Because of the rats?” asks the judge.

“Rats?” says Bertram. “No.”

“Yes,” shouts Father. “You went after the rats. Don't you remember? He's tired, Your Honor. He's been in the dungeon. He can't remember.”

“Do you remember, Bertram?” asks the judge.

“Yes,” says Bertram.

“No!” shouts Father. “He's still not in his right mind. It was rats.”

“It wasn't rats,” says Bertram in a level voice. “It was Saint Michael.”