فصل 9

NINE

Isolated in Guy’s Hospital, the boy Nathan lies half-conscious in bed, his head tossing from side to side on the pillow. His wrists are tied to the bed by padded restraints because he has twice pulled the intravenous line out of his arm, and that line—carrying fluids, nutrients, and antibiotic drugs—is the only thing keeping him from death. The nurses are not troubled by the unfamiliarity of his face, because they have never seen him before; nor by his strange ramblings and cries of fear, because he is semidelirious and cannot be expected to behave like a normal boy. They are concerned only with the astonishing fact that he is suffering from bubonic plague, once known as the Black Death, and that he must, if possible, be cured.

Chubby Nurse Stevens, who has just been sponging the boy’s thin, fevered body as best she can, pulls a sheet over him and rests a gentle hand briefly against his cheek. Nathan opens his eyes and stares up at her, distraught; he can see only her brown eyes, in the dark face covered by the white mask. The eyes crinkle, as she smiles at him behind the mask, and without really thinking about it, she hums him the tune she was singing last night in St. Anne’s Parish Hall, at a rehearsal of the early music group that is her only recreation.

Lullay lullay, my littel tiny child. . . .

It’s a pretty tune—a carol, really. In the sixteenth century, mothers used to sing it to their babies. Nathan’s head stops tossing. His eyes gradually close, and he falls asleep.