Where the Stones Sing (8 page)

‘Jack! Stop it! Get back now!’ Tom sounded furious. When Kai looked around, she saw that Jack was leaning right into the deep pit where the huge wheel was turning around.

‘Come away! You could be caught in the wheel and dragged down there and crushed! You would be killed!’ Tom’s face was white.

Jack just laughed. ‘Oh, Brother Albert says I have nine lives, like a cat!’ he said.

‘It’s not funny,’ said Tom. ‘One of our apprentices died that way – you can still see the mark of the blood, way down there.’

The children could see that there was a dark stain on the stones, far below. Kai felt a little sick. All of them were silent.

‘Can we go to see the puppies and kittens now?’ she finally asked.

Tom nodded. ‘We will go to see the puppies first. We keep the kittens and puppies in different barns, otherwise there would be war between their mothers!’

Kai felt a great deal better after they went up into the
haylofts and she had taken the warm, furry bodies of the puppies up in her arms to cuddle and stroke. The puppies wriggled in her grasp, but when they moved on to the
kittens
, they looked at her with blue, milky eyes and sucked on her finger with tiny, needle-sharp teeth. Now Kai was the one who had to be torn away, as it was time to go into the house for supper.

‘Edith is still not well enough to get up, but bring your honey cakes into her room and tell her your adventures,’ said Tom’s mother when they came in.

The three raced upstairs into the chamber, laughing and talking. But they stopped abruptly at the door. Even since this morning, Edith looked much worse. Her skin was a greenish white and she could hardly raise herself on the
pillows
when she saw them. She did manage a smile, though, and Jack made her laugh telling stories of Brother Albert’s despair at Tom’s Latin. But before very long Dame Alisoun came in and said they must not overtire her. Edith waved them goodbye feebly as they left the chamber.

Tom’s father said he would bring them back to the priory in his cart, as they would never be able to carry all the fruit, acorns and the honey cakes they had been given. ‘I hear that Jack has a way with horses, so I’ll let him drive the cart,’ he said.

Jack looked overjoyed.

‘And I have something else for you,’ said Tom’s mother
to Kai. Tom had been whispering something to her. Now Dame Alisoun held one of the kittens up to Kai. It was the one that Kai had especially liked, a pure black one with one white-tipped paw.

‘How would you like to take this one home?’ said Dame Alisoun. ‘They can eat on their own now, and are ready to leave their mother. This is the one that you liked best, isn’t it? She’s a pet. We call her Kitty. But you will have to find your own name for her.’

Kai looked at Tom’s mother doubtfully.

‘What do you think Brother Albert will say?’

‘Brother Albert will not mind. He knows very well that my cats are fine mousers. And I hear tell the priory cat has disappeared. Take her, go on.’

Kai took the kitten, hardly daring to believe her luck. A kitten of her own!

Tom’s mother laughed as she saw the kitten dig her claws deep into the cloth of Kai’s cloak.

‘See, she knows she has found her new home.’

Jack was in high spirits, driving the cart back through the darkening evening, and Kai was so happy she felt she would burst if she did not let her happiness out in some way. She suggested that they all sing for Tom’s father, but though Tom joined in, his heart was not in it. It was not just that he was sad to be leaving his family. He was also very worried about his little sister. Of all the family, Edith had been the one most
full of life and mischief, the one who talked without pause and never stayed still. It was so strange to see her lying so quietly, so pale and silent. His mother had tried to reassure him that Edith would get better, but he had seen how
worried
she herself looked.

Kai, on the other hand, was in the seventh heaven of delight. She hugged the kitten tightly all the way back to the priory. She had never had a pet of her own before – her family had never been in one place long enough to keep one. Nor had they ever had food to spare to feed even a cat or dog. Despite Tom’s mother’s reassurances, Kai was still nervous when they got back to the priory and she showed the kitten to Brother Albert. But she found Dame Alisoun had spoken the truth.

Brother Albert laughed and stroked the kitten’s head gently.

‘That woman knows I have a great fondness for cats myself, and has foisted many of her kittens on me. But in truth they have all been good cats and fine mousers, and as the winter comes in the numbers of rats and mice will increase. So it will be good to have a cat around the kitchens. Though I wish I knew what has happened to poor Quincunx. I fear for him. What will you call this little one?’

Kai hadn’t thought of a name yet.

‘I don’t know. Maybe Blackie?’

Roland’s voice came from behind her. As usual, he had
sneaked up to listen into their conversation, without anyone noticing.

‘Demon would be a good name! He is as black as Satan – as black as a witch’s cat!’

Brother Albert frowned and Roland went away, chanting, ‘Witch’s cat, witch’s cat!’

Brother Albert sighed. Then he smiled at Kai and said, ‘Don’t pay any heed to him. He is a most unhappy boy. Although from the way he acts, he seems only to want to make himself even more unhappy! I wish I knew what I could do to make him more content and less of a trouble to us all. But now, as regards Madam Kitten, I must tell you that I do not find Blackie very impressive as a name. What about Tertullian? Or Dionysius? They were both Church Fathers.’

Kai looked at him doubtfully.

‘They are very long names for a very small kitten,’ she said.

‘You could shorten it, call her Terry or Dinny, I suppose?’ Brother Albert looked so eager that Kai laughed.

‘Very well, let’s call her Dinny.’

Brother Albert smiled.

‘So Dinny it will be. A word of advice though – never leave the kitten alone with young Roland. He has a cruel sense of humour when it comes to animals.’

That night, aware that Brother Albert would not have warned her about Roland lightly, Kai made sure that the door of her cell was tightly shut when she sneaked Dinny
into her bed. She did not want her to go missing like
Quincunx
. In the morning she was woken by the kitten mewing and digging her tiny but amazingly sharp claws into her chest, as if determined to get her up and about in time for lauds, just like Quincunx used to.

Darkness over Dublin

n Kilmainham, the old woman whose job it was to scare away the rooks from the crops had left for her supper. Now the owls were free to fly over the fields, watching for the field mice rustling their way through the grain. One pounce, and it was certain death for the little creatures. But launching itself from its roost into the early moonlight, this owl was disturbed by something strange: an unfamiliar noise. A human. A woman was standing on the bank of the River Cammock, sobbing. The owl stared, its great eyes seeing through the gloom easily. This woman was not part of his kingdom of darkness. Not part of the realm of the hunters, the poachers and foxes and owls and cats, all of those
creatures
who move invisibly in the darkness and do not wish to be seen or heard. It seemed that this woman did not care who knew she was there. Dame Alisoun was crying as if her heart would break, calling out into the darkness: ‘Why Edith? Why my little girl?’

Two days after the children’s trip to Kilmainham, word had reached the priory that little Edith had died. There would be no more coming and going from the mill. The village of Kilmainham had been struck by the plague. Tom was not even allowed to go home for his sister’s funeral. When the children sang the service in the chapel on the day she was buried, there was a sense they were singing it for Edith as well as Philip. Dame Maria said as much when they spoke to her after the service. She hugged Tom.

‘My poor child, I know it is very hard for you not to be with your family. But from now on, the service you sing will be for your sister too, and for all the lost children of the city. For I fear there will be many more lost to us.’

Dame Maria was right. Almost overnight, the trickle of whispered fears and rumours of strange, sudden deaths became a flood. There could be no denying it now. Plague had come to Dublin, and the city was in crisis. All public
gatherings
, fairs and markets and guild meetings were stopped. Only religious services were allowed, and these soon became packed out. Hundreds of people came to pray that they and their loved ones should be spared from what soon became known as the Black Death. People flocked in to the
cathedral
, begging for some holy oil or wax to protect them from the curse of the sickness.

And at the end of September, just after Michaelmas, the weather changed. The sunny autumn days turned to days of unrelenting rain. The Dublin streets became a sea of mud under a sky made of lead. Long days of fuggy mist and constant rain
were only relieved by those times when the wind came from the east. But the east wind was harsh and freezing, and it made the rain whip into your face like needles. It cried around the walls of the cathedral like the wailing banshees in the stories that Jack told. And it made everyone depressed.

Tom was trying hard not to cry every time he thought of his little sister. It was so hard to accept that he would never see her again. Kai and Jack tried to cheer him up with plans to raid orchards and explore the crypt under the
cathedral
, but nothing could keep his grief away for long. And exploring Dublin was no longer such fun. Now, the streets of Dublin were often frightening places to be. The children had seen the parish constable force an old, sick man out of the city gates, because he had the plague and his own family would not let him enter his home.

As for Roland, no one could speak to him without him flying into a rage. There was still no sign of his father coming back to take him home, and each day he hated the priory more and more. Even Brother Albert had moments when he snapped at the children, worn down as he was with his work with the sick. He had stopped most of their lessons until the plague had eased off, for his help was needed all over Dublin.

Kai begged to be allowed to assist him in his work. She was sure her mother’s coral would protect her from the
disease
and she hated to see Brother Albert look so tired and worn and not be able to do anything to help. But Brother
Albert would not allow any of the children to go with him into the disease-stricken houses.

‘No, I would not bring you to a house where there are people sick with the plague, but you can help me out in those other houses where help is also needed. It will save my strength and give me more time to work with those
suffering
worst from this terrible affliction. And you may help Brother Bertrand in the stillroom.’ He sighed. ‘But I can only do as much as I can do, little enough as it is.’

Kai spent many mornings with Brother Bertrand, who was too feeble to go out to nurse the sick but had taken over Albert’s work of mixing the healing potions in the
dispensary
. Some of the other canons went to visit the sick with Brother Albert. Most often it was Stephen of Derby and Reynalph the Cook who went along with him, but nearly everyone took their turn. Only Brother Malcolm refused point blank to have anything to do with the sick. He did not want the other brothers to go out either.

‘We need to keep ourselves in readiness to offer divine service, rather than risk illness. You are placing all of us in danger, carrying foul vapours into the priory. We must keep ourselves pure, free from the contamination of the streets. Those who die from this affliction have no doubt brought God’s judgement on themselves.’

Brother Albert shook his head. ‘You cannot make me believe that little babies and gentle old men and women have
brought plague on themselves as God’s judgement. You must surely be able to see for yourself that the disease hits young and old, rich and poor, good and not so good alike.’

But Brother Malcolm was not convinced.

‘I’m telling you, if nothing else, this cursed illness is a
general
judgement on the evil ways of the city. Or perhaps there is some evil lurking within its walls that needs to be routed out.’ Here he stared at Kai, as if he thought
she
might be the evil in the city. Probably because she fought so much with Roland, Brother Malcolm had disliked Kai from the day she had arrived at the priory.

He continued, ‘And whatever the causes, it seems that the plague spreads very easily. The breath of the dying and the light from their eyes carries it to the healthy. We should all stay safely within the walls of the abbey.’

He left them then and Kai asked Brother Albert, ‘Is it really true that the plague can be caught that way?’

Brother Albert said nothing for a moment.

‘It is all a great puzzle. It is true that some people believe that the plague is spread by a sick person’s breath or by
looking
in their eyes. But I am not sure they are right. I have seen cases where only one person in a whole household is affected by the disease, although they have all been
breathing
the same air. Then I have seen others in which the whole household dies. There are different types of the plague, in any case. The most common one is the one that comes on
suddenly and leaves the sufferer with buboes – that was the one that took little Edith. It comes on with shivering and fever, and then the buboes, the dreadful black lumps come out on the second or third day. Yet I have seen people recover from this plague, and we cannot say why. The other type of plague seems to sit more in the lungs, and there is terrible coughing and sneezing and spitting blood. That is the worst kind, for the sick person never recovers. It seems to me that the different types must be spread differently, but how, I am not sure. The only thing we do know for certain is that this curse has come upon us because of the Great Conjunction of a few years ago.’

‘What is the Great Conjunction?’

‘It is when Jupiter and Saturn, the great benefic and the great malefic, are joined together in the sky. It always heralds a disaster of some kind. But though signs and portents may tell us what is to come, they do not tell us how to deal with it. All I can do is pray and do my best to help those who are suffering.’

As the numbers of the dead increased, it became
impossible
to bury them in holy ground, and graves were dug far outside the city walls, in an area that became known as the Black Pits. Nearly every day the children passed a sad
procession
carrying some victim of the plague down to this common grave. People in the streets crossed themselves but kept well away from these sad little groups. Very few people
wanted to have anything to do with those who had been in contact with the plague. Apart from the monks and nuns, there were few people in the city willing to give any help to those who had been stricken by the illness. As soon as the telltale signs appeared, people who were infected locked themselves in their houses and waited for the end.

But one of those who did try to help was Dame Maria. She and her servant Damaris spent many hours making medicines for the brothers – not just of Holy Trinity but of the other monasteries – to bring to their patients. She asked the children to help her with the distilling of the potions; Roland again refused, as he said it was woman’s work, but the others enjoyed the pounding and the pouring and the mixing. Jack wanted to try to make an elixir of life,
working
away at distilling a mixture of his own invention in one of the retorts in the stillroom as soon as he had finished the tasks Dame Maria set him. His intensity reminded Kai of the time when a friend of her father’s had been sure he had a foolproof recipe for turning metal into gold. The
Breakwater
family had spent months in the alchemist’s house, working along with him in his laboratory. The experiments had ended when a large explosion blew up the roof off the house and just avoided blowing the whole family up with it. The alchemist had run around the roofless house with scorched eyebrows, lamenting the ruin of his life’s work.

When she told the story, everyone laughed.

Jack said, ‘That’s the first story I ever heard you tell about your life before you came here, Kai! And it must have been really exciting, with all that travelling. You must have had loads of adventures. Why don’t you tell us some more?’

Kai said nothing. She had always been very careful not to talk about her past. She was afraid she might say something to let her secret out.

Dame Maria looked at her face, which had suddenly gone white, and asked, ‘Do you think your father will come back to the city soon, Kai? Do you know where he is?’

Kai felt that it was unlikely that her father would come back soon. There were very few people at all coming into the city of Dublin. The city guards were under orders to keep as many people out of the city as they could. It was a way of trying to keep further infection away. In any case, few people wanted to come into a city rife with plague, unless they really had to. She wondered where her father was. She wished now she had not been so mean to him when he had tried to get her to come away with him. In the end, it had turned out that he had been right. The plague
had
come to Dublin.

She said to Dame Maria, ‘No, I don’t know where he is, and I don’t think he will be able to get into Dublin. You know how strict the guards are being about letting travellers in.’