Page 4 of Dark Embrace

When she was done, she looked back to where she had seen Mr.Thayne.

He was gone, the patient asleep, her head lolled to one side, her arm hanging across the far edge ofthebed.

Another patient called out. Sarah hesitated, wariness prickling through her. Stepping forward, she almost went to the patient Mr. Thayne had been tending. Then she wondered what she was thinking. What could she do for her that he had not? The woman was sleeping now. Best to leave herundisturbed.

Again, a voice behind her called out, becoming more insistent. Sarah helped the woman sit up and take a drink of water. When she was done, she noted the time and then made her way to thesurgicalward.

Only hours later did she learn that the patient Killian Thayne had tended had died in the silvered moments when night turned to day, discovered by the night nurse when she roused from herslumber.

Only then did Sarah hear the whispers that the woman’s wrist had been torn open, with nary a drop of blood spilled to mark thesheets.

Mr. Simon, the head surgeon, determined that the patient had injured herself on a sharp edge of the bedstead, and in truth, they found a smear of blood there that offered some proof of the supposition. But there were no bloodstains on the sheets or the floor. No blood congealed in the wound. And the woman herself looked like a dry husk, as though something had drained her of both bloodandlife.

Death was no stranger to King’s College. But this manner of death would be strange anywhere, all the more so because it had happened before. Two months ago, a man had died in the surgical ward with his wrist torn open and no blood to be found. Three weeks after that, it had been a woman, dead in her bed, a dried-outhusk.

And now, a third person, dead in a manner both strange andfrightening.

Throughout that day and well into the night, Sarah could not dispel the memory of Killian Thayne, swathed in darkness, his head bowed, and the woman’s arm white against the black ofhiscoat.

2

Bergen,Norway,1349

Kjell missed them:his parents, his three little sisters, his baby brother. Not so little anymore. He’d been gone for three years. The baby would be walking. The oldest of his sisters might be married. His mother would say it was long past time that he married. Maybe she would be right. There was a farm a day’s travel from theirs with four pretty daughters. At least, there had been four of them when he’d left. If there was even one yet unmarried, he might offerforher.

He’d left his parents’ farm to find his own way. He’d signed on with a merchant ship carrying dried fish. That time, they brought back salt from Lübeck. Other times it was cloth or spices. They sailed to ports far from the life he’d known in more than just distance; they were worlds away in sights and sounds and smells, each place foreign and fascinating. Oh, he’d been back to Bergen many a time over the years, but there had never been a chance to go home because it was an overland trek and because…well, because he’d always felt like tomorrow would be a good day to go, or the tomorrowafterthat.

But on this most recent trip he hadn’t just seen wonders, he’d seen the effects of the Black Death. His shipmates had lost friends and family. Men he met in other ports spoke of the sweeping plague that decimated families, towns, cities. So, Kjell decided he would not wait for the tomorrow after tomorrow to go home. Today wastheday.

With a grin, he glanced around the harbor. There was an English ship newly arrived, carrying a cargo of cloth. The men from that ship bumped shoulders with the men from his as they all moved away from the docks. He found himself in the midst of a group of them as they shouldered past. They were like a tide, and he rode it until he cleared the crowd. One of the men from the English ship fell into step beside him. He was pale with dark rings beneath his eyes, his brow dotted with sweat. He tripped and fell against Kjell, mumbling an apology as he coughed into his hand. Kjell helped the man right himself then stepped away and moved on, headingforhome.

“Kjell!” His mother cried as he walked through the door. She threw her arms around him, laughing and crying and he was not ashamed to feel the prick of tears in his own eyes as he looked at his brother and his sisters. He threw his arms around each of them in turn. His father clapped him on the back, and Kjell clapped him inreturn.

“You’ve grown wider,” his father said with a laugh, pressing his palms against the sides of Kjell’sshoulders.

“As have you, but in a different direction,” Kjell said, tapping his father’s round belly. His father cuffed the side of his head in good-natured play and they bothlaughed.

When the evening meal was eaten, tales of Kjell’s travels told while he dandled his brother on his knee and teased his sisters mercilessly, his father sent his siblings offtobed.

“Is it true what we hear?” his father asked once they were alone. “The Black Death? Is it truly so bad? They say it kills everyone, a terrible death. That it cuts entire families downwithindays.”

“I haven’t seen it myself,” Kjell said. “I’ve only heard it’s a terrible thing. They say it can go into the chest and starve a man of his breath. It can make tumors in the armpit or the groin, and then—” He broke off as his motherjoinedthem.

She took his hands in hers and held them, her face lit with joy. “I am so glad to haveyouhome.”

He was glad to be home. He’d been lonely these last months, for the thrill of adventure had faded after years on a ship and in unfamiliar ports. As his mother spoke of the crops and the neighbors, he was lulled into relaxation. His eyes began to feel heavy and slid shut for but a moment. He was tired beyond tired, more exhausted than he could everrecall.

His mother rested her palm against his cheek. “Rest, Kjell. Tomorrow isanotherday.”

He woke in the morning to find his head pounding and his skin clammy, his body trembling, hot one instant, cold the next. By that night, he had black swellings the size of apples in his armpits. Pain clawing at his insides, and he was so weak he could notstand.

Two of his three sisters and his brother fell ill the nextmorning.

His third sister and his mother took sick thatnight.

His father, who became ill last, diedfirst.

The others followed within hours. They all died, save his mother who lay insensate, unmoving. Only the fluttering of her chest told Kjell she yet lived. He had heard tales that some survived. She could survive. He needed to believe it. The possibility that his mother might live was the tether that held his spirit to his body, the incentive he needed to keep fighting his own fight against the agony thatconsumedhim.