A Fragile Peace Read Online Free PDF Page B

be pragmatic and to take pride in military discipline and virtue. I did not want a panic, I did not want some hysteric fumbling away control of the situation, which probably we could not control, anyway. Suppressing an anxious gulp, I spoke as calmly as I could.
    The first thing, I said, was to disperse crowds. I knew from campaigning that an army which camped in the same place for too long would inevitably be weakened by bad humours of the air and poisoned water. Once I had used the tactic against an enemy, sickening his troops by pouring sewage into the water upstream of his drinking supply. If people had fewer contacts with others, the chances of contracting the plague must be reduced, I reasoned. So first, I would cancel the games and disperse the crowds. I would also send my family away to safety, Milo and Sintea back north to Alba, Guinevia could go to Myrddin in his remote Cambrian mountains. Maybe I could close the city walls and keep out all strangers. That action could be ordered across the kingdom. I could forbid travel, close the roads, close the harbours. If we could confine the plague, we might be able to prevent its spread.
    I would order sacrifices to the gods, too, they would help; I should mount guards on the aqueducts which supplied water to our cities, to ensure that no rotting bodies found their way into the drinking water. We had best guard the granaries and warehouses, too against desperate men. There were many obvious steps and I called for an aide to begin taking orders. This was no enemy I could defeat with a shield wall, but swift action to isolate the invisible death humours could save much of the population. I knew I would get the cooperation of local thegns and chieftains, as their interests and mine ran together.
    Guinevia’s rapid step sounded on the flagstones outside the chamber. She had heard the news already I supposed, from Milo , who had hurried to his bride. Guinevia was pale. “Matters are bad,” she said, “Sintea is vomiting and feverish.” Matters got much worse. Our Pictish princess died long before the first wolf light of the morning.

 
    VI - Droplets
     
    We immolated poor Sintea far from the highland hills of her homeland, and with near-indecent haste, fearful that the plague could somehow transfer to us from her silk-wrapped corpse. She was placed almost roughly in a small sailing vessel that was stacked with tinder, and we sent her on her last voyage cloaked in fire. I dared not have her buried as befitted her royal status, I knew the dangers of plague and I had to give her rites befitting her status, a funeral that her still-unknowing father would demand. I was uncomfortably aware of the politics.
    The little ship was sailing into the dark west under the hands of a ghost, flames dancing tall, even as Sol was rising in the east to take a last view of the young royal bride. Milo stood, pale, silent and uncomprehending as he watched the future he had planned drift away from him on the land breeze. I put an arm around his shoulder as we watched, but he seemed not to notice anything but the death ship’s course.
    Myrddin strode up to me, pragmatically readying to deal with the living. He had arrived an hour ago, dusty and weary from a fast journey through the dark of that stricken night. “We have a time of severe trial coming, lord,” he had said, even before I could tell him.
    I nodded, bitterly. “It is here now,” I said curtly. In a few sentences, I told him what we knew and went to supervise Sintea’s cremation.
    Now, the sorcerer was back at my side, wanting to discuss our options. “We start by saving this garrison,” I said. “Then we get news to the rest of Britain.”
    Myrddin pursed his lips and tugged his chin, old gestures I knew, then said abruptly, “Sage. Get me some sage and a brazier. Lots of sage.”
    In minutes, it seemed, the chamber and the battlements outside were choking in the sorcerer’s aromatic smoke but Myrddin had already collared a