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Monastic life is mundane, yet by no means bleak, the steady rhythm of labor occupying Benedict’s every hour of every day. Each morning he rises at dawn, the bells scarcely finish tolling before he makes his way to the chapel to join the brothers in prayer. Afterward comes his modest meal, taken without haste or indulgence for that matter, and then the brisk walk to the infirmary, where he flutters about like a dutiful sparrow until dusk, tending to the needs of the sick, and cleaning, and brewing decoctions, and cleaning, and treating wounds, and cleaning some more. The constancy of it is what Benedict finds the most convenient—it’s the kind of routine that leaves no room for wandering thoughts.
The ailments brought in by the sick keep his mind sharp, always occupied, and the sheer number of patients ensures he’s on his feet from sunup to sundown, often leaving him nearly doubled over with exhaustion by day’s end. Some days are gentler than others, and on the rare occasions when there is little to do in the infirmary—which, truthfully, is almost never the case—he rushes to the library to ruffle through medicinal recipes in an effort to study. All in all, it is a good life, all things considered.
The work of an abbey healer never dries up—the monastery is large but isolated, and sickness, once introduced, travels swiftly through the stale, crowded air of the buildings, stretching out unseen hands to ensnare as many as it can in its terrible embrace. He doesn’t see it at first, the creeping onset of the epidemic, as sickness in all its forms has long been a frequent, though unwelcome guest. It’s no surprise when an elderly monk is carried in and laid upon one of the empty beds; it’s also no surprise when a maidservant falls ill soon after. But when the third patient gets admitted, carrying all the same symptoms and already delirious from his ailment, Benedict can avert his eyes no longer.
They debate for hours whether to inform Abbott Jan of the mysterious plague, the dreadful conversation accompanied by the sounds of wet cough and retching so loud Benedict keeps turning around to look just to make sure no one has thrown out their organs along with the bile. Some insist to give it another day or two—surely, by that time the sick are bound to get better. Benedict disagrees. He is all too familiar with diseases of similar kind—quick to onset but slow to progress, dragging on for weeks with little improvement until, finally, the poor wretch dies a shell of a person they once were. He knows from experience—both of his parents succumbed to a similar illness. He could even argue it claimed a part of him too—the emotional part, the ambitious and curious part—and left him empty, hollow, dead-like. But that would be besides the point.
Once the Abbott is finally informed, suddenly, there’s more work to do, as the need to show progress becomes one futile but never-ending Sisyphean race in an effort to keep the patients alive without quite knowing what in God’s name is even trying to kill them. The sick slip into delirious trances, becoming unresponsive one by one, while Benedict can only watch helplessly, unable to ease their suffering. Every attempt feels fruitless—if anything, he fears each treatment only hastens their decline: herbal decoctions are brought up only to be vomited moments later; leeches leave them weaker still, doing little to draw out whatever vile humors plague them; even prayer at times feels like a waste of precious minutes better spent in study. Yet he sleeps less, is always last to meals and first to abandon them, and still, no matter how much he neglects his own health, that of his wards’ does not improve.
***
The morning of the fourth day since last patient’s arrival is pleasant, the crisp air and warm sun standing in cruel contrast to Benedict’s soured mood, worsened further by the sight of the sick who have shown no progress overnight. He gets to work right away, the healers’ faces stationed on the overnight shift lighting up with relief as he approaches the beds. It’s a dreadful sight—two out of three mattresses are already soiled, covered in blood and bile and modest contents of the patients’ stomachs, and Benedict sighs softly as brother Thomas beside him swears up and down that he just cleaned them and here they go again, vomiting, and coughing up blood and shitting themselves and since Benedict is already here can he please go now, he’s on his last legs.
“Go ahead,” Benedict responds, and starts on the clean up.
He’s hardly squeamish at the sight of bodily discharge—such trivial things have long stopped being an issue—though unpleasant odors still can be quite bothersome. But it’s not the smells he thinks about when taking the bedding out into the yard, and scrubbing it with cold water and lard soap, it’s the grim reality of the the illness. The patients seemingly have every symptom under the sun, bedridden for days and not getting better. The helplessness makes Benedict want to bang his head against the wall, but instead, he grits his teeth and finishes the cleanup, then makes his way out of the yard, setting out towards the gardens—the herb inventory is dwindling and he’s the only one with a moment to spare.
“Brother Benedict—a moment, if you please,” Abbot Jan calls out to him at the yard gates, laying a firm, guiding hand on his shoulder to halt him. “We are receiving a visitor: Albich of Uniczow, the king’s personal healer. Prepare the guest room for him, and when he arrives at the infirmary, be so kind as to show him around.”
“Of course, Father.”
The brief conversation only disrupts him momentarily, and now, dismissed by the Abbott, he’s free to go, but the thoughts of the new visitor settle firmly in his mind. Master Albich—a renewed physician, whose name Benedict has seen referenced countless times in his books on medicine. What an honor will it be to speak to such a man, someone one could only meet at a place of higher education, a place he will never have enough money to enroll in.
Gathering the needed herbs takes little time, and once the task is complete, he but runs back to the infirmary. There is much to be done: preparing the room for Master Albich, drying the harvested plants, cleaning the beds, and, most urgently, keeping the sick from meeting their end. In his haste, Benedicts pays scant attention to the world around him, almost passing by a person calling out to him, only focusing when they grab his arm.
“Brother, wait! Please!” a high-pitched voice calls after him just as he reaches the door. He turns to face a servant girls who stands—or rather, attempts to stand—nearby, clearly waiting to catch a healer’s eye before she collapses. “Please,” she repeats with more strength in her voice, stepping toward him though her knees buckle slightly with the motion. “I cannot bear it anymore. Nothing helps!”
“Try calm down first,” he replies, mustering the gentlest expression he can produce as his eyes travel quickly from her face to her shoes and back up again, assessing. “Where did you say it hurts?”
“Down here, under my belly,” she pants. “It’s like someone stabbed me with a red-hot poker!”
The poor thing can barely stand, clutching her stomach, but her mind is still active, and her speech is in order—not the plague then. A far less dire affliction—monthly blood, perhaps.
“I see,” he hums. “It sounds like an ordinary, uh, woman’s matter...” At once her expression twists, her brows knotting, mouth drooping like she’s been insulted, and Benedict instinctively steps back, bracing himself. “Such things usually come with their fair share of pain.”
“What do you mean, ‘woman’s matter’?” she snaps, taking a step towards him. When he retreats, she takes another one, mirroring him. “This is different! Trust me, I can tell!”
The force of her distress scratches at his nerves. It’s not that he doesn’t deal well with people not in control of their temper, it’s not the case at all—it’s his emotional stuntedness, the inability to empathize that rubs people the wrong way. He can pretend, but dressing a horse in a tunic doesn’t turn it human, and putting an imitation of empathy on his face doesn’t turn it real. His capacity for that sort of thing dried up long ago.
The girl is inconsolable, cornering him, fingers clinging to his robes for support, voice pitched high in pain and panic, and all he can do is stand there stiffly, waiting for the tantrum to subside. It’s no use—he’ll be better off fetching another healer.
“Well… in that case—” He cups her hands gently, attempting to ease her grip and peel her fingers from his garments as he searches for the right words; perhaps if he tells her how it is, she will calm down faster. “—I don’t know. I lack the proper learning in such ailments.”
This only stokes her fury. “And you call yourself a healer?!” she howls, getting closer, as if cornering him will help her get he point across. “Jesus Christ, can’t you just give me something for it?”
He wishes she wouldn’t shout quite so close to his face. She should try the brick wall behind him to plead with—it would likely give her more comfort than he could.
“What’s the matter?” Benedict hears a deep masculine voice from behind, cutting through the barrage of insults. “Do you need me to take you inside? You’re writhing around like a worm in salt…”
There it is, his chance to flee.
“I… forgive me,” Benedict says to neither of the two in particular, all while taking a step towards the infirmary entrance. Still, he catches a glimpse of the stranger’s warm smile, before quickly adding, “I have a fever decoction brewing, and… it needs straining…”
There is no decoction—they had yet to finish the batch he had brewed the day before, but he wishes for nothing more than a few moments of peace. He but sprints inside, shutting the door behind himself and setting toward the alchemy lab, the sounds of retching and wails that replace the screaming of the servant girl being a preferable change.
Once the herbs are all bunched up and hung to dry, he makes his way to the nearby chamber to rearrange the furniture and dust off the floors, thanking the heavens there’s little do, as the room is often used by the brothers who kept vigil overnight. Benedict was never the stretch-the-work-until-tomorrow type, and lately became even less so—once it became impossible to ignore the constant moans and screams of the sick. Finally, with all busy work out of the way, he is prepared to tackle the hospital wing.
Dropping onto the wooden bench outside the guest room for a brief respite, Benedict scarily gets to rest before he spots the stranger from earlier approaching with a confident, unhurried stride. He draws in a steadying breath, preparing himself for conversation.
“You must have arrived with Master Albich,” he begins as the man came within speaking distance. “Are you his assistant?”
“More like his personal guard,” the man replies with a smile. “My name is Henry.”
“Pleased to meet you. I am Benedict the novice—though I reckon the Abbot has already told you as much.”
“He has,” Henry nods. “He mentioned you would show us to our lodging, and also to the infirmary.”
Wasting no time, Benedict sets out to explain everything he thinks Henry needs to know in enough details for him not to be bothered while he’s tending to the sick, though, in truth, his attention wanders upward as he studies the man’s figure properly—by habit, of course, something he has learned to do as a healer. From his seat on the bench he has to lift his gaze to take in the full breadth of Henry’s tall, well-built frame. The man looks every measure the seasoned warrior, not someone weighed down by scholarly pursuits. Beneath his long blue coat Benedict swears he can hear the faint clink of armor with each subtle shift.
Henry, in turn, watches him also, listening attentively and smiling pleasantly unlike that brute Denes—Master Zacharias' bodyguard who always looks like he’s preparing to eat whoever he’s talking to. Henry is quick to grasp instructions, and quicker still to depart without needless chatter, ducking into his quarters with a word of thanks and a bow. When he emerges again, wearing plain robes starkly different from his richly embroidered coat, Benedict can’t help but glance at him discreetly, pleased to see that the new garb does nothing to diminish his presence. If anything, he prefers the new look—there is something earthly and approachable about the man thus dressed.
***
The new patients keep arriving, though most are carried into the infirmary already sunk into the dreadful state of unresponsiveness. With almost every bed now occupied, there is no longer time for sleep; Benedict spends the entire night on his feet tending to the sick, but by dawn, the first battle for their lives has been lost. Old Stephen, the confessor, dies, taken by the fever, and he’s not the only one—later that morning, he overhears murmured word of a monk who passed in his quarters.
He watches in silence as the brothers wrap the deceased in plain cloth after the prayer, binding the shroud with thick rope; he stands at the infirmary doors as their bodies are lifted onto the cart one by one and carried off for burial. He scarcely moves for a long while, staring into nothing, and thinks—though, truthfully, thinking is what he must not do, he needs instead to occupy himself with work and let the tragic moment pass, and yet, he can’t help himself. He thinks about how so many prayed for Old Stephen’s soul, so many cried and spoke of his wisdom, his kindness, his years of guidance and how his life touched every single one of them, and how he, perhaps the closest one to the monk, his pupil, his ward—feels not much of anything over his tragic premature death. He thinks how many of those mourners would trade his life to bring back the old confessor; and would they not be justified? What does he truly do at the abbey? How does he contribute—an insignificant man who lacks even the primitive ability, innate to every human—to be empathetic, to have feelings and to speak of them.
He takes one last look at Old Stephen’s bed, now barren, the flowers that Henry gathered the monk still stand fresh in their vase, and Benedict has not the heart to discard them, carrying them Instead to another bedside and setting it gently on a small table beside one of the ailing monks. When he goes back to work, he does so with his jaw clenched tight, gritting teeth through grief he cannot feel and the life he cannot seem to want.
***
It’s still early in the afternoon when the order for quarantine comes. The guards close the monastery gates, barring them with timber planks, not to be opened again until the plague, or whatever disease that is, has been subdued. Benedict and the monks assigned to the sick are confined within the hospital wing without so much a chance to stop by their quarters to collect their belongings. Words like jailhouse and stocks drift through the infirmary in grumbles, but Benedict does not see it that way. How can it be a prison when he has no intention to leave?
Henry too is at the hospital wing—an observation Benedict makes the instant the man steps inside the sealed doors. They exchange little more than greetings, yet whenever Benedict has a moment’s respite, whether walking from one bed to another or resting for a heartbeat on a bench, his gaze searches the room until it finds Henry. It’s all strange to him, the curiosity he has for the man, the kind one might have for a peculiar-looking painting, or an animal with a strange pattern or a missing limb, perhaps—the kind that makes you want to keep looking at it for a long time.
The healers and monks sleep in shifts, ensuring someone always keeps watch. When his turn to rest finally comes, Benedict’s sleep is shallow at best, his anxious mind refusing to grant him peace, and once he is gently roused some hours later, the sky is still as dark as when he lay down. Making his way to the trough to wash his face before returning to duty, he hears a faint rustle near the courtyard gates. Thinking it a shadow, he pays it no mind, but then the silhouette grips the handle and tugs, resolving in Benedict's eyes into the figure of a man.
“You cannot leave,” he calls out softly to the cloaked form. “No one can pass through the doors while the disease runs its course.”
The man turns. Though Benedict can’t quite see his face beneath the hood, he recognizes him immediately—it’s the figure now all too familiar.
“I am allowed,” Henry whispers as Benedict draws closer. “It’s on Master Albich’s errand.”
“What if you catch the disease?” Benedict’s brow furrows, as suddenly his chest feels heavy.
“Don’t worry, alright?” Henry offers him a quick, almost boyish smile. “I’ll be back soon enough.”
And before he can say more, before he can go on a tirade on how too many lives have already been claimed, Henry slips through the door and is gone just like that, leaving him with no time at all to persuade him otherwise.
Benedict exhales in defeat, catching the heavy door so its closing would not echo through the courtyard, before turning and walking back to the infirmary to tend to his wards. Yet even as he busies himself with his duties, worry gnaws at him. It’s a strange—how deeply and how often he’s been worrying, considering that empathy was not his strong suit, becoming even less so after his parents’ deaths.
But what would he do if Henry returns ill? How strong is Henry’s constitution—would he endure the fevered days in a sickbed, or would the disease take him swiftly? Has his time spent in the infirmary granted him some resistance, or would exposure only hasten his doom? The questions race unchecked through his mind all throughout the night, even as the rational part of him scoffs at the absurdity of it. Why should he even care? Henry is not his patient, but merely the bodyguard of a visiting healer. Strange, indeed, that Benedict could saw off a gangrenous limb from a monk he lives and prayed beside for two years without an issue, yet here he is, conjuring grim fantasies about the fate of a man he scarcely knows.
***
Tending to a patient drenched in so much sweat it rolls from him in glistening waves, Benedict almost jumps when he hears a loud thud at the infirmary door that opens with such force that he thinks, for a moment, the guards have arrived hauling yet another poor sick wretch. When he turns around to look at the source of the noise, he sees Henry, who stumbles through the doorway, gripping the frame as though it’s the only thing keeping him upright. Benedict furrows his brow and looked closer, lowering the cloth-holding hand—though Henry’s garb is dark, the stains upon it are unmistakably blood, his face, too, spattered with it. Wide-eyed, Benedict casts a final glance at his sweating ward and rises swiftly from the bedside. He will tend to him later.
“Henry, you’re hurt,” he declares, approaching.
“Aye,” comes the response, more casual in tone than is fitting for the man's current condition. “Could someone help me out?”
“I would certainly say so,” Benedict crosses his arms. Henry’s almost blasé demeanor eases him somewhat—it seems clear enough he is not on death’s doorstep. “You’re bleeding. I’ll have to bandage you up,” he produces after a brief assessment. Still, it’s not the wounds themselves that trouble him most—those are easy enough to deal with—but the illness rampant beyond the infirmary walls, having claimed another man while Henry was away. “Does anything else hurt? Any fever? Blurred vision, perhaps?”
“No,” Henry tries to smile, though the expression quickly twists into a grimace as he braces himself against the wall.
“Good,” Benedict murmurs, slipping his arm around his waist to guide him toward the one empty bed. The man is heavy and solid as oak—difficult to move, especially once he leans fully onto Benedict. “I’ll just clean them up for you, then,” he grunts, lowering Henry onto the mattress before hurrying off to fetch water and bandages.
He returns to find Henry right where he left him, wrestling unsuccessfully with his tunic. The gash in his arm bleeds freely, and, judging by Henry’s pained face, he is struggling to lift the arm enough to take the shirt off.
“Let me—” Benedict settles on the bed, getting to work right away, the unfinished sentence hanging in the air as he lifts the hem of the tunic. With extra help, the garment comes off in a fraction of the time.
But even with the tunic removed, the wounds are hard to distinguish, with the whole of Henry’s torso stained a deep burgundy, rain-diluted blood coating him as though he bathed in thick red wine. Benedict dips a cloth into cold well-water and begins carefully washing the blood away, Henry’s jaw clenching at the chill. Then come the schnapps and bandages, the wounds at last visible on the cleaned skin.
As he works, his own action startle him—he scoffs during the disinfection, wishing he could ease the pain somewhat, catching his own hands slowing, his senses sharpening with every quiet grunt Henry makes, with every taut flex of muscle when he touches a particularly tender spot. He is not the type to feel distressed at the gruesome parts of the healing process on the patients’ behalf, and yet, there he is, rushing through the painful parts of the ordeal.
When it comes time to treat the deep wound on Henry’s arm, the moment Benedict presses the alcohol-soaked cloth to it, Henry’s hand shoots out, gripping Benedict’s thigh with such force he can’t help but gasp, nearly dropping the fabric.
“Sorry,” Henry mutters, withdrawing his hand.
The hand is gone, but Benedict still feels its broad, firm imprint, the warmth seeping through flesh and down to bone, followed by a chill that his chest. He flinches, taken aback by the unfamiliar feeling.
“It’s fine."
Henry’s hand—large, warm hand—is right there on the bed, twisting the bedsheets in his fist, and Benedict thinks how he wouldn’t really mind it on his leg. His legs are sturdy, muscular even, from all the physical activities that come with his occupation, and surely more comfortable than a straw-filled mattress anyway.
“So,” Henry rasps after a moment, pulling Benedict back from his thoughts. “Will you tell me more about yourself?”
His breathing is rugged—proof enough that his stoic endurance of pain is but a front. It is clear he sought distraction from the pain, but Benedict humors him regardless.
“I can try,” he replies, securing a length of gauze. “What would you like to know?”
“How did you come to the monastery?”
“Well, I walked,” Benedict says, unable to hold back a fleeting smile at the raised brow on Henry’s face. “Or do you mean why I entered the abbey?”
“Aye. That part interests me more.”
“I have five siblings, and after I paid for my sisters’ weddings, I could no longer afford to attend the university. Though in truth, I have learned more here in two years than I would have anywhere else.”
“And what did you do before joining the abbey?”
“When my parents were still alive, I tended to them. And when they died, I began my postulancy.”
“Why did you have to take care of them?” Henry asked, inhaling sharply as Benedict presses spirits to another wound. “You said you have many siblings.”
“My sisters married, and my brothers left to find work elsewhere. My parents had no one else.”
“It was kind of you,” Henry smiles, watching his face—making Benedict shift uncomfortably under the weight of it. “To take on such a burden.”
“I did not think of it as one. It seemed like the right thing to do.”
Henry hums. “And you lived with them until they…”
“Until they died, yes. Frankly—” Benedict begins, then falters, then gathers himself again beneath Henry’s patient attention. “It was… really challenging for me. But I suppose it helped me discover my calling.”
It’s the first time speaks of his past in such detail—the life he has left behind upon joining Sedletz Abbey is not one he enjoys recalling. To him the lead up to the change was nothing but a long chain of misfortunes, each linked to the next, beginning with his mother’s illness and dragging on without mercy until, finally, he was left all alone. One by one, his family slipped away, and after his father—the last of them—died, a hollow loneliness settled inside him, one that never quite loosened its grip.
During his two years in the abbey, prayer eased him somewhat, though only so much could be unburdened to God without a voice answering back. And with monks keeping strict vows of silence, speaking to another person at length is a rare occurrence. So Benedict takes this opportunity to talk—and talks, and talks—answering every question Henry poses, though his tending of the wounds has long been finished.
The conversation, simple as it was, lingers on Benedict’s mind, changing him in a way he himself doesn’t notice at first. Henry is not often in the infirmary, always off on some mysterious errand for Albich, disappearing for hours at a time. Yet every time he stops by to rest his legs or collect his bread ration, they somehow end up together. Sometimes they work side by side—tending to the sick, brewing medicine—other times Benedict simply watches from nearby as Henry sits at a patient’s bedside, laughing softly or murmuring some tale, always with a smile on his lips, the one that makes his sky-colored eyes squint as though his grin needs more room than his face allows. There’s something touching about Henry, about his kindness and the way he steps in without hesitation, something about the gentleness in him that rubs off on Benedict too. It’s strange, and one night the arrival of the feelings he’s long forgotten become truly scary, when he’s holding a sick servant girl’s long hair off her face as she throws up, and he hears himself whisper something encouraging into her ear while his hand moves in slow circles on her back. In that moment, just for a second, he swears something in his chest tingles, as if his heart is thawing out.
***
The days spent locked away in the hospital wing end up being, surprisingly, more eventful than the usual life at the monastery, which only adds to everyone’s stress. First, Albich’s quarters get ransacked; though, to Benedict’s immense relief, the alchemy lab next door, with all the herbs and decoctions for the patients, stands untouched. Soon after—as if one disaster was not enough—a shed by the fish ponds catches fire and burns down entirely with two bodies inside. He learns about the incident from Brother Elijah, the unfortunate participant in the ordeal, who comes to the wing to be treated for burns after having attempted to rescue the corpses. To avoid unnecessary contact with the sick, Benedict tends to him in the infirmary yard, diluting his work by a barrage of questions—Who were the men? Did they burn in the fire or were they already dead? The young one and the old one? Did you get a good look at the younger victim—what did he look like?—until Elijah finally snaps, turning to him sharply.
“No, Benedict! Stop it, will you? I do not wish to talk.”
Benedict closes his mouth at once, stung into silence. He can’t help himself, can’t help being worried— it’s been hours since he last saw Henry, and what is he’s there, at the shed, lying dead alongside the other victim. The thought of that makes his blood run cold.
Once Elijah is treated and sent limping back to his quarters, Benedict rushes to Albich’s room to report the fire, getting rewarded for his efforts at the sight of Henry, who is there too, sitting on one of the beds. Henry doesn’t stay long, and barely an hour after speaking to Albich, Benedict sees him slip through the doors again, God knows where—though, frankly, it’s not hard to deduce: likely to examine the two deceased men found in the shed. Again, he prepares himself for the worst, taking one big inhale once Henry walks out of the door and feeling like he doesn’t breathe out at all until he returns.
When Henry does come back, he is, of course, bleeding again. The wounds Benedict has freshly patched some days before are torn open again, now joined by many new ones. It’s a dreadful sight to see, though something in Benedict, nestled in the very depths of his mind, swells with giddiness.
“Why is it that every time you show your face here, you’re on the brink of death?” He mutters, leading Henry to a bed again, getting only a chuckle in return.
This time, the man doesn’t even attempt to undress himself, simply watching Benedict with heavy-lidded eyes as though waiting, expecting the help. And Benedict does help—how can he not? He does most of the work taking off the shirt, and then he washes and cleans and bandages, and his hands wander—touching, always touching, feeling the heat of Henry’s body, the coarseness of his skin, the softness of the places shielded by clothing, the firm strength of his chest and the lithe muscle shifting beneath his fingers. More than once he swears he feels Henry lean subtly into the contact.
That night, the dream that comes is nothing like anything he’s ever seen before. His rationed sleep lasts only a handful of hours, but the vivid dream feels endless. He feels the warmth of another body on top of him before it materializes in front of him, before he can actually see it. It’s a heavy body, pressing him into whatever surface he’s lying on, but soon he can't get enough, wanting to sink into it, to merge with it. There are hands, too, touching his chest, caressing his arms and legs, sliding up his throat and cupping his cheeks to pull his face closer. He not only allows himself to be touched but responds eagerly—leaning into it, whispering pleas for more, begging him not to stop, and repeating, breathless, Henry, Henry, Henry…
Benedict does not need another monk’s assistance to wake him, his body jolts him awake long before the appointed time.
Sitting up on the coarse mattress, he prays no one has been watching him sleep—he can feel how he looked. His face burns, the heat spreading to his chest, his breath is short, ragged, and his lower half… well, the state of it needs no naming. His thoughts, still tangled with the remnants of the dream, are a mess, as he desperately tries to make sense of all of it. It’s not the feeling he’s familiar with, and at first he can’t quite put a finger on it, but then he does, really dawns on him—the arousal, the confusion and the fear, and it’s too much at once—good God, he can barely handle one emotion at a time. Before he knows it he’s stumbling out into the courtyard and plunging his face into the cold trough water.
He walks back without haste, taking the time to steady his breathing, but just as he places the hand on the infirmary door, it opens sharply towards him, nearly hitting him in the face. On the other side is Master Zacharias, who shoves him aside, muttering, Out of my way, boy, before rushing past him through the doors.
Following him is Henry, who bursts out of Albich’s quarters, his face twisted in anger.
“Is something wrong?” Benedict calls, stepping toward him. “Sigismund’s physician nearly knocked me over—then ran off without a word.”
Henry halts, stopping the pursuit, and inhales sharply, visibly forcing himself to calm down. “Benedict, I need you to look after Master Albich.”
Benedict’s heart drops as the realization dawns on him—it finally happened to him, the disease. He’s seen it, how it affects the elder patients, who were all swift to pass away, and surely, the same grim fate awaits him too, how that he’s infected. Whatever feelings he had moments ago—the shame, the want—he tucks into the deepest parts of his mind, nothing but duty remaining in the foreground.
“Lord have mercy,” be breathes. “I knew he couldn’t avoid that illness forever.”
“He’s not ill,” Henry interjects, shaking his head. “He’s been poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” a gasp leaves Benedict’s mouth. “By whom?”
“Zacharias slipped something into his wine. If I don’t get the antidote quickly—” Henry clenches his jaw. “—he’ll die.”
“By God…” Benedict murmurs. “But why would he do such a thing?”
“It’s a long story,” Henry replies. “But right now I need you to take care of Master Albich. He’s in his bed and in a bad way.”
“Very well,” Benedict nods. “May the Lord go with you.”
***
Master Albich is, indeed, in a very bad way, just like Henry has warned, and if he wasn’t sweating so profusely, one could take the body on the bed for a recently deceased corpse. Benedict can’t do much other than wipe off the perspiration from his forehead and wait for Henry to return with good news, but with each hour that passes, his hope withers a little more. Still, he watches the man’s breathing like a dog, calling out vigorously to every saint to not let him die.
He hears Henry walk into the infirmary before he sees him, the heavy step of an armored man echoing against the stone floors of the large room. When their eyes meet, Benedict sees that he is no longer wearing the simple tunic—this time, he is as Benedict has seen him at their first meeting—dressed in steel and armed, only taking of his helm once he reaches Albich’s bed.
Hurriedly producing a small flask from his pouch, he leans over the physician’s bed, pouring the decoction into his mouth.
“Here,” he exhales, putting the veil onto a bedside table with trembling hand. “I so hope I’m not too late.”
Benedict exhales too, and it’s tiredness and relief combined. He sees what Albich means to Henry, how deeply he admires the man, and suddenly, he realizes that he, too, has been beside himself with worry for the old physician.
“Me too,” he replies, watching Albich for any signs of relief. When he finally turns to Henry, the sight of him—grime and blood covering both the breastplate and his face, the dried trail going down his neck—is hardly surprising. “I suppose your endeavor was a success then?”
“Aye,” Henry responds, his hands occupied with unbuckling the chest armor. “Zacharias has been dealt with. I wish—” he pauses, pulling off the breastplate and casting it aside, “—I wish it didn’t have to end like that.”
Benedict sighs, turning back to watch Albich. “Come, sit,” he says, nodding to the chair beside him and Henry obliges.
He thinks back on all the events that happened thus far—the illness, the murders, the conspiracies—and the realization really dawns on him, how horrible all those things were, how many lives were needlessly lost, and suddenly, it’s overwhelming, the weight of it, and Benedict feels like his chest was cracked open and every emotion known to man was let inside all at once. He’s devastated, saddened for all the diseased, and so glad to be alive, and terrified for Albich, all the while happy to have Henry by his side through this ordeal.
“Are you okay, Benedict?” He hears through white noise in his head, and feels a light touch of a hand on his head, stroking gently.
“What—” he manages, but Henry cuts him off, telling him to let it all out and that it’s fine and Benedict realizes that he’s crying, tears streaming down his eyes in large beads and when Henry’s hand snakes around his head and presses it down onto his shoulder, he feels another emotion joining the fray and engulfing him entirely. He’s in love.
They sit like that for a long time even after he calms down, his head resting on Henry’s shoulder, Henry’s grounding hand on his hair.
By the dawn’s onset, Master Albich wakes up.
***
The physician gets better within hours, and soon enough, he’s on his legs again, grinding the herbs and tossing ingredients into the cauldron, showing Benedict every step of the process and murmuring helpful tips. Anyone can come up with a cure if they lie immobilized long enough, the physician jokes, his hands full of veils, one for every patient. They go around, pouring the medicine into the sicks’ throats, and in no time at all, one by one, they finally show signs of getting better.
***
Standing on the monastery steps some days later, Benedict watches the young stable hands leading the horses into the courtyard. The morning is sunny and pleasant, and, strangely, so is his mood. With the monastery opened yet again, he feels lighter than he has in a long time.
“You did great, my boy,” comes a familiar voice beside him, followed by a warm hand settling on his shoulder.
“All I did was follow your instructions, Master Albich,” Benedict replies, smiling as he turns to the old man.
With the disease more or less conquered, Albich had shut down the monks begging him to stay until everyone was fully recovered, insisting that he had already overstayed his welcome by weeks.
“Nonsense. The way I see it, you’re showing the most promise out of everyone I’ve dealt with around here,” the physician chuckles. Benedict does too, but he can’t help but feel that the praise is undeserved—just earlier that morning, one of the healers nearly fed a bedridden maid fly agaric, swearing it would make all the deathly humors exit the body. It’s not hard to appear promising when hysteria has stripped wiser men of sound judgment.
“Still,” Albich says, producing a rolled parchment and placing it carefully into Benedict’s hands, “there’s much you must learn.”
“What is it?” Benedict raises a brow.
“My recommendation for the University,” the man smiles. “I’ve made a point to explaine your financial situation, so do not worry. You’ll manage.”
Before the meaning of the gift can fully pierce him, Albich is already walking off with a fatherly best of luck, leaving Benedict standing alone with the scroll in his hand.
A moment later, Henry steps up beside him, putting his hand onto Benedict’s hair and ruffling it absent-mindedly, and in that moment, the realization that this is it, this is their last conversation, the last time they’re seeing each other, dawns on him.
“I’m going, too,” Henry says quietly, his breath on Benedict’s ear. “Thank you for everything.”
His heart, beating excitedly just moments before, slows as though someone has pressed a thumb to its rhythm. “Already?” he asks as he turns to face Henry. It’s not much of a question—the answer has long been known—just something to keep them talking before Henry’s departure.
“Much to do,” Henry says with a soft, apologetic smile. “I’ve stayed longer than planned as it is. It won’t be easy to explain my absence.”
“I see.”
There’s much that feels unsaid between them, and Henry is hesitating to go—taking a step, then stopping, shifting his weight from one foot to the other—and Benedict watches, wondering if maybe, if he tells him not to go so soon and asks him to stay another day or maybe just another hour, Henry might actually listen. Might actually stay.
“Best of luck in Prague,” Henry finally produces.
Benedict smiles back—or rather, forces his face into the shape of one. He feels devastated by the ambiguity, by the almosts and might-have-beens, by the hope he let grow in him when he’d long forgotten he could hope at all. A part of him wishes Henry had never stepped into his life, because losing him hurts more than the numbness ever did. And yet, there is a weightless scroll in his hand, a promise of a future he never dared imagine. He is heartbroken and elated, hollow and overflowing, the happiest and the saddest he has ever been.
He is alive.