at all of those who wanted so desperately that which Merry had found. They wanted the monks to come out and tend them, to take the disease away, because they thought that then everything would be put aright.
It would not, Merry knew, not for her and not for them. The rosy plague had come and destroyed her world, had destroyed their world, and nothing would ever be the same.
An older woman, bent and nearly choking on her own phlegm, came up and offered to take the child from Merry, but Merry refused, explaining that she'd tend this one.
The child died that same night, and Merry gently put her on the cart that came by to collect the bodies.
"She was the one ye should've tried to save, ye fools!" a frustrated and furious Merry yelled at the abbey walls a short while after that. She stood behind the tussie-mussie bed, shaking her fist at the silhouettes of the monks up on the parapets. "Ye fix the children, and they'll heal, body and soul. Ye don't be wastin' yer time with the likes o' me, ye fools! Don't ye know that I've got hurts yer stones canno' find? Oh, but where are ye, then? Ye've not been out o' yer walls in days, in weeks! Are ye just to sit in there and let us all die, then? Are ye just to stand on yer walls and shoot us dead if we come too close? And ye're calling yerself the folk o' God-bah, but ye're just a pack of scared dogs, ye are!"
"Who is the hag?" De'Unnero asked one of the other brothers, the trio standing atop the abbey gate tower, looking out over the field.
"Merry Cowsenfed of Falidean town," the young monk answered, "the only one saved by Abbess Delenia and the others."
"And no doubt at the cost of Delenia's own life," De'Unnero quipped. "Fool."
Raised voices from the courtyard behind and below turned the pair about.
"The sick brothers are not so pleased," the young monk remarked.
"They are without options," De'Unnero replied, for at the meeting of those still healthy within St. Gwendolyn, the master from St.-Mere-Abelle had forced some difficult but necessary decisions. All of the sick monks were to leave the abbey ground, to go out on the field beyond the tussiemussie bed with the other diseased folk. De'Unnero had offered to bring the tidings to the sick monks personally, but several of the remaining sisters had asked to do it. Now they were down in the courtyard, carrying their warding posies before them, telling their sick brethren that they must be gone.
The argument continued to swell, with more and more of the diseased monks crowding by the sisters, shaking their fists, their voices rising.
"Surely you see the reason for this," De'Unnero called down to them, turning all eyes his way.
"This has been our home for years," one brother called back at him.
"And the others of St. Gwendolyn have been your family," De'Unnero reasoned. "Why would you so endanger your brethren? Have you lost all courage, brother? Have you forgotten the generous spirit that is supposed to guide an Abellican monk? "
"The generous spirit that throws sick folk out into the night?" the monk answered hotly.
"It is not a duty that we enjoy," De'Unnero replied, his voice calm, "nor one that we demand lightly. The salvation of the abbey is more important than your own life, and to that end, you will leave, and now. Those who can walk will carry those who cannot."
"Out there, without hope? " the brother asked.
"Out there, with others similarly afflicted," De'Unnero corrected.
There was some jostling in the crowd, a few shouts of protest; and the sisters who had delivered the tidings fell back, fearing a riot.
"I will offer you this one thing," De'Unnero called down, and he pulled a gemstone from the small pouch in his robe, a gray stone he had just taken from St. Gwendolyn's minor stores.
"Take this soul stone out with you and tend one another," De'Unnero went on. He tossed it down to the closest ailing monk. "You will show it to me each night, and inform me of its every possessor, for I will have it back."
"When we are all dead," the young brother reasoned.
"Who can speak God's will?" De'Unnero replied with a shrug, but it was obvious to him, and to all the others, that this group was surely doomed. They might find some comfort with the soul stone, but never would any of them find the strength