Tempest Heart - Paula Quinn Page 0,3

meant to enjoy herself!

She was about to turn to Emma to answer a question her cousin put to her, when a man stumbled forward and practically fell on top of her and coughed directly in her face.

Suddenly, the drunkenness wasn’t so amusing.

“Now see here!” her uncle bellowed while he bolted to his feet. The soldiers sprang up after him. The man tried to right himself and coughed again, spraying blood across the faces of Rose’s men.

“What do you think—what?” Her uncle went pale and backed away when the man lifted his head. “No!” he cried out. His cloudless blue eyes darted to his niece and he shook his head. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, no, what?” she asked, rising from her seat. The drunken patron grabbed her wrist. Her uncle gasped, horrified.

Rose’s eyes widened on the patron just before one of her father’s guards ran him through. His hand on her wrist was flaming hot. His eyes were not bloodshot from drinking. They were bloody from—

“The Black Death!” Emma screamed and leaped closer to her father.

The Black Death. They’d heard of the deadly pestilence sweeping through countries in the east and the south, including London. They’d heard of its symptoms; bloody eyes, large boils, high fever…no. No. She turned back to her uncle.

He was already stepping away, tugging Emma with him. He motioned to his men. “Get the horses. Now!” He gave Rose a regretful gaze. “I’m sorry. Stay where you are, Rose.”

What? No! “Uncle Richard, what are you—”

“You are infected, Woman! Stay back!” he shouted. “Men! Get the horses!”

Emma was screaming and shaking her head, her pretty blue eyes dripping tears down her cheeks.

“Uncle Richard, are you going to leave me here?”

“Rose, child, what can I do? You will infect us all.”

“How do you know you are not already infected?” she screamed at him. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. The Black Death wasn’t supposed to be this far north. “Are you going to leave me here all alone, Uncle?”

“The rest of you!” he called out to her father’s men. “Stay with her!”

Rose moved toward her uncle and cousin but one of his own soldiers held the tip of his blade to her neck. “Stay back!” It was the soldier she’d glared at when she was dismounting.

“Uncle Richard! Emma!” she screamed. Other people around them started running away. No one would stand next to her. Her uncle and his men were leaving. Wasn’t it just a few moments ago that she was protected by thirty men? She couldn’t be dying!

“Uncle Richard!” she screamed, but he kept on running, not even looking back.

She turned to Harry and Alex and the others, who looked as horrified as she felt. “Take me home. I will ride with—”

“You are infected, lady! John cried out. “You cannot go home! None of us can!”

“What? No! Please, take me home. I…I am not infect…” But she most likely was. Did she want to go home and infect her father?

She let her eyes fill with tears and turned away from them.

After four hours of walking around the town in dazed circles, the realization finally penetrated. They were likely dying of the terrible pestilence. Rose found an inn and paid for four rooms with a ring Emma had given her. She no longer wanted it. They’d left her. It was only a matter of time before the Black Death reached them and they could no longer run.

The men got sicker as the night wore on, as did Rose. They were all infected. Some of the men roamed the hall of the inn crying out that they did not want to die. Some of the others were quiet in their rooms, coughing, burning up with fever and swelling up in certain places.

But Rose closed her eyes happy, at least to have a bed to die in. She didn’t worry about tomorrow. Word was, the plague didn’t take long to kill.

Mercy, at least.

Two days later, almost everyone in the town was dead from the disease.

Rose still lived, though she still felt deathly ill. She tried to do what she could to help the people dying around her. She was sure this was hell. John, Alex, Harry, and all the others were dead. Everywhere she turned, there was crying and the smell which, at some point, had stopped being so continuously sickening.

She didn’t know if she would live to return home. She doubted it. Would she ever see her father again? There were horses here. Some of them died, but not all. Rose