How Did You Like Your Ale, Doctor?

Lorenzo gasped, and then his voice lowered an octave.

“I’m surprised the apothecary was awake. You arrived earlier than yesterday,” Lorenzo said, once both doctors turned around to face their diminutive cleric.

”Convent work is busy with all our new arrivals. I can’t be beholden to one man’s excessive need for sleep. Did you enjoy the little token I left you? Not that you deserved it. You were quite rude to me yesterday.”

”Hm,” Lorenzo grunted.

“This? This is the sister who’s been bringing our supplies?” Cedric asked. “She’s barely older than a baby. How is she even a nun?”

But Lorenzo ignored Cedric and addressed Agnes directly.

“I have questions about the contents of the blue vials you supplied us.”

”The ones you requested I return to our abbess. By all means, ask away.”

”I mean to enquire further into their… virtues,” Lorenzo said.

”Their virtues. Well, let’s see. They were all water-based elixirs. They contained honey, elderflower, woad…”

Cedric immediately took out his journal and began to jot down the ingredients.

”And…and…drops of sunshine and morning dew!”

Agnes began to wildly giggle.

Cedric stopped writing and dropped his shoulders.

”Why are we talking to a child?”

”And what of the metallic specks?” Lorenzo moved past Cedric to ask Agnes directly. “Ground mica?”

”Gold leaf,” Agnes corrected, still twirling.

”But woad alone does not produce a vibrant enough pigment without an activator,” Lorenzo stated.

”It can when you add crushed violets,” Agnes replied, with an air of cheerful mischief.

Lorenzo looked at her.

”I don’t think so.”

Agnes smiled and looked away, then skipped over a short distance to balance on a damp log she found on the floor.

“I wanted it to be as pretty as possible,” she said. “To pay homage to the starry veil of our Holy Mother. Have you ever sat down to admire its majesty? How gorgeously speckled it is…with celestial bodies. If you, learned men, had spared a moment more for contemplation, you would have seen it coming. You would have seen all of this coming.”

She then turned to look at them.

”The conjunction,” she declared.

Both Cedric and Lorenzo froze.

“…Saturn. Mars. Jupiter. All coinciding in Aquarius some years ago in March,” Agnes continued. “It was foretold, this great corruption… it was written. In the stars.”

”I…don’t understand. How did you…?” Cedric began to ask.

“Don’t give me distractions. You omitted something,” Lorenzo interrupted his query.

Agnes didn’t respond.

“You will tell me what it was. Girl.”

Agnes simply smiled behind her veil.

”How did you like your ale, doctor?”

”The ale… don’t tell me she added something to that too,” Cedric grumbled.

Lorenzo didn’t reply.

”Hm,” Agnes pondered the question. “You know, it is not safe for someone little to be out and about… so I will allow you both to walk me back to my convent now. It’s your way of saying thank you for all my trouble of brining your herbs to the village.”

Both doctors looked at each other.

✨✨✨

Agnes stood between them both and stretched out both her little hands. Both men felt they had no choice but to take one tiny hand each and begin their walk out of the village.

As all three walked together towards the edge of the village, the doctors found their arms turned into makeshift swings so Agnes could swing back and forth.

”Wee-…!” Agnes swung. “Uh-weeee!…”

”Stop that,” Lorenzo grumbled.

”Weeee….Why? This is where all the butcher’s waste drains down. Abbess will yell at me if I soil my shoes and my pretty habit,” Agnes explained and continued to swing.

They took a few more steps until they were out of the channel.

“Say…” Agnes said and soon both her shoes landed firmly on the ground. “You all make marks on every door. What do they mean?”

A cool late-spring breeze passed between them.

”Different markings mean different things,” Cedric explained, after a pause.

“They’re signs,” Lorenzo said. “It lets other doctors know who was seen, which family, if infection was found, how many infected, and what action needs to be taken.”

”Ah…What does this one mean?”

”Crisis.”

”And that one?”

“Recovering.”

”And what about that one?”

”Collection Required.”

”So someone in there is dead?”

”Yes,” Lorenzo replied.

”Hm,” Agnes reflected.

As they continued to walk together towards the outskirts of the village, Agnes watched as the carts loaded with bodies left the walls and entered the burial grounds. All three watched as corpses were dropped into mass graves or laid out in neat lines in various states of decay. A few family members wept over the more recent additions.

“Archbishop Gregory just blessed this field so they could be buried. They will run out of room here too,” Agnes said, observing the grim scene. “They still don’t know what caused it. And by they… I mean you.”

Both men remained silent as the nun gazed up at them.

”Overdue punishment, some claim, for endless wars…The wrath of a king, I heard once,” she said. “Corrupted air... What say you, Doctor… Cedric, is it?”

”Humoral imbalance. No question,” Cedric said. “We have had some success with tinctures and bloodletting”

”Hm,” Agnes pondered. “And you, Lorenzo, the melancholy?”

Lorenzo felt placed on the spot but waited to offer his answer.

”I… am not sure,” he admitted. “We know it thrives in close quarters, like merchant ships. This favors miasma. I suspect water may carry it as well.”

”Do you have any theories, sister?” Cedric asked.

”Me?” Agnes then giggled. “I’m just a little nun! The smallest and silliest of them all at that. Why would you care to hear about my theories?”

She continued to giggle, to skip and frolic ahead of them as they distanced themselves from town and approached an open flowery meadow. There, she took in the breezes that swept across the lush, green pasture.

“Even the monastery brothers have reported cases,” Lorenzo said once they caught up with her again. ”We have yet to be called to the cloister.”

”Oh, the pestilence does not touch our convent,” Agnes said cheerfully. “This is why they’ve sent us all the maidens. We remain under the protection of our Holy Mother… and her little golden stars, though she is quite strict-…”

Lorenzo seized her right hand abruptly.

”Lorenzo…” Cedric called out, but no one moved.

For a moment, tiny Agnes simply dangled from his giant leather glove and his terrifying height.

Lorenzo lowered the ghastly beak of his mask toward the dangling girl, her face partly covered by her veil.

“Alaric said you are unaffected,” Lorenzo said.

Agnes simply nodded.

”Yes, sir.”

”And you are still omitting an ingredient,” Lorenzo reminded.

Agnes moved the veil, looked at him, and then gave him her widest grin.

“Then, let me show you…”