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A woman rising up from the body of a wolf, speaking to him.
    I handed him the water. “Drink this.”
    He took the water, sniffed it, smelled the sweet flowers that had blessed the bottle. He drank hesitantly. “It’s good,” he said, surprised. He took a deeper swallow.
    “You’re going to have to spend some time in the temple,” I said.
    “I’ve never been to temple,” he said. He wasn’t looking at me. His back was to the wall. “I should get my ma.”
    “She isn’t feeling well, either, is she?”
    “Not for weeks. Bellini doesn’t want sick people working,” he said, “so I have to pick up the slack for ma.”
    “Good man.” I ruffled his wet hair. He pulled away as if I had struck him.

    ***

    Inside the public house, the owner woke at the noise of doors opening. When he saw me and my husband, he was quick to realize we weren’t paying customers. He eyed me, waiting for the trouble to start. His name was Bellini.
    “People are dying here,” I said. “We came to help.”
    He nodded, sternly, and told Franka’s son to lead us upstairs. He’d be up later, behind us. The boy took me upstairs, to the top floor, where the slate roof kept the sun’s heat long into the night. The staff slept here, sweltering in beds too hot for paying guests.
    Franka’s son knew the way without a light. I followed him down a black hallway lined with buckets of rotting vomit. The heat did not improve the odor. No maid would serve this floor, and Franka was too sick to deal with these buckets herself, without encouragement. At least Bellini had the good sense to isolate the sick.
    The boy opened a door at the end of the hall. Moonlight spilled over him from the doorway. “They’re sleeping,” he whispered. I walked in to the room. A woman and a man snored beneath an open window, curling into each other like wild roots despite the heat.
    I had seen enough to know how deep the stain would run here. The whole place might need to be burned down. I turned to the boy. “They shouldn’t be together at a time like this,” I said. “He will only quicken her illness. You need to go downstairs, now, and tell Bellini to get everyone out of the inn. Everyone needs to leave. Go.”
    The boy did not go far. I don’t think he understood what I was asking him to do. I don’t have children. I can’t make sense of them. Wolf pups would have understood everything, and instinctively known to flee this tainted hallway.
    The bodies in the bed moaned. A woman’s voice, as thin as dying, rose from the tangled sheets. “Who’s there?”
    I pushed the boy back from the door, and stepped into the room. I closed the door behind me. “I’m from the Church of Erin. I have come seeking a woman named Franka and a man named Nicola Calipari,” I said. “You are sick. I can heal you.”
    The man awoke, too. “Who sent you?” he demanded. I recognized his voice from Jona’s memories, weak as it was. He was so frail. He tried to sit up in the dark, but couldn’t muster the strength. Franka pushed him down. Even in low light, I saw the man before me and knew his cheeks and eyes had sunken into his face since the day he drove a blade into Jona’s body.
    “You need help,” I said. “The illness that plagues you is the poison of tainted blood, from Jona.” I grabbed clothes from the floor, and threw them at the bed. I could burn their clothes, later. We didn’t have the captain’s men here to enforce our commands. We’d have to work in stages. “Dress yourselves and come to the yard. Take anything that burns with you. Your bedsheets. Your clothes. Your books and papers. Bring it all.” I looked behind me towards the sounds of the first floor. Men were shouting. My husband was shouting. Bellini was not going to clear the building. “Actually,” I said, “let’s throw it all out the window. We’ll burn everything.”
    I opened the room’s only window. I leaned out. I howled to my husband below. I have them. Burn their things