Infinite 01 - Infinite Sacrifice

frightened at my invasion, hops off a little stool, and darts to the next room.
    I follow, saying, “Are you all alone, little one?”
    The air is thick with the smell of excrement and urine. On the floor by the window are two piles of straw with moth-eaten woolen blankets, most likely the children’s beds. The adjoining room behind is full of livestock. Chickens perched and clucking, a fat sow grunting, and a small pony eating soiled hay. Through the open back door, a skinny cow groans to be milked. There are gaping holes in the thin walls of the wattle-and-daub house, from which three fat rats are coming in and out. I see one monstrous dead rat under the small table in the front room. Full chamber pots, and items used as chamber pots, are strewn about the room. I put up both my apple and a sachet of rosemary to keep from gagging on the horrendous smell.
    Turning into a dark, windowless room in the back of the house, I gasp as I see the little child tucked under the arm of a woman lying on the bed.
    “Oh! I am very sorry, mistress; I thought the child was alone.”
    She doesn’t move or reply.
    “Mistress?”
    Stepping forward, I smell the same putrid odor released when I cauterized the bubo at the noblewoman’s house. I instantly know she must be very sick. I step back to leave but see the little angel poke his head out to look at me, and I can’t go. I go up to see how sick she is and peer over to search her face. I gasp as I see a black-splotched face and pale blue skin, her eyes and mouth open. She must have been dead for days.
    Shaking, I try to pull the child away, but he clings on to her tightly. When I walk back to the door, I turn to see he is lovingly smoothing her hair behind her pointed ear. Feeling sick to my stomach, I have to get some air and figure out what to do. I walk out the door and take a deep breath outside. How strange that the cesspool air of Cheapside would ever be refreshing! I notice out of the corner of my eye that the older boy is leaning on the side of the house, starring at me.
    “Is this your house?” I ask.
    He kicks a pebble with his ragged shoe and doesn’t answer. I take a moment to think of something else to say.
    “Is your mother sick?”
    He looks up. “She’s dead, and my father’s gone.”
    I pause, then ask, “Do you think he will come back?”
    “No.” He looks down again, but continues, “Once he saw that Rowan is sick now too, he told us we were all going to die.” He gazes down the street where his father disappeared.
    “Do you need some help?”
    He nods slightly, seemingly unsure of what I meant.
    “Can you help me get Rowan to leave your mother?”
    He nods, happy that it’s something he can do. He disappears into the house to come back with Rowan awkwardly dangling in his small arms, both children smiling. I bend down and feel Rowan’s head; he’s hot. His cheeks are flushed, which gives him beautiful contrast to his pale skin. I lift up one of his arms, look down his burlap nightshirt, and see a small bubo forming. The little angel has the plague.
    “What is your name?” I ask the older boy.
    “Oliver,” he answers. Rowan’s getting too heavy, and he places him back down.
    Rowan must be four or five years old. Oliver runs after him dutifully, trying to keep him out of the street, and herds him back toward the house. Rowan giggles while trying to escape, amazing me how much energy he has, being sick as he is. Something catches my eye at the end of the lane; it’s the same gravedigger I ran from before. I can see he’s been busy since I last saw him. There must be five more bodies piled up on his cart.
    I hurry. “Children, please go inside right now and go play with the animals.” Oliver obediently takes Rowan’s arm and pulls him begrudgingly back into the house. I don’t want them to see the cart full of death.
    “Sexton! Sexton, I need your service!”
    He looks up in an annoyed manner and doesn’t increase his pace in the slightest. He takes what seems like hours to reach where I am standing. I cover my mouth and nose again and try not to look at the grotesque bodies staring out through stiffened limbs.
    He pulls the horse to a stop and gets down, wiping his sweaty, dirty head. He’s covered in every kind of filth and smells worse than he looks.
    “It’s going to cost you.” His steel-grey eyes look not of this world. I step back, wanting to put as much space as possible between us.
    “I only have a single pence.”
    He