Yet the food I chewed flooded my mouth with keen pleasure. The starchiness of the core became a mild sweetness in contrast to the peppery skin. There were two textures—the fibrous skin and the crisper inner vegetable. The sensation of swallowing a bulky mouthful of food after my long deprivation was an ecstasy in itself. The taking in of food, I suddenly knew, was not only my consumption of life but a victory of the continuation of life. I had once more survived, and my physical body rejoiced in that even as tears filled my eyes at my loss. Duril was staring at me. “Aren’t you going to go to him?” he asked me at last. I shook my head slowly. My voice creaked when I spoke. “Give me some time, Sergeant. I’ve been days with no food or water. Let me eat and regain some strength before I have to face him.”

A shadow of disapproval passed across his face, but he did not argue with me. Instead he waited as I ate all the turnips. I offered him some, but he shook his head wordlessly. When the turnips were gone, I found a crock of raisins and sat down to devour them one sticky, chewy handful after another. They tasted wonderful. Yet the more food filled me, the keener became my awareness of my loss.

That sensation of duality flooded me again. There was the Speck me who gloried in survival, and there was Nevare who had just lost most of his world. I looked up at Duril. “Please tell me all you know. I’ve been isolated for days. No food or water, no news.”

“So I see,” he said gravely. “It’s soon told, for all that has happened. The sickness came from Franner’s Bend. So I think, anyway. It happened so fast. Your da and brother went to investigate when Doc Reynolds first sent them a message about a dying family. It alarmed your da enough that he and Rosse came back here to plan the quarantine. But by the next morning, it was too late.” He shook his head. “It spread through the Landing like a wildfire. Somehow it jumped the river. Your brother Rosse came down with it the next day. Your mother caught it nursing him. By then, anyone who could still move was running away from it. I done the best I could, Nevare. I turned out the stock to graze and put the stable beasts out in the fields. It was the most I could do for them. I got sick right after your mother did, so I don’t know too much else until today. I finally decided I was going to live and crawled out of bed and staggered up here. I saw four covered corpses in the yard outside—I don’t know whose, or even how long they’ve been there. Stink is something terrible. Most everyone seems to be gone; at least, I hope they are, and not dead in their beds or something. I haven’t gone room to room—I came to find you first. Had no idea your da had locked you up like that, lad. It’s a miracle you survived. A miracle. What did you eat or drink up there?”