“I’m here to draw your bath, Ma’am.”

“Where is Robin?” I forced the words from my contracted chest.

She blinked, and looked down at her toes.

“Robin, my maid,” I said, nearly shouting. Black spots obscured my vision. I wanted to take her thin shoulders and shake out a reassurance.

She shook her head.

No! I thought the word but couldn’t say it.

The little maid’s eyes were glued to the wood-paneled floor. “I’m sorry, Ma’am,” she said, “Robin is—”

“Oh, no!” I reeled back.

She fell silent. Her thin lips sealed around the bad news.

I covered my head and sank to my knees. Robin was gone. Grief swooped down with a sharp beak. It bit my eyes and tore open my throat. Finally, too late, I said her name. “Wren.” It pulsed out, like blood from a vein. “Wren, Wren Wren, Wren Wren.”

The Record Keeper

THE RECORD KEEPER

Once I’d spoken Wren’s name, I couldn’t stop. I repeated it, again and again, as the little maid stepped over me and into my room. She drew my bath as instructed. When that was done, she pulled me to my feet, as I mumbled incoherently. She walked me to the warm water. Finally, I grew quiet. Still in shock, I stared blindly into the dark distance. With the little maid’s prodding, I undressed and stepped into the tub where I sat, like a limp doll. She talked to me as she helped me wash.

Robin died just after the Kongo Guard arrived en masse at Cobane. They’d not come only for the Joust, as the bounty hunters had presumed. They came weeks ago, to protect the English Teachers from fever, as Hosea had warned. The rule was, no one left the Schoolhouse gate and no one entered. The Guard enforced quarantine with threats of arrest.

Without the sick to tend, Robin faded more each day. Then, one morning, a worker found her hanging from the kitchen rafters, a length of brown bambi at her throat. She had finally found the strength to join her little Wren. Without Robin’s care, many more in the village had died. The little maid didn’t know how many, but they built another pyre to accommodate the bodies. She said many other things, but I didn’t hear.

I was preoccupied, following a crooked line of logic. If I hadn’t gone to Jones about the fever, Hosea might have stayed at Cobane. He might have found a cure, or at least kept the death toll down. Jones might not have called the Guard. If the Guard hadn’t come, Robin would not have died. Her death was on my head—guilty.

“Mistress?” the girl shook my shoulder as she spoke into my ear.

I started. “Yes?” I managed.

“Do I wash your hair?” she repeated, talking loudly.