I never doubted God would deliver you to us, Doctor Pasqua! he cried, as he patted me on the back.

He led me by the elbow through a doorway into the central room, the Warming House, where a fire was blazing even though it was still morning. The dreary chamber was nearly empty, the floors cold stone, the walls unadorned. A single long wooden table was the only furnishing. Our voices echoed as we spoke.

Where are the other monks? I asked.

Don Marco held up a helpless hand. We have delivered last rites to forty-one brothers already this month, he said. Almost half of our order. The others are either ill or caring for the ill or burying them. Even the scriptorium lies empty. We house one of the most enviable libraries in all of Genova, but there are no calligraphers free to continue the Lord’s work.

I had run out of words to comfort for such losses, so I held my tongue.

God has a plan for us all, though, does He not? Don Marco said as he summoned another smile. Where did you leave your horse?

When I told him that I had arrived on foot, he rushed over to a shelf on the wall. He pulled down a wineskin and removed a partial loaf of bread from a clay pot. You must be parched from the climb, he said. I am sure the Archbishop would not dare serve such slop to his lowest serf, let alone an honored guest, but I am afraid we have no better to offer.

Though I suspected the food was carefully rationed, I knew better than to insult my host by refusing. The wine was sour but drinkable and the bread nourishing, despite its saltiness. When I had finished the last bite, I asked him where they kept the infirm.

I wish we had time for a little spiritual and scientific discourse, Doctor. How I miss those days. But these times do not allow for such luxuries, do they?

I followed him outside and into a low-ceilinged building with a thatched roof. It was only then that I heard throaty moans and inhaled the stench of decay that so often heralded the afflicted.

We have converted the sleeping quarters of the novices into an infirmary, Don Marco said. After all, why not? All twelve of our novices have already departed this earthly world.

More than twenty wooden beds were occupied. Wet coughs and agonized groans filled the room. Three or four monks hurried from one bed to another, stopping to ladle water or kneeling to offer prayers.

The first man we came across was already dead. At initial glance, I thought the second, with his ghostly face, was as well. But despite his blackened fingers, which in my experience always portend an imminent demise, he was awake enough to look up at Don Marco with a weak smile. The abbot knelt at his bedside and prayed for him, bravely dabbing water on the monk’s forehead while whispering words of encouragement between his prayers.