His forced good cheer was already beginning to grate on me, but I didn’t ask him to stop. I suspected that whatever feelings he hid behind that mask would be harder for me to look at. We worked quickly and efficiently to set each coffin in an open grave. The names were marked on each coffin. Elje Soot. Jace Montey. Peer Miche. The waiting graves were ones I had dug last autumn. Grass and weeds had sprouted on the soil mounded next to each hole. “I’ll go get some shovels,” I said when the heavy coffins were in place.”

“Sorry, friend. I won’t be staying to help you dig today. My orders were to come right back for the next load. Oh. Wait.” He took a folded paper from his pocket. “Here are the names. Better note down who went in each hole if you want to make markers for them later.” He watched me closely as I took the paper.

“Oh. Yes. Thank you, I’ll do that.” I took the list, scarcely seeing the names. “I’ll see you later, then.”

“I’m afraid you will, and often.” He paused. “You didn’t know none of them, did you?” he asked curiously.

“No. I don’t think I did. And it’s too late now.”

“Humph. Well, I admit I thought you might flinch a bit when you saw those names. But either you’re cold as ice or you never knew them at all. These fellows aren’t dead from plague, Nevare. These are the ones they found dead around your wagon in the stable. Doctor still don’t know what killed them. He wanted to keep them a bit longer, figure it out, but with all the folks sick and needing the beds, he told me, ‘Just get them in the ground. We’ll sort it all out later.’ You didn’t know nothing about them, huh?”

A chill went up my back. Ebrooks had been testing me with that list. I tried to speak slowly as if jolted by his news. “Someone found my wagon? And my horse? I got jumped a couple days ago. Hit on the head. When I woke up, I’d been robbed. My horse and wagon were gone. I managed to walk back here and didn’t do much for the next day or so. You think they were the ones who jumped me?”

“Well. I known them a little. Never figured them for thieves. Not that they were gentlemen, either. Mean as a mad dog, that was Elje. And Peer just liked to see blood. Everyone knew that about him. None of the whores ever wanted his money. Still, I hate to see any of us go like that. They were all twisted up like poisoned cats. That’s no death for a soldier.”

A terrible tingling ran over me. In a fit of anger, I’d killed these men. It had been vengeance for what they had done to me, and yet it still bothered me. Horribly. Ebrooks was right. Execution by unseen magic was not a fitting death for any soldier. I felt as if I was made of wood as I lifted a numbed hand to wave a farewell to Ebrooks. He waved back at me and slapped the reins on the horse’s back.

I fetched my spade and began moving earth down onto the coffins. The first few shovelfuls woke an empty thumping from the coffin below, but soon I was shoveling earth onto earth. I’d finished the first grave and was carefully packing the mounded earth into a smooth heap before it occurred to me how commonplace this had become to me. I hadn’t even breathed a prayer over them.

Neither had Ebrooks. He’d behaved as if he’d dropped off a load of grain sacks. All my life, I’d always heard of our glorious military tradition of respect for the dead. After battles, our soldiers were always buried with pomp, ceremony, and reverence. The military cemeteries in the west were well tended, planted with flowers and trees and solemnized with ornamental statues. Not here. Here we planted our dead like potatoes.

Speck plague had made death mundane. Dealing with it had become something we did efficiently. Mourning would come later, when danger had passed and we had time for reflection. It saddened me, but on a deep level of familiarity, I understood it. It was no different from how I had been forced to bury my mother, sister, and brother.

I put my foot on the shovel and pushed it deep into the grassed-over heap of soil. The first shovelful of earth and gravel rattled down onto the coffin’s wooden lid. It was the only music that would be played to memorialize this passing.

The day was warm, and sweat had long since soaked my shirt to my back. I toiled doggedly on. My head throbbed. My brief sleep of the night before had not rested me. On the contrary, whenever I allowed my mind to stray to that “dream,” I felt even more drained of energy and purpose. I did not think that Olikea would make a threat she could not fulfill. The only way I could distract myself from that anxiety was to worry about Spink and Epiny and Amzil and the children. Had the plague descended on their house as well? If it had not, if her mind was free to dwell on such things, would Epiny forgive me for not coming to visit as I’d said I would? I hoped she would consider my profession and understand. I lifted yet another shovelful of soil.

I promised myself that as soon as I finished the third grave, I would take a rest. I’d make a trip to the spring for cool, fresh water. I was thinking of that longingly as I used the back of the shovel to smooth the mounded soil over the last grave when I heard an ominous sound. It was the rattling of heavy wagons. On the first, driving it slowly, sat Kesey, his face swathed against the plague. The wagon rode heavy; there were six coffins stacked in it.

A soldier I didn’t know drove the other wagon, equally large. Three other soldiers rode in the back, perched on top of a load of lumber. The second wagon halted near my shed. The men jumped down and began unloading their cargo. Kesey drove the other wagon slowly toward me. He hadn’t even reached me before I saw Ebrooks drive up his horse and wagon, similarly laden. Kesey pulled his team in. “Give me a hand unloading,” he requested gruffly.

“What are those men doing?” I asked, gesturing at the fellows unloading lumber.

He shook his head sadly. “The bodies are piling up at the infirmary. I can only haul six coffins at a time. But if the supplies to make coffins or the coffins themselves are already out here, then I can just bring the bodies. We can crate them up here before we drop them in the holes.” He spoke with deliberate callousness. He climbed into the back of his wagon while I stood at the rear of it and shoved one of the top coffins toward me. I caught an end of it, surprised by how little it weighed. Kesey saw the look. “She was just a girl,” he said. “Martil Tane.”

“You have a list of names, then?”

“I do.”

We lowered the first coffin and went on to the others, taking each one in its turn. The names were roughly chalked on the coffin lids. I put the list of the dead in my pocket with the first one. By the time we were finished with Kesey’s load, Ebrooks was ready to deliver his. We went by the order of his list. I borrowed a pencil stub from Ebrooks to number the lists to match the graves.

Nine coffins awaited burial. I was relieved when Ebrooks and Kesey both went for shovels. Even with three of us working, it was heavy work. At one point, they walked to the shade of my fledgling hedge while I went to the spring for a bucket of water. We drank, put fresh vinegar on our masks, and cooled our heads.

“How bad is it going to get?” I wondered aloud.

Kesey lifted his mask and spat to one side. “The first few days are always heavy. The weak ones go down fast. After that, it’s just steady for a while. Then, just when you think it has to be over, there will be another flurry of deaths. I think the people that have been taking care of everyone just get too tired and let go. Then it trickles off until it’s only one or two a day until it finally stops. And then winter comes.”

I wanted to ask him how many plague seasons he had seen, but could not bring myself to form the words. I looked at the freshly mounded graves, then toward my shed, where the ringing of hammers against nails had been a constant since the men and lumber arrived. A glance in that direction showed me a tidy stack of new coffins. As I watched, two men stood up and moved another one into place. There was something so implacable about the process that my heart turned over in my chest. It was almost like an odd sort of peace.