The Plague Doctor's Daughter

2. Giovanna

Giovanna ran down the length of the ward, opposite from where she'd come and bolted out the door. The air in the courtyard felt refreshing compared to the stifling atmosphere of the infirmary. Spinning around, she put her hand to her head and attempted to think, but all she could see in her mind's eye was the grotesque birth of the insect she'd just witnessed as it climbed out of its human cocoon.

Her body wretched, and she doubled over before spitting a mouthful of yesterday's supper on the withered grass. The undigested bits of pasta and bean soup unceremoniously splattered on the ground as if mocking her weak disposition.

With a moan, Giovanna stood and wiped her lips using the back of her hand.

She was not weak. In fact, she'd seen worse. Before the plague struck Venice, her father had been an esteemed professor of anatomy at the University of Padua. He'd hold weekly lectures for medical students regarding the study of the human body in the institution's anatomical theater, which Giovanna would often sneak into as a child. The sight of blood, guts, and everything in between never bothered her. The encounter with the fly had just caught her by surprise. It was simply the shock of the situation that caused her momentary discomfort.

Another breeze blew across the courtyard, sending a chill over her brows where beads of sweat had accumulated. Covering her face with her hands, she took another moment to compose her thoughts.

The fly in the scab puzzled her. It couldn't have gotten under that poor man's skin in its current condition. Knowing what she did about the insect's life cycle—from another lesson on rot and decomposition her father once had presented—Giovanna was sure that it could have only gotten into the wound as an egg some five to seven days earlier. It also meant that the man wasn't hallucinating from fever, but rather truly felt the itch she had assumed was only imagined. His haggard appearance and deathlike pallor also indicated that he'd been ill for some time. So while she'd assumed he was in the throes of consumption, he had already been through the worst and was likely on his way to recuperating. One of the miracle cases of beating the disease the authorities liked to boast about.

But oh, what good was improvement from the plague when he'd likely just waste away from malnourishment, his body only worthy of feeding a lowly fly?

Giovanna felt sick again, but this time it was not from disgust rather from grief. She needed to return to her original task or she'd go mad from contemplating the cruelties of life. But where to begin? She'd foolishly abandoned Suora Violetta before the nun could provide information about her father's location, and she had no inclination to search every nook and cranny of the sprawling compound.

Firewood stored at the base of the chapel's bell tower gave her an idea. Hiking her skirt above her knees to prevent her feet from entanglement, Giovanna hopped onto the shorter end of the stack. She used the tightly piled logs as escalating steps until she'd gotten to the top nearly the height of a man. Leaning on the brick tower for support, she scanned the surrounding area.

"Papa!" Giovanna yelled, hoping he'd hear her cries and present himself. "Dottore Rienzo! Where are you?"

"Daughter? Is that you?" the reply came quickly. It was followed by the appearance of a bearded figure in the window of the ward across the courtyard. "I am here," Agostino said with a wave.

Seeing him brought joy to her heart, and Giovanna smiled as she hopped off the wood pile. She ran through the nearest door, navigating her way expertly through the labyrinthine building before entering another sick ward. Her father had left the window, but she had no further trouble finding him. He was the only visitor keeping vigil, sitting in a chair next to one of the beds.

"You had me worried," she said as she reached his side, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Without looking up, he gently patted her hand. His strong, yet elegant fingers that could have passed for the digits of a pianist were speckled with dried blood. "I don't need your concern, my darling," he said. "This boy, however, could use a few extra prayers."

Giovanna looked more closely at the bed's occupant. A pale child with short, dark hair, he appeared to be about ten or eleven years old. With his eyes closed and his breathing heavy and ragged, he may have been asleep or just too weak to move. Although earlier she had intended to ask what had kept her father away from home, she no longer had the need. The doctor's focus on this one particular patient wasn't coincidental. His son—Giovanna's brother Enrico—was about this boy's age when the plague took him last autumn in spite of the physician's best efforts. Helping this child recover now was certainly an attempt at redemption.

"Will he . . . will he survive?" she asked hesitantly, walking around the foot of the bed.

Agostino shook his head. "I do not know. His symptoms have been somewhat atypical so I have—" he left off the rest when she walked into view on the other side. "Where is your mask, Giovanna?" he asked, instead.

She scoffed. They've had this argument many times before. Hiding her face completely behind a thick leather mask would offer her no more protection from the plague than the gloves on her hands. It was just a superficial comfort that people used to give themselves the feeling of safety. At least her scarf could be infused with fragrant spices and oils to ward off the foul odors accompanying the disease. It was the same reason her father usually wore a bird mask for his trade. Stuffing the long beak with herbs helped cleanse the air while he tended to his patients.

"I could ask the same of you, Papa," she said with a sly pucker of her lips while nodding to the discarded mask hanging on the metal bed frame. When he broke her gaze without responding, she respectfully returned to the previous topic. "You were saying that this boy's symptoms were different. How so?" she asked.

The doctor stood and touched the back of his hand to the boy's forehead. "He's been here for what will be two weeks tomorrow," he began before withdrawing his hand. "I've never seen a case where the fever and swollen glands were so obvious, yet at the same time, the effects are so subtle. By now—I am sorry to say—he should have either died or be on the road to recovery. But so far, it's neither. It's as if something inside him is preventing the illness from truly manifesting. At first I believed the sisters had confused this boy with someone else who had arrived earlier. But I've personally observed him for the last few days and his condition is still unchanged."

As if on cue to achieve maximum irony, the child's body spasmed with his chin snapping up, his shoulders tilting back, and his pelvis lifting off the bed.

"What is happening?" Giovanna asked in alarm as she took a step back.

Her father, on the other hand, moved closer to his patient. "He's convulsing. It is a bad sign. A bad sign, indeed," he said, holding the boy down with one hand and stroking his hair lovingly with the other. It didn't help. The thrashing continued for several more seconds before suddenly ceasing.