The Fever Ships of Quarantine Island (1377, Dubrovnik)
The Fever Ships of Quarantine Island (1377, Dubrovnik) — a history story. 10 illustrated pages, narrated, free to read on Wonder History.
Page 1
The chain groaned as the guards cranked it hand over hand, the great rusted iron links rising dripping out of the green water like something surfacing from a nightmare. The galley Santa Barbara came on too fast, her oars thrashing, and she struck the risen chain full on the bow. Three oars snapped like kindling, cracking across the deck, and crates and clay amphorae tumbled over the rail into the harbour, bursting and bobbing in the churn. Vlaho planted his tall frame at the top of the stone steps, slamming the butt of his notched white staff down across the first tread, barring the way as sailors scrambled to climb ashore. 'Back aboard, every one of you!' he bellowed, his burn-scarred mouth twisting hard. Beside him Ilarije, tiny and stooped, fed juniper sprigs into a clay pot, fanning thick white smoke into the faces of the boarding party to drive them back with coughing instead of blows. Mara darted along the mole barefoot, snatching a drifting crate before it could sink, while Dimitri's huge bulk blocked the gangway, arms spread wide against the panicking crew.
Page 2
The rope groaned over the yard-block, dragging the sail-sling up from the rowing benches two decks below. Inside it a fever-struck oarsman thrashed weakly, his skin the colour of old tallow. Dimitri braced his huge boots against the rail, the line wound twice round his forearms, hauling hand over hand, sweat darkening the yellow kaftan. Then the wet rope kicked, slipped through his fists in one burning run, and the sling lurched sideways over open deck. Mara was already moving, barefoot, scrambling across crates, and she threw herself beneath the falling man, taking the full weight of him across her shoulders with a grunt that bent her knees to the planks. Ilarije hobbled forward, pressing a vial of vinegar under the oarsman's nose, while Vlaho drove the butt of his staff down hard to pin the loose rope before it could whip back and take someone's eye. The oarsman coughed, alive. Dimitri's hands were raw and shaking as he stared at them.
Page 3
The marlinspike bit into the seam and Ilarije threw his whole stooped weight against it, levering up the floorboard beside the mast-step with a shriek of nails. Black water surged through the gap before he could scramble back, carrying drowned rats belly-up and fists of sprouted grain swirling across the planks. Dimitri lunged to haul him clear by the habit's collar, but the lurch of the hull slammed a pepper cask off its chock and it burst across his chest, stinging black dust into his eyes and beard. Mara was already down on her knees in the flood, scooping with a bronze helmet, shoving a bucket into Vlaho's bony hands before he could even plant his staff. "Bail or we sink standing still!" she shouted, and the tall man obeyed, stooping his great height under the low beams, passing full buckets hand to hand up through the hatch. Ilarije crawled after rats with his bare fingers, flinging them out through the gap, while Dimitri wiped pepper from his streaming eyes and kept bailing, kept bailing, till the horn lantern guttered low and grey dawn light finally found them still bent to it.
Page 4
The boat's keel ground onto the pebbles and all four of them threw themselves against the hull, hauling it clear of the surf by its splintered gunwale. Dimitri set his huge boots into the shingle and dragged alone what should have taken three men, veins standing on his forearms. Mara scrambled over the thwarts, passing down crates and the horn lantern to Ilarije, who stacked them against the broken chapel wall. Vlaho stood counting each item against his staff, tapping off notches with his thumbnail. Then the last barrel, lashed loose, lurched on the tilting thwart and rolled, and before Dimitri could lunge for it the hoops struck the limestone shelf and burst apart. Water sheeted out silver across the stones, soaking into the shingle before anyone's hands could cup it. Mara dropped to her knees, scraping at the wet gravel as if she could gather it back. Ilarije stood frozen a moment, staring at the dark stain spreading and vanishing. Dimitri slammed his fist into his own thigh, roaring at the sky.
Page 5
They worked the collapsed terraces like quarrymen, prying waist-high slabs from the old dry-stone walls to stack into shelters against the wind. Mara knelt at the base of a crumbling course, hauling loose rubble clear with both hands, when the whole row above her groaned and let go at once. She threw herself sideways but the lowest slab, broad as a door, caught her shin and pinned her to the slope, grinding her down into the stones. She screamed once, short and furious, more rage than pain. Dimitri dropped the lintel stone he carried, closed the distance in three strides, and got both arms under the slab's edge. He heaved with his whole back, veins standing on his neck, until the stone tipped free and crashed down the terrace below. Ilarije was already on his knees beside her leg, pressing his small hands along the bone, feeling for a break. Vlaho stood over them all, planted his staff, and without a word drew his knife-edge across the wood, cutting a fifth notch deep into the white grain.
Page 6
The chapel floor had been broken through to a black throat of stone, the cistern mouth wide as a cartwheel and dropping three times a man's height into dark. Dimitri looped the rope twice round his thick forearm and braced his boots against the lip, lowering Mara down head-first with the drilled stone swinging at her throat and a horn lamp gripped in her teeth. Her braid dragged through slime on the curved wall. The lamp slipped, guttered, and fell hissing into unseen water far below, and the shaft went black. "Hold me, don't you dare drop me," she shouted up, voice booming off wet stone. "I have you," Dimitri grunted, arm cording with the strain. Ilarije leaned over the lip with his one good eye straining into the dark, murmuring a prayer. Vlaho gripped the rope's slack coil, feeding it inch by inch. Then Mara surfaced below, spitting brackish water, hauling up a leaking bucket in one hand and in the other, grinning horribly in the gloom, the horned skull of a drowned goat.
Page 7
The moon showed them the skiff before it showed them the men. Three shapes crouched low over the gunwales, hauling silk bales wrapped in oiled sailcloth down the splintered rocks, and the boat sat fat and low in the water with its stolen cargo. Mara saw the painter rope snake taut and she was already running, barefoot across wet stone slick as glass, soles slapping, arms pumping. Vlaho shouted after her and planted his staff hard against the rock, bracing as if to follow, while Ilarije scrambled behind clutching his satchel to his chest, and Dimitri lumbered up from the shelter with his knife already drawn. Mara reached the painter as the skiff's bow swung out from the rock and she dropped onto her knees, sawed the knife-edge of a broken shell through the taut rope. The skiff slewed broadside, shipped water, and rolled. Men shouted, bales burst loose and spread across the black water, pale and shining under the moon like dead fish. Dimitri roared and plunged in to grab a collar; Ilarije knelt at the rock's edge with his cord ready to haul.
Page 8
The lime pit was waist-deep and wide as a threshing floor, and the quicklime hissed white when Ilarije poured water over the shrouded dead, steam and sting leaping up to scald every bare arm around it. Dimitri carried the last bier alone, hoisted on his huge shoulders, boots skidding on the slaked powder crusting the stones. Midstride his knees buckled, the fever snatching him sideways, and the bier crashed from his grip into the pit with a slap of lime and bone. He went down hard after it, sprawling at the rim, chest heaving, braid-ring striking the stone. Vlaho hauled him back by the collar before the lime could take his hands, and Mara and Ilarije dragged him bodily across the ground toward the sulphur hut, his boots carving furrows in the ash. They shoved him through the low doorway, barely chest-high, and Mara seized the adze lying by the woodpile, driving nails through the plank door with its wooden handle, blow after blow, sealing him inside while his fists thudded weakly against the boards.
Page 9
They soaked the stripped hulk in tar and old sailcloth until the Santa Barbara smelled more of pitch than of the plague she had carried. Vlaho climbed the broken gangplank, his long legs awkward on the tilted boards twice his height above the shallows, and flung the torch into the hold. Flame ran up the mast-step in a single roaring breath. Mara was already stripping off her skirt, the cork-float cord wound tight round her wrist, and she dove from the rail into water that turned orange around her. She hauled herself hand over hand along the anchor chain, hacking at the thick hemp cable with a short blade until it parted and whipped away. Ilarije stood waist-deep in the shallows, bracing a long gaff-pole against the burning stern to shove it off the rocks, his bare feet slipping on weed. The hulk groaned, swung free, and began to drift, timbers cracking, sails collapsing inward in sheets of fire, until it settled hissing into the shallow sea, steam boiling up where the hull met water.
Page 10
The chains groan and the drawbridge slams down across the dry moat, kicking up a cloud of pale dust that rolls over the three bare feet waiting at its edge. The crowd beyond the gatepost surges forward, then shoves back as one, hands over mouths, children hauled away by the collar. At the gatepost a juniper fire already roars waist-high, and into it go the last rags of thirty days: Mara flings her salt-stiffened shift onto the flames, Ilarije drops his ragged habit after it, the cedar satchel emptied first and slung over his shoulder bare. The tallest of them, gaunt in his scarlet robe, drives an iron nail through a scrap of signed parchment and hammers it into the gate timber with the butt of his staff, three heavy blows that boom through the archway. Smoke stings their eyes as they straighten, naked and scoured by the sea, and the fortress rock looms grey above the surf behind them, indifferent, while the crowd presses back another step.
About this story
- Audience: general readers
- Format: 10 illustrated pages, narrated, free to read on Wonder History
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