21 November 2022 WILD BIRD by Diane Zahler, Roaring Brook, March 2023, 320p., ISBN: 978-1-250-83340-2

“Y'know death don't have no mercy in this land

Death don't have no mercy in this land, in this land

Come to your house, you know he don't take long

Look in bed this morning, children find your mother gone.”

– Rev. Gary Davis (1960)

Given the incredible trauma we’ve all faced during the COVID pandemic, it’s natural to look back to other times when people sought to avoid one another, perished in incomprehensible numbers, and saw many in the merchant and ruling classes getting antsy over the reluctance of customers and trading partners to engage in commerce. 

“‘Sick,’ he managed. His teeth chattered together so hard it seemed they might knock themselves loose.

It was suddenly hard to breathe. I knew the look in his eyes, dull with illness, hazy with fear. It was part of my memories. I longed to flee—but where could I go? As Sean reached out for me, I backed away.

‘Please,’ he whispered. His hands were rough and calloused. They were like my father’s hands.

‘I get master,’ I said, and ran.

When Red-Beard opened his cabin door, wiping the sleep from his eyes, I spoke in my own language. ‘Sean is ailing,’ I told him.

Fear flashed across the shipmaster’s face. ‘Ailing? Sean sick?’

‘The Sickness,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘He has the Sickness.’ Red-Beard made the sign of the cross when I mentioned the Sickness, and I did as well, though I knew it would do no good. The shipmaster seemed unable to move. 

‘We must keep him warm,’ I told Red-Beard. ‘Give him fresh water.’

‘We bleed him?’ Red-Beard asked.

‘No. That would be useless.’

Red-Beard called the other men on duty to him, and together they carried Sean to the hold. The sailors sleeping below woke, and when the shipmaster spoke to them, they turned away in dread and hurried up the stairs to sleep above deck. Owen wanted to stay, but I shooed him away.

‘I help Sean,’ I said to him. ‘You sleep. Come later.’ Owen nodded and followed the others up the stairs. I knew there would be little rest for any of them. Fear of the Sickness chased away sleep.

The sailors brought the brazier with its hot coals down to the hold and then fled, and alone in the smoky dimness I tried to nurse Sean. He vomited bloody bile, and I cleaned it up. He thrashed and moaned in delirium, calling out in English.

Days passed in this way. I left the hold only a few times each day, and each time the men gathered around me to hear how it went below. Owen brought me food and water and helped me find the words I needed.

‘Will he live?’ Will asked, tears in his eyes. Sean and he had signed on as sailors together, were from the same village somewhere beyond the sea, or so I gathered. I didn’t want to lie, so I shrugged. But I didn’t have to answer. Will knew. Everyone knew what the Sickness did.

Small black marks appeared on Sean’s cheeks and then his arms and legs, and as the light of dawn came down the stairwell one morning, I saw the black boils starting in his armpits. I tried to keep him covered and warm, but he screamed in pain when the blanket touched his swellings. I tried to get him to drink, but his flailing arm knocked the cup from my hand. I did these things without thinking; my body knew what to do. It had done the same many times before.

Finally, as Owen joined me in the hold, I gave up and simply sat near Sean, bearing witness. Eventually he quieted and lay insensible, his breathing labored. To cover the terrible rasping noise he made as he tried to get air, and to try to comfort him, I began to hum, then to sing softly. The song came from the same place as the knowledge of how to nurse the sick, from

the buried place in my mind.”

It’s fourteenth century Europe, at the height of the Bubonic Plague. Red-Beard is the master of a merchant ship that hails from England and is now returning home with furs from a Russian settlement. His men had come ashore to replenish their food and fresh water supplies.

Rype, the protagonist of WILD BIRD, is the only survivor in her family, the last one alive in her entire Norwegian coastal village.  The rare one to contract the Sickness and somehow survive. Her recent past was so traumatic that, at first, she struggles to recall what had befallen her family and friends. Her nightmares are intense.

Owen, Red-Beard’s son, discovers the starving girl hiding in a hollow tree by the shore, and lures her out with bits of dried fish. He then coaxes her into the dinghy he’s rowed to shore, and rows her out to his father’s ship. Fortunately, in addition to English, Red-Beard also speaks Rype’s language. And fortunately–unlike his crew–Red-Beard doesn’t believe that females onboard are bad luck or witches. But then the Sickness comes to the sailors. 

Having apparently developed immunity, Rype is able to closely minister to the dying men without getting sick, which causes the sailors to look upon her suspiciously. And after the majority of the crew dies from the Sickness, including Red-Beard, a superstitious mate takes control of the vessel. Rype knows she must leave the ship before they do something to her. Owen rows her ashore, and then rather than return to the ship where his father’s death has left him unprotected from the hostile new captain, he takes off with her. 

Rype and Owen head south on foot, hoping to find a port from which they can sail to England, where Owen’s mother awaits her son’s and (now late) husband’s return. The pair fall in with a troupe of young troubadours who are also heading south, singing for their supper as they go. Their subsequent travels provide a vivid, often nightmarish picture of medieval Europe. The society depicted, especially the influence of the Church, reminded me of the world portrayed in Avi’s CRISPIN. 

It is interesting to compare the pandemic of eight hundred-something years ago with that of the past couple of years. The science has improved immeasurably, but misinformation, superstition, and death abound in both situations. One can only imagine the books written in another generation  reflecting on our current deadly era.

What a powerful read! WILD BIRD is a notable piece of historical fiction, and a can’t-put-it-down adventure story. 

Richie Partington, MLIS

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