Some people recovered spontaneously and some were saved by prayers. Not everyone died who was infected. The death rate for pneumonic plague was only ninety percent. He was awake when she went in, lying in a shaft of smoky light. She knelt and held a cup of water under his mouth, tilting his head up so he could drink. “It is the blue sickness,” he said when she let his head back down. “You’re not going to die,” she said. Ninety percent. Ninety percent. “You must hear my confession.” No. He could not die.
