The Red Plague Affair

Chapter Nine Most Singular And Unnatural

Miss Bannon’s childlike face was unwontedly serious as she cut into her chop. “It is a puzzle, and one I should be glad of your help in solving.”

“A physicker gone astray. Hmm.” Clare applied himself to his own plate with a will. Miss Bannon’s table was always superlative, and the graceful silver epergne had the air of an old friend. Even the carved gryphon legs holding the aforesaid table level, shifting occasionally as currents of sorcery or tension passed through the room, had become familiar. “Faithgill Street? Bermondsey?”

“Yes. Number twenty-seven. Very hard by the Leather Market.” She was a little pale, and her tone had lost some of its usual crispness. Another might not have remarked upon it, but Clare’s faculties had seized upon the tiny details as a distraction from the weary retreading of ground connected to Dr Vance.

And besides, he could flatter himself that after this much time he… did he? Yes. He could say he was well-acquainted with Miss Bannon.

He could even say he knew her. As much as a man could ever be said to know a woman whose trade was the illogic of sorcery.

“Very hard by the Black Wark.” He paused again, as if thinking. The idea of that quarter of Londinium – the falling ash, every angle fractionally but critically off, and the thing that crouched inside its confines – tried to wring a small shudder from him. He controlled the movement, thinking of the equations he had arrived at to explain the range of degrees by which everything in the Wark had subtly shifted, and by consigning everything inside those ranges to a definition of “variable” soothed his nervousness most admirably.

“Yes.” A tiny line had begun between her dark eyebrows. “Though during daylight, the Wark is… not very dangerous.”

The last time we ventured into that place, we barely escaped with our lives. And when I had a moment to reflect later, I arrived at the conclusion that you were the one most at risk. But he contented himself with a noncommittal, “I see,” and another pause, as if he needed further deliberation.

He sat, as usual, at Miss Bannon’s right hand. Valentinelli beside him was applying himself to his plate with fierce, mannerly abandon. On Miss Bannon’s left, Mikal ate slowly, rather in the manner of a cat who does not quite need the sustenance but likes the taste. Eli, dark and silent, had a high flush to his cheeks. Some manner of embarrassment between the sorceress and the men set to guarding her from physical danger, perhaps? The younger Shield merely toyed with his food, and Clare turned his attention in another direction.

“A genius of Biology. Hrm. Well. It seems he wished to stay hidden. That quarter of the city is rather notorious in that respect. And… the house was quite sound, you say?”

“Quite reasonably so, except for a great deal of broken glass in what I took to be his workroom. Shattered alembics and other curious pieces. Metal wiring, some brass pieces I took the liberty of sketching…” Miss Bannon lay her fork and knife down, with delicate precision. She took a sip from her water goblet, though a glass of mannerly hock stood by her plate; she held to the Continental custom of champagne as a dessert instead of to accompany the roast. “There are also some pieces in the workroom I have made available for you. Since I rather rudely assumed you would be disposed to shed some light on the matter.”

“Quite disposed.” The smile that stretched his lips was not unfamiliar now. “And you anticipated my likely request for such a space.”

Across the table, Eli laid his own cutlery down. He had hardly touched his meat, and that was unlike him. The man liked his roast, and indeed ate such a goodly portion Clare was surprised he was not round as a partridge by now.

Of course, the daily sparring practice with Mikal was enough to keep anyone trim. Clare only occasionally partook of that, and the Shields treated him with a consideration he might consider insulting if he had not seen them in action against others of their ilk.

To see the Shields fight in deadly earnest was… distressing.

“Anticipation. A woman’s sorcery.” She toasted him with the water goblet, and he was surprised by the answering smile rising across her features. For someone with such a decided air, her face was oddly young, and yet Clare only sometimes saw flashes of the girl she must have been. “Mr Finch will show you to the workroom whenever it suits you.”

“I take it this physicker is a challenging quarry.” The salad, also in Continental fashion, had a tart tang that vied with the hock, but not displeasingly. “Since you are prepared to spend more than a day in seeking him.”

She accepted the compliment with a slight queenly nod. “Any effects which might have told me the direction of his flight were quite provokingly absent. Questioning his neighbours led to nothing, as there were none. He has very few friends, and no tradesmen to question either, since any deliveries to said house left no scrap of bill or list.”

“Very few friends?” Speaks the sorceress who has none. Except, perhaps, myself. As strange as it was, it seemed she valued his person far more than she valued even her fellow sorcerers. She had plenty of acquaintances, the better to hunt Queen Victrix’s enemies in Society and elsewhere. But very few ever saw behind the mask of manners and flashes of practical temper she chose to show.

She touched her glass of hock, thought better of it. “His disposition is said to be unpleasantly pedantic.”

Is it now. “The same could be said of my own.”

“You are difficult. Not unpleasant.” The sally was pale, but she was attempting to put him at ease.

And that was troubling. It was not at all her usual manner. “I am heartened to hear as much.”

“His personal effects were thoroughly absent as well. There was not a scrap left behind to practise a sympathy upon, and I do not wish him alerted if he has engaged another of my kind to help him hide. I prefer to surprise him, since Her Majesty wishes him taken alive.” She paused, as if waiting for him to comment. When he did not, she forged onward. “And undamaged.”

His eyebrows threatened to rise. “She made a special point of those strictures? To you?”

“She did.”

“Very interesting.” He nodded, slowly. “The Crown requires information from him, but does not wish you to extract it.”

“Insulting, but perhaps precautionary. Mine is not to question Britannia.”

Was she aware of the clear note of pride ringing through the words, or the tilt of her head expressing even more pride in her chosen servitude? Perhaps not. “And the good physicker’s disappearance was exceedingly well-planned. Which means he is in possession of something very valuable, something that could perhaps be used against our ruling spirit.”

“Or Her vessel,” she was quick to remind him, though her expression was suddenly very thoughtful. “Which concerns me more. Britannia… endures.”

“And may She ever.” The mumble was reflexive. Clare contemplated for a few further seconds, savouring every particle of the course before him. At least Miss Bannon did not press him – she knew that when he was ready, he would speak.

He did not, however, have the chance. For Eli pushed his chair back and rose, stiffly, his flaming cheeks and bright glassy gaze suddenly very pronounced.

The entire dining room drew a sharp breath. Or perhaps it was only Miss Bannon, whose earrings swung, spitting pale sparks, the profile on her large cameo running with pale foxfire as her mouth opened, her question – or irritable reproof – also unvoiced.

Eli collapsed, falling to the floor in a heap, and began to convulse, his entire body jerking to some music only its strained and tortured muscles could hear.

“High fever.” Clare’s sensitive fingers found the pulse in Eli’s wrist, high and thready. “His heart is racing. No, those will do no good, cease waving them about.”

The smelling salts vanished, one of the footmen whisking them away. Miss Bannon stood, her arms crossed over her midriff and a curious look on her childlike face. “It is not sorcerous,” she said, numbly. “I cannot find its source… Archibald, what is it?”

Mikal’s hand was on her shoulder, and the older Shield gazed down with a peculiar expression. Almost… amazed. And there was a flash of something very like fear; was this some dreadful fate that befell certain Shields? No, for Miss Bannon would know of its provenance and treatment.

Clare simply stored the observation away for later, being more occupied with the event before him. “I do not know yet.” He peeled back one eyelid, stared at the fascinatingly thin greasing of blood over the white underneath. “Most interesting. Ludovico! Fetch my case, the one with—”

“Already here, mentale.” The Neapolitan squatted on Eli’s other side; he and Mikal had carried the fallen Shield into the adjoining cigar room, for the use of men during dinner parties Miss Bannon rarely, if ever, hosted. There was a soft confusion in the corridors – servants sent hither and yon, and the walls themselves resonating a trifle, as if feeling the pale, wide-eyed sorceress’s distress.

“I can sense nothing,” Mikal murmured, clearly audible. “Prima… Emma.”

Do keep her calm, sir. “He was well enough this morning.” Clare opened the small black Gladstone with a practised motion. “Let me see, let me see…”

Cholera? No, entirely wrong symptoms. Not flu, or dropsy – there were swellings under the chin, ruddy and vital, and when Clare touched one in the axillary region the sudden galvanic jerk running through the unconscious body informed him the bulges were painful. He next tried the inguinal fold, unconcerned at Miss Bannon seeing him handle the patient so familiarly. The same response, the same swelling. “Most intriguing.”

“Burning up.” Ludovico pressed his fingers to Eli’s sweating forehead. The Shield’s dark hair was sopping now, and the smell of his sweat was curiously sweet. Almost sugary.

“We shall need to make him comfortable. And ice, to bring the fever down.” Clare settled on his heels, considering.

“How much ice do you require?” Miss Bannon’s skirts made a low sweet sound, and Clare realised she was trembling.

Most unsettling. She was by far the woman least likely to engage in a display of fear or sentiment he had ever known. “Perhaps an ice bath? We must send for a merchant or charmer—”

She waved one small hand, visibly collecting herself. Her rings – two of plain silver, another a large ruby with a visible flaw in its centre that held a point of red light – glowed under the soft gaslight, and for a moment the atmosphere of the room chilled. “You shall have everything necessary or helpful. I shall also send for a physicker. Mikal, please inform Mr Finch to do so. Ludo, be a darling and tell Madame Noyon we shall need water boiled, and a tub brought to Eli’s room. And you…” She pointed at one of the footmen, broad brawny Teague. Horace did not wait upon the table tonight. “Bring Marcus in to help carry him. Move along now, boys.”

The Neapolitan and the Shield sprang into motion, and Miss Bannon approached swiftly. She knelt, tucking her skirts back with a practised hand, and the edge of her new perfume – bergamot and spiced pear, odd but not unpleasing – brushed Clare’s face. “I cannot Mend him effectively if I do not know what ails him. I cannot find a source for this distress.” Her gaze was fastened to Eli’s face. “In the absence of that, anything you need to discern the cause shall be provided. Archibald…”

“Don’t fear, Emma.” His hand clamped around Eli’s wrist as the younger man began to thrash. “But do move back, he may harm you.”

Physicker Darlington was a round jolly man in the long black stuff-coat of his trade, a throwback to the time when priests were the only legal medical professionals. At least he did not wear the bird-mask that had also been usual in those days, to protect from ill humours. Instead, he sported fine ruddy muttonchops and a gin-blossomed nose, and Clare caught a faint iron tang of laudanum in the man’s scent.

To soothe his nerves; perhaps it is why he smiles so. “The swellings are of particular concern. They seem quite painful, and he is only semi-conscious.”

“Emma…” the Shield moaned. “Prima…”

“I am here,” she said from other side of the bed, quietly but with peculiar authority. “Pax, Shield. I am here.”

He subsided, lapsing back into his delirium. The bed with its green-vined counterpane was narrow, and the Shield apparently had a fondness for botanical prints. His room was small but very well appointed, and Clare thought it was tiny because Eli preferred it so. The closeness perhaps reminded him of some childhood comfort.

Darlington felt the patient’s pulse, and Clare’s estimation of the man rose a notch as he noted the quality of the man’s touch. His blunt fingers were surprisingly delicate, and he preferred the Chinoise method of seeking several “levels” of heart’s-gallop, gathering information from each. The round man peeled back one of Eli’s eyelids, just as Clare had, and almost recoiled from the thin film of blood over the eyeball. “Most unusual.” He glanced up at Emma, his gaze bloodshot but bright blue. “Are you certain there is no sorcerous origin to this?”

Miss Bannon’s gaze did not move from Eli’s contorted features. “I can find no breath of sorcery about his illness. If there was, I would have already dispelled it.”

“Well. Hrm. It is not consumption, not cholera… It is no doubt a miasma, or a form of pox, and a rubescent one at that.” He tested one of the swellings again, and the Shield’s body twitched. “Ice to bring the fever down. A preparation of laudanum to ease him and make him quiet. I shall lance one of these boils and see what manner of substance is contained therein.”

There was another quiet commotion – a copper tub was being hauled through the door, and servants behind with buckets of steaming water. The tub was set just so, and Miss Bannon gestured. Gilburn and the black-haired Marcus set about stripping the Shield, being careful when he flinched, and Miss Bannon’s fingers flicked. Sorcery hummed, the sound indistinguishable from the low contralto tone in her throat until her voice turned into words. “He shall not struggle so, now.”

“I say…” Darlington glanced at the sorceress. “Do leave his undergarments in place!”

The hum vanished, replaced with the unsound-crackle of live sorcery. “I hardly think he is capable of shame, in this state.” But Miss Bannon nodded, and the buckets, sloshing with catch charms to keep the water in place during its transport, were emptied with murmurs over the tub. It was quick work to fill it, running feet in the corridor from the washroom down the hall, and the house trembled again. Her small right hand sketched a symbol in empty air, and it flamed with a cold blue radiance; she uttered a short word Clare could not… quite… remember once it had been spoken.

The copper tub creaked alarmingly, and frost traced tiny sharpfeather patterns on its sides. Horace and Marcus heaved, and thin threads of sorcery sparked and crackled as the deadweight of an unconscious body was eased.

“Gently,” Miss Bannon murmured. “Let me adjust… there.”

“Fascinating,” Clare breathed. “You do not require an ice wagon then.”

“Any competent charmer could do the same.” Miss Bannon’s gaze was fixed, a ringing in the air like a wet wineglass’s rim stroked gently but firmly. “Do test it, physicker, and see if it… yes? Very good. Ease him in.”

A splash and a howl as the shock of temperature change met fevered skin. Clare might have winced, but he was observing events and effects with great interest. The physicker busied himself with a tray of shining implements, selecting a few that looked more like instruments of torture and laying them aside.

“Well, whatever comes from those swellings will give us a clue. A most singular illness.” Darlington clicked his tongue twice, testing the sharpness of a lancet. “Most singular.”

“There may be other remedies.” Miss Bannon’s queer flat murmur as she kept the sorcery steady was chilling. “You two shall keep my Shield alive while I pursue them.”

Clare did not have the heart to tell her that he already doubted, very much, whether the Shield would survive the night. Later, he thought he had perhaps done both her and the young Liverpool man a grave disservice…

… but at that moment, all he felt was slight impatience, waiting for the body to be brought from the ice bath so he could gather more valuable data.