The Red Plague Affair

Chapter Thirty-Two A Damned Shame

He did not believe in dæmons. Logic and rationality did not admit such creatures.

And yet, while he burned and twisted, sweat-slick fabric clasped in his wet palms, they were all about him. Black-faced, leering, their white teeth champing, they crowded around the bed and laughed, pointing at him.

Why is this… He could not frame the question. His faculties spun, logic mutating, his heart labouring uselessly inside his clogged chest.

Another crisis came, the convulsion tearing through him, his entire body a rod of iron, the star of his faculties a whirling firework inside his aching, too-small skull. He dimly heard himself ranting, shouting filthy words he would never have uttered had he been possessed of his sanity, and the cotton padding in his ears thump-thudded with his heartbeat.

Dying. When the wracking ended, he knew he was. The tide was running away, and once in his childhood there had been the sea along a pebbled beach and his own disbelieving laughter as he saw something so vast, and…

Miss Bannon’s voice. “Clare. Archibald.”

He was too weak to respond. The sea was all inside him now, its complexity turning to equations, shining strands of logic knitted together so closely they seemed a whole fabric, the vice in his skull and the pounding in his chest dual engines pulling in opposite directions.

“No. Close the door.” Miss Bannon, hoarse as if with weeping. “Close the door, Mikal.”

“What are you—” The Shield, breathless. Another convulsion was coming, and Clare’s body was lax in its approaching grip. When its fingers tightened, something in his brain or blood would give way, and the relief would be immense.

Vance. Is he alive?

“Prima… no. No.”

A meaty, bone-crunching, wrenching sound. A word he could not quite hear, and Emma’s voice, raised sharply.

“It is mine to give, Shield! And if you will not obey, I will free you from my service instantly.” It was a tone he had never heard from her before – utterly chill, utterly level, simply factual instead of threatening.

It was dreadful to hear a woman’s sweet voice so. The convulsion edged closer, playing with him, stroking along his body with a feather-caress. The dæmons laughed and twisted.

She does not know, you did not tell her. She does not know.

“Archibald,” she whispered, the touch of her breath cold on his slicked cheek. “Dear God, Archibald, forgive me.”

There is nothing to—

Then the pain came, and clove him in half. A sudden weight in his chest, as if the angina had returned, and he was never sure afterward if the hellish scream that rose was torn from his own lips… or from Emma’s.

Archibald Clare fell into a star-drenched night, and the coolness of a summer sea.

Light. Against his eyelids. He blinked, the foulness crusting his eyes irritating as he sought to lift a hand. The appendage obeyed, and he gingerly scrubbed at his face. All manner of matter was dried upon his skin, and every inch of him crawled.

His hand fell back to his side. He took stock.

Weak, but lucid. Again. He blinked several times, and found his familiar bed at Miss Bannon’s closed about him. Safe and secure as a little nut in a shell, for a moment he simply savoured the act of breathing without obstruction. Such a little thing, and one did not value it properly until it was taken away.

“Alive?”

He did not realise he had spoken aloud until someone wearily laughed, a disbelieving sound. It was Miss Bannon, ragged in a smoke-scored black dress, her hair a loose glory of dark curls falling past her shoulders, tangling to her waist. The hair seemed to have drained its bearer of all strength, for she was wan and hollow-cheeked, the dark circles under her eyes almost painted in their intensity.

Her little fingers were cool against his. Emma picked up his hand, squeezing with surprising strength. “Quite. I worried for you, Clare, but the worst is past.”

We do not know that. He let out a long sigh. “Ludo?”

“Mending. Swearing at everyone in sight. Londinium is still plagued. It is rather desperate outside, dear Clare, so if you have any news… Dr Vance was quite of the opinion that you have solved the riddle?”

His hand, at his trouser pocket. “The cure – the cure. In his pocket. A glass vial…”

She actually paled, though he could not see how she could achieve such a feat without becoming utterly transparent. “He… Clare, his body was taken by the corpse-pickers two days ago.”

“Ah.” Clare coughed, more out of habit than anything else. His throat was dry, and Miss Bannon helped to lift him, held a glass to his lips. A wonderfully sweet draught of something tang-laden and cool eased his throat.

Water had never tasted so good.

She settled him back on the pillow. “I can perhaps find his body with a sympathy. It will be—”

“No.” Clare felt the smile tilting the corners of his lips. All in all, he had to admit, he felt very fine, considering. A wonderful lassitude had overtaken him, but within it was a feeling of well-being he could not remember ever having before. Perhaps it was simply in comparison to the nastiness of Morris’s plague. “I am not a fool, dear Emma. Well, I am in some matters, but not when it comes to Vance. There are extra vials of the cure – they are labelled quite clearly – in the pockets of my jacket, in the workroom.” He paused. “Dead, you say? You are quite sure?”

“Dead of the plague.” She sounded certain enough, settling back into the chair.

He closed his eyes, briefly. “Shame. A damned shame.”

“Well.” The single word expressed that she perhaps did not agree, but that she would not argue. Dashed polite of the woman, he thought, a trifle fondly. “The vials hold a cure?”

“And the method for making more is noted quite clearly. I made four copies; one should be in the pockets as well. There is a certain physician – Tarshingale, at King’s. He will not only believe, but has the resources to see the cure performed, and can spread the formula and method of manufacture as widely as possible.”

“I am told it must be introduced under the skin? Vance mentioned as much, before he…”

“Yes. There are many methods… I say, Miss Bannon, are you quite certain? Of his… demise?”

“Very much so, Clare.” There was a rustle as she stood. “I shall search your workroom, then, and the matter of disseminating the cure is easy enough. You have done very well, sir.”

He nodded, a yawn fit to crack his jaw rising from the depths of his chest. His heart thudded along, sedately observing its beat. Though his ribs seemed a trifle heavy, didn’t they? A warmth quite unlike anything he had felt before, but perhaps it was merely a…

Miss Bannon breathed a word, the exact contours of which he could not remember as soon as they left the quivering air, and Clare fell into a dreamless, restorative slumber.