The Red Plague Affair

Chapter Thirty-Four A Stone is a Stone

The house rang with terror and footsteps. Clare tacked out into the hall, the weakness in his limbs quite shockingly intense despite his rather extraordinary feeling of well-being. He fumbled at his jacket buttons, finally inducing the little beasts to behave, and looked up to see Madame Noyon, her grey-streaked hair piled loosely atop her head and her face tearstained, hurry past with an armful of linen.

“I say,” he began, but the housekeeper vanished down the hall. I say!

One of the lady’s maids – Isobel, the scarred one – leaned against the wall by Valentinelli’s door, dumbly staring after Noyon with glittering eyes. Her cheeks were wet, and she had the look of a young woman who had just been rather viciously stabbed in the heart.

“I say,” Clare approached her. “Isobel, dear, what is it? What is the—”

“It’s Missus,” she whispered, through pale, perhaps-numb lips. Her indenture collar was oddly dark, the powdery metal’s radiance dimming. “She’s taken the ill, she has. We’re likely next, she wot was holding it back an’all!”

What? For a moment, his faculties refused to function, despite the tests he had administered to them that very morning, lying in his freshly made bed and quite comfortable at last. He stood very still, his head drooping forward and taking in the girl’s feet in their pert, sensible boots.

Bannon does have a weakness for sensible footwear, for herself and her servants alike. He shook his head, slowly. “Ah. Well. There is not a moment to lose, then. I must—”

“GET OUT!” It was a scream from the top of the stairs leading to Miss Bannon’s chambers. Mikal’s voice, and it shook the entire house in quite a different manner than Miss Bannon’s return or her anger.

Madame Noyon came hurrying down them, paper-pale and shaking afresh. She babbled in French, Horace and the blonde Eirean maid Bridget behind her chattering in proper but horribly disjointed Englene, and it took quite some time for him to gather a coherent picture of what had transpired.

The Shield had evicted them from his mistress’s chambers, quite rudely. While Clare rested himself, Miss Bannon had taken ill; she had passed through the swellings and the convulsions were upon her.

It is too late. The pain in his chest was not angina, it was… something else.

He did not have time to discern its source, or so he told himself.

Clare bolted for the workroom.

The stench was terrible. He reeled into the stone room, and it was a very good thing he had not been able to stomach much of any provender lately, for his cast-iron mentath’s digestion did not seem to have survived the illness quite as well as the rest of him.

It was dark, and his boots slipped in a crust of God alone knew what on the floor. How had they stood it down here?

He found his way by touch to the desk, slipping and sliding. His hip banged a table and something fell, shattering. Perhaps it was a fresh load of plague-freighted marrowe-jelly, but he cared little, if at all.

The drawer slid open, and his questing fingers found nothing but a small jewelled box. He swore aloud, a series of vile terms no gentleman should give voice to, and fumbled more deeply in the drawer, and still his sensitive fingertips found nothing but wood, dust, and the box of coja.

The vials he had hidden here, as well as in the pockets of his jacket… gone.

He turned, sharply, snatching up and hurling the tiny box across the room. The crack of its breaking was lost in the sound working free of his throat.

It could not be a sob. Mentaths were not prey to Feeling in such an intense fashion. Feeling was to be examined, thoroughly in some cases, then accounted for and set aside so one could function.

He swallowed something that tasted of iron. Staggered for the door, his legs a newborn colt’s. Retraced his route through the house, and found a hall crowded with servants. Ludovico was there too, leaning on Gilburn, haggard and swearing steadily, monotonously, in pure noble Italian. He was pale, his pitted cheeks so thinned his face had become a skeleton’s grin. La strega, he would murmur, then demone maledetta, and finally donna dolce, and other terms that would have been quite revealing, had Clare cared to apply deduction to them.

They clustered at the foot of the stairs, Miss Bannon’s collection of castaways, the servants making a soft noise every time the light of their indenture collars dimmed. Clare pushed through them, blindly.

No. Please… dear God, not Emma. I thought she was immune!

“The Shield,” Finch whispered, grabbing at Clare’s sleeve. “He is beside himself. He will—”

“I do not care,” Clare said, almost gently, and freed himself of the man’s grasp. He put his hand to the balustrade, lifted his foot.

He was halfway up and heard it, her laboured breathing and soft choked cries as the convulsions came. The hall stretched away, as in nightmares, and the entire house shivered again, a chill racing through each plank and bit of plaster, from foundations to high lovely roof. The door to her dressing room was open, and gaslamps hissed. The witchlights in their cages of silvery metal dimmed, hissing as well, turning bloody-hued as the indenture collars dimmed, brightening as they brightened.

She fights for life, our dear sorceress. The dry barking sound from his throat had to be a laugh. It could not be otherwise. For what other sound could he make? Mentaths did not weep.

There was another sound – a dry sliding. There was light from underneath what had to be Miss Bannon’s bedroom door. An odd scent, too – smoky and musky, a resinous incense, perhaps, but of no kind Clare was familiar with. And the sweetness of Morris’s plague, its sickening candy-touch burning through her slight body.

Even a will as indomitable as hers could not stave off this catastrophe. Clare’s knees weakened. He forced them to straighten, and later he was vaguely surprised that he had been inside her dressing room… and not seen a single thing other than that door of pale wood with a stripe of violent yellow light leaking from underneath it.

The sound became a slicing, a wet noise as if flesh was pulled from flesh in a slaughteryard. Clare shuddered, reaching before him for the handle. He was weaving as if drunk, his feet leaving dark crusted prints. The incense smell turned thick and cloying, and he heard Mikal’s voice, singing in a queer atonal hissing manner.

What is he doing?

There was another cry, and this one raised every hair on Clare’s shivering body. The bright yellow light stuttered, thundering as a runner’s pulse, and Clare found himself on his knees, shaking his head, not quite aware of what had happened.

Silence, thick and velvet.

The hinges creaked slightly as the pale door opened. Behind it, all was dark. A viscous blackness as if of an Indus midnight, its face a sheer wall, almost… alive.

Staggering out of the gloom came the Shield. For a moment he looked oddly… transparent. His eyes burned, a yellow fire brighter than Londinium’s usual fog, and the reek of musk-burning smoke was so strong it nearly knocked Clare flat.

“Nå helaeth oavied, nagáni.” The man stumbled, caught himself, and swept the door closed behind him with such violence it almost splintered. He leaned back, his shoulders meeting it with an oddly light thump, but as he slid down to sit on the carpeted floor he gained solidity.

Clare blinked. It had to be a trick of his recovering vision. Mikal’s eyes half-lidded, their yellow gleam dimming for a moment. “Ah.” He coughed, but it was a dry sound, not the wet thickness of the plague. “Clare.” As if reminding himself who the mentath was.

Clare’s breath caught in his throat. “Emma,” he whispered. The silence was deathly. 24½ Brooke Street held its breath, too.

“She… will live.” He flinched as Clare leaned forward, though there was a great deal of space between them. “Do not touch me!”

Clare subsided. Below, at the foot of the stairs, a susurration. Sooner or later they would creep up – Valentinelli first, most likely – to see what had transpired here.

“Mikal.” He wet his dry lips, settled back on his dirty heels. Winced as he thought of what he had tracked over the carpets and flooring. “What… what did you…”

The man’s grin was a feral baring of strong white teeth, the canines curved and oddly distended, and Clare recoiled from its cheerful hatred. For a moment, the Shield’s pupils appeared… different, but when Clare examined him afresh, he found they were circular, and normal.

Only a trick of the light. Only that. The witchlights strengthened in their cages, losing their deadly sputter-hissing and growing steadily more brilliant.

“Mentath.” Mikal shut his yellow eyes. His calloused hands, empty and discarded, lay to either side of his body. “Remember what I am about to tell you.”

“I hear you,” Clare muttered numbly.

“There is a proverb among my kind.” Another dry half-cough, but he was already looking better, his colour improving. “A stone is a stone, and a heart is a heart.” A long pause. “Do you understand?”

What on earth… “No,” he admitted. “No, I do not.”

“Good.” Mikal settled more firmly against the door. “Tell them she lives, she will live, and not to come up the stairs. Or I shall strike to kill.”

He cleared his throat. “Erm, yes. Well, they will be relieved, but—”

“Go.” Mikal’s frame twitched once, terribly, as if his skin were merely a cover over something not… quite…

Clare did not remember gaining his feet. He recoiled, and stumbled down the stairs. They caught him at the bottom, and he managed to give his message. And afterwards, he remembered nothing more until he awoke two mornings later in his own bed.

“You told Her Majesty?” She was propped on several pillows, wan and too thin, her hair loosely pulled back but still glossy and vigorous. There was an uncomfortable vitality burning in her gaze, but Clare ascribed it to the tonics Madame Noyon insisted on dosing her with at two-hour intervals, from Tideturn dawn to Tideturn dusk.

“That the missing canisters had been attended to? Yes, quite.” Though I do not know where you found time to attend to that detail. You are a wonder, Miss Bannon. “I also told her I shall cease chasing chimeras,” Clare continued, settling into the chair. Miss Bannon’s hands lay in her lap, and the dressing gown was quite pretty, a froth of pale lace at her neckline. He tried not to glance too obviously about her bedroom, fighting back a quite uncharacteristic smile as he saw the stack of sensational novels on her nightstand, next to a globe of what had to be malachite in a brassy stand. The books had dust upon their covers; Miss Bannon had not been at leisure to read much lately.

Near the door, Mikal lurked. He kept himself to a patch of convenient shadow, and Miss Bannon’s gaze often wandered in his direction, as if he were a puzzle she sought to solve.

“Chimeras,” she repeated, softly. It was not quite a question, but Clare made a hrrmph noise as if it were.

“Since Dr Vance is dead, of course. I did not tell her so; it would only create… questions. I have been settled with an estate or two, I gather; signal service in saving the Consort’s life. He is still sickly, but shall recover.”

Miss Bannon’s upper lip curled slightly. “Britannia rejoices,” she commented, quite properly. But there was an edge to the words.

He fought back the urge to raise an eyebrow. “Indeed. The method of cure is spreading with as much speed as possible. Tarshingale is quite the man of the hour. Publicly, of course, it is his triumph. I am content for it to remain so.” He lifted the package from his lap. “And this… Her Majesty sent it for you, expressly. She was quite concerned for you.”

For a long moment Miss Bannon examined the linen-wrapped item. It was heavy, and no doubt a costly gift of thanks from royalty. He would have expected the sorceress to be pleased. Instead, she studied it as if it were some manner of poisonous creature, one she rather feared was about to strike.

Finally, her fine little hands moved, and she took it from him… and set it, unopened, on her nightstand. “Thank you, Mr Clare. I shall no doubt pen a note of immense gratitude to Her Majesty.”

“Well, that’s that, then.” But he made no move to depart her bedroom. He found himself wondering what had transpired between Queen and servant while he lay unconscious. It must have been an event of surpassing magnitude… but he had a different question that required answering. “Miss Bannon.”

She settled a little more comfortably, and her gaze met his. The quality of directness she possessed was even more marked now, and her earrings – dangles of amethyst in silver filigree, matching the small simple necklace that nonetheless glowed with charter symbols – swung slightly as she did so, then nestled lovingly against her curls.

It was very good to see her so accoutred again. And none of her household had taken ill.

There would never be a better time to ask.

He cleared his throat. “You performed some feat upon me while I was fevered, Emma. Do not bother to deny it.”

She did not, merely regarded him levelly. Finally, a hint of a smile crept onto her childlike features, but still she did not speak.

So he was forced to. “I have been most exercised upon the problem, and cannot find a solution.”

Her dark eyed positively danced. Did she look… why, yes.

The sorceress looked relieved, and she finally spoke.

“I shall tell you in twenty years’ time, sir.”

Dash it all. “I am not a young man, Emma. I may not be in a position to hear such news at that time.”

Her smile broadened. “Oh, I think you will be. What can I tell you of illogical sorcery? For all you know, I had the method of the cure from dear departed Dr Vance, and introduced it under your skin in some fashion.” Was she… yes. Her dark eyes danced, and the merriment lurking in her expression was quite out of character. “I would be quite vexed to lose you, Mr Clare.”

The heat in his cheeks was like the plague-fever, and he stood in a hurry, clearing his throat. “Likewise, Miss Bannon. I shall be along now, I have a workroom to tidy, and some fascinating avenues of enquiry to apply myself to.” For example, the Alderase reactions. Very intriguing.

“Very well. I believe I shall see you at dinner, sir. In very short order, I shall be quite well.” Damn the woman. She was laughing, now. It did her a world of good, thin and pale as she was. Still, she looked… yes, younger. Though how he could draw such a conclusion Clare was not certain, for she had always seemed childlike, to him.

Then again, Clare himself felt younger and lighter, as if the plague had burned away age and infirmity. No doubt the feeling would fade. His hair seemed to have gained new strength as well, or perhaps the looking-glasses in Miss Bannon’s house were ensorcelled. “Delighted. Very well, then.” He shook his head, treading by Mikal’s shadowed form with a light step. He passed through the dressing room, Madame Noyon bustling in the opposite direction with a covered tray, and halfway down the stairs, he began to whistle.