The Red Plague Affair

Chapter Four Breakfast and Loneliness

The Delft-and-cream breakfast room was flooded with pearly, rainy Londinium morning light, translucent charm spheres over the ferns singing their soft crystalline lullabies. White wicker furniture glowed, and the entire house purred like a cat, content to have its mistress at home and the servants quietly busy at their various tasks.

“You could have sent me a penny-post,” Emma remarked mildly enough, her hand steady as she poured a fresh cup of tea. “Or worn the Bocannon I gave you.” Her back protested – sleeping corseted and slumped in one of the most uncomfortable chairs her house possessed was not likely to give her a happy mood upon awakening. She had chosen the chair deliberately, thinking its discomforts might stave off the resultant exhaustion of a night of hunting through the glittering whirl of a ball, waiting for her quarry to slip.

There was one duke fewer in Londinium this morning, and one more traitor in the Tower to be judged and beheaded as befitted a nobleman. The evidence was damning, and Emma knew every particle of it. Should Cailesborough somehow bribe his way free…

… well, there was a reason the Queen called on one such as herself to tidy loose ends, was there not?

Tidiness was one of Emma Bannon’s specialities. It was, she often reflected, one of the few assets a childhood spent in a slum could grant one.

“I suspected you were rather busy yourself, Miss Bannon.” Archibald Clare’s lean mournful face was alarmingly pale. He accepted the cup, and there was no tremor in his capable, large-knuckled hands. “It seemed a trifle.”

Oh, yes, Dr Vance, a “trifle”. Very well. “No doubt it was.” She poured her own cup, keeping her gaze on the amber liquid. “Did you discover what the trifle was after?”

“A certain artefact of Ægyptian provenance.” Clare shifted, fretting at the rug over his bony knees. He was alarmingly gaunt.

Of course, he had not been a guest at her table as frequently as had been his wont, these last few months. She would have half suspected his friendship had cooled, had she not known of his obsession with Vance. “Hm.” She decided the noncommittal noise was not enough of an answer. “Clare, if you do not wish to tell me, that is all very well. But do not oblige me to drag the admission from you by force. Simply note it is not my affair, and we shall turn to other subjects.”

“Such is not the case at all.” He shifted again. “I thought it would bore you. Your feelings on Dr Vance are known to me.”

“My feelings, as you so delicately put it, are simply that you spend altogether too much time brooding over the man. Rather as a swain moons over his beloved.” She set her cup down, delicately speared another banger with a dainty silver fork. Fortunately, her physical reserves were a fairly simple matter to replenish, and Tideturn’s golden flood of ætheric energy had flushed her – and her jewellery – with usable sorcerous force. Any remaining exhaustion could be pushed aside, for the moment.

Clare’s silence informed her she had hit a nerve. For a mentath driven by logic, he certainly was tender-skinned sometimes. A misting of fine rain beaded the windows, the droplets murmuring in their own peculiar Language as they steamed against golden charter charms.

“This artefact would not happen to be the Eye of Bhestet, would it?” She cut with a decided motion, her spine absolutely straight. Tiny bites, as a lady should. The ghost of a wasp-waisted Magistra Prima at the Collegia walked decorously through her memory: a familiar song of black watered-silk skirts.

Prima Grinaud had been a harsh teacher, but a consistent and ruthlessly judicious one. There was much to emulate in the woman, even if her cruelty was legendary among the Collegia’s children. Primes were notoriously long-lived, but Grinaud seemed to be kept on this side of the great curtain of Being by sheer wormwood and gall.

Clare’s silence deepened. He did look rather ill, she decided, glancing in his direction just briefly enough to ascertain this. Perhaps I should not tell him. Perhaps, instead, she could enquire as to the odd substance he had been dosing himself with? It had not tasted healthful at all.

He finally spoke. “Stolen. Of course. He must have given me the slip in Thrushneedle. Bloody hell.”

“It was in the broadsheets this morning.” And yes, she definitely regretted telling him. “The Museum is most embarrassed. Speculation is rampant as to the culprit. I am… sorry, Clare. If you like—”

“He is a mentath, Miss Bannon.” Frosty, and polite, a tone he rarely used. He was pale, his eyes glittering harshly. The rug over his knees creased itself as he fidgeted precisely once. “Illogic and sorcery are not applicable tools to catch him.”

Well, you’ve been doing a fine job of it with your vaunted deductions. She occupied herself with another nibble of banger. Greasy, satisfying, hot, delicious. Just what it should be. When she was certain she had a firm hold on her temper, she spoke. “Perhaps not. More toast? Cook remembers your fondness for kippers as well.”

But Clare was staring morosely into his teacup. “So close,” he mumbled. “And… ah, yes. Definitely in Thrushneedle. He was only out of sight for a moment, damn him. Even Ludo—”

“Yes, Ludovico.” Irritation made her own manner sharper than she liked. “I told him to take great care with you, and this is what happens. You could have died, sir, and that would distress me most profoundly.”

There. It was said. The entire breakfast room rang with uncomfortable silence. She speared another tiny piece of sausage with quite unaccustomed viciousness.

“I do not mean to be the source of distress.” He still stared into his teacup as if he would find Vance’s whereabouts in its depths. “I simply—”

“The man is not a danger to the Crown.” She did her best to utter it as a simple statement of fact. “He is a thief. A passing-good one, a mentath who uses his talents for vice, but in the end, merely a thief. He is not worth such attention, Clare. Her Majesty would prefer your consideration turned elsewhere. You are, after all, one of the Queen’s Own.” She eyed the glittering ring on her second left finger, a delicate confection of marcasite and silver, ætheric force thrumming in its depths visible to Sight. “There are other matters to be attended to.”

“I should simply let him go, after he has thumbed his nose at—”

“Clare.”

“He stole from the Museum—”

“Clare.”

“Damn it, the man is a menace to—”

“Archibald.”

He subsided. Emma found her appetite gone. She set her implements down and fixed him with a glare he might have found quelling had he not still been staring into his teacup. Oh, for God’s sake.

“I would take it as a kindness,” she informed him, stiffly, “if you would convalesce here. Ludovico was sent this morning to gather such of your effects – and such things pertaining to the cases you have been neglecting while you chase your art professor – as are necessary for your comfort during such an extended stay.” She restrained herself from further lecture with a marked effort of will.

“I suppose the servants have been informed of my tender condition.” He even managed to wheeze a little.

And furthermore informed that you are not to stir one step outside this house unless it is under my care and my express orders. “You suppose correctly. You have been fretting yourself absolutely dry over this Vance character, Archibald. Pray do not force me to immure you in your room like Lady Chandevault.”

He finally looked directly at her, blinking owlishly, looking more mournful and basset-hound-like than ever. “Who? Oh, that. Miss Bannon – Emma. There is no need for concern. It was merely angina, which is common enough. I am not so young, and certain—”

Was she the only one to notice the lines at the corners of his mouth, the bleariness of his blue gaze? And the terrible fragility of him, hunched in a chair with the laprobe tucked carefully about him. Emma opened her mouth to take him to task and turn the conversation to what manner of substance he had been dosing himself with, but was interrupted by the door opening without so much as a polite knock to warn the room’s occupants.

It was Mikal, his dark hair slightly disarranged and his coat somewhat askew. He must have been at a Shield’s morning practice, for Eli was hard on his heels. “An envelope, Prima.” Mikal’s mouth was a thin line. “From the Palace.”

“Ah.” So soon? But treachery did not wait for mannerly visiting hours, she reminded herself. “Some fresh crisis, no doubt. Archibald, finish your breakfast. It seems there are other matters for me to attend to.”

He looked strangely stricken, and sought to rise as she did. She waved him back down. “No, no. Please, do not. Concentrate on your recovery, or I shall be not only vexed but downright peeved with you. A fate worse than death, I’m sure.” Her sally only received the faintest of smiles, but she had no time to remark upon his sudden high colour and the steely glint in his tired, bloodshot blue eyes.

For the envelope Mikal deposited in her hands bore a familiar hand on its front, and the seal – heavy and waxen – was Victrix’s personal device.

The Queen called, and her faithful servant hurried to obey, leaving the mentath to breakfast and loneliness.