Lilith Saintcrow - The Red Plague Affair

“Most certainly.” Victrix’s sigh was heavy. Even the Little Crown weighed terribly, and what was it like to host a being as ancient and headstrong as Britannia? Was it like a sorcerer opening himself to his Discipline, and becoming merely the throat a song moved through? At least a sorcerer knew the song would recede, and was trained to bear the shock of being simply an empty cup.

Emma Bannon rose, paid her courtesy. She did not acknowledge the Prince Consort. She left the room with a determined step and a rustle of skirts, uncaring if he took offence. It would serve the petty little man right.

Victrix wishes me to find a man. I should find Clare’s doctor as well, and make them both happy.

She was, she realised, quite unsettled. It was not Alberich of Saxon-Kolbe’s shot across her bow that worried her.

It was the fact that Conroy had not been in attendance this morning, and the Duchess of Kent had been far too easily disposed of.

I smell a rat. Later, of course, she would chide herself for being so exercised over what could have been coincidence… but at the moment, Emma Bannon was distracted, and in any case, how could she have known? Even a Prime could not tell the future with a certainty.

For now, she had her orders, the die was cast, and she winged towards her prey as a good merlin should.

Clare relit his pipe. Fragrant tabac smoke lifted, the charm near the ceiling crackling into life again. Afternoon light slanted through the window, past heavy wine-red velvet drapes and quiescent-glowing charter charms bleached by the sun’s glow.

They had finally left him in peace. Valentinelli was no doubt in the kitchen, stuffing his pocked face and tormenting broad genial Cook; the footmen had gone about their business. The comfortable, dark-wainscoted room felt much smaller now, since his effects were unpacked over the table and into the capacious wardrobe. A full set of alembics brought by Sigmund Baerbarth – Horace would notify the cadaverous butler, Finch, to procure larger stands for them – and several of his journals were stacked higgledypiggledy. Perhaps, if Miss Bannon wished him to remain hutched for a long period of time, she would make a workroom available? The sorceress’s domicile often seemed larger inside than out, and there were curious… crannies, that sometimes seemed to change position.

His long nose twitched at the thought, as if he had detected an unpleasant odour. The irrationality of that thought was an itch under the surface of his skull. Once more he confined the irregularities of 34½ Brooke Street to the mental drawer of complex problems not requiring a solution at the present juncture. Several of Miss Bannon’s peculiarities filled even that capacious space to overflowing.

There was a reason mentath and sorcerer did not often mix.

Clare puffed, and turned his attention to the most interesting letter – the one he had left unopened, setting it aside to savour.

It was a joy to have something unknown. The paper was heavy, linen-crafted but not bearing any of the characteristics of a maker Clare was familiar with. Privately made, then? Perhaps. The ink was bitter gall, and a ghost of… yes, it was myrrh, clinging to the envelope’s texture. It had not been franked, either. Left with Mrs Ginn, for Clare spotted a telltale grease-spot on one corner; the redoubtable woman had been called from her pasty-making, no doubt. Although, Clare allowed, it could merely have been slipped into the postbox, for it was addressed to him very plainly, in a cramped hand that was certainly a gambit meant to disguise the sender. Male, from the way the nib dug into the paper. The simple trick of writing with one’s left hand, unless Clare missed his guess.

Oh, this is delicious.

The seal was old-fashioned, a blob of scented wax. Clare inhaled delicately. Yes, that was definitely a breath of myrrh.

A church candle used for sealing. And not just any church, but Reformed Englican of the Saviour. They used such a blend of incense in their rituals; and there were only three of their ilk in Londinium, unless Clare had missed one springing up in the last ten years.

Oh, careful, Archibald. Candle-wax is not enough to build a cathedral of reason upon. Remember your own words upon the matter of Assumptions, and how dangerous they are.

The wax crackled and creaked. The symphony of its breaking proved its provenance, but a candle could be stolen. Or the envelope could have been left in a church to absorb its aroma.

Who would go so far?

He suspected. Oh, how he suspected! Another man, not a mentath, would have called the sensation a glorious tension, rather as the moment before a beloved yielded to his embrace. A swelling, a throbbing, a pleasurable itch.

He drew the letter forth. Expensive, to use an envelope rather than writing the address on the outside of a cunningly folded missive. But what was expense, between rivals or lovers? And the envelope would rob him of a deduction caught in a missive’s folds.

He sniffed the folded paper, again, so delicately. That same breath of myrrh, with an acrid note that was not the gall of ink.

Sewage. Oh, your escape was closer than I suspected. Good .

A single page, and a message of surpassing simplicity.

Dear Sir, your genius is much appreciated. Please do me the honour of considering me your Friend, not merely a Galling Annoyance. I remain, etc., An Admirer.

Clare’s entire frame itched and tingled with anticipation. He closed his eyes, and his faculties burned inside his skull like a star. The two sentences were layered with meaning; even the shape of the letters had to be considered.

“My dear Doctor,” he whispered, in the smothering quiet of his invalid’s room. “Another game? Very well.”

The Neapolitan eyed him narrowly. “I know that look, sir.”

“Hm?” Clare absently knocked ash free of his pipe, blinking. “I say, is it afternoon already?”

“ Ci .” A pile of broadsheets thumped on the cluttered table, and Valentinelli turned slowly in a full circle, his flat dark gaze roving over every surface. “And you are up to mischief.”

“I have been sitting here quietly for some hours, my good man.” Merely exercising my faculties in different directions, readying them for another go at the good Doctor. “Very quietly. Just as an invalid should.”

“Ha!” Ludo’s hand whipped forward, flashing an obscene gesture very popular on Londinium’s docks. “You complain and complain. La strega wish to take good care of you, sit and grow fat.”

“I do not do well with idleness. You have been my man long enough to know as much.” Even to himself he sounded peevish and fretful.

“Today I am not your man. Today I am your dama di compagnia .” A sneer further twisted his dark unlovely face. “She leave you in Ludo’s hand because you are foolish little thing. I told you, a pistole would have solved all problems, pouf .”

You think that if you repeat yourself, I will suddenly agree? “I wished to catch the man, not kill him.”

“So I shoot to wound. You must have more faith, mentale . It is your silly teatime. La Francese sent me to collect you.”

“Madame Noyon is too kind.” Clare stretched, the armchair suddenly uncomfortable as his lanky frame reminded him he had been wrapt in a mentath’s peculiar trance for far too long. The flesh, of course, was no fit temple for a soul dedicated to pure logic.

Not that a mentath was purely a logic engine. Their faculties only approximated such a device; sometimes, Clare was even forced to admit that was best. The pursuit of pure logic had dangers even the most devoted of its disciples must acknowledge. Still, it was a frustration almost beyond parallel to feel the weight of physical infirmity as age advanced upon him.