Lilith Saintcrow: The Red Plague Affair

The globe and feathers were gone, their physical matrices picked apart to provide fuel for the impossible. The chant relaxed, swimming bloodwarm through air suddenly prickling and vibrating. Clare, his eyelids fluttering, was no longer ashen. A trace of healthy colour crept back into his lean, lax face.

Easily, softly, the brass syllables wound down from Emma Bannon’s lips. She leaned over the mentath, cradling him, and breathed in his face. His body jerked again and the sorceress relaxed slightly, uncurling her mental grip from the repaired clot of fibrous muscle in his chest. One final stanza, her nose wrinkling slightly as the acridity of some drug burned her sensitive palate, and the language of Mending fled her.

She sagged, and the almost-bruising grip on her shoulders was Mikal’s hands, fever-hot and hard with callouses. Emma blinked, shutterclicks of dim light stinging her suddenly sensitive eyes, storing away the taste of whatever substance had been running through Clare’s blood. Hmmm. No wonder he has looked rather ragged of late. It tastes dreadful, whatever it is.

Mikal’s face was tense and set.

“He will live.” It was a relief to hear her usual brisk tone. For a moment, she had almost been… had she?

Afraid. And that could not be borne, or shown.

“He will live,” she repeated, more firmly. “Now, let us be about clearing up this mess. I have a ball to attend and a duke to chastise.”

Lady Winslet’s dowry had restored the fortunes of her husband’s family, and though she was not taken into quite the highest echelons of Society, her taste and judgement were considered quite reasonable. She had redone a fashionable Portland Place address – one of Naish’s, of course – in a manner most befitting her husband’s title. Of late she had taken to inviting an astounding mix to her Salons, patronising certain promising members of the Royal Society, and had garnered much praise for her dinners. In a few generations, the Winslets would be very proud indeed to have invited such a petty bourgeois into their hallowed family tree.

If , that is, she managed to produce an heir. Barry St John Duplessis-Archton, Lord Winslet, was a dissipate scoundrel, but he had ceased gambling and now only drank to a religious degree that might preclude fathering said heir. He had a nephew who showed some signs of not being an empty-headed waste of a few fine suit jackets, but, all in all, Emma privately thought the Winslets’ chances rather dim.

And no breath of scandal attached itself to Lady Winslet; she did not seem the sort to have a groom provide the necessary materials to make a bastard either. Very sad; had she been just a trifle less extraordinary she would have more chances of success against the ravening beasts of Society and Expectation.

All of that was academic, however, for Emma had known the Duke of Cailesborough would be at the Winslet ball. One of his current mistresses was attending, and furthermore, Emma herself had carefully planted a breath of rumour that would interest him.

And he had taken the bait whole. Which led to her presence in this forgotten, cramped second-floor storeroom full of discarded bits of off-season furniture and rolled-up, unfashionable carpets. A single candle, stuck in a dusty candelabra probably dating from the time of the Mad King Georgeth, gave wavering illumination to the scene.

Eli straightened, exhaling sharply. He was not rumpled in the slightest, though there was a slight flush to his cheeks. Perhaps embarrassment, for the quality of Cailesborough’s struggle had been quite unexpected.

Said Cailesborough, on the floor, trussed hand and foot and gagged with commendable efficacy with his own sock, glared at Emma with the one blue eye that was not swelling closed.

For a man of the aristocracy, he had put up a rather remarkable tussle.

That was immaterial. “Now,” she said, softly, “what do we do with you ?”

She had the dubious honour of addressing a Spaniard, moustachioed and of a small stature to inspire a touch of ridicule or pity, his right arm twisted behind him in an exceedingly brutal fashion by a silent and immaculate Mikal, who twisted his lean dark face and spat at her.

There was a creaking sound, and Mikal’s other hand clamped at the small Spaniard’s nape. “Prima?” The one word was freighted with terrible menace, and had Emma been feeling insulted instead of simply weary, she might have let her Shield do what he wished with the man. Mikal’s eyes burned in the dimness, a flame of their own.

Outside the locked door, a hall and the cigar room away, the music swelled. Her absence would not be remarked during the waltz, but perhaps the Duke’s would.

They will be missing him a very long time . A greater worry returned, sharp diamond teeth gnawing at the calm she needed to deal with this situation in its proper fashion. Is Clare well? Resting comfortably, I should hope.

She put the thought aside. He was as easy as she could make him, and she had other matters to attend to at this moment. Her regard for a mentath was one thing. Her service to Queen and Empire was quite another.

“On the one hand,” she continued, suppressing a slightly acid burp – for Lady Winslet’s cold supper tonight left a trifle to be desired – and clasping her hands prettily as she sank onto a small, handy-even-if-covered-with-a-dustcloth chair, “you are a diplomatic personage, sir, and Her Majesty’s government does believe in observing proper forms. It would be a trifle awkward if a member of the august consulate of that pigeon Isobelia disappeared.”

Don Ignacio de la Hoya went almost purple and cursed her in a whisper. He was emphatically not a Carlist, which was interesting indeed. The Spanish embassy had been rather a hotbed of anti-Isobelian sentiments for a long while, the round, benighted, silly Queen of the Spains had never had much of a chance against those who wished her a catspaw. Still, she was nominally in power, and Emma supposed the idea of royalty and majesty might have held a certain attraction for some of her subjects. Especially if they were as ill-favoured and ratlike as this specimen.

His throat had been almost crushed by Mikal’s iron fingers, and now, the sharp stink of fear poured from him in waves.

The dustcloth would perhaps taint this dress. She should not have sat, and she was taking far too long over this part of the matter. Still, Emma tilted her head slightly and regarded the man. Don Ignacio writhed in Mikal’s grip, and it would be merely a matter of time before he collected himself enough to raise a cry, bruised throat or no.

There was little chance of him being heard over the merriment and music, but why take the risk?

He stared at her, and the sudden spreading wetness at his crotch – it was a shame, his trousers were of fine cloth – sent a spike of useless revulsion through her. Champagne and terror were a bad mixture, and this man was no ambassador. He was a low-level consulate official, despite his Don ; but, she supposed, even a petty bureaucrat could dream of treason.

“Did you truly think you could plan to murder a queen and go unnoticed?” She sounded amused even to herself. Reflective, and terribly calm. “Especially in such lackadaisical fashion? The weapons you brought for the planned insurrection will be most useful elsewhere, I suppose, so we may thank you for that. And that baggage…” She indicated the prostrate, struggling Duke with a tiny motion of her head, and Eli, well used by now to this manner of situation, sank a kick into Cailesborough’s middle. He had not yet gone to fat, the Duke, but he was still softer than Eli’s boot. “… well, he has some small value for us now. But you? I do not think you have much to offer.”