Lilith Saintcrow: The Red Plague Affair

Your heart, Clare. Do not become distracted.

He was clean, and in a bed which linens smelled of fresh laundering. The last event he remembered was the darkness of the sewers swallowing him whole. Slightly irritated, he shifted in the mattress’s familiar embrace. How had he arrived here, of all places?

The answer was stupidly simple. Valentinelli, of course. Where else would the Neapolitan bring him? The man was as fascinated by Miss Bannon as Mikal was.

Or as you are. You are seeking to distract yourself from a very important chain of deduction. Angina pectoris. A severe attack. You could have died.

Yet here he lay, clean and safe. At least, it would take a great deal of unpleasantness before this house became unsafe.

Miss Bannon no doubt performed some illogical miracle, and is sleeping at your bedside. In that dress, she was no doubt a-hunting in Society for a traitor, turncoat, criminal, or merely one who intrigued too openly against Queen Victrix. Yet here she sleeps, and you are… comforted? Troubled?

The problem, he reflected, was that Emotion was insidious, and an enemy of Logic.

Item one: he had lost Dr Vance. Again.

Item two: the more-than-mild chest pains during the hunt for the blasted art professor were unequivocally symptoms of a much larger quandary.

Item three: Miss Bannon, breathing softly as she slumped in an uncomfortable-looking chair. She took very little care with her person, and it was not quite right for Clare to put her to such worry. It was not worthy of the regard he held for her, as well.

He had no family; his parents were safe in churchyard beds, and his siblings had not survived childhood. But had he been one of those blessed with surviving kin, Clare supposed he would have felt for them much the same way he felt for Miss Bannon. A rather brotherly affection, tinged with a great deal of… what was it? Worry?

He might as well worry about a typhoon, or houricane. Miss Bannon was eminently capable… but she was also strangely fragile, being female, and Clare was not behaving as a gentleman by putting her to such bother.

You are being maudlin. Emotion is the enemy of Reason, and you are still distracting yourself. Had he not been a mentath, Clare might have been tempted to stifle a groan. As it was, he merely swallowed the offending noise and set himself to exercise his reason, since his faculties appeared undamaged.

“Clare.”

He almost started, but it was only Mikal, breathing the single word from his place at the door. The gleam of his irises was absent; the foreign man – for Clare had deduced he was, in fact, of the blood of the Indus, even if he had been born on Englene’s shores – had closed his eyes.

“Yes?” Clare whispered.

“You could have died.”

I am not an idiot, sir. “Yes.”

“My Prima greatly weakened herself to avert such an event.”

Obviously. “I am most grateful.”

Emma Bannon stirred again, and both Shield and mentath held their peace for a short while. When she subsided, sliding sideways to end propped against one side of the chair like a sleepy child during a Churchtide evening, Mikal let out another soft breath. His words took shape inside the exhale.

“She is… fond of you.”

Oh? “Only a little, I’m sure.” Clare shifted uncomfortably. Such swimming weakness wore on him; stillness was remarkably painful after a while. “Sir—”

“She is fond of very few.”

“That I can believe.”

Mikal arrived at the warning Clare had already inferred was his intention. “Do not cause her grief, mentath.”

I am a fleshly being in a dangerous world. Grief is unavoidable. His answering whisper was as stiff as his protesting back. “I shall do my best, sir.” Had he not just been reminded of his own perishability, in the most alarming way possible? And further reminded that he was not being quite correct in his treatment of his… friend?

Yes, Miss Bannon was a friend. It was rather like forming an acquaintance with a large, not-quite-tamed carnivore. Sorcery made for powerful irrationality, no matter how practical Emma Bannon was as a matter of course.

The Shield fell silent again, even the glimmers of his yellow irises quenched, and Clare lay in the dimness, studying one of Emma Bannon’s small soft slumber-loosened hands, until fresh unconsciousness claimed him.

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.