Page 135 of Malady

He looks up at me, his eyes still wide with bewilderment, and I press on before he can protest.

“I've medicines, clean linen, everything we need. Iscairn can help me, and there's a bed upstairs where you can rest. We can get you warm, give you something to drink, and perhaps once you've had a little sleep⁠—”

“Devil.”

The word is so faint that I almost miss it.

“Gideon?”

His expression twists as he looks down at the hand resting against him, at the blackened fingers and the fading blue light beneath my skin. Whatever bewilderment had softened his face disappears, and he jerks away from my touch with such violence that a fresh cough tears through him.

“Devil!” he cries, struggling to drag himself backwards across the cobbles. “She has put the Devil inside a holy man!”

My hand slips from his cassock.

“Gideon, please.” I reach towards him, but he recoils so sharply that I stop. “I haven't put anything wicked inside you. I've only taken away the pain. You were suffering so terribly, and I thought⁠—”

“Do not touch me!” he rasps, his voice breaking beneath another fit of coughing. “You have defiled me! You have brought your unholy corruption into my very flesh!”

I knew he would be frightened, and I'd been prepared for him to curse me when he saw what I'd become. But some foolish little part of me had hoped that if I could only help him, if I could show him that the things Iscairn and I are capable of needn't be wicked, he might finally understand.

I look down at my hands, at the blackened fingers that have just spared him hours of agony, and my vision blurs so badly that I have to blink several times before I can see him properly again.

“Gideon, I don't understand.” My voice trembles despite my efforts to steady it. “You're not hurting anymore. You told me yourself. Why can't you see that I've helped you?”

“Because it is the Devil's work!” he cries, his face contorting with anguish. “The Lord sent this suffering to me, and you have taken it away! You have interfered with His divine will!”

“But you were dying!”

“I was ready!”

The force of his answer leaves him coughing against the cobbles, fresh blood staining his lips. I reach to support him, but he raises his remaining hand to ward me off.

“You've spent your whole life preaching that suffering is God's forge,” I tell him gently. “That we ought to welcome pain because it brings us closer to Him. I heard it often enough growing up, didn't I? Every time my leg hurt, every time somebody fell ill, there was always some lesson we were supposed to learn from it.”

His eyes remain fixed upon me, wary and fever-bright, and I wipe a tear from my cheek before continuing.

“But you weren't always like this. You used to carry me home when I couldn't walk, and you never once told me I ought to be grateful for the pain. You just wanted me to stop hurting.” My voice catches as I look down at him. “I don't know when that changed, Gideon. I don't know when you decided suffering was something people ought to endure simply because you believed God wanted it.”

“Blasphemy,” he breathes, turning his face away.

“No, Gideon. I'm trying to make you understand.” I look down at my blackened hands, still warm from the soulglimmer. “I've spent my whole life tending people who are frightened and hurting. Sometimes I can make them better, and sometimes all I can do is make their last hours a little easier. I don't know what happens to us when we die, and I don't pretend to, but I can't believe there's anything holy about leaving somebody in agony when you have the means to help them.”

He closes his eyes, his lips moving in another desperate prayer, and I wait for him to answer. Surely he must understand something of what I've said, even if he cannot bring himself to agree with me. But when I reach for his hand, he draws it away, turning his face towards the cobbles.

“Oh, Gideon.” My voice breaks, and I have to wipe my cheeks before I can continue. “You were hurting, and I knew I could help you. I would have done the same for anybody lying here, and I wasn't about to leave you suffering simply because of everything that's happened between us. I'm an apothecary, Gideon. I stop pain. That's what I do.”

The square has fallen so quiet that I can hear the flutter of wings as a pair of crows take flight from the rooftops. Gideon lies before me, staring up at the pale morning sky while the last traces of blue light fade from his robes. His breathing remains horribly laboured, and sweat still glistens upon his feverish face, but at least the agony that brought him to his knees has gone.

I wait, hoping he might finally have something to say to me, but his remaining hand reaches weakly for the wooden cross beside him, drawing it against his chest as fresh tears spill down his temples.

“Lord, forgive me,” he sobs, his voice so hoarse that I can barely make out the words. “Forgive me for letting her touch me. I was ready. I was ready to suffer for You.”

Oh, Gideon.

Another sob shakes him, and the cross slips from his fingers, falling back against the cobbles.

A scuff of boots draws my attention towards Matthew, who stands a few paces away, staring at me. His face has gone deathly pale, and as our eyes meet, the cleaver slips from his hand and clatters against the cobbles.