Page 10 of Malady

“I understand you’ve all had a considerable fright,” I say, gently prying his fingers from my sleeves. “And I fully intend to have words with that animal.”

“But you walked all this way back?” he asks, his eyes darting over my mud-soaked cloak. “Ophelia, your leg, you could have⁠—”

The rest of his words die on his tongue as his gaze lands on the towering, masked figure standing several paces behind me.

“Before you ask,” I say, stepping in. “No, I did not reach the city. I only made it to Merewick, where I lost the mule. The village is gone, but I found Doctor Iscairn there.”

Gideon’s brow furrows. “Doctor Iscairn? But Merewick has its own physician. Barnaby Wren. I met him once at the bishop’s table.”

“He is in the pit with the rest of the village,” Iscairn says.

“The whole of Merewick?”

I nod. “Yes. Every soul who didn’t flee.”

Gideon bows his head and presses two fingers briefly to his lips. “God receive them,” he murmurs. Then, gathering himself, he steps past me and extends a hand towards Iscairn. “Brother Gideon Harrow. Whatever sorrow brought you to us, Doctor, I’m grateful you came.”

Iscairn looks at the offered hand but doesn’t touch it.

My brother leaves it suspended between them for several increasingly painful seconds before clearing his throat and withdrawing it.

“Today I prayed for my sister, and now you both stand before me with twilight upon us. The Lord has brought you safely to Beswick, and I thank Him. Now, you must come inside. There’s a fire in the vestry, and I can explain the present state of the parish, the burials⁠—”

“No.”

Gideon pauses. “No?”

“I do not enter spaces meant for the healthy.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Brother Gideon, my cloak has brushed against the dead since sunrise,” Iscairn replies flatly. “If I walk into your vestry, the sickness walks in with me.”

“Of course,” Gideon says, taking a distinct half-step back. “Yes. That’s very sensible. Very well.” He turns towards the Brothers. “Fetch the key to Doctor Taylor’s cottage, along with the notes and the ledgers from the chest beneath the vestry window.”

The three disappear inside without so much as a glance back.

Most of the children have vanished, though several determined little faces remain wedged between half-closed shutters. The adults have retreated to the edges of the road, gathering in cautious knots beneath doorways and beside garden walls. Nobody dares approach. Nobody, that is, except Widow Pike, who’s never permitted anything as insignificant as fear to stand between herself and information. She marches right up to my elbow, her hood shoved back from her silver hair.

No, no, no. Please don’t be here to tell me the feverfew was confused with tansy and somebody’s been poisoned in less than a day.

“Those ribbons were right useful,” she rasps. “We measured everything just as you'd marked it, and we've not killed anybody. Not as we know of.”

Some of the stiffness leaves my spine. “Thank you.”

I look past her to the rest of the square, where everyone’s doing a miserable job of pretending not to stare at us.

I lean slightly towards Iscairn. “You ought to say something to them,” I murmur. “They’re frightened witless, and standing there dressed like Death’s taller brother is not helping.”

His head cocks as he looks down at me.

“Very well.” He turns to face the square. “People of Beswick.”

His voice slips beneath awnings and through open shutters until every whisper fades.

“I am Doctor Iscairn. At first light, I will examine those already sick and every household presently under watch. Until then, you will return to your homes, keep apart from your neighbours and report any fever or swelling the moment it appears.”

Anxious murmurs stir through the crowd.