Page 91 of Malady

I look down at the nail in my blackened palm. My mouth is as dry as old parchment, but I work my jaw until I summon a thick, sour dribble of saliva. I spit onto the rusted tip and scrub the iron vigorously against the driest inside hem of my shift until the worst of the mould and flaky orange scale grinds away.

It is pitiful. Abhorrent. A barber-surgeon’s nightmare. But it will have to do.

I gather my shift in one hand and tug it up over the rolls of my belly, stuffing a fistful of linen into my mouth before reaching down to feel for the swelling in my groin.

It’s the size of my palm now. The skin is stretched tight over the lump, except near the centre, where it’s gone horribly soft. I press my fingertips against it, feeling the thick, lumpy mess shifting beneath the blackened flesh, and swallow hard.

There’s so much filth in there. So much.

I turn the iron between my shaking fingers and bring the point towards my groin.

“There’s my girl. Nice and steady, now.”

Blindly, I press the point against the festering skin, biting down on the cloth until my teeth meet. My whole body tries to pull away, but I force my hand to stay put, pressing harder. The iron dimples the soft centre, then sinks, tearing through the skin with a sickening split.

I scream into the fabric and squeeze my eyes shut as something gives beneath my fingers with a soft, awful pop, like rotten fruit bursting beneath a boot.

Pus pours out in a hot, lumpy rush, thick as porridge and shot through with strings of darker clot, and it spills over my fingers before I can jerk them away. Yellow-grey filth, curdled and stinking, slips between my knuckles and ropes from my palm. A second surge follows, sliding down the inside of my thigh in a slow, filthy ribbon that cools as it goes, pattering onto the stone.

I spit the shift from my mouth and gag as the smell hits me, worse than any pigsty I’ve ever had the misfortune to enter. It stinks of meat left rotting beneath the summer sun, and every breath brings the foul taste of pus into my mouth. My stomach heaves, sending a mouthful of bitter fluid up my throat, and I bend forwards to spit it onto the stone.

“Mum! Mum, please! Get Iscairn! Get Iscairn!”

“I’m here, pudding. I’m right here.”

I press my hand against the swelling, trying to stem the horrible flow. The flesh beneath my palm gives with a sickening softness, forcing another gush of bloody corruption between my fingers. I cry out, my shoulders curling forward as the pain tears up through my belly, but I can’t seem to pull my hand away.

There’s so much coming out of me, thick yellow matter streaked with dark blood, and I can feel every horrible little movement of it beneath my skin.

How can there be so much?

The swelling collapses under my palm, and what’s left of it is no longer a lump at all. My fingers sink into a slack, flapping pocket of skin, the torn edges loose and terribly tender.

“There you are, pudding. You’ve done it.”

I want to tell her that I haven’t done anything except make a mess of myself, but my mouth won’t form the words. I let my hand fall away from the wound and sink back against the wall, my teeth knocking together as my head hits the stone.

The pressure has gone. Not the pain—the torn flesh burns horribly, and the slightest movement sends another sharp sting through my groin—but that enormous, unbearable fullness has eased, leaving a strange hollowness behind it.

I try to pull my shift down, but my pus-slicked fingers slip over the cloth without catching, and I have to make several attempts before I manage to drag it across my thighs.

“Mum,” I whisper. “I think I’m going to die.”

“Oh, my poor little love.”

It’s cold. It’s so, so horribly cold. And between the muffled prayers upstairs and my mum’s voice behind me, I want nothing more than to fall asleep and never wake up again.

But I still have two more to lance.

24

DOCTOR ISCAIRN

From my position amongst the trees, I can just about make out the crowd gathered along the cobbles outside the church. Torches flicker above their heads as Brother Gideon leads them through prayer after prayer, shouting himself hoarse as he begs the Lord to save his sister from the very creature who has spent the better part of three days keeping her alive.

There are far too many of them for me to approach unnoticed, and I suspect attempting to explain that their beloved apothecary is presently in considerably greater danger from her rescuers than from the Devil would accomplish very little. I could, perhaps, begin throwing stones. There are enough scattered beneath the trees, and with sufficient force I might render several men unconscious before the others realised where they were coming from.

My gaze settles on a particularly suitable rock near my boot.