He set off again, moving more by force of habit than anything else, down Lombard Street to the familiar door. He fumbled a cluster of rue out of his pocket and breathed deeply of its pungent scent, hoping to clear any contagion picked up from that man. Was there anything yet in his house that could take this headache from him? He could scarcely think through its clamor.
The door opened. The interior of the house was blessedly cool, no fire having been lit in the hearth for days, and Antony wrenched off his doublet and waistcoat, baring his sweat-soaked undershirt. The thought of food turned his stomach. He would eat later, after he had rested. Dropping the garments to the floor, Antony sought his bed, where he lay shivering and restless, waiting for his tremors to cease.
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: September 14, 1665
“The problem,” Valentin Aspell said patiently, “is that it fades, your Majesty.”
Lune resisted the urge to snarl at him. Instead she forged her irritation into a sharper, cooler edge of condescension. “I am aware of the nature of faerie gold, Lord Valentin. But with judicious timing, we might yet be able to assist Lord Antony in a manner that does not expose us to the threats above. If we can do nothing for the sick, we may at least help those who are still well, by giving them the coin with which to buy food and other necessities.”
As her Lord Keeper reminded her, faerie gold would eventually turn back to leaves, and that could draw unwanted attention. But from what Antony said, the chaos above had reached such a pitch that their interference might pass unremarked. He had even named a few fellows that might be suitable targets. One boasted of increasing his personal wealth as he rushed all over London and Westminster to obtain supplies for the Navy in their wars against the Dutch, yet gave only a few pounds for the relief of the afflicted.
“Samuel Pepys,” she suggested to Valentin. “In Seething Lane. Substitute faerie gold for some of his own, and I shall give the true coin to Antony, for distribution elsewhere.”
The Lord Keeper bowed. He did not see the point of this, Lune knew. To his way of thinking, the plague was a necessary cleansing of the filthy, overcrowded streets of London and its suburbs. Humans were not meant to live like maggots, crawling over the rotting corpse of their home, polluting their houses with their own smoke and waste. He had little understanding of them as people, and no sympathy for their plight.
But Lune did. The carnage above sickened her, evoking the terrifying specter of mortality; she shuddered at the thought of going above, among the boarded-up windows and the painted crosses and the desperate prayers of the dying. Yet this little thing, she could do. She knew Antony thought her wholly occupied with faerie affairs, the breathless wait for Nicneven’s next move, but the waiting threatened to drive her mad. And it would ease his heart to know she had done something, small though it was. When he returned, she would have a surprise for him: a windfall from the men who gilded their own coffers while others starved for want of charity.
“Why are you still here?” she asked Valentin, who flinched. “Find someone to carry this out—or I will send you.”
“Yes, madam,” he murmured, and fled.
LOMBARD STREET, LONDON: September 15, 1665
Antony needed water. A raging thirst had scoured him for hours, parching his throat and mouth and gut, while sweat poured off his skin to soak the clinging bedclothes. He had fetched watered wine from the cellar…he could not remember how long ago. The jug sat empty now, knocked onto its side, though he could not recall drinking from it. Perhaps he had spilled it all.
He called weakly for Burnett, in a voice that went no farther than his bed, before remembering the servant was gone. In the pest-house. Dead, by now.
Pain stabbed upward from his groin, curling his body in protest. Medicine. Was there nothing in the house for pain? For the headache that threatened to split his skull in half? Antony knew dimly that he had a fever, and must bring it down—cool cloths, soaked in water, to lay across his forehead. Kate would do that. She had gentle hands.
No. Kate was not here either. Dead? God forbid… no, she was in Norfolk still. They exchanged letters, but only rarely, since few men were brave enough to carry the post. He prayed the plague had not come to her there. She was safe, as Jack wanted Antony to be.
The stairs creaked. Burnett at last; the servant must have heard him call. No, his voice was gone; but Burnett was a good man, and came to check on him regardless.
“God have mercy…”
Not Burnett. Antony forced his eyes open, and Jack Ellin’s face swam into focus. He croaked the name, unsure whether this was another figment of his fever.
Jack had nothing over his mouth; he should be wearing a kerchief, or one of those ridiculous beaked masks some doctors affected, stuffing the front with strong herbs to cleanse the air they breathed. The man’s hands felt like ice through Antony’s sodden linen shirt. He shivered uncontrollably and tried to push them away, but Jack evaded him with ease and yanked the laces open. Antony gasped in pain as the physician rolled his head to one side and then the other, checking his neck and under his arms; then agony lanced through him again as Jack pulled aside his drawers to examine his thighs.
The doctor growled an oath, and that forced home the truth Antony had been denying all this time. Telling himself it was just a fever. A headache. It would pass.
“I am dying,” he whispered.
The pain was unmistakable. Bad now, it would only grow worse, until he ran mad, and thought of ending his own life to end his suffering. Antony could feel the swellings in his groin, not just tokens but the very stamp of the plague.
“You will not die,” Jack said violently, and shifted his weight back, preparatory to a burst of activity that would bring all his medicinal art to bear on the task of saving Antony’s life.
Antony caught his arm before he could stand, digging his fingers in hard. “Listen. You must do something for me. You must.”
Jack covered the hand with his own. “Tell me.”
“You must do it. Your oath on it. Swear to me, before God, that you will do exactly as I bid you. No matter—no matter how strange it seems. No matter what you see.”
The physician’s face grew hesitant. “Antony—I must fetch my medicines, lance the swellings—”
“Later,” Antony rasped. He did not know whether it was sweat or tears that ran down his cheeks. “Swear it!”
Jack swallowed, then nodded once. “As God is my witness, I will do as you bid me. If it will get you to cooperate, I’ll do anything.”
Antony sagged back against the pillow, made weak by relief. His hand trembled against Jack’s arm, its grip now slackened. “Thank you. God bless you, John Ellin. You may save my life indeed.”
THE ANGEL INN, ISLINGTON: September 15, 1665
What in the name of the Devil’s unholy arsehole am I doing here?
Fulfilling his oath to Antony. Every stride Jack’s horse took northward felt like another strip carved out of his heart; he should be back in Lombard Street, burning quicklime and spices to cleanse the room, getting opium and hopefully some food into his afflicted friend.
But Antony would not rest; he kept repeating his feverish words. And so Jack rode north into Islington, on the word of a dying—
Do not say “dying.”
On the word of a very sick man.
The faster Jack carried out his duty, the sooner he could get on with his treatment. It had saved some patients, he believed. None of them so old as Antony, true—