Guilt gnawed at his insides, inescapable and cruel. Not only had he failed here; how many others had he neglected, in trying to save Antony? What would be the death toll this week? Could he have preserved any of them, if he left this place and went to their aid?
A question not worth asking, for no force in the world could have pried him from this house.
But the footsteps on the stair confirmed what he already knew: that his use here had ended. He put down the mortar and pestle, scrubbed his face dry with one sleeve, and stood to face the door.
The faerie woman looked as haggard as he, as if every vital drop had been drained from her. She met his gaze without flinching and nodded once.
He clenched his teeth and looked down. Not so ready for it, after all. And how would he tell Kate?
Lune, it seemed, was thinking of matters even more immediate. “His parish was St. Nicholas, was it not?”
The reminder stung Jack. Antony had refused a priest at the end, with bitter words that horrified the physician and put Lune whimpering on the floor. But whatever the man’s anger at God, he must be buried. “The churchyard at St. Nicholas is full. As they are everywhere.”
Her eyes might have been steel instead of silver. “I will not see him flung into a plague pit outside the walls. Antony will rest in sanctified ground.”
Her concern for such matters surprised him. Jack sighed wearily. The wealthy could afford to buy such concessions, and despite his charity these past months, Antony no doubt still had enough. “I’ll see to it.”
“Thank you, Dr. Ellin.” Raggedly spoken, but gracious. Lune sounded far too serene. Was she even capable of grief? Something had torn at her during those long hours at the dying man’s side, but he did not think she wept.
He began cleaning away the scattered remnants of his ineffective medicines. “I did little enough.”
“You stayed with him,” Lune said. “Which is all anyone can do.”
It made his hands pause in their task. Another bedside, with Antony lying insensate. Another woman who aided him then. Jack had given his name to the sisters, but not to this woman, and yet she spoke as if she knew him—as if they’d met before.
“You were Mistress Montrose,” he said.
A slight intake of breath, audible in the perfect silence of the house. “You have a good eye.”
A host of other questions followed on the heels of that one, but he had not the heart to ask them. Antony had spoken of secrets; it seemed Jack had found them. He emptied the mortar into a bucket, wondering what he would do now.
Lune shifted her weight. “Dr. Ellin. You’ve seen a great deal that few others have. I know you have little enough reason to hear me—but I would propose an exchange between us.”
His fingers tightened on the stone bowl. Facing her was hard; her inhuman presence unsettled him too much, at a time when he had not much stability to spare. But her words put all his nerves on edge, and he could not stand with her at his back. “What could I give you, that you would desire?”
The sculpted lips tightened in a painful, ironic smile. “Not your soul, Dr. Ellin. Tell me: how large is a penny loaf of bread these days?”
“Nine and a half ounces.” What did that have to do with anything?
“Could you afford an extra one each day?”
On the money the City was paying him for his services, no. A bloody apothecary was paid more, because of the medicines they mixed; he should give up his place in the College of Physicians and hire himself out as a vendor of drugs instead. But Jack was already bankrupting himself fruitlessly in combating the plague; if this could gain him anything in return, he would do it without hesitation. “To what end?”
“Our greatest obstacle,” Lune said, “is a l—” A nearby bell rang, and she staggered. Jack was there before he could think the better of it, taking her arm and lowering her onto a stool. For all her height, she weighed less than a bird. She had fainted, he thought, but recovered an instant later, and let out a breathy laugh. “My point precisely. We lack protection, as you can see. If you are willing to tithe a loaf of bread to the fae each night, then we will help you.”
It sounded simple—which made Jack suspicious. “Did Antony do this?”
“He could not. He was…too close to us.”
A phrase with disturbing implications. “What help do you offer?”
Lune lifted her chin. “What do you need?”
The silver eyes chilled him, but Jack forced himself to think past their inhuman touch. “Assistants—ones who need not fear catching the plague. Money for medicines. A place to shelter the sick, away from the healthy, instead of shutting them up together so that all will die. Clean places to bury the dead. An end to the arguments between the Galenic physicians and the chymical physicians and the surgeons and the apothecaries, and all the quacks who prey upon the desperate driven out of town with a whip. Rain, to cleanse the air and end this heat that breeds distemper.” How much lay within her power, he had no idea—but she had asked.
The elfin woman nodded slowly, thinking. “I cannot give you all of that. But if you give us the bread we need… I dislike begging the tithe so baldly, but we have reached a pass where it is necessary. With bread, I can order my people into service.”
Jack thought of the disdainful looks he had received from her courtiers. His mouth quirked. “So long as you give me the least resentful ones as my nurses, Lady, we have an accord.”
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: December 9, 1665
Dame Segraine stepped ahead to open the bronze-bound door, which meant she did not see the involuntary shudder that rippled across Lune’s shoulders. Most of her subjects didn’t notice the tremors—not unless they came near this place, and few enough did that without explicit orders. She felt them, no matter where she was.
Despite being alone.
The gravedigger had laid Antony to rest in his parish churchyard. Late at night, in accordance with the plague orders, with no one there to mourn; but Lune and John Ellin watched from the shadows, concealed by a charm, and protected by some of the bread he gave to the court. The ground was clogged with bones and fragments of coffins, past burials broken open by the need to make space for more. It was hardly the dignified end Antony Ware deserved. But he had deserved far better than the death he had, too.
His absence left a hole in her life. Strange as it sounded, she missed their arguments; she missed having someone to confront her when she needed it, even in front of her own courtiers. His solidity had been a foundation she depended on.
And without him, there was likewise a hole in her power. Lune hoped no one guessed just how vulnerable she was, ruling on her own. At least she was still able to command obedience—however much her courtiers resented it.
The door creaked open, and moans ghosted through the gap. Lune went through quickly, and Segraine shut the portal behind them, closing them in with the scent of death.
She’d chosen this area carefully. The twists and turns of the Onyx Hall had no logic to them; some parts were open and airy, while others were confined warrens. This part was accessible from only three points, one of those leading above to Billingsgate. The other two could be closed off, creating a space Dr. Ellin could use as his pest-house.
The idea had seemed absurd at first. Bring mortals into the Onyx Hall? Well enough when they were trusted friends, or passing diversions brought in for brief glimpses, and few in number. Over a hundred lay on pallets throughout these chambers, and they stayed until they recovered or died. They were the poor, the forgotten, those whose families could not care for them. Ellin brought them below, sequestering them so they would not spread their infection to the healthy. With the chambers stripped of all furnishings save those needed for their care, and the doors guarded against their wanderings, there was little enough to tell the patients where they were. And if the otherworldly atmosphere of the place struck them as strange…well, high fevers could explain much.