When Gaelan entered the flat, Cate was sitting in his favorite chair, reading by the soft glow of candlelight. She didn’t see him at first, and for a moment, Gaelan looked upon her from the threshold. What a piteous future had this young woman before her. If she’d a mind to relent and return to her family, she’d quickly find herself married off to a man of wealth twice her age with no better prospects than the hand of a ruined lass. Such was her fate. And if not that? What then? The streets? And what of Simon Bell? Would she not be wise to trust him? Perhaps he . . .
Cate looked up, her expression puzzled. “What was the racket below?”
“A man . . . a man fell ill,” he stammered, distressed he’d been caught out staring at her. “Sadly, he is no longer amongst the living.” Gaelan wished not to burden her with his worries. “I was also visited by a physician who was quite concerned about a missing young lady who might well have found herself in a bad way. I can only assume he meant you. He did not share her name, nor did I ask it. He claimed to be a friend of hers. A certain Dr. Bell.” He regarded her, curious of her reaction. “Do you know the name?”
She tensed, recoiling deep into the chair. “Simon? Or James.”
That second name Gaelan did not recognize, but clearly, she well knew to whom he was referring.
“It was Simon Bell. He insists you are friends?”
She seemed to relax, if only a bit. “I know him but slightly. A stouthearted fellow. He is betrothed to a distant cousin—Sophia Wallingford of Gattonside. I do not wish him to know I am in residence here. Our circle of acquaintances is small enough that before long, my father will know of my presence here, no matter Simon’s undoubted promise of discretion.” Her eyes widened. “What did he . . . ? What did you . . . say?”
She was on edge, ready to flee at the smallest provocation.
“He merely asked if I had, perchance, treated this particular young woman. Seen her about. I assured him I had not. I told him nothing of your presence here, even with much reason for me to suspect the young woman of whom he spoke was you. I did not so much as ask the girl’s name. And the subject was dropped for a more pressing matter.”
“Thank you, Mr. Erceldoune, for all you have done these past two days.”
“I have done nothing but what any man, any practitioner would do in a like circumstance, I assure you. Now rest; you are not as strong as you might believe yourself to be. It is easy to be fooled into too much exertion, too early.”
Their eyes locked, her gaze pleading. “It is too much to ask that I impose on your hospitality any longer. Yet, until I’ve somewhere—”
“Only a day or two more, until you’ve regained your strength. And then I might suggest . . .” Exactly what? Sally Mills’s busy public house? Cast her out into the streets? “Have you someone you might trust? You might send for? Bell, as you say, seems a good man. Perhaps—”
She shook her head. “No one. I have no one. Even should I trust Simon completely, the chance he might . . . even inadvertently—” Her lip quivered, and tears gathered in the hollow beneath her deep-set eyes.
“Do not trouble yourself now; think upon it and we shall discuss on the morrow.”
“I am sorry to impose on your good graces—and your continued discretion. I am most fortunate to have landed on your doorstep, and not . . . another.”
Indeed. The plate of food was scarce touched. “You should eat. And drink the elixir I left for you. You must drink it all.”
“I’ve little appetite, but I have finished the drink.”
She opened the book she’d been holding on her lap. “I have been quite captivated by this volume from your library. I’ve never seen anything of its like. The illustrations are glorious. Mysterious as they are unusual. Wherever did you come by—?”
Gaelan pinched the bridge of his nose. He had no time for idle discussion. “Cate, I apologize. Perhaps we might talk later, but I must go up to my laboratory for . . .” He stopped midsentence as he noticed for the first time exactly what had so beguiled her.
Damnation. What was he thinking to have left the ouroboros book in plain sight?
“My lady!” Gaelan wrested the book from her hands, too roughly, placing it behind him on a table, and out of her view. “I adjure you not take up that which is beyond your ken.”
The rebuke might well have been better directed toward himself, not Cate. She folded herself further into the deep brocade of the cushions, now fully sobbing. Now he’d frightened her.
“Please, Mr. Erceldoune, I did not know . . . It was atop the table, and I was drawn, sir, to its great beauty. A work of art more than a book. And—”
Gaelan closed his eyes, calming the storm brewing behind them. “Please forgive my outburst. There is no excuse for it. You are a guest in my home—and a patient. I should not have . . .” Every excuse he mustered fell flat to his ear. He shrugged, embarrassed.
He had set that terrible fright in her eyes. “Do not grieve yourself, my lady. It is but a book, though quite rare. It has been in my family for centuries, and I fear for its . . . for its fragility. It might be—”
She sniffled, the tears slowing. “It is no matter. You did say to avail myself of your library.” The merest hint of a smile creased the corners of her mouth.
“Indeed, I did.” He gathered the book to his chest. “This book, in any case, I’ve need of it just now. But take care, please do not . . . In future . . . It is not for your eyes or anyone’s but mine. But I am sore grieved to have frighted you so. Please, my lady, forgive my outburst. And now, with your indulgence, I shall take my leave.”
Without awaiting her reply, Gaelan retrieved several manuscripts from the dining table, and avoiding her gaze, fled up the stairs and into the welcome isolation of his laboratory. The young lady was a distraction he could ill afford just now.
Gaelan seated himself at a large writing table in the corner and arranged the papers about the top of it. No matter how he weighed the symptoms of both men—Bell’s patient and Mr. Barlow—his thoughts always returned to the English sweat. No matter how little the sense of it. The least plausible diagnosis; perhaps the simplest to consider and discard quickly. If he could not, Gaelan would have his answer, improbable as it was.
The Sweating Sickness: A Boke or Counseill Against the Disease Commonly Called the Sweate or Sweatyng Sicknesse. John Caius’s 1552 work on sudor anglicus sat open on Gaelan’s desk. Each of Barlow’s symptoms matched exactly to Caius’s descriptions, their severity and order of presentation. How had it returned from the dead, when it had been gone from these shores these three centuries past?
John Caius wrote there was no cure for it. Why that conclusion, when Grandpapa had managed to prevent the sweat from crossing the border to Scotland some twenty-five years before Caius’s text?
And what of Barlow’s dragonflies? Were they but the ravings of a man on the brink of death? Then why did they nibble so relentlessly at the edge of Gaelan’s thoughts?
He searched through his grandfather’s journal for any mention at all of dragonflies. Perhaps . . .
Although I do propose that treating each symptom individually as they appear may prove effective, we must see the dragon as a whole—not scales and wings and tail, not fire, nor fangs, nor jagged teeth. Granted, each may appear simultaneous and malicious, each burning with its own mortal danger, but we must distinguish them one from the other, as much as be possible; fight the fiend with shield and sword. It is only in so doing singularly and as one that we tame the dragon disease into a harmless fluttering dragonfly. On this I’ve but one source for good counsel, and that is the words of the healing goddess Airmid. “Leabhar ghalair agus a leigheas luibhean Airmid.”
Gaelan sighed. Inevitable, was it not? “The book of diseases and medicines—of Airmid,” Gaelan translated aloud. The ouroboros book.
Grandpapa’s journal continued:
And once again, I must rely upon the goodly brethren of Dernwode House and the splendor of their healing gardens, sprung di
rect, I would aver, from the most secret cloak of Airmid herself, deny it though ever they have done.
Grandpapa lamented the decline of the monastery as the monks, stripped of their stature, continued the work to which they’d long ago committed, but as laymen, and in the shadows. Yet their medicines and their artistry were much hidden from the king and his men.
Deep in the shadows of the hills of Eildon, away from curious eyes, the gardens yet thrived, their rare plantings in combinations found nowhere else on Earth, with healing powers unknown but to a few, and ever at the service of the House of Learmont.
An annotation lettered in red drew Gaelan’s gaze to the encircled paragraph:
Should this dragon invader cross the border despite our goodly efforts, and indiscriminate slaughter, burial alone suffice not to quench the disease of its thirst. We must take care to cover over the corpses in their burial pits with quicklime, and then take to it flame so nothing of them remain to tempt the dragon’s return.
Twenty more pages of detailed notes and Gaelan was convinced of the possibility that the Barlow family may well have succumbed to an extinct disease. If it was indeed the English sweat, his grandfather’s notes pointed a way to slay the dragon before it consumed London. But to proceed would require him break a vow taken two centuries earlier to never again use the ouroboros book for any but the most academic purpose.
Gaelan looked up from his grandfather’s notebook, pinching the bridge of his nose. The laboratory was dark but for a single candle flame, barely aflicker. He had lost all track of time.
It would by now be long past midnight. Ideas had begun to take root, yet he had no answer to the question nagging at him since he’d first thought of the English sweat. How had it returned? Without an answer to that question he could not very well argue his case to Bell—or anyone else. And why Barlow and his family? And why Bell’s patient? No others fallen ill, at least none come to the apothecary. Was that, then, the counterargument? The most significant clue that it mightn’t be the English sweat at all.
Frustrated, and back at the start, Gaelan closed the book and looked up from his writing, rubbing his eyes, which burned with the need for rest. Cate would by now be asleep, and to go down into the flat would be to waken her needlessly. Instead, he lay on a small cot and tried to sleep, knowing he would not.
CHAPTER 23
Dragonflies zigzagged, fairy-like wisps of blue and green, diving about the cattails and reeds as they flitted in and out of Gaelan’s view, dropping one by one, dead, into a scarlet pool. A constant refrain, “sudor anglicus,” buzzed loud and insistent from within the dream. He shoved away the coverlet and lit a fresh candle. There would be no sleep this night.
Sudor anglicus. What if Barlow and his family were not alone? Had others already succumbed, unbeknownst to Gaelan? Others that may even now be dying or dead in their beds? To ignore the possibility could well cost many lives.
Yet, could it not be just as well a form of the influenza he had yet to encounter? La Grippe. A murderous disease as it cast its shadow, village upon village. Ten days, two weeks, the patient would live; the patient would die.
Barlow died in a matter of hours. His family, likely the same. Death had come to them with the swiftness of dragon’s fire, fierce and more powerful than he had ever experienced with La Grippe. One day, two, perhaps. This was no ordinary influenza.
For some moments, Gaelan stared at the unopened ouroboros book, fingers trembling. Little choice now but to confirm his suspicions—or refute them, yet he was hesitant to embark on a thing he might regret. Long ago he’d vowed never again to use its recipes. For lifetimes, he would pay dearly for having done so two hundred years past.
Mightn’t the risk be too great? Sudor anglicus would sweep through a town, but vanish with the first winds of autumn, leaving death in its wake, taking its due, but randomly. Was that not the way as well of the influenza? In that case, would it not be best to allow the disease its course?
Not best. Easier. For him, alone. And cowardly. For then he could ignore the ouroboros book. Place it back on its shelf—a curiosity to be admired for its artistry, not its alchemy. But it would be wrong, and should this fever indeed be the English sweat, the deaths of too many would haunt him, not only for the span of a normal life but for an eternity of them.
Running his hand across the engraved leather of the cover, Gaelan allowed his fingers to absorb the deep jeweled colors that seemed at one with the leather, pools of liquefied sapphire, ruby, emerald, amber. Diamonds. The large hawthorn tree at its center, branches knotted with ouroboroses, the tree itself entwined in fire of copper and gold, flames licking at its trunk, yet not consumed by them.
As a lad, Gaelan could recite from memory, naming the central image of each page—in order. Hard experience had proved that rote memorization of pretty pictures was a pitiable substitute for understanding of their context—and content. Perhaps this time, with his grandfather’s notes to guide his hand and prompt his mind, it would be enough.
A frisson pulsed through his fingers, electric and strange, bid him open the cover and set to work. Hastening past a frightening Karkinos, the luminous Diana with her bow, intertwined snake-trees consumed by fire, improbable gardens and marshes alive with fairies and sprites at play, Gaelan stopped at the page he’d sought. He took in the whole of it—a tranquil pond; every figure, every line and corner of hidden text, the smallest image, pulsed with life. Yes, the image in the dream.
He must get this exactly right. And if he did not? Sola dosis facit venenum, said Paracelsus. The dose makes the poison. Too little and no effect at all; too much might well unleash consequences yet unknowable.
He dipped his pen in the ink bottle and took account first of the myriad languages embedded within the scene, bending and twisting into distinct patterns: Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Old English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew letters that he remembered were not Hebrew but another, more mystical, tongue derived from it; Arabic as well. He must be methodical about it. Faultless. The risk was too great for error. Yet this was the easiest task, the simple deciphering. The more challenging tasks would follow—to make sense of it, and then conjure the treatment needed to slay the pestilent dragon.
His index finger poised just above the page, Gaelan hesitated to touch it directly, lest the ancient inks flake away in his hand, marring the exquisite images. Yet, it was too difficult to follow the texts as they traversed branches, entwined within the wings of tiny sprites, and threaded between the tall grasses and cattails.
A fresh goose quill would do quite well to trace along the text. He chose a single line of Latin script, following it as it looped back on itself, shifting every few words from Latin to Gaelic and then back to Latin, the letters forming a large bloom—a rose, perhaps, colored in a deep scarlet, shimmering in the sun. Within the rose sat a sprite, wings tipped in gleaming emerald as endlessly deep as it was fragile—the fluff of an eider’s down. And within the wings, symbols.
The margins, decorated in inks of black, gold, silver, copper, framed a scene of dragonflies, pansies, violets, narcissus, and other radiant flowers: blues of several hues, greens and purples, a pond of turquoise teeming with life, even as it lay two-dimensional on the page. A stream, its current swift and powerful, doused a wildfire raging amongst a patch of reeds.
He could happily spend hours lost inside this page alone, untangling every twist and bend of letter; interpreting every dot of color within color within color. The opposite page had been similarly embellished, but rendered in the reds, oranges, and greens of fire-breathing, winged monsters born of the most ancient legends. Behind a hawthorn tree he lurked, a hideous, jeweled dragon, ready to ambush.
The two pages converged; one upon the other, the dragon slowly merged with the dragonflies, bled together like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. The dragons shed their intense reds, which were transformed to purples, then blues and finally placid green as they metamorphosed to dragonflies. Gaelan remembered these images but had never unde
rstood them.
Using his grandfather’s notes and his own, rather eroded, skill in the languages, Gaelan meticulously translated the page into a single readable text. Hours later, he was finished, but for comprehending the significance of the dragonflies—if there was any to be had. Perchance the drawings were but artifice—to disguise and distract, draw scrutiny away from the texts with pretty pictures. Not all eyes had the ability to see into a book such as this.
On the other hand . . .
The laboratory door opened behind him; Gaelan jumped, as the unexpected sound split the silence. The metal pen slipped his grasp, and its glass nib shattered on the floor. He looked up, squinting through the bright light pouring in through the window glass. When had the sun come up? Indeed, the morning sun streamed into the laboratory, glinting off the smooth stone edges of the bench tops.
“Good morrow, Mr. Erceldoune. I have been looking all about for you. And here you are!”
Cate stood in the doorway, enmeshed in a sunbeam that surrounded her in a halo of light. He rubbed his eyes, for a moment unsure who—or what—he was seeing. Indeed, his eyes ached with fatigue and from hours of working in the dark, never noticing the candle flame had gone out.
Gaelan was irritated by her presumption to come up to his laboratory uninvited, but there was little point in reproach. He was not pleased by the interruption, yet it was good a time as any to pause in his work. For a moment. Raking trembling fingers through his unbound hair, he endeavored a futile attempt to make himself presentable.
“You should not have mounted those steep stairs in your condition, my lady. You’ve nearly recovered by now, and your adventure to find me may well have thwarted it all.”
He approached, gently taking her elbow, leading her to the sole chair in the room before retreating a respectful distance from her side. There was no sign of fever; indeed, she seemed stronger today. Beneath her shy smile, roses in her cheeks, a good sign. Very. Yet, her condition was still fragile. “You are much improved. Nearly—”
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