The soothsayer grunted. “I suppose it is at that.”
“So you will come?”
Merden sighed, his eyes roaming regretfully over the shop. “The summer months are best for business,” he said, “for spirits grow restless when the sun is near.”
Lenoir had no idea what to say to that.
“I will come, Inspector, but give me a moment to prepare.”
“Certainly. We will wait for you outside.”
“You sure this is a good idea?” Kody asked as they stepped out onto the street. “With tempers the way they are, it might not be safe for him to walk around town right now.”
“No more than it is safe for us to walk around the Camp. Hopefully, we can avoid drawing attention to ourselves. In any case, Merden can take care of himself, just as we can.” He patted the sword at his hip for emphasis.
Kody eyed it dubiously. “You carrying a gun too?” The sergeant did not have much faith in Lenoir’s ability to wield a blade, a misgiving that was not entirely unwarranted.
Lenoir pulled his coat back, exposing the butt of a flintlock. Kody looked reassured. As though I am any better with the damn pistol, Lenoir thought.
A moment later, Merden came out of the shop. At the sight of him, Kody groaned softly, and even Lenoir struggled to hide his dismay. The soothsayer had donned a traditional Adali cloak, a spectacular garment of dyed purple wool and bloodred embroidery. Horn beads fringed a wide, drooping cowl, and a rune of some kind was picked out in tiles of bleached bone down the back. It was the most elaborate specimen of its kind Lenoir had ever seen, and though undeniably handsome, it would not exactly blend in with everyday Kennian attire. In the unlikely event that the casual observer should fail to notice the cloak, Merden had helpfully chosen a seven-foot tall walking stick of ebony and bone. They wanted only a herd of cattle to complete the picture.
The soothsayer hoisted a sling of leather pouches over each shoulder and locked the door to his shop. “I am ready, Inspector.”
“We’d better get horses,” Kody said. “Can you ride, Merden?”
The Adal stared at him.
“Right,” Kody said, coloring. He might as well have asked a fish if it could swim.
Lenoir started off toward the station. Already, he could feel the eyes of the entire market square upon them, though whether hostile or merely curious, he could not tell.
This day was about to get very interesting.
CHAPTER 6
They left the horses at the Fishering barricade and crossed Addleman’s Bridge on foot. Already, Lenoir could see that the pestilence houses had swelled in number, overtaking the view from the river. Ahead, the barricade loomed forbiddingly, its timber frame packed in with sandbags and capped with spear points. Watchmen armed with crossbows manned makeshift towers at both flanks, and a dozen more sat slumped against the bridge side, resting, cooking, cleaning rifles. The main force stood guard on the other side, facing the Camp; it was there they found Sergeant Izar.
“Inspector,” the sergeant said, “I didn’t expect to see you here again.” He started to say something else, but then he spotted Merden, and his golden eyes widened. He dropped his head low and murmured something in Adali. Merden inclined his head in return.
Izar’s gaze shifted between Lenoir and Merden. Lenoir could almost hear the questions, but he did not have time to explain. “How are things here, Sergeant?” he asked, scanning the barricade. The men looked edgy, and most of them wore scarves tied around their faces.
“Quiet, for the moment,” Izar said. “We had an incident this morning. A mother tried to get one of the watchmen to take her children through. She was very determined. We had to subdue her, and that made some people angry.”
“Where is she now?” Kody asked, glancing around.
“Unconscious. She was taken to the clinic.”
Lenoir winced. “Anyone else hurt?”
“A few, but nothing serious. Good practice for the men, I suppose, for when it gets bad.”
When, not if. It hardly took a soothsayer to make that prediction; one look at the faces of the crowd milling around the barricade—angry, fearful, desperate—was evidence enough. It is only a matter of time.
“I hear you had some trouble on the Fishering side,” Kody said.
Izar smiled wryly. “Good thing the chief moved me here, where I can stay out of trouble.”
Kody said something in reply, but Lenoir had stopped listening. Instead, he watched as Merden made his way over to the crowd. Many of the watchers were Adali, and they all bowed their heads the way Izar had done, some putting their hands to their chests. A gesture of respect, it seemed. They recognized him as a soothsayer, or perhaps as a witchdoctor. The cloak, Lenoir presumed.
“Izar,” he said, interrupting the sergeants. “That rune on the back of Merden’s cloak—what does it mean?”
“Mekhleth. The Wise. Few men have the right to wear a cloak like that.”
“Do you know him?” Kody asked.
“Only by reputation.”
“And he’s some sort of . . . what? A holy man?”
“Not exactly. More like a shepherd. It’s . . .” Izar shook his head. “The word doesn’t translate. One who knows the way, I suppose.”
“If he’s so special, what’s he doing living in Kennian?”
“That is a very good question, Kody.” Izar’s gaze followed Merden as he spoke with the crowd. Several of them were pointing and talking animatedly.
“Time to go,” Lenoir said. “Carry on, Sergeant.”
As they approached Merden, the voices around him died, replaced by silent, distrustful stares. A woman said something sharp in Adali, but Merden raised a hand and spoke a few quiet words, and she subsided. “I have asked these people where they go for healing,” the soothsayer said. “If you will follow me, Inspector, I think I know the way.”
Lenoir nodded, only too happy to move away from the tense scene at the barricade. They made their way down to the main road, a wide track of earth flanked with market stalls. Pickings were meager today, Lenoir saw; the vegetables looked tired, the fruits dull and withered. They passed only a single butcher, and he had no beef to sell, only a bloody slab of mutton and a crate full of tatty, resigned-looking chickens.
“Look at the price of cooking oil,” Kody said in an undertone, inclining his head at a nearby table. “Three times the price they were charging in the poor district the other night.”
Three days in, and already the quarantine was biting. “It will get worse,” Lenoir said, “and quickly.”
“The women I spoke to at the barricade mentioned this,” Merden said. “They want to keep their children inside where they will be safe, but they dare not leave their livestock unattended.”
Lenoir sighed. “Livestock is the least of their worries. Cooking oil and sugar will be the first to go. Then the flour, and that is where the real trouble begins.”
Merden glanced sidelong at him. “It sounds as though you speak from experience.”
“I lived in Serles during the revolution. I was barely an adolescent, but I remember it as if it were yesterday. The city was not under siege, but it may as well have been. It was too violent, and people too afraid of the pox, for any trade to come. In the worst neighborhoods, people began eating dogs. By the end, the dogs were eating them.” Lenoir shuddered at the memory.
They continued on in grim silence, following Merden’s lead as he turned off the main road and struck out between the hovels. Their path was little more than a gutter, and they picked their way between puddles and glistening sinkholes of mud, clinging to the narrow strips of high ground like a small herd of ungainly goats. It smelled like a privy and looked like a swamp, but Lenoir barely noticed, too absorbed in the sight of a family of six loading their meager belongings into a wheelbarrow. Leaving, it seemed, but where would they go? They wo
uld not be allowed into Kennian. Out into the countryside, then? Or would the lord mayor have the highway blocked too? They were not the first to leave, either; Lenoir noticed several boarded up shacks along the way.
Nearly everyone they passed had a scarf tied around his face, and nearly every face was Adali. In quitting the main road, they had passed the informal boundary separating the Adali quarter from the rest of the Camp. The square shacks of tin and timber favored by Braelish and other southerners gave way to the distinctively dome-shaped tents of the Adali. Less distinctive were their colors, for while the traditional dwellings of the nomadic Adali were invariably brightly hued, these were drab and dingy, stitched together with whatever their owners could find. Here and there, an old tent could be spotted that had once known the touch of the famously vivid Adali dyes. These might have been red or gold in days gone by, but years of steeping in the grimy haze of the city had rendered them all the same forlorn shade of dun, making them scarcely distinguishable from the others.
“Mekhleth,” a voice called. “Mekhleth anir!”
They turned to find a man hurrying out of his tent after them. He approached Merden respectfully, bowing his head as the others had done. After a wary glance at Lenoir and Kody, he said something to Merden in a hushed, urgent tone. They conversed for a few moments, and Lenoir could tell from the man’s expression that he was disappointed. Merden put a hand on his shoulder and said something that was surely meant to be reassuring; the man nodded resignedly.
“His neighbor’s son is sick,” Merden explained.
“He asked you to help?”
“If only I were able.”
“I thought there was a witchdoctor somewhere nearby who knows the cure,” Kody said. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”
“I believe you mean a healer, Sergeant,” Merden said coolly, “and, yes, there is one nearby. With so many ill, however, he is having difficulty keeping up.”
Lenoir grunted thoughtfully. “So the Adali are not immune after all.” He could not help feeling relieved. If it had simply been a question of physiology, there would be nothing to learn from the witchdoctor. Healer, Lenoir corrected himself. Like Kody, he had not realized the term witchdoctor was offensive, though he supposed it was not surprising. Khekra was a forbidden subject; it stood to reason that any term evoking dark magic would be similarly frowned upon. “Does this man know where we can find the healer?”
Merden repeated the question in Adali, and the man nodded, pointing. “We were headed in the right direction,” Merden said. “It is not far now.”
Sure enough, they came across the healer’s tent a few minutes later. Lenoir did not have to be told which one it was. Aside from its impressive size and the traditionally bright shade of gold, a great throng of people teemed outside its entrance. At first, Lenoir thought they were clamoring to get inside, but as he drew nearer, he saw that the crowd was surprisingly subdued. Small groups clustered together, conversing quietly. Some sat slumped in the mud, though whether from illness, exhaustion, or just boredom, Lenoir could not tell. Many were certainly sick. Signs of fever were everywhere, and some already had nosebleeds. Husbands propped up wives, and mothers rocked crying children in their arms.
A ring of stakes had been driven into the ground around the perimeter of the tent. Some sort of fence? If so, it was not working. Decorative, perhaps—that would explain the horn beads and bits of bone dangling from leather thongs at the top of each stake. Merden seemed to take an interest in them; he nodded, as though a suspicion had been confirmed.
Kody held up, looking uncertain. His hand disappeared into his coat pocket, but he hesitated.
“Put it on, Sergeant,” Lenoir said, reaching for his own scarf. “It does not make you cruel, or a coward. It only means you are not a fool.”
Merden, for his part, drew his thumb across the underside of his nose, leaving a smear of what looked like fresh mud. “I should warn you, Inspector, what you see inside may be alarming, but you must remain calm. Above all, you must not distract the healer. To do so could be the death of us all.” He gestured at the ring of stakes, as though that explained everything.
Kody looked startled. “What do you mean, the death of us all? What in the below is going on in there?”
“Khekra,” the soothsayer replied, and he led the way into the tent.
CHAPTER 7
Passing through the tent flap was like being swallowed by some great beast. Darkness engulfed them, and for a moment, Lenoir stood rooted to the spot, blinking away the sunlight. His eyes adjusted quickly, but it did him little good; the cavernous space was lit only by a few tapers, and these stood in a tight semicircle in the center, a flaming sickle that devoured the eye and blotted out everything else.
A shadow shifted at the fringes of the light. Lenoir squinted, trying to make it out, but it had no distinguishable shape. He could not tell where the shadow ended and the darkness began, and yet it moved, twisting and sinuous, like a column of smoke. A dry, rattling sound accompanied the motion, peppering the air in short bursts—soft, then manic, then soft again—before falling abruptly silent. The darkness ceased its dance.
The flames ducked, as though disturbed by a sudden movement, but they bent toward the shifting shadow, rather than away. Something tugged subtly at the center of Lenoir’s belly.
He could hear Kody’s breathing behind him, too rapid by half. To his right, Merden watched calmly. A pungent scent pricked at Lenoir’s nose, even through the handkerchief. Something familiar, something his subconscious branded as deeply unsettling, but he could not place it. He took an involuntary step back, but Merden’s hand closed firmly around his wrist, exerting a gentle but meaningful pressure. Do not move.
Something hissed in the darkness.
Lenoir went rigid. Merden’s fingers tightened around his wrist in warning, but the soothsayer need not have worried. Lenoir would not have been able to move if his life depended on it. He stood, transfixed, as the shadow resumed its sinuous dance. Lenoir felt another tug at his middle, sharp this time, too sharp to be merely a product of his own nervousness. For a moment, he feared he would be sick. Beside him, Merden let out a long, steady breath, as though blowing on something to help it dry.
A gust of wind rolled out from the center of the tent. The candles snuffed out. Everything went dark.
Silence.
“Mekhleth,” a voice said, and a flame flared to life. The gaunt face of an elderly Adal appeared, etched in amber and shadow. He turned away to light a candle—not one of the tapers that had formed the sickle, but a short pillar with several wicks, as big around as a supper plate. He lit several more until a soft glow suffused the center of the tent, revealing the outlines of a cot with a figure lying on it. The patient, presumably.
But what in the depths of the below did they just see?
“Welcome,” the man said in Braelish, having noticed his pale-skinned guests.
“I am Merden. These men are Inspector Lenoir and Sergeant Kody, from the Metropolitan Police.”
The man arched an eyebrow, but did not otherwise reply.
“How did you know?” Merden asked him.
“That you were mekhleth?” The man smiled, a thin, weary thing. “Your breath. Who else could have lent such strength?”
Merden nodded, apparently satisfied with this unfathomable answer.
“I am Oded,” the man said. “Please, come inside. It is safe now.”
Lenoir gave the healer a thorough once-over with his eyes. He looked to be at least seventy, and judging by his drawn-out vowels and richly rolled Rs, he had not lived many of those years in Braeland. Like Merden’s, his skin was a rich copper hue, but the tips of his fingers were blackened. Evidence of his art, perhaps. Lenoir made a mental note to ask Merden about it later. More evidence of the healer’s art, or at least his recent practice of it, could be discerned in the sagging lines of his thin f
rame. The Adali were a fine-boned race, and tended to be long and lean. Oded might once have been lean, but he had lost weight since, and the stoop of his shoulders took several inches off his height. The man is exhausted, Lenoir thought. Like Sister Rhea, Oded was sacrificing his own health for that of his patients.
Speaking of which . . . “This woman,” Lenoir said, gesturing at the figure in the cot. She slept, or so it seemed, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on her brow. “You were treating her?”
Oded nodded.
“Will she live?” Kody asked.
“Time will show,” the healer said. “Most get better, but a few—it is too late for them.” He glanced at the tent flap, and Lenoir could read his thoughts. He is having difficulty keeping up, Merden had said. The more people gathered outside, the further behind he fell. It was a race, and the healer was losing.
“What happens to the ones who die?” Kody asked.
“They are burned.”
“It is our way,” Merden added.
“It will be our way soon, I suspect,” Lenoir said, “in the Camp at least. According to the College of Physicians, the bodies are highly contagious. Burning seems like the safest option.”
Oded made a face. “Physicians. Pala.”
Lenoir did not know the word, but he doubted it was complimentary.
Merden sounded a few low notes of laughter. “No doubt they are persuaded that leeches will improve the matter.”
“They are quite attached to their leeches,” Lenoir agreed, “if you will forgive the pun. I can only assure you that not all Humenori medicine is quite so backward. Science on the continent proper is rather more advanced.” He glanced at Kody just in time to see the sergeant roll his eyes. As for the Adali, they traded a doubtful look.
“How do you treat the disease?” Kody asked.
“There are two parts.” Oded gestured at the cot. “This was the second part, where the strength is restored.”
Master of Plagues: A Nicolas Lenoir Novel Page 7