As she checked the lid for damage she felt the hairs bristle at the base of her neck.
The lid had acquired the exact, straight-edged dent that she first noticed back in Esther Harris’s house, in her own time, when she and Flora had found the collection of pots.
There was something deeply unsettling, something powerful about the thought that it was she herself who had caused this characteristic mark on the pot. That centuries from the moment when she stood in Mistress Flyte’s chocolate house and dropped that lid, she would find the pot again, without knowing that it was she who had been responsible for its scar.
“Why do you stand and stare?” The panic in Edmund’s voice was giving it a rasp. “For pity’s sake, make haste! There is a merchant by the window who threatened to get me by the neck if I did not return at once with his fresh pot of chocolate, with the brandy added this time. And his companion emitted a fearsome growl. My mistress would not permit growling!”
“All in hand, Edmund,” Xanthe assured him, sounding more confident than she felt. She quickly pulled herself together and put another pot of aromatic chocolate on a tray. “Here, have this one. Tell him it’s on the house.”
“What’s that you say?”
“No charge! Now go on.”
Although Xanthe made a point of running upstairs to check on Mistress Flyte throughout the day, she worried about leaving her, and was glad when the threat of snow prompted the customers to head for their homes. At last she was able to lock up, send Edmund to his bed, and take some bread soaked in hot milk up to her patient. She set the tray down on the small bedside table and lit more candles. It was hard enough changing dressings without trying to do it in the half dark. As she lifted Mistress Flyte’s bandaged hand the old woman moaned softly and stirred from her slumber. Xanthe could tell she was in great pain and decided to try the painkillers she had brought with her. She quickly fetched them from her bag in her attic bedroom. The pills were chalky and easy to crush. She powdered them into the milk-soaked bread, hoping the taste would not be unbearably bitter.
“Here, let’s sit you up.” She plumped the pillows and gently moved her patient into a more upright position. She was as careful as she could be, but still Mistress Flyte moaned as she was moved.
“Forgive me,” Xanthe murmured, trying to push away memories of nursing her own mother through acute bouts of her arthritis. “Please, try some of this. It will ease your pain.” She lifted a spoon to the old woman’s mouth and slowly succeeded in feeding her the drug-laced pudding. By the time she had finished, her employer was exhausted but suffering less.
“That is a truly miraculous concoction,” she said. “I insist you give me the recipe.”
“Oh, we minstrels have to look after ourselves on the road. We learn a trick or two,” she said casually.
The old woman fought to focus on Xanthe’s face, studying her in the way she had done when Xanthe first arrived at the chocolate house. Once again, she felt Mistress Flyte saw something in her; something she recognized.
“You must not fret about Samuel,” she told Xanthe. “There is still work to be done at the abbey. He is safe as long as he is of use.”
“And after that?”
“Then we will see what things you can bring about. Then we will see your true colors, singer of songs.” She closed her eyes again and mumbled, her words too quiet and jumbled for Xanthe to make out.
“What is it, mistress?” She put a hand on her patient’s forehead and was horrified to find it hot and damp. Fever. Xanthe doubted the old woman’s beaten body could withstand an infection, but it seemed she was now in the grip of one. It seemed so sudden, but then the time of her attack could have been soon after everyone had retired for the evening. Hours spent bleeding and battered in the cold would have weakened her defenses and could well have hastened the collapse of her immune system.
“He will know you!” Mistress Flyte shouted suddenly, becoming agitated. “That rotten creature will know what you are, if he does not already. Beware, child!”
“Hush now, don’t distress yourself. You must save your strength.”
“You understand not the nature of what you face. Of the ruthlessness … the wickedness…”
“Mistress, please. Be at peace. I will not leave you while you need me. All else can wait.”
Xanthe fetched fresh water and bathed the old woman’s face and arms, remembering it was what Flora had done for her as a child when she had caught scarlet fever. The painkillers would help keep her patient’s temperature down a little, but this was no virus, Xanthe was certain of that. It was more likely bone fever, brought on by the fractures, or possibly an infection in one of the wounds caused by laying in a dirty gutter for hours. If only she and Edmund had noticed their mistress was missing before going to bed. Xanthe sighed. It was no use torturing herself with what-ifs. She was doing everything she could think of, but she had to admit to herself that it was not enough. She went to the stairs and called up to Edmund, whose room was on the opposite side to her own. He quickly appeared at the top of the wooden steps, bleary eyed and anxious.
“What is it? Is our mistress worse?”
“You should fetch the doctor,” Xanthe told him. “Do you know where to go?”
He nodded. “Doctor Philips lives on High Terrace.”
“Will he come?”
“He will if he is paid.”
“We will use the takings from today’s business. Hurry now and tell him no more than that she is very unwell.”
“He will discover what has happened. When he sees her…”
“Yes, well, leave that to me. The fewer people who know the truth the better, do you understand?”
He nodded again, dived back into his room to grab his jacket and boots and then hurried from the little house. Xanthe heard him slam the door hard as he left. In truth, she had no idea how she was going to explain Mistress Flyte’s injuries. What she did know was that justice was not their main priority. The old woman had talked about enemies, and about how people like Samuel could be arrested merely for meeting at her establishment. If someone wanted her dead, it would be unwise to draw the authorities’ attention to the fact. Xanthe did not know who she could trust. All she could hope to do was save Mistress Flyte’s life. She must have powerful friends too. If she recovered surely she could call on them for protection, and then, with her help, Xanthe could go to Laybrook in search of Samuel.… If she recovered.
The doctor arrived twenty minutes later. He had the look of a man quickly risen from his bed and was not best pleased about it. He set his leather bag down on the table, put on a pair of thick spectacles, and peered at the restless old woman.
“How long has your mistress been so?” he asked Xanthe, Edmund having been sent to fetch more wood for the bedchamber fire.
“Less than an hour,” she told him.
He gave her a look that said a little more information would have been helpful. When Xanthe did not elaborate he examined Mistress Flyte’s unbandaged hand, scarcely glancing at her splinted one. He waved a dismissive hand at the dressings on her head.
“And beneath these … coverings, lies what, precisely?”
“A head wound, sir. Deep but not so much as to break the bone, I believe.”
“Oh? And are you a physician?”
“A minstrel, sir.”
“And your talents extend beyond singing to the skills of an apothecary perhaps?” he asked, looking again at the dressings and signs of nursing.
“When traveling, one must learn what one can,” she said, wishing he would simply apply himself to helping his patient instead of questioning her.
He took an alarming-looking blade from his bag and set about cutting the bandage from Mistress Flyte’s head. Xanthe had to stop herself from telling him to at least wash the knife first. He exposed the wound and squinted at it through his glasses.
“Hmm, there are signs of putrefaction.”
“Really? I mean to say, I saw none when I cleaned the
wound.”
“That is because you do not know what it is you see. It would have been better had you called me when your mistress first … fell ill,” he told her, his voice making it plain he knew what had happened but would rather not acknowledge it. To do so would be to involve himself in a dispute he would evidently prefer to steer clear of.
Mistress Flyte began muttering once more, her hands clawing at the bedclothes.
“The fever must be brought forth if she is to survive it,” the doctor said, shaking his head slowly. “A woman of this age … such an injury … a favorable outcome is by no means guaranteed, you understand? I will not be held responsible.” He puffed out his chest, waiting for assurance that no blame would be laid at his feet were his patient to die.
“We would be grateful for any advice, any assistance you could give, sir,” was the best Xanthe could muster. She felt no confidence in the man or his methods. “What course of treatment would you recommend?” she asked.
“She must be bled, and swaddled, in order to bring out the poison and draw the fever from her. It will place a burden upon her, being so old, but there is no other way,” he said, taking a selection of blades from his bag. “Send the boy for a letting bowl. And the fire must be stoked further. Bring me blankets. She must be wrapped tight, the warmer the better, to induce the sweats.”
What he proposed went against everything Xanthe knew about nursing someone with a high temperature. She recalled Flora telling her how when she was eight years old and delirious from scarlet fever she and her father had carried her out to stand in the cool air, sponging her down, spooning in anti-inflammatory drugs and analgesics in a desperate attempt to lower her temperature. To attempt to raise it seemed the height of madness. And the blood-letting, when Mistress Flyte had already lost blood from her injuries, and given the risk of further infection, was just stupid. But, Xanthe reminded herself, it was the medicine of the day. It was what people believed to be sound medical practice. The physician truly thought that he would be helping his patient. After all, he would be paid better, and his reputation enhanced, if she lived.
Xanthe faced a choice. Say nothing and watch him possibly make Mistress Flyte worse, or speak up and risk making an enemy of a local doctor, who could easily tell the wrong people of what he believed had happened, suggesting that the keeper of the chocolate house had brought violence upon herself by supporting rebels and recusants. What would happen then?
There was a great deal of bustling about as Edmund and Xanthe did as they were asked. As the doctor set about swaddling his patient Xanthe felt increasingly uneasy. She had called him because she feared Mistress Flyte needed more by way of medical attention than she herself could give, but her modern knowledge meant that she knew, in her heart, that this man could only make her condition worse. When he picked up a grubby-looking scalpel and was about to apply it to Mistress Flyte’s arm to let blood, she could no longer stay silent.
“Don’t,” she said, stepping forward.
He looked up at her, knife poised. “If you are of a squeamish disposition I suggest you quit the room.”
“It’s not that. I … I do not believe this is what the mistress would want.”
“She would presumably wish to be treated.”
“She cares greatly about her skin. It is very fine, don’t you see? She is a woman of some refinement. To put further scars upon her when she has suffered so much…” Even to Xanthe’s own ears it sounded a weak argument.
“I was called here to act in my professional capacity,” the doctor told her crossly. “It is my intention to carry out what procedures I deem suitable for my patient. Now, if you will kindly let me proceed, I will do my best for your mistress, and we may all return to our beds.”
He leaned over and applied the tip of his knife to Mistress Flyte’s pale flesh and Xanthe could bear it no longer. She jumped forward, grabbing the doctor’s hand, preventing him from cutting any further.
“Stop!” she told him.
“What is this?”
“I’m sorry you were dragged from your home at such an hour, but I’ve decided we don’t want her to have this treatment.”
“You have decided…? You understand you may be condemning your mistress to the grave?”
“I take full responsibility.”
The doctor seemed to be about to protest further but then, with a sigh of exasperation, tossed the scalpel back into his bag, snapping shut the clasp. “Do not think to send the boy running for me again an hour from now when the consequences of your actions become clear, for I will not come, do you hear me? I leave the poor woman in your care, and may God help you both, for I cannot if I am not permitted to do my work.” He stood stony faced. “I remain, I believe, in want of my fee?”
Xanthe could see there was little point in arguing with him. To do so would only delay his leaving, and now that she had decided he was making things worse she could not wait to get him from the room. She sent Edmund to the door with him, telling him to pay him from the takings and then go back to bed. The minute he had gone she set about removing all the extra blankets from the bed. She threw open the window, gasping as the cold night air blew in. She fetched more lukewarm water and bathed Mistress Flyte’s face and neck. The old woman was mumbling, her head moving from side to side on the damp pillow, pulling at the bandages on her head.
“Hush now,” Xanthe tried to soothe her, recalling how many times she had helped her mother through pain in the slow watches of the night.
“He will be waiting for you!” the old woman cried out. “He knows what you are. There is great danger.… It is not safe for you to go there.…”
“Fairfax? You mean Benedict Fairfax? I know, you’ve told me he is the king’s spy. Don’t worry. I will be careful.”
“You do not understand … Oh!” She gasped as her agitated movements caused her broken hand more pain.
“Please, Mistress Flyte, do not concern yourself.”
The old woman struggled to form her words, looking closely at Xanthe, using all her strength to make her point.
“Child, I know what you are,” she insisted. “I know that you have traveled far more than a few dusty miles upon the highroad. The copper pot … it called you. You heard its song, did you not?”
Xanthe’s heart skipped a beat. “I … Mistress, you are unwell.…”
Mistress Flyte grabbed Xanthe’s sleeve.
“Know this,” she gasped, her voice rasping, “Fairfax will have heard it too. For you are, both of you, spinners of time!”
6
Xanthe did not know which was more shocking: that Mistress Flyte knew how Xanthe had come to be there and why she had come, or that this Fairfax, who by her account was a dangerous man, was also able to move through time. It was so much to take in, and yet she had so little information. She desperately wanted to ask questions, to know details, to understand how Fairfax knowing what she was might affect her. Might affect Samuel. But the old woman had slipped into a feverish state of semiconsciousness. Xanthe was unable to wake her even sufficiently to spoon down some more painkiller in the hope it might reduce her dangerously high fever. All she could do was watch and wait. And if the old woman died, what then? She would have to make her way to Laybrook and to Samuel without her help, but that was the least of it, somehow. There were surely many things Mistress Flyte could tell her about how the chocolate pot had called to her, and why. About why she, Xanthe, had been given this frightening gift. About what it was she was supposed to do to help Samuel.
As the evening wore into night Xanthe feared the old woman was fighting a losing battle. A rash had spread across her neck and face, and she seemed to have dropped into a deeper state of unconsciousness. Xanthe feared that what she was watching was the swift and deadly onset of sepsis. She had never felt so helpless. The old woman had been prepared to put herself at risk to help Xanthe. She had already protected her from Fairfax, and she understood about the way the chocolate pot had called to her through the centuries.
“Don’t leave me now that I’ve found you,” Xanthe whispered to her. She tried to decide what treatment would have been given to her patient in her own time. Fluids, certainly, and analgesics, both of which she had given as best she could. Above all what Mistress Flyte needed, though, were antibiotics. If there was an infection, being so old and frail and weakened from the beating, and if what had hold of her really was sepsis, nothing else would save her now. If she had been at home, Xanthe realized, even without assistance, she could probably have saved her simply by giving her strong antibiotics. The further irony was that Flora, because of her compromised health, always kept a stock of antibiotic capsules at home. She could go back and get them, but there were so many difficulties and risks attached to trying to do so. What if her mother saw her return to the house? How would she explain being there, or come up with a convincing reason for leaving again? And how long would it take her? Mistress Flyte could easily die in the time it took her, especially as Xanthe knew now that the ratio of one century’s progression through time to another’s was not fixed. Even if she spent only a few hours at home, weeks or months might elapse in the past. And where did that leave Samuel? He might be out of the lockup, but the chocolate pot would not have triggered Xanthe’s gift, would not have insisted she travel back to his time, unless he was in very real danger. After all, Mistress Flyte had explained that once he had finished his work on Fairfax’s house, once Samuel had served his purpose, he was expendable.
“How does my mistress fare?” Edmund peered around the door, his face showing a lack of sleep and a deep anxiety. He had reason to be worried, for Mistress Flyte was obviously not only his employer but the provider of his home and his place of safety. It was quite possible she was the nearest thing to family the boy possessed.
“She is sleeping,” Xanthe told him.
“Ah, that is good. She must rest to become well again.”
“Edmund, I have to warn you, Mistress Flyte is still gravely ill.”
Secrets of the Chocolate House Page 9