Page 19 of Malady

“I only do as I’m bid, Miss Harrow. He said if you won’t leave t’second jar or three groats in t’vinegar, I’m to take t’willow back.” He hesitates, tugging the scarf higher over his nose. “Says Beswick’s rotten through already, and we ought not be trading wi’ you at all.”

The cold has pierced my gloves, my toes are numb, and after the week I’ve endured, Master Flint choosing this morning to become a wretched arse might finally drive me to murder.

“Oh, did he now? Then perhaps you might remind your master that Beswick was apparently wholesome enough when he wanted my salve rubbed into those sores on his⁠—”

“Well. What is going on here?” a low voice rumbles.

I glance over my shoulder. Iscairn is making his way towards us, his black cloak sweeping through the morning mist, a fine dusting of frost caught across the brim of his hat and shoulders.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

“A woman named Margaret Biscove. Her daughter has a tooth that requires extracting, and the remedies I need are locked inside your shop.” Iscairn reaches the bottom of the hollow and stops beside me, his gaze passing over Roger, the willow, and the waiting basket. “Brother Gideon said you had come this way.”

“And you couldn’t just wait for me at the shop?”

“No.”

I let out a slow breath through my nose and abandon him to his reasons. I have a far more pressing argument waiting thirty paces away.

“Roger?” I prompt. “Where were we?”

His skittish gaze snaps back to mine. “Two jars. Master Flint says t’price has changed.”

“So you keep saying.” I tuck my hands beneath my cloak. “And I keep telling you that unless something miraculous has happened to Master Flint’s willow trees in the last three weeks, one bundle of bark remains worth precisely one jar.”

“And if she refuses?” Iscairn asks.

Roger fidgets, looking as though he’d very much like the Boundary Stone between us to widen by several miles. “I’m to take t’willow back.”

Iscairn looks down at me. “How do you ordinarily deal with a man who doubles the price of medicine during a pestilence?”

“A firm kick to the shin, usually,” I mutter.

A brief huff of amusement escapes Iscairn’s mask before he turns. “Boy, how far does Master Flint live from here?”

Roger’s swallow is audible even from this distance. “Half a mile, mebbe. Near t’mill.”

“Then he is easily reached.” Iscairn takes a single step closer. “Tell him Ophelia Harrow has brought the agreed payment. If those terms are no longer acceptable, I will gladly hear his reasoning from the man himself.”

“You can’t come into Oakhaven!” Roger blurts. “We’re sealed. Nobody crosses t’boundary without leave from parish council, lest pestilence be carried inside.”

“Very well. Then Master Flint may come here tomorrow morning. I will remain on the Beswick side, he may remain on yours, and he can explain his new terms without either of us setting so much as a boot across the boundary. And if he does not wish to come, then I see no reason the agreement already made should not stand.”

By the time I blink it from my lashes, Roger is waving us back. We retreat beyond the marker while he scurries down to the stone, and when we return, he’s already trudging back towards Oakhaven, the willow left in his place and my jar of tallow gone from beside the vinegar hollows.

“Master Flint is going to despise you,” I tell Iscairn, watching Roger disappear around the bend.

“I have survived greater inconveniences.”

I snort beneath my mask and turn back to the Boundary Stone, but Iscairn has already tucked the willow into my basket and lifted it by the handle. Ordinarily, I might object, but the road back to Beswick is frozen, and the thing is bloody cumbersome. So, for once, I keep my mouth shut.

We start back up the sunken lane towards Beswick.

“Have you actually seen it work?” I ask after a while. “Sealing a village, I mean. Or is Oakhaven simply delaying the inevitable?”

“I have seen both,” Iscairn replies, shortening his stride enough to match my uneven pace. “One town in the south barred its gates within a week of the first death and buried no one else. Another waited ten days too long and succeeded only in locking the pestilence inside with them.”

“So which is Oakhaven?”