Page 32 of Malady

“Very well.” He inclines his head and turns away. “Try not to hex anyone into a toad whilst we are parted.”

The yellow door on Butter Lane is already ajar when I arrive, the sour smell of sweat and bile reaching me before I cross the threshold.

Inside the cottage, three unwashed children are tumbling over each other near the foot of the bed, pulling at one another’s sleeves and whining in a tangled, unsupervised heap.

Billy crouches beside the hearth, jabbing a poker into the same miserable patch of embers every two seconds.

“Make yourself useful, Billy,” I tell him, setting my basket on the table. “Hang the kettle to boil, and for God’s sake, separate your children before one of them falls into the fire.”

Without waiting to see if he obeys, I head straight for Nell.

She’s twisted amongst damp sheets, skin pale beneath a sheen of sweat and lips parted around each shallow breath. Her eyes barely open when I sit beside her, and then her whole body tightens with another bout of retching, violent enough to lift her from the mattress despite there being nothing left inside her to bring up.

I feel beneath her jaw first, then beneath her arms and along the crease of her groin, searching for the hard swellings that would turn this from one sick woman into another black cross upon a door. Her skin is hot and clammy beneath my fingers, but there’s nothing that makes my stomach sink any further than it already has.

“It is not pestilence,” Iscairn observes from behind me.

At some point during my examination, one of Billy’s children has apparently decided that Doctor Iscairn belongs to him. The little boy is perhaps three years old, barefoot despite the cold and grubby enough around the mouth that I can only assume breakfast has been smeared there rather than eaten, with both arms wrapped around one of Iscairn’s legs and his cheek pressed contentedly into his coat.

“No,” I agree, turning back to my basket. “Just a stomach turning itself inside out.” I pull out the ginger and yarrow, then nod towards the now-whistling kettle. “Billy, bring that over.”

For once, he does as he’s told without argument, passing it to Iscairn, who pours a little water into the basin with the child still stubbornly attached to his leg. I’ve barely begun crushing the ginger when Nell folds forwards with another empty heave, and Iscairn abandons the kettle to bring the bucket beneath her chin while I catch her by the shoulder.

Nothing comes up but a thin string of bile.

I frown at her. “What did you eat yesterday?”

Nell manages a miserable shake of her head. “Same as Billy. Pottage at noon. Bit o’ bread after.”

“And no one else in the house been sick?”

Another shake.

I sit back on my heels with a huff. There are no swellings, no troubling fever, just a vomiting woman who looks as though she’d happily murder me if I asked one question too many.

“Poppy tincture,” I say, glancing towards Iscairn. “A little, perhaps. What do you think?”

“Would you give opium to a woman with child?”

The question catches me with one hand still buried in my basket, but it’s the sudden silence from the bed that makes me turn. Nell, who has spent the last several minutes groaning through every breath, is now staring determinedly at the sheets, while Billy makes a faint choking sound somewhere behind me.

Oh.

“Nell,” I say slowly. “When did you last have your courses?”

Her eyes shift away from mine.

Oh, for God’s sake.

“Nell.”

“Near two months,” she whispers.

I stare at her, then at the bucket, and finally at Iscairn, who has somehow managed to diagnose a pregnancy whilst wearing a toddler on his leg.

Soon enough, Beswick’s going to have another Billy Mercer.

I’ve barely had time to mourn this development when Nell curls onto her side, one hand clutching at her stomach as the brief relief gives way to another miserable bout of cramping. There’s nothing left for her to bring up, but her body doesn’t care. Within seconds, she’s trembling again, swallowing hard against each empty heave.