Page 40 of Malady

His mask tilts a fraction. “I merely waited for you to finish inspecting your own aroma.”

“I was not—” I bite off the end of the sentence, my face burning fiercely enough to melt the window frost. “You have no right to enter my chamber while I sleep, and you will absolutely not lurk in my shop!”

“You possess a remarkable number of rules, Ophelia Harrow.”

“I most certainly do,” I snap, kicking the tin of sage under the counter. “And one of them includes not being sneaked up on by a man who refuses to take off his mask. Do you have any idea how irritating you are?”

“I do believe a woman once told me I can be exacting.”

“You are a plague upon my sanity.”

“Given the current state of the country, I would suggest reserving that word for the actual pestilence.” He steps out of the shadows, ducking a bundle of drying lavender. “Gather your things. I require your assistance.”

I snatch my cloak from its peg, grab my already-packed basket, and pull my linen mask over my face, tying it tight.

“Fine,” I say, marching past him and throwing the door open. “But if you mention my bedchamber or my flatulence to a single living soul in this village, I will tell every patient in Beswick you treat worms by inspecting the arsehole personally.”

I step outside with Iscairn behind me, straight into the bitter morning. Cold works beneath my cloak, wet earth sucking at my boots while pitch and burning juniper hang thick in the air, and from somewhere towards the square comes the steady crack of leather against flesh from those damn flagellants.

I wonder how much longer they intend to continue. So far, at least, none of them has staggered into my shop expecting me to mend whatever holiness has peeled from their backs.

“So,” I say, my voice muffled beneath my mask. “Since you’ve dragged me out into the frost, you might at least tell me whose door we’re knocking on. If I’m about to spend the next hour listening to somebody describe the state of their bowels, I should like a little…”

My voice trails off as we round the corner, and I groan.

A handful of villagers have gathered in the lane, with Mabel Barnes planted firmly in the middle of them.

Poor Boris Penhaligon stands before her, stripped to the waist despite the frost, his teeth chattering while gooseflesh rises across his blue-tinged skin. Mabel takes hold of his wrist and lifts his arm, exposing—Christ’s teeth—an angry, swollen bubo beneath it.

Then she presses something against the swelling, and I squint to get a better look.

Is that… a pigeon?

“People of Beswick!” she bellows. “I’ve got it! I’ve found a cure! A proper cure. None o’ them herbs and vinegars neither. This is holy. Worked for my cousin’s husband, and tha can ask him thyself if tha don’t believe me.”

The bird’s wings beat furiously, but she only tightens her grip and gives the poor creature another determined shove when Boris tries to shrink away from her.

“Hold still,” she snaps. “It can’t draw t’sickness out if tha keeps wriggling.”

“Ophelia Harrow,” Iscairn says, “please inform the woman that a pigeon’s rectum possesses no medicinal properties, and that the bird is quite clearly in distress.”

Before I can answer, Mabel spots me and waves. “Ophelia! Tha’s come just in time. Look at this.”

I am looking. Boris clearly has the pestilence, and Mabel is grinding the filthy backside of a struggling pigeon directly against it while half the lane crowds close enough to breathe over his shoulder.

I push forward. “Back. All of you. Give him room.”

The villagers shuffle away reluctantly, muttering amongst themselves, but Mabel stays where she is.

“Tha needn’t take that tone wi’ me, Ophelia Harrow,” she shouts. “I’m doing folk a service wi’ this. It draws t’corruption out! Bishop over in Clitheroe swore by it!”

“If the bishop of Clitheroe survived pressing an unwashed pigeon’s arse to a suppurating wound,” Iscairn says calmly from behind me, “I suspect God had very little to do with it.”

Mabel twists towards him. “Who asked thee, then, tha great beak-faced crow?”

The ache behind my temples blooms. “Mabel. Take the bird off him.”

“I’m only trying to help!” she cries. “I’ve six more. Six! One for every poor soul down t’lane.”