Dr. Matthias Corvus's Arc

Chapter 8 of 8

Matthias slipped out the ward's back door with Silas's note folded in his glove. The shop sat across town. His name was on every guard's tongue. The straight road would end in irons before he heard the poisoner named. He cut through an alley and stopped. Two guards stood at the mouth of the next street, checking faces. He backed against the wall. His mask alone would mark him. Every plague doctor in Willowmaw was being stopped now, and only one was wanted. He looked up. A striped awning hung two doors down. Warm bread smell rolled from a propped side window. A bakery. Mercy had said once she traded honey loaves there before her shifts. He remembered her line about the smell. If they smell honey they think nurse, not doctor. He slid along the wall and ducked through the side window into a back room. A woman looked up from a wooden table dusted with flour. Mercy. Sleeves rolled, hands deep in dough. She did not startle. She had never startled at him yet. "You should not be here," she said. "I know." "They came to the ward again. Asked which way you ran." She wiped her hands. "I said the north gate." "Thank you." She looked at his mask, his coat, the black gloves. "You will not cross three streets in that." She pulled an apron from a hook and pushed it at him. Then a flat basket. She dropped two loaves in, a wax paper of buns, and a bundle of lavender from the sill. She tucked the lavender on top where anyone could see it. "Mask off. Carry the basket high. Lavender by your chin. Guards smell that before they see a face." "If they stop me." "They stop the boy in the plague coat. Not the boy with bread." He unhooked the mask and put it in the basket under the loaves. The apron hid his coat to the knees. His hands still shook from the ward. He steadied them on the basket handle. "Silas said back lane," he said. "Then go by the canal. Two guards at the bridge. They know my basket. Nod and pass." He went. The canal path was narrow and wet. At the bridge one guard glanced at the lavender and turned back to his talk. The other did not lift his eyes. Matthias walked past close enough to hear the buckle on the man's belt creak. He reached Silas's back lane and knocked once, twice, once. The door opened on its chain. Silas's voice came through, dry and short. "You are late. Inside." Matthias stepped in. Silas shut the door and slid the bolt. "The name," Matthias said. "The house physician at Hearthvale Manor," Silas said. "He signed every death as plague. He mixed every cup." Matthias set the basket down. The lavender tipped against the loaves. "Then I know where to go."