Master of Plagues: A Nicolas Lenoir Novel

by E. L. Tettensor

  “The orders are a mistake,” Lenoir said. “The bucket lines have been disbanded. It is too late to fight the fire.”

  “It’s not too late,” another guard said, scowling rebelliously through a patchy beard. They are just boys, Lenoir thought grimly. It did not make his task any easier.

  “If people would just help, instead of running away, we could beat it,” the first guard said.

  “No, we could not.” As if Providence itself had heard him, a distant boom sounded. “Do you hear that?” Lenoir gestured over his shoulder. “That is a controlled explosion. They are demolishing buildings in the market district. Our only hope now is to create firebreaks and let the fire burn itself out.”

  The guards only tightened up in front of the gate mechanism. “We have our orders from the lord mayor himself.”

  Lenoir sighed. God and Durian forgive me. He reached for Reck’s gun.

  “Ho there, guards!”

  A trio of riders appeared on the far side of the portcullis, looking as though they wanted to get in. Distracted, Lenoir let his hand drop, leaning out from his horse to get a better view. Two of them seemed to be private guards of some sort, judging from their livery. As for the third, his face was instantly familiar, for it was forever engraved on Lenoir’s memory.

  The Duke of Warrick wore his customary scowl, the rugged angles of his features only sharpened by the torchlight. “Why is this gate closed?”

  “Your Grace!” The guards bowed awkwardly, not daring to turn their backs on the crowd.

  “Did you not hear my question?” Warrick did not raise his voice, but he did not need to; its flinty edge cut through the noise of the crowd well enough. The guards started to stammer out a reply, but at that moment, the duke noticed Lenoir. “You.” His eyes narrowed sharply. “Lenoir, isn’t it?”

  “I am pleased you remember me, Your Grace.” It was not false humility. Lenoir was pleased, for it meant he had succeeded in rattling the duke’s cage. His Grace needed to know there was at least one man in the Five Villages who knew him for what he was.

  “You are a difficult man to forget, Inspector,” Warrick said with a wry twist of his mouth. “Still, I would not have expected to find you here.”

  “Nor I you, Your Grace.”

  Warrick waved a gloved hand in the direction of the market district. “I came to see the fire. From the castle, it looks as if half the city is aflame.”

  “And so it may be, if they do not make the firebreaks in time.”

  “They are demolishing already?”

  “Already is half too late,” Lenoir said.

  “I see.” Warrick squinted into the distance. “But that does not explain the gates.”

  “No sensible man can explain the gates,” Lenoir said, making no effort to disguise his contempt.

  Warrick arched an eyebrow. “You disapprove, I take it?”

  On any other day, Lenoir would rather cut off his own arm than ask a favor of the Duke of Warrick. But with the city of Kennian burning behind him, and all these people trapped . . . “Your Grace, I beg you, order these gates opened.”

  Warrick regarded him detachedly. “By whose authority are they closed?”

  “It was the lord mayor ordered it, Your Grace,” one of the guards supplied, rather loudly.

  “You would have me override his authority?” Warrick sounded faintly amused. “The Crown stepping on municipal territory . . . That is not lightly done, Inspector.”

  “I do not ask it lightly. Hearstings is a fool.” At this point, Lenoir did not care who heard him. “He thinks closing the gates will earn him extra hands to fight the fire, but all it will do is condemn hundreds of people to death.”

  “Foolish indeed.”

  “A greater oaf has never held office.”

  His Grace let out a low, gravelly laugh. “Men of office are usually fools. You know it well, or I have mistaken you.” He leaned in close to the portcullis. In the torchlight, his eyes seemed to take on a feverish gleam. “It is the fatal flaw of a system such as ours, Inspector. A man like Hearstings need not earn his position; he is born into it. Competence, when it arises, is merely a happy coincidence. But then, you are Arrènais. You hardly need me to tell you how backward this country is.”

  “Arrènes does not want for fools, Your Grace.”

  “Perhaps, but if Hearstings had to rely on the voices of these people”—he gestured at the crowd—“to keep his office, he might reflect on his decisions more carefully.”

  Lenoir snorted. How often had he heard such views expressed, and with what passion, before the revolution? The reality had proven infinitely less praiseworthy.

  Warrick flashed a thin smile. “You think that such a flattering view of democracy cannot possibly come from a member of the aristocracy?”

  “I think such a flattering view of democracy can only come from a man who has never lived in one. But that is a debate for another time, surely.”

  Warrick hardly seemed to hear him. He gazed over Lenoir’s shoulder, into the red haze of the market district. “This city will learn its lesson,” he murmured. “But not tonight. Not like this.”

  “Please, Your Grace,” Lenoir said, “let these people out.”

  Warrick’s gaze settled back on him. He considered Lenoir in silence, his thoughts carefully guarded behind those hard gray eyes. Then he swiveled his horse’s head and withdrew beyond the reach of the torchlight. Lenoir slumped over his horse’s neck, defeated.

  The duke’s voice reached back through the shadows. “Open the gates.”

  For a moment, Lenoir thought he had imagined it, for the guards just stood there, looking at one another. Then one of Warrick’s retinue cried, “You heard His Grace! In the name of the king, open these gates!” The four young men scrambled to obey.

  Lenoir permitted himself a moment just to breathe, inexpressible relief washing over him. Then he drew Reck’s pistol, held it high, and addressed the crowd. “The gates are now being opened. They will remain open throughout the night, and everyone who wishes to pass may do so. You will move in an orderly fashion. Pushing and shoving will not be tolerated. Any person seen to be endangering those around him will be shot dead. Is that not so?” He glanced over his shoulder at the guards.

  “It is!” one of them called back stoutly, and he even brandished his musket for effect. “Keep it civilized, or you’ll wish you had! There’s plenty of time for everyone to get through.”

  For once, Lenoir blessed the mindless obedience of young soldiers.

  “Let’s go!” another of the guards cried. “Move it nice and steady!”

  And miraculously, the crowd did just that, shuffling soberly, quietly, through Castlegate, destined for the suburbs and the fields beyond. By the hundreds they came, then the thousands, as if every artery in the city had opened, lifeblood emptying to the low, erratic heartbeat of distant explosions. All through the night and into the dawn they flowed, then trickled, then seeped. The sun rose over a wounded horizon, gap-toothed against a bloodied sky. And when at last the terrible heartbeat ceased, and the flow stanched, a silence more terrible still settled like ash over the empty streets of Old Kennian Town.

  CHAPTER 24

  Lenoir slid off the back of his horse, his legs shaking beneath him. He had spent half the night astride that animal, and he would be hard-pressed to walk tomorrow. Still, looking at Chief Reck, Lenoir felt he had got the better end of it.

  “Good work at the gates,” the chief said, rubbing bloodshot eyes. His fingers scrubbed a white streak through the film of soot on his skin.

  “I cannot take credit for it.” Lenoir’s gaze roamed over the smoldering rubble of Orlister Plaza. Only hours before, he had been obliged to fire his pistol to clear the crowds from this place. Now it stood an empty ruin, blasted apart to prevent the flames from continuing their voracious progress toward the poor
district. “The Duke of Warrick ordered it open.”

  Reck’s eyebrows rose. “Warrick, eh? Wouldn’t have seen that coming.” The chief smirked. “He must have loved overruling Hearsting’s orders. No great affection between those two.”

  “In fact, I think he was loath to do it, though I’m not sure why.” The duke’s behavior was often enigmatic, but never more so than last night. There had been a moment when it seemed as though Warrick actually wanted those people to remain trapped, just to prove a point.

  “Regardless,” said Reck, “it’s lucky he was there. He came to gawk, I suppose?”

  “More or less.”

  “Hearstings came by too, though he had enough sense not to stay for long. I think he could tell I wasn’t very happy.” Reck gave a brittle smile.

  “So,” Lenoir said, “what now?”

  “Nothing left to do but wait for it to burn itself out.”

  “How much did we lose?”

  “Assuming it finishes off what’s left inside the perimeter, practically everything from the market square to the poor district, from Kingsway east.”

  Lenoir swore.

  “That’s putting it mildly,” said the chief. “Still, it could have been worse. We just barely had enough gunpowder to blast our way around it. If we hadn’t managed, who knows where it would have ended. At the city walls, most likely.”

  Lenoir wondered how many had died. It would be a long time before they had even a vague idea, and they would probably never know exactly. Many of the dead would remain forever anonymous. But Lenoir had more pressing concerns now, like making sure Bran Kody did not join them.

  “Where is Kody?” he asked. “I need to find him straightaway.” He had already made up his mind to tell the chief after Kody had been treated. The last thing he needed right now was to waste precious time being reprimanded for his negligence.

  “He’s leading a search for survivors,” Reck said. He shook his head. “That’ll be an ugly job.”

  Lenoir cursed inwardly. Was the sergeant truly so cavalier with his life? Every hour counted. Every minute. They might already be too late, and Kody was leading a search for those who were already beyond help?

  “An ugly job indeed,” he growled, “and not one he needs to do personally. He has other tasks.”

  For some reason, the remark nettled the chief. “It’s called compassion, Lenoir. Most people consider it a good quality. One of many good qualities he has. He’s a damned fine hound.”

  “I know it,” Lenoir said, taken aback.

  “Do you? Have you considered telling him so once in a while?”

  Lenoir felt himself flush, part anger, part embarrassment. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, Inspector, that you’ve got a talented officer, and a good man, working under you, and if you’re too damned busy penning your own personal tragedy to take notice, I’ll assign him to someone else, someone who’ll appreciate him a little more.”

  You had better do it quickly, because he’s dying of plague.

  The words were on Lenoir’s lips, but he could not bring himself to say them. It did not matter anyway; the chief had already stalked off to speak with one of the firemen, leaving Lenoir alone with a thought too bitter to swallow.

  He gave his head a sharp shake. He had to find Kody. It ought not be too difficult. If the sergeant was leading a search party, they would be moving slowly, systematically. So long as Lenoir followed a logical path, he would come across them soon enough.

  He started off at the market district. What was left of it, at any rate. It was virtually unrecognizable now, a smoldering, gaping wound of ash and rubble. Lenoir moved along the edges, his mind struggling to process the destruction around him. This city is paying something dear, and no mistake. The words of the Whitmarch fireman, and no greater understatement had even been spoken. The plague did not march alone; it brought lieutenants, fire and fear and lawlessness, and together they had cut a wide swathe through the city. Kennian had suffered much, and there was no end in sight.

  The despair that pooled at the bottom of Lenoir’s belly was all too familiar. He had felt it as a youth in Serles, when his beloved city had been ravaged by war and pestilence. He would not have thought himself capable of feeling it again. Not for Kennian, a home he had adopted out of necessity more than choice. But he had lived here for over a decade, and in that time, she had found a home in him, as much as he in her.

  The thought surprised him. Even the idea that he had a home came as something of a revelation. Perhaps he was not so rootless as he let himself believe; perhaps he had attachments, however subtle, that he did not pause to appreciate. It is only in loss that we truly understand what matters to us, he thought. No great epiphany, that, but Lenoir felt the truth of it now more than ever before.

  Inevitably, that turned his thoughts back to Bran Kody.

  He hardly needed the chief to tell him that Kody was a competent hound, a good man. Anyone could see that. Lenoir himself had said so many times—though he could not, admittedly, recall saying so to Kody. An oversight, perhaps, but surely the sergeant knew of his esteem? After all, had he not recommended Kody for promotion? Accepted him as his deputy? Surely that was evidence enough?

  Not for the chief, apparently.

  To be sure, the chief had witnessed more than a few barbed remarks directed Kody’s way. Lenoir was hard on him sometimes, but how else was a young officer to learn? It was his supervisor’s role to guide him, to correct him, and if occasionally Lenoir was less than delicate about it, well . . . no man was perfect.

  He had made mistakes with Kody. More than a few, perhaps. He could admit it, at least to himself. Even so, the idea that the sergeant had a better alternative was laughable. Whatever Lenoir’s personal faults, his fellow inspectors could not possibly compete with him professionally, and that was what counted for Kody. The sergeant had specifically requested to serve under Lenoir, thinking that the best fit for his ambition. He would not thank Reck for assigning him to the Drunk, the Imbecile, or the Lout.

  At least, Lenoir thought not. But how well did he really know Kody? How much had he tried to know him, in spite of spending nearly every waking hour beside him?

  The answer to that, at least, was no revelation.

  Too busy penning your own personal tragedy, Reck had said. There was something in that, perhaps. Lenoir had been so lost in his own head that he had failed to notice when his deputy contracted the plague.

  And you consider yourself the finest inspector in Braeland.

  That, perhaps, was the truly laughable part. Or at least it would have been, had it not very possibly cost Kody his life.

  There is no redemption, the Darkwalker had said.

  Perhaps you should have those words engraved on your tomb, Lenoir.

  “Cure what ails you!”

  The voice shattered Lenoir’s musings as abruptly as a stone hurled into a mirror.

  “Get your miracle tonic here!” The swindler he had seen that morning in the flower district was standing at the corner of Kingsway and Birch, waving his brown medicine bottles proudly. “Supplies limited!”

  The despair in Lenoir’s belly took light, flaming into rage. He stalked toward the man, his hands balling into fists. . . .

  “Two crowns a bottle!”

  Lenoir paused.

  Two crowns?

  In the flower district, the salesman had wanted only half. And did I not see him once before that, near the docks? The salesman had offered it to Kody for a quarter.

  Both times, the man had been shouting at random passersby, trying to drum up sales. Lenoir had not seen a single taker. This time, the salesman was addressing a veritable crowd of potential customers. The streets were near deserted, yet here were at least a dozen well-dressed people gathered around, waiting to shell out a small fortune for a single pint of liquid.
Frowning, Lenoir made his way over.

  “Pardon me,” he said to one of the would-be buyers, a small woman with a mask over her face. She shrank from him, as if he were the plague incarnate. “Don’t worry. I am not sick. I am curious, however, about this tonic. Is it not awfully expensive?”

  “Worth every bit of it!” It was another customer who replied, a man hurrying away with his precious brown bottle tucked under his arm. “Cured my niece in three days. Got some for my sister now. If you can afford it, mate, you should get it while you can. I’d have bought some yesterday, but he was out. . . .” The man hurried away.

  Out? Trade was obviously booming. At two crowns a bottle, he will be rich in days.

  Lenoir’s eyes narrowed.

  Was it possible? He had more than one reason to hope.

  “I will take a bottle,” he called, and he fished in his pocket for his money purse. He had just enough, so long as the salesman was happy to take it in quarters and tenners.

  The salesman did not recognize him, which was just as well. Lenoir was in no mood for smugness. He handed his money over and took his bottle.

  A few blocks later, he came across Kody. He had been right about the sergeant being easy to find, but wrong about why. Kody was easy to find because he was not moving. He perched on the curb at the end of Barrow Street, head between his knees, ash dusting his shoulders like snow collecting on a forgotten gargoyle.

  The sight of him, alone, forlorn, still as a tombstone, was a blow to Lenoir’s stomach.

  He started across the road.

  Kody glanced up. The left side of his face was hideously bruised, presumably from where he had been kicked the day before. His eye had swollen shut, and one corner of his mouth had a grim downward turn. When he saw Lenoir, he raised a hand. “Stay back, Inspector.” He had taken his handkerchief off. He held it in his left hand, balled up. Lenoir could see the blood, stark against the white cloth, from where he stood in the middle of the street.

  “Nosebleed,” Kody said. “I could almost tell myself the bruising was normal, but the nosebleed . . . Guess there’s no doubt now.” He brushed absently at his trousers, leaving streaks of ash the color of granite.