Page 16
My eyes widen. “You found a pasty? But the baker is dead, so unless you spent your morning learning necromancy, I fail to see how—”
He lifts the parcel ever so slightly, and the smell of cooked mutton wafts from it, making my mouth water. I strip off my filthy gloves, wipe my palms down the front of my apron and take it from him. Inside sits a crusty heel of bread, hollowed out and packed tightly with steaming chunks of mutton.
My brow furrows. “This is not a pasty. This is bread… with meat pushed inside it.”
“You stipulated it must be carried in one hand and eaten without a plate,” he says evenly. “This fulfils both requirements. The gravy would not travel.”
“Where did you get it?”
“From a man.”
“Which man?”
“One who had it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and breathe slowly through my nose. I’d very much like to know which unfortunate soul has contributed to Doctor Iscairn’s first attempt at a pasty, but my stomach chooses that moment to growl loudly, even if it is doing so over fraudulent goods.
“Right.” I scramble over to the wall and drop onto the cold stone. “Sit down. We shall share it.”
“I have already eaten,” Iscairn says as he lowers himself beside me, folding those absurdly long legs as best he can while his cloak bunches around his boots. “But thank you.”
I pause, my eyes narrowing at the mask. He ate. Which means he took the wretched thing off somewhere, and I missed it.
No matter. There’s mutton in my hands.
I take a bite and nearly groan. No crisp pastry scatters over my skirts, no gravy runs down my wrist, no glorious quantity of lard melts across my tongue. But the bread is thick, the meat is hot, and it is good.
“Thanks,” I manage around the mouthful.
“You are welcome, Ophelia Harrow.”
I’m still chewing when wooden wheels rattle beyond the garden wall. My hand lowers, bread forgotten for the moment, as the death cart bumps into view at the far end of the lane. Robert walks beside the mule with one hand on the bridle, while Gideon follows behind with his prayer book open beneath his nose, lips moving quietly as they make their way towards us.
I almost spit the bread out the moment I see the canvas.
Who now?
I glance towards Iscairn, then set what remains of the food on the wall and reach for the rosemary beside the gate. By the time the cart draws level with us, I have a small handful crushed between my fingers.
“Who is it?” I ask, leaning over the stonework to scatter it across the canvas.
“I was coming to tell you,” Iscairn says, rising from the wall. “David Fletcher died before dawn.”
“David?” I turn too quickly and strike my hip against the stone. “But we only lanced the swellings yesterday. He was ill, but not so far gone. They linger for days. They worsen, they—Alice. No. What of Alice?”
“A swelling appeared beneath her left arm. I told her I would fetch you so that we might examine it properly.”
My stomach knots as I look down at the ridiculous little almost-pasty on the wall. Alice Fletcher has spent the morning alone beside her husband’s body with a swelling growing beneath her arm, while I’ve been sitting on a garden wall and stuffing my face.
“Beg pardon, Miss Ophelia,” Robert murmurs, already gathering the reins. “Best get him to the pit soon as.”
He clicks softly to the mule and the cart starts on again, Gideon falling in behind as he picks up his prayer where he left it, and I watch until they disappear beyond the cottages.
“I need my things,” I mutter to Iscairn, already turning for the shop. “I’ll be two minutes.”
“Alice, stop fighting me,” I grit out, just as she twists away and strikes the wall with a hefty thump, rattling the pewter plate above the hearth.
“I watched him die there,” she pants, pushing the damp ropes of hair back from her sweating face. “I held him while he coughed blood over the sheets, and now you expect me to lie in the same place and wait for it to happen to me?”
