A Dowry of Blood (A Dowry of Blood #1)(10)

I gathered my skirts and opened my mouth to see our guest out, but anger overtook his good sense and his tongue.

“You would not feel the same if you could see what was happening to your people,” the doctor snapped. “Boils that arise mysteriously and then fester and blacken within hours, children vomiting blood while elders lose their noses to gangrene, healthy young men struck dead in a day! Do not think your stone walls will protect you from this plague, sire. You must make preparations.”

You froze, shadowed by one of the stone arches of our home.

“Boils?” you echoed.

“In some cases, yes. Or swellings, rather, on the neck, under the arms, in the groin—”

“Will you come into the study?” you asked suddenly, eyes lit with a strange, urgent fire. The doctor and I exchanged a shocked look at your sudden change of temperament, but you were insistent. “Please. I wish to hear more of this plague.”

“You heard my lord,” I said, ushering our guest into the darkness of the home. He walked without protest, but his mouth was tight. Suspicious. He was too smart for his own good.

We led him into the cramped room where a desk and parchment were stored, virtually abandoned. You knew how to write, more languages than I had ever heard spoken, but we did not have much occasion to communicate with anyone.

“You said you were educated in a monastery?” you asked, retrieving what little wet ink was left. “Write for me then, a list of the symptoms. Start from the outset all the way to death, do not spare me the details.”

The doctor took the quill hesitantly, casting a wary glance my way.

“So I may watch for the signs of disease in my subjects,” you added, smooth as the wax pooling around a guttering candle.

The young doctor nodded firmly, happy to have a task of merit before him. He scrawled out a meticulous list while you loomed at his side, one hand braced against the desk as you read over his shoulder. He seemed so small standing next to you. I was struck once again by the knowledge that he was little more than a boy with a little medical schooling under his belt and the world weighing him down.

“The symptoms don’t always progress in the same way, but they set in quickly. Sometimes the rubbing of a cut onion on the sores discourages festering, and I’ve seen success with a potion of Four Thieves Vinegar as well. But there is no perfect cure, sire, and many die before treatment can be administered.”

“Interesting,” you muttered, plucking up the paper. I could hear in your voice that you had no interest in the cure, only in the disease. The doctor watched, baffled as you took in every detail, running your fingernail down the page as you noted them. I drifted closer, sensing a subtle shift in your mood.

A tide had turned. You had come to some sort of conclusion.

“Who in the village knows that you’re here?” you asked, not glancing up from the paper.

“No one, sire,” the doctor said, and my stomach muscles clenched. An honest boy, then. A fool. “I came alone, of my own accord.”

“Good,” you said, setting down the paper and smiling at him. “Good.”

You were on him before he had time to scream, ensnaring a handful of his hair and wrenching his head back to expose his throat. Teeth tore through flesh like a needle through silk, and you held him fast while you drank deep of him, ignoring his wheezing and gurgling. A torn trachea, then, fast-filling with fluid. His mask dropped to the floor, spilling flowers at your feet. Blood trickled down his neck onto the blooms, and my mouth watered at the tangy scent of iron.

I was well-acquainted with violence by then, but my stomach lurched all the same. I thought you would let him live. Or maybe I hoped for it.

You shoved his jerking body away onto the desk, cleaning your mouth with a lace-trimmed handkerchief while he gasped like a fish wriggling on the hook.

“Drink, Constanta. You’ll need your strength.”

I stood with my fingers white-knuckled into the skirt of my dress, watching the boy bleed out slowly. His suffering was an enticement, but as much as I wanted to lap at the pool of blood growing on the desk, there was a question burning inside me that took precedent.

“He’s their only doctor,” I managed, stomach growling. “Without him, the people will succumb to the plague. Why must we kill him?”

“Because he’s too clever to live, and too troublesome. The moment the villagers hear that he went to plead their case to the heartless aristocrat, the moment they all start to die and no help comes from the hills, they will turn on us. They’ll raid this manor even plague-addled and half-dead, if they think draining my coffers will save them. I’ve seen it before.”

The doctor clapped a shaking hand over the hole torn in his neck, blood trickling through his fingers. He cast pleading eyes to me, his mouth forming soundless words.

“There’s life in him yet,” I said. “He may still live.”

“Not after what he’s seen here. Finish him, if you want to eat tonight. There’ll be no time to stop to feed on the road.”

“On the road?” I echoed, almost a yelp. The room started to spin, faster and faster. I was so hungry, all of a sudden.

“We’re leaving,” you announced, already out the door and striding up the stairs. “Tonight.”

I choked back the tears and hunger rising in my throat. Then, my resolve broke. I made a small, miserable sound and hurled myself onto the still-breathing body of the doctor. I latched my mouth around his reddened wound and held fast as he convulsed and thrashed beneath me. Hot blood flooded my mouth in smaller and smaller spurts until finally, he lay dead across the table.