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“Come on up!”
Heavy footsteps pound up towards the landing, accompanied by a woman’s breathless sobbing, and a moment later the door bursts open, striking the wall with an almighty crash.
“Please!” she cries, stumbling into the room with a little girl clutched against her chest. “Please, I need a physician! My daughter’s poorly, she’s—oh, God, somebody please help her!”
I hurry towards her and catch her by the elbow before she can stumble over the threshold. She is red-faced and sweating, both arms locked around a girl far too old to be carried like a babe, her legs hanging limp against her skirts and one little boot knocking her knee as she tries to keep hold of her. Then her head rolls away from her shoulder, and I see her face.
Her lips are blue.
“Here,” Iscairn says, slipping his arms beneath the child before I can even call for him. “Let me take her.”
The girl can’t be more than seven, her fair hair plastered damply to her sweating forehead. Her mouth hangs open around each thin, rasping breath, and as Iscairn lifts her from her mother’s arms, I hurry to the examination table, clear the basin aside, and pull a fresh length of linen over the mattress in time for him to lay the child down.
“I’m sorry,” her mother sobs, wringing her hands so tightly her knuckles have gone white. “I tried St Leonard’s first, I did, but there were folk waiting everywhere and the sisters said they couldn’t see her yet. I couldn’t just stand there while she got worse, so I asked around, and somebody told me there was a physician here.”
“Well, you’ve found him,” I say, taking the girl’s wrist between my fingers. “You did right bringing her. Now, tell me what's happened to her.”
“She was fine this morning,” she sobs, clutching at my sleeve. “She was playing with her brothers, then came running inside saying she couldn't breathe. I thought she'd swallowed something, but she hadn't eaten anything, and then she just—”
Her voice breaks as another rasp escapes her daughter’s throat.
“All right, love, we'll get her seen to.” I guide her towards a stool beside the table, where she sits reluctantly, her eyes never leaving the girl. “What's her name?”
“Avis,” she manages, watching her little chest struggle beneath Iscairn's hands. “Please, miss, I can't lose her.”
Beside me, Iscairn goes very still. It lasts no longer than a breath; his hands stay motionless against the girl’s ribs, then he moves again, reaching for the candle as though nothing happened. I frown at him, but there’s no time to ask.
“We'll do everything we can,” I say, then join Iscairn at the table. “Hello, Avis,” I murmur, brushing the damp hair from her forehead. “I'm Ophelia, and this great ugly fellow beside me is Doctor Iscairn. Do you think you could open that mouth nice and wide for us?”
She looks between us with frightened eyes before drawing a great, rasping breath and doing as I've asked. I gently press her tongue down with a wooden spatula while Iscairn brings the candle closer, illuminating the angry redness at the back of her throat. There's an awful lot of spittle gathering in her mouth, but nothing I can see that ought to be stopping her from breathing, and I'm about to ask her mother another question when she suddenly twists away, coughing and struggling to sit upright.
“Easy, sweetheart, we're only trying to—”
“Papa!” she croaks, reaching for her mother as another wheeze catches in her throat. “Want Papa!”
“Where’s her papa?” I ask as I smooth the girl’s hair back.
“At the tannery, miss. Down by the river. I didn't think to fetch him, I just—”
“Never mind that, you've done quite right bringing her here. We'll send somebody for her father as soon as we can.” I turn back to Avis, who's still clinging to her mother's sleeve, and pat her little knee. “Now, I know you want your papa, sweetheart, but we need you to try and keep calm while we find out what's wrong. Can you manage that for me?”
Tears stream down Avis’s face as she nods miserably, and I cross to the cabinet and fetch the leather roll of tools from the drawer, setting it beside the candle before I loosen the ties. The metal gives a soft clink as I open it out over the wood. Forceps, probe, little hook, blade. Nothing terrible, not if a person knows what they are for, but Avis does not know what they are for. Avis is tiny, and lying on a table with her boots knocking against the edge, her lips still tinged blue, her breath scraping in and out of her as though every mouthful of air has to be dragged through broken reeds.
“No,” she rasps, trying to push herself backwards on the table. “No, no, no.”
I pick up a clean cloth and move the blade a little farther from her sight. “We only need to see what’s making that awful noise in your throat. That’s all.”
But her gaze stays fixed on the pale beak and the amber lenses as Iscairn steps towards the head of the table, and when one gloved hand lifts towards her jaw, she twists away so suddenly that the linen bunches beneath her and the candle flame shivers.
“Papa!” she wheezes. “Want Papa! Mam, I want Papa!”
Her mother catches her hand, pleading with her to lie still, but Avis only struggles harder, her heels kicking against the table as she sobs and fights for breath. Spittle gathers at the corner of her mouth, and when she twists towards her mother, I have to catch her before she pitches over the edge. I press my forearm across her knees, bracing her against the timber with my hip. How a child who can barely breathe still possesses the strength to kick like an unbroken colt is beyond me.
“Iscairn.” I keep her steady as I look around for him. “Iscairn, I need you here.”
Wordlessly, he lowers his hand, staring at his leather gloves like he’s never seen them before. His fingers flex once. Then again.
What on earth is the matter with him? I’ve watched this man saw through Luke Callow’s arm without so much as a tremor in his hands.
