Plague by C.C. Humphreys

friend and once, on the eve of a battle they were sure would kill them both, as a lover. Lying in a ditch, shivering under one blanket, the youths had sought warmth in each other’s bodies, life in the face of death. He had never, not for a moment, regretted the encounter. Indeed, sometimes he felt it was the only meaningful one he’d had in his life.
    One of them had been right about death. On Lansdown field, a little after dawn, case shot had scoured every feature from Quentin’s face. But Lucy’s eyes, the Absolute eyes, blue-black as night, acted for him as a key to a casement; once he looked into them, memory opened and her brother’s face was clear before him, and the youth alive again in her. He had sworn to Quentin as he lay dying that he would look after his infant sister. Coke had kept his vow over the years, had tried to be brother and protector.
    But this? “Lucy, I came to take my leave
of
you. Not to undertake a quest
for
you.”
    “Pish, William. It is hardly a quest. I ask only that you see this letter delivered into his hand.”
    “These days, the Earl of Rochester’s hand is rarely far from the king’s. For many reasons it is best I do not go so directly into the public gaze.”
    Those eyes, so familiar, brimmed. “You know I would not ask it if my need were not great.”
    And what of my need? he thought. I have thirty guineas on my head. How can I do this? For what? A mooncalf passion?
    Then her tears overflowed—and suddenly he understood that this was not mere May Day foolishness. “Lucy, you are with child.”
    She did not confirm his statement in words. Simply lowered her eyes and wept.
    “By Chroist!” he said, anger bringing Somerset into his voice. “By Chroist, I
will
see this earl. And I will drag him back by his ear and hold him by it until he does the right thing by you.”
    Anger drove him to the door, boots stamping, sword sheath slapping against his legs. But Lucy was quicker to the door and placed herself before it. “I entreat you, no! You must not tell my John this news.”
    “Tell him? I’ll beat it into ’e, the puppy.”
    “William. Listen to me. Nay, listen, you ox!”
    She slapped his chest and he was so startled he gave back a pace. There was fire, not tears in her eyes now, her accent moving west also, even farther so, to her Cornish roots. “If you go crashing in there like an outraged brother, you’ll spoil everything, you downser. Everything!” She shoved him but then continued more restrainedly, “He loves me—I know he do. But does he love me enough for …?” She gestured to her belly. “That I do not know. And will not, unless
I
am the one to tell him.”
    “Lucy!”
    “Nay, do not say it. Sarah Chalker has cautioned me enough: ‘He is an earl. He will not, cannot, marry you.’ That may be.” She sniffed. “But if he loves me, truly loves me, then perhaps he will do right by me. Me and the baby.” She wiped her tears away. “Yet I will only be certain of his love, or his lack of it, if I am the one to tell him first—for only then will I see the answer in his eyes.” She held out her letter. “This merely beseeches him to come. Will you riska little to put it into his hand? And vow—vow, I say!—that when you do, you will hint at nothing more?”
    He looked down at her, at her brother through her. He had made him a promise. If he fled abroad, as he almost certainly must, this might be the last time he could honour that promise, for a time at least. He sighed and accepted the letter. “Content ye, lass. I will.”
    “Oh, Will!” She stood on tiptoe, grabbed him by the ears and kissed him full on the lips. “Now, if only you was twenty years younger. Heigh ho for a heart, eh?” Laughing, she twirled away.
    He waved the letter at her. “There is still the matter of how I deliver this. If he is with the king, where is His Majesty?” He ran thumb and finger either side of his moustache. “And how can I approach without some kind of