The Serpent's Shadow

'But I didn't—' she managed, trying to grasp the fact that he had just given her the equivalent of a months' worth of operating expenses for the clinic.

'I know you didn't, which is why you can count on the Almsley fortunes augmenting yours from now on,' Lord Peter said, with a chuckle. 'Meanwhile, this should purchase you a few necessities. I shan't bother to suggest anything; you know your needs better than I.'

Hastily, Maya transferred the handful of notes to Sarah, who took them off to be sequestered in the cashbox and added to the pathetic totals in the ledger. Bandages—sticking- plaster—a set of good scalpels! A real bed for Jeffry! A spirit-lamp so Sarah can make tea at night—oh, and canisters of decent tea!

'Now, shall we go have speech of your special patient?' Almsley continued, as if he hadn't done anything more costly than tipping a newsboy a farthing.

Well, perhaps for him, it wasn't, Maya reflected dazedly. If Lord Peter really did become a regular donor—there were so many things that she could do here—

She shook herself out of her daze; there was another reason why they were here, and it had nothing to do with the finances of the Fleet. 'He's this way,' she said, gesturing, as Amelia looked puzzled.

She was even more puzzled when they went straight through the clinic in the direction of Paul Jenner's bedside. He'd been installed in a kind of doorless closet at the end of the tiny sick ward—not out of any consideration for his privacy, but so that it wouldn't be immediately obvious to outsiders that he didn't fit in with the general run of Fleet patients. The closet was generally used for children, or for patients who needed relative isolation and quiet. But that very positioning gave them a chance to talk with him without disturbing—or being overheard by—the others here.

But the moment that Amelia realized where they must be going, she pushed herself forward. 'Let me go first, so he isn't alarmed,' she said, and without waiting for an answer, skipped past Peter Scott and on to the sick ward. Maya exchanged glances with Scott; his questioning, hers amused. Evidently it wasn't only unfinished work that had kept Amelia here tonight! I wonder what's been going on in my absence?

When the little group reached Paul Jenner's alcove, Amelia had lit the oil-lamp on the wall above his head. He was awake and sitting up, looking alert and wary. They couldn't hear what Amelia murmured to him, but Lord Peter came forward with his hand outstretched.

'You must be Paul Jenner. I'm Almsley of Magdalen,' Lord Peter said, an arcane incantation that meant nothing to Maya, but evidently spoke volumes to Paul Jenner, whose face (what could be seen of it) cleared immediately.

'Almsley of Magdalen! They still speak of your prowess at bat, sir, in hushed and reverent tones! Forgive me for not rising, my lord,' Jenner began, but Almsley laughed, and sat down on the stool beside the bed.

'Not at all; now, I wish we didn't have to jump immediately into an unpleasant subject, but I've heard some things from Doctor Witherspoon that quite alarm me, and as it happens, I may be the fellow to do something about them. This is my good friend Peter Scott, and you can trust him as you would me. It seems that you and I and Scott here need to have a little discussion about a fellow Oxford man who has been a very naughty boy.' Maya had no idea how they managed it, but in next to no time, Almsley and Peter Scott had Paul Jenner completely at his ease and talking frankly about his employer while Amelia and Maya simply stood in the background and listened.

Very frankly, as it turned out; what he'd told Maya was merely the visible tip of the iceberg. Within a very short period of time he'd revealed things that made the hair on the back of Maya's neck crawl.

She didn't know a very great deal about the dark side of magic, but some of what Jenner said made it very clear to her how closely he had come to things that were truly evil, and only his good sense and instincts had warned him away. He had no notion of how imperiled his very soul had been. From the looks that the two Peters exchanged, they didn't plan to enlighten him.

And why should they? It wouldn't help him now; there isn't anything he could do about it. But, oh, now I am so glad I went to Peter with this!

Amelia looked completely bewildered by some of it, but there were parts that even she understood. She went pale, and then greenish a time or two. The two healthy men, one standing, one sitting, bent over the injured one with faces that reflected nothing but concern and a certain urgency. They could have been his relatives or friends, just paying a visit to the sickroom; the heavily-shaded oil-lamp at Jenner's bed cast a circle of dim light that enclosed the three of them, with Maya and Amelia left in the shadows outside that magic space. Only the things they were calmly discussing—dark rituals involving blasphemy and pain in basement chambers, the spilling of blood on nameless altars, unsettling forms of Holy (or more aptly, Unholy) Communion, and things that Paul Jenner had only glimpsed or guessed at—were totally at odds with the otherwise pleasant scene.

Finally the two Peters seemed to have gleaned everything they could from Maya's patient, and Almsley sat up straighter. 'Thank you, Jenner,' Almsley said with a sigh. 'Thank you very much for telling us all of this.'

'Thank you for believing me,' Jenner replied earnestly. 'There aren't many who would.'