Science, Eternal Life, and a Traveling Circus 2

Chapter Eight

A film of greasy pollution painted every surface, from the cobbled stone and dirt roads to the squashed and deteriorating buildings. Even the people wore coats of grime, staggering under their own weights. Masks covered some faces, scarves others, and a handful of were bare. There were few outside, but those that the carriage passed spat and cursed. Some pulled their masks off specifically to make a gesture of it.

          With discoloured skin stretched taut over bones, every person looked on the brink of death. Bleak sounds of hacking coughs and wheezing dampened the air. It was the middle of the afternoon, but it seemed late beneath dark shadows and the thick smog overhead.

          Pallis didn't peek through his curtains even once, and Drew felt the guilty desire to return to the clean, sheltered place he called home. It sunk in slowly, like oil on carpet.

          "They look like they're dying, Pallis," Drew whispered, drawing his hands to his chest.

Pallis peered at the boy and smiled. "They are dying. There is only one cure to the plague, and they can't afford it." He chuckled.

"Can't we help them?"

"We've done our part. Offered the lot of them jobs, but the stragglers you see here are the ones that refused employment." Pallis sniffed and adjusted his necktie, fixing the knot precisely. "The lazy scum deserve to die."

"Pallis! That's not a nice thing to say."

"Oh, Drew," his brother crowed, rolling his eyes, "you'll understand when you're the one in charge of collecting the taxes they can't afford to pay. They're useless and blame us for it. Honestly, if they had the spine to do a day's work, they wouldn't be so poorly."

Soon enough, the carriage halted, parked up a driveway surrounded by bare dirt and two dilapidated lawn ornaments; a stained plastic flamingo with rusted wire legs and a metal lump that may have once been a sculpture of a dog. Pallis frowned and leaned over Drew to look out his window.

"Wonderful," he said dryly.

The doors of the carriage opened, guards stationed on either side. Drew leaped from his seat and eagerly awaited Pallis. Lady Shir did not leave her private cabin, but summoned Pallis to her window. The older boy respectfully gave her his ear, his smile returned.

"Yes, Mother." He rapped his gloved knuckles against her door and strode around the carriage, holding his hand out to Drew. "Come along, Drew. You're to watch."

"Watch?"

Pallis pushed into the small of his back and led him towards the door. "Straighten out, stand up tall. Chin up." They stopped at the doorstep of the run-down cottage, where a dusty straw mat met them with a worn WELCOME, the E's all but faded.

"What are we doing? Who lives here?" Drew asked.

"Shh." Pallis's smile faltered briefly as he dug the vial of red liquid from his pocket, still wrapped in linen. His gloves added extra protection from whatever it was that so disgusted him. He cleared his throat and beamed at a guard, who hastily knocked on the dirty door for the Lord.

Pallis tapped his shoe on the mat while they waited. As moments past, his brows drew closer to one another and the tapping picked up pace. The door clicked, and Lord Pallis stilled. An old man weakly hung from the door's chipped knob. As though too exhausted to straighten out, he hunched, head wearily forward. He dipped lower in a bow, though his respectful expression came off forced. "M'Lord," he greeted flatly. He stepped back.

"Lords," Pallis sharply corrected with a gesture to Drew.

The man's yellowed, filmy eyes shifted to the boy. His scraggly grey beard twitched. "M'Lords," he revised.