Page 51

51

LEECHES

L éon returned home after dark, an enormous slab of mutton in one hand, a paper bag stuffed with vegetables in the other.

He kicked the door to be let in.

émile gasped on sight of the food, and ripped the bag from his hands, spilling potatoes and leeks across the floor.

“émile!” Léon breathed in exasperation.

“Where did this come from?” Catherine asked, stooping to help clean the mess.

“Henri’s article,” said Léon, shouldering the door closed behind him.

“It’s going to be on the front page tomorrow. They loved it.”

“That’s wonderful!” Catherine stood with an arm full of potatoes, but her smile was short-lived.

“He hasn't been down all day. Guillotin left a while ago, and?—”

“He must be working!” Léon cut her off, too-cheerily. “But I’m sure he’ll be down to celebrate his article. Unless—you know—unless he wants to write even more tonight. Or maybe he’s too tired from all the work.”

She stepped aside to let him pass. “I confess, I’m getting a little worried.”

Léon rambled on, “They gave me money. Lots of money. And I should get more tomorrow. For there was the article, but also I’ve found work.”

Souveraine, silently helping émile balance vegetables, turned ashen. “Just like that? You took a job?”

“Just until… Um…” He nodded towards the staircase, and her face fell a little deeper, only this time with a touch of sympathy mingled amongst the confusion. She took the meat from his arms as he said, “I’ll cook us a proper meal. Soon. I want to…” He moved for the stairs. “I want to get changed.” Half way up, he called back to Souveraine, “Will you meet me in the kitchen? In just a little while? I’ll be…” He couldn’t think to finish his sentence, and no one there particularly expected him to, knowing, in one sense or another, every word was a pretence. Catherine felt bad for the news Souveraine was about to get, watching Léon run off to his lover. Souveraine felt bad for the lies they were telling Catherine about poor sick Henry. émile was nursing a ball of worry about Henry’s condition.

Léon went through his bedroom door, closing it dramatically in the hopes those downstairs heard it, before he ran through the dividing door into Henry’s room, pulling off his coat. He stopped dead on sight of him.

Henry looked exactly like a corpse. He was laid out stiff and long, just a thin sheet covering his body, ghostly pale against the light of the fireplace.

“Darling?” Léon rounded the bed, falling down beside him, placing a soft kiss on his lips. “Henri? Can you hear me?”

No response whatsoever met him. Henry’s breath came fast in his chest, and Léon felt sick at having left him all the afternoon. “My love?” He picked Henry’s hand up, placing a kiss against his fingers. “They adored your article. You need to wake up. They’ve paid us a small fortune, though I fear most of it will go to Guillotin.” He brought a hand to Henry’s cheek, stroking it softly, horrified to feel it was just as hot as when he’d left. “You must drink something, my love. I’m making you soup. I want you to…” Tears rushed to his eyes, falling on the fingers he clutched tight. “Please, Henri. Please don’t die.”

There was some small commotion at the door behind him, and Léon jumped up, letting go of Henry’s hand and wiping his eyes before Guillotin walked in, followed closely by Souveraine, remonstrating with Catherine. “Please, let’s go. He’s so grumpy all the time. We hardly need him down at dinner in one of his moods.”

“Henry?” Catherine called.

Guillotin slammed the door on them and locked it. He said nothing as he put his bag down on the desk. He made his way directly to Henry, then placed a hand on his forehead. “No improvement?”

“No. But I haven’t been here. It’s possible that?—”

“I only left an hour ago,” he said grimly. Moving back to his bag, “I had to get something from my clinic. And… You might want to leave for this.”

“Well, no. I feel terrible I haven’t been here all afternoon. Are you going to hurt him?”

“I don’t think much of anything will hurt him right now, but if we don’t get this fever down, he’s not going to wake again. Ever.” Guillotin was all business, trying to save Henry, but how those words hurt. How they clung to the walls and the air and every breath in Léon’s lungs.

Léon threw himself into a chair, linking fingers together, leaning on them pensively. He watched the man’s well-practised movements as he got a jar from his bag. A big one. He placed it down by Henry’s side and began undoing the fresh bandage on his arm. It slipped free without a groan or a breath of pain from Henry’s lips.

Guillotin brought a metal tray under Henry’s arm, then he cleaned the wound. Not the slightest ruffle of Henry’s beautiful brow.

Then a slither of reflected light caught Léon’s eye. He focused on the jar. It was alive and moving. It was creeping and foul. “What are you going to do?” he whispered.

Guillotin followed the focus of his eyes. “Leeches,” he said softly. “We need to try to suck the infection out.”

Léon shuddered with revulsion. “That can’t be right. That’s…”

“I’ll apply them to the wound, the source of the illness. And if they can suck the bacteria out?—”

“Bacteria?” Léon grasped at the word, as though understanding it might help him discover a cure.

Guillotin went about screwing the lid off the jar, explaining, “There are very, very, really incredibly small creatures living in the wound. They’ve spread to his blood, they’re attacking him from the inside.”

“That’s preposterous,” Léon said.

“That’s science,” Guillotin drawled. “Not easy to convince the medical establishment of it, but it’s not a new theory.”

“But—”

“Regardless,” he cut Léon off, “this is all we can do. Leeches are a tried-and-true method for curing infections. And for the fever… I will need to drain his blood. A lot of it.”

Léon stood, giddy, stalking across the room with the backs of his fingers at his lips.

“I think it would be wise for you to leave.”

“And go where?” Léon yelled. “What if he wakes? What if I’m not here, if no one’s here, and he finds those things?—”

Guillotin’s hands pressed into his shoulders to silence him. “He won’t wake. Léon, I am sorry, but unless he can fight the infection, this is it. This is the last thing I can try. He’s dehydrated, and he cannot last much longer with a fever this high. Unless he wakes up soon, drinks, and unless these leeches work…” He cast sad eyes over Henry’s unmoving body. “I will call you back in time to say goodbye.”

Léon let out a deep and empty breath, as though his interior had been crushed. He was too broken to cry, too lost to voice any argument, for whatever good it might have done. He only looked at Henry, so close to death, his one and only love in his short and brutal life, the most precious thing he had ever touched, about to be ripped away. Ripped away because he took a bullet for him. Because he was protecting Léon. And had Léon trusted him more from the start, been paying attention, bothered to understand him sooner…

“Try to put on a brave face,” Guillotin said. “There’s a very slim chance. And there’s no point worrying the ladies over nothing. Especially Catherine.”

It was the terrifying reminder Léon needed. Souveraine and émile couldn’t be in the house when he told her. They needed to be streets away, maybe even further.

“All right,” said Léon, swallowing down his grief. “You’ll call me?—”

“If he opens his eyes, for even a second, you’ll be the first to know.”