A medical emergency

[fadingworld]

A deep navy cloak hides his features and the more ornate tunic the courtesan usually wears to greet his clients. Mal hunches his shoulders and slides through the crowds hoping to avoid notice. He keeps his head down until he reaches the home of the doctor and wraps smartly on the door. "Open up," he calls in a voice that expects to be listened to.

How much time did he have? He could not have a client bleeding out. Not this one. Not one who had come to him for help, to be treated privately.

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[fadingworld]

Mal moves without complaint, steeping the tea. Staying near the Duke, he occasionally puts his hand on the arm. It's not that he's got any real love for his client but should showing some sort of caring wound be expected.

When the first lot of ice is brought he lifts it with surprising strength and takes it to the bath. Somehow, he makes it look graceful and weightless. Three more successive trips are made, chilling the water.

"Check it," he calls to the doctor. "More ice will follow in 15 minutes."

[mandragoraspiritus]

While the courtesan has tended to the ice bath, the surgeon has been monitoring the duke as well as have made him swallow a series of tincures. This really will be fighting poison with poison. He can already feel the duke's temperature rapidly rise as a result.

"There is no time." He moves to scoop the duke up in his arms, carrying the much studier man as if he weighed nothing. Being set in the ice cold bath causes the duke to rally, fighting in protest. Yet the wiry looking doctor has no problem holding him down, even if water does splash everywhere before he gets the man to settle.

"Bring the tea, please."

[fadingworld]

Mal brings the tea over and settles a hand on the Duke's shoulder. There is a honeyed tone to his voice. "I know this a little more drastic than your usual bath but you had to go and get yourself in trouble. I was," and there is a little catch to his voice, "worried."

The easy flattery has some affect, making it easier for Mal to get him to swallow the tea. He glances up at the Doctor and down at the Duke.

"I promise the next time you are here for a bath it will be much more enjoyable."

[mandragoraspiritus]

The doctor glances over and wonders if there is any real affection behind this gentleness. If not, the courtesan is a skilled actor. But then, that is a part of his profession, is it not?

In any case, this gentle touch and comfort ought to have an easier time keeping the patient calm and in the icy bath than the doctor's own clinical approach and so he given the younger man an approving nod.

"The fever will rage for a short time," he tells him quietly. "We will need to keep him cool while it burns the poison out of his system."

[fadingworld]

"I will sing to him," Mal says softly. "Signal me if you need me to stop. There will be more water to add to the bath should we need it."

Mal settles kneeling at the edge of the bath, his fingers trail the cold water as he picks an old ballad of lovers who defy the gods to be together. There is some quality to his voice that wraps around the Duke. In Mal's mind it is a soothing mist, easing tension from the Duke's mind, making him more relaxed and open to suggestion.

[mandragoraspiritus]

It is good that the duke is kept relaxed so the doctor doesn't call for a pause. After a while he brings the tea over, when it has cooled enough to be swallowed and he deems the duke in a state to be able to get it down. It is a bitter brew but even so the duke does swallow.

He's kept in that icy bath for a long time, even after he's been wracked with chills and hsi lips turn pale blue. But after that time, after the doctor has checked him over and has deemed the worst danger to be over, he reaches in to lift the man out of the water again, holding him up to strip him off his clothes before carrying him back to the bed to bundle him up in soft sheets and warm blankets.

"He must rest now," he then tells the courtesan. "He will sleep near like the dead for near a day and night, and should not be moved during that time. Or longer, if possible."

[fadingworld]

Mal reaches for a cool glass of water himself as he brings the song to an end. The pale blue lips had disturbed him and it is a relief to have the Duke in the bed.

"I will arrange it to be so," he promises, pushing his hair back from his face. "In fact," he touches the back of his hand to his forehead. "I might be coming down with something and will need to be left strictly alone for the next three days."

His eyes dance as he loosens his collar. "I can be quite convincing."

[mandragoraspiritus]

"Good," he states, finding and picking up a towel to pat himself down somewhat. He had gotten himself rather soaked in his handling of the duke. "I shall remain for a time yet, but I would like to leave him in your care, if I may. Though I shall return ever so often."

After having gotten himself as dry as he's going to get, he straightens his clothes a bit and brushes his hair back with his fingers. Then he really can't help but to ask.

"Do you have genuine care for this man? Or is he simply that valuable a client?

[fadingworld]

"Then you can come through the main doors as though I am your patient," Mal says. He draws a chair over to the bed for his guest and settles quite comfortable on a stool.

He cocks his head on one side thoughtfully. "I care for all of my clients in my own way. I know more of their darkest fears and secrets than their own family do."

[mandragoraspiritus]

Now straightened up he goes to sit on the offered chair. Another quick check on the patient shows him dead to the world but now breathing far more easily than before, gone in a deep and healing sleep.

"If you are to be my patient then I shall need to know your name." As mutual introductions are only polite, he extends a hand for a shake. His grasp is cool but firm. "You may call me Regis."

[fadingworld]

"And you may call me Mal," he says with an easy smile. He shakes the other's hand lightly. "Now, what malady shall we give me? It needs to be suitably interesting but not something that will scare clients off from returning to me soon."

[mandragoraspiritus]

"I dont suppose the common cold or a bout of the stomch flu would be nowhere near romantic enough," Regis says with some display of humor. Tales of snot and mucus, or vomit and excrement would not help a courtesan's reputation, he wagers. "If it is something to be cured in no more than a few days, then perhaps some minor injury, some tension to the neck that has caused you insufferable headaches."

[fadingworld]

"Hardly," Mal says with a laugh. "But tension in the neck does sound appealing." He could easily play around with that, and allow clients to feel some sympathy for him.

He looks up inquistively. "How often do you get secretive call outs like this one?"

[mandragoraspiritus]

"Secretive like this? Not often. More often I am called out for some reason other than the true one. Fevers are often the common excuse." That could mean anything from a pregnant maid servant to some veneral disease.

"I can bring you some liniment or other ointment if you wish to reinforce your excuse."

[fadingworld]

"If you have some to spare, I will take it." Mal smiles, "And if you will show me the best way to use it, I can keep in store in case of legitimate use."

He knocks on the wood of the stool, "So far, I've kept myself in excellent health and shape."

[mandragoraspiritus]

"I do suppose your profession demands it," Regis comments, then after a brief pause to think he decides to try to satisfy his curiosity.

"Might I ask, why this? Why choose to do this for a living? Or if it wasn't something you chose for yourself, why stay?"

[fadingworld]

Mal looks thoroughly amused, "Ah the age old question." His answer has varied many times depending on his audience. Regis does not look like he will suffer fools lightly. So, what Regis receives is the closet version to the truth he can give without implementing others.

"I was brought into this house when I was ten years old, selected for my beauty. So in some ways this is all I have ever known." He smiles, "No one laid a hand on me until I was older, I was trained in the arts, I served at tables and learned the art of conversation." He reaches for the cup with an exaggeratedly graceful movement. "I learnt to make every movement effortless."


He pauses, "It is a comfortable life in many ways, I am as pampered as any prince." He shrugs his shoulders. "I am content for the moment."

[mandragoraspiritus]

Yes, Mal is beautiful, Regis has no problem admitting this. Every posture, every movement is pleasing to the eye, even the way he speaks is melodious and pleasing to the ear. But even so...

"But it is all illusions, is it not? You weave illusions." There is no blame in Regis' tone, no faulting Mal. Just calm pondering. "Do you never wish for something else, with more substance than smoke?"

[fadingworld]

Mal smiles, he can weave illusions in more way than one. "Why are you offering?" he teases, deflecting the question for the moment while he thinks.

"Do you think a courtesan is capable of sustaining anything real? Or will people always wonder if they are weaving another illusion?"

[mandragoraspiritus]

The teasing is met with no more than calm. Mal is beautiful, yes, but in Regis his charms will not find easy targets. "No, I am not," he simply replies, then moves on in the topic.

"People judge from what they know. But people also change. It would depend much, I think, on how firmly the courtesan would hold on to being a courtesan."

[fadingworld]

Good, Mal could never respect a man who fell for his charms and offered to sweep him off his feet. That type only made for very good clients.

He might just make a friend of Regis

"I don't think any courtesan would hold on to the profession..." He pauses and shakes his head. "Actually, I know many who would not leave unless they could be kept in the luxury they are accustomed to."

He looks frankly at Regis. "I must be a romantic at heart because I would leave if the real love came along."

[mandragoraspiritus]

Regis tilts his head to one side, studying the younger man. "Is that what you are waiting for, then?" A small smile on closed lips. "Something more than smoke to take place of the illusions?"

[fadingworld]

"Something real and solid that I can feel," Mal says honestly. "Or," he smile wryly, "If I am to age gracefully into a spinster alone, a way to support myself. I feel that I might not last a day away from my golden cage without learning a new profession."

[mandragoraspiritus]

Regis is glad to hear these thoughts. It speaks of reason and a rational mind to spend some thought to the future. Beauty would always fade in time, and what then without skills to fall back on?

"Then what profession would you chose for youself to come after this?"

[fadingworld]

Mal gestures to the empty sachets by the bed. "I would love to learn some of your profession. I am able to soothe problems of the mind to some extent and I enjoy that, but I cannot ease their physical aches and pains."