The bells were closer now.
Not church bells.
Smaller ones.
Hand-bells.
Warning bells.
Richard moved faster.
The alley spat him into a narrow lane where torchlight smeared orange across wet timber walls. Smoke drifted low in the cold air. Somewhere a door slammed. Somewhere else someone was praying.
Every window looked like an eye that might suddenly open.
Every shadow looked like someone about to shout.
Descartes had said eleven minutes.
Richard had already spent two.
At the end of the lane he slowed.
Voices.
A cluster of them.
Fear had a sound.
It was not loud. Not yet.
It was the low, crowded murmur of people who wanted to stay but also wanted to run.
Richard turned the corner.
And saw the stage.
The crowd had formed a rough ring in the mud of the street. Twenty people perhaps. Maybe more in the shadows. A woman was crying openly. Two boys were standing on a barrel to see over shoulders.
At the centre of the circle lay a man on a wooden bench dragged out from a doorway.
He was shaking.
Not violently.
But constantly.
The kind of tremor that meant the body had already spent most of its strength.
Richard felt the cold precision of pattern recognition slide into place in his mind.
Breathing too fast.
Skin pale under torchlight.
Wet cough.
The man tried to inhale and the sound came out like cloth tearing.
Not plague swelling.
Chest.
Respiratory collapse.
Around the bench stood three figures.
Two were assistants.
The third was the physician.
He was older than Richard expected.
Late fifties perhaps.
Beard trimmed carefully.
Clothes dark but good wool. A belt with pouches. A small leather case open on a crate beside him.
Authority did not have to shout.
It just stood in the middle of the circle and moved slowly.
The physician was tying a strip of cloth around the patient's upper arm.
Preparing the vein.
Bloodletting.
Richard stopped moving.
Six minutes left.
The physician was speaking over the murmuring crowd.
Richard did not catch every word.
Not even close.
But he caught enough.
Heat.
Blood.
Corruption.
Balance.
The old architecture of medicine assembled itself around the fragments.
The crowd nodded.
Of course they did.
It sounded like knowledge.
Richard stepped closer.
The patient coughed.
And suddenly red sprayed across his own chin.
Not much.
But enough.
The woman beside the bench screamed.
The physician did not react.
He picked up a narrow blade from his case.
Richard's brain moved faster now.
Blood in sputum.
Laboured breathing.
Shallow chest expansion.
Not plague swelling.
Not bubo.
Chest infection. Possibly pneumonia. Possibly severe bronchial collapse.
Bleeding him now would drop blood pressure and oxygen delivery at the exact moment his body was already starving for both.
The man would fade within minutes.
Five minutes left.
Richard moved through the outer edge of the crowd.
A man shoved him back immediately.
"Back."
That one needed no translation.
Richard didn't argue.
He just shifted sideways.
Another step.
Another.
He reached the inner ring.
The physician had the blade in his hand now.
The assistant tightened the cloth around the arm.
The patient's breathing had become a rapid rasp.
Richard spoke.
"Stop."
The word cut through the noise because it was calm.
The physician didn't even look up.
The blade moved toward the vein.
Richard stepped forward and caught the assistant's wrist.
Hard.
The reaction was immediate.
Shouts.
The assistant jerked back.
A burst of words hit Richard from three directions at once.
He understood almost none of the sentence.
Only the shape of it.
Who are you.
What are you doing.
Remove him.
Then the physician turned.
For the first time their eyes met.
The physician's gaze moved over Richard quickly.
Ash on skin.
Wrong coat.
Wrong posture.
Unknown man touching his assistant.
Authority shifted instantly.
The physician spoke one clipped command.
Richard did not need to understand it fully to know its intent.
Remove him.
Richard didn't release the wrist.
"Bleed him and he dies."
That sentence was simple enough.
Simple enough for the crowd.
Simple enough for the physician.
The noise around them collapsed.
The physician said something sharply.
Richard caught only part of it.
Who… man… name…
Close enough.
He answered without giving one.
"Someone know this."
He pointed at the patient.
"No blood. Not now."
The physician studied the patient briefly.
Then Richard.
Then the blood on the patient's chin.
He spoke again, slower this time, perhaps for Richard's benefit, perhaps for the crowd's.
Richard caught more now.
Heat in the lungs.
Blood carries corruption.
Not every word.
Enough.
Richard shook his head once.
"No."
The physician's eyes hardened.
He said something else.
The sentence was longer than Richard could fully hold, but its centre arrived clearly enough.
You contradict me.
"Yes."
The word landed flat in the air.
Someone in the crowd laughed nervously.
Someone else whispered something about strangers.
The physician stepped closer to Richard and spoke again.
Only one word came through clearly.
Explain.
It wasn't a request.
Richard looked at the patient instead.
The man's lips had begun turning slightly blue in the torchlight.
Air hunger.
He bent and pressed two fingers against the man's neck.
Weak pulse.
Too fast.
He looked back at the physician.
Richard chose the shortest possible bridge between worlds.
"If blood go," he said, speaking slowly, "strength go."
He pointed at the patient's chest.
"Breath worse."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
The physician scoffed softly and answered at once.
Richard caught corruption. Blood. Must.
That was enough.
Richard pointed harder at the patient's chest.
"He no breathe right."
The physician answered immediately.
One word came clean:
Breathes.
As if the mere fact of air entering and leaving a man settled the question.
The patient coughed again.
This time the sound ended in a choking wheeze.
Richard looked at the crowd.
Then back at the physician.
"Ask him."
The physician frowned.
He answered with a sentence Richard only partly understood, but the important word was clear.
What.
Richard leaned down to the patient.
"What hurts?"
The man gasped.
The answer came broken, but it came.
"Chest."
That word Richard understood.
The crowd understood it too.
Richard stood again.
He pointed at the patient.
"Chest. Not arm. Not blood."
The physician's jaw tightened.
The crowd had grown very quiet now.
Witnesses.
Exactly what Descartes had promised.
The physician lifted the blade again.
Then he spoke to the assistant.
Richard did not understand the whole sentence.
He understood enough.
Hold him.
That was enough.
Richard moved before the blade touched skin.
He grabbed the cloth around the patient's arm and ripped it loose.
Gasps erupted around the circle.
The assistant lunged.
Richard shoved him back.
"Sit him up."
Blank looks.
Of course.
Too fast.
Wrong phrasing.
Richard corrected at once.
"Up. Him up."
He grabbed the patient's shoulder himself, then stopped short of pulling hard.
Contamination.
Always contamination.
He pointed sharply.
"Lift."
Two men from the crowd hesitated.
Then one stepped forward.
Because the patient was choking.
Because the physician had not yet cut.
Because uncertainty had opened a gap.
They lifted the patient slightly.
The man coughed again.
Air moved.
Not much.
But more.
Richard grabbed the crate beside the bench and shoved it under the patient's back.
Angle.
Chest elevated.
Another breath.
Still ragged.
But deeper.
The physician stared.
He said something cold and contemptuous.
Richard caught only the last word.
Trick.
"No trick."
Richard turned to the crowd.
This time he made the sentence smaller, rougher, clearer.
"He drown flat."
He pointed at the man.
"Up better."
The patient sucked air like a drowning man breaking the surface.
The wheeze softened slightly.
Someone in the crowd whispered.
The physician's eyes narrowed.
He answered immediately, but Richard only caught fragments.
Nothing. Proves. Nothing.
Richard met his gaze.
"You cut him, he worse."
That, too, the crowd understood.
Richard gestured to the patient.
"Watch."
The patient's breathing steadied another fraction.
The colour in his lips shifted almost imperceptibly.
Not cured.
But not collapsing.
The crowd noticed.
Crowds always notice the direction of a body.
The physician noticed too.
And for the first time doubt flickered behind his eyes.
It lasted only a second.
Then anger replaced it.
He spoke again.
This time Richard caught one word cleanly.
Name.
The question snapped across the circle even without perfect language.
Richard felt twenty pairs of eyes settle on him.
Witnesses.
Exactly what he had wanted.
Exactly what he feared.
He hesitated.
Just long enough.
Long enough for the silence to stretch.
Then someone at the back of the crowd spoke.
A woman's voice.
Fearful.
Recognising.
Richard did not understand every word.
Only enough.
Saw him.
Before.
Light.
The crowd shifted.
Then another voice, male this time, louder.
Not the full line.
Just the two words that mattered.
Devil-light.
The physician's gaze sharpened instantly.
Richard felt the moment tilt.
And somewhere inside his coat, against the cloth-wrapped phone in his pocket, the screen vibrated once.
DESCARTES:
Relevance increasing.
The physician stepped closer.
He spoke again, slower now, each word placed like a knife.
Richard caught them almost one by one.
Who.
Are.
You.
The patient behind Richard coughed again.
But this time the sound carried air with it.
And the crowd was no longer looking at the physician.
They were looking at Richard.