Kiri turned to give him a puzzled look, “How’d she get out?”
“Um, the west door’s unlocked.”
Kiri turned languidly to gaze at the west door, “Really?”
“Yeah, are you wanting to leave too? I’m not sure it’s a good idea. I’m worried the guards out there on the grounds are going to capture her.”
“You told her that?”
Tarc shrugged, “Yeah. I offered to try to help her escape but I don’t think she thought I’d be much help.”
Kiri gave him an appraising look, “Well, you do look kind of young.” She smiled, showing some cute dimples. “Handsome, but… kind of young.” She looked back at the room they’d come from and stepped closer to Tarc, “Do you really think this thing with the baron is going to work? You know, praying him into a better person? Because I’ve tried it a lot and I didn’t have any luck.”
Tarc pursed his lips for a moment, then gave a nod toward the room Kazy and Eva were still in. “It works when they do it. It’s worked really well for some other people, though… the baron may test its limits.”
“Because he’s so evil?”
Tarc gave a grim nod.
Kiri smiled at him and lifted her chin interrogatively. “If it doesn’t work, you think you could help me escape?”
“Um, sure. I can try.”
Suddenly a banging at the east door grabbed their attention. Kiri crouched into a dim space behind a sofa, so Tarc did as well. Hoping it was a routine nightly event, he whispered, “Do you know what this is about?”
She shook her head.
A man—presumably one of the eunuchs—came out of a small door next to the main entrance. Approaching the door, he spoke irritably, “What?”
“Open up. One of the wives esca—” After a pause, the voice outside the door resumed, “One of the wives has been out for a walk around the grounds. We’re bringing her back.”
Thinking, What if they try to take her back to the baron? Tarc glanced back over his shoulder at the north room.
Daum was standing just inside the doorway, looking like he was listening intently.
Tarc looked back at the big doors. The eunuch had opened the door and was pulling a disheveled looking Linni in through it. He closed the door and dropped a heavy bar back into the slot. Turning to Linni, he hissed, “How’d you get out?!” He looked frightened and Tarc realized the eunuch would probably be subject to punishment over her escape.
Linni glanced toward the north room but shook her head defiantly without answering.
The other eunuch had come out of his room and was putting a second bar across the door. He leaned close to Linni and said, “Are you crazy?!”
She gave him a rebellious look but once again said nothing.
The two eunuchs conferred briefly, then one stayed there holding Linni while the other walked as quietly as possible toward the north room. Tarc looked at his dad and pointed and made walking movements with his fingers, trying to indicate that the eunuch was coming.
Daum’s eyes widened slightly and he stepped to the side of the doorway, turning as he did so and whispering something to the people inside.
Tarc turned and looked over his shoulder at Kiri, hoping she had a good idea about what to do. She was watching curiously but calmly. I think Mom overdid the tranquil outlook thing, he thought. Kiri needs a little adjustment so she’ll at least be a little worried when the shit’s about to hit the fan! He turned back to watch what happened.
The eunuch slowed as he approached the door, surprised to see it open. He slowly moved his head out into the opening just enough that he could see around the jamb and into the room. The eunuch flinched at the same moment as Tarc heard a strange soft voice come from within the room. It said, “Hello. You’re one of the guards, right? I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”
“T-that’s all right B-Baron,” the eunuch stammered. “Um, do you need anything?”
“No. No, I’ll be leaving in a few minutes. I just need to apologize to Linni and Kiri. I’m afraid I probably hurt them in the… throes of my enthusiasm.”
There was a momentary silence, then the startled-sounding eunuch said, “Um, sure. I’ll go get Linni. She was just out for… Never mind. I’ll go get her.” He turned from the doorway and his face, which he seemed to have been holding as still as possible, changed to one of wide-eyed astonishment. He walked quickly across the room to Linni and the other eunuch. Arriving, he patted at her wild looking hair, saying, “He says he wants to apologize to you! Try to straighten yourself up.”
Her expression wavering between frightened and disbelieving, Linni tugged at her clothing and ran her fingers through her hair. She walked slowly across to the north room. She slowed as she approached, looking like she was being led to the executioner. She glanced quickly around the room.
Tarc, thinking she must be looking for him, gave her a little wave.
She stared at him, then her eyes flicked behind him and he realized she must be looking at Kiri.
Tarc looked back at Kiri in time to see her making some kind of hand signal. Though Tarc had never seen the sign before, it looked like it was intended to be reassuring
Linni had reached the doorway. She stopped for a moment, then stiffening her resolve, looked around into the room. From within, the baron’s voice pleasantly said, “Linni. I’m so sorry. I realize I’ve been cruel and I’m…” his voice broke, “I’m… ashamed of the way I’ve treated you.” He paused for a while as if thinking what to say. Finally, he ventured, “I’m sure you can never forgive me for what I’ve done, but I hope to earn your trust a little at a time.”
The rigid apprehension in Linni’s posture melted a little. She gave him a tiny nod as if accepting the possibility that, despite its impossibility in the present, something like that might be conceivable someday in the distant future.
He said, “If Kiri’s still out there, please tell her I’d like to apologize to her next. I’ll pay my respects and make my apologies to Breanna and Marnie after that.
Tarc turned to look at Kiri, wondering how she would take this request.
She was already on her feet, starting toward the north room.
Showing no evidence of fear…
~~~
Though Linni’d remained at the doorway for her apology, Kiri went in and sat next to the baron to accept his expressions of regret. Then the three of them went to visit the rooms of the other two wives, Breanna and Marnie.
The baron didn’t enter their rooms. He told them that their rooms were now their sovereign territories and inviolate. He said he didn’t ever intend to enter their rooms without an invitation again. They didn’t issue such invitations, so he stood just outside their doors to offer his apologies. Once again, they sounded heartfelt.
Tarc realized that Kiri’d been able to accept his apologies so graciously because his mother had helped reduce her fear.
He wondered whether the other three wives would ever forgive the baron. He also wondered whether they should.
He wondered whether Kiri should’ve forgiven him the way she apparently had.
He wondered whether the baron’s new, softer, personality—pleasant though it may be—might allow other powerful people in Clancy Vail to run roughshod over him.
He couldn’t help thinking that if the baron’s new, pleasant-seeming personality did allow others to take advantage of him, that it was no more than he deserved.
He hoped that perhaps Kazy’d succeeded in making the baron a friend of his people. A leader who’d actually lead. One who’d think first of what benefited his people, and only then what benefited himself.
Tarc decided he was glad his talent didn’t give him such an awful power over the lives of others. Not that his ability to kill, and also to save lives, wasn’t a breathtaking responsibility in its own right, but changing someone the way Kazy’d changed the baron seemed like something that would leave you second-guessing yourself for the rest of your life. Should you have done more? Should
you have done less? Should you have interfered at all…?
Had you the same as killed the person who existed before you made your changes…?
~~~
As the Hyllises walked down from the palace, through the offices and the castle sections, Daussie wondered why the baron and his wives hadn’t reacted to the family’s presence after they woke up. When they walked past a couple of guardsmen who appeared completely oblivious to the Hyllises she realized what might’ve happened. Turning to Kazy, she said, “You’re hiding us from them, aren’t you?”
Kazy nodded, starting to rub her head again.
And you hid us from the baron and his wives after they woke up too, didn’t you?”
Kazy nodded again, “Yeah.” Then she sighed, “Hopefully the baron and the last two wives won’t even know we were there. The first two…” Kazy shrugged, “Eva changed Kiri’s whole outlook on life, then you explained it to her by saying Eva’d prayed over her. And Tarc had a lot of contact with Linni. I tried to fade their memories a little, but I was pretty tired. They may remember some stuff.”
Epilogue
Daussie leaned down close to the little girl, sending in her ghirit, but pretending to look in her ear. The girl had given her a tentative smile, looking much better than she had yesterday when she’d come into the clinic screaming, tugging at her ear and red-faced with agony. The girl probably liked Daussie because she was the one that’d relieved the pressure by porting the pus out of her ear. The girl had immediately felt better as evidenced by the sudden hiccup in her crying when it happened. She’d cried a little while longer, Daussie suspected mostly on principle, but then had begun to show better spirits
Now, Daussie’s ghirit showed her that a little bit of the pus had reaccumulated in the girl’s middle ear, though the tissue around it was not nearly as inflamed. Geller’s sulfanilamide to the rescue, she thought.
Daussie ported the little bit of purulent material out of the ear and into the bottle she was holding, then straightened up. “That medicine’s made you a lot better,” she said with a smile. “I’ll get you a little more.”
The little girl frowned, “Taste’s bad.”
Seeing the mother opening her mouth to admonish her daughter, Daussie put up a halting hand at her while not taking her eyes off the girl. She raised her eyebrows, “But you need it so you’ll finish getting better, right?”
The little girl shook her head, starting to look mulish.
“How about if I mix it with a little honey?”
The girl’s eyes widened, then looked hopefully up at her mother. The mother gave a nod.
Getting up, Daussie said, “I’ll just go mix it up,” as she walked back to the little alcove.
They didn’t have a way to weigh people yet, so they were having to settle for an ancient chart that gave the average weights for children at various ages. Tarc made them a small balance scale for weighing medicines. Daussie had used teleportation to cut an ancient nickel—which were known to weigh exactly five grams—in half, then made sure the two halves weighed the same. Her talent had turned out to be surprisingly accurate at dividing something in half. So, she’d cut one piece in half again, then one piece of that in half again, etc. That gave them pieces weighing 2.5 grams, 1.25 grams, 625 milligrams, 362 milligrams, 181 milligrams, 90 milligrams, and 45 milligrams. With those, she could weigh out a pretty good selection of doses to match doses she based on guesses at the child’s weight.
Yesterday she’d guesstimated that the girl needed a thousand milligrams, which wouldn’t have changed today, so she put the 625 and 362-milligram weights on one side of the scale for a total of 987. Then, moving Geller’s jar of sulfa powder closer, she ported what she thought was a little less than a gram of powder onto the other side of the scale. It wasn’t enough to balance, so she ported a little more, then a little more, at which point the weighted side of the scale slowly lifted.
Deciding that was close enough for a dose, which was after all only guesstimated, she ported the powder into a spoon, then moving their jar of honey near the spoon she ported a dollop of honey on top of the powder. Picking up another spoon, she used the back end of it to stir the honey and sulfa together and took it out to the child.
The girl eagerly took her medicine, then looked up from under a lowered brow to proclaim, “Still tastes bad.”
“I’m sorry,” Daussie said, giving her a little water to wash it down. “You’re enough better that I’m hoping you won’t have to take another dose of medicine tomorrow.” She looked up at the child’s mother, “But I do think you should still bring her in so we can check her, okay?”
The mother nodded, took her child and left.
Daussie looked around the clinic. It looked like she’d just seen the last patient of the day. Kazy’d gone downstairs. She would’ve been late to start working on dinner. With more and more patients coming in all the time, the clinics were running farther and farther beyond the time they’d tried to stop them—in the past—in order to have time to prepare for the dinner hour.
We need a bigger room for the clinic. One with more cubicles so more of us can see patients at the same time, she thought.
It being one of the afternoons when Tarc worked in the clinic, he was sitting with Vyrda and Eva as they discussed the day’s cases. Well, the day’s most interesting cases. In the past, they would’ve talked about every patient, but now there were so many that there was barely time to talk over the interesting ones. Normally, Daussie would’ve joined them but she’d promised Norman she’d go to the new sweets shop with him. It’d just opened last week and people were raving about it. We’ll have to hurry or we’ll be late to help during the dinner rush, she thought.
Having excused herself, Daussie went down the stairs to find Norman. She was getting mixed feelings about him. He was generally nice and, if anything, overly attentive. Unfortunately, he tended to tell her what he thought she should do. She had a feeling that if their relationship went any farther, he’d get to be one of those men who thought he should decide everything for “his” woman.
Nonetheless, no other boys her age were paying her any attention. Nylin said they were intimidated by her beauty. With all the effort she put into toning down her looks with bad hair and baggy clothing, she just didn’t believe that concept. Whatever the cause, other than Norman they seemed to avoid her. She liked having someone to do things with, and while Kazy, Grace, and Nylin did well for most of that, it was nice to go somewhere with a boy once in a while.
As soon as she entered the dining room, Norman looked up eagerly. He asked, “Are you ready to go?”
She nodded. They went out the door, turning toward the gate that went into Clancy Vail. As they passed the caravan grounds, they saw the first wagons of a caravan arriving. Norman eagerly said, “Hey, tomorrow we can go check out the new caravan.”
Daussie felt a little irritated at the way he tried to dominate every free moment she had, but settled for putting him off by saying, “We’ll see.”
She’d noticed Keller Sarno and his family up ahead of them on the path toward town. Sarno was working as the tavern’s guard from midnight to dawn, climbing a ladder to perch on the roof each night. A little guard shack was being fashioned for the roof which should make the job a little less onerous. Sarno slept during the day, but this late in the afternoon he was awake, sometimes doing other odd jobs. Today, it looked like he was taking his family into town.
They were moving slowly because of the short stride of their children’s little legs. When she and Norman came alongside, Daussie said, “Hello Mr. and Ms. Sarno. Are you taking your kids to the new sweetshop?”
Sarno eagerly bobbed his head, “Yes Ms. Daussie.” He glanced fondly down at them, saying, “They’re not at all excited.”
Bouncing up and down, two children protested that they “were too.”
Daussie grinned at them, “It’s a good thing you’re not walking very fast then. Norman and I’ll be able to get there before you’ve e
aten all the sweets.”
With cries of chagrin, the children rushed ahead for a bit, but their short legs couldn’t keep up the pace.
When she and Norman had passed, then gained some distance on the Sarnos, Norman said, “I don’t know why you’re so friendly with them. They’re your employees, you know?”
Daussie felt a cold shiver run over her. You’re an employee too, Norman, she thought. Though obviously one who thinks he’s of a higher class than Mr. Sarno and his family. After a moment she thought, I hope Norman doesn’t think he’s better than they are just because he’s been going places with me!
Though Norman nattered on as they walked, Daussie’s inner thoughts kept her from hearing much of it. They turned the corner and joined a line waiting in front of the new sweets shop. The line wasn’t as long as she’d feared, nor as short as she’d hoped. Norman kept talking and Daussie continued paying little attention. When they were nearly to the front of the line, a squad of four guardsmen came around the corner with a couple of well-dressed women.
With a start, Daussie recognized two of the baron’s wives, Kiri and Linni. Her heart felt glad they were out of their imprisonment in the wives’ apartments. She wondered whether she should say something to them, or just hope they didn’t recognize her. After all, she thought, their place in line would be far from hers.
But then, the guardsmen marched them right up to the front of the line, telling the man and children just in front of Daussie and Norman to step back to make room. Kiri and Linni were inserted into the line there, right behind the people who were presently ordering.
Daussie thought to herself that when she and the other wives were beaten down prisoners in their apartments at the baron’s palace, she’d assumed that they wouldn’t think of themselves as better than other citizens. In fact, Kiri did seem a little uncomfortable with skipping the line, glancing at the waiting people and looking like she was about to speak to the guardsman in charge of their little group. Then, with a tiny shrug, she accepted her precedence as if it were being forced upon her. Linni, on the other hand, seemed to have no doubt she belonged at the front of the line. I wonder whether Kiri would’ve acted the same if it weren’t for Eva’s influence on her? Daussie asked herself.
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