Tethered by Blood

by Jane Beckstead

  Papa was alive. And still drunk. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or disgusted. “What did he say?”

  “Oh, I didn’t talk to him. Didn’t seem much point to it, him being drunk and all and you not having a very high opinion of him. I looked him over and left him some coin.”

  I sat up straighter. “You gave Papa money? Are you stupid?”

  “He seemed bad off. I thought you’d appreciate the gesture.”

  “He’ll only use it for drink,” I said grudgingly. And then, because I sounded so ungrateful, I added, “But...thank you for the kindness.”

  We picked at our desserts in silence, until I broke it by asking, “Who'll wash your clothes, then?”

  “Same person who did it before you. Mrs. Hanson or else Mrs. Pitts, or I can send it to Bramford. You did a better job than either of them, but that doesn’t matter. If you hate doing it, it can’t be helped.”

  Perhaps I should have felt guilty, but I didn’t. I took another bite of cake and beamed at Ivan.

  Mrs. Pitts entered the room and handed the master a piece of paper. I glimpsed scrawled letters as the master opened it and scanned downward. From the faint trail of magic sparking around it, it must have come from the messenger.

  Abruptly the master stood. “I’m needed in Bramford.”

  “What is it?”

  Master nodded at me. “Get your robes, underwizard. You’re coming along.”

  I rose to my feet, surprised. The master had often been called to Bramford, but never this late in the evening. Nor had he ever taken me with him before.

  The man really was softening.

  Ivan looked over the Waltney cakes that remained on the table. No worry, he gestured at us. I eat cakes.

  By the time the master and I were seated in the carriage and Bramford-bound, night had fallen, and the weather outside had turned thick with falling snow. I had an uneasy feeling about our mode of travel in this weather. It was unfortunate that wizard’s doors were only permitted between the residences of wizards. This journey would be much quicker if there were a door that spilled out, say, into the middle of Bramford’s town square.

  Master Wendyn summoned a light in the palm of his hand so we weren’t in complete dark. “I’ve been summoned to care for a sick child. The physician is miles away at a difficult childbirth, and the child has worsened. The parents want me to heal her.”

  A healing. It was a service I longed for Gavin to receive, but one which we couldn’t afford. I envied these parents their wealth and stance in the community. Both had barred Gavin from the services of a master wizard. The unfairness of it made my stomach queasy.

  I wanted to become a master wizard to bring healing spells to those like Gavin, those whose station in life rendered them unable to pay the fees of a master wizard. It hurt me to think my brother would be alive today if we’d had more money, or if Papa hadn’t drunk so much of our earnings away, or if I had been a better thief, or if Papa and I had never thieved to begin with.

  “What do you need me for? I’ll just be in the way. I haven’t learned healing spells.” Lie. Feeling as I did about becoming a master wizard, to help those like Gavin, I read all three of Master Hapthwaite’s books on healing spells, but I’d never dared to use any of them, for fear of angering the Council. Healing magic was the thirteenth trial and only to be practiced under the auspices of my master.

  “You can observe, if nothing else. It’s time I started to bring you along on my calls to the local folk, no matter what people say. However, I thought you might be of particular use in this case. As I recall, your brother died from the same illness. I thought you might have immunity where I don’t.”

  I grew still, and the master’s face, already dim with shadows, blurred before my eyes. “The child has the wasting sickness?”

  “Yes.”

  Hot and cold flooded through me, sensations of uncertainty and fear. I had the sudden wild desire to leap out of the carriage and run back to Ryker Hall. I didn’t want to revisit my last hours with Gavin. The panic that rushed me felt similar to the long ago day in Bramford when I fought for Ivan and lost my apprenticeship.

  “But...there have been no outbreaks near here.”

  “Not yet, anyway.” The grimness in his voice made his message clear: this might be the beginning of an epidemic.

  I was losing control.

  No. I was in control.

  Thunk-a thunk-a thunk-a thudded my heart. Run run run.

  But then I remembered. The master would heal the child. I wouldn’t have to watch the suffering and sorrow and wasting away as I did with my brother. This time I would see the opposite side of the illness. I’d watch the child recover and the family rejoice. The only pain would be in remembering my loss.

  I was in control.

  Now that my thoughts had turned to Gavin, I couldn’t turn them away. We traveled the rest of the distance in silence. I stared out the window at the passing blur of white and remembered my brother.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The carriage glided to a silent stop in front of the one homes with lights still burning. The master and I stepped out and tromped through a world of white to reach the house.

  “Your hair is white,” I said to the master. Even I could hear the nerves in my voice. I was nervous to be near Gavin’s killer once again, even though I knew it couldn’t best Master Wendyn.

  He shook the snow out of his dark hair and raised an eyebrow at me. “I might say the same for you, underwizard.”

  A round, red-cheeked housekeeper led us through the house to a room at the back, where we were met by the parents. They ran at Master Wendyn when they caught sight of him. I was struck by the noisy sound of labored breathing.

  “Master Wendyn. Thank you for coming.” The father’s eyes flitted to me and back to the master. “It came on so sudden. She was fine yesterday.”

  “And now she’s taken a turn,” the mother wailed. “I’m afraid she won’t last the night!”

  The master and I exchanged a glance. Wasting sickness rarely moved so quickly. What version of the illness was this?

  “I will do everything I can. Stand aside.” The master pushed past the two of them and motioned at me. “Come along, underwizard.” I hefted the master’s bag of medicines, bowed my head, and followed.

  The sickbed lay against one wall. I took one look at the girl, and it was Gavin all over again—the gray face, the fine sheen of perspiration covering her face and neck, the stillness. But she was younger than Gavin, perhaps only four or five. For a moment she stirred, and her innocent, childish face turned toward me. The cloth on her forehead fell to the floor, and I retrieved it and lay it back against her hot forehead. My fingers twitched with longing to smooth back the hair at the crown of her head, to let her know she wasn’t alone, but I held myself back. She stilled, her face turned up, eyes closed.

  The master muttered to himself as he touched her temples, lifted her limp wrist, and held an ear to her chest to listen to her breathing. After several minutes of this, he exhaled and turned. “The bag, underwizard.” He motioned, and I held his medicines bag out to him. He rifled around in it and, a moment later, came up with a bottle of brown liquid. The cork came free, and he poured a small amount into a tin cup. “Feed her this.”

  Carefully, as I did countless times with Gavin, I raised the girl’s head with one hand and held the cup to her mouth with the other. A small amount of liquid trickled inside her mouth, while a great deal more dribbled down her front. Disappointed, I looked up at the master, but he didn’t appear displeased.

  “Very good.” He held his hands out and launched into a spell. I took a moment to recognize it from Master Hapthwaite’s healing books. It was a soothing spell, meant to ease discomfort and pain. Next he went into a breathing spell, and from there on to several more spells I wasn’t quick enough to identify. The master weaved strands of magic around the child that sparked against her skin and encased her in a subtle glow.

  I mopped up the li
quid I’d spilled down the girl’s front with a rag and freshened the cloth on her forehead by dipping it in the basin of cool water next to the bed. Then left with nothing else to do, I stood back and observed Master Wendyn.

  The few opportunities I’d seen him at work were in the library and ended with him angry or upset with me for various reasons. To my surprise, I found that he was at ease here, in a way I didn’t think I’d seen him before. He maintained complete control, with no anger or dissatisfaction marring his face. He closed his eyes as he weaved elegant and intricate spells, and then he leaned down to check his patient’s progress before launching into further magic.

  Even more surprising, I found that that I enjoyed watching him work. This was healing. This was what it would have been like if Gavin had had a master wizard to spell away his sickness. A feeling built in me, and at last I recognized it for what it was—hope. I very much wanted to see the master defeat this poor girl’s wasting sickness. I wanted to see her on her feet with color in her cheeks, getting into mischief like other children.

  But the painful rattle that filled the room never seemed to ease. If anything, it sounded worse. A furrow appeared between the master’s brows.

  “What is it?” the mother asked. “Is something wrong?” She watched the master’s every move like a cat poised to pounce.

  Master Wendyn frowned and turned to her. “My greatest apologies, Madame, but I will ask you to leave now,” he said politely, “so we can work undistracted.”

  The request brought protests from the mother, but the father nodded and bore her out of the room himself.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked once the door clicked shut.

  Master Wendyn shed his robes and loosened his sleeves before rolling them up to the elbow. “The sickness may have too tight a grip on her.” He held the child’s wrist once again and laid the back of his other hand against her cheek.

  “Then perform more healing spells. There’s no sickness so great that magic can’t heal it.” I dabbed at the sweat beading on her face.

  “Magic isn’t a panacea for all ills. It has its limitations too.”

  I stopped what I was doing and stared at him. “But...but that’s not true. It can save anyone from illness, apart from old age.”

  “Anyone who isn’t beyond saving.” He rummaged around in his medicines bag.

  “No, you’re wrong. I’ve seen it.”

  He pulled out another bottle, this one filled with a greenish mixture, thick and slogging. “What have you seen?”

  “There was a boy in Waltney. He fell from a great height, breaking many bones. The physician pronounced him too far gone to help. But the parents brought in a master wizard, and the boy lived. By magic. I’ve seen that boy many times, playing in the street. You’d never know he almost died.”

  “Then the boy was lucky.” The master poured out a small amount of the green mixture into the tin cup. “Here. Feed her this.”

  The liquid looked and smelled like swamp water. I held it to the girl’s mouth, careful this time to get less down her front and more down her throat. “And another time,” I continued, placing the cup aside, “I saw a wizard bring a man back from the dead, right there in the Waltney town square.”

  “Why was he performing healing spells for an audience? Sounds like a swindler.”

  “He wasn’t a swindler,” I said hotly. “He was a good and generous wizard, with potions and spells he sold to poor folk, unlike most master wizards.” Potions and spells to cure everything that ails you, had been his cry up and down the streets.

  “Ah. He was a peddler.”

  “Of a sort,” I said reluctantly. “What has that to do with anything?”

  “Peddling spells in the streets is prohibited for master wizards. If the man was a master wizard, I promise you he won’t be once the Council catches up with him.”

  If the man was a master wizard. I felt as though the ground had been pulled from beneath me. Could the peddler have been a fraud? He was an inspiration to me, of sorts. The memory of him and his healing spells had been bright in my mind after Gavin died. It had pushed me on day and night as I disguised myself as a boy and traveled across the kingdom until I found Master Hapthwaite, the fourteenth wizard I’d petitioned to accept me as his apprentice. The one who finally agreed.

  And now I found out that even if I become a master wizard, my power wouldn’t be absolute. I’d still have to watch people die.

  Had the last three years been based on a lie?

  I was shaken back to awareness by the deep rattle of the child’s breathing. Gavin had trouble near the end too. It didn’t bode well that she hadn’t awakened once due to our ministrations. What if we couldn’t save her? She might die, just as Gavin did.

  I wanted to be very, very far away when that happened.

  Master Wendyn must have seen something of my thoughts on my face, because he barked at me, “Get a hold of yourself, underwizard. There’s work to do.”

  The words shook me into an awareness of the dangerous direction my thoughts had taken, and shame coursed through me. I was ready to run and hide, just as Papa did. I was nothing but a coward.

  A coward who was losing control.

  I forced myself to speak. “What do you want me to do?”

  “We’re not giving up; not yet. You know about the wasting sickness. While I’m spell-casting, I want you to do what you can for the child.”

  “You mean...doctor her?”

  “Yes.”

  I wavered and still didn’t move.

  The master’s brow darkened, and he continued, “Unless you want her to die.”

  “But my doctoring won’t save her,” I insisted, as earnest as I’d ever been in my life. “I couldn’t save Gavin, and I won’t do her any good either.”

  He took me by the shoulders and gave me a little shake. “Underwizard,” he said, his words sharp and loud, eyes steely, “magic alone can’t save this girl. Likewise, your doctoring alone couldn’t save your brother. Now we’ll try both together and see if we can save her this way. Pull yourself together.”

  He turned back to the sickbed and launched into more spellcasting.

  The master wasn’t giving up. I couldn’t either. Not while she still had a chance.

  I hurried to the door and dictated to the parents a list of herbs and other ingredients I needed from the apothecary or botanist, whoever we could rouse at this late hour. Then I set to sponging the girl down with cold water to cool her overheated body.

  I would do what I could. I’d do it for Gavin.

  ***

  My head drooped, and I caught myself and straightened. The sun floated high in the sky and spilled in the only window of the child’s bedroom, warming the floor. I blinked and focused my eyes. My head leaned against the bed while the rest of me sat on the floor. I’d dozed off yet again.

  “Sleep, underwizard.” The master’s voice sounded hoarse and strained, almost a mere whisper. Weariness reflected in every line of his body as he sat at the foot of the bed. Slumped, really. “It’s all right. I will watch.”

  All night and morning we’d worked over the child together, he muttering hoarse spells while I administered teas and poultices and massaged oils into her limbs to promote healing.

  I scrubbed at my face and slapped my cheeks to wake myself up. “No. No, you sleep. You’re the one who’s been spellcasting all night long. As draining as that is, I don’t know how you have any energy left. You must be flat out of magic.”

  A faint smile passed over his mouth. “There’s always magic, remember?”

  His tenacity had surprised me. No, more than surprised—astonished.

  I pushed myself to my knees. “I should change her poultice.” The rattle of her breathing had eased, and her cheeks had taken on a faint pink hue, but the child still hadn’t awakened. At least her parents had retired to sleep a few hours ago, convinced of her improvement.

  Master Wendyn resumed his hoarse spellcasting as I pulled the poultice off
of her chest. Midway through its replacement, a pounding sounded somewhere below stairs. The master and I exchanged a glance. Minutes later, the door opened. The red-cheeked housekeeper poked her face in, her cap askew. “I’m very sorry—” she began, but before she could say anything more, a large man pushed his way past her into the sickroom.

  His contemptuous glance took in the room. “Master Wendyn,” he said. “I heard you had brought your apprentice here, but I couldn’t believe you’d do it, after our agreement.” The voice and face were familiar, and after staring in consternation for a moment, the man’s identity came to me. He was the man from Bramford town square all those months ago, the one who knocked me down and concussed me.

  Master Wendyn stepped in front of me. “Harris,” he said in his hoarse voice. “We’ve been busy here all night, as you can see.” He gestured at the bed. “Why don’t we talk about this where we won’t disturb the child?”

  “What agreement?” I asked. But before I could get any more out, Harris threw a spell at me with a point of his fingers and muttered words. I was frozen in place, unable to move even a muscle.

  “And no words out of the likes of you. You lost the right to speak or even show your face here in Bramford,” he said.

  “Did you really, an amateur magician, just dare to spell my underwizard?” Master Wendyn asked, a dangerous edge to his voice that I’d never heard before.

  “You know well enough that that boy and the fool aren’t welcome in Bramford,” Harris said, though he backed off a step in the face of the master’s clear wrath. “You agreed that if either should dare to show their faces again, the town council could decide the punishment.”

  Was that why the master never brought me to Bramford? And not that he disliked me?

  Then again, I supposed it could be both.

  I struggled against the spell holding me mobile, but it was no use. This was just like that time with Kurke in the library.

  This freezing spell was my least favorite spell. I felt like a fool.

  “I needed the underwizard here. I wasn’t about to let this child die because the Bramford Council condones the torture of children while my underwizard did not.”