• • •
“I won’t say you didn’t have good reason to hotfoot it out of Karse,” Junchan was saying. He and Father Ponious and Indibar were all sitting at her kitchen table drinking tea, and Kenisant had stuck his head in through the window, listening shamelessly. Neither Indibar nor Prysane seemed to mind, and the priest and the lay brother were studiously ignoring him. “But I will say, you won’t even recognize the place now that Radiance Solaris is in charge. She’s making a lot of changes. That’s why she sent me to find you.”
“But what about the demon?” Father Ponious asked. “You can’t mean to say that I was imagining it all these moonturns?”
“I saw as many traces of it as you did,” Junchan answered, sounding confused. “And then it just . . . stopped.”
“I don’t think any demon would choose to come to a fane of Kalanel Moonqueen,” Indibar said, sounding amused. “But I think it is even more likely that Vykaendys’s Shield stopped it. And rather permanently, unless I miss my guess. But of course, any devout follower of Vykaendys may enter His lands at will.”
“‘Vykaendys’ . . .” Father Ponious said in astonishment. “Surely you don’t mean to say Vkandis is worshipped here in Iftel?”
“Vykaendys and Kalanel both,” Indibar said readily. “What is the sun without the moon to show its glory? Or the moon without the sun to make it bright?”
“Fine!” Junchan said. “But it hardly explains what he’s doing here,” he said, jerking a thumb in Kenisant’s direction. “He belongs in Valdemar, with all the rest of them.”
“And you will take him there on your way back to Karse,” Indibar said. “As for how he got here, well, I think he must have lost his way for a while. But he has found it now. Haven’t you, nice white horsey?”
She beamed at him. And Kenisant, if it had been within his power, would have blushed.
The Apprentice and the Stable Master
Brenda Cooper
The door to the room Marala shared with her mother swung open and banged against the wall. “Come quickly,” the servant boy, Linal, hissed to her. She knew him by sight and name, but they were not friends; he worked and slept in the main house. He spoke fast, his voice tight with stress. “The new lord fell from his horse.”
“What happened?” Marala’s mother, Kris, put down her knitting.
“I think the horse threw him. I didn’t see it, but I heard it—he screamed like a five-year-old. The stable-master demands that you come as fast as you can.”
“We’re coming.” Kris took a green tunic from a hook by the door and belted it over her olive-drab dress. She glanced at Marala, her green eyes clouded with worry. “I may need help. You’re ready to assist.”
Marala nodded. Ever since she started showing some of her mom’s talents as a Healer, she’d been practicing on the myriad small ills and injuries that occurred commonly in the servant’s lives. She’d never been allowed to help anyone except the servants, and a little flutter of excitement filled her.
“Come here.” Kris pulled a light green kerchief from a shelf and leaned over Marala, the silky material fluttering in her palm. She fastened it around Marala’s neck with a small pin in the shape of a circle. “I’ve been saving this for you.”
Marala touched the scarf, which was a finer silk than most things the servants were allowed to own in the keep. “Thank you.”
Kris smiled back and turned toward the door. “Are you ready?”
Marala used her fingers to fluff her thick red hair. “Yes.”
“Hurry up!” Linal hissed. “The Lord Daving demands you now, and Norsk looks ready to kill something.”
“We’re almost ready,” Kris replied calmly. A shadow seemed to pass across her face as she looked down at Marala, who was now just a head shorter than her mom. A smile replaced the shadow quickly, and she whispered, “Do only what I ask you.”
“Of course.”
“And don’t question Lord Daving.”
Marala merely nodded, worried at the nerves that would make her mother remind her of something everyone knew. How many nights had she sat huddled in the rafters of the barn outside the ring where the servants were beaten for the slightest offense? She had never been beaten, and she never wanted to be; she couldn’t imagine arguing. Hopefully she wouldn’t need to. The new lord was young, just returned from a foster after the death of his father in a hunting accident on a neighbor’s land. Marala had never met him, but she’d heard no good of him, not even from when they were both small. But surely he was too young to cause much trouble?
Kris grabbed her basket of herbs and simples and handed it to Marala. She nodded to the visibly relieved Linal. “Go on.”
He led them out to the central yard of the Keep. Stone walls and stone buildings surrounded a vast yard, which had been cut up with short walls to make fields for grazing, for drilling at arms, and for growing food.
They hurried. Kris’s long brown hair swung below her waist in a braid fastened with a healer’s green band. Marala clutched the herb basket to her breast. The flutter of fear that beat at her insides surprised her. She knew Kris was good. Lord or not, this was merely a fall from a horse. A sprain or break, and surely within her mother’s skills.
Norsk stood on top of a low wall, arms folded, his long black beard resting on his somewhat ample belly, watching them approach. When they got close, he bellowed, “What took you so long?”
Linal started to speak, but her mother cut the boy off and said, “Go home. You did your work.” She looked at Norsk and spoke carefully, but with power, as if taming a fractious dog. “We came as quickly as possible. Please show me the patient?”
Anger still tightened the man’s face, but he said, “This way,” and led them into a barn where a thin man sat with both hands hugging his left leg to him. His right leg extended out, the ankle looking like a great, big ball with red blood bruising already starting on the outside. The slightest ghost of a brown beard had started on his chin, the individual hairs so thin she could barely see them. His face was tight with pain. “Fix me,” he demanded.
Kris knelt, looking the injury over without touching it. “You fell from a horse?” she asked.
“What do you care?” the young lord snarled.
Marala winced, but Kris showed no outward reaction. “It will be easier to help you if you tell me what happened.”
He stared at Kris, challenging. “The horse fell. I jumped free, and there was a stupid rock in the way, and I landed on it, and it tilted so my foot went wrong.”
Kris smiled her calming Healer’s smile. “Did it make a cracking sound?”
“No.”
“That’s good.”
Lord Daving seemed to be calming a little, which eased Marala’s worry a little. “What compress shall I make?” she asked.
“What would you choose?” Kris asked in return.
“Cat’s Claw and Broam Root?”
Kris smiled. “That will do.” She glanced at the boy. “How bad is the pain, Lord Daving?”
“I can manage it.” Daving clenched his jaw tight.
Marala’s hands plunged into the basket, knowing which pouches to reach for from memory. She spread out a square of white cloth and poured the herbs into it, and then crushed it between her palms to release the scents and oils.
Kris knelt over the ankle and leaned down to peer closely.
“Now,” Lord Daving demanded, “I have to dance tonight. I’m announcing my engagement, and I will need to dance with my betrothed.”
Marala had not heard that news, and it seemed early. He had just returned a few days ago and was surely still in mourning for his father. Not that it was her business.
“I’m a Healer,” Kris said. “Not a Mage. Even after I’m done with this, you’ll need rest. If your young lady is kind, she’ll understand.”
Marala added water an
d pressed the compress between her hands again.
“My foster family’s Healer could handle this in five minutes. And he’d make me good enough to dance.”
Kris raised an eyebrow. “Is he here?”
“Just hurry!” the boy growled.
Marala muttered softly into the cloth, “Help and heal, do the patient well.” She held the finished compress out to her mom, pleased that her hands didn’t shake.
Kris took the herb-infused cloth and set it gently over the boy’s ankle. He winced but said nothing. She curled her hands around the swelling and the cloth and closed her eyes, her face falling into her calm Healer’s trance. For a few moments, nothing happened. Birds twittered above them.
“Ouch!”
Kris grimaced, but kept her hands in place.
The boy jerked his leg back. “That hurts.”
“Of course it hurts. Give me the leg.”
He glanced up at the man, who said, “Let her work.” Both men looked angry, which made no sense at all. Kris was doing her best, and whether or not she could heal him enough to dance, she could make him better.
Marala whispered to Lord Daving. “It’s easier if you give her room and time. Would you like a stick to bite on?”
He seemed to notice her for the first time, and he smiled.
She didn’t like the smile much, and she leaned back a little away from him. He reached for her arm and pulled her toward him. “You’re wearing green. You heal me.”
Kris hissed and sat up, abandoning her attempt to help for the moment. “She is not yet fully trained.”
“I want to see what she can do,” he replied, his voice cold.
Kris spoke louder, “She is not ready.”
Marala wanted to protest, but the look on her mom’s face stilled her tongue. Did her mom know something she didn’t?
Daving snatched his leg back and kept Marala near him, his dirty fingernails digging into her.
Norsk looked down at them and grimaced. “Let the girl try.”
Even though Kris’ voice was calm, a muscle in her jaw jumped and fluttered. “I have far more experience.”
“You’ll do what I say.” Daving’s voice sounded shrill and spoiled.
His fingers dug into Marala’s arm. She glanced at her mom, and at the man and back to the boy. She should be able to do this. Her mom had reminded her not to argue with the lord before they left, but here she was, arguing.
The look on Daving’s face made Marala afraid for her mom. She spoke, doing her best to imitate her mother’s manner with Norsk earlier. “I will try.”
Daving let go of her.
Kris scooted away, finding a place where she could watch all three of them. Her face was an emotionless mask, but Marala sensed anger and regret. There was no time to think about that now.
She gestured, and Daving extended his leg again, in front of her and between her knees. The compress had fallen off. She used a deep, shuddering breath to calm her racing heart and to quiet her fears, and then rubbed her hands together to generate heat and closed her eyes, whispering, “Give me strength, give me heat, give me healing.” Her hands fell to either side of the injury. Even before she touched it, she felt the hot anger of the wound. Keeping her eyes closed, Marala moved her hands in to cup the swollen ankle, meeting its heat with heat of her own.
At that moment, it was her and the ankle and nothing else. Not her mom, not the angry Stablemaster, not even the boy. She felt the swelling but left it, went past it, searching for the damaged ligaments. The sprain was high, and the tear almost complete. If he twisted it standing up or took a wrong step, he might finish the job he’d started and require a surgeon’s hand. She or her mom could strengthen something that had been harmed, stitch together a slight tear, and clean infections, but they could not create new tendons or magically pull a snapped tendon to where it needed to be. She had to do this right, and she had never healed a worse sprain. Especially not a Lord’s sprain.
Marala lost her composure, taking in shuddering breaths and shaking.
She paused for a deep breath, feeling the ground under her knees and her curled feet. She called to its warmth and power, to its strength. The ground held them all up, the ground fed the trees and the grasses, which in turn fed the rabbits and vegetables and chickens, the ground was clean and powerful. With the briefest and lightest demand, she tugged some of the ground’s energy into her, feeling it gather in her solar plexus like the tendril of a pea vine. With her next breath, she stabilized it and cut it free. It writhed in her stomach, hot and hungry to be used.
Her mom put a hand on her back. Support perhaps, or warning. Either way, Marala barely felt it. She focused, imagined, and blew out a long steady breath, sending the energy down her arms and through her palms into the damaged tendon. She felt it find its target and encouraged it to knit the ripped edges of the ligament together.
The boy screamed and pulled his ankle back.
Shocked, Marala’s eyes flew open and met the anger in Daving’s eyes. “It was working,” she said.
The lord stared up at the Stablemaster. “No. No, it didn’t work. It shouldn’t hurt.”
“Of course it hurt!” Marala cried out in protest. “It was working.”
Her mother’s hand tightened on her tunic.
“Beat them,” Daving said. “And send to the neighbors for a real Healer.”
No! Anger practically forced her to stand up. “I would like to see you stand up. I bet you can.” She had helped him. She knew it. She had felt it. The energy had not come back into her; it had finished its job with him. She spoke as softly as possible, a soothing speech. “Healing well makes fast changes in tissue. That can hurt greatly, my Lord.”
His eyes narrowed.
She held out her hand.
He stared hard at her, his eyes nothing but challenge.
She didn’t care. She kept her hand out, kept watching him, daring him to let her help him stand. Time dragged.
If he didn’t take her hand, they would be beaten. She forced two words through her thinned mouth. “I’m sorry.”
He reached for her hand and she grasped his, which was hot and a little slimy. He grimaced but then set his foot down gingerly and shifted so he was putting at least some weight on it. He stared down, lifted it and set it down, lifted it and set it down. He took a tentative step. “It’s still huge.”
“Of course it is,” Kris said. “The swelling will go down with time.”
“I cannot go to my engagement like this,” he said. He looked over at the Stablemaster. “Lock up the woman. Bring the girl to me afterward. She did the most for me. She can work on it more before dinner.”
Kris stepped between Daving and Marala. “She knows nothing of Court. She cannot go.”
She might as well have not spoken at all; Daving was still staring at Norsk. “Bring me the girl after my bath.” He took a few experimental steps.
Daving put weight on it. It held. Even though he showed a light limp, he’d surely be able to walk normally in a day or two. He turned and very casually said, “Beat the woman.”
“No!” Marala cried out.
Daving smiled. Again, it was the smile that turned up the hair on the back of Marala’s neck.
“You cannot beat her for trying to help you!”
It was Daving’s turn to remain calm. “I can beat whoever I want. It is not for failing. It is for keeping you from me.”
His voice and looks chilled Marala so hard and fast that she shivered. It chilled her even more that every step he took away from them seemed stronger. She had healed him, but at what cost?
Kris grabbed her and pulled her to her, hissing in her ear, “Run away.”
“And leave you?”
“He will harm you! I can’t take that.”
“I won’t leave you.”
Her mo
m got time to hiss, “You must—” before she stopped and stared at Norsk, who was walking up behind them.
“Stop whispering.” He grabbed Kris and stared hard at Marala. “Go get your mother some clean clothes. She will need them.”
Marala raced back to the servant’s quarters and grabbed a fresh shift and underwear, adding a pair of old pants and a pair of her own socks, since the laundry hadn’t been done. Norsk would take her mother to a wide yard where the horses were walked to cool down and servants who broke rules were beaten before they were sent home.
Marala heard the whine of the whip before she entered the yard. Norsk’s face was still and determined as he raised his hand up and snapped the leather whip backward. Her mom stood in the center of the yard on a stained cloth, blood running down her back.
The whip fell. Kris jerked, but did not fall or cry out. Her green tunic had been removed and hung on the fence.
Marala stopped just inside the gate.
Norsk coiled the whip. Without looking at Marala, he said, “My apologies for the interruption to your day. The young Lord will undoubtedly call for you. I’d suggest you take your mother home, salve her wounds without expending your healing energy, and prepare yourself.” He almost sounded kind, although surely Marala was hearing him wrong.
She went to Kris’s side and took her hand. Tears hung in the corner of Kris’s eyes, but none had fallen. “I’m proud of you,” Marala whispered.
The Stablemaster touched her shoulder. “Go now.” She glanced at him and saw what might be regret, or worse, pity on his face.
Kris hissed through clenched teeth. “Get my tunic and come.” With that, she started home, her back stiff and bloody and her head up. Marala had to run to catch up with her. When she did, Kris turned to her and said, “You cannot go to Lord Daving. You must leave.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“You must.”
“I won’t.”
Kris stopped in the middle of the path and said, “He is healed, but he still wants you. He will do you harm. That was the way of his father, and that will be the way of him.”
Tempest Page 18