Tempest

by Mercedes Lackey

  “What are you hiding from me?” Marala asked.

  Kris shook her head. “Trust me and do as I say.”

  That was all she was going to get. Kris was stubborn enough she’d stand here bleeding until she won, even it meant she bled to death. Marala sighed. “Let’s get you to bed.” She still clutched the clothes to her, realizing that Norsk had sent her off so she didn’t see the beating. “Norsk didn’t want to beat you, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? I’ve seen him beat people before.”

  “He takes pleasure when he beats thieves. He may be high on the ladder, but Norsk is still a hired hand, and more one of us than one of them. No one wants to beat a Healer who has helped them. He’ll help keep me safe even if you run.”

  • • •

  Marala lifted her hands from the wounds on her mothers’ back. They were now pink strips against Kris’s skin. “Lie still, Mom. Rest.”

  “Pack,” Kris murmured.

  “I will.” First, she needed energy. Healing always made her feel starved and exhausted.

  She found the kitchen in an uproar as it prepared for the evening’s guests. The rich smells of baking bread and cooking potatoes filled the air, all of it laced by the scent of vegetable stew in a huge pot that was just beginning to bubble. The head cook labored over a whole killed pig, all of her focus on something she seemed to be trying to tie to one of the feet.

  “How many are coming tonight?” Marala asked her friend Kathlyn, amazed at the frenetic energy in the kitchen.

  “I heard twenty. Yesterday, we were told five. The young lord is crazy.”

  Marala pursed her lips.

  “There’s food.” Kathlyn pointed at the usual cupboard. “There’ll be plenty after this feast, so take what you want.”

  Marala hesitated at the open cupboard. She was truly starved. Day-old muffins and bread and slightly bruised peaches filled one shelf, and below that, the miracle of a half-eaten wheel of cheese that had been cut into thick slices. She filled the small sack she’d brought and went back to their room.

  Her mother had fallen asleep.

  While she ate, Marala watched her mom sleep.

  The food revived her. She rose and set two pieces of bread, two peaches, and a hunk of cheese on the bedside table for her mom. What if she left and found someplace they could both live? She’d heard that Healers were valuable more than once, and the Stablemaster had reminded her of it again tonight. If they were valuable, then surely they could find a kinder Lord to take them in?

  It had to be possible to sneak out. Three other servants had, and she had never seen two of them again. They must have gotten away. One had not—a young woman had come back and been put in chains for three months, and now she worked in the big house alongside Linal and kept her head down. Her face had been scarred by the beating she’d gotten when they caught her, but Marala still thought she was pretty.

  The odds seemed good.

  Maybe she could sneak out during the feast.

  In a candlemark, she was clean, dressed in homespun blue pants and the whitest shirt she owned. A small pack under her bed held the rest of the food, two flasks of water, and clean smallclothes. She had added pouches of herbs to the top to mask the real purpose of the pack.

  She folded the green kerchief carefully into her pocket.

  With nothing to do but wait, she worried about her mother until the door slammed open and Linal stood there a second time. He had been washed up and dressed in fancy clothes, and this time he spoke formally to her. “Lord Daving requests your presence.”

  She hesitated for a moment, but then grabbed her pack. “This has some supplies I may need. Will there be a place to put it?”

  He shouldered the pack and said, “I can put it with the guests’ purses and cloaks. No one will know any different, and then you’ll know where to ask for it.”

  “Thanks.” Her mom was still sound asleep on her stomach, but had kicked the covers off her feet. “Give me a moment?”

  He looked perturbed that she asked. “Be quick.”

  “I will.” She covered her mom’s feet back up and kissed her cheek. “I’m ready.”

  Their shadows were long in front of them as they walked to the main building, which looked like a small castle, complete with turrets and a tall walkway around the edges. She had only been inside a few times; she was grateful to have a guide. Linal led her to a room on the second floor that looked like a servant’s room adjoining a suite of rooms. “Who lives here?” she asks.

  “No one. Daving has not taken a personal servant yet. I think . . .” he blushed, and didn’t finish his thought.

  “Thank you.” Her voice shook.

  “I’ll put your pack away.” He left her. She looked out of the window. It would be a sharp fall onto the top of a wooden fence. What had happened to her?

  Surely she was safe enough on a feast day. If she could get through the next hour or two, maybe she could slip out through the front doors.

  Daving came in, hobbling ever-so-slightly, and handed her a green tunic like her mother’s. “Put this on. You’ll attend me, and watch out for me, and that will be the excuse for me not dancing.”

  “I can’t wear that. I haven’t earned it.”

  His face tightened. “You have. You healed me today.”

  At least he was admitting it. “My mother started and would have finished.”

  He glared at her. “I’ll beat her again if you don’t do as I say. Besides, there’s no fancy Collegium here. Who would tell you to wear green, anyway?”

  “My mother.”

  “Surely she would, to save herself from another beating.”

  Marala flinched. It wasn’t true, but the look on his face suggested he didn’t want an argument. “Very well, my lord.”

  “That’s better. I’ll send someone in to help you get dressed. Then I will want you to work on my foot one more time before we go out there.”

  “Yes, my lord.” What else could she possibly say? She put the tunic on as soon as he left. There was a mirror, and while she looked as good in the color as her mother, with the same contrasting red hair and matching green eyes, it looked wrong on her. She pulled out the kerchief and put it over her hair, which simply made her look plain.

  An older woman bustled into through the door holding a floor-length pale green dress and a pair of brown shoes that were fair more delicate than anything Marala had ever owned. “I’m Beatrice,” she said. “Take that off, all of it.”

  Marala blinked at her, lost.

  “You can’t attend the Lord in pants. Not at an event like tonight.”

  Marala obeyed, just like she always obeyed. Each time she said yes to anyone, she felt farther away from her plans to escape. What would they do to her mother if she escaped and got caught?

  Beatrice pulled the dress over her head and started murmuring softly. “I know your mother, and I overheard the young Lord. I’m very sorry you are in this position.”

  Marala looked at the dress in the mirror. She’d never worn anything so fine, or so heavy and useless. She looked like a grown woman in it, which she liked and hated all at once. “Do you know why?” she whispered.

  Beatrice’s voice was an even softer whisper. “He was a cruel boy. I had hoped the foster would fix that in him.” A little louder, she said, “Now put on the tunic.”

  The colors contrasted nicely, dark green over seafoam. Beatrice made up Marala’s face and tightened the laces on her dress. She stood back to admire her work. “You’re a real beauty. Be careful.”

  Daving came back in and dismissed Beatrice.

  He took his boot off, sat on the bed, and extended his leg across it. “You may attend me.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed, thoughts whirling in her head. She didn’t like or trust Daving, but her mother . . . there wa
s no way to access the earth from here, not that she knew. How would she reach it through two stories of unfriendly keep? The servant’s quarters were all dirt floors. She rubbed her hands together and blew a prayer into them. The normal semitrance state she fell into refused to wrap itself around her.

  “Hurry up,” he said.

  She bit at her lip, rubbing her hands again and closing her eyes. She pretended Kris was sitting on the other side of the bed, watching over her. It helped, a little. She opened her eyes enough to see where to place her hands, trying to keep the illusion that everything was okay. Her hands touched his ankle. She felt the warmth of the remaining swelling and nothing else. She thought of cool things, of ice and streams and water and even snowfall.

  Daving groaned, the overly familiar tone of his voice shocking her out of the light level of trance she had achieved. “I hope that helps,” she said.

  “I do feel better.” He reached for his boot, slid it on, and began lacing it.

  “What do you expect me to do at the feast?”

  “Nothing, unless I ask you to. There is a table in the back for help. Sit there. Watch me in case I want you.”

  • • •

  The large central room was full of people. Marala felt awkward and out of place, even more so because of the ill-deserved green tunic he had forced on her. She managed stilted conversation with the two other people at her table—a new falconer and a traveling singer who was not Bardic trained, but sounded as though she might be good at music. At least her voice was quite musical. Both had roles in the evening, and thus were kept in the room, but also here in back, behind the head table. It was hard to see around the table to the other guests, although from time to time she spotted women dressed in fine gowns or men in full leather dress outfits.

  There was no opportunity to get up and leave, and every time she thought of it, she trembled. She ate bread and simple things, ignoring the richer dishes on her plate, certain they would make her ill.

  A striking pair of women drew her attention as they came to the dais and spoke to Lord Daving. One wore full Bardic Reds. Not that she’d seen them before, but they fit the picture she’d drawn in her head after hearing about travelers from Haven. She thrilled at a small hope the Bard would sing. The other woman wore perfect Healer’s Greens made from fine materials with bone buttons. Marala wished she could hear the conversation. After a few moments they left, although a line had grown behind them, and others approached Daving one by one. Still, Marala couldn’t get the Healer from her mind, surely she was a real Healer from the Collegium.

  Two candlemarks passed. Many of the diners drank too much, and the talk turned to boasts and loud, if mild, disagreements about the best ways to hunt boar. Kitchen servants began bringing slices of thick brown cake covered in sugar out for the last course.

  One of the men at the far side of the head table stood up and took a wrong step, falling from the short dais and hitting his head on the edge of a small rock hearth. The sound was so awful that she heard it from her seat.

  She started toward the fallen man, her stomach in knots.

  Daving turned around and said, “Come here!” to her, noticed she was on the way, and stood up himself, bellowing, “Make way for my Healer!”

  She nearly froze in fear as he called her that. Still, she knelt by the man. Her hands shook but nonetheless set her cheek beside his mouth. His breath was faint, and what remained of it was stuttering, indicating that he must be near death. She looked up at Daving. “There may be nothing I can do for him.”

  “You must,” he said, his voice edged in a command and actual concern. This was someone important to him.

  She set her hands under his head, near the place where he had hit the rock, lifting it, and sliding her small fingers along the edges of the indentation. It felt spongy. Wrong. She tried not to feel ill at the crowd and the demands and certain knowledge that her patient was close to death.

  How had it come to this in just one day?

  She closed her eyes, swaying, reaching down for the power of the ground she sat on. At least that was here. Clean straw lay over it, but if she reached her fingers through she could feel dirt. She began the small sayings they helped her focus. “Earth help me heal. Earth help me open—”

  “Here,” a woman’s voice sounded from behind her. “Here, let me help.”

  Marala glanced behind her. The Healer. She swayed, and then smiled. “All right.”

  The woman sat at Marala’s back, her long legs stretched out on either side of her, and her hands cupping Marala’s hands. She smelled of the sweet dessert, and felt like strength. An eerie calm fell across Marala, and the noise and staring faces faded.

  “Now,” the woman whispered. “I feel you grounding. Let’s do it together. We’ll both be stronger that way.”

  “Okay.”

  The woman spoke her through her way. “Take a deep breath.”

  She did.

  “Let it out.”

  She did.

  Instructions came steadily, at a speed Marala could keep up with. “Now feel the beating heart of the earth come through you.” Pause. “Now ask it to help you heal this man.” Pause.

  The earth seemed to answer her request. She had never thought to ask.

  “Ask it to give you strength to heal and to pass through you, ask it to strengthen his heart and his breath and his lungs.” Another pause, longer. “Good. Feel that? Breathe in deeper, take power deep in you, as I take it deep in me.” Pause. “Let it out slowly and feel it travel down your arm and into your fingers and into the bone they are close to. Feed the warmth slowly, slowly, so it doesn’t hurt.”

  “Oh!”

  “Be quiet, feel.”

  Marala swallowed and focused. To her amazement, she could feel the bones knitting together and strengthening. “That’s amazing,” she whispered.

  “Now we need to stop the swelling in his brain.”

  “We can do that?”

  Another set of instructions, another connecting to the ground, another pull of energy. She could never have done so much on her own. The man coughed one, twice, and pushed up, cursing.

  The woman behind her laughed, a low laugh of relief and triumph.

  Marala joined her, unable to believe they had saved the man. She turned to get a good look at her benefactor.

  “Thank you!” Marala exclaimed. “You’re a real Healer.”

  The woman smiled. “I am. I’m Dionne. And you, too, are a real Healer.”

  “Oh, no! I could never have done that.”

  “You’ll be able to when we’re finished with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would you like to study at the Collegium?”

  Oh. My. “I’ve never been anywhere,” Marala said. “My mother!”

  “She can come with us. We’ve known about her. We managed to get an invitation to this celebration so we could check up on her. I couldn’t see her anywhere, and we were afraid something bad had happened.”

  “It did!” Marala exclaimed. Before she could explain, the harsh sound of Daving calling her name snapped her attention away from daydreams and hope. She was still in the main room of the Keep, and her lord stood opposite her. He held a hand out to Marala.

  She hesitated.

  He kept the hand out.

  She swallowed, afraid to disobey him, but remembering her mother.

  The Bard came over. The two women could be twins—or no, Marala amended, they had to be twins. If they wore the same clothing, she wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. This woman had more authority though, or a different kind. Maybe because she was a Bard? Or because she was from Haven?

  People from the capital city weren’t always talked of well here, but all the songs said they were heroes. Dionne had just taught her so much, in just moments, and she couldn’t wait to show her mother. If t
hey had known how to be so slow and careful, it might not have hurt to help Daving.

  The Healer held her hand out.

  Marala bit her lip. She had never been anywhere else, but she didn’t want to be here any more. Still, she knew a little of bargaining. “Do you promise to take my mother?”

  “Of course. And I have already sent for a proper Seneschal to keep track of Daving here until he is of age.”

  Daving’s face had gone bright red. “I am to be married soon. Surely that means I am man enough to run this keep!”

  “With any luck, you will be in about five years. I’m Bard Rhiannon, and you are lucky we are not arresting you.”

  “For what?”

  “Beating a Healer.”

  Her mom. How did they know about her mom’s beating? She glanced around the room, and spotted the Stablemaster standing against the far wall, watching the conversation carefully. He did not choose to meet her eyes, but that was understandable. And this would not be the place to thank him. But she would do it before she left.

  She looked back at Dionne again. “You can really take us away from here?”

  The other Healer nodded. “I can, and I will.”

  “You’ll take us somewhere safe, where we can eat and where we have something useful to do?”

  “Yes.”

  Marala took Dionne’s hand. It was rougher than she expected, and stronger. “I’ve never been outside the walls before.”

  “And you will never have to be inside them again.”

  Unexpected Meeting

  Nancy Asire

  “My Lord . . . my Lord! I ask that you reconsider!”

  Levron, sworn assistant to Perran, traveling judge out of Sunhame, representative of the will of Vkandis Sunlord, glanced sidelong at his master. Seated off to one side, he was still close enough to notice the change in the judge’s features. He had seldom seen Perran’s face as frozen in an expression of repressed anger as today.

  The man who stood facing the judge’s seat bore a look strikingly similar. A current of unease filled the large room where the trial had finished and judgment had been rendered.