“Do you have any herbs that you think might prevent the plague?” Richard asked. “Things that would keep people from catching it?”
Nadine watched Drefan mopping blood and pus from the boy’s throat. “I’m sorry, Richard, but I don’t know enough about it. Drefan might be right; he seems to know a lot. There may be no cure, or preventative.”
Richard went to the boy and squatted down beside Drefan, watching his brother work. “Why are you doing that?”
Drefan glanced over as he folded the rag to a clean place. “As I said before, sometimes, if the sickness can be brought to a head and drained, they will recover. I have to try.”
Drefan gestured to the two Mord-Sith. They gripped the boy again. Richard winced as he watched Drefan slide the sharp knife deeper into the swelling, bringing forth more blood and yellowish-white fluid. Mercifully, Bert passed out.
Richard wiped sweat from his own brow. He felt helpless. He had his sword to defend against attack, but it could do no good against this. He wished it was something he could fight.
Behind him, Nadine spoke to Kahlan in a soft voice, but loud enough for Richard to hear.
“Kahlan, I sorry about what I said before. I’ve devoted my life to helping sick people. It makes me so upset to see people suffer. That’s what I was angry about. Not you. I was frustrated at Yonick’s grief, and I lashed out at you. It wasn’t your fault. Nothing could have been done. I’m sorry.”
Richard didn’t turn. Kahlan said nothing, but she might have offered Nadine a smile to accept the apology. Somehow, Richard doubted it.
He knew Kahlan, and he knew that she expected as much from others as she expected from herself. Forgiveness was not forthcoming simply because someone asked for it. The transgression was weighed into the equation, and there were transgressions that outweighed absolution.
The apology hadn’t been for Kahlan, anyway; it had been for Richard’s benefit. Like a child who had been upbraided, Nadine was on her best behavior, trying to impress him with how good she could be.
Sometimes, even though she had once brought him pain, a part of him was comforted to have Nadine around; she reminded him of home, and his happy childhood. She was a familiar face from a carefree time. Another part of him was troubled over what her real purpose was in coming. Despite what she might believe, she hadn’t decided it on her own. Someone, or something, had precipitated her actions. Another part of him wanted to skin her alive.
After they left Bert’s home, Yonick led them down a cobbled alley to a yard behind where Darby Andersen’s family lived. The small yard of mud churned with wood shavings was cluttered with cutoffs and scraps, several stickered stacks of lumber protected by tarps, some old, rusty two-man rip saws, two carving benches, and warped, split, or twisted boards leaning up against the buildings to the side. Darby recognized Richard and Kahlan from the Ja’La game. He was astonished that they had come to his home. To have them come to see a Ja’La game was a cause of great pride, but to have them come to his home was beyond belief. He frantically brushed sawdust from his short brown hair and dirty work clothes.
Yonick had told Richard that the whole Anderson family—Darby, his two sisters, his parents, father’s parents, and an aunt—lived over their small workshop. Clive Anderson, Darby’s father, and Erling, his grandfather, made chairs. Both men, having heard the commotion, had come to the wide, double doors and were bowing.
“Forgive us, Mother Confessor, Lord Rahl,” Clive said after Darby had introduced his father, “but we didn’t know you were coming, or we would have made preparations—I’d have had my wife make tea, or something. I’m afraid that we’re just simple folk.”
“Please don’t be concerned about any of that, master Anderson,” Richard said. “We came because we were concerned about your son.”
Erling, the grandfather, took a stem step toward Darby. “What’s the boy done?”
“It’s nothing like that,” Richard said. “You have a fine grandson. We watched him play Ja’La the other day. One of the other boys is sick. Worse, two others of them have died.”
Darby’s eyes widened. “Died? Who?”
“Kip,” Yonick said, his voice choking off.
“And Sidney,” Richard added. “Bert is very ill, too.”
Darby stood in shock. His grandfather put a comforting hand to the boy’s shoulder.
“My brother, Drefan”—Richard lifted a hand to the side—“is a healer. We’re checking on all the boys on the Ja’La team. We don’t know if Drefan can help, but he would like to try.”
“I’m fine,” Darby said in a shaky voice.
Erling, an unshaven, scrawny man, had teeth so crooked Richard wondered how he managed to chew his food. He noticed Kahlan’s white dress and Richard’s gold cloak billowing in the cold wind, and gestured toward the shop.
“Please, won’t you all step inside? The wind is biting today. It’s warmer inside, out of the weather. I think we’ll have snow tonight, the way it looks.”
Ulic and Egan took up posts near the back gate. Soldiers milled about in the alley. Richard, Kahlan, Nadine, and Drefan went into the shop. Cara and Raina shadowed them inside, but remained on guard near the doors.
Old chairs and templates hung from pegs on the dusty walls. Cobwebs in all the corners, that in a forest would have netted dew, here netted loads of sawdust. The workbench held chair pieces being glued up, a fine-toothed saw, a variety of smaller finishing and heading planes, and a number of chisels. Several jack and long joiner planes hung on the wall behind the bench along with hammers and other tools.
Partially finished chairs, cinched tightly together in twisted ropes as they were being finished, or drying in peg-and-wedge clamps, sat about the floor. A carving horse where the grandfather had been when they came into the yard held a split billet of ash he had been working with a drawknife.
Clive, a broad-shouldered young man, seemed content to let his father do the talking.
“What’s ailing these children?” Erling asked Drefan.
Drefan cleared his throat but let Richard answer.
Richard was so tired he could hardly stand anymore. He almost felt as if he were asleep, and this was just a bad dream. “The plague. I’m relieved to see that Darby, here, is well.”
Erling’s scruffy jaw dropped. “Dear spirits spare us!”
Clive turned white. “My daughters are sick.”
He turned suddenly and ran for the stairs, but stopped abruptly. “Please, master Drefan, will you see them?”
“Of course. Show the way.”
Upstairs, Darby’s mother, grandmother, and aunt had been making meat pies. Turnips were boiling in a pot hung in the hearth, and the boiling water had steamed the windows over.
The three women, alarmed by Clive’s calls, were waiting wide-eyed in the center of the upstairs common room. They were shocked by the sight of the strangers, but bowed the instant they saw Kahlan’s white dress. Kahlan, in the dress of the Mother Confessor, needed no introduction to anyone in Aydindril, or most of the Midlands, for that matter.
“Hattie, this man here, master Drefan, is a healer, and has come to see the girls.”
Hattie, her short, sandy-colored hair tied back with a head wrap, wiped her hands on her apron. Her gaze darted among all the people standing in her home. “Thank you. This way, please.”
“How do they fare?” Drefan asked Hattie on their way back to the bedroom.
“Beth has complained since yesterday of her head hurting,” Hattie said. “She was sick at her stomach, earlier. Common children ailments, that’s all.” It sounded to Richard more like a plea than a statement of fact. “I gave her some black horehound tea to settle her.”
“That’s good,” Nadine assured her. “An infusion made of pennyroyal might help, too. I have some with me I’ll leave in case she needs it.”
“Thank you for the kindness,” Hattie said, her concern growing with each step she took.
“What of the other girl?” Drefan asked.
Hattie had almost reached the doorway. “Lily’s not so sick, but just feeling out of sorts. I suspect she’s just looking for sympathy because her older sister is getting attention and honey tea. That’s the way of children. She has some little, round sores on her legs.”
Drefan missed a step.
Beth was fevered, but not gravely so. She had a wet cough, and complained that her head hurt. Drefan all but ignored her. He watched Lily, in that analytical way of his, as she sat in her blankets, carrying on an earnest conversation with her rag doll.
The grandmother fussed with her collar and watched from the doorway as Hattie fussed with Beth’s covers. The aunt mopped Beth’s brow with a wet cloth while Nadine spoke words of comfort to the girl. Nadine really did have a soothing, kind way about her. She selected herbs from leather pouches in her bag and wrapped them up in several cloth packets, giving the intent, nodding mother instructions.
Richard and Kahlan moved with Drefan over to the younger girl. Kahlan squatted down and talked to her, telling her what a lovely doll she had, so as to keep her from being frightened by Richard and Drefan. Lily cast worried looks in their direction as she chattered with Kahlan. Kahlan hugged an arm around Richard’s waist to show Lily that he wasn’t anyone to be afraid of. Richard made himself smile.
“Lily,” Drefan said with forced cheerfulness, “could you show me your doll’s sores?”
Lily held the doll upside down and pointed out spots on the inside of the doll’s thighs. “She has ouches here, and here, and here.” Her big, round eyes turned up to Drefan.
“And do they hurt her?”
Lily nodded. “She goes ‘ouch’ when I touch them.”
“Really? Well, that’s too bad. I’ll bet she’s better, soon, though.”
He squatted down so that he wasn’t towering over her, circling an arm around Kahlan’s waist and pulling her back down with him. “Lily, this is my friend, Kahlan. Her eyes aren’t so good. She can’t see the sores on your doll’s legs. Could you show Kahlan here the ones on your legs?”
Nadine was still talking to the mother about the other girl. Lily glanced in their direction.
Kahlan brushed Lily’s hair back and told her what a pretty doll she had. Lily grinned. She was fascinated by Kahlan’s long hair. Kahlan let her feel it.
“Can you show me the ouches on your legs?” Kahlan asked.
Lily hiked up her white nightdress. “Here they are, just like my doll’s ouches.”
She had several dark spots, the size of pennies, on the inside of each thigh. Richard could tell when Drefan gently touched them that they were hard as calluses.
Kahlan straightened Lily’s nightdress back down and drew the blanket back over her lap as Drefan patted her cheek, telling her what a good girl she was, and that her doll’s ouches would be better by morning.
“I’m glad.” Lily said. “She doesn’t like them.”
Erling was absently planing a chair seat at the workbench. Richard could see that he wasn’t paying any attention to what he was doing, and was ruining it. He didn’t look up when they came down the stairs. At Richard’s urging, Clive had stayed upstairs with his wife and daughters.
“Do they have it?” Erling asked in a hoarse voice.
Drefan laid a comforting hand on the old man’s shoulders. “I’m afraid so.”
Erling took a shaky, crooked stroke with his plane.
“When I was young, I lived in the town of Sparlville. The plague came one summer. It took a good many people. I hoped never to see such a thing again.”
“I understand,” Drefan said in a soft voice. “I, too, have seen it visit places.”
“They’re my only granddaughters. What can we do to help them?”
“You can try to smoke the house,” Drefan offered.
Erling grunted. “We did that in Sparlville. Bought cures and preventatives, too, but people died just the same.”
“I know,” Drefan said. “I wish there was something I could do, but I’ve never heard of a sure cure. If you know of anything that you think helped when you were young, then try it. I don’t know of all the treatments, by any means. At worst, it could do no harm, and at best may help.”
Erling set the plane aside. “Some folk burned fires hot that summer, trying to drive the sickness from their blood. Some said it was because their blood was too hot already with the high summer heat and with the fever on top of that, and tried to fan their loved ones to cool their blood. Which would you advise?”
Drefan shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know. I’ve heard of people recovering when each was tried, and I’ve heard of people dying just the same with each. Some things are out of our hands. No one can stay the Keeper’s hand when he comes.”
Erling rubbed his scruffy chin. “I’ll pray that the good spirits spare the girls.” His voice caught. “They’re too good, too innocent, for the Keeper to touch them just yet. They’ve brought untold joy to this house and family.”
Drefan returned his hand to Erling’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, master Anderson, but Lily has the tokens upon her.”
Erling gasped and gripped the bench. Drefan had been ready and caught him under his arms to keep him from falling when his knees gave out. Drefan helped him to sit on the carving horse.
Kahlan turned her face away and put it to Richard’s shoulder when Erling covered his tears with both hands. Richard felt numb.
“Grandpa,” Darby called from the steps, “what’s wrong?”
Erling straightened. “Nothing, boy. I’m just worried about your sisters, that’s all. Old men get foolish, that’s all.”
Darby eased the rest of the way down the stairs. “Yonick, I’m real sorry about Kip. If your pa needs anything, I’m sure my pa would let me leave my work and go help.”
Yonick nodded. He looked in a daze, too.
Richard squatted down before the boys. “Did either of you see anything strange at the Ja’La game?”
“Strange?” Darby asked. “Strange like what?”
Richard combed his fingers back through his hair. “I don’t know. Did you talk to any strangers?”
“Sure,” Darby said. “There were lots of people there we didn’t know. Soldiers were there watching the game. Lots of people I didn’t know came to congratulate us after we won.”
“Do any of them stand out in your mind? Anything odd about any of them?”
“I saw Kip talking to a man and a woman after the game,” Yonick said. “More than like they were just congratulating him. They were leaning down talking to him, showing him something.”
“Showing him something? What?”
“I’m sorry,” Yonick said, “but I didn’t see. I was too busy getting slapped on the back by soldiers.”
Richard was trying not to frighten the boy with his questions, but he had to press for answers. “What did this man and woman look like?”
“I don’t know,” Yonick said. His eyes were filling with tears at remembering his brother alive. “The man was skinny, and young. The woman was young, too, but not as young as he. She was kind of pretty, I guess. She had brown hair.” He pointed at Nadine. “Like hers, but not as thick, or as long.”
Richard glanced up at Kahlan. By the stricken look on her face, he knew she was fearing the same thing as he.
“I remember them,” Darby said. “My sisters talked to that man and woman, too.”
“But neither of you talked to them?”
“No,” Darby said. Yonick shook his head. “We were jumping around, excited that we’d won the game in front of Lord Rahl. A lot of the soldiers were congratulating us, and so were a lot of other people; I never talked to those two.”
Richard took Kahlan’s hand. “Kahlan and I have to go ask Beth and Lily a question,” he said to Drefan. “We’ll be right back.”
Pressed close together, seeking support in each other’s touch, they climbed the stairs. Richard was dreading what he might hear from the girls.
“You ask the
m,” Richard whispered to her. “They’re afraid of me. They’ll talk easier to you.”
“Do you think it could have been them?”
Richard didn’t need to ask who she was talking about. “I don’t know. But you told me that Jagang said he had watched the Ja’La game—through Marlin’s eyes. Sister Amelia was with Marlin. They were doing something here in Aydindril.”
Richard reassured the women that they just had a small question to ask the girls. The women busied themselves with their work while he went with Kahlan back into the bedroom. Richard doubted they were paying any more attention to their meat pies than Erling had been with the chair seat he had been planing.
“Lily,” Kahlan asked the younger girl first in a soft voice as she smiled, “do you remember when you went to watch your brother play Ja’La?”
Lily nodded. “He won. We were real happy that he won. Pa said Darby scored a point.”
“Yes, we saw him play, and we were happy for him, too. Do you remember the two people you talked to? A man and a woman?”
She frowned. “When Ma and Pa were cheering? That man and woman?”
“Yes. Do you remember what they said to you?”
“Beth was holding my hand. They asked if it was my brother we was cheering for.”
“That’s right.” Beth said from the other bed. She had to stop talking as she was taken with a bout of coughing. When she recovered and caught her breath, she went on. “They said Darby played really good. They showed us the pretty thing they had.”
Richard stared at her. “Pretty thing?”
“The shiny thing in the box,” Lily said.
“That’s right,” Beth said. “They let me and Lily see it.”
“What was it?”
Beth frowned through her headache. “It was . . . it was . . . I don’t know exactly. It was in a box that was so black you couldn’t see its sides. The shiny thing inside was pretty.”
Lily nodded her agreement. “My doll saw it, too. She thought it was real pretty, too.”
“Do you have any idea what it was?”
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