“When?”
“Maybe half an hour ago?”
Guilt erased Branwen’s exhaustion as she dashed for the windy stairwell that led down to the castle cellars, where the infirmary was located. Treva didn’t get a chance to ask her what she’d wanted before she was gone. Candlelight glinted on the marble of the subterranean corridor just like in the cave. She hoped Tantris’s dreams were serene.
A woman’s cry echoed off the walls as Branwen approached the queen’s clinic. Fury simmered in her veins at the sound, pushing the poet from her mind.
“Branwen.” Queen Eseult exhaled her name with relief as she leapt through the doorway. “Thank you for coming.” Her aunt stroked the fever-damp brow of the woman whose scream she’d heard, and the gratitude on the queen’s face clawed at Branwen’s heart.
The woman who writhed on a narrow cot was no older than twenty.
“I’m sorry I was delayed, my queen. I came as soon as I heard.”
Standing beside her mother, Essy winged her eyebrows as if to say, Where were you? Branwen ignored her. She couldn’t explain.
“You’ve arrived at the perfect time,” said Queen Eseult. “The sedative I’ve administered should be taking effect.”
“What do you need?” Branwen asked.
“Another pair of hands.”
“More expert hands, she means,” muttered the princess as she dabbed at the patient’s brow with ice chips.
“They’re yours,” Branwen told the queen, who showed her a quarter smile in return. Branwen felt it like a dagger to the breast. She should have been here. She should have been here serving her queen and her countrywoman. Not one of the Kernyveu.
The patient let out another howl and Branwen rushed to her bedside.
“This is Saoirse,” said the queen. The red-haired woman moaned, delirious. Perhaps she recognized her name through the fog of pain. Perhaps not.
Queen Eseult murmured soothing words into her ear and pointed to where the woman’s skirt had been ripped to expose her thigh. Branwen examined the wound. A gash made by a sword, indubitably. The thigh was swollen, seeping with black blood and sun-colored pus. It carried the distinctive smell of infection. This was exactly what she’d been trying to prevent with her ministrations of Tantris.
Branwen glanced in her cousin’s direction. Essy’s jaw was gritted tighter than a statue’s. She was doing her best to make herself useful, Branwen could tell, but the princess hated the sight of blood. Her face grew whiter by the second.
When Essy was seven years old and Branwen nine, Essy had discovered a rabbit caught in a trap. She insisted on freeing the animal, not knowing that releasing the metal snare would cause the creature to bleed out. By the time the girls brought the rabbit to Queen Eseult in the infirmary, the creature was dead and Essy’s dress was stained scarlet. To this day she refused to eat Treva’s rabbit stew, and she avoided the infirmary at all costs.
The queen must have really been desperate for help.
Saoirse wailed again. Branwen returned her attention to the serrated flesh.
“Shadow-stung,” she said quietly. The flesh around the cut was discolored, graying—dying. She’d seen a wound like this one on a guardsman once.
“Yes.” The queen confirmed Branwen’s diagnosis.
“What happened?”
“Kernyvmen.” The word was a growl. Branwen jumped at Keane’s voice. She arrowed her gaze at where he stood guard in the corner of the room. She hadn’t noticed him. His muscles were tensed, poised to launch an attack. Their eyes met and his stance relaxed a fraction.
“The villagers from Doogort brought Saoirse in earlier this afternoon,” explained the queen. “They were attacked last week. I fear they waited too long.”
How long had Tantris drifted on the raft before Branwen found him?
“Will she lose the leg?” she asked her aunt. The guardsman who’d been similarly afflicted had his arm amputated to save his life.
The queen touched a hand to Branwen’s shoulder. “We will try to burn the infection out,” she said. “It will be easier with two of us. After that, it is up to the Old Ones.”
Branwen swallowed. She didn’t like leaving things in the hands of the Old Ones.
Wriggling her nose, Essy said, “I’m glad you got here, Branny. I think I might be ill.” Her tone was airy, but Branwen detected a trace of regret in her cousin’s eyes.
“We all have our talents, dear heart,” said the queen. She stroked the back of Essy’s head and the princess cringed. Frowning, she said, “Fetch a bucket of hot coals from Treva, won’t you?”
Essy stepped back from the patient’s bed. “Of course, Lady Queen. I’m very talented at fetching and carrying.”
The queen made a small tsking noise, which was as close to exasperation as she ever came. “Thank you,” Branwen told her cousin, meeting her eye. Essy gave her a wink. “Anything for you, Branny,” she said, and threw a haughty look at her mother before exiting the infirmary.
Saoirse jerked as the door banged closed; Queen Eseult heaved a sigh. “Keane,” she said, “turn Saoirse on her side, then hold her firm. Branny, you will help me drain the fluid before we burn the flesh.” The patient’s engorged leg needed to be tilted at an angle so the pus would flow into the pail on the floor.
Keane and Branwen ducked their heads in assent, his gaze seeking hers for another brief moment. Branwen’s nerves skittered, but she would not fail her queen. She would not fail her patient.
Saoirse groaned as Keane repositioned her on the cot, and Branwen spied his shoulders go taut. His countrywoman’s pain affected him more deeply than Branwen would have suspected. When Queen Eseult handed her a thin metal pipe used for draining wounds, Branwen balked.
“I won’t always be here,” her aunt said, voice firm. “You’re my apprentice; you know what to do.”
Willing her fingers not to tremble, Branwen accepted the hammered tin instrument. She held the pipe steady as the queen kneaded the area around the wound in a circular pattern. Saoirse let out a doleful cry.
Why did the Old Ones send Branwen to Tantris today instead of here—where her family needed her?
Concentrate, she upbraided herself.
Gradually, bit by bit, Branwen and the queen drained the pus from the woman’s thigh. Perspiration pebbled Keane’s forehead as he held Saoirse down, but he never flinched. He didn’t utter a sound. Branwen’s own arms began to quake and she was only dimly aware when Essy reappeared, having retrieved a bucket of coals.
The princess dropped the bucket with a thud, its weight straining her shoulders. “Can I help?” she asked Branwen.
“Hold Saoirse’s ankles,” answered the queen.
Essy nodded and squeezed the patient’s ankles against the flimsy straw pallet without further comment.
“You’ve drained the wound as best we can hope for,” Queen Eseult said to Branwen, and her chest warmed. The queen’s faith meant everything. “Now, take this.” She plucked the pipe from Branwen’s grasp and exchanged it for a fire-poker, like those a blacksmith wielded, only shorter and more delicate. “Dip the end in the coals, then insert it into the wound.”
Branwen’s stomach roiled. Not from squeamishness but from fear that she wasn’t talented enough to save this woman’s leg.
The queen indicated the soft flesh of Saoirse’s upper thigh, right beside the wound. “Be careful not to touch the poker here. Beneath is the blood supply for the whole body. If it’s severed, we won’t be able to stop the blood loss.”
Branwen looked up from the spot to meet her aunt’s gaze, then her cousin’s. Both she and Essy were thinking of the rabbit. Branwen released a shallow breath.
“You can do this, Branny,” Essy assured her. “You have magic hands, remember?” Branwen stifled a nervous laugh as courage surged through her. The princess wasn’t as different from her mother as she would like to believe.
Cautiously, methodically, Branwen lowered the iron instrument into the coals. When she’d dip
ped the needle she used on Tantris into the fire, only one end had grown hot; the coals heated the entire length of the poker. Grinding her teeth, she touched the glowing iron to the open wound.
Saoirse’s scream pierced Branwen to her very core. Its echo would stay with her forever. But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t stop. She plunged it deeper. She couldn’t stop until the blood ceased to flow.
Finally, she felt a hand on her elbow and the queen’s placid voice in her ear.
“You did well. I believe we purged the infection.” A kiss on the cheek. “I’ll bandage the wound, Branny. You get some rest.”
Branwen could only nod, relief robbing the last of her strength. At the same moment, Essy threaded her arm around Branwen’s waist, pulling her closer, away from her mother. The queen sighed.
Just before the cousins exited the clinic, Keane stepped toward Branwen. Admiration filled his deep-blue gaze. “Lady Branwen—” She canted her head, and he swallowed audibly. “Rest— Rest well,” he told her. It seemed like he was on the verge of saying more, but Essy pulled Branwen across the threshold.
She walked toward the south tower in a daze, the princess holding her tight, quiet for once.
Essy helped Branwen out of her dress; otherwise, Branwen would have crawled under the down-filled covers precisely as she was: disheveled and covered with other people’s blood. The princess promptly clambered in after her. She blew out the candle on the night table, darkness eddying above them and below them.
“Shall I sing you a song?” suggested Essy. “Once on the island of Iveriu, there was a girl called Branwen of the Briars,” she began in her dulcet soprano.
Branwen laughed into her pillow, emboldening her cousin.
“She did not care for balls or swoon-worthy lords, but of injured men and salves she never did tire!”
“Oh, Essy!” She batted an exhausted hand at the princess’s nose but missed her mark. Her cousin’s tongue was too clever by half. A trait she shared with Tantris. Branwen shivered.
Could the Princess of Iveriu ever understand why she had felt obliged to protect the Kernyvman?
As Essy carried on with her lullaby, Branwen drifted along the boundary of sleep. She had nearly crossed over when her cousin said, “I have no talent for healing, Branny. I have no talent. I’m useless.”
“You’re not useless,” Branwen mumbled, fatigued beyond reason.
“My only use is producing heirs. And I’m not even allowed to choose with whom I produce them!”
Branwen rolled toward her baby cousin, pulling her onto her breast, and stroked her hair. “You have a talent for loving people, Essy. For making people feel loved.” Branwen kissed the princess between the eyes. “And that is the greatest talent a queen can have.”
Essy began to protest and Branwen shushed her. “Not you without me.”
“Not me without you.”
THE LORD OF WILD THINGS
THE SUN HUNG LOW IN the sky when Branwen meandered her way toward the cave. It wasn’t merely the fear of being followed that had encouraged her to take a circuitous route back to Tantris. She nearly hadn’t come at all.
Despite her honor demanding it. Despite her father’s belief in making friends of enemies. And, yes, in spite of the Old Ones, Branwen almost didn’t come.
She’d spent the hours since she’d woken at Saoirse’s bedside, mopping the woman’s brow and changing the poultice on her thigh.
Someone needed to answer for what had happened to Saoirse. The Kernyveu had to answer. Tantris was on Ivernic soil, so why shouldn’t it be him? Saoirse deserved justice from her attackers. Wasn’t Branwen denying it to her by hiding the Kernyvman right under the noses of the Royal Guard?
Yes. Yes, she was. And yet she’d declined Keane’s offer of company for her walk, claiming she needed to be alone. The look of understanding on his face had caused shame to creep down her spine—and rightly so.
The wind whipped Branwen’s hair across her face, and she licked the salty tang of the sea from her lips. If only she hadn’t come down to the beach that day, her loyalties wouldn’t be divided. If only. The two most pointless words she knew.
Branwen folded her arms, spoiling for a fight, when she spied a man backlit against the waves.
Tantris!
What was he doing outside the cave? She was risking everything for him, and he exposed himself so heedlessly? She huffed a few of the swears she’d picked up from the guardsmen under her breath and broke into a sprint. Anger fizzing inside her, Branwen left furious footprints in the sand, kicking the grains up around her knees. The closer she got to the water, the denser the sand was packed, and the fleeter her stride.
When she was within striking distance of Tantris, she could barely contain the urge to tackle him to the ground and pummel him for his sheer stupidity. She raised her hand to grab his tunic or slap him or something—
“Emer!” he hollered, spinning on his heel. “Emer, look out!”
She stopped short, mouth agape. The leather satchel dangling from her shoulder whacked her hip.
Wriggling between Tantris’s arms was the fox.
What? But … Branwen had thought the creature was an apparition. She’d been so certain. It growled. Apparently solid, the fox fidgeted its hind leg, nails scratching Tantris’s forearm. Branwen pressed a hand to her chest, air whooshing out of her.
“He was caught in there,” Tantris explained, and pointed a couple paces in front of them.
It was a pit. A trap. It had been covered with sand and dune grass. Not too deep but lined with sharpened sticks like ferocious jowls.
“You rescued it?” Branwen couldn’t keep the incredulity from her tone.
He raised his eyebrows. “I heard the fellow crying. What else would I do?”
Just like Essy and the rabbit. “I didn’t think a Kernyvman would care for a wounded animal,” she snapped even as her anger extinguished.
“And you’re the expert on Kernyvmen?”
The gaze Tantris turned on her was heated. Also hurt. Branwen’s mouth went dry. She wouldn’t have thought she had the power to hurt him.
Nevertheless, she declared, “I know everything I need to know.” She wouldn’t give Tantris the satisfaction of learning he was the first Kernyvman with whom she’d had a proper conversation.
“If that’s what you believe.” The heat in his eyes faded to sadness. The fox yipped and Tantris chided, “Try not to bite.” Glancing at Branwen, he said, “Same goes for you.”
Branwen snorted. “Are you sure you’re not a court jester rather than a minstrel?”
He released a half-hearted laugh in response.
It sounded wrong. She wanted to hear him laugh, free and easy. Only the Old Ones knew why. Her gaze dropped from his face to his heart. Once again, the cloth above it was spotted a dark ruby. “You’ve torn a stitch,” she said.
Tantris shrugged. Lowering himself into a squat, he murmured to the fox in low, calming tones like you might to a disconsolate child. He spoke in Kernyvak. The creature’s snow-white ears twitched. Branwen had only gleaned a few simple phrases over the years, but she didn’t need to know the words to understand their meaning. For the first time, she wished she’d studied the language of her enemies.
Tantris loosened his grip and the fox leapt into the sand, scrambling at the grains with its paws. Branwen assessed the creature as if it were one of her patients—it seemed no worse for wear. What did the beast want? She couldn’t believe this was a coincidence.
“You’ve made a friend,” she said to Tantris.
Capturing her gaze, he said, “I hope so.”
Branwen rubbed her lips together. If the Kernyvman were an Iverman, she might want that, too. “We should get back to the cave,” she said. “It’s not safe here. For you.”
Tantris nodded, pushing to his feet. At his full height, he stood more than a head taller than Branwen. “The fox’s red coat is quite unusual,” he remarked as the creature scurried toward the surf.
; “Quite,” she said. “Some of the Iverni believe the Old Ones send animals as messengers from the Otherworld.”
“Do you?”
Excellent question. “I didn’t used to…” She let her voice drift off. If Branwen had needed any further proof that the Old Ones had granted Tantris their protection, this was it. After a beat, he took a deep breath and Branwen’s eyes darted back in his direction.
Staring down at her, “Emer,” he began. “I know what you’re risking by helping me. I don’t take it—any of it—for granted.” His eyes shimmered, and Branwen felt the same pull she had the day they met. Her lips ached, not unpleasantly.
“I—” She broke the stare, inclining her chin at the blossom of blood on his chest. “We should hurry.” Readjusting her satchel, Branwen started for the cave.
“As my healer commands,” Tantris acceded and followed half a step behind. She shouldn’t want to be anything more than his healer. She really, really shouldn’t.
After walking a few moments in silence, Tantris said, “We tell similar stories in Kernyv.” He glanced in the direction the fox had vanished. “About the Old Ones.”
Branwen cast him an inquisitive look over her shoulder. “What about the New Religion?” She’d heard that the Kernyveu were giving up the Old Ways in favor of a god from the Aquilan Empire. There were those who believed this new god was the reason Kernyvak raiders assaulted Ivernic shores.
Tantris caught up with her in one stride. “The Horned One, you mean?” Branwen tilted her head, urging him to continue. “He was called Carnonos. Before he became a god.”
“How does one become a god?”
“His followers say that Carnonos and his father were hunting a great stag when they were set upon by thieves in the forest. As they fought off the bandits, the stag charged. Carnonos jumped in front of his father and was gored to death on the stag’s antlers.”
Branwen shivered. What a grisly story. Tantris pulled back the vines covering the cave’s entrance to let her enter.
“For his sacrifice and selflessness,” he carried on, “the other gods resurrected Carnonos and entrusted him with judging the souls of the dead. He decides who is worthy of resurrection.”
Sweet Black Waves Page 6