Healer's Touch

by Amy Raby

  She went in to breakfast. Rory, who’d shared the guest room with her, had risen an hour earlier. He was sitting at the table with Drusus and Marius, scraping up the last bits from his breakfast plate. Rory greeted her with a cheerful, “Good Sage’s Day.” Drusus’s plate was clean too, but Marius had no plate at all.

  “Ah, you’re up,” said Marius. “I didn’t want you to eat alone, so I waited.”

  “I ought to have been up earlier.” She hadn’t considered that Marius would go hungry waiting for her.

  “You needed your sleep,” said Marius.

  “Hey, kid,” said Drusus to Rory. “You ever groomed a horse?”

  Rory shook his head. “We’ve never had a horse.”

  They’d had two at one time, when they’d lived with Jauld in Sardos, but Rory must not remember; he’d been too young.

  “Marius keeps a couple of them in the attached stable. I’ll introduce you, and Rufus will teach you how to groom.”

  Rory banged the table with his knees in his haste to get up. He and Drusus left.

  Isolda hadn’t known Marius kept horses. She kept adjusting her estimation of his wealth higher, but his money couldn’t come from his business, which hadn’t been profitable until recently. So it had to be family wealth. And then there was that strange bit about his receiving training in the darker forms of healing magic, when most Healers-in-training did not.

  It occurred to her that she and Marius were now completely alone. For all the time she’d spent with him at the surgery, she had seldom been alone with him longer than a minute or two. Drusus was always around, and sometimes Rory. She felt suddenly shy, but forced herself to make conversation. “I’m glad you fed Rory straightaway—the boy is insatiable.”

  “Because he’s so sturdy and healthy. Do you like corn cakes?” asked Marius. “The cook’s off duty today, so you’ll have to put up with a bachelor’s efforts.”

  “I’m not sure I’ve ever had them,” said Isolda. “But I’m willing to try.”

  He left the dining table and returned carrying two plates. He set one of them in front of her.

  Two corn cakes were stacked on her plate, along with some sliced fruit. She cut into the first corn cake, and it flaked beautifully. “This bachelor’s effort doesn’t look so amateurish to me.”

  He shrugged. “For years, I cooked all my own meals. I’m a bit repetitive in my tastes, though. Corn cakes most mornings, soup most evenings.”

  “I can see why you’d eat these most mornings. They’re delicious.”

  “They’re simple, I know—not a lot of flavor—”

  Isolda raised another bite to her mouth. “They’ve got a lovely, delicate flavor, and if you added anything stronger you’d overpower it.”

  He grinned. “Thank you. Is that my syrtos you’re wearing?”

  “It must be,” she said. “Arrod loaned it to me.”

  “I like it on you.”

  Isolda’s cheeks warmed, and she looked down at her plate. That sounded a little bit flirtatious. But Marius wouldn’t flirt with someone like her. She was letting her imagination run away with her.

  “Do you enjoy working at the surgery?” asked Marius.

  “It’s the best job I’ve ever had.”

  “You’re marvelous at it,” said Marius. “Hiring you was the best business decision I ever made. I like you, Isolda. I mean, I like your work. I mean—” He cleared his throat. “There’s so much about you I don’t know.”

  Isolda was wary. “Such as?”

  “What do you want out of your life here?” asked Marius. “I know you’d like Rory to go to the university and become a warder, but what do you want for yourself?”

  “I’m happy doing what I am now.”

  “I’m glad, but that’s not what I meant,” said Marius. “You seem to be directing your energy toward Rory and his future, but do you plan to marry again? Go back to Sardos at some point?”

  She shook her head. Perhaps Marius was worried she’d find a better situation and leave the surgery, but that wasn’t going to happen. Opportunities for her were thin; she was lucky to have any job, let alone one this perfect. “I’m never going back to Sardos. As for remarrying...” She winced. “I was fortunate to marry once. It won’t happen again.”

  “Why?”

  Her stomach clenched, and she put down her spoon. “I’m twenty-six. I have an eight-year-old child. I’m Sardossian. And I’m...” She couldn’t choke out the words not pretty enough. “I’m not the sort of woman men are looking for.” She couldn’t believe she was confessing to Marius her great shame, that for all her skills and talents she was worthless as a wife. She was focusing her efforts on Rory because he still had a future. She, at age twenty-six, was washed up.

  “I think you underestimate yourself.”

  She shook her head. “One can dream, but what’s the use if the dreams can’t come true? I’ll always be an outcast in Kjall. As for remarrying, if I were prettier I might think differently about my chances of finding someone—”

  “Oh, but you’re beautiful,” said Marius.

  Isolda fell silent. It was kind of Marius to say, but she knew better.

  “I mean it,” said Marius.

  “I’ve accepted what I am,” she said finally. “You don’t need to pretend, to say things that aren’t true in order to spare my feelings—”

  “I’m not sparing your feelings,” said Marius. “I didn’t see your beauty when I first met you, but now I wonder how I ever missed it.”

  Tears filled her eyes.

  A lump bobbed in Marius’s throat, and he took a shaky breath. “I was thinking we should go out for dinner sometime. Away from the surgery, just you and me.”

  Isolda could not answer; her mind was a whirl of confusion and questions. Was he trying to seduce her, and to what end? As much as she wanted him, sleeping with her boss could only hurt her. It was like walking blindfolded into a busy street—even if she managed not to get hit by a wagon, she was sure to step in horseshit.

  He wasn’t going to marry a woman like her, so any affair they might have must be short lived. Could she bear it when he let her go in favor of someone else, perhaps his future marriage partner, a woman sure to be prettier and more sophisticated? It had happened to her once before, and she had barely survived it. And that was with Jauld, a man she’d never cared for. If Marius, this man that she admired and loved so deeply, found his marriage partner and set her aside, she would be devastated. Better to be alone in life than to risk that.

  She was, perhaps, being unfair; Marius was not Jauld and would never be cruel or thoughtless. But one didn’t extend a marriage proposal out of kindness or pity. Marius would never marry someone as beneath him as she was.

  “I’m sorry,” said Marius. “I’ve made you uncomfortable. It’s all right to say no. I don’t want to be like that man you worked for at the gunpowder factory—”

  “Oh,” said Isolda. “You are nothing like him.”

  “But I’m making you uncomfortable?”

  She looked down at her hands. “It’s complicated. I’d like to go to dinner with you sometime, but I don’t know if I can do this again. Not after...” She trailed off, choking on the painful truth.

  “You mean after your husband died? I’m so sorry.”

  Marius had it wrong. That wasn’t the reason, and as far as she knew, Jauld was still alive. She’d entered the marriage in good faith and given him everything. And then he had betrayed her in every possible way. Her throat caught as the pain of the last ten years rose up like bile, and she choked out a sob.

  Marius was out of his seat in an instant, gathering her into his arms. “Gods, Isolda, I should never have mentioned—you must miss him terribly.”

  She shook her head violently and buried her face in his shoulder. “I don’t miss him at all.” Poor, dear Marius. He had everything backward, and it was her own gods-cursed fault for not telling him the truth. She was still married! If she slept with Marius or any other man, she
’d be committing adultery, a capital crime in Sardos. Divorce, too, was illegal there. Sardossian law had her tethered to Jauld for the rest of her life.

  Marius stroked her back as he held her. “Is that what’s upsetting you? If he didn’t treat you well, then it’s perfectly natural you wouldn’t miss him. You shouldn’t feel guilty about that.”

  He still had it wrong, and no wonder, when she was giving him lies upon lies. But she couldn’t tell him she was married. What if that changed his opinion of her? What if he believed she was wrong to abandon her husband, and especially to take Rory away from his father? She’d violated half a dozen laws in coming to Kjall. Marius was a respected, well-connected Kjallan, and a deeply moral man. He also had a supportive family, and he might not comprehend what it was like to be alone in the world.

  In her situation, there had been no good answers. Backed into a corner, she’d done what she had to do. But with a single visit to the authorities, he could erase everything she’d accomplished and have her sent back to the hell that was her old home.

  “Did he treat you badly?” asked Marius.

  “Yes.” That seemed safe to say, and it was true.

  Marius tilted her chin up so that he was looking her in the eye. “I would never treat you badly.”

  Isolda opened her mouth to reply—I know you wouldn’t—but she could not stop staring at Marius’s lips, so close and inviting. They were mostly dry and soft, but a shiny spot of moisture had formed in the middle of his bottom lip. She wanted to lick it. A shiver of desire snaked from her core up through her spine. She wanted nothing more than to go to bed with this man, and to Soldier’s Hell with the consequences.

  Marius leaned down and kissed her. She found her lips moving to meet his.

  With Jauld, she’d always hesitated a bit, knowing the kiss was obligatory. Jauld had chosen her—perhaps because she was all he could afford, but still, he’d done the choosing—and she had never chosen him. Marius, on the other hand, was a man she’d wanted since the day she’d laid eyes on him, and her adoration had only grown since then.

  His kiss was gentle and chaste. It left her wanting more.

  Marius pulled back. “I’m sorry. I should have asked first.”

  “Kiss me again,” she said. “And don’t ask.” If he asked, she might say no, and she didn’t want to say no. She wanted to hold this man, to take him deep into her body and never let him go. It would destroy her in the end, but gods, she couldn’t resist. He’d asked her what she wanted for herself, and she’d avoided the question, because she couldn’t tell him the truth: she wanted him.

  His mouth descended on hers again, and her heart sang. He was gentle at first, but when an involuntary moan escaped her, he pressed harder, tightening his arms around her. Her troubles faded away, and her world became Marius, his hard body surrounding her, his lips plundering hers. Her body turned to jelly in his grasp.

  Then the floor beneath them gave a jolt, and every window in the villa exploded.

  ∞

  Isolda raised her head. Chari’s cries from the back bedroom were growing more agonized—perhaps the baby was crowning. It was customary in polygamous marriages for the senior wife to act as midwife to the junior, but Chari had seemed horrified at that idea and whispered in Jauld’s ear, “What if she hurts the baby?” Thus Isolda had been banished from the birthing room, and Chari’s sister had come to attend her instead.

  Isolda sat at the kitchen table with Rory in her lap. The household was tumultuous these days, as was the entire nation of Sardos. Last month, the First Heir had been assassinated. It was said he’d named an heir beforehand by writing the name on a piece of paper and sealing it in a strongbox. But after his death, five separate men claimed that the name on the paper was theirs, and no conclusive evidence had arisen to prove one claim over the others.

  Armies were massing, and violence seemed inevitable. A recruiter had swept through their village already, gathering the unmarried men as well as any boys over the age of ten—anyone who wasn’t an heir—and hauling them off in a wagon to gods knew where. They would end up fighting on behalf of one of the brothers; Isolda didn’t even know which one. Both of her clerks had been taken by the recruiters, leaving her to manage the store alone. She’d had to reduce the store’s hours, but unfortunately it made little difference. Sales had dropped below half of what they had been before.

  Rory had been spared by the recruiters on account of his youth. But youth didn’t last forever, and while Isolda hoped the battle for the succession would be resolved quickly, the previous succession had dragged on for ten bloody years.

  She’d told Jauld they needed to cut back on their household spending to survive the hard times ahead, but he wouldn’t listen. He’d recently bought a new phaeton and a pair of fancy carriage horses that he liked to drive to town and show off. But those horses were eating up their savings. She’d started fixing the books at the store a little and setting money aside—literally hiding it behind a brick in the storeroom—so that when Jauld ran through all their savings, they might still have something to survive on.

  A tinny wail rose through the closed door of the birthing room.

  Rory clutched her arm. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a baby,” said Isolda.

  “Oh.” He heaved a sigh. “It sounds like a monster.”

  “Do you think you have a baby brother or a baby sister?”

  “A baby brother.” That was Rory’s hope, because he liked the idea of having another boy to play with.

  Isolda prayed for a sister.

  Jauld emerged from the birthing room, smiling and misty-eyed, carrying a cloth-wrapped bundle. Isolda’s stomach clenched. She rose from her seat, and as he brought the bundle near, she peered at the squirming, naked infant. It was a boy.

  Jauld stroked the baby’s face with a fingertip and beamed. “Isn’t he the most beautiful child you’ve ever seen?”

  The baby’s face was squashed, and his head was cone-shaped, and he was red all over. Rory was the handsomer child by far, but she knew better than to be rude at a time like this. The baby would improve with age. “He’s lovely.”

  “His name is Troi,” said Jauld. “And I’m making him my heir.”

  Isolda’s gut went hollow. Her eyes snapped to his. “You can’t do that. He’s just a baby.”

  “But I can,” he said. “It’s a father’s prerogative to select his heir.”

  Her world was crashing down around her. Jauld knew nothing about this child, nothing at all. Only that he was a boy, and the son of himself and Chari. Isolda’s pulse throbbed hot in her ears. If Rory was no longer the heir, he could be taken by the army recruiters. She could spend the next eight years raising him only to see him die in a war which benefited nobody except some spoiled prince. “The store, the money that we have—I earned it! The wealth came from me. It should pass to my son, not to Chari’s.”

  Jauld’s eyes narrowed. “The store has always been mine. I knew you were going to be difficult about this, but the decision is made. Troi is my heir.” He turned away.

  Isolda set Rory on the ground—how horrifying that he was hearing this!—and trotted after Jauld. “You betrayed me once when you took the money I earned and used it to buy a second wife. But you will not betray me a second time. I won’t have it.”

  He snorted. “You know perfectly well no one else would have offered for you. You should be happy to have a place here.”

  “I wish you’d never offered for me. Better no husband at all than a worthless one.”

  Jauld’s face contracted, and he delivered an open-handed slap across her face.

  Isolda retreated a step. Her face stung where he’d struck her.

  “You’re the one who’s worthless,” said Jauld. “And that’s why your brat will inherit nothing.” He turned and went into the birthing room, slamming the door behind him.

  Someone was crying. As her panicking mind climbed down from the shock of Jauld’s assault, she realized it
was Rory, back in the kitchen. She hurried to her child and scooped him up. “It’s all right, love, it’s all right,” she soothed.

  But it wasn’t all right.

  She had no choice. She must leave this place. If it killed her, she would leave—and she would take Rory with her.

  Chapter 18

  Glass glittered on the street. Marius stepped around it and stretched upward as if that might help him see beyond the three-story buildings that blocked his view of the harbor district. A roiling ball of black smoke took up half the visible sky.

  “That’ll be at the harbor,” said Drusus.

  Marius turned to Isolda. “It may have been your gunpowder factory.”

  The moment the windows had blown, Isolda had run to the stable to fetch Rory. He was unharmed, and now she stood clutching him to her body and staring ashen-faced at the black cloud.

  Marius didn’t know what to say. This was personal for Isolda. If the explosion was indeed the gunpowder factory where she used to work, many of her friends could have been injured or killed. He took her hand and squeezed.

  Isolda took a step toward the smoke, pulling him with her. “I have to go there. Can Rory stay here with you?”

  Glass crunched under Marius’s boots. “It’s not safe for you to go.”

  “My friends are there. They may need help.”

  He admired her determination, but what could she realistically accomplish?

  “There is nothing you can do for them,” said Drusus, voicing Marius’s thoughts.

  Isolda continued to move forward. “People might be trapped inside the building. I know my way around. I know where the passages lead—”

  “Within minutes, the whole site will be swarming with guards,” said Drusus.

  “I could go through the alley and in by the southern door—”

  “The guards will surround the place,” said Marius. “If by some miracle they don’t find you, someone else will.” If anti-Sardossian sentiment had been bad before, it was only going to get worse in the wake of this explosion. The smartest thing Isolda could do right now was stay out of public view. “Of course you want to help, but somebody has to stay with Rory, and it can’t be me or Drusus. I’m a licensed Healer. I have to go to the site right away.”