Healer's Touch

by Amy Raby

  Jauld took a step toward Rory. “Do you remember me? I’m your father.”

  Rory gasped. Isolda couldn’t tell if he was scared or excited, but he maintained the distance between him and his father, backing up a step for every one that Jauld advanced.

  Jauld stopped advancing. “Your mother took you from me when you were very young. Do you remember our house at the crossroads? Do you remember your second mother, Chari?”

  With an edge to his voice, Rory said, “I have no second mother.”

  Isolda’s throat seized. She could scarcely draw breath. Rory did remember their time in Sardos—all too well, it seemed.

  Jauld turned back to Isolda. “You’ve come down in the world.”

  No, she hadn’t. As far as Isolda was concerned, the humble life she eked out in Riat was a step way up from the one she’d lived while under Jauld’s thumb in Sardos. But there was no point in arguing. Jauld was too foolish and self-centered to understand how she felt. “Why are you here? Have you fled Sardos?”

  “Gods, no,” said Jauld. “I’m here with a merchant ship.”

  Good. When the ship left, he would leave too. If he’d moved permanently to Riat and joined the other Sardossians in the underground, she’d have to spend the rest of her life trying to stay out of his way. But it appeared all she had to do was avoid him for however long the ship was in port. That, unfortunately, might not be easy. She didn’t own her home in the underground and had no legal authority to order him away. She took Rory by the shoulders and pulled him close to her, sheltering him with her body.

  “Isolda, you don’t have to live like this anymore,” said Jauld. “I’ve come to offer you forgiveness for what you’ve done and take you home to Sardos. You and Rory.”

  Forgiveness. Her mouth flooded with bile. He’d mistreated her, not the other way around.

  “This is our home, and we’re staying,” said Rory.

  Jauld snorted a laugh. “This rotting pile of concrete and sewage is home?”

  Isolda felt her son’s shoulders tense. “Sometimes we stay someplace nicer,” said Rory.

  “Oh?” said Jauld. “Where do you stay?”

  Don’t mention the villa, Isolda pleaded inwardly. Please don’t mention the villa.

  Rory seemed to realize his mistake, and stayed mum.

  “Do you remember our nice house in Sardos?” Jauld asked Rory.

  Rory nodded.

  “Don’t you want to go back there?”

  “No,” said Rory.

  Jauld turned to Isolda, his eyes smoldering with fury. “You’ve taken my son away and poisoned his mind.”

  “If there’s any poison in Rory’s mind, you put it there,” she retorted. “We’re not going back to Sardos. Not under any circumstances.”

  “Rory is my son,” said Jauld. “My flesh and blood. And you’re my wife. Of course you’re going back.”

  Isolda stepped backward, taking Rory with her. Had Jauld come to Kjall for trading purposes, perhaps to buy goods for the shop? Was his search for her merely a side project? In that case, she might get rid of him without much trouble. Or had he made the journey entirely for the purpose of finding her? “How’s the store doing?”

  “Well enough, given that the country’s at war. It wants your magic touch, of course.”

  She suspected it was failing. That wouldn’t be surprising, given that Jauld had been an indifferent businessman before, and, as he’d noted, economic conditions in Sardos were not favorable. “Did you come here to import Kjallan goods?”

  Jauld’s brows lowered. “I came for you.”

  A chill ran through her. So he’d made the enormously expensive trip just to retrieve her and Rory. But Rory had never interested him. It was Isolda he wanted. He wanted her to run his business and make him rich again. He wanted to live a life of luxury with Chari while Isolda worked herself to death and enjoyed none of the benefits. And meanwhile, a disinherited Rory would be recruited for the blood wars in a couple of years and die on a battlefield. “We’re never going back. Kjall is our home now. And I’m not your wife. I got a divorce here in Kjall.”

  Jauld blinked. She’d surprised him. “Marriage is for life, Isolda. There’s no such thing as divorce. Kjallans might discard their wives and husbands, but Sardossians don’t.”

  No, Sardossians replace them with second wives, thought Isolda bitterly. “My divorce is written in the Kjallans’ record books. It’s legal.” At least, it appeared to be, if one didn’t look too closely. “You and I are no longer husband and wife.”

  “What about my son?” Jauld looked down at Rory. “Is he divorced from me as well?”

  “I’m not going back,” said Rory.

  “There’s so much more for you in Sardos than here,” said Jauld. “Look at the squalor in which you live. You want to end up like that fellow in twenty years?” He indicated the old man in the corner, who was wordlessly watching the drama, and occasionally coughing into his gloved hand.

  Rory said nothing.

  “In Sardos, we have a house of our own,” said Jauld. “We even have a horse.”

  One horse? They’d had two when Isolda left. Perhaps one had died, or Jauld had sold him. Since Jauld wasn’t one for keeping the books up to date, he could have run up significant debts before discovering that his finances were in trouble.

  “Here you’ll cough your life away in a sewer,” said Jauld. “In Sardos, you could inherit the store your mother and I built together. You could be rich someday.”

  “Rory’s not your heir,” said Isolda. “Chari’s boy is.”

  “Who says I won’t change my mind?” said Jauld. “Rory’s grown into a fine-looking boy.”

  Isolda refused to be fooled—she knew what he intended. He’d play the boys off each other, picking favorites and changing his mind as whim directed, trying to get each one to impress him in order to be named heir. She’d played that fruitless game against Chari, and nobody won except Jauld. He’d have to kill her before she’d let him take her son back to that.

  “Mom’s getting me into the university here in Riat,” said Rory.

  Jauld laughed. “You think your mother, who can’t afford a proper place to live, can afford to buy you an education?”

  “We’re saving our money,” said Rory.

  “You’d better hope you’re still alive at age sixty. It’ll take you that long, if not longer.”

  “Leave us be,” said Isolda. “We’re not going back to Sardos.”

  “You can’t order me away,” said Jauld. “I’ve a claim over you, no matter what those Kjallan papers say. And I’ve a claim over Rory as well.” He advanced toward her.

  Gods—would he try to take her by force? She backed around the corner, afraid that if she turned and ran, he would accelerate, and with his long legs he would easily outrun her. And what about Rory? She couldn’t abandon him. Perhaps Caz was not too far away, and she could scream for help.

  Stepping backward, her foot landed in a puddle of stagnant water. Icy cold flooded her sandals. She risked a glance behind her to correct her course, and when she turned to face Jauld again, he had abandoned all pretense of civility and was running straight at her.

  “Caz, help!” she shrieked.

  She turned toward the door and pushed Rory ahead of her. The boy found his feet and ran, and she pelted after him. She made it only three strides before tripping over a beam with her waterlogged feet. Just as she was recovering her balance and preparing to launch herself forward again, a heavy weight collided with the small of her back, and she hit the ground.

  The impact knocked the wind out of her, and she gasped for breath like a dying fish.

  “Mom!” Rory turned and ran back.

  Isolda struggled vigorously, trying to buck Jauld’s weight off of her. He was holding her down with one hand and the weight of his body while he did something with the other hand. She saw the glint of metal. “He’s got a pistol. Run!”

  Rory pounded on Jauld with tiny fists. “Let her go
!”

  Jauld leveled the flintlock at Rory’s chest and pulled back the hammer.

  “Leave me. Run!” cried Isolda.

  For a moment, Rory stared down the barrel of the pistol. Then he turned and fled.

  Isolda was left alone with Jauld. Caz had not come. “Please let me go. We’re not married anymore. I can’t go back—”

  The butt of the pistol came down on the back of her head. The pain shocked her into immobility and left her dizzy. She tried to say something, but her throat seized. She felt like she was going to throw up. Then the hard metal came down on her again, and her vision went dark.

  Chapter 30

  As Marius approached the villa, light glows cast his shadow, and Drusus’s, upon the nearby wall of the surgery. Ahead, on the doorstep, he spotted another shadow. Someone was sitting on the stoop, curled up as if to make himself as small as possible.

  A patient in need?

  No—as he came closer, he saw that it was Rory.

  What a stroke of luck! Rory was his ticket to Isolda. If anyone knew where she was, he did. But what had brought him here so late at night? Could Isolda be in danger? He broke into a jog, and as he came close enough for Rory to recognize him, the boy rose.

  “Hello, Rory. Is something wrong?” asked Marius.

  Rory was normally a relaxed, happy child, but tonight his posture was tense. His arms were crossed in front of his body, his hair was mussed, and Marius had the impression he’d experienced a great fright. His voice shook when he finally spoke. “My father’s here in Kjall.”

  “Your father?” Marius blinked. “The one from Sardos? He came here?”

  “He wants us to come back to Sardos with him. Mother said no, we wouldn’t go back, and he knocked her down.” Rory choked on a sob.

  Knocked her down? Marius’s neck grew hot, and his hands closed into fists. “Then what happened?”

  “I tried to get her up, but he had a gun...” Rory began to cry.

  Marius shared a horrified glance with Drusus. Turning back to Rory, he saw that the boy was beyond words. “Come here.”

  The boy took a tentative step forward.

  Marius pulled him into a hug. The boy sobbed with abandon into his stomach. “What happened next?”

  “I don’t know!” cried Rory. “Mother told me to run away, and I did. I said the wrong things. I told him I didn’t want to go back to Sardos. I didn’t know he had a gun! I think I made him mad—”

  “You did nothing wrong,” Marius assured him. “Whatever happened was Jauld’s fault, not yours, and you were quite right to run away.” If he hadn’t, Marius would never have known Isolda was in trouble. What did Jauld want from her? If he’d come to Kjall to take her back, his interests wouldn’t be served by shooting her. But one never knew. Jealous ex-husbands could do terrible things. He turned to Drusus. “We have to find her. Immediately.”

  “Of course,” said Drusus. “But where is she?”

  “Can you take us to her?” Marius asked Rory.

  “What if he shoots you?” said Rory.

  “I’m not worried about that,” said Marius. “You see Drusus here?”

  Rory looked up at Drusus, sniffling.

  “He’s a trained bodyguard, and he’s more than a match for a man with a gun. Aren’t you, Drusus?”

  Drusus smiled wickedly. “I’m looking forward to beating the piss out of that guy.”

  Marius winced. That was a bit much; they were, after all, talking about Rory’s father.

  But Rory seemed cheered by Drusus’s words. “I’ll take you there right now.”

  ∞

  As Rory led them into the harbor district, Marius grilled him to get a better sense of what had happened. What exactly had been said? How did Isolda react? What had led to Jauld’s pulling a weapon? He feared that Jauld and Isolda would have moved from the place where the confrontation had occurred. There was no reason for them to stay where they were. If Jauld wanted to take her back to Sardos, he might have removed her to a ship somewhere.

  Or he could have shot her. Marius’s pulse raced at that terrible thought.

  He had to stay calm. Panicking wasn’t going to help. He would go to the scene of the crime and if nobody was there, he’d look for clues.

  According to Rory, Jauld had refused to acknowledge her Kjallan divorce, had referred to her as his wife, and had insisted on taking her back to Sardos with him. At first, he’d tried to tempt the two of them by talking about his nice house and the store that Rory might someday inherit. “But I remember that house,” said Rory. “Everybody in it was mean.”

  Marius had thought Rory might lead them to the Sage House Tavern, where he and Drusus had been earlier, but instead Rory led them to the Drunken Wind Taproom, which lay at the other end of the harbor district. He could only guess that there were multiple entrances to the underground. Entering the underground was easy this time. Rory led them into a back room. The barkeep and one of the servers eyed him and Drusus, but after glancing at Rory, they returned to their business.

  Down the stairs into darkness. As Marius’s eyes adjusted, he saw they were in a finished concrete cellar smelling of hops and old potatoes. Rory led them around a pile of casks to what looked like a dead end. He stuck his fingers into a gap in the concrete and pulled, and a door swung open.

  “How—” began Marius, but before finishing his question he touched the door. It wasn’t concrete at all, but scored, painted wood. He probably would have seen the difference in better light, but in the darkness, the textures blended into one another.

  Rory ran ahead of them into the hallway beyond.

  Marius trotted after him. Right away, he stepped in an unseen puddle of water. Gritting his teeth with the cold, he looked ahead and saw that the ground was riddled with pools of inky blackness, hard to make out against the near-black of the dirt floor. A few light glows mounted on the walls cast enough light to allow them to make their way, but not to see much of their surroundings. What he saw was chaotic: light patches that looked like stained concrete, wooden beams, detritus. Incongruously, a storefront directly on his right, with an unreadable sign hanging on one nail.

  Rory appeared ahead, in a patch of light shed by a glow. “Come on.”

  Marius hurried after him. Behind him, he heard a splash, and Drusus swore. Apparently Marius wasn’t the only one finding the puddles the hard way.

  As he proceeded through the tunnel, he became aware of the smell: a musty, mildewed scent that carried the tang of human sweat. People lived down here—lots of them. While he saw no other souls in the tunnel, he did see signs of human habitation: a ratty blanket in a dry corner. A tattered rucksack, opened and rifled through.

  This was where Isolda had lived for the past four years? He felt an ache in his throat.

  “Up here.” Rory motioned toward a side tunnel.

  Marius followed.

  Rory led him to a storefront upon which someone had chalked the word kodon. “It happened here. Inside.”

  Drusus shoved past Marius. “I’ll go first.”

  The thin wooden door swung drunkenly on its hinges. Marius followed his bodyguard into the building.

  The room was flooded and littered with broken beams, and it was empty of people.

  “Soldier’s Hell,” said Rory, who’d come in after them. “They’re not here anymore.”

  Marius had never heard the boy swear before, but he supposed Rory had ample reason. “This is where Jauld pulled out the gun?”

  Rory nodded miserably.

  While Drusus walked about the room, checking every corner and splashing through the puddles to see if anything was hidden beneath the water, Marius looked over the sad scene. He saw no signs of a struggle, although in better light he might see more. “You live here?” he asked.

  Rory pointed. “Back there.”

  Heading in that direction, Marius found a second room. This one wasn’t flooded, and there were blankets and packs everywhere. Several people lived here, not just Isol
da. And one of them was present, an old man sleeping in the corner.

  Marius woke him. “My name is Marius, and I’m a Healer. I’m looking for Isolda.”

  The man’s eyes went wide with fear. He tried to speak, but a fit of coughing interrupted his words.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Marius soothed. Now that he saw the man’s face, he recognized him. He’d seen this man at the surgery on one of his Free Days. If he remembered right, this cough was not caused by any sort of evil spirit, which was unfortunate since that would have been more treatable. Rather, it was a chronic condition caused by breathing bad air. Marius could give him some relief, but it would be temporary.

  He laid hands on the man, letting his magic seep into the man’s lungs. Yes—the trouble was the same as before. No evil spirits, just angry flesh that needed soothing. As the magic did its work, he was aware of long minutes passing; the man’s lungs were sluggish in remembering the health of their youth. He had to cajole them into acceptance of his magic, like stroking a timid dog whose skin quivered at his touch.

  The man cleared his throat when Marius had finished. “Thank you. I’m feeling better.”

  “Where’s Isolda?” asked Marius.

  “Her husband from Sardos took her,” said the old man.

  “He’s not her husband. Where did he take her?”

  “Don’t know,” said the old man. “But Vora followed them.”

  “Who’s Vora?” asked Marius.

  “She lives here too,” said Rory.

  “Where do you suppose she is now?”

  “She hasn’t come back yet,” said the old man.

  Marius looked around the room. Perhaps they should wait for this Vora to return. He hated the thought of further delay, but other than going to the docks and looking for Sardossian ships, he had no better ideas. If Jauld had abducted her, would he have taken her personal effects as well? “Which bed is yours?” he asked Rory.

  Rory picked his way through the mess toward two makeshift blanket nests. He indicated one of them. “Here.”

  Marius walked over and joined him. The blankets on the floor were spotless. Despite living in squalor, Isolda somehow managed to keep herself and Rory clean. That had to be a prodigious amount of work. Looking through the packs beside each nest of blankets, he found her clothes, neatly folded within. He recognized each outfit and realized for the first time that she only owned four of them, three of which were here. The other she was presumably wearing. He knew she wasn’t the sort of woman who cared a lot about clothes, and he wasn’t the sort of man who cared about them either. Nonetheless, he was seized with the desire to buy her a whole new wardrobe—anything she wanted. “Are any of your things missing?” he asked.