by Court Ellyn
“The flesh remembers,” Carah told her shadow and sent her off to inspect all the wounds she’d closed and report to the Madam Sergeant just how many had “burst open again.” Carah later found the matron in the surgery mopping up blood, reassigned to better use.
Agna had not apologized for her hasty judgment. And now she was trying to brush Laniel off, too. One wiry fist stabbed into her hip; the index finger of her other hand barred her lips, ordering Laniel to stop shouting.
“Falconeye?” Carah asked, approaching them. “Something I can help with?”
He turned to her with red-rimmed eyes. He was so angry, so tired, that his composure had crumbled toward tears. “You cannot do everything for us, love. Not with so many who need you. How long since you’ve rested? Have you taken time to eat?”
The day had felt long enough, busy enough, to fill a dozen. She smiled, despite a sullen dizziness swirling behind her eyes. “Don’t worry about me. How is Azhien?”
“His head is better, but he’s more feverish than before. I won’t lose him to infection, but no one has brought him medicine.”
Agna raised her nose. “He’s had his ration.”
“Five hours ago—” Laniel said, but Agna wouldn’t hear it.
“Besides, isn’t that your job, Lady Carah, you and your magic hands?”
“Mmm, yes,” Carah said, “and yours is to choose who receives treatment and who goes without.”
“How dare you—!”
“Laniel, hold out your hand.”
He hesitated, puzzled, then raised a hand toward her. Carah grabbed his wrist and pushed it toward Agna.
“Madam, touch him.”
“Pft, I beg your pardon?”
“Take his hand, I say! I assure you, an Elari’s skin feels no different than yours or mine, though it is far more beautiful. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t have to stand for this insolence.”
“Nor does he!”
The shouting had awakened the soldiers in nearby cots; orderlies and nurses peered from doorways. Agna ordered them to go back to sleep, like disobedient children. A few of the nurses, who knew her best, fled. The rest stayed for the show, and where were the soldiers to go? They had front-row seats. The bard grinned and fiddled with a peg or two.
Through her teeth, Carah growled, “Take Laniel’s hand, then take Azhien another dose.”
Humiliation crept up from Agna’s collar like a red rash. Desperate for it to stop, she stretched out her hand and brushed Laniel’s fingertips.
“You won’t even look at him!” Carah cried. “Look at him!”
Laniel’s fingers squeezed her shoulder. “Carah, you’re tired.”
“Damned right I’m tired. But if I sleep, how can I trust this hateful bigot to take care of you?”
Agna gasped and tried to pull away, but Laniel wrapped an arm around her thin shoulders as if he would shield her from a fierce wind. She stood as wooden as a post, her jaw tight as if biting on a scream. “It’s enough,” he told Carah.
“No, it’s not. Look at her.” Her words throbbed with contempt. “She behaves as if you’re a lion about to eat her up.”
Laniel smiled and his thumb caressed Carah’s cheek. “Small steps, love. Get some sleep.” With that, he escorted Agna to the supply room as tenderly and reverently as he would a princess he’d rescued from a dragon.
I’m the dragon, Carah thought and trudged to the side room where the Leanian waited with soaked bandages.
Her task was nearly finished when she heard soft steps behind her. A bottle of poppy wine lowered over her shoulder. “He’ll need this,” said Byrn in his melodious tenor. He was still grinning, so cocky, as if he’d heard a joke and swilled the punchline like fine wine.
Carah took the bottle with a murmur of gratitude. Byrn stuck his pinky finger toward her; the thimble-sized cup rode his fingertip.
Filling the thimble, she asked, “Which will it be, I wonder? A song about how the lady stood up to injustice, or about a maniacal avedra who spewed flames at the undeserving nurse?”
“However I sing of you, it will last forever.”
“Precisely my worry.” She put the thimble to the Leanian’s lips. “Do you think the Elarion are abhorrent? Will you sing about them as monsters?”
“They’re better musicians than I am, which is highly unfair, given the expense of my training.” He leaned against the stone wall and shook his head at her. “Tsk, tsk. You do have a suspicious mind.”
“Is there a reason I should trust you? If the lot of us don’t kiss your arse, you might immortalize us as villains.”
“That’s always tempting, true. And yet I recall a particular courtier at the White Falcon’s court.” Byrn glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting spies. “I won’t mention names. He paid me a handsome sum to compose a flattering song about his mistress. I took the … arse-kissing, as you phrase it, and bought myself a new wardrobe and a horse to match, then proceeded to write a song exposing his mistress for the unfaithful, scheming, back-biting bitch that she was.”
Carah watched the pain ease from the Leanian’s face; he drifted off. “Your point?”
“If you weren’t so exhausted—or so stubborn—you’d see my point.” He pushed himself from the wall. “Well, I think I’ve done my duty for the night. I’m off to catch a wink. If you’re wise, m’ lady, you’ll do the same.”
He sauntered toward the stairs, the lute on his back strangely resembling a face inspecting her. One more thing to do. She’d check on Azhien, to ensure the Madam Sergeant had treated him properly, then she’d find her pillow. Though she couldn’t remember which of the small rooms upstairs she’d been assigned.
She pushed herself to her feet; the black fog swept through her head. The stone floor felt cushion-soft as it broke her fall.
She woke to pain pulsing dully on the left side of her skull. Candlelight flickered, filling a closet-sized room with a gentle glow and slithering shadows. Water dripped into a basin. From a mile overhead, Rhian smiled down at her. No, he was close. So close she could reach out and touch him. But she didn’t dare. What was he doing here? He shouldn’t be here. But where was ‘here,’ and how did Carah end up in it?
“You worried me.” Rhian’s whisper rang as loudly as a bronze bell and skittered over her aching bones.
She raised a hand to touch the source of the pain.
Rhian intercepted her arm, so tender. “Take it easy. It’s a nasty bruise you’ve got.” A rickety chair creaked as he leaned close and pressed a cool cloth to the throb in her cheekbone. “Daft thing. You landed on your face.” He chuckled.
“Did I fall?” Ludicrous. Surely she’d remember such a thing.
Rhian nodded. “The queen found you. She said she woke to relieve some ol’ battleaxe and found you passed out on the floor.”
“I fainted?” Oh, Goddess, she swore she’d never faint. How humiliating.
“Briéllyn had a couple of her guards carry you upstairs. I was on my way down from the wall. You were pale as a ghost. I thought you were dead. Scared the shit outta me. Car, you have to take care of yourself. You treat patients with your own energy, your own willpower. You must rest more than others.”
“Too much to do. No time.”
“Make time,” he said, ferocious. “Else, it’s delirious you’ll be, and you’ll hurt those you’re trying to help.” Riled, he removed the cloth from her face and tried to stand, but Carah caught his hand.
“Still on watch?” she asked. She wasn’t referring to his vigil over the countryside.
He sank into the chair again. “Always.”
“You may have been coming off the wall, but no man in his right mind would descend through the infirmary. You’re supposed to avoid me.”
“I can’t. I try, but I can’t.” How helpless he looked, how young and unarmored. “The queen is wise to us. She gave me the evil eye when I insisted I stay with you. ‘Tis indecent of me, I guess. But I don’t think that’s the reason she wa
s upset. She has designs for you, someone else in mind.”
Carah groaned. Why bring this up? “That’s not her call to make.”
“But she’s right, you know. I saw you. Yesterday after the battle. You and him, and it made me crazy inside. I wanted to kill him. Do you know why? Not because it’s all wrong, but because it’s all right. You and him, it makes all the sense in the world.”
“Rhian, stop!” She sat up and faced him. The black fog threatened to overwhelm her head again, but she breathed deeply and it went away. “I can’t take this, and you must stop torturing yourself. You never should’ve come near me.”
“In other words, you’ve … moved on?”
“Only because I must, damn you.”
“If he asks, you’ll accept?”
“Asks me what?” She felt like punching him in the jaw. “You know the arrangement. You agreed to it back in Linndun, and now you insist on torturing us both. How can you think about marriage, for the Goddess’ sake? I assure you I’m not, not to you, not to him, not to anyone!”
Rhian’s jaw formed a stubborn line. “But you’d miss me. Wouldn’t you?”
She shoved him aside and pushed herself to her feet. “You’ve gone mad.”
Rhian pursued her to the door. “But, Car, he’d take care of you better than I could.” At last, she feared she understood his persistence: if Arryk laid an official claim to her, Rhian would have nothing left to stand on, and his pain, his longing, his loneliness, he hoped, would diminish.
Carah shook her head, pressed her fingers to his mouth. Rhian took her hand away. “But he could be to you—” Carah’s other hand rose to silence him, but he caught it away too, so she silenced him with her mouth, kissing him hard, and swallowed the words like bitterest wine.
~~~~
34
Tarsyn woke to the sound of women’s voices. One was familiar, warm like early autumn. The other was strange to his ear, made of creaking wood and round river rocks.
“How long will the council take?” asked the warm autumn voice.
“My guess? Not long enough,” replied the voice of wood and stone. Click-click-click. “I’ve won your gold miner.”
A groan of disgruntlement. “Well, that’s the game for me. Shall we play again?” Click-click-click. “What do you mean, ‘not long enough’?”
Sweat broke out between Tarsyn’s shoulder blades, on his face, his scalp. A dull black throb pulsed in his forearm. The weight of blankets pressed him into soft bedding that smelled of soap. He cracked open an eye. At first he feared he’d been interred in a stone box, then realized it was only the ceiling. If he stretched up a hand he might be able to touch it. Neither of his arms agreed to comply with that experiment, however. Lead seemed to have been poured into his veins. His skull weighed a hundred stone as he turned toward the sound of the voices.
“Our elderen are tired of war,” answered the creaking voice. “That they took three days to meet with Degany’s son shows how reluctant they are to aid you. I fear they will turn you away without proper consideration.” A short, broad woman sat at a table with her back to Tarsyn. Hair as silver as clouds was parted down the middle; two thick braids curled over her ears like ram’s horns. Across the table, Kalla gazed at her thoughtfully. Her red curls flickered with the warm glow of lamplight. Between them lay a game board set with gleaming stones.
“But you would help us?” asked Kalla.
A rattling sigh. “I lost both my sons to the bogginai, and my sweet daughter, too. But that does not mean I would curl into a hole to save myself.”
“The elderen will not feel the same?”
“We’ll know soon enough.”
Click-click-click went the game pieces.
Tarsyn groaned. He tried to kick the blankets down but managed to free only one foot. Cool air swam around his toes.
“He’s awake!” Kalla cried. Chairs scooted back on a stone floor. Feet shuffled close. “His color is better,” she observed. “How do you feel?”
“Hot,” he croaked. His tongue tasted like pigswill.
The top of the older woman’s head reached no higher than Kalla’s elbow. Her face was as craggy as a mountainside but far kinder. Eyes as black and deliberate as an obsidian blade flicked over Tarsyn, while her stubby fingers traced deft patterns over his brow, his cheek, his chest. No, she wasn’t tracing, she was following, her head cocked as if she listened to a distant song. The crags around her eyes crinkled, and her cheeks filled with a smile. “Aye, the fever’s gone. Signs say we’ve seen the last of the infection, too. I’m Gyerda. And you, young master, gave us quite a scare.” To Kalla she added lowly, “But the signs are capricious. They’ve lied to me before. I put more trust in my tonic. Better pour another spoonful down him.” She toddled off.
Tarsyn’s head reeled. The carved ceiling seemed to tilt, and Kalla with it. “What—?”
She patted his shoulder. “We’re in the dwarven city of Gretzeng. Supposedly it’s one of the grandest in all the Drakhans. I’ve seen only a smidgeon of it myself. Gyerda and No’ak took us in when a hunting party ambushed us in the pass. We were making enough racket, they said, that it’s our fault they thought we were ogres.”
Gyerda bustled back, bearing a chest that glistened with jasper and carnelian. It was too fine an object for every-day use, but it was from this bejeweled chest that she took bottles of salve and a roll of gauze. From a bedside table she fetched a spoon and poured a viscous dark green liquid into it. “Open.” Tarsyn opened his mouth and she gagged him with the spoon and what was in it. No wonder his tongue tasted like it had shriveled up and died.
Kalla chuckled. “What’s wrong, Tarsyn? You didn’t complain this much before.”
“What is that shit?” The sludge burned all the way to the pit of his stomach.
“Herbs mostly,” the matron said. “A febrifuge and a pain killer, and best of all, it should kill every ounce of poison in your blood.”
“And me with it. But I thank you.”
Gyerda’s black eyes twinkled. “Help me lift him up.” Kalla did most of the lifting, having the better leverage. She set him back against his pillows. The room flipped upside down. The blood drained from Tarsyn’s face. Gyerda saw what was coming and shook a finger at him. “Don’t you dare vomit up my tonic.” Tarsyn clenched his teeth and inhaled to steady his stomach.
“Maybe it’s too soon,” Kalla suggested, producing a basin, in case.
“He’s young and strong. He’ll be fine, unless I have to cuff him upside the head for wasting my tonic.”
The nausea wore off gradually. Gyerda pressed a silver cup into his good hand. Moonstones ornamented the rim. “Can you hold it yourself?”
“What is it?”
“Water, just water. Drawn from deep down inside the mountain. Practically a tonic itself. Sip it slow. Sip it till it’s gone. Then I’ll bring you more.”
The water was ice-cold and tasted of primeval snow and gritty minerals. It was like touching crystal to his tongue or a shard of ancient moonlight. While he sipped, Gyerda unwrapped his throbbing arm. She sniffed the yellow splotches on the gauze and tossed it away. Tarsyn told himself not to look, but he couldn’t help it. An incision had been cut the length of his forearm. The rows of teeth punctures looked miniscule in comparison.
“To relieve the pressure,” Gyerda explained when she noticed his horror. “Your arm had swelled so bad it was like to burst like an overripe melon. You’ll be scarred for sure, but you’ll be alive, and you’ll keep your arm.”
Had she considered amputating it? Tarsyn didn’t dare ask. He balled his fingers, appreciating the feel of his own skin. His knuckles ached, still stiff with excess fluid.
Gyerda smoothed on a thick coating of pungent ointment, then wrapped his arm in clean gauze. By then, the silver cup was empty, the room had almost stopped spinning, and his belly grumbled loudly. Gyerda chuckled. “That sign speaks clear enough. I’ll get the dumplings started.” She packed the bottles back into the jewele
d box and waddled through a door beyond the foot of the bed. A bed that Tarsyn now saw was too short for him. Even though he was sitting up, his toes almost reached the footboard; a chair softened with a cushion had kept his ankles from drooping over the end. The room seemed to be some sort of parlor or spare room. A small fire crackled in a tidy hearth, keeping the damp at bay. In one corner was a workbench piled with tools and boxes and small anvils, the like of which were used in crafting jewelry. Over the game table with its glistening pieces, that undoubtedly were genuine gemstones, hung a bronze lamp shaped like a ram’s head. Flames flickered from the ends of its curled horns. Yellow topaz glinted in its eye sockets. Two of the four walls were carved with domestic scenes: dwarves hammering at a forge, dwarves leading donkeys burdened with piles of sacks and barrels. Streaks of nitre seeped from the carvings, hinting that the house was not merely built of stone but excavated into the living mountain.
Kalla dragged a chair from the game table and sat beside him. “Laral might never admit it, but when the elderen summoned the council, Drys had to drag him away from your bedside.”
“Really?” For a moment, Tarsyn’s heart soared. He tamped it down fast. “What council? What’s happening?”
“Turns out Drys has something of a reputation among the dwarves. At least, his father did. He and Laral are trying to convince the elderen to help us track down the captives. Gyerda isn’t optimistic. But more important, No’ak, her husband, told us that ten days ago two of his brothers saw ogres moving a long train of humans.”