Cold Iron

by Stina Leicht

  “Good morning,” Nels said, mopping up the mess with the towel.

  “What happened to the teapot?” Mrs. Nimonen asked. A sour frown marred her otherwise pleasant middle-aged face. She finished tying an apron around her waist and smoothed it. “Tell me you didn’t pawn it. Or did you lose it in one of your card games?”

  He gave her a smile. “I dropped it. Last night. I’ll have to buy a new one. Good day for it.”

  Suspicion crept across her expression. “Did you drop it on your head?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve never seen you this cheerful. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile.” She scanned the room. Skepticism deepened the lines around her narrowing eyes. “You’ve tidied up the place.” It was almost an accusation.

  “Oh.” Nels suddenly noticed the neat stacks of letters on his writing desk. “I suppose I did.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing is wrong. Everything is brilliant. Perfect, even.”

  She crossed the room. Her face set in incredulity as if happy ex–crown princes were omens of ill luck. Stooping, she retrieved a paper-wrapped package resting on the floor. “You’re up to no good. I can tell.” She placed the flat, rectangular bundle on his writing desk.

  “Don’t worry. It isn’t that I’ve hired a new housekeeper.”

  She harrumphed. “I’ll get your breakfast, then.” The back door closed with an exact thump.

  He finished his first cup of tea and then fetched the package with his good hand. He kept his injured arm close to his body. The bundle was heavy, but he could tell from the feel of it that it was a book. Settling into the comfortable old wingback, he spied the red wax seal embossed with a tiny sparrow. Suvi. He ripped into the paper and found a leather-bound book. The title, Tricks and Tools of Mystics, Magicians, and Other Charlatans, was written in Acrasian. A folded letter was tucked inside. The message was ­written in swirling Acrasian script: Not real magic can be as power as real. Acrasian can do. You can do. Clearly, she wrote Acrasian worse than she spoke it. More difficult for spies to puzzle it out, I suppose, he thought. She’d risked much in giving the book to him. Faking magic wasn’t unheard-of in Eledore. Any noble who rode practiced it to varying degrees from the time they received their first pony. The demands of riding made the exclusive use of command magic impractical. Still, appearances had to be maintained. The punishment for fraud was severe—particularly if the individual wasn’t of noble blood. As a result, the thought of using such tricks to shore up his status hadn’t occurred to him. I’m a royal. No one would question it. Smart. Very smart.

  His smile stretched a touch wider until he spied the small card. Another, separate message was scrawled on its surface.

  Do not worry. Major Lahtela sleep from service.

  An uneasy shudder crawled up Nels’s spine. Sleep? It took him a moment to understand. She means he retired from service. Soldiers don’t retire. Royal gardeners retire. Soldiers die. She had him killed. Nels crushed the card in his good hand and tossed it into the fireplace. It uncurled on hot coals until the edges bloomed with darkness and then caught fire. The words transformed into ash and left behind apprehension-tainted smoke.

  ILTA

  ONE

  “Are you sure about this?” Anja Myller asked, holding the sharpened quill Ilta had used to puncture a variola vesicle on a new and otherwise healthy patient.

  Anja was wearing an old-fashioned plague mask and robes. In spite of her friendly, familiar voice, the mask’s red-lensed eyes and exaggerated “beak” was a thing of nightmares. Ilta thought the costume must be a very effective protection against disease—if your goal was frightening the sick away from the healer.

  In the distance, clock tower bells competed with the Commons Church carillon in signaling noon.

  “How can you see, let alone breathe, in that thing?” Ilta could smell the lavender, rosemary, and garlic stuffed into the mask’s beak from where she was sitting. Designed to cover the powerful stench of dying plague victims, the herb combination was potent enough to overwhelm the much more delicate scents of the hospital’s herb garden. “We’re outside. There’s no possibility of any unpleasant smells making you sick. Can’t you take the mask off for a moment?”

  The costume was distinctive, and her feelings about that underlined Ilta’s reasons for having chosen the herb garden to meet in the first place. Gran wouldn’t approve, nor would the Healing Council of Elders. Once more, Ilta glanced in the direction of the overcrowded hospital building on the other side of the thick hedge. “You’re more likely to jab me in the eye rather than the arm.”

  “You would have me expose myself to danger?”

  “Variola isn’t always fatal. Most of the time it isn’t, and you know it,” Ilta said.

  “It’s fatal enough.”

  “You’re powerful. You can’t get sick through casual contact. You haven’t so far.”

  Anja gave out a muffled harrumph. “My magic doesn’t completely shield me from disease. Unlike you.”

  “Mine doesn’t either—not totally. Otherwise, what would be the point in doing this?”

  “That is the question, isn’t it? What is the point?”

  There are some fates that one shouldn’t fight. Isn’t that what Gran said? Ilta thought. “Someone has to try—”

  “No, they don’t. This is a ridiculous Acrasian practice. The strongest among the people will survive this human disease. Every being and every thing has a place in the Hallowed Order. The weakest die.” Pausing, Anja lowered the sharpened quill and stepped back. “This is unnecessary.”

  The Hallowed Order was the first thing students of the healing arts were taught, no matter their specific spiritual practice. The highest order had power to affect the lower. Inanimate objects were at the bottom of the Order, followed by plant life, animals, humans, and then kainen at the top. It was believed that the strength of one’s magic was what protected one from outside forces, including the magic of others.

  “If that’s the case, then why bother with healing magic at all?” Ilta asked.

  “Don’t get smart with me, girl. I can turn my back on this whole affair, you know. Better yet, I can tell the Medical Council—”

  “Please don’t,” Ilta said. “I promise I’m being careful. That’s why I’m the best candidate. I’ll heal faster. And part of my magical immunity can be transferred to patients who are inoculated with material from my wounds. The logic is sound, and you know it.”

  There were limits to even the most gifted healer’s magic. Some­times, that power turned in the hands of the healer and harmed the patient. Sometimes, the healer was hurt. It was a known risk. Anja herself wouldn’t have argued the point. This was why healing magic was often placed in things of a lesser order: herbs, amulets, potions, bandages, and other items. Healers were taught to avoid direct magic use on patients lest the patient’s natural defenses reject the healing power being introduced. Of course, shortcuts could be used by those of greater power. Ilta did so often enough when she was certain her powers were stronger than those of her patient. One didn’t always have time to make a lengthy preparation. Gran had taught her as much.

  She also taught you that there are some fates that one shouldn’t fight, didn’t she?

  Anja sighed and dropped the quill onto the tray she was holding. “I can’t do this. It’s against the Healer’s Oath.”

  As Anja was older and inclined toward tradition, including her in the experiment was a gamble at best, but Ilta couldn’t think of anyone she trusted as much as her Gran. Ilta couldn’t tell her Gran. Not yet. Ilta was confident enough in her decision that she felt the risk worthwhile, but if something went wrong and she needed to turn to someone for help, Anja was the best choice. She was not only a friend—and Ilta didn’t have many—but Anja was one of the more powerful healers employed at the Commons Hospital. “Too many are dying. We have to find an alternative method. A method that doesn’t require magic. There aren’t enoug
h healers to deal with this plague.”

  “All the more reason not to risk yourself.”

  “This is a sound option. The Acrasians have no healing magic, yet they survive. Nels says the Acrasians invented pox-proofing to prevent deaths from variola vera. Symptoms developed after this type of therapy are far less deadly. I’ll be completely safe,” Ilta said. It was only partly a lie. Based upon the research that Nels translated for her, a small number of inoculated patients did die, but that number was so much smaller than in naturally occurring cases that inoculation was seeing widespread use. “Best of all, it’s a simple method to execute.”

  “An Acrasian method would have to be.”

  “Nels says that Acrasian nobles gather in groups on their country estates for inoculation and recover in comfort. They call them Pox Parties.”

  “Nels says this. Nels says that. He’s not a healer. He’s a soldier. You’re letting your feelings for him cloud your judgment. I can’t believe—”

  Ilta bit back a retort and ignored Anja’s continued protests. She stared down at the newly sprouting frost-kissed grass. Maybe it was a bad idea to ask for her help, after all.

  Anja finally seemed to run out of energy. She folded her arms across her chest and then said, “Even if the lad is right, you’re not an Acrasian.”

  “Acrasians are no different from kainen. Gran says so.”

  “The royal court and the teachings of the Hallowed Order disagree.”

  “The royal court knows nothing outside of centuries-old grudges, half-truths, and myths,” Ilta said.

  “Have a care—”

  “Has anyone other than Nels bothered to study the Acrasians? He says their troops are inoculated. Ours are not. Sickened soldiers cannot protect us from the Regnum. When are we going to break free of outdated thinking? When it’s too late, and we’ve lost the war?”

  Anja paused. “Did you have a vision?”

  “I can’t say. Not yet,” Ilta said. That much was truth. However, they were running out of time. Soon, the two of them would be missed. Becoming more frustrated, she continued. “King Henrik acts as if the war isn’t happening, let alone an epidemic that kills more than half those exposed to it. There aren’t enough living to bury the dead in some parts of the country. It’s irresponsible—”

  “Shhh!” In her bird mask, Anja awkwardly turned her head to look over her shoulder. “You should be more careful of what you say, girl.”

  “I’m telling the truth, and you know it.”

  “I don’t care how much you think you love that boy. He’s a royal. And royal feuds end messy. Particularly for those who aren’t royal.”

  “Nels is right.”

  “Silmaillia’s apprentice or not, you’re not safe from the king. You know the histories. Even the Silmaillia Samsa Rasi lost his head, and he was King Anders’s closest friend.”

  “If King Anders had listened, it would’ve prevented a famine. Silmaillia Rasi was right to stand up to him.”

  “Dead right doesn’t count, my girl. Even your grandmother has more sense than to push King Henrik too far. Need I remind you that you’re only an apprentice? Apprentices can be replaced. Even talented ones.”

  “I know. I know.” Ilta stared at the ground and waited for Anja to finish. It was usually best that way.

  “If Saara finds out that I’ve encouraged you in this—”

  “She’s not going to, because you’re not going to tell her,” Ilta said. “And neither am I, until it’s too late.”

  “What makes you think she won’t See what you’ve done?”

  “We have to know if this works. I have to know.”

  “At the risk of dying in the variola epidemic yourself? Why?”

  To save Gran. To keep her from exhausting her powers and killing herself. The nightmare was still fresh, leaving a bad feeling lurking in the back of Ilta’s mind. It was only a dream. A warning. Not a vision. I know the difference. “I’m not going to die,” Ilta said.

  However, she had to admit she was frightened. Variola, even when it didn’t kill or blind its victims, left terrible scars. If I’m hideous, will Nels still love me? Still, all she had to do was think of her Gran.

  She cast aside fears and vanity. “I’ll be perfectly safe. The variola presented after inoculation is weaker. In a sense, I’ll be at less risk of dying than you will be by taking your chances contracting it at its full power. And afterward, I’ll be immune just like the others who’ve survived.”

  “Have you thought about who will take over for you here while you recover?”

  Ilta looked away.

  “You haven’t, have you?”

  “I won’t be that sick. A few days. That’s all.”

  “Variola takes two to three weeks to run its course. You know that.”

  “It won’t be the same. Nels said—” Ilta stopped herself when she caught Anja’s impatient sigh. “It won’t be as bad. I promise.” Placing the lancet against her upper arm, Ilta winced as she made a deep enough cut. “This is my responsibility. Not yours. Gran knows how I am when I make up my mind. She’ll understand.” Her upper arm exposed, she shivered. Winter was still fighting spring for dominance. “Hurry up and stick me with that thing before I lose my nerve.”

  Anja jabbed the tip of the quill into the fresh wound with a gloved hand. Ilta flinched.

  “May the Great Mother have mercy upon us both,” Anja said.

  “Thank you.” Ilta attempted to wrap a fresh bandage around her left arm. Anja took over when she couldn’t manage it one-handed.

  Letting out another harrumph, Anja asked, “What are you going to do when you start to show symptoms?”

  “It won’t be so bad. Nels and I are binding for a year. And I thought—”

  “A binding? Have you told Saara?”

  “Not yet.” Ilta was hesitant to discuss it with Gran. Part of the reason why was because she knew if she did that, everything would be more real. Why that was an issue, Ilta wasn’t entirely sure. She hadn’t exactly had much time to herself for thinking lately—what with one thing and another. Don’t lie to yourself. You know why. “Is there a problem?”

  “He is your first, isn’t he?”

  That’s it. That’s the reason. He’s the first, and I’m frightened. I’ve never left home before. In truth, she’d already packed a few things. Her intent was to stay with him that night, but now she wasn’t so sure. “Why should that concern Gran?”

  Anja nodded. The plague mask gave the action an ominous cast. “It does. Trust me.”

  “She won’t object. She likes him. Not that it matters.”

  “Oh, it’ll matter.”

  “I can legally bind with whomever I want. I’m seventeen. It’s only for a year.”

  “Saara raised you. To her, you’re a daughter, not a grand­daughter. You’re her little girl.”

  “Surely she’s noticed I’ve grown up.”

  “Knowing and understanding aren’t the same thing. She’ll need time to adjust to the idea. So, you’d best tell her soon.”

  “All right. I will,” Ilta said. I’ve only ever been close to three people. Gran, Anja, and Nels. Of those three, Gran is the only one who really knows me. The thought helped explain some of the trepidation shadowing her excitement. Gran has meant safety for so long. And Nels— “Anyway, I thought I’d stay with Nels while I recover.”

  “You would expose him to variola?”

  “He intends to be inoculated, too.” Ilta paused, pretending to give the situation more thought. However, there were aspects of her life that she wasn’t willing to discuss with Anja in detail. Nels was one of them. Ilta had conflicting feelings. On one hand, she loved him. She wanted to protect him. Part of her motives for moving in with him were selfish. I will inoculate him tonight. And we can take care of one another. He’ll be safe. I’ll see to it.

  And if he’s ill, he can’t leave with his regiment. She inwardly winced, but she couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t had any visions about him—not
yet. She was already dreading the possibility. He was a soldier, and soldiers didn’t have a long life expectancy. I can keep him safe and alive. She’d considered volunteering for Nels’s regiment, except she knew that Gran wouldn’t allow it. Ilta was to be the next Silmaillia—not an army healer.

  “I’ll be there to make certain he’s safe. Anyway, he said he wouldn’t mind the risk.” Ilta knew it was because he felt guilty about what he’d almost done to her. She also knew she was taking advantage of his guilt. But can I really trust him? And what if Gran dies? I’ll be all alone. I’ll have no one. The selfishness at the core of her motivations made her face heat. “I’ll protect us both. You know how powerful my magic is. It won’t be a problem.”

  “Isn’t he being sent to the war soon?”

  “We’ve weeks before that happens.” But what if Anja is right? What if Gran tries to stop me? “There isn’t time to tell Gran. And anyway, it’s only for a little while. I can tell her that I’ve been asked to help patients living outside the city. Nels and I can be alone to test the inoculation process. Then when Nels goes to war, I can move back in with Gran. I’ll tell her about the binding then. That way, I can ease her into the idea. Everything will be fine.”

  “So, you haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what? I’ve been here all day.” Afraid she’d lost track of time again, she reached for her pocket watch. She didn’t always remember when she had one of her spells.