I stumble away from the bed, bump into Fifer, and the pair of us hit the floor in a heap. The girl’s shrieks give way to curses. She lets out a stream of them so fierce and foul that I almost start to laugh.
The bedroom door slams open then and a goblet comes hurtling toward me, a short copper one. By the astringent scent I can tell it’s full of more potion. I get to my feet and snatch it from the air, thrusting it into Fifer’s hands.
“Hold this,” I say. “I’ll grab her, and you give it to her when I tell you to.”
Fifer nods, eyes wide, and the both of us start for the girl again. She’s turned on Father now, lashing out at him, striking him with blows he doesn’t seem to have the heart to deflect. I wince as she hauls off and smacks him across the face, so hard she leaves a red handprint on his stubbled cheek.
I step in front of Father, reach for the girl’s arm. She snatches it away, raising it as if she’s going to strike me, too. I steel myself for the hit but it never comes; instead, she lets out a gasp, her eyes rolling back into her head as she loses consciousness again.
I lunge forward and catch her in my arms before she hits the floor. She collapses into me, her hair spilling into my face, her limbs tangled up in mine. Gently, I lower her to the floor, holding her as I might a child.
“Do it.” I turn to Fifer. “Give the potion to her now.”
Fifer drops to her knees beside me. I tilt the girl’s head up and Fifer tips the goblet to her lips. She drinks it all without protest, then goes terribly still. I feel a twist of fear. The potion, it should have a stirring effect, at least a temporary one. She should open her eyes, say something, do something.
Finally, she does. She rolls to her side, twisting her body further into mine. Reaches for the hem of my shirt, smoothing her cheek across the fabric once, twice, as if it were a pillow. Then, with no more fanfare than a sigh, she falls asleep.
I glance at Fifer, my father, George. They’re watching her, us, their faces reflecting the same mix of bewilderment and amusement I feel. And when I look back down at the girl—at her cheek pressed against my chest, my shirt fisted in her hand, her hair draped over my arm—I do something I haven’t done in a long time. I start to laugh.
7
I keep the girl sedated with poppy.
Using a sedative is the only way to keep her from having another incident like that, the only way I can ensure that the potions I give her go down and stay down. I don’t like doing it; it seems wrong to deliberately keep someone unconscious. But I tell myself she’s too sick to know the difference, much less know what’s best for her.
Sometime the next evening, Fifer and George come in. I’m sitting in a chair at the end of the girl’s bed, reading. It’s been nearly forty-eight hours since I’ve slept, and fatigue is beginning to set in. But I don’t want to leave her, and I don’t want to sleep. I’m afraid that if I do she won’t wake up.
“How is Nicholas?” I ask, closing my book and rubbing my eyes.
“Fine,” Fifer replies. “He wanted me to tell you he’s resting, and for you not to worry about him right now.”
“Unlikely,” I say. “Does he need anything?”
“Yes. For you to make sure this girl wakes up.”
George and Fifer walk to the head of the bed and stand there a moment, staring down at her.
George glances up at me. “Is she going to die?”
“Ugh. Smells as if she already did,” Fifer replies.
“Fifer…” I start to gripe at her, but I’m too tired to bother. “George, hand me that bottle.” I gesture to the small bottle of tonic on the table, another batch of the dandelion-root-and-chicory tonic Father and I drank the night we walked here from Harrow.
“What? It’s not my fault she looks terrible,” Fifer goes on.
“Aye, she’s scrotty now, but she’s quite lovely when not covered in filth,” George says. Fifer throws him a look. “What? She is.”
“She’s doing remarkably well, considering.” I take a long draw and hand it back to him. I’m so tired I’ve almost forgotten how awful it tastes. Almost. “Jail fever—she’s lucky she didn’t die.”
“She’s lucky she has you to help her, John,” Fifer says. “No one else could go near her! Honestly, I don’t know how you stand it.”
“Since you’re so concerned with the way she smells,” I say, “you can be the one to clean her up, then.”
“Ugh.” Fifer makes a face, an exaggerated shudder.
“There’s no one else,” I tell her. “It’s not right for me to. Hastings can’t touch her; the cold would shock her, if not kill her. I’m not about to ask Father. And you know George has a horror of anything rank.”
“True enough,” George says, flopping down at the end of the bed.
“So do I!” Fifer protests.
“You just said you wanted me to make sure this girl wakes up,” I snap. “Which I’m trying to do. So if I ask you to do something that might help make that happen, I expect you to do it without a lot of argument.”
Fifer sighs. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” I close my eyes and sigh, pressing my fingertips against my eyelids. “I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I add. “I’m just tired.”
“I know,” Fifer says.
“And you don’t have to do it now. She’s not strong enough for it yet anyway.”
“It’ll only make my job harder once she is strong enough,” Fifer mutters.
I open my eyes and shoot her a look, which she ignores.
“You never answered George’s question. Is she going to die?” Fifer steps closer to the bed, glances down at the girl. I know her name is Elizabeth, but for now I’m doing my best to try to forget it.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think so. But…I don’t know.” She’s still too pale, too thin. I can’t keep her temperature steady; one minute she’s shivering, the next her fever is raging. Half the time she’s restless, the other half she’s so still I’m sure she’s given up, gone ahead and died despite everything I’ve done to stop it.
We go silent for a moment.
“After she was arrested, no one spoke up for her,” George finally says. His voice is unusually quiet. “No one went looking for her. I’ve got my ear to the ground, always, and there wasn’t a single whisper of her name. It was as if she just…disappeared.”
Fifer and I exchange a glance. She knows, as well as I do, how they can do that. Simply make people disappear.
“How do you think she’s going to help us?” Fifer says. “The only thing she’s done so far is to help herself into trouble, and she nearly took Nicholas with her. She seems so…hapless. I mean, look at her.
I’ve done nothing but look at this girl for the past twenty-four hours, but I know what Fifer means. I’ve practically got her features memorized. Heart-shaped face. Pale, clear skin but for those freckles. About two feet of nearly white blond hair. Big, wide-set eyes—I thought I caught a glimpse of blue last night when she attacked me. Father thought she was fourteen; she told him she was sixteen. Either way, she’s just a girl.
“Maybe she knows something,” George offers. “Heard something. You can’t live in the king’s palace, as a maid no less, without overhearing something.”
Fifer considers it. “Maybe,” she says. “But then I got to thinking. About those herbs. The ones George said she was caught with.” She glances at me. “You know what she used them for.”
I nod. Herbs to prevent conception are common enough; I’ve got drawers full of them at the apothecary. My mother always kept them in stock, so now I do, too. Though I’ve never had anyone bold enough to come in and ask me for them.
“Well, that leads me to a theory.” Fifer pauses for dramatic effect. “I think she’s a witch.”
“A witch?” I say.
“Not a chance.” George shakes his head.
“Why not?” Fifer says.
“Not frightened enough,” George says simply. “If she were a witch living in
Ravenscourt, surrounded by witch hunters—in disguise, no less—there’s no chance she’d spend her afternoons getting jingled at a tavern. She wouldn’t risk it. I told you, she’s a clever girl. There’s no way she’d be so indiscreet.”
“She wasn’t that indiscreet,” Fifer says. “You said she led you through a secret tunnel into Ravenscourt.”
“Aye, she did that,” George says. “But that doesn’t mean she’s a witch.”
“What about the herbs, then?” Fifer says. “She knew where to find them, she knew what they were. Presumably she was using them. And then she gets jail fever. Most people die from that in, what, days? A week?”
“If that,” I reply.
“She didn’t.” Fifer leans back in her chair and folds her arms, as if resting her case.
“I don’t know if her not dying in a week means anything,” I say. “She could have just been strong.”
“She doesn’t look strong to me,” Fifer counters.
I think of the way she pushed me away when I tried to get her to drink the potion, the way she kicked me halfway across the room, the way she struggled in my arms. The calluses on her slender fingers and hands, the muscles in her arms and legs. Whatever she did at the palace, it was a lot more than just cooking.
“I think George is right,” I say. “I don’t think she’s a witch. If she were, she would have left the palace a long time ago.”
Fifer shrugs. “Maybe she had nowhere else to go. You heard what your father said. She’s been in the kitchen since she was nine. I wonder what happened.”
“I don’t know.” I stand up then, stretching my legs that ache from sitting too long. Walk to the window and look out. “What do Nicholas and my father think?”
Fifer sighs. “Your father thinks she overheard something. Or that maybe whoever she was involved with was somehow involved with the curse. Nicholas is being quiet about it. He doesn’t speculate much, you know. He just says Veda will tell us when it’s time.” A pause. “If you don’t think she’s a witch, then what do you think?”
I turn to face her.
“I think we got the wrong girl,” I say.
“I thought that, too, at first,” Fifer says. “But Veda—”
“I know,” I say. “She’s never wrong. It’s just, this girl…”
I walk back to the bed. Look down at her. At this silly girl who had one bad night where she got too drunk, too careless, and is now near death because of it. When she wakes up—if she wakes up—she’s going to be frightened, confused, and that’s without our telling her she’s the only person who can help the most wanted man in the country.
“I think she’s a mistake.”
8
Slowly, Elizabeth recovers.
It’s been two weeks since she arrived. It took one week before I was confident she wouldn’t die, another before I was confident she’d wake up. George and I took turns watching her at night in case she relapsed. But now that she’s stable, it’s just George. I figure when she finally opens her eyes, it would be nice for her to see a familiar face.
As for when that will happen, it’s anyone’s guess. Father, George, and Fifer ask me several times a day. Nicholas never asks, but it’s not because he doesn’t want to know. I give them the same answer anyway: when she’s ready. There’s nothing I can do to hurry her along.
It should be soon. The signs are there: Her temperature is normal, she can breathe clearly. She’s tolerating baths well enough that I’ve sent Fifer to her room to tend to her hair. It’s still a terrible tangled mess, untouched since the day she got here. Fifer wanted to cut it off, but I refused. It’s too close to what they did to my mother and sister; too close to what they almost did to her. The idea of it makes me sick.
I’m still keeping her sedated with poppy, but I’ve reduced the dose enough to allow her to wake up while still remaining calm. I can’t risk another outburst, especially if the person she chooses to attack is Nicholas. Not to mention that poppy can cause addiction, a problem I’d like to avoid.
Time is running out, though. We need to get this girl to the seer. Veda can see only once a month, and that day is fast approaching. While Nicholas is stable for now, he’s weak. I’ve managed to lessen the severity of his symptoms, using minute doses of poison to slow the spread of them, but there’s only so much I can do. If Elizabeth doesn’t make it to Veda’s next week, I don’t think Nicholas can last another month.
I’m hunched over the table in my bedroom—which Fifer now calls the laboratory—making Nicholas’s tonic of angelica, horehound, saffron, thistle, and belladonna, plus basil to improve flavor, when the door bursts open.
“Well, she’s cleaned up,” Fifer says by way of greeting. The sleeves of her black tunic are pushed past her elbows, her face is flushed, and even her hair looks angry: red and wild and out of control.
“It couldn’t have been that bad.” I set a flask on a stand over the flame, drop in a few crushed basil leaves and a measure of water, and begin to stir.
“Say you,” Fifer replies. She flops down in a chair at the table and sighs dramatically. “It took me nearly two hours to comb out her hair. You’d think she’d never seen a brush before in her life.”
“She was in jail for a week,” I point out. “I doubt her hair was high on her list of priorities.”
“Hmph.”
“Besides the state of her hair,” I say, “what did she look like?”
“Are you asking me what she looked like in the bathtub? Naked?” Fifer smirks.
“That’s not what I mean.” I turn away from her and fiddle with the flame burning under the alembic. It doesn’t really need to be lowered, but it gives me something to do.
Fifer snorts. “She’s fine. Still too thin, of course, but that’s to be expected. The rash is gone from her arms and legs, but you can still see it on her stomach. What else? Flea bites. Disgusting. We should all burn our sheets and mattresses.…”
I turn around then. Give her a look.
“What? You want to have to delouse us, too?”
I ignore this. “Did she wake up?”
“No,” Fifer says. “Whatever you’re giving her is really keeping her out.”
“Tincture of poppy. Papaver somniferum, five drams distilled in one pitcher of alcohol at eighty per centum, three extractions for a resultant thirty-grain yield.”
“You’re the most interesting boy I’ve ever known.”
I laugh.
Fifer raises her eyebrows. “You’re in a good mood.”
I shrug. “Not really.”
“I don’t mean just now.” She leans forward in her chair. Studies me, her green eyes narrowing. “You’ve been in a good mood ever since that girl got here. Never mind the fact you haven’t slept at all, that you’re working overtime on two patients, or that you camped out in her room for days with no sleep, and…oh. I think I see what’s going on.” She smirks. “A little lust stirring in the reluctant John Raleigh?”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say, a bit too loudly. “She’s a patient. She’s probably a Persecutor. She probably belongs to someone else. I don’t even know her. And she’s a patient.”
“Yes, you said that,” Fifer replies. “But that was an awfully robust protest you just gave there. I was joking, but now I’m thinking I might be on to something.” She grins. “You fancy her.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say again.
“I mean, I understand,” she continues. “George was right. She is pretty. You can really tell now that all the filth is gone. Nice eyes. Excellent hair, I see why you didn’t want me to cut it. And she has cute freckles. Wish mine were like that, just on my nose instead of everywhere.…” Fifer presses her palms to her cheeks and scowls.
“I didn’t notice.”
“Plus she worked in the kitchen—the palace kitchen, no less—so you know she can cook. And she has a filthy mouth, so it wouldn’t bother her to hear the words that come out of yours.”
“You taught me half those word
s,” I remind her.
Fifer laughs. “And, oh. Wouldn’t I love to see the look on Chime’s face if you showed up with this girl somewhere! You know what she’s telling everyone, right?” Fifer tsks, her amusement already turned to disgust. “That the two of you got together at Winter’s Night last year. That you got along brilliantly, ugh. That you kissed all night—also ugh—and you’ve been writing ever since.”
I was out of my mind drunk on wine and ale and God knows what else at that party and didn’t remember what happened, at least not until Chime’s letters started showing up. I’m reminded of it again: the scented white parchment sealed with red wax in the shape of a heart, at home on my desk.
“I don’t know where you hear these things.”
“Lark told me.”
I shake my head again.
“And if Chime found out you preferred a scullery maid—”
“I don’t prefer anything. I don’t care that she’s a maid.”
“—to the only daughter and sole heir of Lord Fitzroy Cranbourne Calthorpe-Gough, third earl of Abbey, imagine the fit she’d pitch!” Fifer claps her hands, gleeful. “Oh, please can I tell someone?”
“Tell someone what? There’s nothing to tell.”
She waves it off. “Just Lark, then. She’s not a gossip but she’s also not that smart. She and Chime will talk, things will conveniently slip out, and—”
I point to the door. “Go.”
“All right, all right.” Fifer holds up her hands, then backs to the door, pausing for a moment on the threshold. “You know, you can say whatever you want,” she says. “But for all that protesting you just did about not fancying her, you never once said it wasn’t true.” She winks at me and flounces out of the room.
9
Another pounding on my door. Blood of Christ. I wish people would just stop banging and learn to knock. Or maybe not knock at all, since it’s the middle of the goddamned night.
I roll out of bed, stagger to the door. It’s George.
“She’s awake.”
His words wake me like a splash of ice water to the face.
The Healer Page 4