Disciple, Part I: For Want of a Piglet

by L. Blankenship

  Olga Vysokova, duchess of Russe.

  Bjorn Waldgrun, woodsman. Assigned the mission as a guide by Baron Eismann.

  Johanna Waldgrun, Bjorn Waldgrun’s wife.

  Ulf Waldgrun, woodsman. Assigned the mission as a guide by Baron Eismann.

  Kiefan Weissberg, knight and prince of Wodenberg. Third and only surviving son of King Wilhelm and Queen Mercia. Currently eighteen years old.

  Wilhelm Weissberg, fourth of his name, King of Wodenberg.

  Saint Woden, of the Wodenberg Trinity. Saint of war.

  CAERCOED

  Anwyl, servant of House Gwatcyn.

  Tannait Broic, bound Elect of Saint Sabh, in service of Caercoed.

  Saint Conbarre, saint of Caercoed.

  Mohra Fionmaen, Captain of the Tadhlon Guard. Translator and intelligence officer.

  Aed Gwatcyn, husband to the Margraves of Tadhlon.

  Aifric Gwatcyn, daughter and heir of the Margraves Gwatcyn. The wilder one.

  Esgwen Gwatcyn, daughter and heir of the Margraves Gwatcyn. The more polite one.

  Leix Gwatcyn, Margrave of Tadhlon and Captain-general to the Crown. Mother of the youngest set of twins.

  Lorcana Gwatcyn, Margrave of Tadhlon. Mother of Tiarnan, Aifric and Esgwen.

  Tiarnan Gwatcyn, eldest son of the Margraves Gwatcyn.

  Saint Sabh, saint of Caercoed.

  Tana, stable-master of House Gwatcyn.

  OTHERS

  d’Ovio Alain. Ancient philosopher of Arcea.

  Sample

  Disciple, Part II: Claims Laid

  Chapter 1

  I’d slept for a thousand years, the ache in my joints told me, and I could have slept another thousand.

  When I opened my eyes, Master Parselev sat at the writing desk near my trundle bed, the tuft at the end of his quill bobbing as he wrote. Late morning light slashed across the spacious guest bedroom. I hadn’t seen much of the room when the housemistress brought me in by candle light and pulled out the trundle for me. Now the pine walls glowed in the sunlight, warm and reassuring after the cold blues of the snow.

  Parselev glanced over when I sat up; his smile flushed out fans of crow’s-feet around his brown eyes. He put down his pen and capped his jar of ink.

  “Tell me everything, Kate.”

  I told him everything: the strange sickness in the mountain pass, Kiefan’s headaches, the threat of frostbite, and my failure with Ilya.

  My voice fell to a strangled whimper, halfway through that part.

  Parselev let me recover. “Thus, your tears at the gate.”

  Last night, I’d ridden up River Road a half dozen paces behind a lieutenant carrying a lantern and shouting, “Make way! The prince!” For the first time, I’d climbed to the very top of River Road and passed through the outer gates of Castle Kaltkern. The king had been waiting for us, as had Master Parselev and squads of servants. The confusion and noise had fallen away, though, when I saw a lone woman with a candle searching through our riding party, asking questions with hope in her face.

  Kiefan had taken her to the wrapped body tied to the spare horse.

  “I tried to replenish his blood,” I said to Parselev, “but my focus slipped. My own wound tainted the charm. I only gave him pain as he died.”

  “But you tried it.”

  “It seemed simple enough.” I tugged the blankets up around my chin with a shiver. I sat cross-legged on the straw mattress in only my boy’s cote and braies. My master’s shoulder bag sat on the rumpled main bed, where he’d slept, and I hoped it contained a fresh shift and dress for me.

  “Whenever you spin substance from kir, a great deal of it is needed. Far greater than what results. I checked Sir Anders, and I see you must’ve worked the charm out for yourself.”

  I told him about the kir fount and Anders’ torn artery, about how I had joined the ends of the artery together. How the kir had arced up when I called, and rushed through me like wind. When I finished, Parselev was nodding and stroking his grey beard as he did when he was pleased.

  “And that is why you had to go with them, Kate.” Then he twitched his shoulders. “One reason. Need spurs growth. And success is the greatest source of confidence. Even a gifted student might never realize that they can work out healing charms on their own, and shy away from challenges. You know that in your bones now.” My master smiled and waved a finger vaguely in the air. “Tell me, do you sense any kir nearby?”

  I cocked my head. He finished his cup of tea while I waited, trying to detect any tug of kir in my chest. Taking a deep breath, I called with all my strength.

  I felt the echo of a tingle against my breastbone.

  “That is the Pool,” Parselev said. “Good.”

  “You know that I can feel it?”

  A nod. “I felt it shift when you called. It’s deep inside the castle, well hidden. You’ve grown more sensitive and stronger as well — excellent. When we’re elbow-deep in wounded this spring, you will need it.”

  My chin jerked up, at that. There had been talk of evacuating most of the Order’s campus to keep the students safe when Arcea’s army marched on the city.

  Parselev lowered his voice. “Need spurs growth. Whatever happens, I will be here in Wodenberg if Arcea lays siege, and I mean to have you here with me. You are no longer my apprentice, you are a physician in service of the Order. I want you here as my assistant, not shuffled off to some frostbitten village Orderhaus that needs a physician. I haven’t had as strong a student in twenty years, and I mean to see you bloom to your fullest — but,” and he raised a hand to further emphasize, “but you must stand your ground and bloom on your own. Which you won’t if you allow the others to bully you.”

  He’d said such things before, because for my first year of apprenticeship I had let the older students foist their scutwork on me. They were my betters, and I was only a peasant girl, and it had seemed natural enough. Master had needed to sit by me, my second year, to be sure I stitched every patient he assigned rather than find me later changing sheets or emptying offal buckets. I could boil bandages and scrub tools with the best of the nursemaid Ters, after all the practice I’d had.

  I shivered again, imagining they would send me to a village buried in Starknadel-sized drifts. “I won’t, Master.”

  “No longer your master, Kate.” He gave me one of his stern looks to reinforce that. Then he asked, “Do you have other questions on what you saw during your journey?”

  I took a moment, during which he collected the handful of papers he had spread out on the desk. “Kiefan’s headaches,” I said. “Prince Kiefan, I mean to say. I’ve never seen such tightly knotted kir. And he works even through the pain?”

  “Our dear prince,” my teacher said, tucking the papers into his letter wallet, “suffers from a recurring affliction. I have seen a scattering of them, in my time, and I’ve traced it to a flaw in the prime meridian’s roots which causes the kir to tangle. The tangles catch on his two adjacent Blessings and, when emotions run high, swiftly develop the tight knots you observed.”

  “There’s no way to repair the flaw?”

  “There has been no injury to the prime meridian, as the flaw was inherited, in many cases, from one’s bloodline. And it’s not for any to say how one’s mind should be, whatever you might hear otherwise.” Parselev stood, with his letter wallet, and lapsed out of his lecturing tone. “I’ll let you dress — your clothes are in the bag there. You have a patient to see to, do you not?”

  I nodded, but had to ask. “Surely His Majesty couldn’t hide such headaches for his entire life?”

  He hesitated before answering. “You’re my student and I am physician to the royal family. You will be attending to them as well, so in confidence I will tell you that it’s the Queen who also suffers a flawed meridian and the headaches. A fact I did not learn until she’d lived here nearly five years, lest you think the prince exceptionally stubborn. Now, I’ll see if I can find us some breakfast. Meet me in the hall or down in the kitch
en.”

  Castle Kaltkern lay in rings, its keep and watchtowers on the promontory’s peak. From the gatehouse on the innermost wall, the castle’s road dropped steeply into an herb garden, wound past a few fruit trees and then the guesthouse Parselev and I had roomed in.

  We followed the road outward through the gatehouse in the second ring. I looked up as we walked under the portcullis, wondering at the lattice of iron.

  Down another slope we walked into the bustle of the royal stables and the broad yard inside the third, outermost ring. Four wagons stacked high with ale barrels stood in the yard, their lead teamster arguing with a man in servant’s blacks about the tally and why it was short. The other teamsters lounged on their wagons, waiting for leave to drive up to the castle proper.

  Tucked against the wall, past the stables, was the royal guardsmen’s barracks. King, queen and crown prince had their own guard, each with castle duties to see to.

  As Parselev and I strolled past the ale wagons, a pageboy in messenger’s red sprinted past us, calling for a horse. A stable hand led one out by the reins and the page vaulted into the saddle with ease. At a kick the horse burst off at a canter through the outer gatehouse, hooves echoing off the deep walls.

  He nearly collided with two horses trotting in. The man leading the way twisted in his saddle to shout after the racing pageboy. By the fur-lined, dark green cloak, the man was titled, and by the sword he wore he was knighted too — and by how his lean, bearded face darkened, furious. He dismounted before the stable hand could catch his bay’s bridle, and fumed toward the stables shouting for Schwartzman. He didn’t stay to see his lady off her horse.

  She dismounted with ease, though, green skirts and all, and nodded thanks to the stable hand. Then she spotted my teacher and me, nearly across the gate yard by then. Parselev stopped.

  “M’lady, it’s good to see you well,” he called.

  “It’s kind of you to remember, Elect.” She crossed to us at a brisk walk, smiling. The morning sun, just full over the castle walls and flooding the yard, shone on flaxen hair netted up in a dark crespine. I didn’t doubt that as a girl she’d been beautiful and kind; she still was, though now seasoned by years. A few lines had gathered around her eyes, but they still twinkled with spirit. “This must be your apprentice?”

  Parselev presented me with a sweep of his hand. “My student only, as she’s been graduated by Saint Qadeem himself. Dame Kate Carpenter, physician. Kate, the Baroness Rossweide, Frida Bockmann.”

  Anders’ mother. I curtsied, thankful I was back in skirts to do it properly. “M’lady, I’m honored.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, Dame Kate. I suppose we are at the same purposes,” Dame Frida said with a glance toward the stables that her husband had vanished into. “Is he well? His message was too brief.” She walked toward the barracks and Parselev fell into step beside her. I trailed, hands clasped.

  “Ask his physician,” my teacher said, turning to me as he walked.

  Frida’s brows shot up, startled. “Your pardon, Dame Kate. They dragged you up the Eispitzen for this lamia hunt?”

  For most, that was the story we were to tell of our journey. “The Elect knew it would be excellent training for me,” I said. “Anders should recover without trouble, m’lady. Sir Anders, I mean to say.”

  We paused at the sill of the barracks’ double doors, which stood open on this fine autumn morning. She smiled with a familiar wry twist. “He said as little in his message. And if you spent the whole moon a-hunting, little wonder if you’re on familiar terms. My son, please, Lieutenant.” That last to the officer who snapped to attention, fist over his heart, beside the duty ledger’s table inside the door. “I’m told you have him here. Sir Anders Bockmann?”

  “He’s asleep in the Prince’s Guard room, m’lady. I’ll fetch him —”

  “No mind, sir, I can manage that much. See to your work. Which room?”

  With directions, we climbed a spiraled stone stair and Parselev put a hand on my shoulder to slow me. “Let a mother see her son first,” he murmured.

  So we lagged a bit behind her along the hallway. M’lady Frida paused at the door to listen — this late in the morning, the upstairs was empty — and pressed the latch. She leaned to look, and then stepped inside.

  “Is it true Anders is the king’s son?” I whispered.

  “You didn’t know?” he asked, but then answered himself. “It’s of little matter to us, in the Order. Yes, to the gossips’ joy, he is. He is also a fellow disciple of the saints, sworn to their service.”

  I couldn’t help thinking of the tall, lean Baron Rossweide with grey-touched brown hair and beard as he strode across the gate yard. Then, the king when I’d swung down from the saddle last night: blonde-bearded, built for the heavier muscle that he still carried despite being much the Baron’s elder. The resemblance was more than the jawline that I had noticed earlier; Anders’ whole frame matched the king’s.

  Near the door, I stopped and waited without looking in.

  “I came with your father,” Frida said, inside, “but he got no further than the stables.”

  Anders snorted. “You could’ve come alone. I have no father.”

  Her tone steeled. “You’ll both be fools if you cast away all your good years over a few head-buttings. He’ll take you on as a trainer if you’ll only mind the manners I know I taught you. Room and board and working with the horses. Don’t try to pass that off as a fleeting fancy to me. You love those horses.”

  “Trading one hayloft for another,” he muttered.

  “Will and Ein miss you. And nobody’s safe near Nipper. Bring this wound of yours home and recover your strength. Though I must admit you look well — it must be only a slight injury? Why has your physician has come to check on you, then?”

  Parselev, on cue, pushed the door open. M’lady Frida sat on the foot of Anders’ cot and he’d sat up under the blankets. The other cots stood empty and neatly made. His tabard, mail and gambeson were thrown over a small chest against the wall; he wore only the off-white wool cote and braies from underneath all that.

  “Come to check on me? There’s nothing to see.”

  “Let your physician be the judge of that. Show us this trifling wound, then,” his mother said, standing up from the cot.

  I took her seat as Anders kicked the covers off his right leg. He wore full-length braies, against the cold, and rolled one leg up above his knee. Browned blood stained the bandage. I shooed his hands away and untied it myself.

  “Eismann’s physician told you not to ride,” I said.

  “I wasn’t about to come home tied to a saddle.” He leaned back against the pillow and the wall, content to let me unwind the bandage.

  “If you tore those stitches and the wound’s set, you’ll have a limp.”

  He didn’t answer that as the stained cloth fell free. The lamia had latched onto Anders’ thigh just above the knee and shook as it died, leaving a matched pair of gashes as long as my hand. My top stitches, done in plain wool thread, looked as rushed as I had been in making them.

  “Those — are no minor wound,” m’lady Frida said, voice low. “Anders, what happened?”

  I laid my palm against his skin between the wounds and called his kir. His meridian pulsed strong and clear, and most of the wound was beginning to knit, hurried along by the healing charms. But there were patches of kir that followed their own dance striated through his whorls. Left on their own, they’d become abscesses.

  “One lamia got under my guard and put his fangs in me. Locked his jaws and I couldn’t get the bastard off even dead. Then I heard the scouting party arrive, and…” He shrugged it off with a shake of his head.

  “And?” Frida’s tone sharpened.

  “And here I am.”

  Sharp enough to cut, she said, “Don’t you try to dodge — ”

  “The Shepherd’s shadow fell on me.” Anders turned harsh. “I felt his culling knife on my throat. And like a fool, I begged the Mother an
d Father for one more chance. Swore on my Blessings to both of them.” He raked a hand through his hair, pressed the heel of his palm against the fore-nubs at his hairline.

  His mother turned to me, her sky-blue eyes bright with pain. “What happened?”

  He’d left off the part where the lamia had harried us for two nights. He’d likely run out of kir and that was how the beast got under his guard. But I stuck to the question of the wound. “He lost too much blood while I repaired his meridian. The Shepherd nearly took him. ”

  Her knees wobbled and she sank to the floor, green skirts puffing out as if to catch her. She held Anders’ free hand to her cheek and whispered, “Mother Love, thank you… thank you, Saint Qadeem, for your disciple.”

  I worked through the clotted lines of kir and the young abscesses in his wound. By how he winced, he felt me undoing the damage his day’s ride had done to the interior stitches. I didn’t have enough kir to repair it all, but did enough that he wouldn’t have a limp.

  “I will need to check the wound again and remove these stitches,” I said, tapping the wool threads. “In a week or so.”

  “Come by whenever you wish, Dame Kate,” m’lady Frida said, wiping her eyes. “Be welcome in my house whenever you wish a good meal.”

  From the door came a new voice. “What did you swear?”

  Parselev waited just inside the sill. Beside him stood the Baron Rossweide with arms folded.

  Anders heaved a sigh. “To the Discipline. To submit to their Discipline.”

  The baron snorted at that. “You haven’t the stomach for either of their Disciplines. That much is clear from the past few years. Culling knife, indeed.”

  “I’ll keep my word.”

  Another snort. “Your mother wants you home to heal. You won’t be under my roof a moment longer unless you earn your keep — and keep for that damn horse of yours.”

  “I’ll be in the training yard at dawn, then,” Anders said, his voice gone cold. “Once I’ve seen to duties here.”

  “You do that.” Turning on his heel, the Baron stalked out.