The Bonemender's Choice

by Holly Bennett

  “The Gray Veil,” he said. “Did die. Turga say leave.”

  The three guards eyed each other, caught between alarm and confusion. Was one of the peddlers dead of the Veil, wondered Cavran. Maybe the dancer?

  “I heard that remedy woman was treating Turga’s slave girl,” Rayf muttered. He raised his voice again to the peddlers’ spokesman.

  “Who’s dead? Explain.”

  “Small mans...I don’t know words,” the tall one—he was the musician, Cavran remembered now—said. “You look?” And he climbed down from the wooden bench and opened the back of the caravan.

  Cavran and his mate edged backward. Rayf had started this—let him finish it.

  “Damn rabbit hearts.” Give him full credit, as head guard, Rayf did his job. He stalked over to the caravan. Cavran was unperturbed by the senior man’s disgust. If the travelers were infected, there was no point in all three exposing themselves.

  “Ah, great Kiar’s axe.” Rayf’s retreat from the wagon was a little too hasty to be dignified.

  “That remedy woman’s in there with two bodies!” Rayf rubbed a hand along his night-stubbled jawline as though to erase the sight. “Little bodies, by the looks of them. Gotta be those two kids. Wielder’s wood, I wondered why they had the whole damn hallway blocked off.”

  He looked up at the musician, still standing patiently by the caravan.

  “Get them out of here!” he said. “The lot of you, clear out!”

  The tall musician nodded gravely, climbed back into the seat and coaxed the mule back into motion while Cavran unbarred and swung open the gate.

  Cavran had to fight the urge to hold his breath as the doomed wagon rumbled past. Stupid, that was. If the bloody Veil was loose in the stronghold, not breathing now was hardly going to save him. Every man’s health was in the hands of his Maker now.

  The peddlers, though—they had cause to be worried, poor buggers. No wonder they looked strained. What would they do with the load of death they carried, and with the woman who might well carry the seeds of sickness even now? Cavran watched the two men’s faces as they passed and was surprised to see relief brighten the expression of the shorter sunburned one.

  “I wasn’t sure they would buy it,” he said to the musician—at least that’s what it sounded like. Hard to tell in a foreign language, and with the noise of the wheels. Something about buying, anyway, which made sense for traders he supposed. And then he was looking at the back end of the wagon, the end that opened onto two corpses that could mean trouble for Turga’s whole settlement. Turga was right to get them out fast, thought Cavran. Maybe that would be the end of it. He swung shut the heavy gate and fitted the square-cut bars into place.

  The reneñas game was waiting. But something nagged at him.

  Do even traders talk about their profits at a time like this, with plague a dark presence in their midst? What was sold, exactly, and who was they? And why that relieved face?

  The whole business smelled queer, now that he thought about it. He took the steps into the gatehouse slowly, trying to weigh the cost of speaking up or keeping mum.

  “C’mon man, it’s your turn.”

  Cavran entered the gatehouse and shook his head at his reneñas partner. “They said Turga ordered them to leave, right? I think we should check it out with him.”

  MATTHIEU HAD KEPT still as a log when the guard looked inside. He breathed the way Gabrielle had taught him, lightly into his belly where the blanket was bunched and fastened so no tell-tale chest movement would give them away. He had given no thought to his discomfort then, his mind taken up with the danger of the moment and the fear that Madeleine would stir or cry out in her fever. Gabrielle must have done something, though, for Madeleine lay quiet, and the man believed.

  But now—now that Gabrielle’s whispers had told him they were safely through the gates and on the road—the scratchy hot shroud had become a quiet torture. Sweat trickled from Matthieu’s hairline and armpits and pooled under his head and shoulders. The air under the blanket was thick and sluggish in his lungs.

  He was determined not to complain. Gabrielle would let him out when she thought it was safe—and soon enough, she did. The inside of the wagon was dark and smoky, lit only by a tiny lamp fastened to a wall bracket. Gabrielle had unwrapped Madeleine first, he saw, and although she smiled and told him he’d done well, he could see her thoughts were with his sister. He asked if he could go to his dad.

  “I think he’s riding on the footboard at the back,” she said. “Poke your head out, and you can ask him.”

  Matthieu was about to push back the drape that kept the wind and dust out of the caravan when a terrible thought struck him.

  “Gabrielle,” he asked.

  Her eyes stayed on Madeleine. “Mmm?”

  “Could I have it too, what Maddy has? Could I give it to everyone else?”

  This time her eyes rested on him, fully present.

  “Have you felt sick at all, Matthieu? Even just like you’re getting a cold?”

  He shook his head. “I got hot and kind of headachy in the blanket, but, no, I’ve been fine.”

  “Good. But you know what? C’mon back here, and let me check you out anyway.”

  Gabrielle’s cool fingers cradled each side of his jawline. His neck grew warm and a little tingly under her hands. When he and Madeleine were smaller and both sick with the flu, they had tried to describe the feeling when their aunt “worked” on them. “Like sunshine inside you,” his sister had tried. “A cat purring over your sore places” had been Matthieu’s attempt, but Madeleine had thought that silly. Matthieu stood by his younger words, though—the sensation still reminded him of the happy soothing feeling of a cat purring in his lap.

  Gabrielle opened her eyes, and her smile told him she had found nothing. “I’d bet all Derkh’s silver that you’re fine,” she said, and Matthieu didn’t waste time asking her what silver she was talking about.

  DOMINIC AND MATTHIEU trudged along the road beside the mule, hand in hand. The moon rode high overhead, spilling a wash of light before their feet. To each side of them, the land was black and still. At home, Matthieu had pronounced holding hands “babyish” and refused to do it with anyone but his little brother. Today they both held tight. If they could have kept up with the cart while walking wrapped in each other’s arms, they would have.

  Dominic would have liked nothing better than to give his whole heart and mind over to his son—but they were not safe yet. Sooner or later Turga would discover what they had done and send horsemen after them.

  “Papa?”

  Dominic looked down to see worried brown eyes trained on his face. He reached out a hand to tousle curls that were no longer there and smoothed it along the top of his son’s head instead. “What is it, Matthieu?”

  “Is this all we have to escape? The mule? Don’t we need something faster?”

  Dominic nodded. “If they come after us, we’ll have to fight them and take their horses. That’s why Féolan just ran ahead, to look for a likely place. Did you meet Turga at all, Matthieu? Do you think he’ll come after us?”

  Matthieu shrugged. “I didn’t really see him, but—yeah. He thought he was going to get lots of money for...” The boy’s voice faltered.

  Gods curse the man, Dominic thought, feeling the rush of anger to his head. He shook it off. He needed clarity now, not drama.

  “Madeleine’s sickness, he seemed pretty scared of it,” he suggested. “He might not be anxious to expose more of his men to it.”

  He had meant it to be reassuring. But Matthieu, he saw, had been worrying over this as well.

  “What’s wrong with Maddy, Papa? It seemed like she just had a cold, but now she’s so sick.”

  “They call it the Gray Veil. It’s a bad sickness, Matthieu, and that’s why people here are afraid of it. But they don’t have Gabrielle to heal them, and Maddy does.”

  They were interrupted by Féolan’s return.

  “There’s a perfect
spot to set up not far from here,” he said, “lots of cover and a sudden approach.”

  “Time to make our bets, then,” said Dominic. “Are we pursued, or are we not?” The decision was his to make, but if there was one thing he had learned in his years of governing it was how to take counsel.

  “Derkh? What do you think?”

  Derkh, guiding the mule, kept his eyes on the road. “I don’t know about Turga. But Yolenka is Tarzine, and she’d go after anybody who took something she thought was hers.” Though his voice was firm and neutral, the tension in his posture was telling. He’s got it bad for that girl, Dominic thought, realizing for the first time just how hard it must have been for Derkh to leave without her.

  “Féolan?”

  “I agree. He’s leery of the Gray Veil, that’s certain, but he’s a warlord. He holds power by being bold and predatory. He won’t allow foreign riffraff to amble off with his plunder.”

  Dominic nodded. His own assessment followed the same lines. It might be wise, given Madeleine’s condition, for Turga to let them go and save his stronghold from further exposure. But it would look like weakness, and men who rule through fear cannot afford weakness.

  “Then let’s get to work.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  SO HE HAD BEEN RIGHT to be suspicious. But by the Hewer’s blood, Cavran had never dreamed of murder, not by that ragtag little group! He had been braced, rather, for Turga’s wrath at being awakened, had almost turned back when Turga’s guard told him the boss was asleep after a night of drinking. But he had persevered, and when he explained his suspicions—suspicions that had sounded so flimsy at the guardhouse that he had tried to follow Rayf’s advice and bury them in a few rounds of betting tiles—he had gained an unexpected ally.

  Turga’s night guard had frowned. “That don’t sound right,” he said. “I don’t see how he could have even got news of those slaves—he was shut up with that dancing woman all night. She only left a short while ago.”

  And so they had knocked and shouted and then entered Turga’s private chambers, and found him not deaf from drink, as they expected, but dead.

  Now, while Turga’s guard went to rouse Zhirak, Turga’s second man and likely successor, Cavran’s mind raced into the future. The death of a warlord brought danger—and sometimes opportunity—to his men. Zhirak would not assume Turga’s power unchallenged. And as soon as word got out, neighboring warlords would attack, sensing weakness in the leadership like a shark senses blood.

  Where would Cavran be when the blood stopped flowing?

  He pondered this as he made his way back to the gatehouse. He had some faith in Zhirak—the man didn’t have Turga’s style, but he was smart and courageous, not to mention a one-man powerhouse in a fight. As a betting man, he put his coin with Zhirak. And that meant he wanted to be right at his side, under his protection, as soon as possible.

  Cavran was a recent recruit of Turga’s, a former merchant sailor hired for his knowledge of the Krylian language and coastline. He was still low in the ranks, but if he were to prove his worth now he could rise, and fast. How better than to bring back Turga’s assassins, along with his slaves (alive and kicking, Cavran would bet on that too) and their gold? He would need men...horses. And weapons. He was not authorized to order up a posse, but if there was ever a time to bend the rules, this was it.

  A sudden doubt stopped his steps. What about the girl? She was not long gone from Turga’s chamber, surely still within the walls. Should he not go after her? His lip turned in scorn—all those men, and they sent the Tarzine woman to do the dirty job.

  No, he would let Zhirak deal with her. Cavran’s business was with the foreign thieves, the ones he had suspected when the others were gulled.

  He was trotting now, his purpose clear. Men. Horses. Weapons. They would sweep down on those ill-begotten vagabonds and teach them the folly of cheating a pirate warlord.

  MATTHIEU BRUSHED AT THE mosquito feasting on his neck, not allowing himself to slap, and shifted his weight to one side, trying to ease away from the stone poking up against his hip. He’d been lying there a long time, long enough for every rock, stick and root to make itself felt. Long enough for the air to lose its dense blackness and soften to gray. He had even heard a few sleepy tentative birdcalls, but the road was still quiet. Maybe they weren’t even coming. Maybe they’d guessed wrong, busted the wheel for nothing and now they’d be stranded.

  It hadn’t been that easy to find a place to hide, especially in the dark. The torches from the caravan made only small puddles of light. This low pocket of land had a lot more trees than the rest of the countryside, but most were thin and scrubby. The one Matthieu peered through, however, had been ripped from the ground in some former storm, and its once buried roots now thrust their snaky fingers into the air. The solid center was broad and high enough to shield him even if he sat up, while the gaps in the twined wood made perfect peepholes.

  The short sword his father had given him lay snug along his side. He eased his hand down to curl around the hilt. “Just for your own protection,” Papa had stressed, and given firm orders to stay out of sight. Still, he hadn’t made him go off into the woods with Gabrielle and Madeleine, had allowed him to stay within view of the road. If anything did happen, Matthieu would see it.

  FÉOLAN, STATIONED BEFORE the bend in the road, heard the hoof-beats long before there was anything to be seen. As he loped back to the others, he took a last look at their handiwork: The approaching horsemen would come down a slope to a hairpin turn, then to the cart canted off at the roadside with a broken wheel. He nodded, satisfied: It was a believable scene. And there wouldn’t be time for them to think twice. He raised his arm to signal their pursuers’ approach.

  YOLENKA’S KNOCK ON the barracks door was soft but persistent. The last thing she wanted was to wake the whole lot of them.

  Finally, she heard a mumbled curse and footfalls. The door opened.

  “What?” The man’s sleep-rumpled face went slack with surprise when he saw her; then it rearranged itself into a bleary grin.

  “Helloo-oo. Looking for me?”

  Yolenka smiled apologetically. “Sadly, no. I’m sorry to disturb. I need to speak to Gurtemin. Is he there?”

  “Course he’s here, he’s sleepin’ like the rest of us.” Surly again. “‘Cepting me, that is.”

  Yolenka laid a placating hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I think he will not mind waking up for me. And”—with a little caress, she laid a gold coin into his hand—”of course I will make it worth your while as well.”

  “Mmm.” Cheerier now. “Hang on, then.”

  Gurtemin, one of the gatehouse guards Yolenka had made it her business to meet, was more alert than his predecessor when he came to the door. He tugged his fingers through bed-tousled hair and leaned against the doorframe in a pose he no doubt imagined as rakish.

  “Yolenka. Couldn’t keep away from me, is it?”

  It was easy to get him outside into the privacy of the compound.

  “Gurtemin, I need your help. My partners”—she spat angrily— “my so-called partners, have left. They took our profits and lit out. And they’ve lifted some of Turga’s possessions and left me to shovel their dung.”

  Gurtemin’s bony hands lifted in the gesture of warding.

  “You got me up for this? It’s not my problem.” Mouth drawn down in displeasure, he made to turn away.

  “Gurtemin, wait! You haven’t heard all.”

  A pause. A sigh. And he faced her once more.

  “Tell, then. But make it fast. You’re a woman to dream on, but you got no claim on me.”

  “Yet I think you will be interested in my offer.” Yolenka smiled lazily and drew close to him, speaking low so he would have to bend toward her to hear, as she laid out her plan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  HOW MANY WERE THERE? Hopefully not as many as the horses Dominic had seen in the stable. They would have little chance of success if they were wildly ou
tnumbered.

  It all hinged on Turga’s beliefs about them, Dominic decided. He didn’t think, even yet, that anyone had suspected their true identity. As long as Turga still believed he was after tradesmen—bold dishonest tradesmen to be sure, but not trained warriors—he was unlikely to bother mustering a large force. The speed with which they had been pursued argued that a quick response, rather than strength, had been uppermost in Turga’s mind.

  Worry for his children—Mother of all, Madeleine looked so ill!—washed through Dominic like a sudden chill. He should have made Matthieu go with Gabrielle, someplace where there was no chance the boy would try to join in the fight.

  Dominic clamped down on his mind before the image of Matthieu sprouting a sword through his side could become fully formed. He could hear the hoofbeats himself now, coming fast. There was no room in battle for any other thoughts. How strange, he thought, that to protect his children he must forget about them now.

  He checked his bow one last time. He and Féolan were crouched across the road from the caravan. They had one shot only, with any luck disabling two men, before they must leap out and grapple directly with the remaining horsemen. The Tarzines must not be allowed time to retreat back down the road or to take cover. Derkh, untrained in archery, would attack with his sword from the other side, closing in behind the Tarzines as soon as the arrows had been loosed. If the two bowmen did not join him in an instant, he would not last long against mounted opponents.

  And then they were upon them. The pounding hoofbeats slowed for the sharp turn, and he could see their dark shapes: three, four, six men. More than he would like, but not impossible odds. Their horses danced in place while the men pulled up to take in the scene. In the dawn half-light Dominic could just make out the flash of teeth as they exchanged cocky smirks. Good, he thought. That’s just how I want you to feel. Imagine how you will thunder upon us as we limp helpless down the road just ahead.

  As the men kicked their horses forward and drew even with the caravan, Dominic eased up from behind the boulder that hid him and trained his sights on the broad back of the nearest horseman, obligingly turned his way as the man studied the broken wagon wheel. He couldn’t ask for a better target.