The Bonemender's Choice

by Holly Bennett

  At last the day came when Gabrielle told him she was going to remove the Veil. She helped him to his elbows and knees, so his head was lowered. “I don’t want it to fall in and choke you,” she said.

  He felt her light fill his throat, felt the thick scabby growth slough away like a horny snakeskin. It filled the back of his mouth, nauseating him, and he felt a rising panic, unable with the paralysis that still slowed his tongue to move it forward.

  “Cough,” commanded Gabrielle, and even as his mind protested that he could not, not with a hole gaping into his windpipe, her hand snaked around and covered the exposed end. “Now.”

  It was a feeble uncoordinated effort, but enough. Féolan fished frantically in his mouth, and pulled out a tongue of mottled gray-black flesh nearly as long as the palm of his hand. It lay on the towel Gabrielle had provided like a strip of rotted boot leather, and Féolan recoiled at the putrid reek of the thing. Panting with exertion from this small adventure—through mouth and whistling copper tubing both at once—he lay back onto his side.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

  Féolan looked across the cabin to find Madeleine sitting up in bed, watching them. She grinned, and he smiled and nodded. It did feel good. Madeleine was thin from days without food but clearly on the mend. Her smile dissolved into troubled seriousness.

  “Féolan, I’m really sorry I made you sick.”

  He hoisted up on one elbow and shook his head, wishing he could speak to her. Tried to think what gesture a Human girl would understand. He pointed to Madeleine, cupped his hand close to his chest as if it held a baby bird or precious gift, then laid the hand over his heart.

  Madeleine’s eyes filled with tears, but her trembly smile was brilliant. She understood.

  GABRIELLE GAVE THE tube a sharp twist, murmuring an apology at Féolan’s grimace, and eased it out. She laid her hand flat over the gaping flap of skin.

  “Try a breath?”

  She felt suction on her palm, but Féolan’s breath flowed easily through his nostrils. He smiled, but she didn’t return it. She had bad news to tell him.

  “Love, the incision in your skin will heal fine. You’ll have a little scar, but it won’t feel any different from before.”

  He nodded, eyebrows raised questioningly. Then why the frown?

  “The problem is with your vocal cords. I had to cut into them, and they have already scarred over along the cut edges. I wasn’t able to prevent it because—well, I was kind of busy trying to keep you alive.” Another nod. “The thing is, I can’t do much with scar tissue. It’s healthy flesh, but in some ways it acts dead. It’s like—” She groped for an analogy. “Like trying to make a stone grow.

  “Scarring is a good way to heal skin, but it’s stiff and it’s going to keep your vocal cords from working properly. Your voice is going to be—I’m not really sure. You’ll be able to speak all right, but you might sound hoarse and raspy.”

  Like a Human, he joked, speaking directly to her mind. It won only a fleeting smile.

  “Maybe eventually, after I’ve worked to stretch out the scar to give it more flexibility, and you have learned to work with just the undamaged part of your voice. At first, maybe more like a cross between a man and a raven.”

  No more singing.

  “Probably not in public,” she acknowledged. She waited while he digested this information before offering an alternative. It was not the course she would recommend, but it was his decision to make.

  “The only way to undo the damage would be to cut away the scar tissue and control the healing over the next few days. I’ll do it if you want me to, but I have to tell you it will be painful, and difficult to do properly.”

  He was already shaking his head. I’m alive. It’s enough.

  Thank the gods, Gabrielle thought, and her smile shone down at him, full of love and admiration. It would be hard for an Elf, she knew, to be unable to sing. But it would have been hard for her to cut into him again for any but the most pressing need.

  “You’re sure?” she asked, needing to know she had not pressed her wishes upon him. He nodded.

  “I’ll just put a patch over this incision then, so you can breathe easier and learn to speak again while it heals.”

  She was proud of the ingenuity of the patch she had designed. She had boiled clean a length of sausage casing from the galley stores and cut out a double thickness for strength. Stuck on with a generous layer of gum mastic, it made a smooth, thin, flexible seal.

  She took a moment to admire her handiwork and another moment to look over her patient. The eyes that gazed back at her were no longer those of an invalid. They were once again the deep dancing eyes of her true love, and what lay in their brilliant depths brought the blood up to her cheeks.

  “Your eyes are feeling better, I see,” she said tartly. Her smile betrayed her, though—she could not keep the corners severely straight no matter how hard she thought serious thoughts.

  “Much.” The word was a breathy whisper, his first awkward and uncomfortable attempt at speech.

  “Shhhhh.” Gabrielle put her finger to his lips to emphasize her command. “Let your poor neck relax for a while before hurting it with sounds.” And to ensure he obeyed, she took her finger out of the way and kissed him.

  MATTHIEU WAS SO restless he felt he might crawl out of his own skin. There was nothing to do on the ship but get in the way and no one to do it with. His dad spent hours every day in the sick room, attending to Maddy. Matthieu didn’t begrudge it, and he just about lived for the little time every afternoon that Madeleine was allowed to come out on deck, but it made for a long lonely day.

  He was allowed to visit the sick room now, and he did, but it was stuffy and crowded, full of grown-ups, and without a chiggers board or set of counters, there was nothing to do there either but sit on a chair beside Madeleine and try to think of something to say.

  She had thanked him for looking after her when she was first sick, but neither of them was ready to talk about their time as captives. Luc’s death waited there. Yet what else was there to talk about? The weather? The food? Grandma Solange’s birthday party? It all seemed silly and forced.

  Too bad you couldn’t lay out reneñas tiles on bedclothes. Yolenka, seeing Matthieu’s boredom, had pulled him aside about a week ago and taught him to play. Matthieu had enjoyed the game immensely, and Yolenka had laughed and called him a “born gambler.” She had played with him a couple of times since, but he didn’t feel he could pester her for more.

  Matthieu wandered to the bow of the ship and wedged himself into the lookout. The narrow triangular space at the very end of the outthrust prow was used by the Tarzines in uncertain waters, but was vacant now. Matthieu lay on his stomach and pushed his head under the safety ropes, so that he was looking straight down into green ocean. The rushing of the ship against the waves was loud in his ears, while above his head the little sail that stretched out to the tip of the long bowsprit snapped in the brisk wind. The ship rose and fell on the swell, each new surge soaking his face with salt spray. It was hypnotic and slightly scary all at once, and for the first time in days Matthieu was utterly absorbed. He wiggled forward a little more, trying to look back under the bow to the spot where the keel sank into the sea.

  Three whistle blasts interrupted him—that meant it was almost dinnertime, for the passengers and whatever crew members were off duty. Dinner wasn’t much to look forward to after two weeks at sea. Surely they must be close to home by now. He raised his head to scan the horizon. Maybe he would be the first to spot land.

  No land, but...he craned his neck to the left, trying to hold the place where something had caught his eye just as the ship dipped into a trough. The ship rose and—

  It was sails. Ochre-yellow sails, lit up in the rays of the late afternoon sun.

  Blood pounded in his ears, his heart became a fist battering at the cage of his ribs.

  “Pirates!” he yelled. His voice was caught in the wind and spray and swallowe
d up. He tried to scramble to his feet, clipped the back of his head on the safety rope and wiggled backward, clothes and hair dripping onto the deck. Standing, he shaded his face and squinted into the sun. Where were they?

  Matthieu climbed onto the second rope rail, steadying himself on the sturdy lines that anchored the forward sail to the deck. His eyes scanned feverishly.

  Yes, there—it ran before the wind, bearing toward them like a great malevolent falcon.

  No one heard him, or even paid him any mind. He would have to grab the nearest sailor and make him see.

  Matthieu lifted his foot to step down to the deck. The ship yawed in a sudden side-swell. The rope in his hand went slack as the sail swung. He fell forward over the rail with nothing to counterbalance against.

  With a lurch, the ship righted itself, and the sail rope snapped tight. But Matthieu could not hang on. Like the last child in a whip-snap game, he was flung off into the sea.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  THE CAPTAIN OF THE TARZINE SHIP passed the spyglass over to his lord. The prince widened his stance, bracing himself against the roll of the ship, and squinted through the narrow eyepiece.

  “That’s him! We have them. Captain, are we on course to intercept?”

  “Nearly. Just a slight adjustment.”

  “Good. Go ahead and adjust our course.”

  The captain turned away to convey these orders, but a startled cry from the prince pulled him back.

  “He’s fallen overboard! Devils of the deep! I don’t think anyone has seen him.”

  The prince lowered the spyglass and shouted at the captain. “What are you standing here for? Get over there, with all speed you can make, before he drowns in plain sight!” He clapped the glass back to his eye and stared over the waves.

  THE OCEAN WAS shockingly cold and far rougher than it seemed from high above on deck. Matthieu was tossed and tumbled as he plunged into the water, the wake from the ship pushing him one way and the oncoming waves another. He managed to hold his breath, though, and when he finally surfaced he was glad that the turbulence had at least tossed him clear of the ship—he had feared being crushed or suffocated beneath the great hull.

  But it was such a long way up to the deck, and the crew were distracted by the change of shift and the dinner whistle.

  Matthieu tried his best to yell for help, using the moments when the waves receded and he was in least danger of swallowing a faceful of seawater. He yelled and screamed, trying with growing despair to make his voice carry over the wind and cut through the racket of the ship itself. Yet she pulled steadily away, and the merciless sea widened between them. He was lost.

  Impossible. It was impossible. His father could not have traveled so far to find him, only for Matthieu to die so stupidly, so close to home.

  The water dragged and sucked at him as he treaded water, pulling on his legs, arcing heavy sheets of water over his head. He was so tired already. He tried, between strokes and waves, to kick off his boots. The one floated away easily, leaving his foot light and free. He mistimed the other and got a choking mouthful of salt for his mistake.

  He struggled to cough it out, and another wave broke over his head. This is how people drown, he thought. One little mistake after another. One boy against an endless ocean of waves; it was hopeless.

  When Matthieu saw the yellow sails looming against the sky, he thought at first that he’d got turned around and it was his father’s ship come back for him. Elation surged in his heart.

  But of course it was not his ship. It was the pirates coming after him. Coming to reclaim their plunder.

  He wept now, wept with fear and rage, the tears hidden in the seawater that streamed down his face, sobs choked out around the chop of the waves. They were coming for him, and he would go to them. He would go, because he didn’t have the courage to let the waves take him. He would be taken back to the Tarzine lands, and he would be all alone.

  STRONG HANDS REACHED out to him, caught first at his billowing shirt and then his arms. He was hauled into a dinghy, gasping and dizzy, black flares in front of his eyes. His belly roiled and he vomited in great coughing convulsions, stomach and lungs both ridding themselves of what felt like pails full of seawater.

  Someone was holding his shoulders as he retched, steadying him. When he was done, they wrapped around his chest and hauled him backward, pulling him against a broad warm body. Matthieu tried to fight, weak as he was. He mumbled curses and pulled against the arms that held him. Let them cut his throat for it, what difference did it make?

  Then the voice that had been speaking quietly in his ear penetrated.

  “Matthieu. Easy, son. Easy. You’re safe now, lad. Matthieu, it’s me.”

  Matthieu twisted around to stare at his captor. Thick blond hair whipping in the wind. Blue eyes that twinkled when they teased. A mouth that was almost always smiling—but not now. Now it looked, just a little, like it might be crying.

  Matthieu flung himself into his uncle Tristan’s waiting arms and held on tight.

  DOMINIC’S SHIP SAILED into Blanchette harbor early the next afternoon with a full escort from Tristan’s new sea patrol: two tubby Krylian merchant vessels and the Tarzine pirate ship they had managed to capture during a raid.

  Tristan grinned at Dominic’s surprise. “You didn’t think I’d be sitting around here doing nothing while you were gone? I would have lost my mind worrying about you and driven Rosie to distraction.”

  “You did drive me to distraction,” Rosalie retorted, “but it made no difference—we were all crazy with worry anyway.”

  “It is one of Turga’s ships, I hope?” asked Yolenka. Tristan shrugged.

  “Haven’t been able to find out yet—we need an interpreter. Actually, I was wondering if you—”

  “I am yours.” Yolenka offered herself with a dancer’s courtesy.

  “Hang on. I thought you said you were mine!” Derkh objected. His dark eyebrows drew down in displeasure.

  “Derkh, I mean only...Is not—” Yolenka discomfited was a rare sight, and Derkh enjoyed it. Briefly. Then he relented.

  “I’m joking. You’re not the only one who can act a part.”

  Dominic hooted with laughter. Tristan and Rosie looked bemused.

  “If you had seen what this man suffered,” Dominic explained. “He deserves his revenge.”

  “What I do, I do for your children!” Yolenka rounded on him, color rising into her golden cheeks.

  “I know it.” Dominic became serious. “Yolenka, I know it, and I want to thank you again. You were magnificent—your dancing and everything else.”

  White teeth flashed into brilliance. Yolenka turned to Derkh, her smile triumphant.

  “You see? Here is man who understands art.”

  MATTHIEU AND MADELEINE were alone at last. The entire DesChênes clan had met their ship at the pier; but Justine and Solange had spirited the two children straight home. There they had been embraced, exclaimed at and wept over, bathed and fed and dosed with “strengthening tonic,” hugged first shyly and then with exuberant glee by Sylvain, questioned and sometimes just stared at with silent hunger by their mother. They had borne it all patiently, happily even.

  Now, as Sylvain commandeered his grandmother’s attention and Justine, satisfied at last that her children really were all right, pulled herself away to catch up with Dominic, their eyes met. The smile that passed between them was complicated: a shared acknowledgement that it was good, better than good, to be home—and that home was not quite the same. They were not quite the same.

  Neither had any doubt that they would soon be bickering and annoying each other just like before. But they knew now that the bond between them was stronger than any bickering. What they had been through together, how they had stood by each other—that was forever.

  The afternoon sun streamed through the sunroom’s skylight, brightening every corner and setting fire to Madeleine’s hair.

  “So, Matthieu,” she said.

  H
er smile grew into a challenging grin.

  “Want to play chiggers?”

  EPILOGUE

  THE FIRST LASTING SNOWFALL of the year powdered the tree branches and muffled their footsteps. Gabrielle walked lightly, enjoying the glittering silent woodland. Winter would bring hardship to many: dwindling food stores, freezing nights, coughs and illnesses of all kinds. Yet in winter’s first weeks, she couldn’t help loving the swaddled mysterious beauty of a world blanketed in snow.

  Féolan led the way, slipping through the branches as sound-lessly as a ghost. Gabrielle had improved, but she would never match the Elves’ ability to glide through deep woods with hardly a rustle. He must be nervous, Gabrielle thought, to come so far into the forest. He needs to be sure no one will overhear.

  At last, in the protected circle of a small clearing, he brushed off a fallen log, sat her down and stood before her. He seemed about to speak, searching for words, but then he shrugged. “Ah, it is what it is. I’m just stalling.” And he opened his mouth and began to sing.

  He chose a cradlesong, simpler in its melody than most Elvish music but beautiful and hypnotic.

  Gabrielle closed her eyes to listen, not wanting to be distracted by Féolan’s self-consciousness or to increase it by staring.

  It was certainly not the clear fluid voice she was used to. The voice that sang to her now was deeper, with a distinct grain. Growly in the bottom notes and husky at the top of his range, Féolan’s voice was like no other Elf’s on earth. Yet the more she listened, the more Gabrielle heard warmth and depth and Féolan’s own sure musicality. He had found the beauty in the damaged instrument he had been given.

  The song came to an end, but Gabrielle sat still, holding the sound in her mind.

  Féolan cleared his throat. “That bad?”