by CJ Archer
"Try."
He put his foot down, getting it sandy again. "I know I want to find the poisoner. I want him or her to pay for their crime, and I want Lady Miranda to feel safe again. I want everyone at the palace to feel safe."
"You have a strong sense of justice then," I said. "And protective instincts. That must be why you became a guard."
"If I had a choice in the matter."
"You don't think you did? Sorry. Stupid question. If you haven't always been a guard, then you must have done something else that involved physical work before the palace was built."
He frowned. "Why do you say that?"
"The calluses on your hands, the muscles…everywhere."
He shifted his weight and folded his arms. He must have realized that it only made the muscles bulge so he unfolded his arms and dragged a hand through his hair instead. It would seem he was a little self-conscious but I didn't mention it. I was already blushing fiercely and if I became any redder I wouldn't be able to blame it on the sun.
"What else do you know about yourself?" I asked.
"I want answers," he said.
"That goes without saying."
"Not just to the poisoning and memory loss, but to…everything. I want to know why the people from the Margin don't cross over the border to Glancia or Dreen. I want to know how many earthquakes The Fist gets. I want to know why women aren't allowed into the colleges, and why Freedland is called Freedland."
"It became a republic forty years ago," I said, glad I could answer at least one thing. "The people rebelled against a tyrannical king. There was a lot of bloodshed but they succeeded and formed a council to rule their country. They changed the country's name to reflect their new freedom. What else do you want to know?"
He shrugged. "So many things. I want to know why Lady Lucia and her brother cling to one another."
I was about to make a rude quip but he seemed utterly serious. "Love?" My answer surprised even me. I drew up my knees and rested my chin on them. Could they love one another? Or was it simply pleasure? Or did they need one another the way flowers and bees did?
"I want to know a lot of things," Hammer said so quietly that I tilted my head up to look at him.
The sun was in my eyes and I had to squint, but he turned to look at the sea before I could make out his expression. "Ask me anything," I said.
He opened his mouth then closed it again. He rested his elbow on his knees and seemed transfixed by the gentle lapping of the waves. "Was the last Glancian king a good king?"
So he wanted to discuss dull affairs. Very well. It was necessary for King Leon to know the state of his kingdom, I supposed. "It's said that King Alain didn't care about the kingdom in his final years. Either he was old and weary or simply didn't care as he had no heir. Or so he thought. Vytill's King Phillip was rumored to be preparing to take over, and the two Glancian dukes were also said to be plotting independently of one another."
"Buxton and Gladstow?"
"The very same. As the highest ranking nobles, they had a good claim on the throne. They couldn't have succeeded though, not even if they joined forces. Apparently Vytill's army is large and well trained." I swept my palm across the warm sand, smoothing it flat. "King Leon appeared at the right time. If he hadn't, Glancia could be at war now."
He said nothing, simply continued to stare at the water.
"What does the king say is his earliest memory?" I asked.
"Waking up in the palace one morning, months ago, the same as the rest of us. The palace was completed. He knows nothing of its origins, and nothing that came before it. He doesn't recall how he became king, although he has since read about it from the documents found in his desk."
"Do you believe him?"
He gave me a sharp look. "It would be a cruel person who withholds information like that from people desperate to learn more about themselves."
"That doesn't answer my question."
He straightened and turned back to the expanse of water hemmed by cliffs on two sides and the crescent beach on a third. It wasn't a good place for smugglers to offload their wares. It was too close to the village, for one thing, and too easy to get trapped by the cliffs. I wondered if Hammer knew those things the way I did, the way other residents of seaside villages instinctively knew them.
"What else do you know how to do aside from swimming?" I asked. "Perhaps we can narrow down your origins. Being an able swimmer means you most likely came from somewhere along the coast or a river."
"Or lake."
"You've already put some thought into it."
"We all have. We've discussed it many times. All the staff have speculated. There are some interesting similarities and differences between us. Not just in our appearances, I mean, but other things. Most of the guards know how to fight." He smirked. "Except Quentin. Many of the stable hands say that working with horses felt natural to them. The cook knew how to cook, the gardeners knew about plants, herbs and seasonal variations, although something about the Glancian weather seemed wrong to them."
"So they're not Glancian natives."
"I don't think I am, either. I'm too dark to be Glancian but too tall to be Freedlander. I learned that thanks to you, the first day we met in the forest, and confirmed it after reading a book from the library."
"You don't have Dreen features, either. You could be Vytill, I suppose." I sighed. "Sorry. I haven't been much help."
"Talking to you about it is help enough. We needed outside suggestions. None of us know enough about…about anything to solve this."
"I don't know enough either," I said with a shake of my head. "I feel so useless. I'm sorry, Captain. I won't give up, but I don't have much hope of finding answers. Is there anything else that might give me a clue? Anything at all?"
He shifted his weight and his gaze briefly met mine before slipping away. I had the odd sensation that this was the reason he'd asked to meet me today, but now that the time had come, he hesitated.
"Go on," I said. "I won't tell a soul. Not even my father."
"I would have asked him but he doesn't seem to believe our memory loss."
"So it's a medical matter?"
"In a way." He glanced at the top of the stairs, built into the side of the cliff. "I have to remove my shirt."
"I'll try not to swoon."
The edges of his lips twitched before he turned away, presenting me with his back. He lifted his shirt slowly, inch by inch, as if he still wasn't entirely sure he wanted to take it off. The skin of his lower back was smooth, taut, punctured only by the ridge of his spine. But from the middle up, it was an entirely different story.
The scars stretched from one side of his broad back to the other. They were mostly horizontal, none vertical, and all of them straight. They were pink, raised, ugly things, and didn't belong on this handsome man's body.
I counted them, not because it mattered how many there were, but because it helped me focus on the patient, not the man or on the pain he must have felt at the time the scars were inflicted. In this instance, his memory loss was a blessing.
There were twenty.
"Josie?"
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He needed me to be a doctor now, not a sheltered girl from Mull who'd never seen such scars before.
I didn't need experience to know what made them. Even so, I touched one after the other to see how hard the skin was, how high they were raised, and simply because I wanted to touch them. I couldn't explain why.
"You've been struck by a switch or length of rope," I said in a voice that was steadier than I expected. "It didn't have sharp protrusions like nails or thorns." I pressed my palm to his back and smoothed it over the densest scarring and up to where the highest scar lashed his right shoulder. His skin was warm.
He drew in a deep breath and held it.
"You've been whipped," I murmured.
He let the breath out slowly. I had only confirmed what he already knew, or suspected.
"Can y
ou tell when they were inflicted?" he asked.
"They're several months old. Less than a year, certainly not more. It's difficult to be more precise, as everyone's skin heals at different rates."
He lowered his shirt but did not turn around. I was grateful. The healer in me knew what to say, but the woman did not. What did one say to a man who'd been whipped twenty times yet couldn't remember it?
"Thank you," he said.
"You already guessed."
"We didn't know how old they were."
"We?"
"I'm not the only one with scars like this, but I have the most. Max and Brant have a few, as do some of the other guards. As far as I know, the rest of the staff don't have any, but we haven't discussed it with everyone, only those we know best."
"It's hardly a casual conversation starter."
He brushed the sand off his feet and put on his boots. "I'd better go. The king won't leave the palace without me escorting him, and he likes to walk around the gardens in the late afternoon with his favorites."
"Is he afraid of an assassination attempt in his own garden? By whom?"
"By anyone. He's a fearful man. It took some convincing for him to invite the nobles into the palace, and for the first week afterward, I had to follow him everywhere inside too."
"He must trust you. I wonder why."
He lowered the boot and arched his brows.
"I mean, I wonder how he knew to trust you if he has no memory."
"You trust me and you don't know me well. You wouldn't have met me here if you hadn't. For future reference, don't meet strange men on a cove accessible only by a steep staircase and water, particularly since you can't swim."
"You're only a little bit strange," I said, hoping to earn a smile from him and failing. "I suppose I trust my instincts, and they're telling me you're not going to hurt me. The king must have good instincts too. Unless he remembers you from his past." And unless he was lying about his memory loss, I wanted to say, but I held my tongue. The extent of King Leon's memory loss was a sore point for Hammer, yet I knew he had doubts. He must. But he'd made it clear he wouldn't discuss those doubts with me.
"Your instincts may be good, but you should still be careful," he said. "I hear there was trouble at one of the taverns last night."
"A man died in my father's surgery. He couldn't save him." I shivered. Even though I'd seen death before, I wasn't used to it like my father. I couldn't imagine ever growing used to it.
I felt Hammer's gaze on me but couldn't meet it. I changed the subject instead. "Your men are crawling all over Mull. They're the talk of the village. Have you learned anything new about the poisoner or who sold him the poisons?"
"Not yet."
"Could the man you were chasing through the forest have something to do with it?"
"It's possible."
"He wasn't an escaped servant then?"
He blinked at me. "I don't chase the servants."
"Your men fetched the maid who came into the village."
"Fetched, not chased." He tied up his bootlaces. "She was confused. She was better off being around people with the same condition as her. Where else can she go?"
It was a fair point, and the guards had been gentle with her. "Is she well now?"
"Better."
"If you want my father to look at her—"
"She's fine. Thank you for your concern." He was in command again, the stern captain of the palace guards, not the vulnerable man who'd lost his memory. "That man in the forest wasn't a servant," he went on. "If he was, we would have known his name."
"I suppose. He can't be the one who sold the poisons to the poisoner either. Tam Tao described the man on the pier as Zemayan, and he didn't look Zemayan. I suppose he was just a poacher or vagrant passing through, hoping to find something to eat from your kitchen garden."
"Vagrants and poachers don't ride good horses."
He had a point. "So who do you think he was?"
"A spy, but I don't know who for. We found him sneaking around the palace grounds. When I questioned him, he gave evasive answers. He escaped before he could be escorted away."
He put out his hand and I took it and stood. His thumb stroked mine before letting go. Or perhaps I'd only imagined the stroke.
He picked up his doublet and removed something from the pocket. "For your time," he said, offering me some ells.
I turned and marched off. "I'm not accepting payment for this." I wanted to say more, but I couldn't tell him that I came in a non-professional capacity. I came in the hope to learn more about him, as a friend.
He drew alongside me, still holding the coins, and opened his mouth to speak.
"Do not insult me again," I said before he insisted I accept the money.
He pocketed the coins. "I don't know when we'll meet again. If someone in the palace becomes ill or is injured, I'll send for your father. Perhaps you will come to assist him."
I glanced at him but he wasn't looking at me. He focused on the stairs straight ahead.
"Yes," was all I said. I wished it would be as simple as waiting until we were needed, but I suddenly doubted I'd ever see the captain again. If my father had his way, we would leave Mull, and I would never see the palace inhabitants again. I'd never see Meg and my other friends, and my patients would have to give birth without my presence.
Surely Father couldn't have been serious about leaving. Surely it was all talk stemming from his fears. If not, he'd have a fight on his hands. I wasn't leaving Mull.
We climbed the stairs in silence and he offered me a ride back to the village, albeit reluctantly. "I don't want to get you into trouble with your father," he said.
"I'll walk. Thanks anyway."
I watched as he mounted in an easy, practiced move and rode off. He knew how to ride. He couldn't have become that proficient in just a matter of months. Yet another piece to the Captain Hammer puzzle.
I walked quickly home, turning over the things I'd learned about him and trying not to picture his scarred back. I'd send a jar of ointment to the palace but I couldn't imagine the men rubbing it into one another's backs, even if they did know it would help the skin to heal faster. Perhaps they each had a maid who'd do it for them. Perhaps Hammer did.
Yet another thing I didn't want to picture.
I was hot and thirsty by the time I arrived home. "I'm back," I called out to Father in the surgery. The door was ajar but he didn't answer. He might simply be busy, lost in his work, or he might be giving me the silent treatment as punishment for leaving the house when he'd asked me not to.
The kitchen showed no signs that he'd entered it during my absence. I filled a cup with water from the pail by the door. It was almost empty. I wondered if Father would allow me out to the well to fill it or insist on coming with me. This was getting ridiculous, and I would tell him so.
"Father," I said, pushing open the workshop door, "I don't—" I stopped, the words dying on my lips.
He lay slumped over the desk, notes and books scattered around him. His hair was dangerously close to the heat box, but the lumps of peat had burned away. How long had he been asleep? I didn't recognize the contents of the dish he'd been testing, some of which had spilled onto an open book. Behind the burnt smell was a sweet, sickly odor.
"Father? Father, wake up." I shook his shoulder but he didn't move. "Father!" I gave him a more violent shake and his hand slipped off the desk. The fingers brushed the floor. I tilted his head to the side and pushed his hair off his forehead to get a better look at his face.
It was the same color as the dead man who'd been collected that morning.
Chapter 10
The rest of the day passed in a blur. I must have fetched Meg's parents, because I remembered her mother steering me to the kitchen and trying to feed me. Her husband took charge of the body and the following day, I buried my father beside my mother.
Then I cried. I'd never cried so much in my life, not even when my mother died. At six, I hadn't really und
erstood that she wasn't coming back. At twenty-four, I knew the finality of death. For the first time in a long time, I prayed to both Hailia and Merdu, and hoped that the afterlife was a real place and I would one day meet my parents there.
I stayed with Meg's family for two nights but on the third day, I insisted on going home. While they were pleasant enough, I knew they struggled to feed an extra mouth, and Meg's brother looked at me in a way I'd not noticed before. For a youth who'd always treated me like another sister, and an annoying one at that, his new attentiveness was unnerving.
Despite being grateful to be home again, the house had an awful emptiness about it. No patients came. They'd all given me their condolences at the burial ceremony, but none had returned for scheduled appointments.
"Give them time," Meg said a few days later as we sat in the kitchen. "They'll return when their aches and pains become too much or they run out of medicine."
I shook my head. "There are too many like Perri Ferrier. Besides, it doesn't matter if they don't mind being treated by a woman, I can't treat them anyway. I'll be thrown in jail if I do."
"I'm sure it's just a warning first, then a fine before they jail you. But yes," she added heavily, "it's illegal. You'll have to rely on your midwifery and selling medicines."
We both knew neither task could support me. Perhaps as the population grew, and more women joined the men, there might be more births. Until then, I'd have to supplement the fees with my father's savings. That meant searching for them, which meant going through his things. I couldn't face that yet.
"I can't believe he's gone," I said, choking back tears. I thought I'd used them all up, but it would seem I still had more to shed. "One day he's chastising me and the next…silence."
"Not even a warning," Meg said with a shake of her head.
I sat back with a thud. "There had been a warning." I cast a glance toward the larder. "He'd been looking for catspaw."
"What's that used for?"
"Heart problems. It helps stabilize an irregular beat. It's not a cure, though. Nothing can cure disease of the heart. Hailia," I murmured. "I suspected the catspaw was for him but didn't press him. How could I be so stupid, Meg? How can I be so selfish as to not notice when my own father was ill?"