The Shadow Isle

by Katharine Kerr

  “Did you run all the way?” Neb said to his brother.

  Clae nodded wordlessly.

  “You may not want to watch this,” Neb said, glancing around. “Get me that basin from the washstand, will you?”

  Clae followed orders, then stepped back against the wall. Neb rummaged in his saddlebags, found the prunella and healall leaves, and put a big handful of each into the washbasin. He needed one more botanical—what was it—comfrey root, and he had not even a scrap of that. I can find some on the morrow, he told himself, it grows all over pastureland.

  He slopped a good portion of hot water on top of the herbs he’d selected and put the basin on the floor to let the mixture steep. Among his scribal tools he found a clean rag, which he dipped into the heating water in the kettle. When he applied it to the abscess, the rag ran red with old blood, streaked with the dark brown of ordinary dirt. Neb was still washing Gerran’s wound clean when Nicedd returned with a flagon of mead.

  “I didn’t know how much you’d need,” the silver dagger said. “So I got a lot.”

  “Good,” Neb said. “He may need to drink the rest when I’m done.” He glanced at Nicedd’s pale face. “You might need some yourself. Put that down! I’ll need you to hold your lord steady.”

  Gerran’s shoulder looked even nastier once Neb could see it clearly. Not only did the split in the skin ooze pus, but a thin web of red lines spread outward from the bruise. Neb had a bad moment of wondering if he were too late, but the red corruption stretched only an inch or two beyond the blue-and-purple edges of the bruise. No use in giving up, he told himself. He got out his penknife, then considered his own hands, more than a little dirty. He washed them and the knife blade both in the remaining hot water.

  “Gerro,” Neb said, “can you put your hands over your head? Stretch out, like.”

  “I can,” Gerran said. “It’s not that bad.”

  Neb decided against telling him the truth, that actually it was worse than he knew. Gerran slid down a little on the mattress to give himself room, then raised his arms over his head. Without being asked, Nicedd sat down next to him and caught his lord’s wrists. He’s seen this before, Neb thought.

  “Hold on,” Neb said. “This is going to hurt.”

  He grasped the penknife twixt thumb and forefinger as if he were cutting parchments against a straightedge, focused on the suppurating stripe running down the half-healed wound, and slashed the abscess open. Gerran let out a noise that almost amounted to a cry, then sucked his breath in sharply. Greenish matter welled in the wound and oozed in a trickle of blood.

  “Get me more water,” Neb said to Clae. “Just take the kettle from the coals and don’t look at this. Use Gerran’s old shirt for a rag! The handle’s hot.”

  Neb soaked his rag in the herbed water in the basin and wiped away as much of the pus as he could. When he pressed around the edges of the bruise, more green-gray matter welled up and with it, black flecks of dirt. Neb kept cleaning the rag and wiping until at last he’d exposed raw flesh and naught else. Gerran never made a sound, nor did he move. Nicedd sat stone-still, holding down his lord’s hands should Gerran’s will fail.

  The door opened with a fling and a bounce. Clae trotted in with the kettle in one hand and a wad of clean rags in the other.

  “Lady Egriffa said you’d need these,” Clae said.

  “I do, indeed.”

  Neb took the rags gratefully. He should have remembered to bring more, he supposed. Clae nestled the bottom of the kettle into the coals, then returned to his place by the wall.

  Neb never quite knew how long he worked on the wound, washing it, wiping the blood away, until at last it looked clean, and the only smell of contagion came from the rags on the floor. By the time he finished, however, the sky was beginning to darken with sunset. Neb stepped back a few feet and considered his patient’s aura. The ugly gray plume had disappeared, but the envelope of etheric light had shrunk a little further, clinging around Gerran’s body like a wet shirt. The pain had done that, Neb supposed. At least, he hoped it was only the pain. Neb tossed the rag he’d been using onto the floor, then picked up the flagon of mead.

  “This is going to hurt worse,” he said, “so brace yourself, but I’ve got to destroy the corrupted humors.”

  Nicedd tightened his grip on Gerran’s wrists. Neb took a deep breath and slopped mead directly from the flagon onto the wound. Gerran gasped aloud and bowed his back as if he’d been flogged. Nicedd held on grimly and forced him back down again. Mercifully, with the second splash of the burning liquid, Gerran fainted. Neb kept splashing and wiping until at last the bleeding from his slash had eased up. He dipped a finger in the mead and tested the bruise. The swelling had gone down considerably, but for all he knew, more contagion lurked under the edges of the skin.

  The room had grown too dark for him to see clearly. Without thinking, exhausted as he was, he called upon the Wildfolk of Aethyr, who clustered around his left hand in a cool silver light. Nicedd swore under his breath, and Clae yelped aloud.

  “Hold your tongues!” Neb snapped. “I’ve got to see.”

  In the pool of dweomer light the wound looked as good as traumatized flesh could look after such treatment. A different light bloomed behind him, the yellow flickering of massed candles. Neb’s shadow fell across Gerran’s back. Neb tossed the ball of dweomer glow into the air, where it disappeared. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Salamander standing just inside the door and holding a four-candle candelabrum in each hand.

  “I purloined these from a storeroom,” Salamander said. “I thought you’d need light.”

  “I do, and my thanks,” Neb said. “Nicedd, you can let go now. The worst’s over.”

  Nicedd released Gerran’s wrists, then stood up, stretching his back. He was staring at Neb with an expression halfway between fear and awe. Salamander glanced around, put one candelabrum on the washstand where the basin had stood, and the other on a carved chest that stood in the curve of the stone wall. Clae opened his mouth as if to ask about the mysterious light; Neb silenced him with a scowl, then ignored them all.

  In the basin only a handful of spent herbs remained. He threw those onto the heap of filthy rags on the floor.

  “Once the wound’s rested,” he said to Nicedd, “I’ll bandage that, but I want it to dry.”

  “Well and good, then, my lord,” Nicedd said. “Will he heal?”

  “If the gods are willing.” Neb picked up the rags and crammed them all into the kettle of simmering water. The coals had mostly turned to ash in the brazier. “Clae, when this cools, you can take it away, but wash it out well before you give it back to the cook. Those rags should be thrown away, too. Make sure they end up on the dung heap.”

  “I will,” Clae said. “Do you think the wound was poisoned?”

  “Not by poison on a blade, if that’s what you mean. If dirt’s a poison, then that’s what it was, all right.”

  By that time Gerran had woken. When he tried to turn over, Neb pushed him down again. “Lie still,” he said. “The worst is over, I hope anyway.”

  “So do I.” Gerran’s voice trembled. He took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh.

  “Ye gods, Neb!” Salamander stepped forward. “I never knew that you were a chirurgeon as well as a scribe.”

  Neither did I. The thought struck him so hard that Neb couldn’t speak.

  “My thanks,” Gerran whispered.

  “Welcome, I’m sure.” Neb found his voice again. “It must hurt like a cold wind from the hells.”

  Gerran mumbled something that might have been, “It does do that.”

  “Just rest.” Neb patted his patient’s good shoulder. “Get as comfortable as you can, Gerro. You’ll be staying here for some days, by the way. You can’t ride until the wound heals, or you’ll open it up, and we’ll have to start all over.”

  “Whatever you say,” Gerran whispered, but the words were clear enough to understand.

  Neb turned away
and saw Salamander smiling at him with an ironic twist of his mouth. The sight woke Neb up—he could think of it no other way, that he’d been asleep, and now he was awake. Close at hand? he thought. My wyrd’s been sitting here right in my hands all this time.

  “That tunic, Neb,” Salamander said. “I suggest you might want to change it.”

  Neb looked down at his front and found the linen streaked with blood and pus.

  “So I do. Nicedd, don’t let him get up just yet. The pair of you can finish the mead in that flagon. When I come back, you can go get your dinner.”

  “My thanks, my lord,” Nicedd said. “I’ll bring you back some, too.”

  “I’m not a lord.”

  “But I thought—” Nicedd stared at him, utterly confused. “Doesn’t the king—ah, horseshit! I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  Neb recognized him. He’d forgotten the lad’s name, but he did remember that he’d known him once. Nicedd had been a silver dagger, then, too, somewhere in their mutual past.

  “You’re worn out, is why,” Neb said briskly. “It doesn’t matter what you call me, I’ll be back in a bit.”

  Neb left his saddlebags with his supplies in the chamber, then left to change his shirt. Salamander followed him upstairs. He didn’t speak until Neb had shut the door to give them privacy.

  “How did you know the wound had gone septic?” Salamander said. “When we were still down in the ward, I mean. It must have been obvious once you got that filthy shirt off.”

  “Do you remember when the dragon came to the Red Wolf dun?” Neb said. “Well, Penna saw some wrong thing in his etheric double. I happened to be nearby, and she told me about it. Then later I realized that if an injury showed up on the etheric, it must leave some sort of trace in the aura. There were a couple of people at the dun who had some small hurt—a cut finger and the like—but I couldn’t see anything in their auras. So I discarded my idea until today, when Gerran rode in. I know now that a small hurt leaves no mark. His injury was serious enough to show. You could see the trouble plain as sunlight.”

  “You could. I couldn’t.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly. I thought of that myself, but the aura revealed no secrets to me, even though I could see the aura itself, of course.”

  In sheer excitement Neb turned away and strode over to the window. Down below, servants were hurrying across the ward, carrying lanterns against the gathering night. He could smell roasting meat and woodsmoke from the cookhouse, comforting everyday smells and sights that calmed him. You knew what Clae’s wyrd was the moment that Gerran said he’d train him. Why wouldn’t you know this? Salamander joined him at the window.

  “Ebañy, I realized somewhat today, somewhat truly important.”

  “So I thought. Could it be that you’re meant to be a healer?”

  “Just that. It has to be my wyrd, if I can see things that a dweomermaster like you can’t.”

  Salamander started to speak, then looked away, so moved that Neb briefly feared he might weep.

  “What?” Neb said.

  “In an odd sort of way,” Salamander said with a choke in his voice. “Nevyn finally approved of me, that’s what. A mad thought, of no importance, truly.”

  “Oh, don’t drivel! Of course it’s important.”

  Salamander wiped his eyes on his sleeve, then grinned with his usual ease. “At times you do revert to Nevyn-hood, don’t you?”

  They shared a laugh, and the moment was over, but Neb realized it had been as important for him as it was for Salamander.

  “There’s only one thing against this idea,” Neb said. “I don’t want to give up my dweomer studies.”

  “Why would you have to? The question, my dear friend, is what you’re going to do with the dweomer you know, not whether or not you know dweomer. You’ve just demonstrated that the two can go together quite nicely.” Salamander grinned at him. “Let the rest of us chattering fools look for omens and the like.”

  “Here, I owe you an apology for calling you that.”

  “Oh, don’t vex yourself over it. I’ve provoked many a nastier comment from others in my life.”

  They shared another laugh. Laughing made Neb realize that for the first time in months, he felt not merely happy but free.

  Neb wasn’t the only person in the dun who was thinking in terms of apologies. At sunset, the dun assembled for a victory dinner in the great hall. Salamander had just taken a seat next to Lord Blethry when a page trotted over to him.

  “Gerthddyn,” the lad said, “Gwerbret Ridvar wants to talk with you.”

  “Indeed?” Salamander got up and glanced over at the table of honor, empty at the moment. “Where is he?”

  “Upstairs in his chambers,” the page said. “I’ll take you there.”

  Blethry quirked an eyebrow and shrugged, making it clear that he had no idea why the summons had arrived. Salamander set down his goblet and followed the page.

  Gwerbret Ridvar’s private quarters lay on the third floor of the main broch, just above the women’s hall. He received Salamander in an outer chamber, a generous wedge of a room hung with tapestries on the wicker walls that divided it from the bedchamber beyond. Ridvar sat in a cushioned chair in front of the hearth, where a cluster of candles glimmered instead of a fire. In the soft dim lighting his face looked so smooth that it was hard to think of him as anything but a handsome child. Salamander bowed and knelt in front of him on a soft Bardek carpet.

  “My wife tells me you can read and write,” Ridvar said. “What I want to know is how well you can keep a secret.”

  “Very well when I have to, Your Grace,” Salamander said. “The tales I tell in the marketplace are all completely untrue, after all. The truths I tend to keep to myself.”

  Ridvar smiled, but briefly. “My wife also thinks I shouldn’t worry about keeping this secret. I want you to write a message to my sister, Lady Solla, apologizing for the way I treated her in the past.”

  “A very noble desire, Your Grace.”

  “Mayhap.” Ridvar shrugged the flattery away. “Oth was a grand one for little lies, you see. When a coin disappeared or suchlike, he always had me thinking that Solla might have taken it. That’s why I didn’t give her a dowry. I thought she’d already gathered one on her own.” He moved uneasily in his chair. “Somehow or other, I just don’t want to have my own scribe write that letter. He can’t keep secrets, not when he’s among the servants, at least.”

  Salamander made a sympathetic-sounding noise.

  “And,” Ridvar went on, “I wanted to invite her to come here and tend her husband if she wished, as my guest of course. I understand that he’s not supposed to ride for some while.”

  “Just that, Your Grace. The chirurgeon was adamant.”

  Much to Salamander’s relief, Ridvar merely nodded rather than asking who the chirurgeon in question might be.

  “I’ll gladly write your message, Your Grace,” Salamander continued. “It will be an honor to serve you.”

  “Very well.” Ridvar stood up. “On the morrow, I’ll leave the table after the morning meal. Follow me up here, and bring what you need.”

  “I shall, Your Grace.” Salamander rose and bowed low. “My honor.”

  You arrogant cub! Salamander thought as he was leaving. Not a word of thanks to someone who’s not even one of your retainers! He felt a pang of sympathy for Oth. Yet, on the other hand, he reflected, at least Ridvar was willing to apologize to his sister, while Oth had caused her much unnecessary misery in his attempts to cover up his crimes. Salamander could assume that Lady Drwmigga’s urging lay behind the gwerbret’s currently generous impulse, but many a noble lord had ignored his wife’s pleas on behalf of those he’d wronged.

  Salamander had just started down the staircase when he saw Neb, waiting at the foot. His quasi-apprentice hurried halfway up to join him.

  “A question for you,” Neb said. “I want to tell Branna what I realized, about my wyrd, I mean. Sometimes I can—”
He paused to look around him but no one stood close enough to overhear. “Sometimes I can reach her, if you know what I mean. Would it be all right if I tried? I wanted to get your permission first.”

  He’s saved! was Salamander’s first thought, and the second, We’ve won. Aloud he said, “You have it, but only with Branna. She’s your wife, and you’re deeply linked to boot, and so I doubt if talking with her in this manner would cause either of you any strain or possible trouble. No one else, mind!”

  “I understand, and my thanks.”

  Neb turned and rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Salamander smiled at his retreating back, then more slowly went on down.

  Since Clae would be one of the many pages serving the feast in the great hall, Neb had their chamber to himself. He climbed onto the bed, drew the bedcurtains for further privacy, and sat cross-legged in the middle of the lumpy mattress. When he thought of Branna, he saw her, perched on the windowsill of the chamber they’d shared in her uncle’s dun. Dressed only in her thin shift, she was combing out her long blonde hair by candlelight. His longing for her became a physical ache.

  “Neb?” she thought to him. “What are you doing?”

  “It’s all right,” he thought back. “Salamander gave me permission to contact you this way. Branni, Branni, I love you so much!”

  “I love you, too. I wish you were here.”

  “We’ll be together again soon. But I’ve got somewhat to tell you straightaway. I’ve found my wyrd. The dweomer and healing— that’s what I want to study. They go together somehow, I’m sure of it. I was rowing down the wrong river before, but I’ve found the right one now.”

  Her joy rose up like the light from the candle. It seemed to him that he could see it, a bright glow around her like a vast golden cloud, rising to cover her.

  “I—” he began. “Oh, curse it all!” he said aloud. “That broke the stupid link!”