B00CH3ARG0 EBOK (3 page)

She met his eyes. With a deep, shaky inhale, her breathing
began to calm. Then she uncurled and wrapped her arms around his waist. Relief
rushed through him. She seemed to know again who he was.

His apothecary caught his eye. She radiated concern, her
face grim.

“High one,” she said in a low voice, “you must eat. You have
drained yourself.”

“I will see to my needs later,” he said, making a gesture at
her. She bowed and disappeared.

“Forgive me,” Marianne whispered, speaking the Suralian
dialect.

He turned back to her, more relief washing through him that
she was lucid enough to speak his language. He responded in kind. “There is
nothing to forgive, beloved. The man who hurt you is responsible for this.”

“But—”

“I am the Sural. If I say there is nothing to forgive, there
is nothing to forgive.”

Her sob turned into a half-laugh, and then to weeping. He helped
her back onto the bed, stroking her hair and murmuring until she fell into a quiet
sleep. Then he summoned a nurse to watch over her while he went to the kitchens
in search of food.

She was running through a cornfield at midnight, the leaves
on the tall stalks whipping her bare arms and face. If only she hadn’t worn a
sleeveless shirt! Heedless, she ran on. She had to run. She had to get away.

Then she tripped and sprawled in the dirt with a cry.
Frantic, she scrambled to her feet and ran on, heart pounding, legs pumping. A
rut she didn’t see in the darkness caught her foot, twisting her ankle, throwing
her down again. This time, a hand grabbed her ankle and pulled. Her face
dragged through the soil, drowning her scream.

The Greasy Man flipped her over, grinning, evil. On his
knees between her legs, he rubbed his crotch. She screamed again, grabbing at
cornstalks, trying to pull herself away.

Something over her chest held her down. She kicked, but her
legs tangled in fabric. A voice in her ear called her name.

“Marianne!”

Her eyes snapped open on darkness. Love and concern flowed
through a warm body lying against her. The Sural. She slumped back against the
mat. Just a dream.

The arm holding her down relaxed. “The nightmare?” he asked.

She rolled into him, burrowed her face into his chest, and nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

His hand let go of her shoulder and stroked her hair. “I
told you,” he said in a soft voice, “the one who hurt you is at fault. You have
no cause to apologize.”

Tears came unbidden. Eventually, she cried herself back to
sleep.

* * *

Marianne woke well past dawn. Her senses reached for the
Sural on reflex, but he was long gone, started on his day. A presence in the
room – other than the omnipresent guard – startled her: an apothecary’s aide on
a low seat, not camouflaged, her yellow robe creating a cheery air.

“What are you—” Marianne rubbed her feet. They were itching
again.

“The Sural ordered me to watch over you,” the woman said.

Frowning, Marianne stumbled into the bathing area to wash
and dress. Before putting on her slippers, she soaked her prickling feet in
some warm water. She couldn’t really call them feet anymore, she thought, as
she wiggled the flaps of grown-together toes. They’d become peds, the only conspicuous
difference between humans and the Tolari. The other, almost unnoticeable
difference was, of course, the slightly thickened skin protecting the empathic
nerves in her forehead.

Clean and a little more awake, she went into her sitting
room, pacing back and forth around the divans, chairs, and low tables until a
confused memory of screaming at the apothecaries flashed through her mind. Good
lord, did she really do that?

The aide cleared her throat. Marianne waved a hand at her
and continued pacing.

“High one, shall I call for a meal?”

Marianne nodded. Then she remembered why she’d screamed and
halted, her hands and eyes going to her lower belly. Pregnant. She was
pregnant. How? There had to be some mistake. She
couldn’t
get pregnant.
She’d made sure of that the month she turned eighteen.

“No,” she whispered, fighting back a surge of anxiety.

The door to the corridor opened. The Sural’s apothecary entered
her quarters, a small cup in one hand.

“Oh no,” Marianne groaned. From what she could already smell
of it, the liquid in the cup, like every apothecary’s potion she’d ever tasted,
was going to be vile.

“You must drink this, high one.”

Marianne closed her eyes, held her breath, and quaffed the potion
in one gulp. “Pah!” she blurted out. “That’s wretched!”

The anxiety roiling in the pit of her stomach receded a
little. The apothecary flashed a smile. “I will be your apothecary for now.”

“I haven’t asked for an apothecary.”

“The Sural ordered it.”

“He can’t do that.”

“He can, in the event of a crisis or a medical emergency.
Yesterday, you were both.”

Marianne blinked several times. “I – I’m going to have a
baby.”

“Yes, high one.”

“That’s impossible. I made sure I couldn’t.”

“You received a great deal of the Jorann’s blessing,” the
apothecary said. “It was apparently sufficient to regenerate lost tissue. The
apothecaries who examined you yesterday found you to be whole. You are
increasing.”

Marianne blinked some more. Then she frowned and asked, “Why
is the Sural willing to share you with me?”

“Your situation is unique and complicated. He wants you
under my care.”

“I see,” she said, uncertain how to take that. The Sural had
mentioned to her that his apothecary was the best in Suralia. She didn’t know
whether to be reassured ... or worried.

Servants entered the room bearing trenchers. Marianne took a
mug of tea from one of them and sipped it as she listened to the apothecary
outline the types of foods she should be eating. She wasn’t sure she could
remember it all.

“I will give you a draught, similar to the one I just gave
you, each morning,” the apothecary continued, pausing and smiling when Marianne
groaned. “I want you to come to my quarters today after the midday meal. I can
examine you thoroughly then. Will you come?”

Marianne nodded. “My gratitude,” she said.

Another smile, warm this time. “It is my honor to serve
you,” the apothecary replied, and left Marianne to her meal.

* * *

Marianne lay on the examination bed that afternoon, watching
the Sural’s apothecary carefully place a small rectangle of gleaming metal on
her lower belly. Surprisingly, the thing wasn’t at all as cold as it looked
like it should be. The apothecary gazed into the bed console. She moved the instrument
slightly a few times, and then, satisfied, studied the readout.

“Well?” Marianne prompted after a time.

“Your child is developing normally.”

“May I see?”

The apothecary handed her a medical tablet. “There is little
to see, high one. The child has only just implanted. She is simply a hollow
ball of cells.”

Marianne looked at the image, but the apothecary had been
right. The display showed an enlarged image of a nearly featureless, lopsided ball
buried in an irregular surface. She handed the tablet back. The apothecary
tapped and swiped at it as she read.

“She?” Marianne asked. “It’s a girl?”

“The child is female,” the apothecary said with a nod. “You
do not remember?”

Marianne shook her head and sucked her lower lip between her
teeth. She remembered little of what had happened after she went to the
apothecaries’ quarters the day before. Except for the scream. Why did she
scream at them? She worried at the memory like a dog with a bone. Nothing
surfaced.

The healer’s tablet chimed. “I requested a genetic analysis
after leaving you in your quarters,” she said, and paused to read. Her eyes
widened, and she turned a broad smile on Marianne. “The analysis rates as extraordinary.
See, here? She inherits the best from both you and the Sural. This seldom
occurs, and it is even more remarkable considering the conception was
unplanned.”

Marianne nodded, frowned, and then shook her head. “I’m a
linguist,” she said. “I don’t understand your science. But if you tell me my
baby is healthy, that’s all I really need to know.” She paused as anxiety
churned in the pit of her stomach. “She is healthy, isn’t she? She’ll be all
right?”

The apothecary eyed Marianne as if calculating what she
could say. “I cannot know for certain. If you were fully Tolari, I could say
yes, but as you are not, I will tell you that you must be careful, and you must
remain calm. You must tell me immediately if you feel anything,
anything
,
unusual. I would prefer it if you brought me news of a normal symptom fifty
times than if you should fail to inform me of a warning sign even once. Do you
understand? You will not, as you put it, ‘bother’ me.”

Marianne nodded, a nervous smile forcing its way onto her
lips.

“Good,” the other woman continued. “For the present, I
forbid you to go anywhere alone. It is too dangerous, should you experience
another episode like yesterday. Is that clear, high one?”

That explained the aide in her quarters. She felt smothered
already. “Yes, apothecary.” Her smile faltered. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I
don’t know how that happened. I don’t even remember
all
of what
happened.”

“You seemed to have been in an altered state of
consciousness, reliving your attack and largely unaware of your actual
surroundings. It is perhaps less likely now that you will experience another
episode, but I consider it still possible. The Sural informed me your dreams
this past night were violent.”

Marianne nodded and heaved a sigh. “I understand.”

“Good. Do you have further questions?”

“Just one. Do you have a name?”

The apothecary laughed. “Yes, high one. My name is Cena. It
means ‘dreamer’ in the language of the ancients. My mother named me after her
mother.”

“Really? I was named after my grandmother, too. My mother
and I loved her very much. She died when I was in,” she floundered for a word
for
college
in Tolari, “during the last years of my education. Is your
mother an apothecary as well?”

Cena nodded. “She served as the Sural’s head apothecary for
a time, then left to provide care for the workers in the tea plantations of the
Kentar Valley.”

“Didn’t you ever want to be anything else? I mean, I’m a
schoolteacher, but my mother was a nurse. Nana Marianne was a – there is no
Tolari word for it. A mother. Her work was to take care of her home and her
children.”

The apothecary shook her head. “Such disparate choices can
happen here, but it is almost unknown. No one is ever compelled, but normally
an heir wants to follow in the parent’s profession. A second heir, on the rare occasions
when one is granted, does often choose different work to establish a new family
line.”

“And you work for your father.”

Cena cocked her head. “He is not my father, high one,” she
said. “He is the man who fathered me, although my position here proves there
are advantages to being fathered by the Sural.”

“But don’t you love him just because he’s your— because he
fathered you?”

Cena smiled. “Of course. He is kind and generous to those
who serve him, and I can take pride that I was fathered by such an honorable
man.” She picked up the device from Marianne’s belly. “You may dress now. I
will inform the Sural of all this. I cannot predict what the coming season will
bring. Your body is producing both Tolari and human hormones, and they are not,
as the humans say, ‘playing well together.’”

Marianne quirked a grin. “Hormones. That explains a lot. Oh,
one more thing—”

“Yes, high one?”

“When you saw me in the corridor yesterday, how did you
know?”

“I smelled the difference in your body chemistry.”

Memory sparked.
You even smell different
, her
bond-partner had said. “The Sural said I smell different.”

Cena nodded. “He would notice, but without training he would
not know its significance.”

* * *

The Sural, working at the desk in his open study off the
audience room, put aside the tablet he’d been reading, pleased with his head
apothecary. Marianne had, on her own initiative, begun a personal conversation
with the healer.

“She needs a friend,” he said. “You have my permission to be
familiar with her.”

“My gratitude, high one,” Cena said.

“Choose an assistant for yourself, to assume those of your
duties which do not deal directly with me,” he added.

“High one?”

“It will give you more time to spend with the Marann.”

She nodded. “She would benefit from more time spent with you
as well. Your influence on her is normally soothing.”

“And yet avoid coupling.”

“Unless she initiates, yes, high one. For her sake, work off
your appetite sparring with your guards.”

He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front
of him. “I understand.”

“Good,” she said, flashing one of his own crooked smiles. Then
she gave him a more clinical look. “You allowed yourself sufficient rest? You
are consuming enough food to replenish yourself?”

He chuckled. “I slept past first light, and I have been
eating enough for three Surals.”

She nodded approval. He chuckled again and sent her away,
then picked up his tablet and began to sort through his reports to determine
which of them could be delegated to aides and advisors and which demanded his
personal attention.

* * *

Marianne was wandering through the garden when the Sural
winked into sight beside her. He wrapped her in a hug.

“Beloved,” she breathed into his robes. Warmth from the sun
clung to them.

“You are not to be alone,” he chided. “Why did you send away
the aide my apothecary assigned to you?”