Her hands were shaking so badly that she could not place the stopper back in her container of rouge.
I was imagining
things,
she told herself.
I’m tired. I haven’t been resting or
eating well for months now. I just need rest.
A cramp uncoiled within her, and she bit her lip until the pain passed.
She was pale again, and the rouge she’d applied made her look like a street mountebank. Taking up a bit of cloth, she rubbed most of it off. At least that wash of anger had stopped her from shivering. But she knew that wouldn’t last. The fear would be back as soon as she heard her husband’s step.
Hastily, she stood and walked around the room, quickly tidying it. Salesin didn’t like clutter, and would use any excuse to lose his temper.
When she passed the fireplace, she saw that some ash had fallen onto the stone hearth, and quickly she knelt on the stones and began sweeping it up.
She was so intent on her task that she didn’t hear his step.
“What are you
doing
?” he asked sharply.
Ulandra started so badly that she dropped the hearth
brush. Hastily, she got up, ignoring the cramp that wanted to double her over, and curtsied. “Forgive me, my lord. The hearth needed sweeping.”
“Don’t your waiting women obey you?” he said harshly.
“Or are you such a weak-livered nonentity that they ignore you, the way
I
wish I could?”
“Your pardon, my lord,” she said. “Of course they would obey, but the last time you came in and Bethina was here, you were angry at me for having her here to tidy up when you wanted to rest, so …” She trailed off, realizing he wasn’t listening.
“You’re pale,” he said, walking over to her. “Even paler than usual. Can it be that you’re breeding?”
Ulandra froze, tempted for one wild second to say yes, just so he would leave her alone.
Just one night to sleep
peacefully, without pain or fear. Just one night.
“Well?” he demanded.
“My lord, I … I am sorry, my lord, but today … today I …” She was stuttering, unable to meet his gaze, and shivering .
“Bleeding again? You
must
be barren!” he snarled.
She shrank back, her hands going up to her ears, not wanting to hear the words that felt like blows. “I’m sorry, my lord, I don’t—”
She never saw his hand move, but suddenly the blow snapped her head back. Lights exploded against her eyelids, flashes of color, as pain blossomed on her right cheek. He had slapped her before, open-handed, but this time he’d used his fist, and the pain was unbelievable.
The room spun around her, and Ulandra realized she was back on the floor, on her hands and knees. “Stupid, whey-faced
bitch
!” he snarled, and the toe of his boot caught her in her belly, lifting her up, spinning her over, taking her breath.
She lay there, trying to breathe, but all she could do was gasp like a landed fish.
And then she heard the barking.
Oh, no! Wolf!
Ulandra managed to draw breath, rolled over, pushing away the pain. “Wolf! No!”
The little dog must have gotten away from her maid. He raced into the room, a brown blur, and flung himself at Salesin, snapping and growling. The Prince cursed, and his foot moved again. There was a shrill yip of pain, and then Wolf lay stunned, halfway across the room.
“No!” Ulandra moaned. “Please no! Please, I’m sorry!”
She began dragging herself across the floor toward the dog, not sure what she was planning to do, only knowing that she had to stop Salesin, she had to save Wolf—Wolf, her only friend. She reached her husband and grabbed his leg, digging her fingers into the hard muscle of his calf. “No!
Please! Don’t hurt him!”
Salesin knocked her aside with the back of his hand, and she fell back onto the floor. Without even glancing at her, the Crown Prince strode across the floor, grabbed the whimpering dog by the scruff of his neck, then, without a pause, yanked the casement open and tossed the dog through it.
“No!”
Ulandra screamed. “NO!”
The royal bedchamber was in the tower, high up. There was nothing outside but a long drop to the cobblestone courtyard.
Ulandra knew her dog was dead. Just thinking of that furry little body sprawled bleeding in the courtyard made her want to die herself. “Wolf!” she whispered. Sobs choked her, and she struggled to remain silent.
Salesin looked down at her, still on her hands and knees.
“Get up,” he said. “You look ridiculous.”
For a moment she was tempted to disobey, to stay where she was. Maybe he would kill her, too, and then she would not have to feel this pain. Something got her to her feet. She glanced sideways at the fireplace, at the poker. Could she reach it before he could stop her?
He’s a trained warrior,
she thought.
Of course he could.
Salesin’s anger seemed to have drained away, leaving him calm, relaxed. He met her gaze for a moment, then looked away, almost as if he were feeling some shame for what he’d
done. “I’ll get you another dog, Ulandra. That one wasn’t worthy of a queen.”
She forced words past the aching tightness in her throat.
“No, thank you, my lord. I wish no other pet.”
He shrugged, a flicker of anger stirring, then glanced at the window and controlled himself. “As you wish. I’ll have my valet see to the corpse later tonight.” He turned away, then glanced back. “My lady, pray do not challenge me again. That was most unwise of you. What happened tonight was
your
fault, not mine. I suggest you heed the lesson.”
He strode toward the door, but paused just before going through it. “I’ll send your maid to tend you. Do something about your face.”
The next moment he was gone, and she was alone.
She stared at the door, then straightened, ignoring the cramp that assailed her. Quickly, she pulled on warm riding garb and her boots.
As she opened the bedchamber door, she met Bethina coming in with a bowl of water and some cloths. “Your Highness! Your face! Oh, my lady!”
Ulandra ignored the sympathy, and brushed aside the woman’s hand as she attempted to touch her throbbing cheekbone, babbling about cold compresses. “There is no time for that now. Step aside.”
“Your Highness,” Bethina quavered, “Crown Prince Salesin said you were not to leave your suite.”
Ulandra gave her a look that made the maid step back. “I don’t care what he said,” the Princess said tightly. “I’m going out. You can come with me to help me or stay here, I don’t care which.”
“Your Highness …” The maid wrung her hands fearfully.
“I … I daren’t cross him.”
Ulandra nodded. “I understand. Just stand aside.”
“Please!” squeaked the woman. “Please don’t! He’ll have me flogged!”
Ulandra paused for a moment, thinking, then grabbed the woman by her arm and dragged her over to the closet. “Step inside,” she said.
“But—”
“Do it!”
“Yes, Your Highness!” Bethina stepped into the closet.
Ulandra shut the door, then fetched the key and turned it.
“There, now you’re protected,” she said, raising her voice so the maid could hear her through the panel. “Tell him I shoved you in there when you tried to stop me. I’ll corrobo-rate your story. Now I must go.”
“My lady, where?” Bethina sounded as though she were weeping. “Where are you going?”
“Down to the courtyard,” Ulandra said. “I have to bury my dog.”
Khith hated Market Day in Q’Kal. Most of the time the Hthras liked the human city and enjoyed its bustling vitality.
But Market Day always meant there would be strangers in town, and many Katans and Pelanese had never seen a Hthras. They stared, whispering rudely, and one burly teamster had even had the temerity to pick it up and pull the concealing hood off its head! Only a quickly muttered warding spell had saved the Hthras from being stripped bodily and exhibited to the crowd like some new variety of beast.
Market Day was also when the slave auctions were held in the town square. Khith’s office and lodgings were close enough to the square that it could hardly avoid being aware of the entire distasteful scene. Much as Khith liked humans, it considered slavery an abomination practiced only by savages.
The Hthras was glad that it was now late spring and growing quite warm. It had suffered from the cold during the last of the winter and early spring, and only the fact that its practice was doing well had enabled it to manage. It had kept one serving lad busy for months just keeping the fires in its office, examining room, and bedchamber stoked.
Some Katans would never seek out a nonhuman physician, but many did. Hthras physicians had a far better record of cures than most human doctors. Since arriving in Q’Kal, Khith had treated lung diseases, infected eyes, risky pregnancies, and a host of other human ills.
One of the human physicians had even sent his wife to Khith when she began to bleed during her fifth month of pregnancy. Khith had examined her, then, gravely worried for both her and the child, had “gone inside” by means of drugs and a spell to check on her womb and the baby within it. It had found that the child was alive, which cheered the doctor, but the mother’s womb was beginning to cramp with premature labor.
During a long, exhausting procedure, Khith had administered drugs, then managed to calm the poor woman’s womb, induce it to cease the cramping. Then it had “gone inside”
again, and moved the child slightly so its head was no longer pressing against the birth canal. Over the next few days, the bleeding slowed, then stopped. Khith prescribed strict bed rest for the patient, and it had worked. Three months later the woman delivered a healthy, if small, baby boy, with Khith officiating at the birth.
Success stories like that one had traveled rapidly through the city and even beyond. These days, Khith had a thriving practice. It missed home, though, and even more than the jungles, it missed the City of the Ancients. So much knowledge buried there! It worried that its people, angered by its actions, might attempt to destroy the city and all that lay within it. The city itself had its own wards—no one knew that better than Khith—but the Ancient ruins could not withstand any kind of determined assault. The Hthras was still haunted by the sense of foreboding it had received from reading the Ancient journal, but as the months passed, the terror faded.
Seeing that the humans were gathering for the slave auction, Khith quickened its stride, despite the bulky packages of herbs in its basket. Ahead of it lay the office, with a small, discreet sign hanging beside the door that read, hthras physician.
Khith believed in being frank about who and what it was. Humans who wanted human doctors did not make good patients.
Khith narrowed its large round eyes, seeing that two figures were walking up the steps to stand on the front stoop.
Despite the masculine clothing, it realized that one of them was a woman. A woman, and a man.
No. Khith peered closer. A woman and a slave.
It hastened its pace, and soon it was close enough to see them more clearly. The woman was of medium height, young, with black hair braided severely back from her face.
She wore hunter’s garb, trousers and boots, and her skin was tanned with exposure to the sun. A dirty bandage was wrapped around one arm, and her face was bruised and bore faint streaks of what seemed to be blood.
A most unusual
woman,
Khith thought.
The slave was not much taller than his mistress, and Khith’s expert eye noted that the slackness of his skin indicated that he’d lost considerable weight recently. His features still bore a trace of youthful roundness, softness beneath his bearded jaw and chin, but his arms were muscled from hard labor. He wore a slave collar, though he’d pulled his shirt up so it wasn’t visible from most angles.
As Khith approached, its housekeeper, Mistress Lengwill, opened the door. Khith’s ears caught the woman’s question.
“We seek the Hthras physician. We have a badly injured man who needs treatment.”
“Master Khith is not here,” the housekeeper said. “He …
it,” she corrected herself with a grimace, “went off to the herbalist, and isn’t expected back—”
“I am here,” Khith called out.
They all turned to regard the Hthras as Khith approached.
The woman stepped forward. Khith realized she was trying to conceal her distress, but her eyes and mouth gave her away.
“What is the problem?” the physician asked as soon as it was close enough, careful to speak clearly. Khith had learned pure Pelanese as a youngster, and its cultured, high-class accent was sometimes difficult for Katans to comprehend.
“Our friend,” she began. “He’s hurt, badly. A broken leg, and a wound in the gut …” Now that she was actually facing the doctor, her hard-won composure began to crumble.
“He—he’s dying, I think.” Tears welled up in her green eyes, and she tried to blink them away.
“Where is he?” Khith asked.
The man pointed to the nearby alley. “We have him in a wagon, there. Our friend is watching over him.”
Hearing the man’s speech, Khith glanced at him, startled.
Pure Pelanese, educated Pelanese … from a slave?
But there was no time for that now.
“Let me get my bag,” Khith said.
Minutes later the woman and her slave led the Hthras down the alley to where an open wagon waited. As they approached, Khith saw that there were two humans in the wagon bed. A young woman with ash-pale hair and huge dark eyes cradled the head of a young man in her lap.
Khith reached the wagon and slung its bag up, then nimbly climbed up beside the woman. Expert fingers touched the man’s forehead, took his pulse, felt the racing of his heart, and noted the bloody spittle oozing from his mouth, staining his short, trimmed beard. “How was he injured?”
the healer asked, carefully removing the makeshift pad of bandage, soaked now with blood, which had been tightly strapped across the patient’s belly.
The wound gaped, still bleeding sluggishly. Khith examined the edges, wondering if it was too late to stitch, then realized that there was damage to more than muscle and flesh. It ran its fingers across the wound, not quite touching it, sensing, evaluating, putting forth its other senses to evaluate the internal damage. Calling up its power, it went
inside
…