Sword of Jashan (Book 2) (19 page)

“Mot has escaped,” she said.

“Jashan’s eyes, is she running loose around the castle? How long ago did this happen, Chiss?”

“He will not know. He was knocked unconscious.” Balan looked amused. Kirian continued, “Yhallin did not keep our appointment, so I returned here right away. Mot cannot have been gone long.”

“She’s a resourceful little beggar.” Balan looked admiring. “Can Chiss be left alone? I will take you to look for her. If she runs to ground at home, this may serve our ends well after all.”

Kirian knelt in front of Chiss. She looked at his eyes, making sure they focused as they should. After checking that the man could safely stand, she mixed a dose of the headache remedy for him, using the water in the jug from lunch, and watched while he drank it. “Go to your room and rest,” she said. “Balan, would you make sure he gets there safely? I will join you in a few moments.”

* * * * *

Two candlemarks later, Kirian and Balan stood staring at the ramshackle cluster of houses near the abandoned trail at Lake Heart.

“Commander Eran directed me here,” Balan said. “But I have been here before. I spent some time in the city guard, and these houses hid as nasty a group of drunkards and thieves as you could hope to find in Sugetre.”

“Lovely,” Kirian said. “Are we safe to go in?”

Balan grinned. “Well, there are not as many of them as there used to be. And I have sometimes been told I am intimidating. I think we may try.”

She smiled at him. “I suppose Mot may run away as soon as we arrive.”

“We will gather intelligence.” Balan pointed at a group of children who hunched in the dirt between the houses, playing with some small animal—a cat or a puppy, Kirian could not see. “You go. They are more likely to speak to you.”

Kirian walked up to the group of houses, glad that Balan was watching her back. The children stopped playing as she walked up. One of them picked up the squirming puppy, and they all stood and grew silent, staring at her. She could not help but notice how thin they all were.

“I am looking for Mot,” she said. “Who can tell me where she is?”

“What do ya want with her?” A boy asked. He was younger than Mot, and his face showed hollows under the cheekbones.

“I want to talk to her. I mean her no harm.”

“I ain’t gonna show ya. She’s bigger than me.”

Kirian stood a moment, looking at all of them. “I really mean her no harm. I am a Healer. She will be better off if she talks to me.”

There was a clinking sound behind her, the sound of coins in a pocket or purse. Balan was offering some incentive.

“I’ll show ya.” It was another boy, younger than the others. Balan tossed a coin to him. Another child tried to hush him, but he evaded a grip on his arm and trotted ahead of Kirian to the open doorway of a nearby house. Kirian followed the boy, Balan as unobtrusive as a man of his bulk could be, behind her.

The door to the little house was open, she supposed to let the breeze run through. She bent to go under the low lintel. “Hello?” she called. “Mot?”

Something scrabbled against the floor. Kirian’s eyes were still adjusting to the dimness inside; even though she could not see what made the sound, she was almost knocked off her feet as a small body shoved past her through the doorway.

“Come back!” she said.

“I’ve got her, Hon Kirian.” She turned to see Balan with an armful of squirming Mot. As she breathed a sigh of relief, the girl clamped down hard on Balan’s arm with her teeth. He swore and almost dropped her.

“Enough of this!” Kirian said. She took hold of one of Mot’s arms and held on tight. After a moment during which several ill-considered words passed the guardsman’s lips, he drew out a cord and looped it around the girl’s hands behind her back.

“Ma! They’re tying me up again!” screeched Mot. “Help! Anybody!”

Kirian remembered that they were in a strange community that harbored men desperate enough to try to abduct the heir to the throne. “Mot! We will release you if you stop screaming and answer a few questions.”

“Jashan’s eyes, I don’t want to tie her up again,” grumbled Balan. “She fights like an icetiger though, and I don’t think we can trust her to stay and answer you, Hon Kirian.”

“Hear him?” Kirian said to Mot. “We’ll not tie you if you can keep from biting, kicking, or trying to get away. We have only a few questions.”

The girl nodded. She yanked her hands away from Balan as he loosed the cord. She was breathing hard, and her eyes were fixed on Kirian’s face. Balan glanced around at the little group of skinny children who had gathered to watch the goings-on.

“Inside would be a good idea,” he said. “One of these brats may run off for help.”

Kirian nodded. She drew Mot back into the house. Balan remained outside, guarding the place so no one could approach close enough to hear their conversation.

Once they were indoors, Kirian peered around, trying to see in the dimness. The house was tiny, summer-warm even with today’s breeze running through from door to window. A cold hearth took up most of the room, a bucket and pan hung beside it. Aside from a battered chair, straw cots lined two of the walls of the place. Kirian realized two of them were occupied: one by a small child who sat watching with big eyes while he sucked his thumb, and one by a woman of about her own age. The woman lay curled in on herself. As the woman stood and adjusted her tunic, Kirian realized she was pregnant. She looked to be a few months along, her body ripe with her condition.

“Mama,” Mot said. “This is . . .”

“Someone from the castle,” the woman said. She stood and walked toward Kirian, waving her hands as if to push her outside. “Get her out of here, Mot. Now! She will bring them all here.”

“I can’t, Ma,” Mot said. She sounded miserable.

“I will not harm you,” Kirian said. “I am a Healer too, you know. I will be happy to answer any questions you have, or examine you to see if the babe is well.”

“Answer
this
question!” the woman snapped. “Tell me how I can lie in bed for any man who forces his way in now that her father is dead, and not ever bear another child from it! Tell me that, Healer.”

“I can tell you of something that may help. You have two children, Mot and this babe?” Kirian gestured toward the child on the cot. The toddler stared at her, still sucking its thumb. His nose was running, and Kirian thought she could hear a slight wheeze in his breathing.

“If only I were so blessed. No, Healer, I have five children and one on the way, and no husband since the fool decided to get involved in the business of the
righ
. Now I have a man knocking the door down to get in here, shoving my children into the night while he rapes me on this very cot, and me pregnant, too! What can you do about that, Hon Healer? Nothing!”

“The city guard.” But even as she said it, Kirian knew that was no solution for someone like Mot’s mother. She sat down on the battered chair and put her hand to her forehead. She remembered well her own time in Sugetre as a child, before her mother died, and how she had run wild in the streets until she was fortunate enough to be taken in at the orphanage and then, gods be thanked, the Healer’s College.

Mot looked at her, worried. “Yer not goin’ ta faint or something, Healer? They would think we’d hurt you.”

Kirian shook her head. “I am fine. Just—you are my age,” she said to Mot’s mother. “Have you no other family?”

The woman shook her head, her belligerence gone.

“Five children and no help.”

“Hey!” Mot objected. “I earn my keep.”

Kirian smiled. “I am sure you do. I would do something substantial for you, but I have no money in my own name. But I can examine you, and treat this little one who seems to be ill. And if Mot answers my questions, I may be able to do more.”

“The best thing you can do is take her away with you,” the woman said.

“Ma!”

“It’s true. See what awaits her here, Healer. But there is no way you could know.”

“I do know.” Kirian looked around one more time. There was a musty smell that undoubtedly contributed to the toddler’s wheezing, and a scurry behind one wall that probably was not a pet. She went to the door and put her head out. “Balan!”

“Hon Kirian?” The man stood a few yards away, hand on his sword hilt, looking menacingly at the rabble of children who clustered around. In the doorway of the next house, a few scant feet away, two men leaned against the door and watched. They looked dangerous.

“We will be taking Mot with us.”

“Good! Has she been convinced to tell the truth?”

“Uh . . .” Kirian turned back inside.”I do not know.”

Balan spared her an incredulous glance. “You do not know?”

She felt her face heating. “Mot, will you come?”

“Not as a prisoner, anyways,” the girl said. “Don’t care about yer yellow-eyed nobleman. I won’t be dragged in a court, don’t care what you do.”

“Tell us for our ears, then.”

Mot looked at her mother. The woman sagged into the chair Kirian had left. “What’ll ya do with me?”

“I am thinking this through as I go,” Kirian said. “I have no idea what I can do with you in a place like Sugetre Castle. But you will be out of here.”

“Ye’ll keep her away from horny
righ
then,” Mot’s mother said.

“I will do that. Mot?”

“A’right, a’right, I’ll come! And I’ll tell ya, but I won’t be dragged in front of
righ
who don’t care a shit about me just to spare some nobleman.”

“Well then, come,” Kirian said. “As for you . . .”

“My name is Ara,” Mot’s mother said.

“Are you all right for now, Ara? No pain, no bleeding or cramping in your womb?”

“I am fine, only tired.”

“Have someone bring you to the Healer’s Clinic next sennight. It is on midday and godsday, in the mornings; they see anyone who can come. They will not ask for money. Do you know how to get there?”

Ara nodded.

“They will make sure your babe is sound. And ask—do not be embarrassed—as long as you are no one’s slave and no one’s wife, you may ask for the herb to stop a new babe. You may begin using it once a day, a month after this one is born. All right?”

The woman’s eyes widened. “Yes.”

“And as for you . . .” Kirian went to the toddler who still sat, unchildlike in his lethargy, on the straw cot. She looked into the child’s eyes and put an ear to his back to listen to his breathing. His skin was hot to the touch, and he squirmed away when she checked his neck for signs of swelling. “You are sick, babe. You need agnit and rueberry.”

“I can afford a jot of whiskey for his throat, and that is all. No agnit, no rueberry.”

“I will send it. Mot can bring it, as long as she swears honestly to come back when she is done.” Mot grimaced at her, but said nothing. “Two doses, mixed with milk or tea, every day. No whiskey, Ara, or you will make him worse. Repeat it all.”

Kirian listened as the woman repeated her instructions for the toddler’s care.

“Now, Mot, get your things, child, and we’ll go. I have no confidence in our safety here, and we have already been here far longer than I planned.”

“I got nothin’,” Mot said. She looked at her mother who was again sitting on the cot. Mot made no move to go to her and embrace her.

“Fare you well, Mot,” Ara said.

“I’ll see ya when I come back with Baby’s medicine,” Mot said. “Let’s go, Healer. Yer right—yer not safe here much longer.”

“Let us go, then,” Kirian said. “Hon Balan?”

“I am here. Better get out here, Healer.”

The group of tattered children had backed off. Now there were three men approaching Balan. They appeared unarmed at first glance, but their loose clothing could easily hide knives. Kirian did not like the look of their deceptive slouches, or of their narrowed eyes.

“Get away!” Mot yelled at them. “We’re going now.”

“What?” said one of the men. “Yer leaving yer ma all alone, are ya?”

Mot paled. “Don’ ya even think about it.”

The man spat in the dirt. “Nothin’ you can do about it, brat, if yer not here.”

Mot cast a desperate eye up at Kirian. “He’s right, Healer.”

Balan’s hand gripped his sword hilt. The men’s eyes followed his movement. The man who had spoken to Mot raised both hands.

“Don’ get all excited now, King’s man. We’re leaving, since you are too.” He leered at Mot. “Got no problem getting’ in there at night now, do I? Since you was always the one throwin’ stuff at me.”

Mot gave a shrill scream and launched herself at the man. Balan caught her by the back of her tunic at the last moment and hauled her back. “Back here, brat. That will do no good. Is that your mama he’s talking about?”

Mot squirmed to get away. Kirian nodded.

“Well, this chit here’s about to be under the protection of Lord Callo ran Alkiran. That woman in there is her mother. Anyone touches her, they’ll hear from me. Got it?”

“What, yer lord Callo lookin’ to get up her skirt too?”

“Quiet, you. Stay away from the woman or you will wish you had.”

The man laughed. “Easy to say so from such a distance as the castle. Plannin’ to camp out on her doorstep with yer pretty sword? Don’t think you can stop me, unless ya do.”

Balan shrugged. He pushed Mot away, stepped forward, and drew his belt dagger. He struck hard, up under the man’s rib cage. Blood sprayed as he withdrew the weapon. The man dropped. His companions swore and jumped back. One of the children who was still hovering nearby screamed.

Balan stepped back and looked around for something to clean his dagger. Kirian just stared, open mouthed.

Mot almost danced in Kirian’s grip.

Balan looked at Kirian and shrugged. “Solves our problem,” he said. “Doubt anyone will miss him.”

Kirian said, “We’d better go.”

The other men backed away from Balan. One man held up skinny arms. “Don’t worry about us, guard. We got no reason to flout you.”

“If I hear you’ve bothered that woman,” Balan warned.

“No need to wear yer mouth out, King’s man. We get you. It’s not like she’s worth much anymore, anyway.”

“Yes!” Mot agreed. Her usual sneer transformed into a grin. “I am ready now, Healer. Let’s go. Now!”