Temple of the Winds (53 page)

“
Yes, Richard. Whatever you say. I promise. If she’s what you really want, then I’ll not interfere, no matter how wrong—”

He held up a finger. “Your toe is on the line, Nadine. If you step over it, I swear there will be no coming back.”

“
Yes, Richard.” She smiled in an understanding, patient, long-suffering way. “Whatever you say.”

She seemed to be satisfied that he had paid attention to her. It reminded him of a child who misbehaved so that a beloved parent would notice her. He glared at her until he was sure she would not say another word, and only then did he open the door.

Drefan was squatted down, whispering words of comfort to Yonick while he rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Kahlan’s green eyes watched as Nadine reached back for Richard’s hand to help her balance as she stepped onto the narrow board in the mud.

“
Drefan,” Richard said when he had joined them, “I need to talk to you about some of the things you said in there.”

Drefan rubbed Yonick’s back and then stood. “What things?”

“
About how you wanted Cara and Raina to get me out of there, for one thing. I want to know why.”

Drefan considered Richard a moment, and then Yonick. He drew open his cloak, hooking it behind one of the leather pouches on his belt. He opened the pouch at the front of his belt and poured some dried powder from a leather purse onto a piece of paper. He twisted the paper closed and handed it to the boy.

“
Yonick, before we go to see the other boys, would you please take this up to your mother and tell her to steep it in hot water for a couple of hours to make a tea, and then strain it and see that everyone in your family drinks it tonight? It will help build up your family’s strength to keep them well.”

Yonick looked at the paper in his hand. “Sure. I’ll be back as soon as I tell my mother.”

“
No rush,” Drefan said. “We’ll be waiting when you’re through.”

Richard watched Yonick close the door. “All right, I know you wanted me out of there because of the danger of catching the plague from the sick boy. But we’re all in danger, aren’t we?”

“
Yes, but I don’t know how much. You are the Lord Rahl. I wanted you as far away as possible.”

“
How do you catch the plague?”

Drefan glanced to Kahlan and Nadine, and then to Ulic and Egan back with the soldiers guarding either end of the alley. He took a deep breath.

“
No one knows how the plague is passed from one person to the next, or even if that is the way it spreads. There are some who believe that it’s the wrath of the spirits brought down on us, and the spirits decide who they will smite. There are others who argue that the effluvia infest the very air of a place, of a city, endangering everyone. Others insist that it can only be caught by inhaling the infectious steams of the body of a sick person.

“
I can only assume, for the sake of caution, that, like fire, the closer you are, the more dangerous it is. I didn’t want you close to that danger, that’s all.”

Richard was so tired that he felt sick. Only his terror kept him on his feet. Kahlan had been near the boy, too.

“
So, you’re saying that it’s possible we could all get it just from being in the same house as someone who has it.”

“
It’s possible.”

“
But the sick boy’s family doesn’t have it, and they lived with him. His mother tended to him. Wouldn’t she have it, at least, if that were true?”

Drefan considered his words carefully. “Several times I have seen isolated outbreaks of the plague. One time, when I was young and in training, I went with an older healer to a town, Castaglen Crossing, that had been visited with the plague. From this place, I learned much of what I know about the sickness.

“
It started when a merchant came with his wagon of goods to sell. It was reported that when he arrived, he was coughing, vomiting, and complaining of agonizing headaches. In other words, the plague was already upon him before he arrived in Castaglen Crossing. We never knew where he came to have it, but it could have been that he drank envenomed water, stayed with a sick farmer, or that the spirits chose to strike him with it.

“
The townspeople, wishing to do a trusted merchant a kindness, put him up in a room, where he died the next morning. Everyone remained well for a time, and they thought the danger had passed them by. They soon forgot about the man who had died among them.

“
Because of the confusion brought on by the sickness and death by the time we arrived, the accounts were varied, but we were able to determine that the first townsperson became sick with the plague at least fourteen days, by some accounts, or as many as twenty days, by others, after the merchant arrived.”

Richard pinched his lower lip as he thought. “Kip was well at the Ja’La game a few days back, so that would mean that he really became ill with it sometime before.”

Despite being mournful over the boy’s death, Richard felt great relief that what he had been thinking didn’t seem to be plausible. If Kip got the plague long before the Ja’La game, then Jagang didn’t have anything to do with it. The prophecy wasn’t involved.

But then, why the warning of the winds hunting him?

“
That would also mean,” Drefan said, “that the dead boy’s family may yet become sick. They look well at the moment, but they may already be fatally infected with plague. Just as were the people of Castaglen Crossing.”

“
Then,” Nadine said, “we may all have caught it just from being in the room with the boy. That awful smell was his sickness. We may all have the plague from breathing it in, but won’t know it for a couple of weeks yet.”

Drefan shot her a condescending look. “I can’t deny that it’s possible. Do you wish to run away, herb woman, and spend the next two or three weeks preparing for death by living out the things you always wanted to do?”

Nadine lifted her chin. “No. I’m a healer. I intend to help.”

Drefan smiled in that private, knowing way he had. “Good, then. A true healer is above the phantom evils he chases.”

“
But she may be right,” Richard said. “We may all already be infected with the plague.”

Drefan lifted a hand, warding off the concern. “We mustn’t let fear rule us. When I was in Castaglen Crossing, I cared for many people who were in death’s grip, people just like that boy. So did the man who took me there. We never became sick.

“
I was never able to determine any pattern to the plague. We touched the sick every day and never became sick. Possibly because we were with the sick so much that our bodies knew it well, and were able to strengthen us against its corruption.

“
Sometimes, a member of a family would come down sick and thereafter every member of the family, even those who stayed away from the sick room, succumbed to the plague and all died. In other homes, I witnessed, one, or even several, children come down sick with the plague and die, yet their mothers who tended them nearly every moment never became ill, nor did any other member of the household.”

Richard sighed in frustration. “Drefan, all this isn’t very helpful. Maybe this, maybe that, sometimes yes, sometimes no.”

Drefan wiped a hand wearily across his face. “I’m just telling you what I’ve seen, Richard. There are people who will tell you for sure that it is this or it is that. Shortly, there will be people in the streets who will be selling indisputable cures, unquestionable preservatives against the plague. Hucksters all.

“
What I am telling you is that I don’t know the answers. Sometimes knowledge is beyond our limited understanding. It’s one of our tenets, as healers, that it is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge and skill, and that pretending either causes harm.”

“
Of course.” Richard felt foolish to have pressed for answers that weren’t there. “You’re right, of course. It’s better to know the truth than hang hope on lies.”

Richard looked to see where the sun was in the sky, but clouds were moving in, obscuring it. A cold wind was coming up. At least it wasn’t hot. Drefan had said that the plague spread worst in heat.

He looked back at Drefan. “Are there any herbs—or anything—that you do know will help prevent it, or cure it?”

“
A standard precaution is to treat the home of sick people with smoke. It is said the smoke may purge the air of the effluvia. There are herbs that are recommended for smoking sick rooms. I would think it a wise precaution, at least, but I wouldn’t count on it.

“
There are other herbs that can help with the complaints of the plague—the headaches, sickness of the stomach, things like that—but none that I know of that will cure the plague itself. Even with these treatments, the person will likely die just the same, but they may have some comfort from the herbs before they pass.”

Kahlan touched Drefan’s arm. “Do all the people who come down with the plague die? Are all who catch it doomed?”

Drefan smiled in reassurance to her. “No, some recover. In the beginning not as many, and in the end of the outbreak more. Sometimes, if the infection can be urged to a head and the poison drained away, then the person will recover, but will complain for the rest of their life about the torture of the treatment.”

Richard saw Yonick come out the door. He put his arm around Kahlan’s waist and pulled her close.

“
So we all may already be infected.”

Drefan watched his eyes a moment. “It’s possible, but I don’t believe it so.”

Richard’s head was pounding, but it wasn’t from any plague; it was from lack of sleep, and dread.

“
Well, then, let’s go to the other boys’ homes and see what we can find out. We need to know as much as we can.”

The first boy they went to see, Mark, was fine. Mark was happy to see Yonick, and wondered why he hadn’t seen him and his brother, Kip, for the last few days. The young mother was frightened by the important strangers who had appeared at her door inquiring after the health of her son. Richard was relieved that Mark, who had been in the Ja’La game with Yonick and his brother, wasn’t sick.

So far, only one boy who had been at the Ja’La game had become sick. It was looking more and more as if his fears about Jagang were just panicked inferences. Richard was beginning to feel the warmth of hope.

Yonick told a stunned Mark of Kip’s death. Richard told the mother to send for Drefan if any of the family fell ill. Richard left the home feeling much better.

The second boy, Sidney, had been dead since morning.

By the time they found the third boy lying in blankets at the rear of a one-room house, Richard’s hopes had faded.

Bert was gravely ill, but at least his extremities weren’t black, as Kip’s had been. His mother told them that he had a headache, and had been throwing up. While Drefan saw to the boy, Nadine gave the woman herbs.

“
Sprinkle these on the fire,” Nadine told Bert’s mother. “It’s mugwort, fennel, and hussuck. They’ll smoke and help drive away the sickness. Bring hot coals to your boy, put a pinch of the herbs on the coals, and fan the smoke at your son to insure that he breathes enough of it. It will help drive the sickness from him.”

“
Do you think that will really help?” Richard whispered when Nadine returned to Richard’s side, near the boy. “Drefan said he doesn’t know if it will.”

“
I was taught that it was said to help serious sickness, like the plague,” she said in a low voice, “but I’ve never seen anyone with the plague before, so I can’t say for sure. Richard, it’s all I know to do. I have to try.”

Even though he was dead tired, and had a headache, Richard had no trouble sensing the helplessness in her voice. She wanted to help. As Drefan had said, maybe it would do some good.

Richard watched as Drefan pulled a knife from his belt. He gestured for Cara and Raina, who had both caught up with them after taking care of Richard’s instructions, to hold down the sick boy. Raina gripped Bert’s chin with one hand, and held his forehead with the other. Cara pressed his shoulders into the blankets.

With a steady hand, Drefan lanced the swelling at the side of the boy’s throat. Bert’s screams seared Richard’s nerves. He could almost feel the knife slicing his own throat. The mother wrung her hands as she stood off a ways, watching with unblinking eyes.

Richard remembered Drefan saying that if the person lived, they would complain the rest of their life about the torture of the treatment. Bert would have cause.