“I think I might be able to help you,” Kirra said, and hitched her chair over so her knees almost touched Berric’s outstretched leg. “Hold still.”
She was gazing down at the leg but she didn’t miss the quick, significant glance that passed between brother and sister. Bayla had been a shiftling, but she had not had the power of healing. No one could figure out where that talent had come from, what quirk in the bloodline had given Kirra two magical abilities, when most mystics could only claim one.
“Let me know if I hurt you,” she murmured and laid her hand gently over the bandage visible under Berric’s trousers. He winced but didn’t cry out, and she spread her fingers as wide as they would go. She could feel the layered textures beneath her hand—the silk and cotton of the clothing, the skin and hair that defined the flesh, the liquid of the blood, the porous marble of the bone. Blood and bone were bunched up in a painful lump, veins in knots, bone in a ragged break. Kirra smoothed her hand over the cotton of the outer layer, sent her energy sinking down to the interior levels. She stroked her hand again over the misaligned edges, then tightened her fingers for a moment along the top of Berric’s leg. She heard him take a deep breath, but he didn’t say anything. The palm of her hand felt strange, as if it danced with tiny pinpricks. The sensation continued clear up to her elbow before it dissipated.
“Does that feel any better?” she asked.
Berric let his breath out in an explosive sigh. “Yes! Pale Lady’s silver tears, I knew you were a healer, but—I’ve never witnessed anything like that. The pain is all gone! My leg feels almost normal!”
“What a gift,” Beatrice said. She had stood tense and silent this whole time and only now began to stir uncertainly through the room.
“The leg’s still healing, though,” Kirra warned. “It will be a while before you can really expect to be at full strength, so don’t push yourself. Walk with a cane for a while—and don’t go horseback riding any time soon. And
certainly
don’t go jaunting off to balls and banquets and other taxing affairs,” she added with a smile.
“Are you sure? I shouldn’t go riding up to Danan Hall to attend your sister’s dinner?”
“Quite sure,” she said, pushing away from him and coming to her feet. “But I do believe you’ll be feeling quite restored in no time.”
“Let’s have wine with dinner,” Beatrice said, disappearing through a connecting door toward the kitchen. “I feel like a little celebration.”
The meal was convivial, though it would have been even without the wine, Kirra thought. Beatrice had no use for pretension and could be quite sharp-tongued when she relayed gossip about the lesser gentry of Danalustrous, and Kirra found herself laughing helplessly more than once at her sarcastic comments. Berric, now out of pain, was mellow and urbane, though quick with his own less-than-flattering remarks about the lords he had recently visited in Storian.
“The man’s hardly smart enough to remember his own name, let alone run a household, but he thinks he should have Rafe Storian’s title and property,” Berric said. “People talk about the decline of the marlords! They should talk about the utter madness in the Thirteenth House.”
Kirra toyed with her wineglass a moment. “Yes. I have heard some—interesting—tales lately about the ambition of the lesser lords,” she said. “I found them hard to credit, but then I have never been ambitious. At least not for wealth and property.”
Berric made a sound that sounded like “faugh” and waved an impatient hand. “The lesser lords don’t understand how good their lives are,” he said. “What could be better than the way Beatrice and I live? We have a beautiful house. We have a prosperous property. We have social standing—good friends—a charming niece. Life is good. Life is
easy—
and I’ll wager the life of a marlord, though glamorous and coveted, is not an easy one. The lesser lords don’t know what they’re jealous of.”
“But there is jealousy?” Kirra pressed. “There is discontent? Is there—Uncle, do you hear tales of the gentry planning to rise up against the king?”
Berric looked at her very soberly. Beatrice, sitting across the table from them, was openmouthed with surprise. “Tales. Yes,” said Berric. “Of how Martin Helven is weak and should be brought down, how Els Nocklyn is sick and his daughter not ready to run the House when he dies. And who better to take over such rich properties than the loyal vassals who know and love the land so well? They grumble that they don’t have enough, but none of them sees that if they were ever to don the title of marlord, all of their friends would turn against
them
, wanting what they had now. They talk revolution, but will they act? I don’t know. I don’t believe they have the organization to act in concert.”
“But they talk about it. That is bad enough,” Kirra said.
Berric shrugged. “Will they rise up to depose Baryn? I doubt it. But from what I hear, the marlords are poised to do just that. Is this a time of crisis in the realm? Why, yes, I think so. Gisseltess appears to be amassing an army. So does Rappengrass. So does Danalustrous, if it comes to that. Where are all the Houses drawing their funds to support their legions of soldiers? From the lesser lords, of course. They are taxing their vassals and conscripting the workmen to toil in their armies. You can see why the lower gentry might be saying, ‘If I must finance this war, I want some recompense in return. I do not want to beggar myself for the honor of my marlord, or even my king.’”
Kirra took a deep breath. “There is so much unrest,” she said. “Everywhere. I don’t know that Baryn can look in all directions at once to see the potential dangers facing him.”
“No, and what if he dies?” Berric agreed. “For that’s what everyone’s afraid of, you know. That little princess can’t hold off an army if the marlords choose to raise one. No, and neither can that man, that regent Baryn’s picked out. What’s his name? The Merrenstow fellow.”
“Romar Brendyn.”
Berric nodded. “That’s it. I don’t see him uniting the marlords to any cause, even if it is in protection of the throne. The whole realm is uneasy, Kirra, as you say.”
“Then what’s to come next?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Pale Lady alone can guess.”
Beatrice stood up. “Dessert’s to come next,” she said in a firm voice. “And you can stop all this frightening talk. I don’t like to hear it. I can’t think anything will happen—not to Baryn, not to the princess. Let’s just have some pie now and think about happier things.”
“Yes, you can tell us what you’ve been doing lately that’s kept you from Danalustrous so long,” Berric said as his sister left the room. “Just back from Tilt now, aren’t you?”
Kirra widened her eyes. “How did you hear that story? My own father didn’t know it.”
He grinned. “I didn’t hear all of it. Just that you were wandering through northern parts at a time when no one was expecting you.”
“Was that news all over Storian while you were there?”
He shook his head. “One of Gregory Tilton’s vassals was present, and he drew me aside to ask why you’d been in Tilt. Apparently someone had been surprised to see you there, doing something you weren’t expected to do. And he wondered what your interest there had been. I told him I’d ask—but that I guessed you wouldn’t tell me.”
She laughed at that. “No, I don’t think I’m supposed to repeat the story. But I’m impressed that you know enough to ask!”
Beatrice reappeared, bearing a large fruit pie and smiling broadly. She would not want to hear any speculation about dangerous activities Kirra had engaged in. Berric said, “We’ll talk about this later. Bea, it looks like you’ve outdone yourself.”
Over dessert, Kirra related some of the more humorous tales of her recent travels, the ones she could repeat, which left out most of her trip last winter with Senneth and the others. Instead, she described bits and pieces of other events, the wedding in Forten City, a dinner in Ghosenhall, an evening she had spent in Kianlever.
“Oh, you’ll appreciate this story, Uncle! There was a little girl in Kianlever—had broken her leg and
both
her arms falling down a stairwell. She said her brother pushed her, and I wouldn’t have been surprised—he was a nasty little boy. Anyway, I was there two days after she fell and I put all the bones back together. I felt very good about it, too. I’ve never been as good at injuries as I am at sickness.”
Again, Beatrice and Berric exchanged glances. “What?” Kirra demanded. “What did I just say?”
Beatrice answered. “There’s a boy. The son of one of our farmers. He’s fallen sick and no one can help him. Your father sent out a physician, but he didn’t have an antidote. And there was a healer who passed through not a week ago—a mystic, like you. She couldn’t fix him. She said nobody could.”
Kirra felt her heart grow smaller. “What does he have? Did she name it?”
“Red-horse fever,” Berric answered.
Kirra nodded and felt all her pleasure in the evening drain away. “I’ve heard of that,” she said. “Even come across it once or twice. I haven’t met a mystic who’s been able to cure it.”
Beatrice’s voice sounded frightened. “None of you? Why would that be?”
Kirra shook her head. “I heard someone in Ghosenhall guess that it comes from somewhere else—Arberharst or Sovenfeld—that it’s a kind of fever brought in by one of the trading ships. Our magic only seems to work inside Gillengaria. The farther a mystic gets from these shores, the weaker his power gets. So if this is an infection brought from somewhere else—” She shrugged. “Our magic won’t help.”
“It’s a terrible disease,” Beatrice said. “The physician said it sometimes takes people as much as a year to die from it. Everyone he’s seen has died. And most of them have been children.”
“I’ve heard the same things,” Kirra replied.
“Well, then. We won’t ask you to see him. We thought—but if you can’t do any good—”
“I’m willing to go,” Kirra said. “To try. I just don’t want to get anybody’s hopes up.”
“You’re so strong,” Berric said hopefully. “Maybe you’ll be able to do something the others can’t.”
“I’ll try,” she said again. “When should we see him?”
They decided that Beatrice and Kirra would set out the next day, as it didn’t seem advisable for Berric to travel even a short distance from the house. Their moods had all been depressed by the topic of illness, but they revived a little upon eating more pie. The hour was late by the time Kirra started yawning.
“I’m sorry—goodness, that’s rude—but I think I’m getting tired.”
Beatrice was laughing. “Of course. You’ve been up since dawn, I imagine. I’ve put you in your old room, of course, and feel free to sleep in as late as you like.”
Within the half hour, Kirra found herself comfortably ensconced in the familiar room of heavily flowered wallpaper, multiple layers of patterned rugs, and an ornate bed piled high with pillows. She was undressed and under the covers in record time. The long day had made her truly exhausted; she was instantly asleep.
KIRRA and Beatrice rode out shortly after breakfast the following day, both of them enjoying the bright sunshine that was pleasant now but promised heavy heat before the month was out. Kirra laughed and talked easily, but she felt herself getting more tense as the thirty-minute ride progressed. During her roving days, she had spent some time studying traditional medicine at institutions in Ghosenhall and Rappengrass, and what she couldn’t repair with magic she often could cure with science. But red-horse fever was beyond her capabilities; she was pretty sure of that. Worse, it culminated in a gruesome, lingering death that was agony for everyone—patient as well as family.
She had heard horrifying tales of children and ancients being left to die, put out on a winter night or left behind on some infrequently traveled road. She supposed that poorer families, in particular, didn’t have the resources to lose a pair of healthy hands in the care of someone who would not recover; there were too many chores to do, too many other uses for that person’s energy. But there might have been another side to it—a man who knew he might linger in pain for another six months might ask to be put outside on an icy night, preferring the quick, hard death to the slow, impossible one. She didn’t know what she would choose if her own options were so grim.
They eventually arrived at a small, well-tended cottage, bright with flower gardens. It was owned by a couple who had rented the property for years from Beatrice and Berric. Kirra thought she might even have met them before.