However, she did not recognize the woman who came out to greet them, her face still with long-held grief, her hair pulled back into a knot clearly designed to keep it out of her way. She said a quiet hello and asked them to tie up their own horses, as both the boys were out helping their father in the field. With a word of thanks, she accepted the basket Beatrice offered and led them both inside.
The sick child lay in a narrow bed in a small room at the back of the house. Kirra was glad to see the window was open to let in the fresh air and brisk sunshine. The boy, who looked to be about ten, was propped up in bed, playing with some string game that changed patterns as he moved his fingers. His face was pale and all his bones looked sharp. He was concentrating very hard on the string.
“Davie, here’s a mystic come to see if she can help you any,” his mother said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It’s serra Kirra, Lady Beatrice’s niece. Isn’t that something, a fine serramarra coming all the way here to see you?”
Davie glanced up without much interest. His eyes were rimmed with red, and a little pus had gathered in the corners. “Hullo,” he said. “I don’t think you can help me.”
Kirra pulled up a chair and sat next to him. “Maybe not,” she said. “But maybe I can make you feel a little better while I’m here. Do you mind if I touch you? Sometimes that tells me what’s wrong inside someone’s body.”
He shrugged and kept folding and refolding his string. Kirra leaned a little closer and ran her hands lightly over his shoulders, his head, his chest, his legs. She could feel the fever running through his body, just under the skin; she could sense it like a skein of venom threading its way through the red weave of blood. There should be a way to change it, she thought, alter its composition from poisonous to pure. But she could not locate its source, could not tell what infected organ pumped out a continuous deadly stream. She pressed harder on Davie’s stomach, poked a finger between his ribs, but the disease remained elusive. She could not identify or dissolve it.
“How long have you been sick?” she asked him, but he didn’t answer.
“Three months,” his mother said at last.
“Anyone else in the house come down with symptoms?”
“No. But a young girl over near the village . . . She died last week. She’d been sick a little longer than Davie. They didn’t know each other, though. Davie said he didn’t even know what she looked like.”
Kirra nodded. “It doesn’t appear to be contagious. I’ve heard of cases where several people in a family all got sick, or in a town, but it doesn’t seem like it passes from person to person the way some fevers do.”
“Some people think so, though,” the mother said darkly.
Keeping her hands on the boy, Kirra glanced over her shoulder at the mother. “What do you mean?”
The woman gestured toward the window. “Some of our neighbors. When they heard Davie was sick, they wanted us to take him to the island.”
“The island?” Kirra wondered if that might be some countryman’s euphemism for death. “Where’s that?”
Beatrice answered. “Off the lower coast of Danalustrous, there’s a little place called Dorrin Isle. Mostly fishermen live on it. About six months ago, some folks set up a community there for people sick with red-horse fever. I think a couple dozen patients are there by now, some with their families, some by themselves. The physician told me he and some of his students were going to go out there and spend a week or two.”
“Even though they can’t cure the disease?”
Beatrice was quiet a moment. “Not to cure,” she said. “To study the bodies afterward. For the students to learn—about cadavers.”
Kirra was filled with a welling of distaste that felt as toxic as the fever in this boy’s body. “That’s horrible.”
“Maybe they’ll learn something,” Davie’s mother said. “I wouldn’t mind so much if something good came out of it.”
She was right, but even so, Kirra found the very idea opportunistic and coldhearted. She turned back to concentrate on Davie. Well. She could not reverse the fever, she couldn’t even find its source, but she might be able to mitigate its effects, at least for a short time. She concentrated again on the silver current of corruption running through the boy’s veins and imagined it turning pale, turning pink, evaporating. She put her hand over his eyes, forcing him to close them and abandon his string game, and she pushed the fever down, chased it out of his skull. She laid a fist on his chest and squeezed her fingers tight, and the cramped bundle of his heart imitated her, shaking off its sluggish rhythm. The lungs she cleared with a sweep of her fingers. The accumulated pain she eradicated with a touch of her palm upon his throat.
When she lifted her hands, Davie was staring up at her, his busy fingers lax in his lap. “What did you do to me?” he demanded.
“What? What did you do?” his mother repeated fearfully.
Davie sat up straight in bed, twisted his head from side to side. “I feel funny—I feel
good.
What did you do to me?”
“By the Pale Lady’s silver tears,” the woman whispered. She was crying. “You’ve cured him.”
Kirra stood up, her sober face enough to make the woman reassess. “I haven’t. I don’t even know if I’ve bought him much time. I’ve taken away the pain, slowed down the infection, maybe. But it’s still in there. It’ll go to work on him again. But he’ll feel better for a few days, at least. It’s all I could do.”
Davie was actually on his feet, laughing at the way his wasted legs buckled under him. “Mama, look, I haven’t been able to walk for three weeks! And I’m hungry. What’s in the kitchen?”
His mother gazed at Kirra and then at her son, halfway across the room now, his hand out to the wall for support. “No one else was able to do even this much for him. No one could even take away the pain. How can I thank you?”
Kirra shook her head. “Don’t thank me. He’ll be sick again soon. But maybe—for a few days—”
“He’ll be my boy again,” she said. “My boy.”
And without another word to her visitors, she followed her son out of the room, catching up to him in the hall and laughing. Kirra saw her put her arm around him and guide him toward another room. The kitchen, no doubt. Where she would make his favorite meal for him one more time and watch him while he bolted down every bite. And maybe tonight, when his brothers came home, he’d wrestle with them before the fire, or race them across the field. And maybe, so happy that her son was out of pain for a day, the woman would turn to her husband for the first time in months, offer him the affection she had been too tense to summon up since the child fell sick. Maybe the respite, though brief, was bountiful. Maybe it would ease the whole family through one week, or two, give them back a measure of peace, remind them that love could be free of pain.
Maybe not. Maybe the gift would be unbearably bitter as it broke in their very hands, as the illness returned with redoubled force, choked the child’s lungs, twisted his limbs. Maybe magic was a bright sparkling lure that drew the unwary deep into haunted and inescapable woods, where monsters and demons lay in wait. Maybe it would have been better for Kirra not to have come here, better for her not to possess magic at all.
Dark thoughts. Kirra shook her head and tried to clear the gloom from her mind. “I guess we’re not needed here any longer,” she said, trying to make her voice light. “I suppose we’ll show ourselves out.”
SHE stayed another day with Berric and Beatrice. Nothing else so dramatic occurred, though she and Beatrice rode out that afternoon and met a few of the other tenants. Berric had improved rapidly overnight and was even able to navigate the stairs without much trouble, marveling aloud at the impressive magic Kirra had in her hands.
“I can’t cure everyone,” she said when the topic came up again at breakfast as she prepared to leave. “I didn’t cure Davie.”
“Still, I envy you,” Berric said. “I wish I had your kind of magic.”
“You do, a little,” she said. “When I was a girl, you were something of a shiftling.”
Berric grimaced. “I could alter my appearance a bit—change my hair color. Make myself look thinner. Not much else. And I can’t even do that anymore.” He held out his hand as if to prove something, so Kirra obediently looked down at his fingers. “See? Nothing. I can’t even make my age spots disappear.”
Beatrice sighed. “I never even had enough magic to alter the expression on my face,” she said. “That would be a useful skill, I always thought! Change your grumpy look to a happy one. You could still be grumpy, but no one would know it.”
Kirra smiled. “I’ll have to try that. Perhaps at the banquet next week. I’ll show everyone a smiling face, but I’ll only be able to fashion it by magic.”
They parted with many expressions of affection, and Kirra promised to visit next time she was in Danalustrous. “You’re leaving again soon, then?” Berric asked, waving to her from the porch as Kirra sat astride her horse.
Kirra laughed. “I imagine so. I planned to stay a few months, but already I can tell—” She shrugged. “But I’ll try not to be gone so long this time.”
“We’ll look for you when we see you again,” Beatrice said.
“I’m sure it will be sooner than you think.” Another wave, a nod to her escorts, and she was on the road back to Danan Hall. Not as glad to be returning to her father’s house as she was glad simply to be in motion again.
CHAPTER
9
A
S far as Kirra was concerned, nothing of much interest had transpired while she was gone. The house was still in a state of constant turmoil as servants and tradesmen worked toward readying the house for the grand event. Donnal was still gone. Casserah was still too busy being fitted for gowns and writing thank-you notes for her many birthday gifts to have much time for her wayward older sister. Kirra thought she very well could have stayed with Berric and Beatrice another few days and no one would have noticed she was gone.
But she was glad enough to be at Danan Hall a few days later when a package arrived from Ghosenhall, accompanied by a letter from Cammon. She had never seen his handwriting before and couldn’t guess who had written to her until she flipped the page over to see the signature on the bottom. Even more mystified, she turned the letter back over to read it.
The letter began without any formal salutation.
Justin would not rest easy until I assured him you had made it safely to Danalustrous. But I told him when you arrived—yes, I
can
tell such things, even from this far away!—and he finally relaxed. A few days later, a package arrived from Merrenstow, addressed to Justin and filled with presents from Romar Brendyn. Wasn’t that kind? He sent Justin the most beautiful dagger—I don’t
’t
think any of the other Riders has a blade so fine, and Justin will not step out of the barracks without it. He sent me a shirt such as the great lords wear—the finest material I’ve ever had against my skin. I’m torn between never wanting to take it off and never wanting to put it
on,
because I don’t want to ruin it! I suppose he thought I was very ragged while we traveled. Little does he know that I always look so disreputable, but I wrote him right off to thank him anyway.
The last package was addressed to Donnal. Justin and I couldn’t figure out how to open it without leaving behind any traces, so I have no idea what’s in it. I wish I were better at
things,
but it seems I can only read people. Anyway, we’ve sent it on for you to give to Donnal.
There was nothing for you in the packet, but maybe he sent you a gift directly. Or maybe he thought such a thing would not be appropriate—I never know what sort of behavior is considered proper among the aristocracy. But we thought Donnal should have this right away. We have no idea when you’ll be in Ghosenhall again—though
I,
at least, wish you were back right now! Justin doesn’t seem to care one way or the other.
Kirra could imagine Cammon laughing as he wrote that last line, and the thought made her own face brighten with a smile. Though nothing else about the letter amused her so far. Gifts from Romar Brendyn! Kind, indeed, especially since the two that had been described were thoughtful presents chosen with a real eye toward pleasing the recipients. She was dying to know what was in Donnal’s package and hoped a respect for privacy would prevent her from opening it before he returned.