Deepwood: Karavans # 2 (29 page)

“The river,” Jorda said instantly. “It must be, with
the bathing tent destroyed. O Mother, Alisanos is now very close to the river, and she doesn’t know it!”

The courier nodded, gathering lead-rope rein. “I’ll go ahead now. Follow if you can.”

“Go on, Beth.” Jorda looked again at Davyn. “We shall speak of this more, this tale you tell, but just now this is more pressing.”

The words fell out of Davyn’s mouth before he could rethink them. “One? One woman against four children and a wife? A
pregnant
wife?”

The karavan-master’s brows knit together. “This isn’t a competition. Best you remember that.”

Davyn closed his eyes, ashamed, wishing he could unsay the words. But it was too late. The karavan-master was already in motion, striding across the grove as he shouted for Janqeril, the horse-master. Later, then. He would apologize later.

Later, yes, an apology. Yet a tiny part of Davyn’s heart, regardless of the shame, told him that one woman’s welfare was
not
after all equal to the loss of a man’s children and his pregnant wife.

A
UDRUN, sitting cross-legged beside the cairn of black melons, watched as Rhuan began the slow, painful process of sitting up. She had suggested he not do so; he insisted he should. So she clamped her mouth shut and did not so much as wince in sympathy as he grunted and swore his way through the activity. Upright, holding his torso rigidly still, he saw his leggings for the first time in days.

He was startled. “What did you do?”

“What did I do where?”

He pointed. “My leggings.” He peeled back one of the flaps and bared a claw-punctured leg, but seemed far more concerned about his knife-slit clothing. “Both of them?”

“One does prefer to tend wounds in the open,” she noted, “as it’s a trifle difficult to manage if the patient is wearing vastly ornamented leather trews cut a little on the snug side to begin with.” She recalled that on first meeting Rhuan when she accosted Jorda about
letting their family join the karavan, she had assumed the guide was vain because of all the ornamentation in braids and on garments. Apparently that assessment was correct. “They’re just leggings, Rhuan. It’s not a fatal thing. Punch a few holes, cut off some of the fringe, lace the flaps back together.” Audrun shrugged. “I don’t know why it should matter. Your tunic has been used for everything from a sling for a newborn to a temporary clout.” She caught his expression of startled horror. Well, she truly hadn’t meant to tell him the last part. Probably no one wanted to put on a tunic that reeked of urine, even be it from a newborn. She swiftly changed the subject. “I did the best I could, but it would be wise to clean those wounds with something other than water and muslin. Is there a plant you can point out that I can use for a proper cleansing?”

He was still examining his leggings, looking for all the world as if he were in mourning. After a moment he scowled at her. “You’ve unbraided my hair, sliced my leggings to bits, and turned my tunic into a latrine. Is there any other damage you would care to do?”

“Oh, best you not ask that,” she replied promptly, “else I will do worse. Which my family well knows.” But she would not dwell on family, not until she had privacy. Instead, she arched her back, stretched her arms, and rolled her head on its neck. The movements dropped his knife from her lap to the ground.

The sound he made seemed to be one of disbelief
coupled with outrage.
“What have you done to my knife?”

“Oh.” She glanced sidelong at the rock she had employed as a hammer. “I used it to open the melons.”

“Used it
how?”
He reached, stopped short, thought better of it as the movement rekindled pain. Gritting his teeth, he put out his hand, palm up. “Please.”

“As a chisel.” Audrun picked up the weapon and handed it to him. “Will you hold mourning rites for this, too?”

He looked over the knife, then glared at her. “Why didn’t you just smash the
melon
with the rock? You wouldn’t have needed my knife for that!”

“Oh,” she said again. Yes, she could have done that very thing. Had it occured to her. Chagrined, she offered, “I can lace up your leggings, if you like.”

He ignored the offer, very intently examining the damaged end of his horn-handled knife with deep consternation. He glanced up at her as if he wished to say something less than polite, but he didn’t. He stared at her a moment, then began to laugh. He winced and clutched at his abdomen, but the laughter continued, if somewhat more muted.

“What?”
Audrun demanded.

Laughter died to a grin. Dimples appeared along with a flash of teeth. “We are both of us unfit for polite company. You’ve hacked apart your underskirt, torn open your bodice, have welts and cuts all over your legs and a few on your face, seasoned with sap. And
then, well … there’s your hair.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure it won’t all have to come off.”

Her hands flew to her head. “My
hair?”

“Ah,” he said, nodding solemnly. “Now she understands.” He slid his damaged knife back in its sheath. Audrun was quite certain she would never be trusted with it again. “So. Melons.” He eyed her black-skinned cairn. “Perhaps tomorrow I can find something else.”

“Tomorrow?” She was surprised. “You aren’t well enough for that.”

“I heal very quickly. That is, if women don’t poke their fingers into my gut.” He surveyed the bandage wrapped around his torso. No new bloodstains. “Tomorrow, though. Not today.” He shook back a curtain of braid-crimped coppery hair, looking past her to the charred dreya ring. The humor left his eyes. He said something quietly in a tongue she didn’t recognize, then looked at her. “Rites,” he said. “That first, tomorrow.”

She nodded acknowledgment, then gathered the two halves of the melon she’d been using as bowls and rose. “I’ll go for water.”

He raised his voice as she walked away. “About now, I’m wishing we had spirits!”

“The better to clean your wounds with, yes,” she threw over her shoulder.

Much affronted by that blasphemy, he shouted after her as she stepped into the shadows, “I meant the better to
drink
with!”

Which did not in the least surprise her.

BETHID DISCOVERED THE red cloth hanging on a bush down by the river’s edge, near the pool used when folk wished not to pay coin to use the public bath tent. Of more concern, however, was that Ilona’s soiled clothing was there as well. That she should change into fresh garments after finishing a bath was not in the least unexpected, but finding the others abandoned made no sense. Bethid slid off Churri’s bare back and squatted to get a closer look at the stained skirt and tunic. She found nothing untoward. And the rope? She had no idea what that was for. Possibly someone else had left it.

A thought occured, one so obvious that Bethid rolled her eyes in self-derision. She should have known the hand-reader might seek brush other than where people generally left their clothing as they bathed behind which she could relieve herself. “Ilona? Are you here?”

No response of any kind.

She heard approaching hoofbeats and, as expected, Jorda arrived on one of the draft horses. Once he reined in, she gestured at the soiled clothing. “I found these. But no sign of Ilona. I called for her, but received no answer.”

Jorda, frowning, contemplated the red cloth and clothing a moment. Then he said, “I don’t like this, Beth. Fever can do odd things to people, and Ilona hasn’t been herself since she was injured.”

“I know she’s very concerned about not being able to read hands.” Bethid glanced at the grass on which she stood. “Jorda, I can try tracking her. The grass is tall here; it should be easy enough to find where her steps have pressed it down. Will you hold Churri for me and follow along while I track on foot?”

Jorda, nodding, accepted the lead-rope once the end was untied and took two wraps around his saddle horn, snubbing the gelding up fairly short. Bethid searched the verge until she found grass pressed flat, noted that indeed a faint series of indentations progressed along the riverbank, and began to follow it. Jorda fell in behind, keeping the horses well back.

The river swung right in a lazy curve, but the footprints did not follow it. They led Bethid directly to the west, into the open grasslands. Within a matter of moments, not far from the edge of the deepwood’s new incursion, Bethid saw Ilona. The hand-reader was walking back the way she had come.

“Ilona!” Bethid broke into a jog. “Ilona—are you all right?”

Ilona looked up and stopped. She waited until Bethid reached her before speaking. Puzzled, she said, “I’m not sure how I got here.”

“Here? You walked. I tracked you.”

Ilona’s frown deepened. “I have no memory of it. I recall bathing in the pool, no more.” She glanced back toward the forest’s edge, none too distant.

“Why in the world would I go
toward
Alisanos?” A brief shiver traveled through her body as she turned
back to Bethid. “Have I been gone so long a search party was necessary?”

“It’s just me,” Bethid told her, “and Jorda. And no, you haven’t been gone all that long, but when the Sister couldn’t find you at your wagon, she was concerned. So were we.” Before Ilona could protest, Bethid placed a hand against her brow. “But you don’t feel fevered.”

“I feel fine … well, as fine as one can be with a broken—O Mother, what did I do?”

Bethid understood the question and concern at once. Ilona’s left arm was naked of splint and wrappings. “Well, we can resplint it when we get you back to your wagon.”

Frowning, Ilona raised her left arm. She made a fist and rotated her hand, then looked at Bethid in astonishment. “There’s no pain at all. It feels like it always did, before I broke it.”

“Bones don’t heal that quickly,” Bethid said. “It will be weeks before you’re out of the splint—or
should
be out of the splint, that is.” She stepped closer. “May I look?”

Ilona offered her arm. Bethid very gently took it into her hands and began to press carefully in different places along the forearm. She expected Ilona to discover that the arm did in fact hurt, but no such comment was forthcoming. They looked at one another with identical expressions of confusion.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Ilona repeated. Then she looked beyond Bethid and her mount. “Here’s Jorda.”

Jorda reined in as he came up on them. His eyes were only for Ilona. “What happened?”

She shook her head. “I have no recollection of anything. Just the river. Jorda …” She lifted her left arm once more. “Somehow, I’ve healed.”

He scowled as he saw the arm absent of splint. “It’s too soon for you to be healed. Why did you take the splint off?”

She shook her head again. “I have no memory of doing so. But it’s
healed,
Jorda.” She rotated a fist again. “Ask Bethid.”

Bethid nodded as Jorda looked to her for confirmation. “It certainly appears so. When I examined it, she said there was no pain.” She took Churri’s lead-rope from Jorda and knotted the end into the gelding’s halter.

“It’s whole,” Ilona insisted. “There is no reason for me to claim it’s healed if it’s not. By the Mother, I swear it feels fine.”

Still frowning, Jorda looked beyond his diviner to the edge of the forest. “How far did you go, ’Lona?”

She glanced back a moment, then met Jorda’s eyes. “I don’t know. All I remember is bathing in the river.” Her tone went dry as she glanced down at herself and smoothed the fresh tunic with her right hand. “But apparently at some point I changed clothes, for which I’m most glad.” She encircled her forearm with her right hand as Bethid had, moving her hand up and down the forearm, squeezing as she did so. “Truly, it feels whole. There is no pain. But I have no explanation for it.”

Jorda glanced at Bethid. “Fever?”

“None that I could tell.”

The karavan-master sighed deeply, then looked back at Ilona. “Healed or no, it would put me at ease if you returned to your wagon to rest. Ride behind me, if you would. I’ll deliver you.” He glanced at Bethid as he dismounted. “I am remiss—I should have collected her other clothing at the river. Would you bring them?”