Firethorn (30 page)

So I kept watch on Galan, and as I did I marked how his face had changed. I could never have fixed my eyes on him so long if he were well; when he caught me looking, I'd blush and look away. Now he could not defend against my gaze.

His skin had slowly lost the brown tint of summer while we were at the Marchfield. He rode out all day, but under clouds and usually under armor. Still he had shown a ruddy health, but tonight his face was pale as vellum, and on this vellum was written, in inky shadows, the shape of his skull. I saw the fever creep upon him again until his hair was matted to his brow with sweat and red bloomed high on his cheeks. He turned his head from side to side. Muscles twitched in his arms and hands.

I kept vigil in my place beside the tent, by night and by day. Galan slept more than he woke. In his sleep he mumbled and cried out, but when he woke he was silent, his mouth an obdurate line. He said nothing even when Divine Xyster gave him a foul emetic to drink each day, forcing him to retch from the bottom of his belly when there was nothing to bring up. Afterward he'd lie back stricken with weakness, and I'd see his eyes glinting through slits, his hands restless and shaking among the bedclothes. His wound would seep again.

Divine Xyster burned herbs and chanted over Galan, and consulted with the other priests of Crux over the omens. Galan himself had made his wound more grievous, but the gods were troubled too. The Auspices were much alarmed by Crux Moon on the night of the sacrifices. He had squatted low in the sky, a baleful yellow, and the part missing from the full was on top, giving him an ungainly look. On the other hand, they'd seen a great many hawks circling over the Marchfield, a sign that the ancestors of the House of Falco were near—whether to guard Sire Galan, or to guide him through his dying, it was hard to say.

The Crux didn't come to see Galan; nor did Galan's former friend, Sire Alcoba. Sire Rodela came often. Sometimes he squatted by Sire Galan's pallet and told him the news, while Galan stayed unspeaking: Had he heard that Sire Limen's best horse had broken a leg? Or that some of Sire Alcoba's foot soldiers had trounced two of Ardor's drudges out behind the cesspits and left them for dead? And Sire Lebrel's bagboy had disappeared—killed in the feud or deserted, no one could say. Sire Rodela said the whole Marchfield was in a commotion and every man, even the lowliest foot soldier, had taken to wearing clan colors, a ribbon or a feather in the cap. The king's own clan, Prey, strutted about in force to keep the peace, as if their Blood was purer than the rest, and it wouldn't be long before such offense was given as would have to be answered.

And Sire Rodela told Galan, “Your sheath didn't come home again last night. Where do you suppose she's got to?” The armiger knew full well where I was; all Sire Galan's men knew by then, though they never discovered my peephole. Galan turned his back on Sire Rodela, and the armiger smiled.

But I also saw Sire Rodela sit by Galan's side while his master sank into Sleep's ocean and was visited by dreams that startled him into speech. The words Galan uttered in his sleep were thick and mangled, incomprehensible. The armiger had worry on his brow as he listened. He fidgeted at his beard, rolling his jowl and bristles between his thumb and finger, a habit he'd taken up after Sire Galan had burned off his hair, when he left off following Galan's clean-shaven fashion. His dark eyes fastened on Galan or somewhere beyond him.

I'd often wondered what Sire Rodela felt for his master, aside from envy, which seemed a kind of thwarted admiration. They jested and mocked each other harshly in a way that, among men, sometimes masks fondness. But if there was fondness, they hid it too well. What did affection matter, so long as the armiger was loyal? I thought he was; I hoped so. Now in the dark I saw something unexpected on Sire Rodela's face. It surprised me that the bastard's son showed such care for his better-born cousin.

Sire Galan had other visitors, but they went away unsatisfied. He wouldn't break his silence.

I too found nothing to say.

On the second morning Mai swept boldly as you please into our camp on her high wooden soles, Trave and Pinch on either arm. She sent Spiller to fetch me. When she saw me she clucked and fussed and swore she could hear my bones rattle. I admitted I had forgotten to eat much. It nearly undid me to see her. If I could have I'd have laid my head on her breast and wept like a child. There was no place to talk without being overheard, so we stayed in the tent feeding twigs to the brazier and spoke softly while Galan's men were near.

“I saw Sire Galan at the sacrifice, “ said Mai. “A feather could have knocked him over. They're laying odds against him in the market. Some give him a day; some a week.”

“He should never have got out of bed. He was mending, before. But he'll mend yet, you'll see.” I believed this too, for no cause but one: I couldn't imagine anything else.

“It was the first time I had a good look at him.”

“He has looked better,” I said.

Mai grinned. “Even so, I can see he's cut from good cloth.”

I swallowed the knot in my throat before saying, “He's cut to my measure, anyway.”

“I wouldn't mind taking his measure myself,” said Mai.

I answered quickly, “That would finish him for sure.”

She laughed that rumbling laugh of hers from deep in the belly, the one she had when the jests were especially pungent. “Never fear,” she said, holding up her hands. “He has troubles enough without me.”

I leaned close and lowered my voice to ask, “What do they say of him in the Marchfield? Do they think the sacrifices ill done?”

She said, “He never puts a foot wrong. If he'd taken it meekly when the Crux made him a foot soldier, he'd have lost all repute. Instead, he tied the Crux's beard to his mustache and the old man had to stand still for it—he couldn't very well say the gods didn't deserve such a generous propitiation.”

“But surely every man of the Blood who envied Sire Galan before will scorn him as soon as they see him walking.”

Mai shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he'll start a foolish fashion and the young men will jump off their horses and go strolling after him.” She paraded two fingers down the hill of her thigh. “Of course the
sober
men, the careful old miserly men—Sire Torosus for one—they say the Crux was too lenient and Sire Galan too extravagant. But what of it? The whores love Sire Galan, the hotspurs love him—it seems the gods love him.”

I
'
d
never wager against him.”

“To be lauded by fools is no great feat,” I said, “and no great comfort to me, either. He'll be killed with his first step on a battlefield. As well fight naked as without a horse.”

Mai sighed and took my hand between her own. Her fingers were warm and mine were cold. “Didn't your mother warn you when you were on the teat to stay away from warriors?”

I shook my head and couldn't say a word. We sat a moment in silence and I thought of what would become of Mai if Sire Torosus should die, leaving his wife high on a hill with no reason to love her husband's sheath and her husband's mudchildren. I squeezed her hand and said, “Good advice often falls on deaf ears, doesn't it?”

I looked around the tent. Noggin was sleeping behind some sacks of grain; perhaps he thought he was hiding, but his wheezing gave him away. Sire Rodela and Rowney were out. Trave and Pinch diced near the doorway. Spiller sat nearby with the leather tack and bards of the warhorses spread all around him. He was oiling the leather and polishing the metal fittings. The caparisons would be sent back to Sire Galan's home, as they were no use to him now.

I chose my next words with care, for Spiller could hear us. “Mai, do you remember that—that harlot you told me about—the one with the wasting sickness? How does she fare?”

“Well, she's not dead yet, though I can't imagine why not. I visited her yesterday and gave her a bit of medicine: barley water mostly, and the cleanest mountain water I could buy.”

“Barley water should be good for what ails her,” I said. “And what of her sour old aunt? Does she still tend her with such—devotion?”

“She's much distracted with other affairs. The whole brothel, you might say, is in an uproar.”

I lifted the grate on the brazier to feed the flames. We sat in a small puddle of heat. Day by day, the air by the sea grew more chill, the brazier more welcome. As I broke a branch, I hid my voice in the crack and rustle and said, as if indifferently curious, “I suppose the whore could be got cheap now. She looks worthless, but someone who could cure her could get quite a bargain.”

Mai laughed. “Do you plan to take up pandering?”

I rolled my eyes toward Spiller to caution her and said, “No. I just wondered what price she'd fetch these days.”

Mai looked at me askance. “Hasn't she cost enough already?” was all she said. I knew she took my meaning, even if my reasons puzzled her. She'd find out for me what price Ardor asked for a concubine now that she was used and had not worn well.

On the evening of the third day, Sire Galan asked for water in a grating voice. I sat up to put my eye to the peephole. I'd been lying under a bit of awning I'd made from two old sacks. A mizzling rain, driven sideways by the wind, stung the bare skin of my face and neck. Drops clung like sand flies to the fleece of my cloak.

Inside the tent was a haven of light and warmth. They'd put three braziers around Galan, for he had wandered from fever to chill and back again many times. Rowney jumped up with alacrity and took him a cup of water; he and Spiller had watched by turns. Divine Xyster squatted beside his patient to watch. Galan couldn't sit up by himself, so Rowney lifted his head and put the cup to his lips. Galan gulped three or four times—I could hear the dry working of his throat—before he began to cough. Divine Xyster rolled him on his side until the fit passed, then let him lie on his back again. He pushed Rowney away and gave Galan water himself, but slowly, one sip at a time.

When Galan had drunk his fill, Divine Xyster took his arm away and asked gruffly, “Are you with us now? I began to fear the shades would take you.”

Galan shook his head on the pillow. “The shades would have none of me,” he said. “They turned me back.”

Divine Xyster said, “It's just as well. The Crux would have clipped my ears if you'd died. But it wasn't your fatal hour. I thought you'd live—it was a clean wound for a belly wound. It will make a fine scar.”

“Just my luck,” Galan said. He turned his head toward the wall, toward me. His eyes closed in the sleep of a man so exhausted another word was beyond his strength.

Divine Xyster claimed he knew all along that Galan would live, but I'd seen the carnifex when he hadn't looked so certain, when he'd gotten up in the night to touch Galan's forehead and peer under the bandages, when he'd bidden his varlet to bathe him with cool water or Rowney to bring coals and furs and be quick about it.

When Galan had asked for water, I'd taken my first unfettered breath in days. Fear had so beset me during my vigil that when his breath came short, so did mine, and when he shivered, so did I. My neck was crooked, my back bowed, as if I'd been trussed up in my own sinews. The thought of that maiden—Vulpeja—stayed with me while Galan lay helpless. She was helpless too, surrounded by her loving enemies, and he was to blame for it, as he was to blame for the feud that had already taken lives. Beneath the fear, there was rage. The more I tamped it down, the more it gained strength.

How could I speak of her when he was downcast already? And I dreaded his fury. He'd brooded these last days away; surely he'd had time to contemplate how I'd failed him with my silence.

If I didn't speak now, I'd fail him again.

Deep in the night I heard Galan turn on his pallet from one side to another, and on his back again, and I guessed from his breathing that he was awake and suffering. All those men sleeping in the tent—the priests and their drudges, Galan's jacks—and yet Galan was alone. Pain is always borne alone.

I leaned my cheek against the tent wall and sent my whisper through the canvas. “Sire, you'll be coming home soon. On the morrow or the day after, I heard Divine Xyster say.”

“Are you there? I thought I heard rustling outside the tent, like a mouse in the wall, these last few days. Yet it wasn't like you to hold your tongue.”

“Nor like you, Sire.”

“You should have spoken.”

“Would you have answered?”

There was silence. I was so afraid he wouldn't speak again that I held my breath.

“I dreamed you were here,” he said at last. His whisper was just above a sigh.

“That was no dream.”

“So did you truly lie beside me in the tent, and wrap yourself around me, and give me a fever against the chill?”

“I fear I wasn't so bold.”

“I also dreamed you left me,” he said.

“I never left.”

“But I seem to recall I sent you away.” His words were sharp but the voice was wry.

Joy was rising in me. He didn't speak of my transgression; nor would I.Maybe the fever had burned his anger to ash. So his jealousy too had sometimes passed, quickly as a summer storm raking across the mountains.