Memory of Morning (29 page)

Lord North walked beside me. He was a very angry man.

Being near him was almost worse than the dread of what was ahead. His mood washed over me in waves that made me so nervous I finally had to break the silence. "What?"

"Mind your tongue," he snapped back.

"I think not." I ignored the quelling look he gave me down that imperious long nose of his. I glared back until he gave me what I accepted as an apologetic nod. "You had news you disliked before we left Mercy Home. It will be bad for everyone here if you let your temper cloud your judgment."

After a moment he gave an explosive sigh. "Can't argue with that, as much as I'd like to. The head of the Loudon home guard refused to send more people to the Eastside. What he's done instead is block all the bridges and put patrols on the river and canal. He intends to contain rather than control. He says it'll all burn itself out."

"Was he referring to the buildings, or the tension that caused all this?"

"Both, I imagine. It's been declared the guard and apprehenders are to protect the Westside rather than try to stop the poor neighborhoods from going up in flames. I do not particularly wish to go up in flames. Do you?"

"No, sir, I do not."

Though I knew that Jame Field would not approve of being sent away from hazardous duty, I was rather glad to have him out of danger, especially in the mood he'd been in when we'd parted.

"They're
marines.
They'll take their chances with the Red Fever."

"You shouldn't be enigmatic if you don't want curiosity." I held up a hand. "Not that you should indulge my curiosity. Nobles' secrets are dangerous for the likes of me to know."

He snorted. "The likes of you, indeed. You have no notion of your place in the scheme of things."

I snorted back. "A new-made squire's daughter? Oh, yes, very important. Don't tease me by hinting that I hold the keys to the world in my possession."

North waved our caravan onward, and drew me into the shadow of a building as they passed. From the corner of my eye I noticed Mistress Reed gesture to me to come along, but there was no breaking the hold North had on my arm. There was no moving away from his intensity.

"Blood holds the key to everything," he said. "Blood, and the Red Fever. You have to pay more attention to the fact that your blood is precious. You are young and attractive, along with having spirit and intelligence. Most importantly, you have a gift of life you will pass on to future generations. Consider how important that is, Seeker Cliff. Consider not who wants you, but who needs you. And recall that we nobles make a rivalry of collecting valuable objects."

I nodded as his words sank in. I was not surprised that someone of Lord North's rank knew about the gift we Cliffs and several other families carried in our blood. As I have said before, it is not a secret. And it had never occurred to me to think of the immunity from the plague having anything to do with me personally. It is not that I am naive and all that altruistic - I am as selfish, ambitious, and greedy as anyone else - it is that we Cliffs tend to think as a unit rather than about what's advantageous for our particular selves.

Whether Lord North was giving me a warning, making a threat, or giving advice, I did not have time to find out. The sound of marching feet came from behind us, ending this private moment.

"Get to your post," Lord North told me.

I went one way. He went to join up with the marines.

We set up in a looted shop a block off Madder Square, with guards posted outside to make sure it did not also become a burned shop. The silver-on-red medical aid banner we nailed up on the wall beside the door gave us even more protection, and soon drew injured and volunteer helpers to us. Not everyone in East Loudon had gone mad.

But fighting did come raging by our door. Looters ran by with full arms, and hauling carts of spoils. People shouted and waved torches. Gangs and individuals fought with fists and knives outside. Occasionally, I made out a gunshot punctuating the general roar.

I'd had practice in working in chaos, and was able to function without paying it too much mind. Mistress Reed, working beside me, did the same.

This was all the conversation we had time for, as a pair of bleeding men were carried inside. One was dead within a few moments. The other had his guts slashed open. I set to work doing what I could for him. In the background I heard the guards talking.

"No!" Mistress Reed called out. I heard her moving to the doorway. "I can sneak over and have a look at him. Hand me that medical bag."

She left. I finished a quick cleaning and stitching of the abdominal wound. "Stretcher!" I called when I was done. "Get him to Mercy Home as quickly as possible."

A nurse was waiting with a vinegar-soaked towel. She scrubbed blood off my hands while I looked around for my next task. "Mistress Reed isn't back yet?" I asked when I didn't see her. I didn't know how much time had passed since she'd gone outside. Maybe the itch of worry at her absence was my imagination. I moved toward the doorway, and was relieved to hear orders being shouted outside. The marines had made it to Madder Square. There were no patients waiting that the nurses couldn't handle, so I ventured outside to look for Mistress Reed.

The fires of burning buildings gave off enough light to see, though the shadows were deep and swayed eerily. I stepped into this shadow-dance and moved toward the square. I stayed close to the wall, aware of angry faces and wild eyes on people in the center of the street. There were not enough passersby coming from the square to be called a mob, not even a crowd, really. These were the sensible ones, I hoped, people who had listened when the marines told them to disperse and were on their way home. They were still angry. They could still turn dangerous. I didn't want to draw attention by moving through them in the opposite direction.

It took me longer than I liked to spot Mistress Reed bent over a patient on the opposite side of the street.

Only - she wasn't bent over the patient, she was sprawled on top of him. All over her back darker stains covered her gray dress. Dark marks that had nothing to do with the shadows.

I gasped. Then I ran.

I bumped into people, and pushed them aside. One lifted an arm to strike me, but a glare was all it took to stop her. She glanced to where I was heading, gave a horrified shriek, and ran away.

I dropped to one knee beside the bodies on the cobbles. My hands searched along Reed's back to find the extent of the wounds. In a moment I knew she was dead.

The man on the ground beneath Mistress Reed groaned. I started to move her body to get to him, but looked up as a moving shadow caught my attention. A man ran toward me, his arm raised. I jumped up, almost tripped on the hem of my dress, and this wobble saved me as a flint knife came down toward me. The air swished as the stone blade barely missed the side of my throat.

I grabbed Mistress Reed's medical bag, held it before me as shield. I caught a glimpse of the attacker's face in a patch of firelight. His features held no expression, but there was unstoppable fury in his huge eyes.

Madman with a knife,
the guard had said.
Cinder
, he should have said. Then maybe I wouldn't have ventured out on my own.

The force of the man's next stabbing swing nearly knocked the bag out of my hands. I ducked and swerved and backed a step at a time. The knife came down, and down. His arm rose again.

I heard the thud of a lead bullet penetrating bone and recognized the sound of a head shot. I was not surprised to see the large black hole in the center of my attacker's forehead as he fell slowly to the ground. There was very little blood, as the already dead have no need to bleed.

I kept hold of the slashed medical kit and went back to the wounded man lying on the street. Only to recognize him and freeze, staring, while anger boiled up from my gut, into my head. Outrage poured all through me. And hatred. It took all the strength I could muster not to lash out with a hard kick at Cleric Moor lying helplessly before me.

I couldn't blame the cinder - though I shouldn't call the madman by that common, rude term. It wasn't his fault he'd lived through a case of Red Fever only to have his intelligence burned away by the long, high fever brought by the plague. Most of these afflicted victims are quiet and harmless. A few turn violent. Succor Home, a few blocks away, took care of some of these dangerous cases. The dead man must have escaped in the riot, and found a knife. He couldn't help what he did then.

North looked down, first at the man he'd shot, then at Moor. "This is the cleric who shouted at me."

"He caused the riot," I said. "He's been working on it for weeks." I glanced at the fires climbing the sky. "He caused so much more."

"He's breathing. Shouldn't you be doing something?"

I stubbornly refused to move. "How much of the city is burning?" I asked in turn. "How many are dead? Homeless? Hurt? A good woman is dead. Let Moor die. I don't care."

North's hand stayed firmly locked around my upper arm. He wouldn't let me when I would have walked away. "You made a vow, Surgeon Cliff."

My gaze flashed angrily to his. "So?"

"Treat him," North said. "For the sake of the vow. I don't care if he lives. Tomorrow
you'll
care if you do nothing now and he doesn't make it."

I went down on my knees, and opened the medical kit. Before I went to work on Moor, I said. "He ought to be tried for incitement."

Chapter Forty-One

Cleric Moor did not die under my hands that night. I stitched him up, medicated him, and left it for others to care for him. The next day Gracers came to Mercy Home and took him to a private medical home. They went under the protest of the doctor on duty at the time. I might not have offered any argument that it was dangerous to move him, so I was glad the duty was someone else's.

I ended up grateful to Lord North for reminding me of my honor. Well, and saving my life.

As for Mistress Reed, the Gray Women took her body away and did not speak of her to any of the rest of us who worked at Mercy Home. Not that they ever spoke more than necessary anyway. Whatever funeral rites they performed for her passing were not for outsiders. So, the rest of us organized a Passing Song service for her in the goddess of death's chapel at First Temple, with Belladem's apprentice to sing the Last Song for her.

Several members of my family attended the rite, including my parents and Rassi's mother. My mother was among those who spoke memories of Mistress Reed, which is how I found out that she and the Gray Woman had exchanged letters and conversations discussing theology for many years. Jame Field also attended. We spoke briefly afterwards, and exchanged a stiff hug, but went our separate ways with no real communication. Just as well, as I sensed that any conversation would turn into an argument over the causes and results of the rioting. Some of the fires were still smoldering. The whole of Loudon reeked of smoke. There was martial law in effect in the Eastside now. A show of Imperial authority the Gracers had been working for was my suspicion, though of course I had no proof. If I had been truly cynical I would have suspected that Lord North had been part of getting the riot going. But I was not that cynical.