Mood Riders (22 page)

Myrina followed Coronilla, striding over the rocks to rescue her and offer her own language skills to make the arrangements now that Coronilla had succeeded in her mission. But as Myrina spoke to them, explaining their purpose in detail, they looked uncertain and shook their heads.

“Bad time to ask anything of King Daris,” they said.

“Very bad time!”

“Queen lady Ira is sick and like to die.”

“King and queen have wanted child year after year, but none came; now at last son is born to them, six days ago, but Ira has terrible fever after childbirth and all say she will die. King Daris is distraught and will not look at child. He is very angry with everyone.”

Myrina frowned. She remembered the young queen whose wedding they’d danced at; Ira had been little more than a girl and the king a boy. Myrina stood on the hot sands, gazing uncertainly toward the Isle of Marble, surrounded by the pungent smell of hot seaweed. Reluctant to leave this pleasant spot, even though there were other pressing needs, she turned and looked back longingly at the green hillside sprinkled with fragrant, pink-flowered sage.

Then suddenly she smiled. “A remedy for childbed fever!” she murmured. “Ah, yes, Atisha would have known at once: the means of saving Ira is all around us. Get ready the boats—and, Coronilla, can you find good stabling for the horses? I shall be back very soon.”

While the fishermen and Moon Riders prepared to board the boats, Myrina wheeled Isatis around and cantered back to the hillside that sloped to the sea. It was covered with roses and sage plants. She dismounted and quickly stooped to pick handful on handful of fresh sage, then stopped for a moment’s thought and used her knife to dig up some of the plants, taking care not to injure the roots. She took off her cloak and made a bundle of the sharp-scented herbs, carrying them carefully to the waiting Isatis.

She arrived back to find the boats ready. “I swear I shall soon have Queen Ira back on her feet,” she told the fishermen.

They shrugged their shoulders and wished her luck; Moon Riders were known as good medicine women and perhaps if anyone could help the queen, it was this young warrior priestess who led her small gang with such confidence.

Leaving the horses in stabling, they crossed the stretch of water in the evening and arrived as the light was fading. Myrina told her gang to make camp beside a small spring that bubbled out of the hillside below the palace steps. She took the rooted sage plants from her bundle and handed them to Polymusa and Coronilla. “Plant these carefully around the spring and water them well,” she told them.

“Blessings of Mother Maa!” they whispered, giving Myrina the priestess’s salute.

She marched toward the heavily armed guards at the main gates of the palace, Yildiz following her like a dog.

Myrina turned to her, a question on her lips, but Yildiz forestalled her. “You are my Snake Mother—I go where you go,” she said.

Myrina bowed her head and smiled. There was no time to argue about it; she would very likely need some help and she couldn’t be sure that the palace servants would be of much use.

“Tell King Daris that Myrina the Moon Rider has come, bringing her healing magic,” she told the captain of the guards.

He had drawn his sword at their approach, but he replaced it at once and bowed respectfully. “Too late.” He shook his head.

“Is there life still?” she demanded.

The man shrugged his shoulders.

“If there’s life there’s hope,” she insisted. “What will the king say if he knows you have turned away his last hope?”

The other guards put away their swords, too. “Let her try,” they said.

The captain sighed and nodded. “There is nothing to lose by it,” he agreed. He opened the gate and led her inside and up the magnificent marble staircase to the queen’s bedchamber, Yildiz still following determinedly behind.

The captain knocked on the door and Daris himself opened it, his hair and clothes awry. “I said not to disturb us!” he growled.

Myrina pushed in front of the guard, taking the king by the shoulders as though she were his mother or aunt. “I am Myrina the Moon Rider,” she told him. “I danced at your wedding feast. Now I bring you our magic woman’s medicine. I can help!”

He stared at her for a moment, too surprised to be angry; then at last he nodded and pulled her into the chamber.

Ira, the young queen, lay on an elaborate gilded bed hung about with gossamer drapes in rich colors. She muttered through dry lips, her eyes rolling, her face puffy and red and her skin mottled. As she turned this way and that she threw off her soft, woolly sheepskin covers. Waiting women fussed and fretted all about her, offering wine, strange smelling powders and rich jewels to touch.

Myrina went straight to the young woman’s side and put her hand on Ira’s burning forehead; then she turned back to the boylike king and grabbed his arm. “I have the medicine that’s needed here in my magic woman’s bundle,” she told him. “But I must have peace and quiet if I am to make my healing work and I must be left alone with my assistant here.”

Daris stared at Myrina and Yildiz again, still having little idea who they were, but somehow Myrina’s strength of purpose cut through his confusion and he imperiously waved the waiting women out.

“You, too,” Myrina told him.

But he objected to that and sat down quietly at the end of his wife’s bed, shaking his head like a determined but disobedient child. “I stay!”

“Oh well . . .” Myrina had no more time to waste. “You must help us then.”

He looked up, surprised at that, but then nodded.

“Two pots of water!” she demanded. “Some boiling water and some as cold as you can make it, then I must have cotton cloths torn into strips! Quickly! Do you understand? Water: hot and cold! And some rose water!”

King Daris strode to the doorway and shouted orders. Meanwhile Myrina felt Ira’s brow again, then delicately touched her cheeks and breasts. “Can you brew a strong sage potion?” she asked Yildiz, opening her bundle of sage and tearing up some of the leaves.

The girl nodded. A waiting woman appeared nervously at the chamber doorway; she carried a small brazier with glowing charcoal, all set in a tripod. Yildiz took over at once and set about steeping the herbs in a pot. Another waiting woman appeared with a small beaker of cold water and a jeweled jar of rose water.

“What is this?” Myrina demanded, pointing to the beaker.

“Cold water!” the woman whimpered.

“No, no, no!” Myrina shook her head with impatience. “I need buckets of cold water, buckets of it.”

At that the young king rushed out of the room, returning almost at once with a huge ornamental golden ewer filled with cold water.

“That’s more like it,” Myrina encouraged.

The waiting women fled once more, but hovered in the doorway. They were shocked to see Myrina remove the fleecy bedcovers, then look swiftly about the room and reach up to rip down the queen’s fine bed-hangings. She poured the whole jar of rose water into the ewer, then stooped to soak the torn drapes in it. The whole room was at once filled with a fresh, gentle scent that reminded them all of childhood days in a garden.

Myrina squeezed out the cold, dripping drapes and began wrapping them about Ira’s fevered limbs. Then she took the knife from her belt, making the women gasp with fear. King Daris hushed them. He’d never seen a woman work so fast and efficiently and by now he was willing to put his faith in this strange intruder. Myrina used her knife to fish out a soggy wad of boiling sage from Yildiz’ brew.

“This is fine medicine,” she announced.

She carried it to the ewer and cooled it, then squeezed it out and bound the damp compress of herbs gently about Ira’s swollen breasts with another torn drape. Almost at once the young queen was soothed, and she responded by ceasing her continuous tossing and turning.

Understanding better now, Daris took a jeweled knife from his own belt and began to split and tear up the linen coverlet, then, rolling up his fine embroidered sleeves, he soaked the strips in the golden ewer, passing them over to Myrina as soon as they were ready.

“Yes, yes,” she encouraged. “Well done!”

At last the young woman’s body was covered with cooling cloths and damp herbs. Myrina looked up to call Yildiz, but saw that the girl was already approaching the bed with a golden goblet of warm, aromatic sage tea and a gilded spoon.

“Honey!” Myrina commanded, sending the waiting women scattering again, to return quickly with a simple stone pot of honey. “Now you’re getting the idea,” she approved.

Myrina carefully fed Queen Ira with small spoonfuls of honeyed sage tea. Now the bedchamber was pungent with the sharp, clean smell of the herb as well as roses. At last she stood back. “Well . . . now we must just wait and be patient,” she told the king.

He still refused to leave and throughout the night he dozed, exhausted, on a couch while Myrina and Yildiz worked together to feed the queen more sage and honey tea, regularly changing the cooling cloths.

As morning light came in through the palace windows, Daris awoke and saw that both his mysterious helpers had fallen asleep on cushions beside the bed. Ira lay quite still, but the bandages had been removed, and she was covered with a light, dry linen sheet. He stood shakily and went to bend over her. Her skin was pale and clear again and her face had lost all the red swellings, though her lips were still dry and flaky. He saw that she breathed easily, and as he bent over her she opened her eyes and smiled with recognition. He snatched up her hand in his, lowering his lips to kiss it, then began to cry with relief, howling freely like a baby. “Ira . . . my Ira . . . safe. She is safe!”

Both Myrina and Yildiz woke with a jolt at the sound of his sobbing. But when they saw that Ira’s fever had gone, and that it was joy that made him cry so loudly, they hugged each other.

“We make a good team, you and I,” Myrina praised, and for the first time since the massacre Yildiz really smiled and looked happy.

D
ARIS’S CRYING BROUGHT
back the waiting women; they ventured nervously into the royal chamber, but when they saw how well Ira looked, their faces broke out into quiet smiles and sighs of relief.

Myrina gave a few more orders, suggesting that honey-stewed apples and some fresh eggs would make a good meal and nourish the newly recovering queen. A troubling thought had come into her mind at brief moments during the night, but she’d been too busy to stop her work and ask about it. Now, once again, it came to her. She looked around the bedchamber in a puzzled way, frowning and still seeing no sign of a cot or cradle. She spoke gently, fearing that perhaps it had not survived: “Where is the baby?”

The waiting women said nothing and hung their heads.

Daris shrugged. “Gone to a wet nurse,” he told her, surprised that she should ask.

Myrina shook her head and folded her arms across her chest in determination. “That will not help this new mother,” she insisted. “Bring the child here at once. The child needs its mother’s milk, and the feeding will help keep the fever away and make the queen get better.”

“But all the palace children are fed by nurses; it is too lowly a job for the queen.”

Myrina sighed, wondering how to explain, but Ira, who was now sitting up propped on pillows, came to her aid. “I do not consider it too lowly a job for me,” she whispered, her voice still faint.

The young king scratched his head and bent low to kiss his wife’s hand again. Then he called to the women, “Well, what are you waiting for? You’d better fetch the child at once.”

Ira put the tiny boy to her breast, and though she was still weak and sore, she smiled happily as he began to suck strongly. King Daris watched them both with a foolish smile of deep contentment on his face as they snuggled together beneath the ravaged bed-hangings.

At last he turned to Myrina. “I will do all you say,” he told her. “Everything. Stay here and be our royal healing woman. I will give you gold and jewels, a fine carved litter and slaves to carry you about.”

“No, no.” Myrina shook her head. She yawned again, for she was now truly exhausted and her mind a little confused. Then the real purpose of her visit came back to her with a wave of clarity and she remembered that there was little time to spare. “No,” she said firmly. “I cannot stay, but . . . if you think I have given you good service this night, then you have it in your power to repay me well, for you have something that I want very much.”