The Silvered (54 page)

Even frowning slightly, the redhead was gorgeous. Reiter hoped Sergeant Black had kept the men under control on the way back to Karis.

“I’m a Healer, Majesty. If you want a demonstration, I’ll heal.”

“Excellent.” He pulled the lever back.

Reiter watched the women watching the emperor until the wall closed and he was grateful for the extra moment the fabric screening him provided when the emperor threw himself up out of the chair and turned.

“I knew, of course, what each of my mages could do. I had Lieutenant Geurin courier me the color of their eyes as soon as he reached civilization, thus the color-coded clothing so each craft could be identified from a distance. I’ve researched each of the six crafts. You’re wondering why I asked then, aren’t you? I was curious,” he continued without giving Reiter a chance to answer. Reiter closed his mouth and moved aside, to give the emperor room to get past him and down the stairs. “Curiosity, according to my priest, is my greatest failing. I wanted to know if they’d lie. I can’t abide liars and, more importantly, I don’t trust liars. This kind of cooperation indicates they can be taught, and I’m so very pleased that they answered the question as asked instead of spouting foolish defiance.” He chuckled, a warm, almost fond sound. “I suspect that I’ll find when I read the translation that the first to speak wasn’t going to make the rosebush bloom, but rather do something rude with it.”

Reiter suspected the same.

“If there’s to be a test, I will, of course, use the Healer-mage. Easiest to control and absolutely safest for bystanders.” He turned and smiled as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Given that I’d be one of the bystanders. I know I told you that I wear protections, but in all the years I’ve been searching, the best I’ve been able to find is a charm to protect against being put to sleep but nothing that protects from healing as a whole.” Reiter fell in behind his left shoulder and they walked toward the main corridor where Tavert would be waiting. “I’ve never found even so much as a scrap of writing that suggests such a thing exists. Do you know why, Captain?”

The pause suggested that this time the emperor wanted an answer. “Because healing can’t be used to harm, Majesty?”

“That’s it exactly. And, credit where credit is due, the Soothsayers spoke of the Aydori mages ten, no just over eleven years ago, so I’ve had plenty of time to prepare. In your report, didn’t you say you suspected your mage was healing herself, forcing the drug out of her system?”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“You must observe the experiment, then.” He seemed so energized by the prospect, Reiter had to hurry to keep up, in spite of his longer stride. “For comparison’s sake. Tavert!”

She was waiting with half a dozen others when he emerged. “Majesty.”

“Paper and pen!” He scribbled a note, smeared a little ink on his cuff, blew on the paper to dry it, folded it, and handed it back to her. “North wing.”

Tavert handed it back over her shoulder where it seemed for an instant no one would take it. Finally, a skinny man Reiter thought was a distant Imperial cousin stepped forward and bowed.

“It would be my pleasure to do your bidding, Majesty.”

The emperor ignored him. “Captain, you’ll have just enough time to go back to the Archive and ask the Lord Warder for the fork.”

D
ANIKA HAD ASSUMED she was being taken from her cell for either another unnecessary session with the midwife—clearly designed to teach them they were livestock with no self-determination—or to another conversation with Leopald. When she saw Jesine already standing next to the examination table, she hid a smile.

Leopald had taken the bait sooner than she’d anticipated. He was clearly used to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. She couldn’t influence him to do something he didn’t already want to do, so she should’ve assumed that once the idea of combining mage-craft and technology took hold, he’d immediately act on it. His questions had identified Jesine as a Healer-mage, the only craft with no aggressive potential, which made her the safest of the five were he to remove one of the nets.

In order to escape, they needed to know how to get the nets off safely

Leopald was about to show them.

Jesine held out her hands, and Danika walked into her embrace.

The wall was already open, the emperor smiling down at them,
apparently pleased to see them together, his foot still propped on the pelt of a father, brother, son. When Danika prayed to the Lord and Lady, and she prayed more frequently here than she ever had at home, she prayed for a few moments alone with Leopald as they left the palace. Just long enough to move the air from his lungs.

“It has recently occurred to me that I’ve no need to wait until you’ve whelped before I begin doing simple tests.” Eyes gleaming, he leaned forward. His lips were dark enough that Danika wondered, not for the first time, if he stained them. “You…” He pointed at Jesine. “…will be freed from the suppression artifact and then you’ll be given an opportunity to use your mage-craft to heal a wound. Not a major wound, of course, but a wound serious enough that I’ll gain some idea of your ability. A baseline, as it were, that I can use to create further tests. You…” His pointing finger moved from Jesine to Danika. “…are here for two reasons. One, as the leader of this small Pack, it’s useful to me that you know what’s happening. That way, you’ll be able to explain my position in the face of uninformed reactions from the others and maintain the calm that’s so essential to your comfort. Two, it occurred to me that I needed a way to control the healing. To know that the maximum effort was being applied.”

How would her presence control…

Adeline closed one hand around her upper arm and reached across with the other, slashing the edge of a narrow blade across Danika’s chest just above the neckline of the dress. Danika had realized what was about to happen the moment Adeline’s fingers had dug in—not in time to move, or to try and defend herself, but in time to grit her teeth and refuse to scream.

The edge must have been very sharp. For a moment nothing happened and all three of them stood frozen in place, staring at the path of the blade. Then the flesh separated and blood welled up and the pain hit.

“Get her on the table.” Jesine’s voice had lost all languid and ladylike overtones. “And remove the net at once!”

It hurt. It hurt. It hurt.

The room spun. Then the fingers digging into her arm grounded her with a blunter pain and Danika managed to help lift herself up onto the table. Lying down hurt in a whole new way and the blood
shifted, pouring back over her throat rather than down over her breasts. She felt careful hands opening the dress and moving it away and forced herself to focus. Leopald wanted a demonstration. The net would be coming off now.

Adeline pulled something from her apron pocket, something small. She poked it into the mass of Jesine’s copper curls, and twisted. Jesine sucked back a pained cry. Danika kept her eyes locked on Adeline’s hand. When Adeline tugged and the first bit of net cleared Jesine’s hair, Danika could see pinched between the midwife’s fingers…

Wood?

A strand of the gold net was tangled around and between a double prong made of wood.

Jesine spread her hands over the wound. The heat radiating from them was almost enough to burn. “Shh, it’s all right. It’ll be all right. Just a little pain and then it’ll be all over, you’ll see. I promise.”

Adeline had shuffled to the left—Danika assumed to get a better look at what Jesine was doing, bringing the hand holding the artifact closer. Danika let her head drop to the side. This close, the new artifact looked like a small fork. She had forks at home with ivory handles that looked much the same. Adeline had no mage-craft so mage-craft wasn’t necessary to remove the net. Only the wooden fork…

…snatched from her line of sight so quickly Danika thought Adeline might have realized she was staring. As a distraction, she screamed.

Not
only
as a distraction.

“That was fascinating, wasn’t it, Captain?” The emperor started down the stairs without waiting for an answer. “You can read about mage-craft until your eyes bleed, but there’s nothing like seeing it work to remind you that science can’t explain everything. Well, not yet, anyway. Hard to believe I’d planned on waiting until they gave birth before I began testing. The healer can work right up until the whelp drops. Of course, the problem with Healer-mages, as I’m sure you’ve seen, is that at the level we were just shown there’s not a lot of gain to be made in combining their craft with technology. Now,
if they can heal sickness as well as injuries, then that’s a different matter. As diagnostics improve and we learn more about diseases, then, with practice, Healer-mages alone could keep people alive indefinitely.”

Practice. Reiter thought of blood pouring from a gaping wound in pale skin and wondered how the emperor would have the Healer-mage practice on disease.

“My physician told me that going to a Healer-mage is equivalent to drinking one of the those vile herbal teas old women force on you. I believed him, of course, because he’s a man of science, but I now begin to think that’s just because he’s never seen an actual Healer-mage in action. I’d bring him in to see mine, but he’d most likely die of professional jealousy, unimaginative old coot.” He giggled and Reiter was glad to be behind the emperor’s shoulder because he really hated grown men who giggled and he doubted he’d survive the emperor seeing his expression. “What we need to do now is determine parameters…and I’m an idiot! I should have timed the healing! I don’t suppose you checked your watch as it began and ended?”

Reiter schooled his expression as the emperor turned. “Sorry, Majesty, but no.”

“I forgot, so I’m not surprised you did. Perhaps Adeline Curtin noted the time. She used to be the matron in Darkbin.”

“The women’s prison?”

“Yes, that’s the place. Horrible in there, they tell me, but then it’s a prison, so horrible is rather the point, I expect. The more relevant point is that she doesn’t want to go back which is good because it’s surprisingly difficult to find an Aydori-speaking midwife whose loyalty you can count on. Although, between you and me, I find her mildly disquieting.”

She’d taken a scalpel and cut a woman under her care. Reiter found the idea of her as a midwife in a women’s prison more than
mildly
disquieting.

“Ah, well, if we didn’t record a time today, we have to make sure we record one the next time. And I’ve just now thought of a way we can use your background to our advantage. Write up a list for me, Captain, of all the various injuries you’ve seen on a battlefield.” At the tapestry, he waited for Reiter to lift the fabric, and murmured as
he passed, “I wonder what would happen if we cut a finger off? Would a Healer-mage be able to regrow it?”

“Majesty, a page brought this from the north wing.” Outside in the larger corridor, Tavert offered the emperor the fork. The emperor redirected it to Reiter.

“See that gets put away safely, Captain.”

“Yes, Majesty.” As he walked away, he heard Tavert reminding the emperor of a tailor’s appointment. Apparently Her Imperial Majesty wanted him in a new jacket for the upcoming public festival.

It was funny how everything inside the palace was connected to everything else. Until today, Reiter had never realized that fresh blood soaking into blue fabric created Imperial purple.