Untalented (17 page)

“What was that all about?”

“I think the guild is worried about a ship that came in a week or two ago. The sailors were all sick, and the healers don’t believe they followed the proper quarantine measures. I’ve heard of reports of fevers in and around the port, in the Vergal Quarter.”

“But why were they so secretive?”

“They don’t want to start a panic. The last time whispers of plague surfaced, the Vergal and other poor quarters rioted. More people died from the rioting than from fever.” Nalini stopped, and shot her a concerned look. “You won’t tell anybody about this will you? If it gets out and gets back to me, I’ll have some explaining to do.”

“Don’t worry. Just promise me that if it really is plague, you’ll give me some warning. And some special herbs.” Saroya grinned. “You said the Vergal?”

“Yes. The usual fanatics are saying the Vergalers brought it on themselves with their lifestyles, but I think there’s some other reason why the fever spreads so quickly in those quarters.”

“Are you going down there at all to help with the sick?” Saroya explained about Veshwa. “If so, could you ask around after Veshwa? It would mean a lot to me.”

Nalini grinned. “If it means showing Martezha for the lying priss she is, I’m in. We could even go together. I’ll send you a message if I go.”

Saroya didn’t want to admit to Nalini that she was living underneath a bridge—the only dry shelter she’d found where she didn’t run the risk of being discovered and hauled before a magistrate.

“Why don’t I drop by on my free day instead?” Saroya suggested. Technically every day was now a free day but there was no way she’d tell Nalini. Though Saroya had gone on forays into the Vergal, finding food and earning a few pennies begging or cleaning trash kept her too busy to go more than once or twice a week. “How bad is this plague? Would Veshwa be in danger from it if she’s down in the Vergal?”

“I don’t know. It depends: on how strong she is compared to the virulence of the fever.”

“She’s probably about your grandmother’s age. Great—just when I get a lead on her location, and now this.” Saroya’s spirits sank.

Saroya woke up worried. Increasingly dire news of fevers rattled the city, with most of the deaths reported in the heart of the Vergal. Rumors abounded, making the separation of fact from fearmongering difficult. Clearly, the illness was spreading, and fast. What if Veshwa died?

Saroya brushed bits of dirt off her tunic, and folded the frayed horse blanket she’d pilfered from the abandoned stable that first lonely night. She tucked her few belongings underneath the oilskin the fitter gave her for the purloined livery. She wedged the bundle as far underneath the bridge arch as she could. Peeking out from below the bridge, she made sure nobody was in sight before crawling out into the street. She trotted off to the Healer’s Guild to fetch Nalini.

“Ready for an exploratory mission?” Saroya asked.

Nalini nodded and threw her an apple she’d swiped from the guild refectory. Saroya bit into it with relish. She’d forgotten the last time her stomach was full. Her friend looked glum.

“What’s the matter, Nalini?”

“My parents are in town.”

“Have they finally admitted you’re a healer?”

Nalini shook her head. “They’ve come to get my sister settled with the Builder’s Guild. They rented apartments overlooking the guild so they can take care of her while she apprentices.”

“At least they’re not in your hair.”

They left the busy streets of the Market District, catching a small passenger barque. The barquier crossed an arm of the river, arriving at the outer island known locally as the Vergal, then took them through narrower waterways until the foul, murky canal they followed opened onto the port. Their driver deposited them with a grunt, in a hurry to get back to more lucrative routes.

Saroya and Nalini looked around a disused quay. Saroya had expected a bustling port. Instead, a large wooden crane hung out over the water, no cargo slung in its net. Only one ship floated at its mooring three slips down, without a single longshoreman in sight.

“Where is everybody?” Saroya asked.

“The port captain quarantined all arriving ships.” Nalini pointed to a small island offshore. A cluster of boats anchored in a small bay.

Nalini rummaged in her belt pouch. She pulled out two triangles of cloth and handed one to Saroya. “Put this on.”

Saroya followed Nalini’s lead and tied the kerchief around her head so that it covered her nose and mouth. “What’s it for?”

“Some of the healers think something in the air is sickening people. Have you smelled the Vergal?” Nalini feigned a gag. “Maybe if we don’t breathe in the scent, we won’t catch the fever.”

Saroya hadn’t even considered the danger to herself. The thin cloth against her nose warmed and grew damp as she let out a harsh breath. At this point, one more worry did not make much difference.

“Where to first?” Saroya asked

“The guild is trying to find some way to stop the spread, so I’d like to learn who’s not sick. Why don’t we wander around and look for a market? Some stall minder might know all the local gossip.”

Saroya was glad for Nalini’s company. The last time she explored the Vergal, she had come at it from the opposite side. The scruffy inhabitants dressed colorfully. Saroya found their easy manner engaging. She felt safe even though the occasional shady character lurked on a street corner or skulked down an alley. This time, the lurkers and skulkers were the only people out and about. The quarter seemed as though it listened for some unheard signal. Should someone accost them, would anybody investigate their screams?

They rounded a corner and entered an empty market square. A few stall keepers desultorily displayed their wares.

“How do they make any money without customers?” Saroya asked.

“Ain’t that the question, now, sweetie.” The scrawny woman in the doorway spat onto the cobbles.

“Is everybody sick?” Nalini wondered.

“Sick? Nah. There’s just no goods to sell, so nothing to buy, so them’s that ain’t sick are stayin’ home. Nothin’ to do but wait.”

“Have you lived here long?” Saroya eyed the woman’s lined countenance and didn’t doubt the answer.

“Goin’ on twenty years now. Can’t say as they’s been the best years of me life.”

“Have you ever heard of a woman called Veshwa?”

“Can’t say as I have. If ye’re looking for someone, though, Balreg be the best person to talk to. Biggest gossip in the city, that one. Knows what color underwear the king put on this morning, or so’s he claims.”

“Where can we find him?”

“He runs the Spotted Salmon Pub down on Port Street.”

They spoke to a few other bored shopkeepers as they made their way through the market, and the answer was the same: business was bad, none had heard of Veshwa, and the Spotted Salmon Pub was the place to ask questions.

A drunken fishmonger, teetering over his smelly wares, gave them directions. They encountered several healers going door to door, looking for the ill. Nalini conferred briefly with each of them. In a dead-end lane they entered by accident, they saw their first body. Someone had dumped it between two row houses, well clear of either doorway. “Look,” Nalini pointed out the swellings underneath the skin, “Definitely a plague victim. Her family’s probably too afraid to live with the corpse.” To ease her fear, Saroya tried not to think of it as a person, then felt guilty. What if it had been Veshwa? How would she feel then? Nalini sent the next healer they saw to look into proper disposal and to check for other victims.

After losing themselves in a warren of tiny streets and alleys, they spotted a landmark—a grain warehouse next to a glass-blower’s. The sound of raised voices greeted them as they turned a last corner.

With some relief, Saroya noted the sign of the Spotted Salmon Pub. An unruly knot of people surrounded a man who had just left the entrance of the establishment. Approaching, Saroya and Nalini heard angry shouts.

“If that port doesn’t reopen soon, I’ll go out of business.”

“What right do you have to play with our livelihoods like this?”

“We have mouths to feed at home.”

The man at the center of the controversy raised his hands in a call for calm. Angry mutters continued.

“Until the fever is under control, I have a responsibility to check all ships, entering or leaving, for signs of the disease. If you don’t like it, take it up with King Urdig, but I think you’ll find he agrees with my position.”

The man, evidently a high-ranking port official, strode through the crowd and down the street. A few desperate stragglers trailed after him.

“He must be the new port captain,” Nalini whispered. “I heard the other one was one of the first stricken by this plague. I should go find the new one later; maybe he has some insights into how it spreads.”

“He’s not a healer, Nalini.”

“But he was here when it started. He knows who got sick first.”

“Let’s find Balreg.”

They entered the pub, which did not leave much of a first impression. Tables scattered with crumbs and puddled with spilled drink were strewn about one dingy common room. Long tables lined each wall. The man tending bar behind a scratched and gouged counter did not dispel the air of seediness that hung about the place. Greasy hair fell in dank clumps about his face. He whistled through a gap in his grin where he was missing a tooth as they walked up to the bar

“And what can I get two such fine young ladies?”

“We’re not here to drink,” Nalini said.

He eyed them speculatively. “Didn’t think so. You don’t look like my usual clientele.”

Saroya spoke up. “My friend here is a healer, come to help with the plague.”

“We’re all saved, I’m sure.” Nalini frowned but Balreg looked at Saroya. “And you?”

“I’m looking for a family friend. She moved to the Vergal and we lost track of her.”

“And someone told you Balreg knows everybody in the Vergal?”

“That’s right.”

“Did they also tell you my information doesn’t come cheap?”

Saroya glanced at Nalini. “I don’t have much money.”

“Then I can’t help you. Unless you’ve got other information to trade?” He gave Nalini a significant look. “Information that could help me weather the plague?”

Nalini shook her head.

“Then all I can do is offer you an ale. Come back when you have something for me.”

Saroya cursed to herself. Balreg didn’t look like the type of man who succumbed to pleading. She’d never make enough money to pay him, not if she couldn’t even feed herself. How would she find Veshwa now?

Loric studied Martezha. Playing the solicitous aunt, Isolte had invited her to Manor Dorn for tea and on impulse asked her to perform for her guests. Martezha had just fled the room after failing to produce so much as a squeak when the string quartet’s introductory bars drew to a close. When he followed her into the garden he found her throwing up into a potted fern. His lip curled in distaste as he handed her a handkerchief.

“I didn’t know you suffered so badly from stage fright, my dear.”

“It’s nothing, just butterflies.”

“Really? I hear your performances have been deteriorating for months.”

“What business is that of yours?”

“Everything my not-so-niece does is my business, wouldn’t you agree?”

Martezha flung the handkerchief back at him and didn’t answer. He sidestepped the soiled cloth.

“It’s time for one of those favors we spoke of. Urdig balks at quarantining the Vergal and I need it to happen sooner rather than later.”

“I don’t make policy.”

“No, but you can persuade … He clings to this notion of the healers that the miasmic odors won’t affect other quarters of the city. Some of them disagree and think it might be spread by less appropriate lifestyles, shall we say. The place is full of Untalents. How can one tell the clean from the unclean? What if a supplicant gets too near his precious daughter and passes it on to her? You see?”

Martezha shrugged, but agreed to try. Loric brooded as she returned to the drawing room. The Vergal! What was his pet Untalent thinking, skulking around the Vergal? Was she suicidal? It took him some time to track her down after she gave him the slip leaving the builders, but now that he had found her again—the surveillance of her healer friend paid off—he had no intention of losing her to a passing fever. His own inquiries into Padvai’s past had yielded few results. But he would find a way to exploit the girl from Adram Vale yet.