Untalented (22 page)

“I’ll look like a fool.”

“Come now, Martezha, you’re being unreasonable.” Martezha’s petulance irked Loric.

“First you made me push for the quarantine, now you want me to get it lifted. He won’t listen to me. The Houses already complain he hasn’t done enough.”

“The Houses are the least of Urdig’s worries. The plague has jumped the quarantine boundary. If he doesn’t lift the quarantine so healthy people can flee the city, he’ll be blamed for more deaths than any king since Pallen of Roshan took the fall for the Great Plague.”

“I’m not stupid—nor is he. Let people leave and spread it outside U’Veyle? Too risky.”

“That was when the quarantine was working. You whisper your doubts in his ear, I lobby for the same with the Great Circle of Houses: he’ll come around.”

“But why? So more people can die?”

“Isolate yourself in the castle and it will not matter to you, my dear.”

Loric strode back to the stable yard, cursing the need for this ruse. What had possessed that ninny of an Untalent to stay behind in the Vergal during a dangerous quarantine? At first when she disappeared he’d presumed she’d fled the city, until his man following her healer friend spotted them having words across the quarantine boundary. Did she believe herself immune to the fevers? He was not going to let his best potential hold over Urdig die. When he mentioned the name Daravela had given him to Isolte, she’d remembered an old House servant. Isolte thought nothing of the woman’s disappearance from her brother’s household at the time. The spies Loric ordered to ferret out Veshwa’s location had missed their last information drop. Loric presumed the fevers took them, or they’d abandoned their mission. Money only went so far towards overcoming a person’s better judgment. It never ceased to amaze him just how far it would go, though.

Saroya woke to find a brown-clad woman above her squeezing water from a cloth. Saroya licked at the drops as they hit her cracked lips. She felt weak and dizzy, but lucid.

“Where am I?”

“In a bed at Abaya House. A moment—I will fetch Madam Abaya.”

Saroya turned her head on the pillow and gazed out the window as she waited for Madam Abaya to appear. A light rain fell outside, glistening the leaves of the adjacent willow tree. She could see over the canal at the back of the building into drab courtyards. Forgotten laundry hung limply in the rain, a stark contrast to the lushness of the Abaya House gardens. Saroya wondered if the clothing’s owners still lived.

Madam Abaya bustled in. She pressed a hand to Saroya’s forehead.

“Well, the fever is gone, at least.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Three days too long. Do you realize how much damage you’ve likely done?”

“It mustn’t have been the plague if I’m still here talking to you.” Saroya tried to sit up but in her weakened state, failed.

“Oh, it was definitely the plague: fever, pustules, and everything.”

“That’s impossible. I interviewed hundreds of people in the Vergal and never met a single one who recovered.”

Disregarding Saroya’s modesty, Madam Abaya flipped back the sheet covering Saroya. Saroya could not deny the evidence of the pustule scars all over her skin. She shuddered.

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. Although I suspect whatever is protecting this house and its occupants did you a very large favor.”

Saroya blinked at her. Madam Abaya continued. “You may stay here until you regain your strength. Then I want you gone. Knowingly or not, you brought the sickness into this house.”

Saroya nodded her acquiescence. Fair was fair.

Two days later she paused at a tall window to admire the garden one last time before re-entering the squalor of the Vergal. She’d been puzzling about the continued health of the Abaya House occupants. She stared down at the lush greenness, thinking hard. A kitchen maid crossed the garden, bucket in hand. A question struck Saroya, and she trotted back to Madam Abaya’s office, where the administrator looked up at her in irritation.

“Do you all drink from that well in the garden?”

“That’s a strange question.”

“Not really. I’ve seen enough kitchens to know—nobody cooks with well water in this city. Fountain water only. Yet your cook draws from the well.” Saroya crossed her arms. “So, do you all drink it too?”

Madam Abaya nodded. “The almshouse is badly located. There’s no fountain nearby large enough to support all the people here. We asked for an extension to the aqueduct but it keeps getting delayed. We decided to risk it. There’s never been a problem.”

Saroya gazed back out the window at the well. “Keep drinking from it.”

The next morning, back at the Spotted Salmon, Saroya awoke feeling refreshed for the first time in days. Not only had she found Veshwa, but a pattern had emerged from the data she collected for Nalini, one that exonerated Untalents. She suspected that the Abaya House well water offered some protection from, if not a cure for, the plague as well. She could think of no other reasonable explanation for her recovery. The air at Abaya House was the same air everyone else in the Vergal breathed, the food similar. While there, she only ingested the water her caregivers forced into her during her fever.

Now she needed a way out of the Vergal. The wait until her meeting with Nalini loomed before her. She debated risking another foray into the Vergal; would she get sick again if she talked to other victims of the fever?

She tidied up her breakfast dishes, but a banging on the door interrupted her. She almost ignored it then decided that if someone needed help, she should provide it one last time. She opened the door to find a gravid woman clutching the hand of a young boy who could not be more than six years old. Before Saroya could ask what the matter was, the woman bent over in pain, clutched her belly, and moaned.

“Healer, the baby—it’s coming. The midwife is dead. I have nowhere else to go.”

Saroya debated what to do. She neglected to disabuse the woman as to her title. She’d watched Durin foal a mare at the stables in Adram Vale, but beyond that, she’d never participated in a birth.

“Please—please help me.” The woman swayed as another contraction tightened its grip.

How hard can it be?
Saroya glanced at the boy.
She’s already done it once, and second children are usually easier, aren’t they?
But she’d promised Nalini she wouldn’t. She should call Healer Faro.

The woman grabbed Saroya’s wrist and groaned. There was no time to get Faro. If she’d figured out the plague she could certainly do this.

Now, in the middle of the night, Saroya regretted her decision to let the woman in. The labor had gone from regular prolonged but manageable contractions that the woman was able to work through, to a bloody horror. The woman’s screams of pain had faded to exhausted moans, and Saroya was at her wits’ end. Nothing she knew about healing or foaling prepared her for this. Saroya could see the woman’s strength ebbing away, but still, the baby would not come.

“Is … is it always like this?” the woman asked.

“Surely your first wasn’t so difficult?” Saroya asked.

The woman’s eyes searched out the boy, who cowered in the corner, frightened by her cries and the blood.

“That’s my sister’s son. I took him in when the fever took her.”

Another terrible spasm wracked her body and a new look crept into her eyes; Saroya saw in it the woman’s realization that she might not live. A tiny arm appeared from between her legs and Saroya knew she had little time left. The baby was in the wrong position and she had no idea what to do. She turned to the boy and pulled him up by the arm.

“Do you know this place?” She rattled off the location of Faro’s rooming house. The boy nodded. “Then go. Wake up the healer there and bring him. Hurry.” The boy ran off. Saroya watched his spindly legs disappear into the night.

“You’re not a healer?” Despair tinged the exhaustion in the woman’s voice.

Saroya bit her lip. “I’m helping the healers gather information about the plague.”

“I thought … I’m dying now, and you aren’t even a real healer …” She closed her eyes and for an instant Saroya really thought she was dead. When she opened them again the accusation in her eyes pierced Saroya’s core. The woman said nothing, but Saroya understood. It was her fault. This woman and her baby might die, all because of Saroya’s ignorance and misplaced pride. Nalini was right: Saroya was a danger to others.

Please let her live. I’ll never lie about what I can do again, if she just lives.
Saroya reached for a damp cloth and wiped the perspiration from the woman’s brow.

“You’re not going to die. Just hold on a little bit longer.”

The next few minutes stretched and stretched, the longest of Saroya’s life. As the woman struggled to bring a new soul into the world, Saroya for the first time felt deserving of the contempt flung at her on a daily basis.

The front door of the pub swung open with a bang, and Healer Faro stood limned by moonlight in the doorway. He strode across the room and shouldered Saroya aside.

He examined the woman with efficient hands and murmured reassurances. In curt, terse tones, he demanded hot cloths from Saroya while he asked the mother to turn over so she was on her hands and knees. Saroya thought the woman too exhausted to comply but she heaved herself over with a strength born of desperation. “Oblique, blast it …” Without delay, Faro inserted his hand between the woman’s legs. Saroya watched in horrified fascination as he manipulated the baby until its arm disappeared back inside the mother. Operating by feel alone, he did something Saroya could not see. Letting out a satisfied noise, he removed his hand. A wrinkled and bloody leg popped into view. “Breech. Not ideal, but much better. Now, I know you are tired, but you must push.”

The woman shook her head, beyond her limits. Yet she gritted her teeth, and bore down again. Saroya couldn’t believe it when the baby slid out, covered in slick, glistening blood. She was even more surprised when it let out a weak cry—she had been sure it wouldn’t survive. A faint smile crossed the woman’s lips as she held her child to her breast. The little boy ran up to her and nestled under her shoulder. The healer asked the woman a question Saroya couldn’t hear, and the mother pointed at Saroya.

Healer Faro made the woman comfortable then turned to Saroya. “Gather your things. You will come with me in the morning to answer to the Healer’s Guild. You knew I was close by—I’ve never seen such reckless disregard for a person’s well-being.” Saroya fled up the stairs, unable to face the condemnation in his eyes.

She stripped out of her bloody tunic, discarding it on the floor. Then she located a leather string and threaded it through the ring Veshwa had given her, before tying it around her neck and slipping it under the folds of the clean tunic she donned. She gathered her remaining notes and folded them into her spare pouch. She hesitated before deciding not to jot down her conclusions, and hid the pouch under a loose floorboard. The maps she left for Balreg. Then she sat down on the bed to contemplate her failures and await her fate. The thought of escaping by the back door and losing herself in the warren of the Vergal occurred to her, but in the end, she couldn’t hide from herself.

Faro tromped up the stairs to fetch her at dawn. He had located the woman’s family and ensured she had a place to rest and recuperate. After securing the pub, Saroya followed him meekly down the road. They arrived at his rooming house, where he thrust her into an empty cupboard and barred the door, saying nothing.

Hours later, Saroya heard him approach again, accompanied by at least one other person. The door to the cupboard creaked open and Saroya blinked in the sudden brightness. Someone grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the room.

“This guardsman will take you to the guildhall, where you will be put on trial for impersonating a healer.”

“What about the quarantine?”

She thought he wouldn’t deign to answer. But he said, “The plague has spread outside the Vergal into the rest of U’Veyle. The guild and the king agree that quarantining the Vergal is now pointless. So we are all free to travel within the city limits. However much that means anymore.” As the guard led her away to face the guild, Saroya tried to warn Faro—his cheeks now flushed and a thin film of perspiration beading his forehead.