“Apologies,” Arman said with less than total sincerity. “You can rest on the boat.”
“I’ll be too busy puking,” Loke said mournfully.
“Aye, I know, but then you’ll sleep when we get to Urshek. Now be quiet, my friend. And thank you.”
“No trouble, Arman,” Loke said with a yawn. It was mere moments before his breathing evened out. Loke had always slept like a baby, easily and completely and anywhere he could. He was the least troubled and troublesome person Arman had ever encountered. It was one of the many reasons Arman loved him utterly. If Arman’s marriage were not such a joke, he supposed he would be lying with his wife in his arms, and his body would respond in a different way, but he didn’t need that as much as he needed the comfort of Loke’s pure trust.
He thought about Mayl’s vicious, spiteful words over the gossip concerning the two of them.
If only you knew the truth of it, Sei Mayl, you would cringe at how you fail in comparison, in virtue and in beauty.
But she could not ever damage his friendship with Loke. They had something few husbands and wives ever had—and if he had to endure a bastard masquerading as his own child, and a wife with a stone for a heart, just to keep Loke at his side, then he would. It was a small enough price to pay for perfect companionship.
The nitre herb is a deadly poison to humans and to other animals, but drives away infection from any wound. It is reasonable to postulate that such infections are caused by animals too small for us to see, and that they, as we, are poisoned by the nitre. If this is so, if a poison which affects these small animals can be found, which does not poison a larger creature, it might be possible to cure internal disease.
Kei frowned, reading his late father’s words yet again. The reasoning had never convinced him. His teachers in Darshek held to the view that disease and infection was caused by different poisons, and the cure lay in finding antidotes to those. The problem with the poison theory was in determining how such poisons got into the body, and affected different people differently, or not at all. The problem with his father’s theory was that invisible animals was a crazy idea.
It hadn’t stopped his father devoting much of his experiments to finding his ‘benign poison’ as he called it, and his diaries were full of notes on his having sampled this or that tincture, sometimes with unfortunate results. Not that it was his experiments which had killed him in the end. This room, with the jars of dried herbs and bags of obscure minerals, his books and his diaries, was deeply redolent of his father and his ever curious, ever questioning mind. Kei missed his Pa all the time, but never more than in this room. No wonder it was here, rather than in their shared bed, that his mother had chosen to die. She must have felt close to him here, just as their son did.
If Kei could find a treatment for bej, then he could redress at least a little of that cruel loss, but he was no closer to an answer than his father had been, for all he’d puzzled over it on and off for years. It was a capricious and deadly disease. A baby might survive it, a grown man in the fullness of his powers, such as his father, might be dead in two days. It struck without warning, wasn’t infectious the way common diseases such as colds were, and no herb or drug known in Darshian affected it. All a healer could do was try to alleviate the excruciating pain and fevers, and hope the patient’s body would not fail. His mother had known that, but even so, her grief and guilt had overcome her duty to her children and her clan.
Kei shook his head. Dwelling on this did no one any good. He bent to his father’s notes again, extracting his own from the neatly written pages. As he glowered at some symbol his father had used which he didn’t recognise, a ball of flame appeared under his nose. He reared back in shock, scrubbing at his face, though he hadn’t been burned in the least.
“Did I frighten you?” a lazy voice drawled from the doorway.
“You know you did,” Kei said crossly, but couldn’t hold back a broad smile as he turned and saw Reji, all dusty and travel stained, his hand still outstretched from having evoked his little flame sprite. “You’re back sooner than expected.”
“Yes, I know. And I’m badly in need a drink.”
Kei got off his stool and walked over. His handsome visitor immediately enveloped him in a crushing hug and kissed him, thrusting his tongue without any invitation into Kei’s mouth. Kei grinned and met the challenge, rubbing himself against Reji’s hard, lean body. “Hmmm, just a drink?” he said, arching an eyebrow.
Reji kissed him again. “Maybe...for now, healer. But later, I might need your help.”
“Oh? For a medical condition?”
“Yes. I have this really hard....”
“Hard...?” Kei murmured, teasing Reji’s nipple through his shirt.
Reji’s voice cracked. “Leg.”
“Oh. Your...leg. And what might your...leg...need?”
Reji cleared his throat, but his voice was still a little hoarse. “A rub...might need a rub...later.”
The way Reji ground against him, ‘later’ might not be all that long. His lack of control amused Kei no end. It had been two months since they’d seen each other, and while he had no doubt Reji had taken his pleasure where he could in Darshek, his friend’s lustiness needed the edge taken off it after over three weeks on the road. He nudged Reji’s thighs apart with his knee, and slid his leg up inside Reji’s, pressing against his groin. “I don’t just rub legs,” he said huskily.
“Gods, stop or I’ll embarrass myself.”
“Not just him,” Kei heard someone say in a dry tone. “Reji, you have no sense of propriety in the least.” Myka came over to stand in front of them, and Reji abruptly abandoned Kei’s so his little sister could be kissed enthusiastically, and hardly more appropriately. “You stink, Rei-ki.”
“Ha, and so would you, Mychichi, if you had been on an urs beast’s back these three and a half weeks past. My balls feel like they’re made of wood, they’ve been banged about in the saddle for so long.”
She smacked him for the indelicacy, gave him another kiss, and then stood back to look at them. “A meal and a drink, then? Kei, I bet you missed lunch.”
“I was just—”
“Buried in Pa’s notes again, yes, I know.” She sighed. “Come and eat, you two.”
The three of them prepared an early supper, Reji confessing he’d not eaten since breakfast and that he felt quite hollow. Myka plied him with bread and cheese and plenty of beer, which made him tipsy and even more relaxed. Kei idly wondered if Reji would be up tonight for more than a bit of companionable fumbling and cuddling, which was very nice in itself, although he had to admit his body could do with the release of more strenuous activity. It had been a busy couple of months, what with the kiln explosion, and then there had been an outbreak of lung fever, not to mention two births and a host of injuries and minor illnesses among the children of the clan.
“How is Misek?” he asked Myka.
“Very low, Kei. I’m still worried about him.”
Reji glanced at Kei. “Ah, yes, Fedor told me about the accident. These are the injuries he got when Ban was killed? Does he feel guilty about that, perhaps?”
Kei shook his head. “Not really. He’s been in a lot of pain, especially from his eye, but I haven’t let him have as much pijn as he could have. I don’t want him addicted. I think it’s just everything, the severity of his injuries, Ban dying.... He hasn’t been able to help rebuild things. At least Banji’s had that to occupy himself.”
Reji nodded. “I can see it would frustrate him. Perhaps I’ll visit him tomorrow.”
Myka set a bowl of gike plums in front of them. “I think that would be good, Reji. So, what news from Darshek? Did you bring our medicines? And the journals?”
He laughed and held up his hands. “All safe, Mychichi.” He got to his feet a little unsteadily, and went to the front door of the house where several large packs were tidily stacked. Kei helped him drag them over to the table where Myka, eager to get her letters and the new ointments, rapidly unpacked them. “You know, I spent three hours unloading and settling accounts, and then all I could think of was who made the best beer in Ai-Albon. If your esteemed father hadn’t kept me so long wanting to know the latest gossip, I’d have been here an hour earlier.”
Kei still had to remind himself not to correct people who referred to his uncle as his ‘father’. Strictly speaking, it was true now, but he couldn’t even bring himself to call Fedor ‘Pa’ to his face. Nothing would ever stop the unpleasant jolt when people referred to his father and didn’t mean the man Kei had loved, honoured and still grieved for.
“Never mind Fedor,” Myka said impatiently. “What’s happening in Darshek?”
Reji sprawled in his seat, his long legs stretched out under Kei’s chair. “Well, the big news is that Lady Nera is finally pregnant.”
Myka’s eyes grew big. “Really? Oh that’s wonderful. It’s been so long, I thought perhaps she was infertile after all.”
“Or her husband was,” Kei pointed out. Being an infertile himself, he found it hard to rejoice overmuch at other people’s fortune in that respect. Still, it was good news.
“I also heard there are whispers of an army build up in Urshek again,” Reji said, his expression solemn. “It’s got people worried.”
Myka looked at Kei, and reached for his hand. “Perhaps the southern clans are restless again. They won’t come across the mountains. They would have done it by now, if they could.”
“Perhaps not, Mychichi. It’s not like we can stop them if they do get across. The cannons of Darshek are all aimed towards the sea, “ Reji pointed out somewhat sourly.
Kei didn’t want to think about the Prij, because thinking would make him anxious. “If they didn’t, they would still be no use, and there is no sense in worrying if there is nothing we can do,” he said, reaching across and topping up Reji’s cup. He went to pick up one of the satchels which held letters and the latest writings from the masters in Darshek, but snatched his hand back as it was slapped. “Ow, Myka! What was that for?”
“You’ve had your head buried in books long enough,” his sister scolded, wagging a finger at him. “Why don’t you walk Reji home? I could do with some peace and quiet.”
Kei nearly rolled his eyes at Myka’s unsubtle matchmaking. As if she ever had to encourage Kei to spend time with Reji, especially after he got back from a trading trip. “Maybe Reji’s comfortable where he is. He hasn’t finished his beer, after all.”
She got up, picked up their cups, filled them to nearly overflowing and walked to the front door, holding the cups out like bait. “Come take your beer, and then you and Reji can have a nice evening catching up with each other while
I
read my letters, wash my hair, and have some time to
myself
.”
Reji lifted an eyebrow. “Do you get the sense of being unwanted, lover?”
“A mere suspicion, my friend. A gentle hint, nothing more. Perhaps we should ignore it. It might go away.”
“Kei! Do you want to be wearing this ale?”
“Now, now, Mychichi, that would be a terrible waste of your finest brewing,” Kei said, grinning as he hauled Reji to his feet. Reji immediately put his arm around his waist. “What do you say, Reji? It’s pretty irresponsible of a brother and a healer to leave his sister all on her own.”
“I think you’re pushing to smell like a brewing vat.” Reji tugged him to the door, picked up his saddle bags over one arm, and collected his cup with the other, somehow managing to contrive a deep, courtly bow without spilling a drop. “Thank you, lady Myka, for your good drink and kind company.”
There was enough sincerity in his words to wring a blush from Myka, and she smiled as he kissed her cheek. “And I
don’t
expect you back tonight, Kei.”
“No, my lady Myka,” he said with an even deeper bow, and then a brotherly kiss on her cheek, before he collected his own drink, and took a swallow from it to stop it spilling. “Should I stop in and see Misek?”
She hesitated. “Perhaps tomorrow. Banji was with him when I left.”
“Banji was helping or making it worse?”
“Um, better, I think. I think Misek was being brave for him, and I think that was good.”
“Well, you know him best. If you need me, you know where to find me.” He pulled her close briefly. “And if you need me to come back tonight, I will,” he whispered.
“You’ll be at the end of the street and I’m eighteen years old!”
He grinned. No point in pushing it, or, as Reji said, he would shortly smell of beer. “Come on, Reji. The gods only know what perverted things she’s planning to do in our absence, but I suppose if I’m not here to be scandalised—”
“I’ll take a broom to you!”
She actually laid hands on the besom before Reji hastily shoved the door open and dragged a laughing Kei outside. “She’s got a temper on her, I don’t know who she got that from. Your parents were so mild-mannered.”
“Oh, Ma had a temper in her too when she got really worked up. She just picked her battles.”
Reji lit a small fire sprite to guide their way. People were mostly inside, setting down to their own suppers, the smell of cooking fires and food heavy in the evening air, the low calls of the urs beasts settling down in their pens, and the harsh cries of the krak-krak birds over the trees as they flew down to roost, the only sounds in the village.