The Bonemender (6 page)

Féolan’s breath caught in his throat as he found Gabrielle’s slender form. The candlelight flickered over her dark hair, making it flash red and gold when she turned her head. Her eyes looked deeply green, nearly as dark as her dress. Gabrielle was on duty too, her style quieter than Tristan’s but just as effective as she gave each person in turn her warm attention. She was talking now to a couple with a babe in arms, exclaiming over the child, laughing as it reached for her silver earring.

Féolan stood quietly, watching the scene. He wasn’t at all sure Danaïs should risk making his way into that jostling crowd. A sudden horn fanfare saved him the worry as people headed for the tables.

“Féolan! Danaïs! Over here!” Tristan appeared before them and pointed toward a dais at the near end of the room, where a white-draped, richly set table was flanked with banks of flowers. “Come, you’ll sit up top with us.” Tris looked them up and down, gave a slow whistle. “Ver-ry nice. Very dashing. You’ll have the seamstresses going crazy, every young nobleman demanding an Elvish cloak and brow-gem.”

Jerome and Solange were already at table, standing at their places. Beside Jerome stood a dark-haired man, a woman and two children. “My older brother, Dominic, and his family,” explained Tristan. “He is regent of Crow Island and the Blanch-ette coast.”

Gabrielle soon joined them. Her eyes widened as she took in the Elves’ finery.

“My Lord Danaïs, my Lord Féolan,” she murmured, dropping them an elegant curtsy.

Féolan returned his best Human bow, then placed his hand over his heart. “Among my people we do thus, then touch palms,” he explained, and smiling up at him, she followed suit.

Tristan and Gabrielle took their places beside Solange, and Féolan and Danaïs were seated on their left. That left one empty place on their side of the table, and this was soon taken by an older woman introduced as the Regent of Inner Verdeau.

“My aunt Marisse,” Gabrielle muttered in his ear.

Further introductions were abandoned as the king stepped to the front of the dais. The room quieted. Jerome’s speech was brief but masterfully delivered: a warm welcome, a vote of appreciation to the laborers and landowners responsible for the harvest, a prayer for continued good bounty and the promise of after-dinner entertainment. As he settled himself at the table, servants began bringing in food, and the guests cut short their applause in a hasty dive for their seats.

Dinner passed in a blur of rich food, flowing ale and increasingly loud talk. Marisse proved as gracious as her sister, Solange, and accepted the Elves with matter-of-fact warmth, a welcome change from the incredulity they had become used to. “How wonderful to meet you,” she had exclaimed. “In the interior, you know, we still speak of a time when Elves and Humans were allies. Perhaps those days will come again.”

“Perhaps they will,” Féolan replied, privately picturing the disaster that might force just such an alliance.

A ripple of amusement from Danaïs and Gabrielle chased away this unpleasant train of thought, amusement at Tristan’s expense, it turned out. Tristan had been restlessly scanning the crowded room since the meal had started. Now he had evidently found what he was searching for. He had aimed that charming grin of his right across the Great Hall, and it was all but giving off sparks. That smile’s for a woman, Féolan thought, and a second later Tristan proved him right by blowing a kiss out into the air.

Gabrielle shot him a quick elbow in the ribs. “Tris, behave.”

“What?!” protested Tristan, all indignity and wounded innocence. “What’d I do?”

Danaïs’ carefully neutral expression crumpled into a chuckle. “You nearly set my ear on fire with that kiss. I felt my skin sizzle as it flew past me!” he said. Their laughter was lost in the clatter of dishes that announced the arrival of the next course.

“Poor Rosalie,” sighed Gabrielle, still giggling. “If she only knew what she was getting into with—” An unladylike squawk startled their end of the table; Tristan had reached behind and yanked her hair. Gabrielle looked at the guests apologetically, her eyes merry. “I am sorry. You know even now, my brother and I still can’t be trusted to sit together.”

A
S THE LAST PLATES
were cleared away, the room turned expectantly toward the empty end of the dais where the musicians would play. Applause swelled through the audience as the five musicians trooped onstage.

They knew how to please a large crowd, playing and singing with gusto and sticking to the rollicking shanties and drinking songs that could be enjoyed without really listening. Féolan found Human music rather crude, but he had come to appreciate its energy and momentum, and he enjoyed the concert. He had even learned a few of the songs in his travels and impressed Tristan hugely by joining in on the sing-along choruses. Gabrielle sang along too, her voice a clear contralto.

After about an hour, Jerome stepped forward and deftly ended the party. Everyone stood, as well as they could manage, for the Verdeau anthem, and then the entire head table was ushered out of the room, followed by the musicians.

“No more wine, no more music. They’ll all clear out soon enough,” Jerome assured his wife. He turned to his assembled guests. “Good night, everyone. Those of you who are here for
business as well as pleasure, we meet at nine bells in the Council Chamber.”

Most people headed for the stairs, but Tristan held the two Elves back. “The musicians will play a little more for us in the salon. Would you like to come?”

Of course they would. Tristan disappeared for a moment and returned with Rosalie in tow, a short, dark-haired young woman with huge brown eyes. Dominic stayed as well: “Mother made me come as a chaperone, to make sure Tristan doesn’t disgrace himself!”

G
ABRIELLE HAD PLACED
herself behind Danaïs, Féolan noticed. She was watching her patient walk. He dropped back himself and tried to observe Danaïs with a healer’s eyes. There was a stiffness to his gait but no obvious limp, which seemed pretty good for such a recent injury and after a long day. Féolan glanced at Gabrielle, who nodded—it was pretty good.

Gabrielle gave the musicians a warm welcome; Tristan, for his part, wasted no time in pouring them a round of wine. Then he threw himself on a settee and pulled Rosalie down beside him. When the others were settled, the musicians began an instrumental piece that was unlike anything Féolan had yet heard at the taverns and inns where he had stayed. It began quietly, just the whistle and mandola delicately intertwined. Gradually the other instruments joined in, trading melody and countermelody in a complex weaving until finally all five came together in a single, stirring voice. Féolan realized that he had far underestimated the troupe’s skill.

Gabrielle, he could tell, found a sweet, simple happiness in the music. Her shining eyes were glued to the troupe as they played
on, an old ballad about a sea battle, then a pretty country love song. Then the leader motioned to Tristan. “Lord Tristan, come up and sing with your sister. Does your famous duet have anything new for us?”

Tristan stepped forward, motioning to Gabrielle. “Nothing new, this time. We’ve been unaccountably busy, I’m afraid. But we’ll gladly subject you to the same old thing, won’t we Gabi?”

Gabrielle hesitated, but when Dominic pleaded, “Come on, Gabrielle, I haven’t heard you sing in so long,” she gave a quick nod and stood up. Glancing at Féolan, she colored a little, and he realized with chagrin that she would feel freer without him there.

It didn’t matter. Once she began, all embarrassment seemed to drop away. She and Tristan sang “Tables Turned,” a rollicking off-color song about a husband who has been untrue during his long travels. Trading verses full of lame excuses and double entendres, Gabrielle and Tristan sang it with exaggerated broad humor. Rosalie, who had never heard it before, collapsed in laughter at Gabrielle’s “last word”:

I’ve ridden up, I’ve ridden down

Deep vale and highest hill

I’ve ridden farther even than thee

So travel where you will.

W
ITH A SWEEPING BOW
, Tristan returned to his seat, but the harpist said, “Stay, Lady Gabrielle, and sing something pretty. Sing that shipwreck song.”

Féolan expected some brave account of a lost crew. What he heard, instead, was a woman’s lament for her love, drowned at sea and washed up on a foreign shore among strangers. The
melody was simple and lovely, the lyrics poignant with understated grief:

Pity the hearts

The wild waves part ...

For my love is far, far away.

But it was Gabrielle’s voice that made the hairs on his neck stand on end: lower than an Elvish voice, it had nearly the same liquid clarity, with a rich emotional resonance he had not heard among his own people. Never melodramatic, Gabrielle’s singing nonetheless evoked fear and loneliness, love and courage. Féolan thought he could listen to her forever.

As Gabrielle stepped down, someone asked the Elves for a song. They stopped at one, knowing that most people have a limited appetite for lyrics in a foreign tongue. Not much later, Dominic rose. “I’m charged with keeping Tristan and myself clearheaded for tomorrow’s meetings,” he said. “I think we’d better call it a night.”

Working their way up the stairs—Danaïs’ leg was complaining now, and they fell behind the others—the two Elves marveled once again at Gabrielle’s mysterious talents. “We have misjudged them, the Humans, based only on the few we have met,” suggested Féolan. “I did not think to find a healer’s hands among them, nor for that matter such fine musicianship. I did not expect them to vary so, one from another.”

“Aye, perhaps,” said Danaïs. “But you could meet the whole city, I warrant, and that maid would still stand out like the brightest star in the sky.”

Féolan nodded his agreement, but he did not go on to confess the fear that kept him awake until dawn: that against all wisdom, he had fallen in love with a Human.

^“
H
OW
soon will I be ready to travel?”

Gabrielle had just finished checking Danaïs’ leg. She had expected the question, of course; Danaïs spoke often of his family, and it was clear that he was eager to get back to them. But she hadn’t expected the question to give her a painful knot in her throat. It was hard to think of saying good-bye.

She swallowed, found her voice and hoped it would come out steady. “Very soon, I’d say, especially if you’re willing to take it slow at first. But you should ride your horse a few times before you go, maybe a couple of short rides around the grounds today, building up to a good long ramble. It’s a whole different use of your leg muscles.”

And so it was that, two days later, they headed on horseback into the hills for a picnic lunch. Tristan had managed to join Gabrielle and the Elves, and, though it was not said aloud, everyone knew it was their farewell ride.

Gabrielle was grateful for Tristan’s presence; his buoyant spirits kept her own sadness at bay. He mimicked the Elves’ reinless riding and nearly fell off his horse when it suddenly began to trot. He taught Féolan and Danaïs a popular drinking song, and they climbed up the trail serenading the wildlife in four-part harmony.
They spread out a blanket on a sunny, open hillside and while Danaïs eased out the cricks in his leg, Gabrielle set out the meal: cold chicken, fresh bread, tiny new cucumbers and carrots, the summer’s first raspberries and oatmeal cake.

“Nothing to drink?” demanded Tristan.

“Sorry, I forgot.” Gabrielle tried hard to look penitent. She watched Tristan’s face fall before she added, “Of course you could check the saddlebags ... “ He returned from Cloud triumphant, a bottle of ale in one hand and apple cider in the other.

The food and drink slowly disappeared, and the noon sun beat down on their heads. In the drowsy heat, the buzzing of the first cicadas rose in its loud drone and fell away. First Tristan, then Danaïs, lay back, tipped their hats over their faces and slept.

Gabrielle had had good reason to suggest this particular hillside. She motioned to Féolan. “Over there, where the woods begin, I found mandragora last year. I’m going to check if it’s still growing there.”

“I’ll help you,” said Féolan quickly, scrambling to his feet. “Mandragora ... is that the plant with the big shiny leaf and the root that looks like a little man?”

“That’s the one.”

“
Mandrakas
. I’ve heard it’s a poison.”

“It is. It’s very dangerous to use. I hate it. But it’s the only thing I know that will make a person sleep insensibly. If there’s a war ...” Féolan saw what she was picturing: amputations, burns, disembowelments. There was no need to say more.

“Should we tell someone we’re going?” he said, as much to change the subject as anything else.

“Tris will figure it out,” she said with a smile. “I have a habit of doing this.”

After some casting around, Gabrielle found the mandragora patch just a short distance into the wood. They loosened the plants with the little digging tools she had brought, careful not to break, bruise or even rub against any part, and laid them on the double thickness of muslin Gabrielle had spread on the ground. When they were finished, she would wrap the plants securely before packing them into her bag.

“Danaïs is almost recovered,” said Gabrielle. “You’ll be leaving soon.” A painfully obvious statement, addressed to the uprooted mandragora plants laid out beside her. She didn’t know why she had even said it. Her face hot with embarrassment and suppressed sadness, she kept her eyes glued to her work.

“Yes,” Féolan replied. He loosened the last threads holding his plant. Tugged it free. Leaned over and laid it on the muslin, his shoulder nearly touching hers. Took a breath. “I’ve been meaning to ask you ... “ He paused again. “Gabrielle, I was wondering ... Would you consider coming back with us for a time? I know our healers would want to learn about your abilities and would be glad to share their knowledge with you. And I could bring you home well before winter.”

This was unexpected. “Oh, I’ve never met another ... It’s a tempting thought,” she confessed. And it was. After so many years of feeling her way alone, to meet someone who understood this type of healing, who could teach her ... She felt a stir of excitement, the call of her work. It was a wonderful opportunity. And yet she had hoped for something different, hadn’t she? Something more personal. She hid her disappointment.