Traitor (34 page)

“Well, let’s see if we can’t get you cleaned up,” I said, which only made me feel even more uncomfortable.

The elven boy didn’t respond. But he did follow along obediently as I led him through the house and up the stairs to the third floor. That was where our private quarters were. I brought him into the washroom we often lent to patients and drew a basin of clean bathwater. Lighting the small coal fire beneath the porcelain tub it to warm it, I sifted through our soaps and oils till I found something that I hoped would make him smell better. His hair was a problem. I glanced at it, wondering if he’d let me cut it, or at least trim some of the big knots.

Without thinking, I reached out to touch a lock clumped together from scalp to end. When my fingers brushed through it, he flinched away and made a soft growling sound.

I yelped, cringing away, too.

Our eyes met.

Just the sight of his bizarre, color-changing irises made me gasp. I’d never seen a gray elf close enough to really get a good look at them. Their eyes were their strangest feature. Well, except for their silver-colored hair. His eyes shimmered in all different hues, like an opal in sunlight, and seemed to change depending on the environment. It was breathtaking.

“I-I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to scare you.” I struggled to sound less nervous than I was as I turned away to test the bathwater’s temperature. “I thought you might like a bath. And your hair’s a mess. You’ve got knots in there I’m not sure we’ll ever get out. How about I just cut it shorter, so it doesn’t get in your way?”

The corners of those piercing, animalistic eyes pinched up. His lips twitched in a snarl, making my heart do a panicked somersault.

“No. No cutting.”

I swallowed hard. “Of course. No cutting, then.”

His gaze drifted back to the floor.

I let out a shaking breath of relief. This wasn’t going well at all. I had to do something to put him at ease or we’d never be able to work together. But how do you make friends with someone your father
bought
?

“My name is Holly,” I said. “I know my dad purchased you to work here, but you and I are going to be spending a lot of time together, so I’d like us to be able to trust one another, okay? This is a good place. We help people here. You’ll have plenty of food and anything else you might need. You won’t be abused—that I can promise you. But we’ll have to work hard together, you and I.”

He didn’t reply.

“May I know your name?”

Seconds ticked by, but he didn’t make a sound.

I sighed in defeat. So much for that. “Listen, I’m going to take your collar off. If you decide to run . . . well, I suppose there’s nothing I can really do to stop you. Just please don’t hurt me.”

His eyes darted up to mine. They looked bluish green in the dim light of the bathroom. My heart started to beat faster.

“Okay. Just stay still.” My hands trembled as I inched towards him. I fumbled like an idiot with the key, reaching under his long hair to find the keyhole. I found it, at last, on the back of his neck. I had to get closer if I was going to unlock it. So I held my breath, inching even closer to work the tiny iron key into position.

I’d never stood that close to a boy before, elf or otherwise. He smelled like sour swamp water, unfortunately. Gross. The heat coming off his skin, however, made me blush. I tried my best not to touch him any more than necessary, and yet every time my fingers would graze the skin of his neck, I felt my face burn hotter.

Then he turned his head slightly and
smelled
me.

Oh, Fates
. I could feel his breath on my hair and a slight rustle like he was sniffing the top of my head. He
was
smelling me, wasn’t he? Was I imagining it? Was this some sort of gray elf greeting ritual?

Thankfully, at that moment, the lock clinked and the collar fell slack around his neck. I took it off and tossed it to the floor, kicking it away from us. My heart was still racing and my skin was flushed. But at least he hadn’t growled at me this time.

“O-okay. I’ll let you have some privacy.” I tripped clumsily over my words. “I’ll try to find you something to wear.”

It was as good an excuse as any to dart out of the washroom and shut the door. I touched my chest to try to calm my racing heart. Good grief. He was just a gray elf. Why was I acting this way?

I gave him a good half hour to himself in the washroom, since I figured it would take at least that long to scrub the mud off his skin. Then I grabbed a bundle of clean clothes, gathered my courage, and knocked on the door.

“Hello in there? I found something for you to wear. I’ll just leave them here outside the door for you,” I called. “When you’re ready, I’ll be downstairs in the kitchen.”

This was his chance. If he wanted to run, now was the time. I wouldn’t even know about it until he was long gone. Minutes ticked by as I sat at our long kitchen table, sorting dried herbs and crushing them into powders that we could use to treat infection, fever, or any number of ailments. I’d almost stopped worrying about him altogether when I heard footsteps in the doorway.

He was staring at me. But it was different from before. He didn’t look quite as . . . savage now. The long-sleeved, white linen tunic and black wool pants actually fit him well. He still didn’t have any shoes—those I would have to order in his size—but apart from that, he looked much more civilized. Now clean, his skin was a beautiful bronze color. He’d washed and arranged his long silvery-white hair into a ponytail that revealed his pointed ears. He’d even managed to get out those awful knots. I now had a much better view of his face, which was a lot more handsome than I’d realized before.

I caught myself gawking at him.

“Well, you certainly look like you feel better.” I tried to sound casual and indifferent.

He didn’t comment as he came to stand over me, watching as I went on sorting the herbs.

“Lavender,” I explained as I held up a sprig of the sweet-smelling plant for him. “And this one is Rosemary. These are Chamomile blossoms, and these are Poppy seeds. We have lots more in the garden out back. Each one can be used to make medicines.”

He took the Lavender from me, sniffed it, and canted his head to the side. Then he carefully handed it back.

“We call this apothecary medicine. Do they have anything like this in your culture?” I decided not to look at him as I tried once again to get him to talk. Maybe staring at him was making him as nervous as I became whenever my dad loomed over me to inspect my work.

The chair on the opposite side of the table made a scraping noise as he pulled it back and sat down. “Yes,” he replied. “But not the same plants.”

I fought back a smile of triumph. “Perhaps we can learn from one another, then. My mother taught me this. I can teach you as well. And you can show me some gray elf methods, if you like.”

When I stole a glance at his face, I could see him studying me. His gaze was so intense. I felt like a deer being eyed down by a mountain cat.

“Where is she?” he asked all of a sudden.

“Who?”

“Your mother.”

A hard knot formed in the back of my throat. “She died three years ago.”

He didn’t seem to notice or care that this subject was difficult for me. “How did she die?”

“Giving birth to my brother.” I kept my answers short and hoped he’d let the subject drop.

“And where is he?”

I stopped working. Gazing at him from across the table, I let him see the pain in my eyes. Maybe then he’d understand I didn’t like talking about this. “He died, too. He was too small to survive. We tried to save them both, but there was nothing we could do. Some things are simply impossible to fix, even with medicine.”

His features were solemn and I could sense that he was thinking. He waited a long time before speaking again. “My sister also.”

“Also what?” I asked. Too late I realized what he’d been trying to say.

“She died,” he explained. I could see the way his eyes turned cold, as though he were steeling himself against showing any emotion the way I had.

“How?”

He made a breaking motion with his hands. “Her leg was wounded. She had a fever. We couldn’t do anything for her. The slavers stopped her suffering.”

Fresh tears were rolling down my cheeks before I even realized it. I tried to wipe them away before he noticed, but it was too late. “I’m so sorry. Sometimes when bones break, they get infected if they go too long without being treated. I wish I could have helped her.”

He began sorting the herbs into piles, stopping to smell them every now and then. “Would you help a gray elf slave with your medicines?”

“Of course,” I answered quickly. “No one should ever be left to suffer like that.”

He fell silent again. It was as though his thoughts had carried him far away. Likewise, my mind was consumed by memories of my mother. Neither of us broke the silence as we sat across from one another at the dinner table, sorting herbs by the light of the kitchen hearth’s embers.

Three weeks had passed, and still I didn’t know his name. Any time I would ask, he acted like he hadn’t heard me. It was painfully awkward to call him “Hey, you” all the time, but I was determined not to name him as though he were some kind of pet.

He was very helpful, though, which made my dad happy. Our new addition was a fast learner, and he could already make a lot of the herbal medicines without any assistance. He could sterilize our tools, bring food and water to the patients, and wash the dirtied linens. I’d even begun showing him some basic medical procedures, like how to stitch up minor wounds. As uncomfortable as I was with the idea of owning a slave, I had to admit that it was nice to have help. I actually had time to sit down and eat a decent meal more than once a day; normally, that would have been out of the question.

I just wished we had more to talk about. I wished we could be friends. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how naïve it was to even think about something like that. Why in the world would he want to be friends with me? My dad had purchased him from a broker like cattle or a piece of furniture. And now he was here, against his will, working, when he probably had a family somewhere who needed him.

No wonder he wouldn’t tell me his name.

Those thoughts made me increasingly frustrated as the days went by. It bothered me that my dad wouldn’t let him eat at the table with us, that he wouldn’t let me buy him any more clothes. The elf’s “bedroom” ended up being a pallet on the floor in our surgery room, which made me feel like an absolute liar for promising him a few creature comforts here. Dad accused me of being ridiculous. He was a slave, not a relative. And besides, sleeping on the floor here, with blankets, a pillow, and food in his belly was better than being in a prison camp . . . right?

I couldn’t argue with that logic. Not successfully, anyway. But that didn’t make me feel any better about it.

Looking up from my breakfast plate of a fried egg and toast, I stared at the gray elf’s back. He was perched on a stool at the counter, eating his own meal in silence. I could see the silhouette of his broad, strong shoulders against the thin fabric of his shirt. His long hair was wound into a complex braid that hung nearly to his waist. Now that it had been properly cared for, washed more than a few times, it shone like platinum in the morning light trickling through the kitchen window. I longed to touch it, but didn’t dare try. After all, the other times I’d accidentally touched him he’d reacted like he had brushed up against a hot stove and jerked away immediately. He obviously didn’t like it, and I didn’t want to offend him any more than necessary.

“Holly!” My dad burst into the kitchen with a wild look in his eyes. He was frantically putting on his bifocals. “There’s an infantry wagon outside.”

I gulped down the food in my mouth. “What? Now?”

He snapped his fingers at us. “Up! Both of you! Get the rooms prepped. There’s no time.”

“But they didn’t send us any warning! How many patients? We don’t have enough beds for—!” I protested as I wolfed down the rest of my breakfast and ran for my apron.

Dad didn’t stick around to give me the details. He was already headed for the door, propping it open for the soldiers to bring in their wounded comrades. I could hear the commotion it was causing outside—people were gathering to gawk at the latest victims of the war.

Together, the gray elf and I began turning back all the patient beds we had available. When we ran out, I put him to work making sterile pallets on the floor in the examination rooms, while I gathered trays of sterilized medical tools. We both stood back, mouths shut and eyes wide, as the infantrymen brought in their wounded one right after the other: twenty-two total. We weren’t going to have nearly enough room for this.

“Hurry, go put down more pallets in the surgery room,” I told the gray elf. “You can move your things into my room for now.”

He obeyed without a word, and I joined my dad by tending to the most serious injuries first. I’d been at this long enough to tell within a few minutes if a patient was going to make it or not. Ironically, it rarely had anything to do with the severity of their injuries.