Valor of the Healer (6 page)

Hawks
circling
high
overhead
,
their
shadows
falling
upon
the
dove
but
unable
to
dampen
the
starlight
gleaming
along
her
form
.
One
hawk
breaking
ranks
to
plunge
lower
,
with
a
hunting
call
that
melds
in
unexpected
harmony
with
the
dove’s
cries
—

And
an
ancient
snow
-
white
owl
diving
into
the
lion’s
eyes
,
making
him
lift
his
paws
from
the
dove
—
even
though
the
dove’s
only
path
of
flight
is
straight
up
to
the
host
of
hawks
.

It might have taken a moment or an hour for the vision to coalesce. Once it was gone, Ulima stared down at Yamineh’s daughter.

“Great Lady of Time, you can’t mean this?”

Sweat beaded the old woman’s brow, and she pressed a gnarled hand to her chest, fighting to steady her breathing and her thoughts. It was the simplest of meditation exercises, practiced over decades, yet it brought her no peace now. Nor did it bring any answer to the question she whispered, save the one she already knew. That was no answer at all, for it meant taking Faanshi from the lord who would destroy her—and yielding her to the Church who would do no less.

The girl moaned, shattering the old woman’s indecision. Vision or no, there was need before her now, and that at least she couldn’t deny. Laying her fingers along Faanshi’s brow, meeting anguished young eyes, she said, “Djashtet doesn’t hate you, child. She has plans for you.” That much, at least, she could state in perfect truth. “Be strong, and Her deliverance will come.”

“You keep saying that,
okinya
, and it never does! When will it come? How much more must I endure?”

“Be strong,” Ulima repeated. “Your deliverance will come. I’ve foreseen it.” As Faanshi let out a strangled gasp, the priestess allowed herself a tiny smile. “I don’t know what shape it will take or the hour of its arrival. But it will come. I swear it.”

Something of the despair left Faanshi’s face, only to be replaced by tears sliding down her cheeks. “You’ve never spoken to me like this before.”

“There’s much I’ve never done for you, but much I have, and much I’ll yet do. I’ll tell you all in time. Pray with me now.”

Thus she sang the
ridahs
for Faanshi as she tended her. Never loudly, for her voice was thin with her years, and it would serve them both ill if the prayers were heard beyond the cellar’s walls. Faanshi’s voice too was thin, weak from the ordeal she’d suffered; Ulima could barely hear her. But she watched the girl’s lips moving nonetheless, along with each word she murmured to the Lady of Time, until at last she drifted into sleep.

Once Ulima was certain that her young kinswoman would survive the night, she draped a coverlet over her slack form. And only then, when no one could see, did she allow the confidence she’d shown her charge to falter.

Almighty
Djashtet
,
tell
me
there
is
another
way
.

Only silence broken by the rattle of her breath within her throat met that final prayer.

* * *

Nothing else haunted Ulima in her bedchamber afterward, as though her goddess or simply blind chance had ruled that one burst of insight in the night was enough. Worry gnawed at her bones, but practicality pushed it aside. She was old, her body more taxed by her years than she cared to admit, and she required rest. No solutions could be found to the vision’s demands before sunrise.

At dawn’s first glimmer through her window she greeted the Dawnmaiden as was Her due. Sage and sandalwood wafted up from the tiny incense burner, purifying the air, and her prayer fell with reverential ease from her lips. Her old knees needed a cushion upon which to kneel, but kneel Ulima did until her worship was done and the sun launched a confident ascent into the morning sky. The daily ritual comforted but offered no wisdom. If anything, in the light of day the shadow of a raven’s wings and the leap of a mighty lion stood out all the more to her inner sight. Hawks’ cries, almost obscuring the call of a threatened dove, rang across her inner ear.

She’d abandoned her veil at her husband’s death in the war with Adalonia, but twenty years in the Duke of Shalridan’s household had taught her to veil her expression behind her own will. Because His Grace had ordered it and because the denizens of the Hall would look for her at the side of their ailing duchess, Ulima rose when her devotions were complete to fetch certain vials, place them into a basket and attend to the
akresha
Khamsin in her chamber. She kept all traces of distress from her countenance, but her heart lodged in her like a stone.

Watched over by a drowsy-eyed servant, Khamsin lay much as Ulima had last left her. Gray tinged her dark complexion; exhaustion accentuated the lines traced into her features by her gathering years. Ulima didn’t know the name of the assassin’s poison, but she had marked its effects. Khamsin had slept for hours, waking only to drink the tisanes Ulima provided and then retch into the silver bowl at her bedside. The duke hadn’t approved. But she’d saved him the need to summon the physician from the town at the foot of the mountain, for Khamsin had lived through the day and would likely survive many more days to come.

At her bedside, Ulima stared down at the younger woman’s resting form. This too was her kinswoman, as much her sister’s daughter as Yamineh had been. That Khamsin had suffered only illness from an assassin’s attack should have made her rejoice. Yet she felt no relief, no pride or joy in her recovery.

Mate
with
a
jackal
,
and
you
will
be
as
one
,
though
you
may
fancy
yourself
a
lioness
.

Her gaze never wavering, she addressed the servant beside her, “Earennid, you’ve done well watching over the
akresha
during the night. You’ve heated the water for her tisane?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Then go and rest. I’ll attend her now.”

“Thank you, my lady.” The maid dipped her head and took her leave as discreetly as she’d lingered.

As Earennid departed, Khamsin croaked, “Has she gone?”

Awake
after
all
. Ulima arched her brows but showed no other surprise; the veil of her will remained inviolate. As she’d done ever since marrying the man who’d once been her sister’s, Khamsin spoke Adalonic.

“Your Grace’s maidservant has left,” Ulima replied in the same language, taking the chair Earennid had vacated.

“Not her.” The duchess stirred beneath thick silken blankets, her head rolling as she fought the grasp of sleep. “The girl. Has my lord husband disposed of her?”

A warning jangled in Ulima’s mind. She didn’t care for that word
disposed
, or how it evoked the memory of Faanshi crumpled in the cellar—and a lion’s massive paw upon a dove, still clear to her mental sight. “Should you wish Faanshi to cleanse the last of the poison away,” she offered, keeping only bland concern in her voice, “I can bring her to your side.”

Khamsin scowled as she hefted herself higher along her pillows. “Has this last day’s madness affected you as well, Ulima? I don’t want the brat’s unclean hands upon me! I want...” The burst of energy was brief, and as it faded, she slumped back where she lay. Her voice, however, kept its virulence. “I want her gone. She healed the man who did this to me—who would have killed my honored husband!”

Ulima’s disquiet grew. But hope arose to balance it, for she discerned something besides ire and disdain in the caustic proclamations. Opportunity.

“Faanshi can’t command her power. You know this as well as I.” She reached for the clean handkerchiefs and the bowl of rose water, left by the dutiful Earennid on a carved wooden stand beside the bed. After dampening one of the white linen squares, she stroked it across Khamsin’s brow. “That it erupted when it did was most unfortunate. The
akreshi
duke has already...reprimanded her for her carelessness.”

A trace of hardness crept into her tone despite her iron control. Khamsin didn’t seem to notice. The damp cloth smoothed some of the strain from her features but not all, and this was nothing new to Ulima. From her girlhood in Tantiulo to her years as a Duchess of Adalonia, none of Khamsin’s days had spared room for anyone’s anger besides her own.

“Good. She should be put to death. We may be in danger yet because of her.”

“I’m relieved to see that your indisposition hasn’t affected your wits.”

“Faugh! Do you think me as weak-minded as my sister?” Disgust sparked in Khamsin’s eyes, even as Ulima turned the cloth about to a cooler portion. “I’m a daughter of Clan Sarazen! I won’t be felled by a—” As quickly as she snapped out the retort, however, she stopped. Wariness edged into her voice. “What are you implying?”

Ulima turned away, laying the cloth back down on the stand, and letting the younger woman see the hint of worry she allowed to creep into her profile. “It hasn’t occurred to you that if the assassin is at large, he may return to finish his task?”

More color drained from Khamsin’s features. “He wouldn’t dare trespass in this hall again.”

Strident, fierce words, and yet Ulima sensed doubt beneath them, a scorpion hidden in sand. Bent on driving that scorpion up into the light, she pursed her lips and gave every appearance of grave consideration as she fetched what she needed to prepare Khamsin’s next dosage of the purging tea: the proper vials from her basket, the fine porcelain teapot full of hot water, a silver spoon for stirring the mixture together.

“He couldn’t hope to best the
akreshi
in open combat, thus he sought to strike from the shadows.” She drew out each word with exacting care, along with the portions of each herb she sprinkled into the teapot. “And at those more vulnerable than His Grace. We’re blessed indeed that the snake didn’t choose to harm the children.”

Alarm widened Khamsin’s eyes. As if to go and find her offspring that instant, she surged upward, struggling to sit. “No! He wouldn’t lay hands on my daughter—my son—”

“He wasn’t above accepting a casteless slave’s touch to save his own worthless life.” There was the scorpion now. It was time to show it where to sting. Pressing a firm hand to the younger woman’s chest, Ulima caught her gaze. “He wasn’t above assaulting you.”

“Do you truly think he’ll return?”

The duchess went limp. Without pleasure Ulima watched the aggravation flee her face, leaving the horror of a mother facing a threat to her children behind. Ulima had no love for her sister’s daughter, yet nevertheless the lying rang wrongly within her, and inwardly she prayed to Djashtet for forgiveness. She had spoken untruths without hesitation to Khamsin and the man she’d mated for years now. But never had she been forced to use young Yselde and Artir to do it.

“I think that until your lord husband beheads the assassins, we must assume they’ll seek another way to strike—and if not at the
akreshi
, then at the defenseless ones around him. You. The children.” Ulima paused to pour the dose of the concoction steeping in the teapot. “Perhaps through the unwitting girl who aided them in their escape.”

“Faanshi. You think they’ll come back for her.”

Trading off the teapot for the cup of steaming, scented brew beside it, Ulima leaned over to help Khamsin drink. “She heals the sick and mends broken bodies with her touch. Lawless men must surely covet this power.”

Khamsin gulped down the tea, coughed and screwed up her features at the taste. But her gaze stayed upon her kinswoman. “You’ve always been her advocate, speaking for her when my lord would have given her to the Church for Cleansing...”

“I know you’ve embraced the akreshi’s gods, but surely you wouldn’t have me go against the
ridah
of Compassion?” Ulima took the cup away. “The Lady of Time frowns upon the harming of the helpless, even those stained by their forebears’ sin. Besides, had I not spoken for the girl, the ague that took him after her gift awoke would’ve left you without lord or heirs.”

“But you think she may draw the assassins back. What would you see done, sister of my mother?”

“Send her away. The
akreshi
has many other elven slaves. Hide her among them, so that she won’t tempt these killers, or others, to make use of her.”

As the idea took hold behind the younger woman’s eyes, the chamber door opened. A high piping treble and the heavy tread of booted feet warned Ulima who approached, and the duke’s drawling baritone overrode any reply his wife might have spoken.

“Your concern for my family’s well-being is gratifying, Ulima, if misplaced. Were I to send our little Faanshi away to join my other slaves, she’d prove a far greater temptation to those who share her tainted blood than she ever could to a simple murderer.” Holvirr strode to the bed and set the child he carried down at her mother’s side, inclined his head to Ulima, and leaned over to brush a kiss along his wife’s brow. “Good morning to you both. Tell your mother good morning, Yselde.”