Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AUDREY
“Only the rich can afford to be kind.” ~ La’Angi saying
I solde stood in the doorway to the steward’s archives, angled to catch a beam of sunshine as if she needed it for the panel she was embroidering. From the corner of my eye, I saw her hold the hoop up in her hand, turning it slightly. She paused, lifting my attention from the columns of numbers that hadn’t revealed any secrets to me yet.
Chay shifted, too. I couldn’t see him, but I heard the clinking chains on his belt and scabbard. I knew what I’d see if I did glance over. His hand wouldn’t be on his sword hilt. That was part of why it made such a racket. One of his thumbs would instead be looped in his belt. His fingers were long and strong. They’d hang, half-coiled as if in anticipation, from his belt.
Swordsmen always had strong forearms. I stared at the columns on the parchment before me and wondered if his hands might be equally as strong. They were wide, that much, I’d seen. But when he moved things between his fingers absently, or when he whittled, he did it with the care of someone who knew his size.
I shifted in my chair. Last night, he’d been whittling. He’d held up a piece of wood and traced the dips and curves with his fingers, his eyes mostly closed, an expression of intense concentration on his face.
I was jarred from my thoughts by another distracting jangle of his belt, so close yet so far from those hands, and I shifted, easing my cloak away from my suddenly too-warm body. Beyond his distracting clamor I heard quickly approaching steps of hard-soled boots against the rug that offered little buffer between feet and stone.
It had been almost a moon since my father left, but I doubted I’d ever hear steel-shod boots on stone without that small spurt of fear.
One of the steward’s assistants hurried past me, and out of habit, I put out a second hand to stop the pages beside me from fluttering to the ground as his cloak caught the stack. I kept my eyes on the columns before me rather than risk anyone seeing the disapproval stamped across my face.
“Steward Daniel is busy, guardsman,” the assistant was saying. “Tell me the problem, and I’ll see it’s dealt with.”
“No, I need to talk to him myself ,” the impatient guard demanded, and I risked a glance up at the unusual force in the words. His face was semi-familiar, but I had no name for him. “He’s been ignoring us for a week, Billy. You know he has.”
Whatever the assistant said was too quiet for me to hear because Chay shifted again, and his belt made the jangle.
I blew out a slow, calming breath and turned back to the numbers. Before I’d even found my place on the page again, I heard, “People are dying!”
Isolde’s body was somehow more central in the doorway than it had been a moment ago, though she barely moved. I wondered when I’d learn that trick. I’d asked her a few years ago, and she’d just looked at me like she had no idea what I meant.
“Sicknesses are normal,” the assistant said, his tone soothing. “I know they’re distressing, but they’re also to be expected as the weather turns.”
The sound of a door opening preceded Steward Daniel’s predictable, “What’s this?”
“There’s more sick, Master Steward.” Impatient Guard bobbed a bow from the glimpses between Isolde and where Thomas stood to one side of the wood-framed doorway. “Five more. I’ve got them in the small west hall, but?—”
“There’s a mother,” the assistant cut in. “And a few little ones. We know children always get sick, don’t we?”
My head spun at their casual dismissal, and I stood.
Steward Daniel glanced over at me, his smile fixed to his face. “We will of course assist this woman,” the Master Steward assured Impatient Guard, returning his attention to them.
“Your assistance isn’t working,” the guardsman said, continuing to earn the nickname I’d given him. “That’s Mick’s wife, Master Steward. You said he’d be the last we’d bury.”
I halted behind Isolde. Her needle kept moving steadily through the fabric. She didn’t miss a single stitch.
“What’s this about a sickness?” I asked, and Isolde angled herself slightly, though Thomas, on the other side, didn’t move. Like a bridge being lowered temporarily, they were allowed partial access to me.
“It’s nothing for you to worry on, my lady,” the Master Steward told me. “It’s under control. We’ll help Mick’s wife, guardsman. Thanking you for bringing this to us.”
Steward Daniel turned to leave, but Impatient Guard’s hand shot out. It was pale against the forest green velvet the Master Steward was wearing, and shock skimmed across my skin.
Isolde was, once again, in front of me. And now Thomas had allowed the tip of his spear to droop over the doorway, barring passage to both of us. And trapping us inside.
When Isolde did it, it felt safe. When Thomas did it…
“Please, Master Steward,” Impatient Guard said, releasing the fistful of scrunched fabric almost instantly. “We need to do more.”
“None can do more,” Steward Daniel told him, lips thin. “Go. I’ll see to them.”
I watched as the guardsman, his face as pale as his hand, turned smartly and left. His steps weren’t hurried now, but the measured rhythm of the La’Angi-trained.
“A word, please, Master Steward,” I said, but Steward Daniel just gave me a brief bow, gestured to his assistant, and vanished. I stood, incredulous, as the assistant vanished in the other direction.
As if they’d done this a thousand times already.
“What is going on?” I breathed.
Isolde settled her needle through the threads and lowered the hoop. “There’s been a strange illness,” she told me. “I thought nothing of it.” Her expression clearly said that had changed.
“’Tis just the normal, my lady,” Thomas assured me. “And if it isn’t, best you let others manage it.”
“You’re no Healer,” Isolde agreed.
Mayhap not, but I did have some power, as my father’s heir. It was possible that if I kicked up enough of a fuss, the Master Steward might be forced to take more action than…whatever he was doing.
“What is he doing?” I asked them.
Silence met my question.
My head felt fuzzy at that complete non-answer. Then Isolde met my eyes, and the world stopped for a moment.
There was nothing good happening here. Nothing at all. And I’d been completely unaware?
The guard had said they were in the small west hall. I already had inconvenienced my watchdogs to get information, hoping it might be useful. I may as well follow up.
So I set out for said hall, and they damned well had to fall in around me.
“Curse it, Audrey,” Isolde hissed. “Even if there is an illness, what is the point in us getting it?”
“We’ll take precautions,” I assured her. “They aren’t going to just tell us, Isolde, you saw the Master Steward! What other choice do I have?”
“I could ask a hundred other people,” Isolde told me, clearly frustrated.
They’d been shown to the hall. That wasn’t where you’d place someone highly contagious, but nor was it somewhere to settle a sick family to administer aid. I turned it around in my head, ignoring Isolde as she strode along beside me. How did someone saturate every movement with disapproval, and how did I learn to replicate this?
By the Wife, how I wanted Steward Daniel to know the depths of my disgust for him.
I didn’t know what was happening, but I despised all of it. And I knew damned well some of that disgust should’ve been for me, too, because I’d been sitting in my tower counting down days and ignoring everything else.
Thomas stepped ahead of us to open the door to the hall. I saw his eyes go over Isolde’s head, and he shared a loaded look with Chay, jangling along behind us.
The deep, centering breaths I took were in time with Isolde’s. I shortened my strides as we stepped into the warmly lit hall. There was a woman sitting by the big fireplace, but aside from her and the children I suspected had come with her, the hall was empty.
The hay on the floor crinkled beneath my feet, and I cast my eyes over the tables. In the place of chairs, long benches sat. In the Great Hall, we had magework lamps that didn’t smoke or flicker. Here, the walls were blackened above the brackets holding torches, which had at least been mostly lit. I knew I’d been in this hall, but I couldn’t remember when.
Two children had paused in their game of jacks and were climbing to their feet, flanking the woman rocking gently by the fireside, an infant at her breast, a toddler against her legs.
I was close enough to see their clothes were plain but good quality, though they hadn’t recently been cared for. The tallest boy turned to face us squarely. His gaze made me stop dead in my tracks, terror running up my spine and sinking claws into my brain. Whatever color his eyes had been, they were now almost completely black, and something so deeply unnatural about it made a large part of my mind demand— run .
Thomas continued forward, passing me by. He gave the boy a small bow, deference to the new master of the house, but the child hadn’t looked away from me. Some part of me, some dark, cowardly part, wondered if he’d spring if I turned to flee.
Isolde’s hand on my arm silently recommended caution.
“Chay,” I said. The word sounded painfully indifferent.
What did they have?
“Yes, my lady?”
I barely even noticed the disdain in his words. I didn’t care about his feelings at this moment, nor my own embarrassment. “Find me a Healer,” I told him quietly. “A mage.”
Thomas turned to object, but Chay was already following my instructions, his cloak swirling behind him and his equipment clinking as he moved with haste I appreciated.
Thomas’ objections were written on his face, but before he could unnecessarily remind me of my father’s arbitrary rules—which we’d probably already breached by being here, and which would be contrary to his wishes, even though he hadn’t explicitly said “don’t visit people with deadly illnesses”—I tried to remember what had been said about this family.
Mick’s wife. Who is Mick? “I understand you’re Mick’s oldest,” I said, hoping I had the name correct.
“Why did he run off?” the boy asked, jerking his head after Chay.
And what could I say? I think you’re dying? How about I’ve never seen an illness that makes a person’s eyes as black as an inkpot. A split second passed while I searched for words. “I sent him to find a Magework Healer,” I told him, hoping that honesty would be enough to pay for my brief hesitation.
The woman made a noise of pain low in her throat. “We’ve no coin to pay,” she said, the words full of grief.
“Then it’s a good thing I do.” I took them all in, looking at eyes where I could. The boys playing jacks were the only ones who did not seem to have one foot in the grave. The mother’s skin was white as chalk, her veins showing up as gray tracks up her neck and in her cheeks.
I had no idea the cost of a mage. I’d never needed to. If I’d required a mage, I’d had one. I knew I had a lot of wealth at my fingertips. I’d get Isolde to check standard fees so I wasn’t bled dry for future interactions, and I’d do what I could for this family.
I turned to the boy again, ignoring the rush of guilt at the idea of leaving in just a few days and never needing to worry about future interactions with any of these people. “How do you feel?” I asked him, because that was what mattered right now.
“Fine,” he said so furiously I knew it to be a lie.
“Hurts,” whimpered the toddler on the woman’s lap. “It hurts.”
“Shh,” the woman murmured, smoothing the child’s hair. Her hand was bone white, her nails blackened. Her veins were dark threads under her skin. “The warm is nice, isn’t it?”
A knife twisted in my heart. There was nothing else I could do to help.
“I’m sorry it hurts,” I told them, but the words sounded awkward to my ears. The graceless sentiment came from the bottom of my soul. “I’ll do everything I can.”
“Have you had something to eat?” Thomas asked the boy.
“Not hungry,” he said forcefully.
But the two playing jacks looked up. “I am,” one of them said hesitantly.
Isolde smiled at them. “We’ll fetch you something to eat, then. Come now, my lady, you can help me carry.”
She took my arm and steered me away. Once we were clear of them, Thomas said, “My lady,” like a plea. I met his eyes, and found in them both desperation and terrifyingly, trust. He knew, too. He knew they were doomed.
In the hallway, Isolde’s hand settled on my arm above my elbow. She didn’t quite pull me along, but she came damned close. “Do not touch them,” Isolde said in a tone that brooked no argument. She looked first at me, then at Thomas. “Or I’ll cut off whichever body part it is that might…might have that .”
“How many?” I asked them, letting Isolde steer me.
“I’ve heard of seven or eight deaths,” Isolde said, glancing at Thomas. “I assumed it was a regular illness, exaggerated.”
The thought of those black eyes made something deep inside of me shy away. It was no wonder Steward Daniel didn’t want to face the reality of it. There was something terrifying about those eyes. I didn’t know what, and I hoped I never would, but it was there, very real and ancient.
“Thomas?” I asked, because he just walked in silence.
He ducked from my gaze, watching a servant bustling past, doing her best to be unobtrusive. But he said, slowly, “I haven’t been tallying the deaths.” That there might be enough to need tallying hadn’t even occurred to me. “It was mostly in the lower quarter, though.” Something about that acknowledgment sat ill with me, but before I could question him, he said, “I heard a body was fished out of the river, and the fishermen got sick after.”
“How close were they?” Isolde asked, the words sharp. I could just about see her assessing the risks. Get close, get sick. Audrey is at risk. Keep her away.
“You need to be awfully close to pull a body from a river, ” I told her, irritated. “I’m not planning on pulling their bodies from the hall. There should be no issue.”
“You need to be close to deliver soup, too,” she replied sharply. “And we have no idea how close is too close.”
A girl with a damp apron saw us coming and held the door, dropping down in a curtsey. I knew I was about to be forbidden from attending by Isolde, and while it made sense, I had no way to explain how much I hated the idea.
I’d been helpless for so long. I should’ve been used to it.
Knowing damned well what I was doing, I followed Isolde to gather a basket and leaned in, murmuring, “Mayhap we ought to leave a day or two earlier.”
She made a thoughtful noise, blasting the cook with a smile as the woman did a double-take at seeing me present. “Sorry to disturb you,” Isolde said. “The lady and I were just popping in quickly. Your dough is looking excellent, Bernadette.”
I hung back until a basket with small, still-warm sourdough rolls was thrust into my hands. Isolde carried the soup, bowls stacked neatly atop the tureen. The smile on her lips was genuine as she guided me back out. I hated how swiftly it faded.
I knew it wasn’t my fault she was unhappy. She’d made choices for herself, and there wasn’t a force known to the One, the Wife, or the Son that could make Isolde do a thing she didn’t want to do. But still, it twisted up my gut and made me want to make my excuses and hasten back to the quiet of my tower.
“I don’t like this,” Isolde said unnecessarily, but the words were directed at a grim-faced Thomas. “She needs to stay back.”
“Understood, and agreed, mistress,” he said stiffly. “I can take it from here, if it pleases the lady.”
It pleased my cowardly, shame-soaked heart. And mayhap that was why I couldn’t let myself consider the wisdom of my choices as I saw a servant hastening out of the hall, an empty coal cart pushed before her.
Isolde gave me a gentle nudge and jerked her chin toward the servant, frowning. I followed her gaze, not seeing why she’d drawn my attention. “What?” I asked quietly, as Thomas held the door for us.
“Unusual to see coal carts around in the afternoon, isn’t it?” she murmured. “Come now, we’ll leave the family to eat their soup while sir Chay fetches the Healer. They can find you once it’s done.”
I followed her in, and we set the food down on the table at the mother’s back.
I stood back as Isolde set out the bowls. The mother nudged the child on her knee toward the food, but he wouldn’t stand. I watched, unsure if I should offer to take the infant, but Thomas was already stepping forward, his expression one of kindness. Freed from the necessity of action, I glanced down at the toddler leaning against his mother’s legs as the jack-playing boys took soup and bread to the side. Thomas had frozen, his arms half-outstretched, bent at the middle with his shield at his feet.
The toddler’s head lolled to one side, awkwardly.
The mother’s wail made time freeze. The raw agony of her scream held a pain that made tears spring to my eyes and stole the air from my lungs. I fell back a step, the high-pitched, primal noise of grief making the world spin. She rocked aggressively, her arm scooping the limp toddler to her legs as the infant was clutched to her breast.
Isolde’s hand went again to my arm, though I hadn’t seen her get there. She pulled me back a little further, and—the Wife help me—I let her.
But only for one step.
Thomas was no longer frozen. He stripped his cloak from his shoulders and was easing the infant from the mother’s arms. I couldn’t hear his murmured reassurances, but I could see the movement of his lips and the shine of tears in his eyes.
Isolde’s hand bit into my arm as she tugged on me, and I pulled free.
Thomas glanced up at me, the babe bundled in his sturdy cloak, but it was to the oldest boy that he carried it.
The boy, barely seven winters old, dropped his spoon with a clatter. His mouth, hanging agape, snapped shut, and he took the infant with hands that seemed too small to carry such a burden. But he didn’t fumble it, just held the child close. The little one waved a hand at their brother, and I told myself I couldn’t see it properly not because the infants skin was so pale it was transparent, but because my eyes blurred with tears.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but those words were drowned in the mother’s wails, and I was glad. What good did my regret do?
The door opened, and Chay’s familiar face, carved in painful neutrality, blurred until I blinked away tears. The mage entered behind him, an unfamiliar man who glanced around warily, his gaze lingering on me.
“He’s a Magework Healer,” Thomas said to the older boy. “He’ll help.”
The mage shot him a look of caution, putting down his toolbox on the table with a thump. The woman was weeping now, and I didn’t know if I should look at her or not.
“I’ve not seen this,” he told me matter-of-factly. “How long have you been unwell for?” he asked the older boy. The mage’s fingers were long and marked with scars and burns as he undid the catches on his toolbox, and it sprang open. Cogs whirred, and an elaborate selection of metal and crystal implements were displayed. Tiny cases formed miniature staircases up and down the display, and the whirring, clicking sound of a mage’s work hummed in the background.
“I’m not unwell,” the boy snapped.
“How long have their eyes looked odd?” he asked the brother, setting out three ceramic basins in a triangle around the eldest.
“Three days,” said the boy opposite him.
The older brother scowled. “Their eyes are fine. ”
“No, it’s been four days,” said the other, shaking his head. Unconcerned, the mage snapped on his metal-framed eyeglasses, flicking through the crystal lenses, frowning and cycling back, until he found what he wanted. “Ma got it the day we got eggs, remember?”
The eldest brother’s scowl deepened. His cheeks took on a strange gray hue, but before there could be an argument, the mage snapped his fingers, and fire ignited in the bowl, making the boy flinch. “Have you had a runny nose, felt hot or cold?” asked the mage. The boys shook their heads. “Do you think your ma has?”
They hesitated, the older one holding the infant closer than I thought was perhaps wise. The last few tendrils of steam curled off the soup before him, forgotten. “Ma, she was strange. Not hot, but ice cold. Used up a week’s wood in one night.”
The mage accepted this silently, measuring out oils into the bowls. Sparks crackled where the liquid met the flame. The familiar smell of fragrant oils and metal made some of the tension ease out of me. Would he be able to offer me information on the sickness once he’d healed them? “I’ll see what I can do for this one,” he told me, his movements brisk as he tightened the seal on the jar of oil.
Thomas had known what to do for the mother when she’d been mourning. That was what I needed to do, not flee but help where I could. I didn’t know what to do, but I had to do something, didn’t I? Wasn’t that my role?
“Do what you can, please,” I said, relieved to have someone who got straight to the point and wasn’t going to make me justify, explain, or finagle. The hum of magic contained within the mage’s box made the quiet of the room seem heavier.
He nodded, taking the infant from the arms of the older brother with not a gentle word to soften any of it. He just took a few deep breaths and then went curiously still.
Isolde was looking at me again, and I knew she wanted me to run. But I wasn’t running.
I looked to the woman, sitting in a puddle on the ground, her arms around the body of the small child. She wasn’t wailing or weeping. She was perfectly, utterly still, her eyes staring toward my left shoulder. The world started to spin around me.
“Breathe,” Isolde said softly, and I did.
The woman’s eyes were deep, dark black, veins beneath her skin like ink-stained cracks. Even in death she clutched the child to her breast.
I was standing in a hall with two now-dead people who’d had a mystery illness that made them look like evil itself had infected them. And I had not a clue what to do.
Isolde’s hand was on my upper arm again, and this time, I wasn’t breaking free. I looked up, jolted from the shock to see the mage’s skin was deathly pale. Even as I tried to recall the exact shade of brown of his skin when he’d arrived, the veins in his neck became clearer. I watched the darkness spread, like he was cracking and crumbling before us. There was something hypnotic about it. The fires in the bowls flared, sparks spluttered dramatically, and then were snuffed out.
I found myself unable to look away until man and child slowly melted to the floor, a lifeless pile of flesh. Did people always look boneless in death? Had the illness changed something that meant they moved so slowly? What sort of illness could spread through the mage’s spells?
“Audrey,” Isolde said quietly, “You need to leave.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t make sense of it. That wasn’t how magic worked.
“Ma?” asked one of the children who had been eating.
“Go, Audrey,” Isolde said, releasing me. “Now.”
Even with the ring of command in her voice, my feet were rooted to the floor, and it was lucky they were, or I’d’ve flown to the rafters and become wedged there. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak, either, to tell her. The cogs of the mage’s box were silent.
The younger brother stood, his soup tumbling off to the side. The metal bowl bounced away with a noise that felt like a knife to my skull. Opposite him, his older brother stood, looking from the mage and infant to his mother’s fallen form.
Isolde’s hand bit into my arm so hard it was a wonder it didn’t make me weep from the pain, but I couldn’t feel it. She was pulling me backward, but my feet weren’t working properly. I watched them, the two young children. I couldn’t tell what their faces meant. I didn’t know.
I tripped on my skirt, but Isolde held me up until I could recover to the sound of ripping fabric as my skirt gave way.
The younger brother screamed—rage and terror and grief all blurring into a blood-chilling war cry—as he launched himself toward me. A split second later, the older brother’s wail, thick with tears, joined in.
He was scrambling over the table. He was furious.
I’d been trying to help.
I’d just wanted to help.
“Don’t let them touch her,” Isolde ordered, her voice cracking like a whip as she shoved me behind her.
Thomas grabbed the oldest by his shirt and pulled him down off the table, but he scrambled under. Isolde planted her foot squarely in the youngest’s face, kicking him away. Black blood oozed out of his nose as he staggered.
My heart was as dead as the mage. I put my hand to my own face, tasting the blood, feeling the hot, burning agony. Through my tears, I saw Chay grab the eldest around the waist as he lunged at me.
Tiny arms clawed at the air. Tiny feet flailed. He’d clambered through the spilled soup. Some of it was on his breeches.
Stop, I wanted to say, but the words got all tangled up in my throat. We want to help.
“You killed my da! You killed my ma!” the younger brother shouted at us, sobbing, blood dribbling slowly down his chin.
Either the child in Chay’s arms broke free, or he let him go. He came toward me, and Isolde shoved him back, too, her kick hitting him in the chest and making him sprawl into his younger, bloodied brother.
I took a step back, away from the horror almost involuntarily. I couldn’t breathe around the sobs, screams, or useless regret tangled up in selfish terror.
The eldest boy gathered himself for another leap, and the world was spinning around me, tilting, crashing down. Isolde’s hand on my arm wasn’t there to keep me up. The straw didn’t soften my fall as my knees hit the ground. The eldest, who’d accepted his tiny sibling, who’d amused his little brothers, who would hold me responsible. My hand crushed my mouth, tried to hold my own agony in. It didn’t belong here.
I didn’t belong here.
He jumped at me, and Chay stepped between us, sword drawn. He said something, a warning. I couldn’t look away as the child speared himself on the blade.
Thomas stood, shaking, frozen in place, but Isolde stepped in front of me and settled into a stance I knew was defensive.
The younger child was running at me. I heard Isolde shout, heard my own wail as if from far away. At the last moment, some instinct kicked in, and I tried to scramble to my feet through the tears. There was violence around me. So much. I couldn’t make sense of it, of the lurching, spinning world or the words tumbling around the air nearby.
And then it was quiet, finally. And the last child’s head had been separated from his body.
Chay dropped his sword like it burned and turned his eyes on me, disgust in every line of his face.
I couldn’t make sense of that much hatred. I couldn’t carry it.
So I didn’t try.
But I shed tears for him, anyway. He, and the other innocents.