Chapter 9
Indrie
The afternoon sun is slanting low through the windows when Ermin declares, with the unshakeable authority of an eighteen-year-old who has decided something and will not be argued with, that Indrie is overworked and needs to come see the hot springs beneath the keep.
"I'm not overworked," Indrie says. He is grinding a poultice for a rash that the tanner's wife has been suffering from for weeks and his back aches and his hands are stained green from herb preparation and there is a smudge of something on his cheek that he cannot identify and has given up trying to remove.
"You've been on your feet since before dawn. Your shoulders are up around your ears. And you're talking to the mortar like it's a person."
Indrie looks down at the mortar. He has, in fact, been muttering to it, encouraging words, as though the dried yarrow will grind itself more cooperatively if he is kind to it. He does not recall starting this conversation. He sets the pestle down.
"The hot springs," Ermin repeats. "Under the keep. They're heated by vents in the rock and the water is perfect and everyone goes after a long day and you need this, Indrie. You're wound tighter than a bowstring."
"I am not wound—"
"You're wound extremely tight."
Indrie opens his mouth to argue and then closes it, because Ermin is right.
He has been on his feet since dawn. His back aches and his hands are cramped from grinding and his neck is stiff from bending over the examination table and the idea of hot water, truly hot, the kind of heat that seeps into muscles and unravels them, is so appealing that his body makes the decision before his mind can intervene.
"Fine," he says. "Let me finish this poultice."
Ermin pumps his fist in a gesture of victory so youthful it makes Indrie feel approximately a hundred years old, and they close up the clinic together, herbs put away, instruments cleaned, the fire banked in the hearth, and head up the hill toward the keep as the light turns amber around them.
The hot springs are a wonder.
Indrie has never seen anything like them.
They are carved into the natural rock beneath the keep, or not entirely carved, the bones of the cavern shaped by the earth itself and then expanded and improved over generations by people who understood the value of what they'd been given.
The entrance is through a stone passage that descends gradually, the air warming as they go, until they emerge into a cavern that opens high above them.
The ceiling is vaulted, dripping with mineral formations that catch the lamplight and throw it back in fractured patterns across the stone walls.
Oil lanterns are mounted on iron brackets at intervals along the passages, their flames reflected in the water so that the whole cavern seems to glow from within.
The pools are separated by natural rock formations, low ridges and shelves of dark stone, smooth from centuries of water, and the steam that rises from them curls through the air in wisps and ribbons that make the space feel dreamlike.
Otherworldly. As though they have descended into the belly of the land and found it warm and welcoming.
Ermin explains the layout as they navigate the stone paths between the pools.
The men's section extends to the left, the women's to the right, with a central passage that leads deeper into the mountain where the water is hottest. The springs are communal, open to anyone in the city, warrior or baker or fisherman, and the etiquette, as Ermin describes it, is straightforward.
"Don't piss in the water. Don't start fights. And if you fall asleep and someone has to fish you out, you owe them a drink."
"Has that happened?"
"Twice. Both times to me."
There are men throughout the cavern. Some soaking in companionable silence, shoulders deep, their faces slack with the bliss of heat working into tired muscles.
A pair near the entrance are talking quietly, their voices echoing in the stone chamber in a way that makes the words indistinct.
Further back, a boisterous group at the far end are clearly well into their cups, clustered in a larger pool with tankards balanced on the rock ledge, telling stories that grow louder and more embellished with every round of laughter.
The atmosphere is easy. Unhurried. People unwinding at the end of a long day, letting the earth's warmth pull the tension from their bodies.
Ermin strips with the carefree unselfconsciousness of a young man who grew up bathing communally and thinks nothing of it.
His clothes are off and piled on the bench in a matter of seconds and he slides into the nearest pool immediately, sighing with deep full-body contentment, and disappears up to his chin.
"Come on," he says, when Indrie hesitates.
Indrie is not accustomed to undressing in front of others.
In Kalkoa, bathing was a private affair conducted in his closet-sized room with a basin and a rag, alone, always alone.
The idea of disrobing in a cavern full of strangers, strangers who are large and muscular and covered in tattoos and might look at him, makes something in his stomach clench.
But the water is steaming and his back is aching and Ermin is watching him with the impatient expectation of a young man who does not understand hesitation and will not tolerate delay, so Indrie removes his clothes.
He folds them carefully, the borrowed shirt, the trousers, his boots placed side by side on the bench with a precision that is less about neatness and more about giving his hands something to do while his skin is exposed, and lowers himself into the water.
The heat hits him like a blessing.
It envelops him completely, shoulders, chest, the aching muscles of his back, the sore spots in his hands where the pestle has been pressing all day, and he feels himself go boneless.
The tension he's been carrying in his neck and shoulders unravels in a cascade that starts at his scalp and flows downward, and he leans his head back against the smooth stone rim of the pool and closes his eyes and breathes, and for a suspended moment he is perfectly, entirely at peace.
The water smells faintly of minerals, iron and something softer, almost sweet, and the warmth of it is not like any warmth he has known.
Not the warmth of a fire, which heats from without.
Not the warmth of a blanket, which traps and holds.
This warmth comes from below. From the mountain itself.
It rises through the water and into his skin and finds the places where the cold has settled, his joints, his bones, the deep tired places that no amount of sleep seems to touch, and gently, patiently, eases them.
He lets himself sink until the water reaches his chin. His dark hair fans out around his shoulders in the water, drifting. His hands float at his sides, palms up, the tension in his fingers slowly releasing.
He has not been this relaxed since… He searches for the reference and cannot find it.
Since before Kalkoa, perhaps. Since before the castle and the closet and the mat on the stone floor.
Since before King Armond and his illness and his fists.
Since before ownership and obedience and the careful, constant vigilance of a life in which any mistake, any stumble, any moment of inattention could mean pain.
He breathes. The steam curls around his face.
He could fall asleep like this, but Ermin's warning is in his ear and he most certainly does not want to be fished out.
Ermin's voice, distant and animated, filters through the steam.
He has drifted toward the boisterous group at the far end and struck up a conversation, and Indrie can hear him talking about the voyage, describing the storm, probably, the way Ermin describes everything, with sweeping gestures and a complete disregard for accurate scale.
The soldiers are laughing. Ermin is laughing too, bright and carrying in the stone chamber, and the sound of it makes Indrie smile without opening his eyes.
He is alone in his alcove. The rock formation beside him creates a natural partition from the rest of the pool, a curved shelf of dark stone that blocks the view and the noise and gives him something close to privacy.
The lamplight flickers against the back of his eyelids. The water holds him. He drifts.
"You're the healer."
Indrie opens his eyes.
A man has settled into the pool near him.
He is friendly-faced, handsome, and broad, built like the tattooed warriors Indrie has been treating all week, with a square jaw and close-cropped dark hair and the kind of easy, open smile that suggests he has never met a stranger in his life.
He is sitting in the water at a companionable distance, arms resting along the stone rim, his posture relaxed and unhurried.
His accent is thick, thicker than most of the Rengaran Indrie has been hearing, but his words are clear and deliberately paced, and Indrie realizes the man is speaking slowly on purpose. For him.
"Yes," Indrie says. "I'm Indrie."
The man's smile widens. "Harrak," he says, pressing his hand to his own chest. "I work in the keep. Guard."
"What do you guard?"
"Doors, mostly." Harrak considers this. "A corridor. There is a very valuable corridor on the second floor and I stand at the end of it."
Indrie's mouth twitches. "Is it dangerous?"
"Extremely. Last month a man came down it carrying a tray." Harrak shakes his head slowly, gravely. "I let him pass. I think about it often."
Indrie laughs before he can stop himself, and it echoes off the stone, and Harrak looks so pleased with himself that Indrie laughs again.
"Where are you from? Not here."
"The Isles beyond Kalkoa."
Harrak nods as though he has heard of it but does not press for details.
"And how do you find Valen?"
"It is beautiful. More beautiful than anything I have seen."