This time she nodded solemnly. “Quieter than Maruman stalking a squeaker,” she vowed.
Hearing his name, the cat stretched luxuriously and peered down at us, his good eye glowing in the darkness.
“Maruman, will you keep her/mornir quiet?” I sent. Mornir was the name the animals at Obernewtyn had given Dragon. It meant “brightmane.”
The old cat assented and began to wash himself industriously. I looked at the gypsy. Her breathing was labored, her eyes sunk into their sockets. If she did not get help soon, she would die in spite of Roland’s sleepseal.
Well, I could do no more than I was doing.
Cautioning Dragon again to stay quiet, I climbed out of the wagon, pulling the curtain to the cabin shut behind me. The lane ahead was empty, and it was still raining hard, but it was too much to hope we had not been noticed. I remounted Gahltha, and we retraced our steps as swiftly as we could, but it was full dark before we reached the small trading market that Domick had described as the nearest landmark to the safe house. In the daylight on a good day, it would doubtless be a pleasant spot to linger, but tonight it was a wet and windy pool of darkness and completely deserted.
We crossed the square to a street leading off, abutted by a trader office on one side and a huge wagon-repair shed on the other. A sign glistening wetly in the wagon light told us the entrance to the repair yard was from the side street.
The gates were standing ajar, creaking slightly in the wind, when we came to them. Beyond, the place was sunk in darkness. The shapes of half-dismantled wagons were standing about in the open, and the shed was nothing more than a square of shadow.
“Are ye sure this is it?” Matthew sent. “It dinna look as if anyone is here.”
“They wouldn’t advertise their presence,” I replied, though in fact it did look deserted. Jaygar pulled the wagon into the yard.
“There’s a light in there,” Matthew sent. I looked where he was pointing, and sure enough there was a dim glow from one of the shed’s windows, hidden from the street.
“I’ll go,” I sent, and slid off Gahltha.
Inside, the shed smelled of damp metal and sawdust, but at least it was dry. The light was coming from a small room set in a far corner of the enormous structure. Through a doorway, I could see a youth sitting at a table, the light from a lantern glancing off his cheeks.
He jumped to his feet when he spotted me. “What do you want, halfbreed?”
“I … I have a wheel rim that needs some attention,” I stalled, startled by his aggressive tone.
“You’ll have to go somewhere else. We don’t fix halfbreed wagons,” he said.
Before I could think how to respond, a door opened beside him and Kella stepped out. Seeing me, the healer’s mouth fell open.
“Elspeth! By all the heavens! How did you get here?” Without waiting for an answer, she rushed across and flung her arms around me.
I stiffened instinctively. Misunderstanding, the healer let her arms fall to her sides and stepped away awkwardly. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’d forgotten how it feels to be treated like an ordinary human being.”
She looked bewildered. “What do you mean?”
I laughed dismissively. “I don’t mean anything, except that I am glad to see you.” I looked pointedly at the strange youth.
“This is Balder,” Kella said lightly. “He is one of Brydda’s people, lent to us as a watchman. Balder, this is a friend of mine and of Brydda’s.”
The boy nodded politely, but his eyes were cold.
I drew Kella out into the great shed on the pretext of seeing the wagon. “Why is he here?”
“I told you, he is guarding the safe house. It’s all right,” Kella said. “He doesn’t know anything except that we are friends of Brydda’s and that I am a healer. Brydda always sends someone when Domick goes out of the city on errands for the Councilcourt.”
There were a dozen questions I wanted to ask her, but now was not the time. “We’ll talk about this later. Matthew and Dragon are in the wagon—”
“Dragon!”
“There is also a woman who needs healing,” I said.
Kella stiffened. “Take me to her,” she commanded, imperious in her healer role.
Dragon was sitting wide-eyed in the corner of the wagon with Maruman, who had solved the problem of keeping her put by sitting on her lap. With barely a glance at them, Kella climbed into the cabin and pulled the blankets back from the pallet bed. Her eyes widened at the sight of the unconscious gypsy, but she composed herself swiftly and laid her fingers lightly on the woman’s neck. A moment later, she shook her head.
“It’s impossible to treat her here. Let me send Balder away, and then you can bring her in.”
She left, and a few minutes later, the rebel came out of the shed wrapped up in a dark oiled coat. When I was sure he had gone, I jumped down into the rainy dark and between us, Matthew and I carried the gypsy inside.
“On th’ floor?” the farseeker asked as we reached the smaller room within the shed.
“Through here,” Kella directed, opening the door she had come through earlier. Beyond was a rickety set of steps going up into the darkness. Seeing the expression on my face, she gave a faint smile. “Things are rarely what they seem. You, of all people, should know that.”
At the top of the steps was a dark landing and a door with blistered whitewash. Kella opened it with a flourish, and bright light and warmth flowed out.
“The safe house,” she said proudly. “You can’t tell from below, but the whole top of the shed is another floor. No light shows outside, because all the windows face the sky or else are blacked out with heavy cloth.”
She stepped into a short hall and opened a door. “This is our healing chamber. Bring her in.”
The room was long and narrow, with a row of straw mattresses made up as beds. The healer drew back the blankets on the nearest of these, and we lay the gypsy on it.
“I’ll unharness Jaygar and take the bridle off Gahltha,” Matthew said, turning to the door.
“Bring Maruman and Dragon up, too,” I requested, crossing to the door and closing it behind him. When I returned, Kella was kneeling by the mattress, holding the gypsy’s hand.
“These are not fresh wounds,” she said, a question in her tone.
In as few words as I could manage, I explained my rescue of the gypsy, Roland’s diagnosis, and the sleepseal he had imposed.
“I don’t understand why you brought her here,” Kella said, beginning to unravel the stained bandages. “If Roland couldn’t help her, I doubt I can do better. I daren’t take the seal off yet, but at least I can bathe her wounds and change the bandages.” She moved to a small cooling cupboard, took out a stone jug of whitish fluid, and returned to bathe the gypsy’s arms.
“Maryon said her own people will be able to treat her,” I said. “That’s one of the reasons we’re here.”
“Gypsies know a great deal about healing,” Kella agreed. She rebandaged the woman’s arms deftly and pulled the blankets up. “That is all I can do for now,” she said, rinsing her hands in a bowl. “At least it will stop any infection from setting in. You will have to move swiftly if you are to return her alive to her people, though. Even with a sleepseal to slow everything down, an injury drains life energies, and she does not have much left to lose.”
We went back into the hall, and she indicated another door. “That is one of the sleeping chambers, and there is another closer to the kitchen.” She opened the door alongside. “The bathing room. There are three bathing barrels, and we even have water piped in. Fire heats the water while it’s still in the pipes, and then it comes out of tubes to the barrels once you remove the stoppers. Unfortunately, it takes ages to heat. I’ll light it if you like?”
I shook my head and gestured for her to go on.
Despite its considerable size, the kitchen was cozy and welcoming. It had been whitewashed so that even without windows
, it seemed light. The air was warm and redolent with the odor of hundreds of tiny bunches of drying herbs hung in neat rows along all the walls. There were shelves of foodstuffs and in the center of the room, on a woven rug, a thick scrub-wood table and some stools. A fire blazed in a narrow hearth. As I crossed at once to warm myself, Kella filled a kettle and bent to hang it on a hook suspended over the flames.
“It’s like a breath straight from Obernewtyn to see you here,” she said with sudden fervency. “I miss you all so much. I dream of the fields and mountains, and then I wake and am still here.”
The depth of longing in her eyes made me feel ashamed. In spite of Maryon’s doom-filled predictions, I had been glad to get away from my cloistered existence at Obernewtyn, while poor Kella lived in constant danger to keep it safe.
“Sutrium is awful,” she went on. “I never imagined people could be dragged so low. Even before Rushton took over, there were times for laughter at Obernewtyn. Here no one laughs, and if they do, people stare at them as if they have gone mad. And it is a hundred times worse since the plague. I pity these people their gray lives.”
“Don’t pity them too much,” I said dryly. “Those same pitiable souls would stand by and watch us burn without lifting a finger.”
“It’s true enough. We’re nowt but freaks to them,” Matthew said, coming through the door carrying Maruman. The cat leapt to the ground and began prowling about the room, smelling it. Kella knew better than to react to his presence and pretended not to notice him. Instead, she beamed at the ward.
“Lud, but you’ve grown now that I see you properly, Matthew. Has Brydda’s mother been using herb lore on you instead of her garden?”
Matthew laughed. “Seems to me it’s yerself who’s shrinkin’!”
I thought his jest curiously apt, but Kella only slapped playfully at his arm and urged him to dry himself in front of the fire. Then, catching sight of Dragon hovering in the hall behind him with her shoulders hunched miserably, the healer gave an exclamation and held out her arms. Dragon rushed at her, and it was some minutes before she could pry herself loose from the girl’s impassioned embrace.
“What a grub you are, love,” Kella laughed. “It’s a miracle you manage to stay dirty in so much rain. Will you let me wash your face?”
Dragon froze, her blue eyes livid with fear. “No bath.”
“No bath,” the healer assured her, knowing as well as anyone Dragon’s inexplicable terror of water. “Just a bit of a damp cloth.”
Kella ushered her from the kitchen, and Matthew scowled after them.
“What do you want done about her, Matthew?” I snapped. He was as bad as Dragon, I thought, with less excuse for it.
There was an awkward pause. “They’ve done a good job here,” Matthew said at last. “There is even a special yard where th’ horses can graze without bein’ seen.”
I drew off my soaked boots and poured some of the boiling fement into two mugs, handing him one as a peace offering. “They’ve had quite a bit of help from Brydda Llewellyn by the sound of it.”
“Of course,” Matthew said easily; then he gave me a sharp look. “And why not? Surely ye dinna worry he’d betray us?”
I shook my head. Brydda’s father, Grufyyd, and his mother, the herb lorist Katlyn, had come to live at Obernewtyn after the Council learned their son was the notorious rebel the Black Dog, so betrayal on Brydda’s part was completely out of the question. “It’s not Brydda. It’s the others. That rebel boy who was downstairs, for instance. Did you see the way he looked at us? If he feels that way about gypsies, how is he going to react when he discovers we’re Misfits? There’s no point in us pretending we’re all allies until it has been agreed to officially by the rebels. We don’t really know where we stand with them.”
“Is that really why we’re here? Did Maryon’s prediction have something to do with the rebels?” Matthew demanded.
I was glad when Kella’s return prevented my answering. “I’ve put her into bed,” Kella said. “The poor little mite was asleep before her head brushed the pillow. But why on earth did you bring her here?”
I explained, and the healer shook her head in wonder. “She must be very attached to follow you all this way, Elspeth.”
Matthew rose, pulled on his coat in one ferocious motion, and went out the door, saying he was going to unpack the wagon.
Kella stared after him in astonishment. “Whatever is the matter with him?”
I laughed and, even to my own ears, it sounded bitter. “I am beginning to suspect it wasn’t me Dragon followed but Matthew. I think he volunteered for this expedition specifically to get away from her.”
“Oh, poor Dragon,” Kella said compassionately. “I remember she followed him everywhere when I was last at Obernewtyn, but I thought it was just a fleeting infatuation.”
“More’s the pity it wasn’t,” I said, suddenly emptied of ill humor. I stood up. “I am going to wash and put on some dry things.”
“There are clothes in a trunk in the bathing room,” Kella said. A lantern was lit in the bathhouse from Dragon’s wash, and as I peeled off my soaking clothes, I caught sight of myself in a mirror hanging on the wall: a long, lean girl with irritated moss-green eyes and thick, black hair falling past her waist. I glared at myself and realized abruptly that I felt less pity for Dragon’s love than exasperation at the inconvenience of it.
What a terrible business loving was. It was a troublesome and tiresome emotion destined more often to enrage the recipient than to please them. Rushton’s love for me, if that was what it could be called, had him determined to shut me up like a bird in a gilded cage, while Dragon’s love for Matthew had driven him out of his home. What right had people to love you when you had not wanted it or asked for it?
Of course, in Dragon’s case, the only wonder was that no one had foreseen the outcome of throwing together a volatile girl, who had spent most of her life in wretched loneliness, with a boy of Matthew’s easy charm. Yet Dragon had ultimately saved Obernewtyn with his help. Her heartache and his irritation must be considered a small price to pay for that.
It seemed there was always a price to pay for loving.
I had a sudden vivid memory of a time when, taken in by Dragon’s illusions, I had thought Obernewtyn destroyed. From my hiding place, I had spotted Rushton. He had been haggard, grim-faced with burning eyes, and I had imagined he was despairing over the loss of Obernewtyn. Only later had I understood that his sorrow arose from his belief that I was dead.
I shook my head and turned to rummage for dry clothing, not liking the tenor of my thoughts nor the way Rushton’s face haunted me.
I fled to the kitchen, bringing the lamp with me, and pulled up a stool to join Matthew and Kella in front of the fire. Maruman came over and leapt onto my lap. His mind was closed, and I did not try to force entry to it.
“How long before Domick comes home?” I asked Kella, wincing as the cat’s claws penetrated cloth and flesh. “Are you expecting him tonight?”
The healer nodded, the smile fading from her lips.
I guessed she was wondering if our arrival would put Domick in danger, and for the first time, I was aware of the strain in her face. There were lines around her eyes, and her hands fidgeted constantly in swift, nervous gestures. I had been surprised at the strength of the longing in her voice as she talked of Obernewtyn, but now I truly thought of what her life in the safe house must be like. Every day she watched her bondmate leave, knowing he went to work under the very noses of the Councilmen. If discovered, he would be killed.
It seemed far easier to take action than to sit and wait. People like Kella had the worst of it—the waiting and wondering and being helpless. In asking when Domick would return, I had surely voiced a question she never dared permit herself to ask.
Hearing the stair door creak and heavy footsteps in the hall, I felt an echo of the profound relief I saw on Kella’s face.
But when the kitchen door opened, I did not recognize the dar
k-clad man who stepped inside.
7
IT WASN’T UNTIL Kella crossed the room to embrace the man that I realized it was Domick.
The last time I had seen the coercer was at Obernewtyn just around the time he and Kella had established the safe house. Then, Domick had been on the edge of manhood, brown as a gypsy, with shoulder-length dark hair and bold, serious eyes. There was no sign of that youth in the man who now stood before me.
His skin was milk pale, and his long hair had been cropped very short. But most of all, it was his expression that made him a stranger—or the lack of expression. His face was a gaunt mask, the eyes two hooded slits. If he felt any surprise at seeing us in the safe house, it was not evident.
As a coercer, Domick had possessed that guild’s characteristic aggression, but his love for Kella had seemed to temper his intensity. I could not begin to imagine what had happened to turn him into this hard-faced man.
“Has something gone wrong at Obernewtyn?” he asked in a voice as even and emotionless as his expression.
“That is a harsh greeting for old friends,” Kella scolded him gaily, and I saw that she had not mentioned his transformation because she did not perceive it. It seemed that love was truly blind.
Domick exerted himself to produce a semblance of liveliness. “Kella is right. Forgive my abruptness. It has been a bad night, but it is good to see you both.” He smiled, but his eyes remained remote, and again I found myself wishing for empathy—this time to tell me what seethed under the stoniness of his face.
The coercer removed his oiled cloak, and I saw the tension in his movements as he crossed to hang it on a peg beside the fire. Sitting down, he reminded me of a spring coiling tight for a hard recoil. Maruman watched him, then hissed and sprang from my lap to prowl about the room.
“You have chosen a bad time to visit,” Domick said, glancing up to indicate the rain thundering down on the roof.
“Needs must,” I said.
He gave me a swift look. “Need?”