Keir found her thoughts returning to Gael all through the afternoon as she ran the errands of the tally chamber, consulted with three quartermasters, and jotted notes to herself so that she wouldn’t forget important details. Was Gael resting as she’d bade him to do? Was his pain subsiding? Would his healing proceed apace, as she hoped, or would there be complications?

It had been two years since she’d inhabited the healer’s role, and it had felt like coming home to herself to perform healing again. Almost did she wish that she’d asked for a place in the hospital when Belzetarn had taken her in. Almost. For her own satisfaction, it would have been ideal. For the accomplishment of her ultimate goal, it wouldn’t have done at all.

As she prepared parchments to be used on the morrow, she wondered again why Gael had preferred her healing to that offered by the hospital physicians. It made sense that she would trust her skill; she knew her own history. But Gael did not. She didn’t think he’d even been aware that she was a healer. So why had his first words to the porters who’d pulled Dreben off of him been, ‘Get Keir’?

She’d ask him when he was more recovered.

In the meantime, she needed to focus on tallying, not healing. And not on her patient.

She smiled to herself. Life as a troll had not been quite as she’d imagined it.

Later, checking in all the work of the smithies and the lodges associated with the making of weaponry and armor, she had no difficulty keeping her mind on her work. She wanted to do it right, especially since doing it right was critical to finding the thief troubling the tally room.

Later still, when all the vaults were locked down, she found it very natural to turn toward the door to Gael’s chambers—just under two twists of the stair up from the tally room, instead of the three-and-a-bit twists to her own apartment.

With the sun over on the other side of the tower—the west—Gael’s sitting room was dim, the divans and tables mere concentrations of shadow within the warm, golden glow emanating from the casement embrasures.

The sleeping room, with its inner shutters closed, was dimmer still.

Keir paused just within the door, wanting neither to stumble over an unseen footstool nor to startle Gael.

“Keir?” came Gael’s voice.

He was no longer reclining on his couch, she saw as her eyes adjusted, but sitting in a chair near the windows, leaning against the wall with a cushion at his back.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Quite well,” he replied.

“May I assess your healing,” she asked, “as a physician might?” She especially wanted to see how the internal injuries were faring. But would he respect her authority as a healer, now that he felt better? He was accustomed to telling her what to do, not to acquiescing to her orders for him.

His lips turned up, wryly. “Please,” he said.

Interesting. Apparently he was not going to be difficult.

“I’ll need you to disrobe,” she said.

“Ah . . .” Was he blushing? She had to admit it was a little awkward. When he was grievously injured and unconscious, she’d found it no problem to instruct the porters to lay him on his couch, strip him, and cover him with a light blanket.

But as the secretarius and his notary, they were modest with one another. And, perforce, she’d made it a point to visit the smallest of the saunas where she could be completely alone, if she timed it properly. Had she been male, she might have enjoyed the sauna in company with Gael. As it was . . . no.

“I will wait in your sitting room. Call when your clothing is off and you lie under the thistlesilk blanket on your couch,” she said.

“Thank you.” His tone held utmost gratitude.

She nodded and went into the other room, well away from the doorway. And he was quick. Mere moments later, he called to her.

She’d learned to move the coverings of a patient quite adeptly in her training under her pater, revealing only the body part that she needed to examine, and she fell into the rhythm of it easily. The strangest thing was that her pater did not stand in the corner looking on, while she auscultated Gael’s chest and abdomen, listening carefully to what the sounds told her. She’d not performed so many examinations solo as to be accustomed to working without supervision.

Opening her inner sight, she received confirmation of what she’d perceived. Intricate spirals of silver and aqua energea intertwined as they should, but displayed a slight shiver in their pulsing. The spleen and liver had resumed their full integrity, but remained delicate. So long as no one pummeled them further, the organs would be entirely healed in a deichtain.

Gael’s surface bruises were already fading.

Keir pulled the thistlesilk up to recover Gael’s torso and let her inner vision lapse.

“Your injuries are healing well,” she told him, “but I think you already know that.”

He nodded. “I can move. Unlike before.”

She nodded. “I’ll let you dress, and then we’ll discuss how best to ensure your full and swift recovery.”

He was equally quick in donning his robe while she waited in the sitting room. And her subsequent instructions for him were simple and straight forward: rest, move slowly and carefully, seek his sleeping couch early, and avoid jolting blows to the body.

“May I resume my duties in the morning?” he asked, sitting forward from the wall at his back.

“Let me assess you when you wake,” she said, “but, most likely, yes.”

He looked relieved.

She reached up from where she sat to swing open the nearest inner shutter. Golden evening light flooded the chamber, illuminating the curious leather hangings, with their carved designs, and the small chests resting against the walls below.

“I haven’t reconciled the morning tally sheets with the evening ones,” she said, changing the subject.

The worry left Gael’s face. “Of course you haven’t. That takes half the morning. There’s a reason we do the reconciling the day after.”

Keir smiled. “Fatigue leads to error,” she recited.

Gael’s eyes gleamed, sharing her amusement.

“But, Gael, maybe we should—I should—do the reconciling in the evenings while we’re tracking our thief. We didn’t need to know of any discrepancies so immediately when we were just managing the ordinary flow of metals. But now—”

Gael sighed. “Pushing your limits works when it’s only for a short time, and I see the temptation in the current situation. But we don’t know how long this will take us, Keir. I hope we’ll catch the thief in a day or two, but we might not. And doing the reconciling in the evenings regularly will lead to errors. Which will then require additional time and effort to find and correct, while potentially leading us astray, because we think the error is yet more evidence of theft, when it isn’t.”

Keir pressed her lips together. He was right, of course. But she wanted to get to the bottom of the missing metals now, even if it meant skipping sleep to do so.

“After I locked the vaults, I did a rough reconciling of the privy smithy only,” she confessed.

“And?” said Gael.

“Aside from the tin ingot that was stolen en route to the smithy, the morning and evening tallies matched perfectly, with only the normal wastage.” Keir snorted. “Martell was in a hurry, once he’d started the closing down of the forge, just as he’d been at the start of the day. He would have piled everything in the scullions’ carry sacks willy nilly, making his poor notary tally pure fiction.”

Gael nodded. “We’d assumed the discrepancies in the privy smithy were due to Martell’s lack of cooperation with his notary. And it would seem that your presence shut down the thief’s opportunity to take advantage of Martell’s sloppy record keeping, except”—Gael paused.

“Except we still had a theft,” finished Keir.

“Which likely means that your presence in the smithy, both morning and evening, shut down one thief, but didn’t stop the other,” said Gael.

“Are we making any progress?” asked Keir.

The corner of Gael’s mouth twitched. His eyes seemed to look off into some unseen distance, as though his thoughts went somewhere Keir could not follow. Then his gaze refocused. “Oh, yes,” he answered. “Not as swiftly as I would prefer, but we’ve certainly ruled out several possibilities.”

He leaned back against the cushion behind him. “Is the kitchen still prepared to serve a supper in my chambers?” he asked. “They didn’t cease their preparations when they heard of my injuries, did they?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” replied Keir. “No doubt rumors ran wild among the scullions, but the opteons know their business. Even did they pay any heed to the rumors, they’d check with real authority before they changed their orders.”

“Would you check to be sure? When you depart for your own meal?” asked Gael. “I’d hate for Arnoll to arrive at an empty table.”

“I’ll check,” said Keir. “What do you hope Arnoll will tell you about the gong anyway?”

“Did you see it? When the regenen asked you to fetch me?” asked Gael.

“Just a glimpse,” she said. “But one of the warriors tapped it with his scabbarded sword, when he moved incautiously, and I felt the peculiar weakness that its sounding produces. Not so strong as in the tally room.”

She could remember all too vividly that groaning echo in the stairwell, as though Belzetarn itself cried out in agony. Followed by the strength draining from her limbs, the nausea that had arisen in her belly, and the way her thoughts congealed in her mind. Had the regenen actually ordered that they test the effects of a solid blow to the gong? Or had they dropped it?

“Where did they find the dreadful thing anyway?” she asked. She rather wished they’d not found it, that it had remained buried and unfound—lost—forever.

“In the Hamish ruin of Olluvarde,” said Gael.

A jolt of shock rose through her. “Olluvarde!” she exclaimed.

Gael frowned. “Yes.”

“But that’s where—”

Gael touched her wrist, where it lay on her knee. “What’s wrong, Keir?” His voice was gentle.

“It was in Olluvarde that Carbraes’ scouts found me and brought me to Belzetarn. I—” She swallowed.

“You need not speak of it. I suspect it was not a pleasant encounter,” he said.

“No. No.” She drew in a deep breath. “But that’s not it. It’s what I saw there. I think it might be . . . relevant.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gael.

“The ruins are extensive,” she explained. “Not so much above ground. Above ground, they’re a jumble of fallen columns, collapsed walls, and broken paving. But in the tunnels and vaults below, the damage is less. And every surface there is covered with murals. In this one broad, curving passage, there’s a sequence of bas relief murals that seem to recount a legend or a history.”

Gael leaned forward. “Tell me,” he said.

*     *     *

Next scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 10 (scene 52)

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The Tally Master, Chapter 10 (scene 50)

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The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

 

Gael lay comfortably in the aftermath of Keir’s healing treatments, a light thistlesilk blanket pulled to his chin, watching as the boy tidied various used cloths into a sack, the bottles of several tinctures onto a tray, and the remaining pale green fluid in the basin into a leather bottle.

Someone had closed the inner shutters on the casements of his room, and the light was dim and soothing. Keir moved surely, but without hurry, between the tripod tables that he’d pressed into service. Gael felt relaxed, glad to be tended in his own chambers, not those of the hospital. Especially because the physicians there would likely have kept him overnight in their zeal. An unnecessary caution; he felt . . . not fine, but merely very stiff and very sore and very tired. There was no need for him to forego his interview with the magus, although he’d have to push himself to get it done. So be it: he’d push.

Gael frowned.

That had been his intent, had it not? When he’d been so furiously climbing the Cliff Stair?

His frown deepened as he recalled the reason for his fury: the death of the Ghriana boy and his own part in it. It all seemed a little unreal now, but it wasn’t. He’d declared the boy unafflicted, Carbraes had pronounced his sentence, and the warriors had executed him. It had all been very ugly indeed.

“Gael?” Keir had drawn near, no doubt misliking the disturbance he saw on his patient’s face. “Are you in pain again?”

“No.” Gael had no intention of sharing the cause of his frown. He’d protected the boy from the worst of Belzetarn for two years, and he wasn’t about to falter now. He’d shove the memory under, just as he’d shoved other repulsive truths under, and go on. It was the only way to manage, living among trolls and contributing to the community as necessary.

He might take that thought out and re-examine it . . . later. But not now. Not when he had stolen tin and forbidden enchantments to track down. When he had a cursed gong to subdue.

“Do you remember why Dreben attacked you?” asked Keir.

Gael started to shake his head, but stopped after the slightest twitch of his muscles escalated the ache in the flesh to throbbing agony. Evidently he felt merely sore and stiff and tired only so long as he lay perfectly still.

But what had Keir said?

“Dreben attacked me?” he asked.

“You do not remember the fight?” said Keir.

Gael probed his memory. He’d punched someone, he could remember that. It had felt . . . satisfying. Was it Dreben he’d hit? Yes, he rather thought so. Nasty, verminous thing that the brigenen was. And the brigenen had punched back. Much more effectively than had Gael. But it had still been worth it. Gael shifted on his sheepskin, provoking another blaze of agony. Maybe it hadn’t been worth it. He’d always avoided Dreben in the past. Why had he confronted him now? And how had he drummed up an excuse to hit him?

Maybe the boot was on the other foot, and Dreben had manufactured an excuse to hit Gael. But he’d better answer Keir’s question.

“It’s coming back to me,” he said, “but I don’t remember how it started. What did Dreben say?”

Keir sniffed. “Nothing at all. He stood like a statue, outraged, while we readied you for the litter, and then had the gall to dismiss us formally as the porters lifted the litter to move you out.”

Gael sighed, noting with some relief that breathing seemed not to hurt, despite the bruises he could feel on his ribs.

“I was climbing to the magus’ quarters to interview him,” said Gael.

“That,” said Keir, “will have to wait.”

“I . . . just realized that,” said Gael.

Keir’s lips twitched in a flickering smile. “When you shook your head and shifted your position, eh?”

Gael stifled a chuckle. He could tell that laughing, unlike mere breathing, would hurt. Then he sobered. He hated to be tied to his sleeping couch while his enemies—enemies? yes, enemies—were free to pursue their schemes.

“It’s not just the magus,” he explained. “I’m worried about Barris. He’d been summoned on some ridiculous errand by one of the castellanum’s boys, right at the peak of the morning rush—an absurd time—and hasn’t been seen since. I want to check on him. Make sure Theron hasn’t locked him away in a hidden cell somewhere.”

“I’ve seen Barris,” interrupted Keir.

Gael’s breath punched out in relief, and then he grimaced, riding another wave of pain.

“Where?” he produced after some struggle.

“In his kitchen,” Keir answered. “I stopped by for a morsel after I finished tallying the oxhide and pebble vaults. Right before I got word that you’d been injured, as it chances.”

“He didn’t say anything? He didn’t seem—” Gael wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask.

“He seemed just as usual,” said Keir.

“Good. That’s good.”

“If you’d tell me the angle you wanted me to take, I could interview Nathiar for you,” said Keir.

Gaelan’s tears! Nathiar? Whose face at the evening feast had said he’d have removed the boy’s tunic on the spot, if only Keir had been present, and do who knew what to him right then and there? Who’d told the castellanum that he’d find a better use for the boy’s prettiness than mere notarizing?

“No!” Gael jerked to sitting, almost passed out from the pain, fell back onto his pillow, and then did go under, when the impact raised his agony beyond what he could stand.

He came to with Keir’s energea spiraling into his aching belly, silver and soothing, carrying healing on its delicate sparkles. Tears, but the boy was good. Gael wondered if the medicus Piar would want Keir in his hospital, just as every other troll in authority seemed to want Keir transferred to his jurisdiction.

Gael’s pains had subsided by the time Keir closed off the flow of energea and opened his eyes.

“Gael, you must stay still,” the boy reprimanded.

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Or move at all,” apologized Gael. “I didn’t mean to undo all your good work.”

Keir smiled. “Oh, you didn’t undo my work. You merely did a smidgeon more of damage, which I have now repaired.”

“Thank you.” Gael’s voice sounded meek in his own ears. That was appropriate, he decided. He felt meek. Almost. Should feel meek. But he still would not allow Keir to seek Nathiar out in the magus’ quarters, and be alone with him there, in order to interview the troll.

“If you’ll nap until evening,” said Keir patiently, “and allow the effects of my healing to work while you sleep, you should be able to get up for dinner, you know.”

No, he hadn’t known. “Then I can dine with Arnoll, as I’d planned,” he blurted. He wouldn’t have to forego all of his plans for the day.

Keir’s lips firmed. “Sitting quietly, yes. Eating moderately, yes. A few steps to your chamber pot, yes. But nothing more. No stair climbing. No trotting about the citadel. No arguing.” His voice grew severe. “No sounding that accursed gong.”

Gael’s face fell. He’d specifically wanted to sound the gong while Arnoll observed it with his inner sight.

Keir shook his head, exasperated, and apparently knowing exactly what Gael was thinking. “Gael. Arnoll can sound the gong himself—out of your earshot, please—and observe the effects without your presence. And then he can return to your table and tell you his observations.”

Gael felt a little foolish.

“You’re right,” he said.

Keir laughed. “Good, then. I’ll make you a proper patient, even if it’s only for an afternoon.”

“But,” said Gael sternly, returning to the point that had started this entire detour, “you will avoid the magus as though he were one of the troll invasion that swept over your home island three generations ago.”

Keir grew very still. “You know about the ruin of Fiors?”

Gael’s brows drew down. “How did you think I would not?”

Keir swallowed. Then swallowed again. “I—I—Fiors is so small. No one from the mainland ever comes there. Well, hardly ever. I thought—”

“That Fiors had no place in history?” asked Gael.

“How would anyone, save ourselves—the people of Fiors, I mean—know what had happened, when no mainlanders visit us? And no islanders visit the mainland?” Keir’s voice sounded very small.

Gael thought a moment. He’d known that Keir came from Fiors, but they’d discussed the boy’s past no more than they’d spoken of Gael’s past. Which meant that Gael had not really thought about the ramifications before. Fiors was a small, pastoral place, isolated. Whereas Hadorgol . . . saw trading vessels docking every deichtain. Keir was so discerning, so sophisticated in his understanding, that Gael tended to forget—not that he’d really known—that Keir’s knowledge all pertained to a much narrower slice of life than Gael had experienced.

Keir knew human nature, human politics, human failings. And Keir knew the details of daily living. All that, despite the boy’s youth. But he did not know the civilizations of the north and their history. He would not and could not know Fiors’ place on the world stage.

So . . . how to respond without bruising Keir’s pride?

“The ruin of Fiors was part of the ruin of the north,” Gael said, at last. “We mainlanders did not witness the ravages of your island, but we experienced our own, and we would not believe that you had escaped it. The exodus of the truldemagar from the continent was”—devastating, immense, prolonged; yes, all those and more—“comprehensive. We knew. All of us. We couldn’t not know.”

“Oh.” Keir’s face was crimson. “Oh.”

Yes, it was embarrassing when one realized that one had believed one’s own disaster unique, and it wasn’t. Gael had done that a time or two himself.

“I’m sorry,” said Keir, very simply.

“Don’t be,” said Gael.

Keir frowned, pulling his head back. “Why?”

“Keir.” Gael sighed. “You’re young. We haven’t spoken of it, and we need not. But I would guess you are scarcely fifteen or sixteen. And no one has perspective at that age. Even someone as knowledgeable and sophisticated as you are.”

Keir’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then said, “You think I’m sophisticated?”

“Your breadth and depth of understanding are remarkable for a lad your age,” responded Gael.

“Th—thank you,” gulped Keir. “I think.”

Gael laughed, then winced. It hadn’t hurt to laugh, not the way he’d thought it would, but it wasn’t comfortable either.

“But don’t go near Nathiar,” he insisted.

Keir glanced sharply at Gael. “I’d forgotten,” he said.

“I’d almost forgotten, too,” said Gael. “But it’s important.”

Keir nodded. “Very well. I’ll avoid him.”

“Good.”

“Why should I avoid him?” asked Keir.

Hm. That was difficult. “I’d rather not state my suspicions,” he qualified.

Keir’s swift smile flashed out. “You know you’re right, but you have no proof,” he said.

Gael smiled back. Keir knew him well, indeed, and it felt surprisingly good. Really, this entire interlude—conversing, consulting, and advising; not his foolishness in sitting up—had felt good. Something had shifted between them. Gael was still the elder, the one more likely to know and give advice. But Keir had moved beyond the role of mere protegé. Keir had his own area of expertise and was qualified to advise within it. And Gael would rely on the boy’s judgment, going forward.

Gael knit his brows, realizing the end point of that thought. It meant that Gael would sometimes be wrong, while Keir was right. Well . . . so be it. Everyone was sometimes wrong. Gael could scarcely avoid that condition. In fact, he suspected he’d been wrong not too long ago.

“I shouldn’t have insisted on avoiding the hospital,” he said. “I signed you on as my notary, not my nurse. I’m sorry, Keir.”

Keir tilted his head, looking at Gael in exasperation. “Gael, I didn’t bring you here and tend to you because you told me to. I did it because I wanted to. Because my approach to healing was better suited to your injuries than I felt the healing offered by the hospital’s physicians to be.”

“Oh.” Gael imagined his face must be as red as Keir’s had been a few moments ago. “Oh.”

Keir smiled very serenely. “It felt very natural to attend to you, Gael. Please don’t apologize.”

“I didn’t mean to be a burden to you,” Gael said.

“You weren’t,” said Keir. “You aren’t.”

Gael smiled back at the boy. He’d been an excellent protegé, but he was going to be an equally good friend and colleague.

“Now,” said Keir, crisply, “this is how I think the afternoon should go. I will do the business of the tally chamber. I saw you’d made some notes about inquiring into the breakage rates of the spearheads and arrowheads, as well as the repair curve on the scale armor, and comparing them to the sword breakage rates.”

Gael nodded, then froze, wishing he had not. Ouch. Obviously he needed to sleep simply so that he could refrain from moving. It was damned difficult to stay absolutely still when awake.

“Yes. I don’t have the final numbers yet on the sword blades, but it’s my impression that the breakage there is up. And I want to see how it compares to the other implements of war. Has the press of battle been fiercer, resulting in more breakage for everything? Or is there a discrepancy?”

“Right. So I’ll meet with the quartermaster to explain, if you wish.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“And I’ll mix up another batch of ink,” continued Keir, “as well as gluing last moon’s parchments into scrolls and checking those rods we were dubious about. Oh, and—”

Gael interrupted him, smiling. “You’ll handle the business of the tally chamber. It’s all right, boy, you needn’t list it all out. Just keep track, so that you can get me up to speed when I return to it.”

Keir nodded, smiling in turn. “Very well. I’ll just remind you that my extra supervision of the privy smithy—which I plan to continue—means I’ll leave a few of the lesser items undone.”

Gael’s smile went lopsided. “That’s always the way of it, you know. Once you’re in charge, you make extra work for yourself as fast as you finish the essentials.”

Keir’s smile, however, did not fade. “So. That is what I will be doing. You will be sleeping, if you can at all manage it. And if you can’t, at least rest. Please.”

Gael couldn’t help grinning. “I won’t make extra healing work for you this time, Keir. I promise.”

“See you don’t,” the boy said, rising from his position by Gael’s bed and heading toward the door.

*     *     *

Next scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 10 (scene 51)

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 10 (scene 49)

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The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

 

Keir dipped the cloth in the pale green liquid, let a few drops fall back into the basin, and then gently stroked the infusion across the purpling flesh of Gael’s ribs. The bruises were mere surface hurts, but without attention they might fester. And she would spare Gael the long recovery time, in any case.

She’d already tended his inner hurts, dangerous contusions to the liver and the spleen, relieving their congestion with a flow of energea and repairing their broken boundaries. Medicus Piar had arrived in the midst of her energetic curative. Assessing that she had it well in hand, he’d simply closed the inner casement shutters to dim the brightness of the noontide daylight, set out the tinctures and infusions she’d need after the energetic treatment, and observed her technique.

“I could use you in my hospital,” he’d murmured before he left. Gael’s condition was stable by then, and Keir’s heart had quieted from its earlier panicked knocking.

She’d never forget the horrible moment when she first saw Gael on that stairwell landing, a bloody huddle of garments, like a gull smashed against the rocks, a welter of bedraggled feathers amidst the scent of death.

She’d leaped the last few steps in one bound and fallen on her knees beside him. Her relief, when she saw he still breathed, made her feel faint. But she initiated the rescue sequence of energea almost without thinking, exactly as she’d been trained by her pater, ignoring the burst of shocked chatter from the messenger boys who had fetched her.

She’d nearly wept when Gael roused enough to speak. Why did she care so much? He was a troll. She hated trolls. Surely no troll deserved such loyalty. And yet she did care. She’d been relieved again when he repudiated the hospital. The physicians there were good, she knew. But the regenen discouraged them from using energea in their healing rites as frequently as she believed they should. She’d wanted to tend Gael herself. Which she had done.

As she dipped her cloth again and moved on to the bruises on his throat, she realized his eyes were open and he was looking at her. His face held sense, in place of that dreadful bewilderment that had marked his first moments of returning consciousness. She blinked to prevent tears from escaping her own eyes. He was all right. He was himself. She needn’t fear for him any longer, thank Ionan!

Was this how Pater had felt when he’d returned to her on that awful day? When she’d hooked the orca with her energea and been hooked by it in turn. Pater had been so long about his errand, whatever it was, that she’d wondered if he would return.

She’d felt sick and dizzy, not herself, lying on the silky cold sand above the waterline of the cove, with the gray clouds hurrying overhead and the salt breeze blowing across her. She’d not been able to think clearly, had not understood what had happened. She only knew that something was grievously wrong. Had that been repudiation—repugnance—she’d seen in his face? Why had Pater left so abruptly? Where had he gone and why? When would he be back? Would he be back?

And then he was back, seated beside her, scooping her into his lap and wrapping her in a blanket. Holding her close and weeping.

“Pater,” she’d said. “Pater! What is it?”

“Do you not know?” he asked.

She shook her head. She hadn’t known, hadn’t understood, even then.

“Your nodes are unanchored,” he’d told her. “You are afflicted.”

Still she’d missed his meaning.

He couldn’t bring himself to say it straight out. “You bear the mark of Gaelan,” he evaded.

Then she understood, with a shock like the first breath after the wind had been knocked out of one. “I’m a troll,” she’d said, burying her face in Pater’s shoulder. She felt him sob.

“What will I do?” she’d asked.

“You must leave, make for the Hamish lands of old, to the west,” he’d answered.

“But how?” She could not swim so far. No one could, save the fishes.

“I’ve made provision,” he said. “Come.”

But once they were standing—difficult for him with his peg leg, difficult for her in the aftermath of the truldemagar—he’d delayed.

“I love you,” he said. “I’ll always love you. I’ll always remember you. I’ll always miss you. Never doubt me, in all the years to come.”

Then he’d led her over the western headland to the broad beach of the harbor where the village lay at a distance along the sweeping curve of the shore. A small sailing boat awaited them, drawn up on the sands, its sails fully reefed. Several wicker hampers sat in the cockpit against the gunnels.

“But this is Coinac’s Merrily Run,” she exclaimed.

“Not anymore,” said Pater.

“What can you mean?” she asked.

“He’s made her over to me in exchange for certain concessions,” Pater answered.

At last she comprehended that this was farewell, farewell to her pater, farewell to her home, farewell to everything she knew.

“You know how to sail a boat,” Pater reminded her.

Yes, she did, but she did not want to sail away from him.

“Here, eat something first. That will help.” He rummaged in one of the hampers, bringing out a packet of smoked eel and feeding it to her, bite by bite. The rich taste of it on her tongue revived her. She’d been allowing Pater to direct her, to guide her. Only now did she recognize that he was right. She could not stay on Fiors, to be hounded into exile or killed when she refused to go.

She hugged Pater one last time before checking the lines and rigging of the Merrily Run. Then she shoved the bow into the water, calm in the lea of the headland. Pater bade her climb aboard as he pushed the boat into deeper water. She obeyed, putting the rudder down and tightening the sheets.

And then she was underway, sailing toward the harbor mouth and glancing over her shoulder to where Pater stood waist deep in the salt sea, tears on his face as he waved to her.

*     *     *

Next scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 10 (scene 50)

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The Tally Master, Chapter 10 (scene 48)

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The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)

 

Chapter 10

The blackness roared in Gael’s ears like a blizzard’s winds or a storm at sea or a cataract plunging over the brink. He felt dizzy and disoriented. Everything hurt: his ribs, his chest, his neck, and most of all his gut. He couldn’t remember what had happened. Had he tumbled down a flight of steps? Been kicked by a cavalcade of mules? Been rolled over the rubble of boulders after falling in a river?

Slowly, an unfamiliar troll’s face came into focus out of the darkness along with an anxious voice.

“My lord? My lord Secretarius? How badly are you hurt?”

“Get Keir,” Gael mumbled. “Keir.”

And then he was descending into the roaring dark again, spiraling like a stairway in a tower or a vulture soaring down to a carcass. Or was he once again a small child—unafflicted—spinning on shorn grasses? As Gael sank, bewildered and aching, he wondered why he’d asked for Keir. Why not one of his older friends? Why not Barris? Or, even better, Arnoll? Arnoll, who had saved him. Arnoll, who had guided his early days in Belzetarn. Arnoll, who would never betray him.

“Gael?” That was Keir’s voice, cool and assured. “Can you hear me, Gael?”

He tried to nod, but wasn’t convinced that he managed it. But Keir was with him. That was good. He felt glad. Now that Keir was present, everything would be all right. Gael would be all right. Keir would do everything and anything that needed doing. Keir would do it well.

Other voices—not Keir’s—muttered. Something about straightening the poles and smoothing the wrinkles out of the leather. They must have a litter nearby.

“Medicus Piar said to move him carefully” someone said.

Gael tried to speak, but no sound issued from his mouth. He tried again. “Not,” he managed.

Someone’s hand touched Gael’s cheek, cool and soothing. Keir’s hand.

“You need healing, Gael,” said Keir quietly.

“Not,” croaked Gael, “th’ hospital.”

Keir’s breath sighed softly. “Very well.”

A moment later Gael heard his assistant at a distance. “Send to Medicus Piar to meet us in the Secretarius’ chambers over the tally room. Tell him to bring compresses, salves, and herbal infusions for congestion of the blood and thready pulse.”

Then Keir was beside him again. “We must lift you, Gael. It will likely hurt.”

Gael couldn’t imagine how his pains could worsen until they gripped his shoulders, legs, and feet, and hoisted. He thought he screamed, but the turbulent darkness swallowed him so quickly he couldn’t be sure. He seemed to hear a great, sonorous bell clanging, vibrating his bones with each stroke of its clapper. Were there hoarse yells between each resounding stroke? Or the deep, coughing snarls of ice tigers?

A swirl of snowflakes spiraled out of the darkness, gleaming silver and flowing along a shallow arc. The ache in Gael’s gut subsided as another stream of glinting sparks joined the first, soothing his pains and silencing the clamorous chaos of the strange space that had devoured him.

He became aware that he lay on his own sleeping couch, sheep skins cushioning his tired limbs, an herbal scent rising around him, and warm, damp cloths sponging the tenderness away from his bruised flesh.

Keir’s face swam into focus above him. The boy had tied a band around his head to keep his chin-length hair out of his face, emphasizing his graceful jawline and elegantly molded cheekbones. His gray eyes held a grave expression in their depths, but his lips turned up faintly.

“Your bones are all whole and unbroken,” said Keir, “and the infusion of aliseta will help the surface bruising to heal.”

That must be the source of that herbal smell, thought Gael.

“Now I want you to swallow this tincture of Istrian pennywort,” said Keir.

A shallow bowl with a narrow spout appeared within Gael’s limited field of vision. It tipped, and a thin stream of dark liquid pored onto Gael’s tongue, bitter, but laced with mint. As he swallowed, a comforting warmth spread through his belly.

He’d been right. With Keir at his side, all would be well, Gael himself would be well, and everything that needed doing would be done.

*     *     *

Next scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 10 (scene 49)

Previous scene:
The Tally Master, Chapter 9 (scene 47)

Need the beginning?
The Tally Master, Chapter 1 (scene 1)