Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall (31 page)

"Witnesses," demanded Bartholomew.

Thomas squeezed Lady's shoulders and guided her tired steps with his. "That's a matter for the DWP," he answered, "but we saw everything." As they stepped through, the crowd began to disperse. "The boy needs a healer. Let him go. You'll have the story tomorrow."

Lady's strength returned step by step. He said little, walking with her. He'd seen more than he wanted to, actually. Knew more than he wanted to.

Including the fact that Drakkar always kept a bottle of antidote on him, in case of accidents. Now was not the time, but there would come a reckoning when he would ask Drakkar why he'd not used it on Shankar.

Drakkar had almost made it to the barracks on his own when he went down, writhing in the dust. Tando dropped his share of the ambassador's corpse and dove to catch his prince. He looked up.

"Poison," he said. "The devil's blade was poisoned as well. His own works against it, but—"

The barracks door flew open. Alma and Stanhope stood in the dimly illuminated doorway. Lady grabbed Tando's shoulder. "Get him inside," she ordered. "As quickly as you can."

Her stomach miseries seemed insignificant in comparison to the sounds she heard emanating from the room designated for Drakkar over the next few days. And, though hers stemmed from a kind of fight for life, his were genuinely a hard fought battle. Lady and Stanhope rarely left his side and she could lie awake at night and listen to him moan between bouts of retching as they tried to purge his system.

She lay in bed one gray morning, listening to the wind die down. The sudden calm following the days of blasting punishment from the Santa Anas brought a cold clarity to her thoughts. It was strange, she thought, that Drakkar's valiant battle for life gave her no inspiration to fight for hers. She rose from her cot and went downstairs, then into the drying shed for the herbs grown in the manor gardens. No one took heed of her. She had no real occupation in the compound, but they were used to her helping out with the wards and with the healers and not an eyebrow was raised, even when she dipped into the toxic supplies.

She drew a bucket of fresh water from the pump, went inside, and heated a teakettle off the always warm stove. As the water heated, she prepared a teapot with the herbs she'd chosen. Chamomile, for its soothing qualities. Orange zest and clove for their pleasing flavors. Honey, for sweetness. Oleander, just a touch, for its deadliness. She would be ill, very ill from that. And then she added a pinch of herbs said to cause abortions in newly conceived mothers, guaranteed to slough off unwanted babies during plague years. When the water boiled, she poured it over the mixture to steep and fixed a tray to carry it upstairs.

She carried her tray upstairs to the privacy of her small room and set it down on the writing table by the window. She shut her door. With the wind down and Drakkar sleeping at last, it was quiet, very quiet. The teapot steeped, steamed, and then cooled.

It was very, very cold when finally she stirred enough to touch a fingertip into the brew to test it.

She shrank back from the tray. Alma rose and walked to the window, where dawn was in earnest and the compound had bustled to life. She looked across. Rape was not unknown, particularly in areas where nesters raided. It was a crime which had never died out. She knew her disgrace would be accepted, if painfully. If she could bear it, the shame would be bearable.

But she could not. Not Stefan's child. Not a lover's.

But seed of a being she found so vile the thought of him made her wish she'd more than just hit him. Made her wish she'd pounded his face into a featureless blob, skull in splinters, brain and blood seeping out. . . .

Alma spread her hands open and looked at them, as if she might see his blood on them.

She would have to be strong. She would have to treat this like a plague baby, an abomination so wrong it would be cruel to bring it to term, no matter how prized children were. She only wished she could have asked Lady for the forbidden recipe.

She might have used too much oleander. The flowering shrub was incredibly lethal. If something went wrong. . . .

Alma turned from the window. She found her writing paper and pen and ink and sat down to write. If all went well, she would destroy the letter. If not, then Lady would read and understand.

She put away her pen and ink and poured a cup of tea. She saluted the morning with the drink and put it to her lips.

Morning sun woke Drakkar. Its heat drifted across his face and he fought to get his gummy lids open. His ears popped slightly and he realized the pressure front which had been bringing in the hot, merciless winds had changed. Like a sea gone suddenly calm, it was quiet outside.

And though the back of his throat burned as if it was on fire, the convulsions and retchings had fled, leaving him feeling weak as a newborn. Drakkar turned his head on his pillow. He did not recognize the room. He must be in the orphan barracks. Lady Nolan sat in a rocker, Sir Thomas' battered leather jacket draped over her chest, her mouth slack and her breathing gone deep in a way that was almost a snore, but not quite.
Clever woman,
he thought.
You saved me.

Thirsty as he was, he didn't feel like waking her. He stretched out a hand that wove and dove its shaky way to a goblet of water sitting on the bedstand.

A crash of china made him jerk. There was a second crash. Drakkar swung his feet out of bed. Lady Nolan heard nothing, sleeping the sleep of the innocent and the exhausted. He pulled himself to his feet and lurched to the door. He could hear a dull thud. He looked down, half-expectant that it was his own uncooperative body hitting the planking. His vision wavered.

A feather touch. A consciousness like that of perfume brushed past him. He knew it instinctively and reached out to catch Alma, but there was nothing tangible of her in the hallway.

Drakkar stumbled to the next doorway and managed to get the door open.

Her body lay slumped on the floor amidst shards of stoneware. He reached for her, his own weakness upsetting a writing table between them. A feather-light piece of paper drifted to the floor. It was that his uncoordinated hand grasped instead of Alma's limp arm. His gaze ran over it, unseeing.

Then Drakkar's attention flew back to the words. He had no time! Leaving her there, he shambled back to his room and woke up Lady Nolan by yanking her to her feet.

"My God." She dropped Thomas* jacket at Alma's feet as she knelt by her. "Let me sniff what's left of the teapot."

Drakkar handed it to her and then managed to get Alma up in his arms and lift her formless body to the cot. Lady Nolan sniffed the small amount of tea still in the pot, a mass of leaves and herbs sodden at the bottom. Her tongue flickered out and tasted it fleetingly.

Lady Nolan dropped the pot, unheeding as it smashed at her feet. She looked at Drakkar. "She's pregnant. She tried to abort it. She's dying, Drakkar,
and I can't help her."

His own senses reeled. He croaked, "Something. You must be able to do something."

The Protectoress shook her head in denial. "No. If the infusion was weak enough, perhaps . . . but Alma's got to want to come back, and I don't think she does."

He looked at the still, childlike form on the bed. Not voluptuous like most of his conquests had been. Not overtly feminine or seductive. But even in deathlike coma, her eyes dominated her face, huge and beautiful, shuttered for death. He took up her cold hand in his.

"Pregnant," he said. "Whose?"

"She was raped," Lady said, her voice vague and troubled. "Raped while you were trapped in the Vaults. The dean hunted her down and trapped her as well. It can only be his, she says." The woman looked at him with her disturbing blue and brown gaze. "Is it?"

He scarcely had blood enough left to blush, but he met her look. "I have never touched her."

"Perhaps if you had, we wouldn't be in this dilemma." Lady ran a hand through disheveled hair. She took a step forward. Something tumbled out of the brown jacket at her feet and rattled across the planking. He saw what seemed to be ivoried bones as she stooped to pick the item up. She clenched her hand about it. "I'm going after her," the woman said abruptly and swung about to Alma's form.

"What?"

Lady looked over her shoulder. She was already loosening Alma's clothes at the throat and wrists. "I'm going after her. She's got to be saved and the baby, too. It will be similar to a healer's trance—have you ever seen one?"

"Once, but—"

"I haven't any time! If I'm not awake in minutes . . . five or ten ... go find Blade. He's at the bathhouse, sleeping, probably. The wind's been bothering his gills. Tell him I've taken the ghost road after Alma. Got that?"

"Yes, but—" Before his bewildered eyes, the woman pulled up a chair, grasped the bones tightly in both hands and fled her conscious form. He could have sworn he'd felt her go, striding by like righteousness itself, in pursuit of life.

Drakkar righted the small table and sat on it before he lost all balance. He'd never seen a healing trance that didn't take a great deal of meditation and preparation first. Lady was exhausted after dealing with him. She should never have worked with Alma without another healer. He sat silently, acutely aware he could be losing both of them.

It wasn't until he'd ticked off nearly ten minutes that he noticed Lady had not been breathing.

He bolted for the door and took the staircase in leaps, scattering children by threes and fours, his body finding strength in fear. He was yelling before he reached the bathhouse.

Thomas stood over Lady. Drakkar had never seen the man afraid, even when the College Vaults had closed in lethally about them. He saw it now and wondered.

Thomas turned around. His face had gone white underneath its weathered tan. His mustache worked a moment, then he got the words out. "How long ago?"

"Fifteen minutes, at the most."

"The ghost road, she told you."

Drakkar nodded. He sank back onto the writing table, unable to bear his own weight any longer. He watched as Blade took up Lady's hand and wrenched the bones from her grip. The man waited a moment as if that alone might pull her from her comalike trance. Nothing happened.

Then Blade sank to his heels in front of Lady as if he might pray for her. Instead, he said, "Damn you. You know I can't do this.
I told you / couldn 't do this any more.''

"Do what?"

The man ignored Drakkar. He took the bones tightly in his hand. He said, "Believe nothing you see. Don't let them take our bodies until you know for sure our flesh is corrupting. Understand?"

"Shit, man, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going after them. And I can't tell you how I'm going to do it or where I'm going to find them. And I can't tell you if I'm going to come back or not. But, by God, I'll do the best I can." Thomas ducked his head and let out one, last hoarse word.
"Lady. "

Oath or benediction?

"What are you looking so hanged about?" Stefan bit off, as he pulled his horse about and watched the company mill into their designated rest area.

Watty twisted in his saddle. He worked his face around, but it was too late; his thoughts had already seeped into his expression and his expression had done the damage. As the others filed past them, he mumbled, "Nothing."

Stefan joined him in watching the others. The horses showed their ribs, even the mules looked scruffy and the little, tough donkeys were pulling at their leads, over-ready for a rest. The supplies pack had diminished astonishingly, supplies meant only to supplement what they could not get off the land.

Stefan took off his hat. There was a wide, white slash across his forehead where the skin hadn't tanned. Two deep creases in the folds of his eyes looked permanent. The last two months had aged him into an adult, trail-hardened and weary.

"We're not failures, Watty. Get that through your head, all right? We're not going home because
we failed."

Watty tried to stand in the stirrups to ease his back and aching thighs, but his legs melted like butter at the attempt and he flopped back down in the saddle seat. His horse grunted in protest. He didn't say anything, afraid of Stefan's temper.

Stefan said, "Look. We've gotten farther than anyone else. We weren't prepared to cross the abyss because no one knew it was there. Even if we had gotten a rope bridge across, what would we have done with the remounts? Or Trout and the others who are sick? Now we know what we're up against, next trip out. Or we go up the coast. Boyd comes down from Santa Barbara. We know there's no passage above him, but maybe we can angle inland from there. Right?"

Watty felt each word as it was pounded into him. He looked up then, met Stefan's intense light blue gaze. "I dunno," he said. "I'm just a kid." He reined his horse sharply away and went to join the others before he fell out of the saddle.

Stefan jammed his hat back on. He sat on the ridge a minute, watching the mappers dismount. Six weeks out, two weeks back. Going out had been at a snail's pace as they mapped and noted the terrain. Coming back, they couldn't cross the ground fast enough. He took a deep breath. Despite the skills Sir Thomas had been teaching all of them for years, they hadn't been able to live off the land. And with Trout sick and three of the others nearly as ill, they were burdened as well as shorthanded. He guessed they might make the counties in another week. Home was another matter. If the nesters let them through. If Trout didn't die and the others worsen.