Healer's Touch (7 page)

Marius gave the man an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Avoid sawdust if you possibly can, and sprinkle this on your food in the evenings. It will help.”

As his patient left through the waiting room door, Drusus came back in, grinning.

“Not an emergency?” said Marius.

“It’s Lady Fabiola.”

“Oh, gods,” groaned Marius. Lady Fabiola was the pregnant wife of a prominent local merchant who was away on business. In her husband’s absence, the lady had taken an interest in Marius, and he couldn’t imagine why. He lacked sophistication and dressed unfashionably, yet she would not leave him alone.

“I think she wants you to examine her again.”

“She doesn’t need—I mean, she’s not—” Marius sputtered.

Drusus’s grin widened. “What’s the harm? Can’t get her pregnant
now
, can you?”

Marius could feel the heat radiating from his face. “Send her away.”

“As you wish,” said Drusus, disappearing again into the waiting room.

Marius let out his breath. The depravity of the imperial city—he would never get used to it. He waited in his office until the bell rang, indicating the door had opened and Drusus was escorting Lady Fabiola out. Only then did he feel himself relax. When he’d soulcasted five months ago and become a licensed Healer, Lucien had purchased, on his behalf, the building adjacent to his home villa. That meant he needed only to walk next door to go home.

He touched the light glows in his office to deactivate them and headed out into the waiting room.

Where he was surprised to find Lady Fabiola standing in the middle of the room, in all her pregnant glory, while Drusus was at the door speaking to a second woman. The woman at the door held a sizable child of eight or nine years old who appeared unconscious. Did Marius have an emergency to deal with after all?

“Drusus, help the woman with her boy,” he ordered.

Drusus took the child, and Marius got his first clear view of the woman’s face.

It was Isolda. The Sardossian woman he’d helped four years ago, who’d left his villa and whom he hadn’t seen since. She looked almost the same as before, except that her hair was loose and considerably lighter, no doubt an effect of the Kjallan sun.

His breath hitched, and his mouth went dry as he stared. He had never expected to see her again. Finally he found his voice. “Isolda.”

“Marius,” she answered.

She didn’t sound surprised. But of course she wouldn’t be; she’d come to him for a reason. Could the sick child be Rory, the boy she’d mentioned before?

“He is sick,” said Isolda.

“I see that,” said Marius.

Wait.
Had she just spoken those words in the Kjallan language? Last he’d seen her, she’d only spoken Sardossian.

“Marius.” Lady Fabiola rose to her feet and strode across the room, graceful despite her six-months-pregnant form. “I’ve been waiting. Surely you’re not going to let that piss-head in here with her flea-ridden brat.”

Marius shot her a look of irritation. “I see a woman whose child needs help. Are you bleeding at all?”

She feigned shock at his words.

“Are you bleeding?” he repeated.

Lady Fabiola shook her head.

“Then go home,” he said. “If you’re having problems tomorrow, come back then.” Not that he was looking forward to having to brush her off again, but he’d have to look her over and make absolutely certain there wasn’t a problem he was overlooking. For now, the child.

He leapt forward to open the waiting room door. Drusus brought the boy into his office and laid him on the cot. Marius reactivated the light glows to brighten the room. The windows were open, but dusk was falling, and the boy looked pale. Marius wanted all light available to him for this examination.

“Is this your son?” he asked Isolda. “Rory?”

“You remember,” she murmured.

He had known her for only a couple of days, yet he remembered her well. For months afterward, he’d looked for her in every street, every shop, every corner. But he had not seen her, and eventually he’d given up. She was a ghost, she and her fellow Sardossians.

The boy was hot all over, feverish. Infectious disease was so rare in Riat as to be almost nonexistent, and yet here it was. “Is he warded?”

Isolda did not answer.

“Is he warded?” demanded Marius.

“No,” she said softly.

“I want you to leave the surgery and run three blocks south to Warder Nonian’s. Tell him Marius wants him immediately.”

Isolda nodded and ran out the door. At least she wasn’t arguing.

“Sardossians,” growled Drusus. “I have a feeling you’re not getting paid for this one.”

Drusus was probably right, but Marius didn’t care. He would help Isolda’s child for free, as he’d helped her after the gunpowder explosion. He would help her any time she came to his door.

As seriously ill as the boy appeared, most fevers were easy to treat, especially in the young. He’d rarely seen one in a person, but in the course of his education he’d treated many in unwarded animals to prepare him for occasions such as this, when warding failed. The boy had the same coloration as his mother, yellow hair and green eyes. Marius skinned off the boy’s shirt and found him clammy with sweat. Thin, too, and not in a healthy way. Perhaps he could come up with an excuse to keep the boy here longer, maybe fatten him up a bit, and Isolda too. He couldn’t see the state of her feeding when she was layered in clothing from head to toe, but he had a feeling that if the boy was underfed, she was too, and perhaps more so.

He also needed to find out where that fever had come from. Fever was not an illness in its own right, but a symptom of some other problem. Its cause was invariably an evil spirit, whether the spirit infested a dirty wound, or contaminated one’s food, or simply lurked in the air, waiting to be breathed in by its next unsuspecting victim. But evil spirits didn’t arise out of nowhere. They propagated from one host to another. The boy had caught it from someone, which meant that somewhere out there, somebody else in Riat was ill. Maybe lots of somebodies.

He laid hands upon the boy and called on his magic. At once, he felt the child’s youthful body respond. It wanted to return to normal—it was strong and vigorous, underfed but still healthy, and it needed only to be called to its proper state. Sometimes with older bodies he had to cajole them a bit, to persuade them back to health, but with this child, it was as if his body only wanted permission.

The boy groaned a little and shifted on the cot. His fever would be dropping, and that meant his delirium would lift. Soon he would awaken.

Marius had an idea. “Drusus, can you get some of that sleeping draught?”

Drusus raised an eyebrow at him. He knew perfectly well this wasn’t called for. Indeed, after sticking to Marius’s side for all four years of his education, Drusus knew everything Marius did. It made him an ideal partner and assistant in the surgery, and in playing that role, Drusus now had cover for his real role, that of Marius’s personal bodyguard. The downside was that Marius couldn’t put anything past the man.

“Look how skinny he is,” said Marius. “You know if I just cure the fever, Isolda will disappear with him and we’ll never see them again.”

“Who cares if we never see them again?”

“I’d rather get a good breakfast into him tomorrow. Into both of them.” He didn’t mention that he planned to come up with some excuse to keep them longer. If he could feed them for a week, so much the better. And he’d really like to find out where that fever had come from.

Drusus folded his arms.

“Go,” said Marius. “That’s an order.”

Drusus sniffed, giving his opinion of this plan with his customary eloquence, and left to fetch the sleeping draught.

The boy coughed suddenly, and his eyes drifted open. He stared woozily at Marius. “Who’re you?” he croaked.

“A Healer. Sit up.” He helped the boy struggle upright. “What’s your name?”

“Rory. Where am I?”

“At the surgery. You were sick.” The boy was still weak and a little woozy; otherwise he might object more to Marius’s hands on him. Marius was still applying his magic, testing here and there to see if there were any places in Rory’s body where the sickness still lurked. But he couldn’t find any. And the boy’s skin wasn’t hot anymore.

“Where’s my mom?”

“She’s run to get something. She’ll be back.”

Drusus arrived, wearing his disapproving look and carrying a cup of what looked like weak tea.

“Did you put sugar in it?” asked Marius.

Drusus shook his head.

Marius gestured, and Drusus, rolling his eyes, disappeared again.

“How are you feeling?” asked Marius.

Rory shrugged. “Cold.”

Marius gave him back his shirt, and Rory put it on. Then Marius wrapped him in a blanket.

“What was I sick with?” asked Rory.

“A fever,” said Marius. “Do you know anyone else who has a fever?”

Rory suddenly looked cagey, and shook his head.

Marius sighed inwardly. How old could this child be? He’d guess eight or nine, and already Rory knew not to say anything about his people. “It’s important, so think about it. If I know who’s sick, I can heal them.”

“I didn’t know I was sick.”

Looking into those wide, green eyes, Marius could almost believe him.

Drusus returned, carrying the sugared sleeping draught. Marius took it from him and offered it to Rory. “Drink this. It’s medicine.”

Rory took it and drank. He made a face, but drained the cup. Marius almost felt guilty.

Isolda burst into the room with Warder Nonian on her tail. Her eyes lit on Rory, sitting up and looking alert, and her worried face sagged in relief. She sent a grateful smile in Marius’s direction.

He remembered that smile well.

“You need an emergency warding?” asked Nonian.

“Yes, this boy. Also her.” Marius pointed at Isolda.

“Actually,” stammered Isolda, “we don’t have our papers on hand.”

Marius snorted. Of course they didn’t have papers on hand. “Payment in coin,” he told Nonian.

Isolda hung her head. “I don’t have that either. But I could run into town—”

“I’ll pay it,” said Marius.

Nonian nodded his acceptance. “Standard wards?” His fingers were already moving over Rory.

“Yes.” To the untrained eye, warding looked invisible. Fingers moved and nothing seemed to happen, yet in the spirit world, things of great importance happened. Marius had seen this for himself during his magic training, when he’d opened the Rift—or rather, it had been opened for him, by mages more experienced than he—and he’d looked into the spirit world. There he had seen the great unseen which lay beyond human perception. It was the world of the gods, and he would be awed by it to the end of his days.

Nonian turned to Isolda. “Shall I prevent conception?”

“Conception?” She seemed shocked by the question. “No...I mean...it doesn’t matter.”

“Are you married?” asked Nonian.

Marius fussed with Rory’s blanket, trying to look busy as he listened keenly to this conversation.

She hesitated before replying. “No.”

“If you are unmarried, I must prevent conception. That is the law.” Nonian’s fingers moved over Isolda.

Marius pulled a few quintetrals from his pocket to pay Nonian, and the Warder departed.

Rory yawned.

“How is he?” asked Isolda.

“Better,” said Marius. “But his body has played host to an evil spirit, and he needs rest. He’ll have to stay here overnight.”

Anxiety clouded her eyes. “Here in the surgery?”

“The villa is more comfortable. I’ve got a spare room. You could stay with him.”

The worry in her eyes did not abate, and he felt a little guilty for keeping her here unnecessarily. Why did it bother her to stay? Perhaps he could draw the reason out of her tomorrow. He felt that getting a good meal into these two, preferably several days’ worth of good meals, and some rest as well, would do them a world of good. And for public health reasons, he’d like to find out where the fever had come from. But he doubted he could contrive to keep either of them much past breakfast, if his experience four years ago was any guide.

Poor Rory was trying to keep his eyes open, but his lids were drooping. His body swayed on the cot.

“Drusus,” prompted Marius, and his bodyguard swept the boy into his arms. Marius opened the door for Isolda and gestured her through.

∞

Isolda rested her chin on her hands as she watched Rory eat breakfast. Her son was packing his cheeks like a squirrel storing nuts. Then the food disappeared down his gullet, to be replaced by more. The boy was completely recovered from his fever. She had never seen such an astonishing turnabout in fortune, from unconscious and burning up last night, to hale and upright and stuffing his face with fish cakes this morning. The cook Marius employed could hardly fry them quickly enough, but whenever Isolda admonished Rory to stop eating so much, Marius intervened and informed her that after a fever like the one he’d had, Rory needed to eat as part of his treatment.

Isolda knew better.

She had known few kind Kjallans, but Marius was one of them, and he was kind to a fault. He’d seen Rory’s thin body, and he meant to fatten him up. He was trying to do the same with her, shoving fish cakes in her direction—they were delicious, yes—but he could not employ the same excuse in her case. She had not been sick. And she knew this was charity.

She hated charity.

Marius had taken such scrupulous care of her four years ago, and she felt the debt. She had walked by his villa many a time since then, surreptitiously, and disregarding the very real danger—poor Tanla had been beaten half to death in this neighborhood last spring. But it gave her such a warm feeling in her breast to know that here lived a man who cared. Not about her specifically, but about people in general. And unlike many Kjallans, Marius thought of her and her fellow Sardossians as people rather than as sewer rats or piss-heads.

Because she had nothing of value to offer him, and she knew he was too decent a man to turn her away, she had resolved never again to come to his door. She was in his debt already, and to ask more would be to take advantage. She would not do that.