The Ruined City (42 page)

“Take him to them,” the governor commanded.

Rione followed Tuza from the study, and the two guards waiting outside the door fell into step behind them. A few paces along the hall, then up the nicely polished wooden stairway to the second-story hallway and an assortment of doors, most of them ajar, one firmly closed. Tuza arrowed for the closed door.

“Here,” he said, and shot the physician a speculative sidelong glance.

Rione went in alone, shutting the door behind him. The window curtains were drawn, and he allowed his eyes a moment to adjust to the low light. He stood in an ordinary bedchamber furnished with two cots, both occupied. Drawing a beak-nosed mask and impermeable gloves from his bag, he donned the protective garments before approaching his patients. A mature woman lay tossing and moaning in one bed. In the other was a similarly restless young girl who might, under happier circumstances, have been rather pretty. A cursory examination confirmed the accuracy of the governor’s diagnosis. His wife and daughter both displayed the tri-lobed carbuncles of the plague.

Both were feverish and only semiconscious, but their hearts still beat strongly and their lungs seemed sound. The disease had taken firm hold, but had not yet conquered. The sufferers might perhaps still be saved.

He opened the bedroom door, and the two guards waiting in the hall instantly stepped forward to block his exit.

“Tuza,” Rione requested.

“Here.” The servant edged past the human barrier.

“Here’s what I need.” Rione rattled off a list of items, all easily obtainable. As he spoke, his memory sped back to other days, other instructions issued to another listener. Into his mind flashed the image of her face; a pale, pure oval dominated by a pair of great dark eyes and startlingly strong black brows.

Not the time to be dreaming of her. She was safe and free. With any luck, her sense of self-preservation would carry her back to her family home, obnoxious uncle notwithstanding. The fragrance of her hair filled his mind for an instant.

“I’ll get them.” Tuza was gone.

Crossing to the window, he pushed the curtain aside and looked down upon a flagstone terrace adjoining the garden that he had glimpsed earlier. A leap from the second story would land him in an enclosed private enclave that was itself embedded within the prison property surrounded by the high outer wall. No escape through the window.

Muted whimpers drew his attention back to the task at hand. His patients suffered, but he could and would furnish relief within minutes. The procedures that he now contemplated—designed to suppress the physical senses, in hopes of wearying the invasive entity—were best performed upon unconscious subjects.

A small writing desk and chair occupied one corner of the room. Rione seated himself. From his bag he withdrew a selection of vials, bottles, flasks, a measuring cylinder, and a miniature balance, all of which he placed on the desk before him. For a moment he eyed the items consideringly, then set to work.

By early evening, much had been accomplished. The eyes of the patients had been blindfolded, their ears stopped with waxen plugs, their bodies wrapped in the dampened sheets that both restricted movement and cooled the heat of fever. For hours they had slumbered deeply, thanks to the power of narcotic potions. At twilight they began to stir, heads turning from side to side, bodies weakly twisting within the confines of their damp wrappings, whereupon Rione administered draughts created to kill pain and dull all sensation. Movement ceased.

So far, both patients were responding in accordance with his experience of such cases. There was cause for guarded optimism, but the outcome remained very much in doubt. As he stood atomizing fresh, cool water over the linen bundle containing the governor’s wife, there came a cautious scratching at the door. He opened it to confront Tuza, who informed him that his meal was ready.

Rione was mildly startled. Absorbed in his work, he had forgotten about food. Stripping off his mask and gloves, he set them aside on the tiny candle stand beside the door and stepped out into the hall. Ori and Chesubbo were immediately beside him. Their vigilant proximity suggested ignorance of the plague’s presence in the governor’s house. Tuza, on the other hand, maintained a careful distance.

At the end of the hall, a door opened on a very narrow stairway leading up to an unfinished attic. The slanting ceiling with its bare rafters was high enough at the center for a man of moderate height to stand upright. Crates, barrels, and bulging sacks lay everywhere, but the place was bare of furniture other than a small table of unfinished wood and a three-legged stool. A lighted candle in a tin dish stood on the table, together with a pitcher, a cup, spoon, and a covered dish.

“Yours.” Tuza gestured.

Rione sat down.

“Anything else you need?”

Rione shook his head, and Tuza exited hurriedly. Ori and Chesubbo followed at a more leisurely pace. Their heavy footsteps clumped to the foot of the attic stairs, where the sound halted. He could imagine them standing there, waiting for the physician-prisoner to finish eating, and wondering at the extreme peculiarity of the situation.

He poured himself a drink and swallowed a mouthful—cider, fresh and hinting of cinnamon. He took the cover off the dish to reveal a bowl of stew, still warm, with nuggets of meat and assorted root vegetables; a quantity of brown bread; two apples and a pear, the fruit worm-free. It was better food, more plentiful and nourishing, than he had tasted since the day of his arrest. Not that he had suffered much from hunger; trial and condemnation had done little to stimulate his appetite. It was clear, however, that Governor Sfirriu wished to keep him healthy and active so long as his usefulness continued.

He ate his dinner and departed the attic. Tuza was nowhere in evidence, but Ori and Chesubbo still waited in the second-story hallway.

“This way,” Ori commanded.

They hustled him along the hallway, past the closed sickroom door, down the stairs, and back the way they had come hours earlier. He assumed at first that they were returning him to his cell for the night, but soon found himself mistaken.

Back along the walkway, back into the stone heart of the Witch, but not back to the spiral staircase leading to his tower cage. They took him by a different route to a low, sad gallery lined with iron-strapped oaken doors; all closed, all blind, all anonymous. They came to the door, indistinguishable from its fellow doors, at the far end of the gallery, and there they stopped.

“You’ve got fifteen minutes,” Chesubbo announced. “Make the most of it. She’s for it tomorrow morning.”

“Your sister.” Ori answered the prisoner’s look of silent inquiry.
“Your knife-slinging, Sishmindri-corrupting, sedition-spouting little sister.”

“She’s a one,” Chesubbo conceded, not without admiration. He slid the heavy bolt and opened the door.

Rione walked in. The door thudded shut.

Her cell was considerably larger than his own. She had a cot, a plain table and chair, a bucket tactfully equipped with a lid, and a tiny grease lamp, by whose smoky yellow light the scene was visible.

Celisse was seated at the table, an untouched meal before her. As the door opened, she turned to face it. Her eyes widened at sight of her brother, and she rose to her feet.

Rione was conscious, for the first time in days, of his unshaven face, his unwashed and doubtless malodorous person and clothing. Celisse had somehow contrived to keep herself clean, or at least to maintain the appearance of cleanliness. Her dark hair was neatly ordered, her dress unspotted, her fingernails surprisingly free of grime. Her face, always light of complexion, was a shade paler than usual, her sole outward manifestation of unease. So she appeared on the last evening of her life.

Across his mind wheeled a hundred recollections of the past that they shared. Celisse, as an infant and then a toddler, growing and learning in the halls of Ironheart. Celisse, an orphan, turning to the Magnifica Yvenza for guidance, instruction, and adult affection. Celisse, sitting at the feet of Yvenza, absorbing the magnifica’s attitudes and convictions. Celisse, trained and indoctrinated from earliest childhood, methodically forged and shaped. When he himself had come to Ironheart, he had been old enough to recall the face and words of his father. Celisse had known only Yvenza.

“You’ve come to say good-bye,” she observed, voice clear and manner composed as always.

Something inside him seemed to be breaking. For a moment he doubted his own ability to frame a reply, then managed
to utter a few unsteady words. “Oh, my dear. We’ve only a very little time.”

“It’s more than I ever expected. Come, Falaste, take heart. I am not afraid, nor should you be. Remember, we die for Faerlonne.”

“That comforts you?”

“More than comforts. It fills me with joy and gratitude. I only wish that I might share this sense with you. Tomorrow, if we go together, then I’ll hold your hand if I can. If that isn’t permitted, then you must keep your eyes fixed on mine, and what you see there will ease your way.”

“Celisse, I’ll not be with you. I don’t go tomorrow.”

“No? What has happened?”

“I’ve been granted a stay. I don’t know how long.”

“But how? Why? Instinct bids me rejoice for you.” She curved a faint smile belied by frowning brows. “Reason dictates otherwise. What we both face is best concluded quickly.”

“Yes, you’re right. That’s one reason why this meeting between us now is so important. Listen—the thought of you suffering pain is more than I can bear. I’ve chosen accordingly, and therefore I
can
help you. See here.” From the depths of his pocket Rione drew two small packets of heavy paper, sealed with wax. “These are gifts of value. Swallow the powder in the packet sealed in blue tomorrow at dawn, and all that follows will be distant and unreal as a half-remembered dream. There will be no pain, no fear, no anguish. Or, if it seems better, swallow the entire contents of the packet sealed in black tonight—and there will be no tomorrow. You understand me?”

“No. I do not understand you.” She made no move to accept the proffered packets. Her eyes drilled into him. “How did you obtain these ‘gifts of value,’ brother? Where did they come from?”

“From my bag. I’ve always carried them.”

“You and your bag parted company at the Lancet Inn.”

“They’ve allowed me use of it. For a little while, I’m a doctor again.”

“That’s surprising. Our Taerleezi despots aren’t wont to display such generosity. Who are your patients?”

“People in need.”

“Speak plainly. Surely we must have nothing but honesty between us now. Who are your patients?”

“Governor Sfirriu’s wife and daughter. Both have fallen dangerously ill.”

“By that I suppose you mean they’ve taken the plague. Nothing else would account for the use of your services.”

“Yes. I’ve been warned against speaking of it, but I won’t lie to you. Plague has penetrated the Witch. Sfirriu has heard of my work, and requested my services.”

“Which you gladly supplied. Here is what it is, then. In return for a stay of execution, and perhaps a few small favors—better food, maybe extra blankets and candles—you’ve sold yourself to the enemies of Faerlonne. You are the servant of the Taerleezis.”

“Celisse. They are two women—one of them only a young girl—both desperately ill, both in pain. Certainly I’ll help them all I can. Their nationality means nothing.”

“It means everything. Among the Taerleezis, there are no innocents. So long as they infest our land, they are all equally guilty. You know this is true, but lack the resolve to admit it to yourself. Whatever privileges you’ve secured by this bargain of yours aren’t worth the price. You must make amends. Listen. We two now share a secret valuable to the Faerlonnish cause. When the word goes out that this prison, its governor, and all his minions have taken contagion, then the Witch is thrown into disarray and placed under quarantine, its usefulness to our oppressors diminished or even destroyed. You must spread the news to all within hearing—to guards, fellow prisoners, visitors—everyone. And I shall do the same. Tomorrow, when I am given leave to speak, I shall step to the edge of the scaffold and proclaim the truth to all Vitrisi.”

“And then? Have you considered the consequences? The fear and rage your words ignite will turn themselves upon—
whom? The scapegoat is neatly tethered in place. There will follow a wholesale massacre of prisoners. They’ll be slaughtered by the hundreds, and nearly all of them are Faerlonnish. The Taerleezi authorities will doubtless welcome the purge.”

The cold glint in Celisse’s eyes extinguished itself. She jerked a grudging nod. “Very well. It is not the moment. At the very least, though, you must change your own course. You must cease treating these Taerleezis at once. No doubt you’ll be punished, but you can bear it, and your honor will be whole again. I want your promise that you will do this.”

“It would seem that our views of honor differ. To me, there’s no honor in refusing medical care to sick and suffering women. But let’s not speak of that.”

“What would you rather speak of, then? Your ‘gifts of value,’ perhaps? I thank you for your eagerness to smooth my path, but you must understand that I accept no gifts from a creature of the Taerleezis.”