The Shadow Isle (39 page)

Ridvar attempted to smile at this belated recognition, but the expression looked more like a dog’s snarl.

“Oh, I agree with the prince,” Ridvar said. “The bastards have burnt what there was to burn out here. I’d best return to Cengarn and tell my vassals to ready themselves for raids. Some of their duns are nearly as isolated as this one.”

“A sound move, Your Grace,” Voran joined the conversation. “Now, when we get back, and our horses have rested, I’ve got to leave for Cerrgonney. The dwarven envoy’s supposed to meet me in Gwingedd by the longest day. And then there’s this matter of the Boars. I’m Justiciar of the Northern Border now.”

“Your Highness?” Ridvar said. “If you’ll take the advice of a lowly gwerbret, you’ll move fast against them. If that squad that broke through our lines does go back to the Boar dun, they’ll be bringing the news back that we know who they are.”

“You’re quite right. I want to move against them before the end of this summer.” Voran hesitated so long that Gerran wondered if he was thinking of responding to Ridvar’s “lowly gwerbret” comment. If so, the prince thought better of it. “My duty’s plain,” Voran continued. “I’m charged with bringing peace to the province. Wish me luck.”

“No doubt you’ll need it,” Ridvar said, and this smile was genuine.

“No doubt. One last thing, Lord Gerran.” Voran glanced around, then pointed to Nicedd. “When I leave Cengarn, may I hire your silver dagger away from you? I want his evidence when I confront the tieryn of Pren Cludan about these Boar raids.”

Nicedd went white about the mouth and dropped to one knee before the prince.

“What’s wrong?” Gerran said to him.

“Begging your pardon and all, my lord, Your Grace, and Your Highnesses,” Nicedd’s voice became unsteady. “But if I go back to Pren Cludan, they’ll hang me.”

“Oh.” Voran blinked several times. “Well and good, then, you stay with Lord Gerran. I’ll make up some tale for your former lord’s ears while I’m on the way.”

“My humble thanks, Your Highness.” Nicedd’s voice became stronger. “I’ll praise your name always for this mercy.”

“I’m tempted to ask you why you’re riding the long road,” Voran said, “but I’ll spare you that, too. You may leave us.”

With a sigh of profound relief, Nicedd rose and hurried back to his waiting horse.

“Well and good, lads!” Voran turned to the warbands. “Let’s get back on the road.”

As he mounted up, Gerran was thinking about the Horsekin raiders who’d fled the battle, no doubt to bring information to the commanders of the larger force. He could practically taste the danger they presented. Still, he had no right to argue with a gwerbret and a prince over a decision, whether or not he was one of their vassals. Besides, he reminded himself, there’s naught out there but wilderness, anyway, off to the north and west.

From their posts high up on Dun Cengarn’s walls, the men left behind on fortguard kept a watch on the roads north of the town. As soon as they saw the returning army, they blew their silver horns to announce it in a strident music that echoed around the ward. Inside the main broch, Lady Drwmigga came rushing downstairs to the great hall and began giving the orders to her servants that formerly Lord Oth would have handled. Her servingwomen followed, chattering about their tasks, flitting back and forth in their bright dresses like a flock of birds. Lord Blethry, the fortguard commander, ran outside to prepare the stable hands and pages for the coming influx of horsemen. Neb followed more slowly to look for a place to stand and wait out of everyone’s way. He wanted to greet his brother and, much to his surprise, Salamander as well.

The ward had turned into a roughly organized mob of servants that allowed scant room for a man to wait. Neb climbed the ladder up to the catwalks on the main wall and gained a good place for a view. Far below him, the army was walking their horses through the town gates. In the warmth of the late afternoon sun, most of the riders let their horses amble up the main street, but some of the men, most likely local lads who knew the town well, broke out of line and followed a separate route through the back alleys. Behind everyone else creaked the supply wagons. The entire scene made Neb think of water flowing uphill, a fancy that made him smile.

He leaned on folded arms onto the top of the wall between two crenels and enjoyed the touch of sunlight on his back. Ever since he’d followed Salamander’s orders to stop his astral scrying and eat more food, normal life had returned to him, filled with small pleasures. His dweomerwork was progressing better and faster as well. At moments he felt like a fool or worse for dismissing Salamander for so long. Perhaps the gerthddyn had been a chattering dolt back when Nevyn knew him, but Nevyn had been dead for sixty years or so now.

And I’m alive now,
he thought. He now knew who he was, Nerrobrantos, scribe to Prince Daralanteriel of the Westlands, husband to Lady Branna—not Nevyn nor Galrion, either. He had assumed that “what I am” meant “Master of the Aethyr” once again. Now he knew he’d been mistaken. His true wyrd lay with the dweomer, certainly, but perhaps with something else as well. He simply didn’t know what that something might be. Yet at the same time, he felt that the answer should be obvious, that in fact it lay close to hand.

The army began filing through the gates into the ward. Leading the way in a thicket of banners were the two princes and the gwerbret, and directly behind them, the banadar and the two noble lords. Gerran was holding both of his reins in his right hand. He’d tucked his left hand into his belt, as if the arm needed support. His posture, too, struck Neb as odd, not warrior straight, but slumped toward the right, again to favor his left side. Wounded! Neb turned away fast and grabbed the ladder, then climbed down as quickly as he could. Making his way through the packed and swarming ward took him some while.

When Neb reached them, Gerran had just dismounted while an anxious Mirryn watched. The effort of twisting his body free of the horse’s back had turned Gerran’s face pale. Clae came running and caught his lord’s elbow to steady him. Slowly the color returned to his skin, and he managed to stand without aid.

“What happened?” Neb said.

“It’s just a bruise,” Gerran said, but his voice sounded as weak as a small child’s.

“It’s not!” Mirryn snapped. “Neb, he got hit hard on the shoulder from behind. It’s a shallow cut, a split, like, from the blow, but somewhat went wrong with it.”

“Indeed?” Neb let his eyes go out of focus and considered Gerran’s aura, its usual sullen red, shot here and there with gold, but shrunken. At its strongest it extended barely a foot beyond his flesh, with one exception. Over the left shoulder the aura streamed out in a fetid greenish-gray plume that was drawing energy and life out of his body.

“I see,” Neb said. “It’s gone septic.”

“How can you tell?” Mirryn said.

“Can’t you smell it?” Neb found a quick excuse. “I know you’re all filthy from the campaign, but that stink of rot’s unmistakable.”

“Ye gods!” Mirryn said. “Should I get the chirurgeon?”

“Raddyn? Not on your life! Get our Falcon upstairs to his chamber! ” The crack of command in his own voice caught Neb by surprise. “Clae, get him to lie down on his stomach. Don’t try to pull that shirt off! Cut it off! Then fetch me a kettle of water, a big one.”

Much to Neb’s further surprise, they followed the orders, even Gerran. While Gerran’s silver dagger helped his hire up the stairs, Neb hurried to his own chamber and grabbed his saddlebags, which contained his precious supply of herbs. They would meet a better wyrd now than financing a lad’s folly. He hurried on to Gerran’s chamber.

With an anxious Nicedd hovering nearby, Gerran lay facedown on the mattress, his shirt off. Old blood and dirt crusted over the healing tear in his skin, a line of scabs inside a livid bruise.

“I can smell it now, too,” Nicedd remarked. “Septic it is!”

“I’ve got to get that clean,” Neb said. “I hope Clae hurries with that water. Here, go get me some mead, will you? Gerro, my apologies, but we’ve got to burn away the corrupted humors. The mead will do that.”

Gerran made a grunting sound that might have been an answer.

“I’m on my way.” Nicedd trotted out of the chamber.

Near the bed stood a brazier, filled with charcoal left over from the winter’s cold. Neb summoned the Wildfolk of Fire and lit the coals. It was glowing nicely by the time an out-of-breath Clae returned with the full kettle. Neb set it among the coals to heat.

“Did you run all the way?” Neb said to his brother.

Clae nodded wordlessly.

“You may not want to watch this,” Neb said, glancing around. “Get me that basin from the washstand, will you?”

Clae followed orders, then stepped back against the wall. Neb rummaged in his saddlebags, found the prunella and healall leaves, and put a big handful of each into the washbasin. He needed one more botanical—what was it—comfrey root, and he had not even a scrap of that.
I can find some on the morrow
, he told himself,
it grows all over pastureland.

He slopped a good portion of hot water on top of the herbs he’d selected and put the basin on the floor to let the mixture steep. Among his scribal tools he found a clean rag, which he dipped into the heating water in the kettle. When he applied it to the abscess, the rag ran red with old blood, streaked with the dark brown of ordinary dirt. Neb was still washing Gerran’s wound clean when Nicedd returned with a flagon of mead.

“I didn’t know how much you’d need,” the silver dagger said. “So I got a lot.”

“Good,” Neb said. “He may need to drink the rest when I’m done.” He glanced at Nicedd’s pale face. “You might need some yourself. Put that down! I’ll need you to hold your lord steady.”

Gerran’s shoulder looked even nastier once Neb could see it clearly. Not only did the split in the skin ooze pus, but a thin web of red lines spread outward from the bruise. Neb had a bad moment of wondering if he were too late, but the red corruption stretched only an inch or two beyond the blue-and-purple edges of the bruise.
No use in giving up,
he told himself. He got out his penknife, then considered his own hands, more than a little dirty. He washed them and the knife blade both in the remaining hot water.

“Gerro,” Neb said, “can you put your hands over your head? Stretch out, like.”

“I can,” Gerran said. “It’s not that bad.”

Neb decided against telling him the truth, that actually it was worse than he knew. Gerran slid down a little on the mattress to give himself room, then raised his arms over his head. Without being asked, Nicedd sat down next to him and caught his lord’s wrists.
He’s seen this before,
Neb thought.

“Hold on,” Neb said. “This is going to hurt.”

He grasped the penknife twixt thumb and forefinger as if he were cutting parchments against a straightedge, focused on the suppurating stripe running down the half-healed wound, and slashed the abscess open. Gerran let out a noise that almost amounted to a cry, then sucked his breath in sharply. Greenish matter welled in the wound and oozed in a trickle of blood.

“Get me more water,” Neb said to Clae. “Just take the kettle from the coals and don’t look at this. Use Gerran’s old shirt for a rag! The handle’s hot.”

Neb soaked his rag in the herbed water in the basin and wiped away as much of the pus as he could. When he pressed around the edges of the bruise, more green-gray matter welled up and with it, black flecks of dirt. Neb kept cleaning the rag and wiping until at last he’d exposed raw flesh and naught else. Gerran never made a sound, nor did he move. Nicedd sat stone-still, holding down his lord’s hands should Gerran’s will fail.

The door opened with a fling and a bounce. Clae trotted in with the kettle in one hand and a wad of clean rags in the other.

“Lady Egriffa said you’d need these,” Clae said.

“I do, indeed.”

Neb took the rags gratefully. He should have remembered to bring more, he supposed. Clae nestled the bottom of the kettle into the coals, then returned to his place by the wall.

Neb never quite knew how long he worked on the wound, washing it, wiping the blood away, until at last it looked clean, and the only smell of contagion came from the rags on the floor. By the time he finished, however, the sky was beginning to darken with sunset. Neb stepped back a few feet and considered his patient’s aura. The ugly gray plume had disappeared, but the envelope of etheric light had shrunk a little further, clinging around Gerran’s body like a wet shirt. The pain had done that, Neb supposed. At least, he hoped it was only the pain. Neb tossed the rag he’d been using onto the floor, then picked up the flagon of mead.

“This is going to hurt worse,” he said, “so brace yourself, but I’ve got to destroy the corrupted humors.”

Nicedd tightened his grip on Gerran’s wrists. Neb took a deep breath and slopped mead directly from the flagon onto the wound. Gerran gasped aloud and bowed his back as if he’d been flogged. Nicedd held on grimly and forced him back down again. Mercifully, with the second splash of the burning liquid, Gerran fainted. Neb kept splashing and wiping until at last the bleeding from his slash had eased up. He dipped a finger in the mead and tested the bruise. The swelling had gone down considerably, but for all he knew, more contagion lurked under the edges of the skin.

The room had grown too dark for him to see clearly. Without thinking, exhausted as he was, he called upon the Wildfolk of Aethyr, who clustered around his left hand in a cool silver light. Nicedd swore under his breath, and Clae yelped aloud.

“Hold your tongues!” Neb snapped. “I’ve got to see.”

In the pool of dweomer light the wound looked as good as traumatized flesh could look after such treatment. A different light bloomed behind him, the yellow flickering of massed candles. Neb’s shadow fell across Gerran’s back. Neb tossed the ball of dweomer glow into the air, where it disappeared. When he glanced over his shoulder, he saw Salamander standing just inside the door and holding a four-candle candelabrum in each hand.

“I purloined these from a storeroom,” Salamander said. “I thought you’d need light.”