The Traitor's Daughter (33 page)

“Siccatrice.”

“Some kind of a snake?”

“An arachnid. A kind of woodland scorpion.”

“And he’s been stung. That must smart. Pity.” Her lip curled. “Maybe this will teach him a good lesson. Maybe he’ll learn that the worm or the scorpion can turn.”

“Maybe he will, if he survives.”

“What, you don’t mean that one sting from something that isn’t a snake could actually kill him?”

“It might, if he doesn’t receive prompt treatment. And even then, the outcome isn’t certain.”

Taken aback, Jianna said nothing. Throughout the term of her imprisonment, she had had few dealings with Trecchio. He had not participated in the murderous attack upon the Belandor carriage. He had manhandled her upon the evening of her arrival, earning her permanent enmity, but thereafter he had never again touched her; had never, in fact, taken much notice of her. Presumably regarding her as the rightful property of his older brother, he had kept his hands to himself and—saving the occasional unimaginative incivility at table—had troubled her not at all. Thus he had retreated to the periphery of her awareness, and she had all but dismissed him from her thoughts.

She thought about him now, however; concluding that she didn’t actively wish him dead, but would hardly mourn his loss.

Moments later they reached the kitchen, with its warm atmosphere and its perennial population of household menials. Trecchio was not in evidence, but the arched door to the stillroom stood ajar and the guard’s gesture ushered them through.

Jianna blinked and her nose wrinkled. The stillroom was dimly firelit, its air weighted with an indefinably alarming odor. Trecchio lay stretched out on the table. His eyes were open but unfocused. His doublet was off, one of his linen shirtsleeves rolled up, baring his right arm. Beside him stood his mother, plying a poultice.

Yvenza’s eyes lifted to Rione’s face. “My youngest has played the fool again,” she observed. “Now he’s paying the price.”

An inarticulate mumble of protest escaped Trecchio.

“Shut up, boy,” his mother admonished. “You’re getting nothing more than your stupidity deserves.”

“And what is he getting?” Rione inquired easily.

“See for yourself.”

“Siccatrice, I’m told,” Rione prompted.

“Stuck his idiot hand into the wrong bush. Now he loses it.”

Trecchio’s mumbling rose in pitch.

“Oh yes, sonny. Make up your mind to it.” Turning back to Rione, she inquired, “Bone saw sharp, lad?”

“Perhaps unnecessary,” he replied.

“Careful. I don’t tolerate falsehood.”

“I know. What point in misleading you, Magnifica? I believe that your son’s hand may be saved, provided he’s treated promptly.”

“A fairy tale, I suspect, and he’s like to lose more than his hand if you’re wrong.”

“I am not wrong, but he must choose for himself.” Rione bent to address the sufferer directly and very distinctly. “Trecchio, I’ve a treatment that should spare you amputation, but it is my own invention and not generally known. Do you want it?”

“He’s unfit to decide,” Yvenza observed. “I give you permission, lad. Do what you like, without fear. If you fail, I’ll not hold it against you.”

Rione seemed not to hear her. “Trecchio, what’s your answer?” he persisted.

Yvenza’s brows rose. Jianna’s did the same.

Trecchio’s response was garbled but recognizably affirmative.

“There’s the sweet salve for your conscience, ready and waiting should the need arise.” Yvenza forged an iron smile. “What do you need?”

“Bathtub if possible, otherwise washtub, large quantities of hot water, clean towels,” Rione requested. “Basin, dipper, rezhia moss packing if you have any. That should suffice.”

“You’ll have it. In the meantime, I suppose you’ll want the place cleared out.”

“But for the maidenlady.”

“Ah?” Yvenza’s gaze briefly skewered Jianna. “She’s so useful to you, then?”

“She is a willing and able assistant.”

“Willing. That is interesting. You will tell me more, but now is not the time. To work, then. When there’s news, send word, even if I am sleeping.”

Sleeping?
Jianna wondered.
Her son may lose a hand or more, and she can sleep?

Yvenza withdrew without visible reluctance. Rione seemed scarcely to note her departure. Already he was at Trecchio’s side, stripping the poultice from the damaged hand. Jianna glimpsed a sunken crater of scaled grey flesh surrounding a dry white ulcer, a sight outside her experience. Her gaze sought Trecchio’s face, which was grey and curiously … 
shrunken
was the term that sprang to mind. He appeared marginally conscious.

Rione ran one fingertip lightly around the circumference of the crater, and a long shred of dry skin flaked off. Trecchio noticed nothing, but Jianna drew in her breath sharply. Repelled and fascinated, she stepped nearer for a closer look. The flesh surrounding the wound was shriveled and apparently dead. The ulcer marking the entry point of the siccatrice’s sting was ruffled with translucent white scales. A brush of the doctor’s finger dislodged a powdery shower of them.

“Help me get his clothes off,” Rione commanded.

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

Jianna was undismayed, for her work in the infirmary had inured her to the sight of naked bodies, but she could hardly fathom his purpose. Why strip a patient bare in order to treat a wounded hand? It was not the time to ask. She shrugged and set to work. Trecchio soon lay fully exposed to view, and the object of the doctor’s scrutiny revealed itself at once. A scaly grey patch marked the patient’s upper arm. Another—small enough to pass for a mole—blemished his right shoulder. Her eyes caught Rione’s.

“Dried tissue,” he answered the unspoken question. “Drained of nearly all its moisture.”

He did not need to say more. He did not need to inform her that it was already too late to halt the malady’s advance by means of amputation; that was self-evident. Trecchio was clearly doomed. It remained only to keep him as comfortable as possible throughout the final hours of a life unlikely to outlast the night. She wondered whether Yvenza’s apparent indifference would sustain the news of her younger offspring’s early demise.

At least the poor wretch didn’t appear to suffer. It would not be necessary to pump him full of kalkriole. Probably it would be best to keep him warm, though.

“Can’t we cover him up?” she asked. “I’ll find a blanket or two, and—”

“Step out into the kitchen and see if they’ve assembled the items I requested,” he ordered.

She looked at him, surprised no less by his curtness than by his expression, which was particularly intent. His face reflected none of the reluctant resignation reserved for those such as Grezziu, whose cases he deemed hopeless. It was clear at a glance that Rione still expected and intended to preserve his patient. She nodded and did as she was bid. Moments later she was able to report, “The things you asked for have been laid out on the kitchen table, except for the moss. Most of the servants are out of there, but there’s still one of the boys pumping and heating water. The bathtub—I suppose it’s a bathtub, it’s shaped like a shoe and riddled with rust—is more than half full.”

“Good.” He did not glance in her direction. He was engrossed in some task that involved measuring, weighing, and mixing of powders, liquids, and unguents. A few minutes later, an airborne pungency tickled her nostrils, and she hacked a muffled cough. Rione settled back in his chair with an air of accomplishment. “There,” he said.

“A draught?” she asked.

“A wash.”

“You’ll want some clean cloth.”

“No need.”

“Oh, it’s going straight into the bathwater, then?” she guessed.

“Good girl. Here—” He handed her a calibrated glass beaker containing a quantity of viscous dark fluid. “Pour that into the tub. And tell whichever of the lads is out there to get himself in here.”

Once again she obeyed, watching as the dark liquid from the beaker infused itself through the bathwater in slow serpentine streaks. Moist warmth from the tub kissed her face, and her mind flashed on the bath at Belandor House, with its spectacular mosaics, its intricate bronze chandeliers, its perfumed atmosphere, its beauty and safety …

Tears intensified the wet heat on her face. She brushed them away and took a deep breath, drawing medicinal vapors deep into her lungs. A moment later Rione and the kitchen boy emerged from the stillroom bearing Trecchio, whom they dumped without ceremony into the tub. He sank without a murmur. Almost casually Rione pushed back his sleeve, plunged a bare arm into the aromatic water, grasped his patient’s hair, and hauled the submerged head to the surface. Trecchio choked and gurgled.

“That’s all for tonight. Off with you,” Rione advised, and his nameless assistant exited smartly.

“Should I go, too?” Jianna inquired.

“Certainly not.”

“What’s left to do?”

“Much. Roll up your sleeves, maidenlady. You’re going to be here for hours to come.”

“Very well, but doing what, exactly?”

“More of the same. Repeatedly.”

Despite his promise, there was nothing at all for her to do for some minutes thereafter, during which time she covertly studied the doctor. Her attention fastened easily and naturally upon Rione. Her eyes sought his face of their own accord, and his changing expressions held them. The vertical crease between his eyes, visible when he frowned, made him look older than his years but agreeably distinguished, she decided. Presently, however, a moaning outcry from Trecchio dragged her reluctant attention from doctor to patient, whose arms were flailing in the water and whose head was thrashing from side to side. His mouth was open, parched lips drawn back over dry gums, tongue slack and juiceless.

Disgusting
, she thought.

He retched drily and her revulsion sharpened. Then a high-pitched woeful whimper broke from him and the sound of it touched something inside her. Despite her distaste and dislike, she pitied him.

“Softly, Trecchio. All’s well. Dr. Rione is looking after you. Everything will be all right.” To her own surprise she found herself trying to comfort him. Probably he could not understand her words, but the sound of her voice exerted a certain soothing effect and his feverish animation subsided. The swirling bathwater stilled itself, and she saw then that it had lightened, the bruised hue of Rione’s infusion fading to tired violet.

“That’s good,” Rione murmured.

“What is?”

“The way you spoke to him, the use of your voice. Very good.”

“Oh. Well. I just wanted to calm him,” she returned, warmed to the core by his praise.

“Exactly right. Keep doing it.”

“But what if—”

“Now hold him while I take a look at that hand.”

Jianna nodded. He often required this service of her; it was one that she usually performed well, despite her lack of weight and stature. Her success lay less in her own expertise than in the magic of the doctor’s hands, whose talent minimized the patient’s pain and consequent struggling. Still, there could be no denying that she herself had developed a certain skill. Now she judged at a glance that Trecchio’s recoil was likely to plunge his head beneath the water and accordingly positioned herself at his rear in readiness to prevent total submersion.

Rione took possession of his patient’s hand, whose appearance was startling. The white ulcer and surrounding tissue had taken on a deep purple hue verging on black. Having absorbed quantities of medicated water, the dead flesh was now tautly distended. The entire arm was swollen and faintly violet in color.

Trecchio moaned and pulled back. Taking a firm grasp, Jianna exerted force and held him in place.

Employing the thinnest of steel blades, Rione proceeded to shave fine slivers of spongy purple skin from the edges of the wound. His touch was light and the tissue he removed was dead, but Trecchio responded with screams and contortions. The submerged body flopped wildly and violet bathwater splashed Jianna’s face. Blinking, she tightened her grip, bearing down with all her weight to hold him as still as possible. Trecchio’s wordless vociferation intensified. Reaching back with his free hand to grab a handful of her hair, he yanked hard, bringing her head down sharply on the lip of the iron tub. Jianna squawked and saw flashing color. Her grip failed and Trecchio tore free. Loosing her hair, he balled his left fist and drove a blow at Rione’s face.

Jianna was not aware of the warning screech that escaped her, but Rione heard it and looked up from his work in time to dodge the flying fist. Trecchio grunted.

“Hold him down just a few seconds longer, if you can,” Rione enjoined quietly. “Try.”

She nodded and set her jaw. Locking both arms about Trecchio, she held fast, clinging grimly as he moaned and bucked. Waves of violet water overspilled the tub, drenching both Jianna and Rione. Seemingly oblivious, the doctor worked on. At length, he drew back and set his scalpel aside.

“You can let him go,” Rione told her.

She obeyed. Trecchio slumped lax and motionless.

“Finished?” Jianna ran a hand across her forehead, pushing back the strands of wet hair.

“For the moment.”

“Do we take him out and dry him off?”

“Not yet. We’ve scarcely begun.”

“What next, then?”

“Next we replenish the water. Bring it back to its former level.”

The big kettle hanging above the kitchen fire remained half full. Jianna poured the contents into the tub, halting when the bath temperature grew uncomfortably warm to the touch; added cold water from the full bucket that the kitchen boys had left by the hearth; and finished with another heated dollop that brought the bathwater to the right depth and temperature. Rione handed her another calibrated fluid measure. She dripped it in, and the water darkened.

This done, she refilled the kettle at the pump, returned it to its hook above the fire, then refilled the cold-water bucket. Thereafter she was free to resume her scrutiny of Rione, who in turn focused undivided attention on his patient. The doctor’s eyes never wandered, and Jianna’s mind began to fill with ridiculous schemes designed to draw the blue-grey gaze to herself. She might gasp, clutch her brow, and fall in a swoon. She might scream and claim that she had seen a ghost. She might walk across the few feet that separated them, take his face between her hands, and kiss him full on the lips.