Owlsight

Darian kept his mouth shut; he had an idea of his own, and he wasn’t going to broach it. What he didn’t reveal, he couldn’t be forbidden to undertake.

“Personally, I think that’s reasonable,” Starfall spoke first. “It’s not as if we’re under an arbitrary deadline to get this solved. We can afford to be patient with them.”

“If they bottle themselves up, their own Summer Fever may solve the problem for us,” Snowfire added.

“Harsh,” Starfall said, “but true.”

“Maybe you aren’t under a deadline, but I’ve got Harvesting coming up, and my lady has a wedding planned. She’s going to take it poorly if it’s got to be delayed because we’re playing nursemaid to a lot of greasy, fur-wearing barbarians,” Lord Breon muttered, but he made no further objections.

“They’ve come out of a terrifying situation, and just when they thought themselves safer, were met by more frightening people.” Eldan spoke as if he had thought this over already. “If we meet them with mercy, who knows how they will react? They could become the best allies Valdemar has ever had! Our ancestors were refugees, just as they are - and who knows, maybe our own forefathers were closer to being greasy fur-wearing barbarians than to us, their descendants.” He cast a glance at Lord Breon who had the grace to look a little ashamed. “We have never refused a refugee because he came with a burden of powerful enemies, and even though the enemy this time is a disease, I don’t see why that should change our attitude.”

“Give them at least three or four days,” Firesong urged. “That’s my counsel. Who knows, but maybe they’ve bottled themselves up to invoke this Cat Spirit of theirs, and if it is the Avatar of any reasonable deity, it should tell them to be sensible and go along with us!”

“Oh, surely!” Kerowyn replied, with more than a touch of sarcasm. “I don’t know how many gods you’ve had to deal with in your time, but being sensible has not been on the agenda of many of the ones I’ve come across.”

“Perhaps not sensible according to your needs and desires, Captain,” Snowfire said with absolute politeness. “But I’m certain it was sensible to those who worshiped those gods - always providing, of course, that the ones interpreting the gods’ will were honest. Case in point - Karse before Solaris.”

“Huh. Good point.” She sat down and looked all around the circle. “So, pull back and patience it is. Anybody have any objections?”

Clearly there were none that anyone thought worth mentioning, so Kerowyn declared the meeting at an end, and she and Snowfire left to meet with their respective troops and scouts and give them their new orders.

The debate in the Healers’ tent had gone on for most of the day, and showed no signs of stopping. Nightwind had joined them, as the only representative of the Hawkbrothers, and she had concurred with the consensus that something would have to be done about the Summer Fever and quickly, before it crossed to the allies.

“It’s summer now,” Keisha pointed out. “What if another outbreak starts among them? What do we do then?”

“We’d have to impose some sort of quarantine, I suppose,” began Grenthan.

“That could be difficult if we’re in the middle of armed conflict with them,” Nightwind said dryly. “Just how would we enforce it? Insist that only healthy people be allowed on the battlefield? Hold inspections for fever and sneezes before anyone can fight?”

Keisha choked back an involuntary laugh at the absurd image that conjured up; no one else seemed to find it funny, except perhaps Nightwind herself.

“I wonder - ” she started to say, then stopped.

“What?” asked Gentian, who had become the default leader at this point.

“Well, I just wonder why these northerners don’t have any real Healers of their own?” she continued, flushing, thinking that it was probably a stupid question. “I mean, the shaman seems to have done herb-Healing and that sort of thing, but no one uses the Gift. . . .”

Apparently no one else thought it was a stupid question, because a wary silence descended on the group. Finally Nala cleared her throat uneasily.

“In Karse, before Solaris, they used to test children for the Gift of Healing and sacrifice them if they were too old or too strong-willed to be indoctrinated into the priesthood,” she said slowly. “You don’t suppose that these barbarians do the same thing, do you?”

“In Karse they also sacrificed children with Mindspeech, on the grounds that it was a mark of demons,” Gentian reminded her. “But the use of Mindspeech didn’t frighten these people. And I have very clear images from Tyrsell’s gleanings that the shamans have never used the Healing Gift in the way we do. I suspect that Healing is a Gift they either don’t possess or don’t recognize.”