Dainsey led the way, walking slowly and talking easily. They went around the side of the tavern and down an alley, where, to Roger's surprise, they found a ladder set into the tavern wall, leading up to the only flat section of roof on the whole structure.
'I made 'em build it like that,' Dainsey explained, taking hold of one of the rungs and starting up. 'I wanted it to be the same way it was when Pony was workin' here.'
Roger followed her up to the flat roof; she was sitting comfortably with her back against the warm chimney by the time he pulled himself over the roof's edge.
'This was Pony's special place,' Dainsey explained, and Roger nodded, for Pony had told him about her nights on the roof of Fellowship Way. 'Where she'd come to hide from the troubles and to steal a peek at all the wide world.'
Roger looked all about, at the quiet of the Palmaris night, up at the twinkling stars, and over at the soft glow by the river, where the docks, despite the late hour, remained very much active and alive. He surely understood Dainsey's description, 'to steal a peek at all the wide world,' for it seemed to him as if he could watch all the city from up here, as if he were some otherworldly spy, looking in on-but very much separated from-the quiet hours of the folk of Palmaris.
He heard a couple on the street below, whispering and giggling, and he gave a wry smile as he caught some of their private conversation, words that they had meant for no other ears.
He could see how Pony so loved this place.
'Is she well?' Dainsey asked, drawing him from his trance.
Roger looked at her. 'Pony?' he asked.
'Well, who else might I be talkin' about?' the woman asked with a chuckle.
'She is better,' Roger explained. 'I left her in Caer Tinella with Colleen Kilronney.'
'Her cousin's back in Palmaris, working beside the new baron now that Kalas' run off,' Dainsey put in.
Roger walked over and sat down beside her, close enough to share the warmth of the chimney.
'She should've stayed,' Dainsey remarked, 'or I should've gone with her.'
'There's not much up there,' Roger told her honestly. 'That's what Pony needed for now, but you would have found life… tedious.'
'But I do miss her,' Dainsey said. She looked over at Roger, and he could see that there was hint of a tear in her eye. 'She could've stayed and ruled the world. Oh, she's such a pretty one.'
Roger stared at her earnestly, looked deep into her delicate eyes in a manner in which he never had thought to look before. 'No prettier than Dainsey Aucomb,' he said before he could think, for if he had considered the words, he never would have found the courage to spout them!
Dainsey blushed and started to look away, but Roger, bolstered by hearing his own forward declaration, grabbed her chin in his small hand and forced her to look back at him. ' 'Tis true,' he said.
Dainsey stared at him doubtfully. 'I gived ye too much o' the honey mead,' she said with a chuckle.
'It has nothing to do with the drink,' Roger declared flatly and firmly.
Dainsey tried to turn away again, and started to laugh, but Roger held her with his hand, and stifled her chuckles with a sober and serious look.
'Ye never said so before,' she said quietly.
Roger shook his head, having no real answer to that. 'I do not know that I ever looked closely enough before,' he said. 'But 'tis true, Dainsey Aucomb.'
She started to say something, then started to chuckle, but Roger came forward and kissed her gently.
Dainsey pushed him back to arm's length. 'What're ye about, then? ' she asked.
Now it was Roger's turn to blush. 'I–I-I do not know,' he blurted, and started to turn away.
But Dainsey Aucomb gave a great laugh and grabbed him hard, pulling him in for another kiss, a deeper and more urgent kiss.
The early snow didn't stay for long, and soon after, the road to Dundalis was open again. But Pony couldn't leave, because Colleen had not improved. Far from it; the woman was looking more drawn and weary with each passing day. Pony had offered to try to help her with the soul stone several times, but Colleen had refused, insisting that it was just an early season chill and that she'd be rid of it soon enough.
But then one morning when she went in to check on Colleen-an oddity, since the woman, despite her sickness, was always up before Pony and preparing her breakfast-Pony found her drenched in sweat in bed, too weak to even begin to stand.
Pony pulled down the heavy blankets to try to cool the woman down. And then she saw them, on Colleen's bare arm, round red splotches about the size of a gol'bear coin and ringed in white.
'What?' Pony asked, lifting the arm to better see the strange rings. Colleen couldn't answer; Pony wondered if she'd even heard the question. The rosy plague had come to the northland.
Chapter 27
It's the rosy plague, I tell ye,' the old woman said decisively. She was examining Colleen from afar, and she was backing with each word now that she had seen the telltale rings. She reached the door, her mouth moving as if she were trying futilely to find some words strong enough to express her horror, and then she slipped out into the daylight, Pony rushed outside behind her. 'The rosy plague?' she echoed, for she had no idea what that might be. Pony had grown up on the frontier in the Timberlands. Her mother had taught her to read well enough, but she had never studied formally, and she had never heard of the plague.
'Aye, and the death of us all!' the old woman wailed.
'What about my friend? '
'She's doomed or she's not, but that's not for yerselfto decide,' the old woman answered coldly.
'I have a gemstone,' Pony said, producing the hematite. 'I have been trained in the use-'
'It'll do ye no good against the rosy plague!' the old woman cried. 'Ye'11 just get yerself kilt!'
Pony eyed her sternly, but the wrinkled old woman threw up her hands, gave a great wail, and ran off, crying, 'Ring around the rosy!'
Pony went back inside, scolding herself for even consulting the town's accepted healer, instead of just fighting the disease with her soul stone. She moved up beside Colleen, who was lying on her bed, and took the woman's hand in her own. She could feel the heat emanating from Colleen, could feel clammy wetness on her frail- looking arm. What a different woman this was from the warrior who had accompanied Pony throughout her trials! Colleen had been strong-stronger than Pony, surely, with thick arms and broad shoulders. But now she seemed so frail, so tired, so beaten. Pony felt more than a twinge of guilt at the sight, for Colleen's downslide had begun on the journey in which she had accompanied the outlaw Pony north out of Palmaris. De'Unnero, half man, half tiger, had caught them on the road, had downed Pony, and then had beaten Colleen severely. She had gotten away, for De'Unnero's focus was Pony and not her, but Colleen had never really recovered.
And now here she lay, feverish and frail in her bed.
Pony put aside her guilt and focused on correcting the situation, focused on the all-important hematite, the soul stone, the stone of healing. Deeper and deeper she went into the gemstone's inviting gray depths, into the swirl, her spirit leaving her body behind. Free of material bonds, Pony floated about the bed, looking down upon Colleen and upon her own physical form, still holding the woman's hand. She focused her thoughts on Colleen, and could feel the sickness, a tangible thing; could feel the heat rising from Colleen's battered body; could sense that the very air was tainted by a sickly smell of rot.
At first that stench, the sheer wrongness of it, nearly overwhelmed Pony, nearly chased her right back into her own body. She understood at that moment why the old woman had run off wailing. For a moment, she wanted to do nothing more than that same thing. But she found her heart and her strength, reminded herself that she had faced Markwart, the embodiment of Bestesbulzibar itself, in this same spiritual state. If she left Colleen now, then her friend would certainly die, and horribly, and soon.
She could not let that happen.
