persistence as a pampered house cat. It also left its scent on the garden plants. Rilca would hardly miss it. Ilsabet crouched down and held out a piece of the fresh bread. 'Come,' she called. 'Come and take it.'
The fox moved close, and as it bit into the piece, Ilsabet grabbed it. Struggling to get loose, it bit through her glove, nearly to the bone. Nonetheless, Ilsabet held on until she smeared a bit of the black nettle infusion onto the bottom of the animal's paw, then let it go.
The fox limped off with as much dignity as it could muster to the sunny side of the stable and stretched out on the ground. She followed at a distance and waited. When the nettle began to pain the animal, it began licking the tarry residue from its paw until, satisfied, it rolled over and went to sleep.
Ilsabet had experienced a number of nettle poul-tices in her life. She knew the drawing quality took time to appear, so she crouched some distance away from the animal and waited.
It paid little attention to her as it dozed off. She began to think that she hadn't given it enough, but then the fox rolled onto its stomach and gagged as if trying to spit up a bad piece of meat. It looked up at her as though it knew she was the source of its pain, and disappeared into the thick brush of the untended field.
Now she would never know the outcome! Furious, she tried to follow the fox, but the brambles stuck to the hem of her cloak, and the animal's coloring blended too perfectly with the golden shoots of meadow grass. Stamping her foot in frustration, Ilsa-bet returned to the house, stealing in a side door and back to her room.
The next day, she went down to the kitchen just as Rilca went outside to pick herbs to season the evening meal. Ilsabet followed her. 'Would you like me to rinse the greens for you?' she asked.
'No. It rained this morning. I kept an eye out for that cursed fox, but it seems to have run off.' She stood up and rubbed her knees. 'I wonder if I'd miss the pains of growing old if they disappeared.'
'I wouldn't,' Ilsabet said.
'Well, Baroness, you know quite a lot about pain for such a tiny thing, so I suppose you can talk.'
Talk, Ilsabet thought, and considered that Rilca knew far too much about black nettles. She followed Rilca inside and watched the woman open a bottle of dark brown tonic-a mixture of honey and water and the concentrated essences of bedstraw and feverfew, along with an ample amount of alcohol, Ilsabet assumed. The woman wrinkled her nose at the taste. 'It's a curse to have to drink something as bitter as this,' she said with mock exasperation.
'Lord Jorani tells me that people tolerate anything that works,' Ilsabet replied. Midway through the comment, she had a marvelous revelation and could not help but smile. 'Since I'm getting hungry and you're making goulash, I'll leave you to your work,' she said, then went upstairs.
The next day, Rilca's tonic tasted more bitter than usual. She washed it down with a cup of bee balm and tansy tea and followed the evening dose of tonic with tea as well. In spite of the stomach-soothing herbs, she woke in the middle of the night with terrible pains deep inside her, as if someone had poked needles into her stomach and was pushing them deeper inside her.
'The tonic's gone bad,' she thought, and sipped the remnants of cold tea in the pot by her bedside. It alleviated the agony somewhat but in the morning Rilca did not have the strength to make breakfast. The other servants waited on her with the same care they would have given their lord; perhaps even better since Lord Jorani was not the one who fixed their meals.
For a week she stopped eating, drinking only the soothing tea when her thirst became unbearable. Gradually, the pain subsided, and she went back to her duties, bearing the stiffness in her joints without tonics.
Rilca never once suspected Ilsabet, for the little baroness sat often at her bedside, reading aloud to her or simply holding her hand, an expression of such intensity on her face that it seemed to Rilca that Ilsabet was trying to take on the agony for her through an act of will.
It also appeared that the child's own health was improving. Though she still had a trace of her cough and had gained no color to her complexion, there was a glow about her that had not been present before, making her pallor seem exotic rather than sickly.
A few days after Rilca was able to resume her duties in the kitchen, Ilsabet received a letter from her sister.
'Peto tells me you are quite recovered,' Marishka wrote. 'I've told him I will not plan my wedding unless you are here with me. I'm frantic without you. Come soon, Ilsabet. I miss you.'
'So will I,' Rilca said when Ilsabet told her the news. 'I've never had a more pleasant guest, nor one who cared about my well-being as much as you do,' she said.
When Ilsabet left for home, Rilca even cried.
When she heard the sentries announce Ilsabet's arrival, Marishka ran through the front door, then shivered in the damp of the courtyard. Ilsabet stepped down from the coach, and Marishka paused. It seemed Ilsabet had changed. She seemed to have matured, becoming self-assured, determined. Uncertain of Ilsabet's mood, Marishka held back until her sister held out her arms. Then she ran into them.
'Come inside,' she said. 'The damp isn't good for you.'
They went upstairs to Marishka's chambers and sat sipping tea by the fire. The number of Marishka's dresses had grown, the old ones moved to the back of their hooks. The dress Marishka wore tonight was also new, but in the same shade of blue as the Obour banner.
It heartened Ilsabet to think of her sister requesting a dress in that color, but she was angry that Peto had allowed it. She could picture her sister wearing it, the far too obedient subject in the colors of her defeated family.
The spring fogs on the river had been thicker than in usual years, and Marishka missed the rides through the sunny meadows. She confessed this to Ilsabet then added her real fear, 'I'm doing nothing but worry. I think I'm getting fat, and my face looks terrible. What kind of a bride will I make?'
A perfect one, Ilsabet thought, so beautiful in her wedding splendor that even the rebels would be forced to concede that any of them would have loved her in Peto's place. She wondered if Peto had considered this-and if it were a major part of his choosing Marishka in the first place. She sat beside her sister, taking both her hands. 'You must demand what you want, Marishka. Tell Peto that he must make arrangements to protect you.'
'I don't want to give him cause to worry. I love him so much!' She saw Ilsabet's frown and hurried on. 'I've tried not to care for him, I truly have, but I can't help myself.'
'Of course, I understand. But, Marishka, you might be wed to him for half a century. If you let him order you around now, what will your life be like when his first rush of love wears off?' She had worded this last carefully, not surprised by Marishka's reply.
'It isn't like that. He's protecting me because he loves me. I don't think he can help himself either. When you see us together, you'll know.'
Ilsabet did not have to wait long for that event. The three of them dined alone that night. Sadly, Marishka had been correct. Everything about the way Peto looked at her, attentive to her every need, made Ilsabet certain he cared deeply about Marishka.
So be it, she thought. Her sister had been warned. Without a pang of conscience, she leaned forward and said to Peto in a conspiratorial tone, 'Marishka has a request to make.'
'Request?' Peto put down his glass and looked at his fiancee. 'What is it?'
'I need… that is, I want to see the sun, Peto. I
want to go riding as I did before.'
'At Argentine, I rode every day,' Ilsabet said. 'My health has never been better. It's this cursed fog that ruined it.'
Peto looked from Ilsabet to his fiancee. He'd recently negotiated another truce in a seemingly endless series of truces and hoped it would survive until his wedding day. The sight of Marishka riding through the countryside would hardly pacify anyone. 'We're going to visit Sundell after the wedding, dearest. Can you wait?'
'The wedding isn't for another five weeks,' Ilsabet reminded him.
'I suppose that if you stayed to little-used paths and varied your route each day…' he began.
'Thank you!' Marishka cried and kissed him. Ilsabet looked away, certain that sight would be more than she could bear.
The next day Marishka and Ilsabet galloped in the highlands above the river. Ten guards accompanied them, and had Ilsabet not demanded that she and her sister lead, they would have been choked by the dust.
