Shiv worked his way behind the turtleshell dwelling, peering through the cracks of a shuttered window that couldn’t close properly because the frame had warped. He could see only the main room from his vantage-point, but it was enough. The merrily burning fireplace made it appear warm, and Shiv pressed himself against the wall in the futile hope of catching some of that heat.
An old, bent man with a mustache and goatee, who Shiv idly thought parroted the village’s cloven-hoofed charges, drew Risana to the center of the room, where four blanket-wrapped forms were stretched out on cots. There were a half-dozen women of various ages sitting in straight wooden chairs, their backs to the fire and sympathetic faces angled toward the forms. Their conversation stopped as Risana moved to the smallest patient. Their eyes trained on her now.
Shiv watched her, too. On initial inspection the firelight revealed nothing untoward about Risana. She was just a tall, young woman wrapped in a tattered cloak, the rosy hue of which suggested the garment had been red at one time. She was a plain-looking woman, really, Shiv thought, a commoner who could have lost herself in the lower- or middle-class quarters of any town, someone most folks wouldn’t stop to give a second look. But then he gave her a second look, a careful one, and saw that she was young, all right, very. Certainly not yet twenty, he decided, and nothing common about her. The woman was singular. One simply had to see past her tattered garments and fatigue.
Her face was well defined, angular without being sharp, the planes of it smooth and unblemished, and it looked as if she was blushing because of the cold and windburn. Her nose turned slightly upward, a hint of aristocracy, and the bearing suited her. While her hair had looked like sparkling silver outside in the snow, here, wet and flat against her head, it seemed an unusual shade of blonde, the color of cooled ashes-an almost whitish-gray that shone like silk. He imagined it must be soft to the touch.
Her eyes were charcoal, dark and large and rimmed with long black lashes. Those eyes seemed to take in everything, and measure-the women by the fire, the bundled-up people on the cots, the old, bent man who was speaking to her, and the windows, where her gaze lingered. Had she seen him? He held his breath, not blinking. Were her eyes locked with his? No, he breathed a sigh of relief. Her eyes were clearly fixed at some point far beyond this room and Neraka.
Shiv turned his face, concentrating to catch fragments of what was being said inside.
“It’s not pneumonia,” the bent man was telling Risana. He wrung his hands nervously. “I know pneumonia. I can treat pneumonia. Someone here gets it every year. It’s something worse, this is-a plague maybe, something that spreads. Emil and his family have it, too. They’re in the house across the way. And the Donners might be getting it.”
“We might be next,” the stoutest of the six women cut in.
“We shouldn’t be sitting so close to the sick,” another whispered in a high-pitched voice.
“I’ll sit where I please,” the stout woman returned.
Risana knelt at the cot nearest the window, tugging the blanket back to reveal a red-faced child with dozens of lesions on his arms and neck. The boy, no more than six or seven, coughed deeply, shoulders bouncing against the pine frame of the cot. The child was overly thin, there was a sheen on his skin, and his clothes were dark with sweat.
“A plague,” the bent man continued. “It has to be. The runner said Graespeck and Tornhollow have sick folks, too. Just like this. Some of ‘em dying. That’s why we sent for you. The runner said you were fixing folks in the villages to the south of here. Said that you maybe knew how to cure this kind of illness. We’re desperate.”
She replaced the covers and smoothed the boy’s hair. He started to offer her a smile, but began coughing again, which was echoed by one of the other blanketed forms. The stout woman loudly sucked in her breath.
“That’s why our message said this was an emergency, ma’am. We’re a small village. Don’t want more people catching this disease, and we don’t want no one dying. Our Jamie-the little one here-he’s real bad.”
Softer, the bent man added, “He’s my youngest grandson.”
Risana nodded and ran her fingers across the child’s forehead.
“A very strong fever,” she said. She twisted to her right so she could reach to another cot, feeling the forehead of an elderly woman.
“My wife,” the bent man said.
“Mother,” one of the six women added, choking back a sob. “She’s not been conscious for two days.”
Shiv noted that there was some resemblance between the women by the fire. Sisters. The other two patients no doubt were relatives also. The sisters had started talking again, filling the room with the sound of their buzzing. They asked Risana what she could do to help the ill. The thickset one, practically begging, made it clear Jamie was her son and should be tended to first. None argued with her.
The oldest sister politely asked what had brought Risana into Neraka, and why she was healing folks in the mountain villages when Solamnic Knights were considered the enemy around here. “Not that we take you for an enemy,” she added, “but if the Dark Knights catch you, they’ll kill you.”
Risana didn’t reply. She stood, taking off her voluminous cloak, which was quickly gathered by the bent man. She stretched, rolled her head to work a kink out of her neck.
A Solamnic Knight with no armor, Shiv thought, knowing his mark was now an easier one.
The firelight from the hearth played across her tall form. Her sword seemed well maintained, the pommel highly polished silver that was fashioned in the shape of a griffon’s claw. The scabbard was worn and ripped in places, and the blade showed through, catching the light and reflecting motes that danced across the walls.
Risana unbuckled her sword belt, and the bent man took this too, shuffling away and hanging it and her cloak on a hook near the door. She had a big pouch tied to her waist, and she was fumbling with this now, pulling smaller pouches from it, a few tiny vials, softly issuing instructions that Shiv could not hear. He got the gist of it though, as the bent man and two of the sisters hurried to heat some water over the fire. The remaining four women resumed their buzzing talk, the thickset one casting frequent concerned glances at the coughing boy.
Risana did not pause in tending to the ill until dawn threatened to take over the sky. She constantly moved between the turtleshell home and the one called “Emil’s place.” She had diagnosed the malady as Redlant Fever, adding that a few of the eldest Knights in the Solamnic unit she’d been assigned to were struck with it shortly after coming to Neraka well more than a year ago. A potentially deadly threat that seemed to strike the young and the old the hardest, she demonstrated that with the right medicines it was not terribly difficult to treat. She gave them details about the mixtures she was using so they could duplicate it with their own herbs, then she sat by the bed of the old woman.
Just as the small community began to wake up, Shiv stepped away from the shadows and moved around to the front of the building. He was dressed differently now, in well-worn clothes he had retrieved from his pack. He no longer stood straight. He adopted a list to his right, rounded his shoulders and turned his left foot so he appeared clubfooted. He shuffled forward and knocked on the door. Several moments later it was answered by the bent man, whose eyes were rimmed by dark circles from lack of sleep.
“Snow’s filled the trail t’ Graespeck,” Shiv said, sounding half out of breath, his voice all craggy. “Too tough t’ walk it right now. Lookin’ for a place f stay until it stops snowin’.” He looked up at the sky for effect, the snow still coming down hard, though the wind had dwindled to almost nothing. He shivered, something easy to do as he was indeed cold, and he thrust his hands into his pockets. “I was wonderin’ if I could…”
“Thanks for your hospitality. Name’s Safford,” Shiv lied as he slipped past.
“Wilcher,” came the reply. “Erl Wilcher. Take care, Mister Safford. We’ve sick folks here, though we’ve got someone busy healing them.”
Shiv shuffled into the main room, heading straight to the fireplace and waving his hands in front of the flames. The heat felt good to his sixty-year-old frame, and he let himself bask in the sensation for several moments before he turned to study Risana.
Her shoulders were slumped. Still, she kept her vigil at the old woman’s side.
The daughters moved between the other three patients-all who were remarkably improved and sitting up on the cots. There were only a few lesions remaining on the boy called Jamie. He no longer coughed, and his mother was clucking her thanks to the young healer.
“Here. Drink up!” One of the sisters thrust a bowl of soup at Risana. “It’s spiced chicken broth.”
Risana declined, until the three improving patients, the sisters, Wilcher, and even the newcomer had some first. Then she took a chipped bowl between her hands, closed her eyes as if in prayer, and drank.
