“That’s what the physician says.”
“I propose we don’t bother, then.”
Roper did not laugh. “No joking, Wife. I imagine you won’t look back at the next few days with much fondness, but at least it may give you the chance to look back on them from some distance. And I don’t think Uvoren intended to kill you.”
“Why?”
“I will tell you when you’re well.” He took her hand from his knee and kissed it. He no longer sensed that tremor of fear in her voice.
The physician re-entered, holding an armful of phials. “Distillation of foxglove first,” said the physician. “This will make you vomit for a few hours. Then wood sorrel solution, and as much water as you can drink.”
Roper stood. “I’m going to send word to your father. I’ll be back for the performance.” He departed to find Helmec, requesting that he pass news of what had happened on to Tekoa, and then returned to assist Keturah.
The foxglove solution, once administered, took effect in moments. The physician had supplied two pails for Keturah to vomit into and at first Roper held her hair out of the way as she purged the poison. After a time that ceased to be necessary: Keturah’s hair was coming away in great tufts with the force of her exertion. He could tell she had noticed but was pretending that she had not. Roper looked up at the physician in dismay.
“She will lose all her hair, lord,” he said quietly. “Maybe the outer half of her eyebrows as well.”
“Will it grow back?”
The physician shook his head. “That depends on how much of the poison she is able to expel. Everything depends on that. She has already lost feeling in her hands and feet.” This was news to Roper. Then he remembered Keturah’s weaving lying unattended in her lap as he had entered and how she had not noticed the hair come away in her hands. “That may be permanent. The effects of the poison may progress further. Her one hope is to purge, and then we can only wait.”
So effective was the emetic that had been administered, it was all Keturah could do to lean on her knees and haul in shuddering breaths in the brief moments of respite she was afforded. When her retching became dry, the physician gave her water so that she could keep going, an act that was met with a brief moan of resistance from Keturah. That was the last voluntary noise she could utter. Soon she was barely conscious, lying white against the bed’s woollen blankets and retching pathetically over the edge.
The physician departed at Roper’s request soon afterwards, leaving them the wood sorrel solution to be administered when the vomiting had ceased. As Roper thanked him, he noticed that tremor again. Then he and Keturah were left alone. Roper wondered what words might comfort her and though he was not sure she could hear him, he began talking. First he told her about the insults Randolph had rained down upon him. “‘The cheerful warrior of misadventure,’ was another one. I don’t know whether he comes up with them on the spot, or prepares them in advance.” Then he told her about the revenge he was going to wreak on Uvoren. “When Pryce defended me on Harstathur, he told Asger he’d mash his bulging eyeballs into the back of his bastard skull. That’s how it’ll finish for Uvoren. But we’ll leave him all alone first. Tear down his allies and his family, his reputation, his past, his prospects and his friends. He’ll know he’s all that’s left. He’ll know he’s going to die, and he’ll face it alone. And we’ll see how brave Uvoren the Mighty is.”
Once he had run out of imaginative things to do to Uvoren, he returned to reality and told her about his favourite wild places. “There was a spot I found in the forests near the berjasti which was where I’d go whenever there was time. Next to a forty-foot waterfall, where the bed of the stream disappeared and the water dropped into nothing. You could sit with your legs dangling over the edge, listening to the roar. You could smell the ferns and the resin from the pine trees overhead and feel the spray on your skin. The cold air used to tumble down the valley sometimes and you could feel it hit you. It’s the only place I’ve ever seen a lynx. Just a flash of it, moving through the trees on the other side of the stream.”
Helmec was back within the hour. He stood in the doorway for a moment, staring at Keturah, his face sombre for once. “You’ll be all right soon, Miss Keturah,” he said after a time. “You’re in the best of hands.” If Keturah had heard that, she did not appear capable of acknowledging it, but Roper looked up and nodded gratefully.
“Where’s Tekoa?”
“He’s coming, lord.” Helmec bowed and smiled consolingly, backing out of the room. “It looks like you’ve got this under control, lord, but you summon me if I’m needed.”
The legate arrived not long afterwards. Roper himself had just returned from emptying a pail into the gutter when Tekoa hurled the door open, leaving an indignant Helmec in his wake. The legate, who never looked anything short of purposeful, walked as though he would not be troubled by a company of berserkers barring his path. He strode in and stopped before his daughter, who still lay on the bed, drawing shallow breaths. She was very pale and at first Roper did not think she was awake. Then she opened a poisonous, bloodshot eye and fixed it on her father. She panted for a moment longer before expelling something dark from her mouth, missing the pail it had been aimed for. She stared at Tekoa a moment longer and then moved her head a fraction in acknowledgement, shuttering the eye again. Her lips were a dark, faded green, her body wracked by
