Gossamyr Part 13

"For conversing? Do you mean to tell me there are rules regarding-"

"Merely propriety, my lady. It is gauche to stand so close to another.

Unless you've a desire for more intimate converse?" "Intimate? Like-"

"Yes. Like."

She looked about. Across the way a man conversed with one of the washing women, the brown-eyed child yet clinging to her skirts. Indeed, a goodly distance, an arm's length, separated them. Not close enough to scent one another, as was custom in Faery.

"Why did you not say something to me earlier?"

"I did. But you are not adept at taking orders."

"Orders, no. But helpful suggestions, of course. So I must stand back?"

"Unless you wish us a greater intimacy."

Gossamyr took another step back. "Certainly not." Intimacy bruised one's heart.

"You've only half the costume," he remarked. "You do realize that is not a proper gown?"

"Oh? But it covers. A bit large, I tightened the seams at the shoulders here." She gave a tug to the sewn ties that circled the sleeve and connected it to the body of the gown. "There was a thick black robe, but 'twas c.u.mbersome. This headpiece will conceal my hair and neck until the glimmer subsides. I found all this in the chest of that coach."

"You stole holy garments?" Ulrich crossed himself.

"I left coin. They are holy?"

"You have stolen a nun's headpiece, fair lady, and likely her undergarments. And the rosary!" Yet Ulrich's smile only grew as he entreated the heavens. "Blessed Mother, forgive this woman her sin."

"And who be you to invoke the holy?"

"I appreciate the finer points of the Catholic church. Trust me, there is but the one G.o.d. And be you layman, mage or faery, we all came from the same place. Well, mayhap."

"I have no wings," she insisted. "You'll gain no remuneration by displaying me in a market square."

"Think you must be a spectacle to bring me profit?"

"What do you mean by that?"

But the market square suddenly filled with a gush of life. One man spewed out from the tavern doors across the way to stumble forward and land the ground in a cloud of choking dust. Gossamyr's sneeze went unnoticed as a roar of men followed, cursing and shouting and kicking at the fallen man.

Shouts of plague and a b.l.o.o.d.y sickness carried over to Gossamyr. Stifling another sneeze, she nudged Ulrich with an elbow to clear her view. "What is about?"

Head bobbing to and fro, Ulrich discerned the melee. "Best to avoid confrontation," he cautioned. "We've our pa.s.sage to Paris to concern- Oh! There she goes again, folks. Headfirst into trouble. Staff in hand and rosary beads swinging. What a perfectly delightful young thing. If I were not a married man- Hades, I'm not, am I? Or am I? Definitely not the same."

Unfazed with Ulrich's attempts at steering her from danger, Gossamyr pushed through the throng. Dodging deftly to avoid a boot to her bare toes, she slid toward the center of the ring of mortals. The man on the ground crooked his arms over his head to fend off blows, but in the moment he looked up-perhaps to sight an escape-his eyes met Gossamyr's.

She shoved aside a peasant stinking of dung. "Stand off!" she shouted. Roughly jostled, she made way to the man lying on the ground.

Mayhap it was because of her forceful shout, but more likely because the shout had come out in a female voice, that all the men ceased their violent antics and stepped back.

Women rely on men to protect them.

No time. And no desire. There were no protective fee lords to question her actions this day. Besides, this was the first clue to the Red Lady she had seen.

Gossamyr swept her eyes over the open cuts on the man's arms. From the kicks, no doubt, for the short, but deep lacerations looked to be self-defense wounds. He had vomited into the dirt from the torture. Slapping a palm to his forehead, she twisted his head to look into his manic eyes. Red with blood. But surrounding his eyes, where the dirt and dust and the browning from the sun had not touched, she noticed something even more remarkable.

Faery dust. Minute, likely unnoticeable to the untrained eye. A scan of his exposed flesh did not sight a blazon.

"What be this?"one of the attackers said, gasping from exertion. "Sister, there is nothing you can do for this man."

Sister? Ah, the wimple.

"Put him from his misery!"

"He is touched with the plague."

"'Tis the falling sickness!"

"He contaminates our village. Ride him out!"

The crowd held no mercy for this poor one. Gossamyr needed to get him

from them if she might gain opportunity to question him. She bent to study the victim's eyes. "fee?" she murmured so only he could hear. "Glamoursiege?"

"Wi-Wisogoth."

One of the oldest and most revered Faery tribes. If he yet wore the blazon it painted across his back. The fee sobbed and grasped at Gossamyr's arms, pleading for mercy. "I am but a victim," he murmured. "I do not want to die."

"Unclean!" shouted out from the crowd. "Plague!"

"This be not the plague," Gossamyr shouted, hoping to divert the madness that ebbed about the circle. She could hold her own against a Faery evil but this crowd of mortals honed an edge of uncertainty to her confidence.

The redness in the fallen fee's eyes formed a sheen of viscous blood. Gossamyr studied the flesh on his face. It was red, most likely from struggle-but no, the very pores were bright little pinholes of blood. Or was it blood? The fee bled ichor.

"Whence have you been?" she asked.

"I've come...from Paris." A thick glob of crimson gurgled up over his lips.

The surrounding men stepped back, cursing and crossing themselves. Whispers to-what Gossamyr guessed-various saints rapidly volleyed over and above her head.

"What is it, Sister?" Ulrich called.

"Grant me a moment."

"That's right," Ulrich addressed the crowd. "Step away. Allow the sister of the cloth to examine the victim. No trouble here. Be on to your private matters."

Gossamyr avoided touching the red substance, for there was no way to determine its virulence. "Paris? You are Disenchanted?"

"Yes," rasped out in a sputter.

"Winged?" He wore a cape. If the villagers saw- "No longer."

Bone, she thought. But the absence of wings would only keep back suspicion of Faery. How to convince the angry mob to allow her to bring him away with her? Surely, if they suspected he was contagious they would escort her and him from the village.

Keeping a close huddle over the fallen fee, Gossamyr used her body as a shield.

"Did you meet any women? Touch them?"

"So many... Gorgeous and giggling and- There was one," the man gurgled. "Pretty. Pale and... wearing plush as white as snow. Her hair...like rubies... So curious the marking on the side of her face."

"What did she do to you?"

"She-" a macabre grin carved itself in the flesh on the man's face, and then his eyes flickered shut"-kissed me. Her kiss, it was marvelous. Like Faery. Her breath...drenched with...home."

Crimson gushed from the man's eyes.

"What be this substance? It cannot be blood."

"The red," he said on a sigh.

His face, lush with the bloodlike tears, reminded Gossamyr of her three-day crying jag that had changed her life, so subtly, and yet, for ever after. Tears salted with loss. Mortal tears were valuable to the fee-much sought after and traded for incredible sums.

Shinn had instructed Mince to clean away Gossamyr's tears-not mortal complete-following her fall to misery. What the nursemaid had done with them, Gossamyr had never questioned.

The man's head fell limp in Gossamyr's palm. Dead. From a kiss.

Gently, she set his head upon the ground and, using her staff, stood and made eye contact with the circle of morose watchers. 'Twas a remarkable moment to stare down so many mortals, and yet such fascination quickly grew bleak.

"'Tis the plague!" rose up from the crowd. "Do you see the blood?"

"Silence!" Gossamyr's shout eddied a nervous stillness to the marketplace. "It is not the plague. Nor is it-" No explanation for the red.

"It is merely..."

How to explain without causing greater panic? And without revealing herself?

Threading her fingers through the beads hanging about her neck, Gossamyr pondered her dilemma. The sea of frightened faces circled her, seeming to move like a wave soon to crash upon the rocks. Aware they thought her a woman of their mortal religious ranks, she perused her options. How soon before the revenant parted from the body? The one death she had witnessed years ago had taken little time. Shinn had explained length of dying was unique to the individual fee. If only there were a way to stop the essence from leaving the body... or mayhap, guiding it to safety?

Gossamyr glanced to Ulrich. Could the soul shepherd help?

"Sister, help us!"

Studying the rosebud beads soaked in lampblack coiled about her finger, Gossamyr struck on an idea. Might she use their faith? A faith she knew naught. But all religions revolved around worship of a greater good, of a divine being, yes? The wooden cross dangling at the end of her necklace sat in her palm. A symbol they revered.

"This man...suffers a rare sickness,"she said. Grasping the cross and holding it forth, she made show to wave it over the fallen fee. "There is no risk to others who might touch him."

"Be you a surgeon, Sister?"

"No, but I have seen this before. He must...be buried...beneath the... shadow of a cross." She caught Ulrich 's disapproving grimace. "Yes. Er, before vespers."

"Why, Sister?"

The only reason she could summon on such short notice; that was why.

Twinclian occurred only with the untouched essence-a sacred extension of the body. The fee were averse to mortal consecration, so an Enchanted fee would never rest. But such might control this Disenchanted's twinclian. Might that keep the revenant at bay? Give Ulrich opportunity to attempt his soul shepherding?

"If you will allow it, my a.s.sistant-" she cast a stern reprimand toward Ulrich, who looked ready to protest"-and I will dispose of the body."

"No!"

"We know naught of you!"

"I am a Sister of your church. Er...my church."

"The Catholic church!" Ulrich shouted. And then he sternly said, "Gossamyr."

"Be you G.o.d-fearing?"

"You want him for yourself!" someone called. "We'll keep the body."

"You cannot!" She straightened, meeting the man who had spoken boldly. "You think to challenge me?" Certainly a proper challenge would require him to recognize her position by first kneeling into a bow.

But he merely tilted a queer gaze upon her. "Do I face down a woman of the cloth in a challenge?" He eyed her staff. "Or a blasphemer in want of her own suspicion?"

"Come along, Sister. Vespers to be said." Ulrich gripped the back of her wool gown and tugged. Gossamyr choked, and was literally lifted from her feet. "So sorry to have interrupted this gleeful, er, dire event. Go along. G.o.d grant you all peace and safety." He nudged Gossamyr. Hard. "We 're off."

"You stand too close." A tug of the wimple unloosed it from the tight choke about her throat.

"Times like this we're both too close-to an imminent uproar that may likely involve pain. To us. Now move!"

Facing the crowd, she drew her finger across her chest then swept it down her stomach. It wasn't right, she knew, but on occasion she had witnessed Veridienne doing something of the sort.

"What was that for?" Ulrich hissed in her ear.

"I need that body."

Another tug swung her around behind a cart parked but ten long strides from the scene. Ulrich pressed a palm over her shoulder to the wooden body of the vehicle, effectively pinning her. "You need a change of religion."

"I don't understand you."

He nodded over his shoulder to the thick circle of naysayers. "They think you wish to sell the body."

"Why would I do that?"

"For coin! Why else would you want it?"