The Bonemender's Choice Part 9

"Is too hot here," Yolenka proclaimed. "Patients will burn in Derkh's fire. I go ask for"-she waved vaguely above her head to indicate shade-"tent thing."

THE AWNING HELPED, Derkh had to admit. So did the two proper workbenches-one for his jewelry work, the other to display swords and knives-that Yolenka managed to scare up. Gabrielle's remedies were once again displayed on the little shelf, with the emptied caravan serving as clinic. If this were really their business, they'd be in pretty good shape.

Yolenka had more than done her part. Now it was up to them to find the children and get them away. Derkh had no idea where to start-and would have little chance to think about it between Turga's order and the repairs that were already coming in. His role, it seemed, would be to act busy and provide a screen for the real players. Dominic and Feolan were slumped in the scant shade of the outer wall, deep in talk.

Not knowing what else to do, Derkh added fuel to his little forge and worked the bellows vigorously. A portable brazier took constant tending to reach a temperature high enough to turn an iron rod first red, then white-hot. He thrust one now into the fire's incandescent heart and turned to his next task.

"SO-WHAT HAVE we learned?"

It was late, past midnight, before they were able to gather together in their room. Dominic, cross-legged on his mattress and intent, nodded at Derkh to start.

Precious little, it seemed. Derkh had learned that the Tarzine pirates would pay handsomely for Basin-style swords and knives. It was a good thing he had stowed away enough weapons to keep their own party well outfitted. Gabrielle learned which men wanted love charms and which had foot ulcers, but Yolenka's bright chatter with the various customers had failed to turn up any rumor of the captive children.

Dominic had gone to check on their mule-an excuse for getting inside the stables. There were only about a dozen horses, he reported. "It doesn't seem much for all the men here."

"Turga's ships are his horses," Yolenka reminded them.

"Anyway, if we do manage to find the children, steal some horses and get away, there won't be many left to chase us on," Dominic concluded glumly. "Feolan, I a.s.sume if you had found them we'd know?"

Feolan nodded. He had managed to explore a fair bit of the fortress un.o.bserved and had found more than one pa.s.sageway kept off-limits by a guard, but had not been able to discover whether those halls led to Turga's private chambers, the women's quarters, a treasury-or a jail block.

"I did discover one odd thing," he said. "There's a man locked in one of the outbuildings. You know that jumble of sheds against the wall-they are pretty much all locked, but I was knocking on the walls, thinking if the children were inside they would answer. And when this fellow yelled back to me, Great Mother, I was sure I had found them. But it was only the one Tarzine man."

And they had all learned that Yolenka was, indeed, a glorious dancer. She had performed that evening in the courtyard with the entire fortress in attendance, and it was lucky she had warned them to act "bored" with the show because they had all been transfixed. They had already seen how seductive she could be, but even Feolan had not been prepared for what she could do with room to move. The following evening was to be a private performance for Turga alone, and she had promised him "even better."

None of which got them any closer to a rescue.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

MADELEINE SEEMED A LITTLE BETTER the next morning. She'd had a proper sleep, her first since Luc's death, and she looked herself again. The sore throat was worse, though-that was obvious even before breakfast, as soon as she took her first sip of water. Matthieu couldn't tell if she really felt better, or if she was just trying harder.

"I don't feel too bad, really," she insisted. Matthieu looked pointedly at the remains of her breakfast. She had left everything that wasn't either liquid or mushy. "Apart from my throat, I mean," Madeleine said. "It's really sore. But I'm not horribly feverish or achy. I don't think it's anything very serious."

By lunchtime, Matthieu wasn't so sure. Madeleine was back in bed, headachy and weak. She didn't even try to eat.

It was time to start hollering.

YOLENKA HAD LEFT Gabrielle and Derkh to their work, leaving Feolan as halting translator, to investigate the guardhouse by the gate.

"I wish I could get in there," Dominic had said that morning. "How many guards are on duty at a time? What kind of alarm do they have?"

Yolenka had grinned, and slowly, teasingly, pulled an intricately carved little box from some hidden pocket in her skirts. It rattled as she shook it.

"Leave this to me."

"What is that?" Dominic spoke for them all.

"Is renenas." The grin became broader. "I have not met a soldier who can resist a game...or who can win over me."

So in the sleepy heat of midafternoon, when Gabrielle's trickle of patients had dried up to nothing and Derkh had pulled out his jeweler's tools to begin roughing out Turga's order, Yolenka ambled off to play renenas with the guards.

With no patients, without Yolenka to give them the illusion of purpose, the futility of their charade crept over Gabrielle like some waking version of the gray fog of her dream. It was pointless, this busy hammering and dancing and doling out of tonics. Urgency drummed within her, goading her to hurry-if only she knew where.

Someone was hurrying. She looked up as footsteps rapped across the baked clay of the courtyard and was surprised to see Turga himself striding toward them. He did not look happy.

"Derkh. Get Yolenka. Hurry!" Feolan could speak enough Tarzine to stumble through a simple pick-up or payment, but not this. Whatever "this" was.

Turga's tawny skin flushed dark with annoyance as Feolan tried to explain Yolenka's absence. Finally she came hurrying from the gatehouse and took her place at Gabrielle's side. Turga fired out a question.

Yolenka faltered. Turga snapped his fingers at her, impatient with the delay. Slowly, she turned to Gabrielle.

"He ask...he ask if you are afraid to treat the Gray Veil."

"The Gray Veil? What is that?" Whatever was rampaging through Baskir, was her first guess.

Yolenka swallowed, her eyes worried. "Is very bad sickness, makes sick person strangle in the throat. It spreads fast, can kill anybody but"-and her voice went very quiet now-"always more children die."

FeOLAN WATCHED GABRIELLE'S color drain to ashy gray, longed to jump up and comfort her and steeled himself not to. He remembered her dream, her constant anxiety in recent days about the children, and knew her fear. She'll give us away to Turga, he worried, and then saw in the man's grim dismissal that he interpreted her reaction as fear of the disease itself. Looks like he expected as much, Feolan thought. He gathered his strength and sent it out to Gabrielle.

She was already pulling herself together. He saw it in the straightening of her back. Felt it as his mind touched hers.

"Ask him who is sick, Yolenka. Ask like you are curious, not worried."

The reply confirmed their fears. Yolenka could not keep the emotion from her voice as she pa.s.sed on Turga's words.

"Is girl. He say she is just slave, but worth good price." She hesitated, glancing at Dominic, but he gestured at her to go on. His face was wooden with the effort to hide his feelings.

"He say he does not want lose his profit."

GABRIELLE FOLLOWED ZHIRAK up the narrow stone stairway, wondering how on earth she would stop the children from giving her away. Turga's instructions-to stand in the doorway as far from "the girl" as possible and attempt to diagnose her illness from there-worried her too. It went against her instincts to keep a distance from any patient-let alone her own niece.

The landing was close now, and no telling how nearby the children were kept. Could she call out to them? She had not yet encountered anyone who spoke Krylaise, but still, her actions might seem suspicious.

A tune popped into her head-a little children's nonsense song that she had sung to the kids when they were little. Was bursting into song on the way to diagnose a terrifying disease any less suspicious than shouting out a warning? Maybe not-but she was running out of time. She took a breath and began to sing, first under her breath as if to herself and then loudly, as the words fell into place: "Madeleine, just keep silent Matthieu, please be quiet Pretend you don't know me And safe you will be.

"Madeleine, just keep silent Matthieu, please be quiet Pretend you don't know me And safe you will be."

They met a guard at the top of the stairs, who pulled out a ring of keys, led her to the third door and opened it. He stood back, unwilling it seemed to enter the room himself.

Gabrielle took a deep steadying breath and stepped inside.

Matthieu sat on a cot, his shorn head in his hands. His body was rigid with effort as he stared at the floor. She heard him sniff, understood he was fighting tears as well as the need to fling himself against her. Her own tears, pity and anger and relief combined, welled hot in her eyes, and she was glad the guard could not see.

"Hi," she said softly, striving for the neutral, calming tone she used so often in her work as a healer. "Don't say anything yet. Don't even look until you feel ready." The room was dim and too warm, but Matthieu seemed all right. Madeleine, she saw, lay on a cot on the far side of the room, apparently asleep.

"My dad-" The words came out in a rush of breath.

"He's here," said Gabrielle. The narrow shoulders straightened, and she felt Matthieu's wave of exultation, but he kept his face down. She pitched her voice lower. "We are going to get you home, but you have to be patient. We're still figuring things out. Right now, they sent me to look at your sister. How is she?"

Now, slowly, Matthieu lowered his hands and turned toward her. His brown eyes, shining with tears and hope and worry, squeezed at her heart. She wanted nothing more than to rush over and gather him into her arms-but she couldn't.

"Matthieu, I'm not allowed to come in-not yet. I have to report back to Turga, and then I hope he'll send me to heal Madeleine. But I need to try to figure out what's wrong with her."

Matthieu nodded. His eyes darted to a third cot, an empty one, and away. There was a rusty patch on the floor nearby. Gabrielle had seen stains like that before. What had happened here?

"At first I thought she was just sad," Matthieu said. "We had-" He swallowed, tried again. "There was another boy here. He was killed and..." Matthieu was crying openly now, and Gabrielle found herself on the cot beside him, holding him tight, Turga's rule forgotten. She would do no less for any strange child.

A heavy tread, a startled exclamation. They both looked up to see the guard's head in the doorway. His barked command and gesture were plain enough. Gabrielle settled for one last squeeze and reluctantly returned to her station in the doorway.

Slowly, Matthieu found his voice. "Maddy wouldn't eat or talk or do anything for a couple of days, she was so upset. But then yesterday, I got her to sit up and eat. That's when I realized she was sick too."

"How does she feel, Matthieu?"

"Mostly she has a really sore throat. A bit of fever and headache too, I think, but not too bad. She doesn't seem all that sick, but she's been sleeping most of the day." He looked up at Gabrielle. "Her voice sounds funny."

"Funny how?" Gabrielle kept her tone level, but Matthieu's words had given her a chill. Yolenka had had only a moment to describe the progression of the Gray Veil to her, but Madeleine's symptoms fit. On the other hand, they fit any number of common childhood illnesses. She clung to that thought.

"I dunno. Kind of like she's talking through her nose. It just sounds different from normal."

"Okay, that's a good observation." Gabrielle smiled at Matthieu. "You'd make a good bonemender."

That won a smile, though fleeting. "What are you going to do now?" he asked.

Gabrielle considered. "I don't think I'm going to wake her up. If I can't examine her, I doubt I can learn much more from her than you just told me, and it will be hard for her to pretend like you did."

Matthieu nodded. "Can I tell her when she wakes up?"

"You'd better!" Gabrielle smiled again. "And I think I will be back soon. Right now I'm just going to see if I can sense anything more."

Gabrielle closed her eyes, let the world fade away and stretched out her mind to the sleeping girl. Madeleine's sleep was uneasy- Gabrielle could feel her discomfort, the occasional flares of pain that must come from her throat. She did not get the feeling of desperate illness-Matthieu was right in that. But there was something else, wasn't there? Like a fungus growing secretly in the dark, some vague sense of looming threat.

Gabrielle didn't know if Madeleine had caught the Gray Veil. But her niece was in danger.

That Gabrielle knew beyond doubt.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

ZHIRAK KEPT A GOODLY DISTANCE between them as he escorted her back to Turga, Gabrielle noticed. And Turga himself was so far away she practically had to shout. He was seated against the wall of his audience chamber and held a hand up to stop her as soon as she was in the door.

"Does it really spread that easily?" she asked Yolenka who was stationed at Turga's side.

"He is more careful than most." Gabrielle had never seen Yolenka so subdued. She lifted worried amber eyes to Gabrielle. "I will not say he is stupid."

Turga barked out a question.

"Does she have it?"

"I can't tell for sure without examining her," Gabrielle replied. "I have seen children with similar symptoms who had nothing but a bad cold. But-"

He interrupted abruptly.

"Does she have sore throat?"

"Yes." There was no reason to sugarcoat it. If Turga believed Madeleine had the Veil, he would send Gabrielle back to treat her.

Turga's features tightened. There followed a long exchange with Yolenka.

"He say, if you treat, you stay in cell until she is better and you and boy are for sure also healthy. If she die, you leave Rath Turga, not touch anything or go near any person. He pay two bars of gold if both live. He say nothing if girl dies, but I say he must pay for your danger. He say half bar of gold then."

Gabrielle understood the need for such bargaining, but it shocked her all the same. She tried to collect her wits.

"All right, of course. No, wait-Yolenka, tell him I will do it if the others in the group agree. I need to talk with them first."

"TONIGHT? BUT HOW will you get the children past the guards? Or avoid pursuit?"

"We have between now and midnight to figure that out." Dominic was grim with determination, but Gabrielle knew he was no closer to an answer than she was. "If we don't come up with a plan, we'll have to postpone it," he admitted. "But a.s.sume that once Yolenka's performance is finished, we will come for you."

Gabrielle had told them all she could-the location of the room, the position of the guards, the little she could offer about the type of lock on the door. She had brewed up whatever medicines she had that might be of help and learned everything Yolenka could tell her about the Gray Veil. It was time.

THE GUARD RETREATED to the end of the hall as quickly as he could, and Gabrielle did not hold back: She swept Matthieu into her arms and held him tight. For once, he didn't wiggle away impatiently. Gabrielle could feel the tumult of warring emotions within him, realized that if she held him much longer he would give way to the sobs he was trying with all his might to overcome. She eased back, and Matthieu followed her lead.

"I think you should see Maddy right away. She seems a lot worse."

The worry in his voice was enough to take her at once to her niece's bedside.

Madeleine was awake, watching them. She mustered a wan smile for Gabrielle, and then the tears came, welling up and spilling down her cheeks. She didn't seem to have the energy to wipe them away.

Gabrielle smoothed the tangled hair away from the girl's face and gently wiped the wet streaks off her cheeks.

"h.e.l.lo, dear one," she murmured. "It's okay now, Maddy, we're going to look after you. We're going to get you better and take you home."

Madeleine did look worse. Her fever was only a little higher, but the blue eyes were dull and her skin shone with sweat.