Forest Mage (76 page)

“Nevare?” Epiny whispered furiously.

I was caught. I could not flee without treading on sick men. I stood staring down on her. She had always been a slight woman. Now her face was even thinner. Her features were sharper than I recalled, and she looked as if she had aged much more than the one year since I’d last seen her. I suddenly recalled that she was in the early months of a pregnancy.

“You should not be here, in your condition,” I rebuked her.

Her mouth dropped open in shock. Then she reached across the patient who lay on the floor between us and seized my upper arm in a painful pinch. Keeping a grip on me, she walked me along the patient and then tugged me after her as she picked a path through the beds and pallets.

“Epiny, I—”

“Sshhh!” she hissed furiously.

Still not daring to speak, I followed her out into the anteroom and then out onto the dark street. The boy soldier at the desk didn’t even stir as we passed through the room.

Once we were outside, she turned to face me. I braced myself for harsh words. Instead, she flung herself at me in an attempt to hug me. Her arms couldn’t span my girth, but it still felt good, until I felt her shoulders heave in a sudden sob. Then she pushed herself back and looked up at me angrily. The lantern light picked up the streaks of tears on her face. “I shouldn’t be nursing plague victims while I’m pregnant? But it’s fine for me to be submersed in grief at such a time, I suppose! I thought you were dead, Nevare! For weeks I mourned you as dead, and you let me think that. And so did Spink! My own husband would rather keep faith with a friend than ease his wife’s agony of fear. I will never, never forgive either of you for what you’ve put me through.”

“I’m sorry,” I said immediately.

“Of course you are! You should be. It was despicable. But being sorry doesn’t change anything about the shameful thing you’ve done. And your own poor little sister, all this time thinking you’d gone to your death, imagining your body rotting unburied in a ditch somewhere. How could you do that to us, Nevare? Why?”

And in that moment, all my excellent reasons suddenly seemed shallow and stupid and selfish. I tried them anyway. “I was afraid it would ruin your reputation if people knew you were related to me,” I said awkwardly.

“And I’ve always cared
so
much for my reputation and what other people thought of me!” she fumed at me. “Did you truly think I was so shallow as to put such things ahead of family, Nevare? You are my cousin! And you saved both Spink and me, at great risk to yourself. Do you think I would forget that, and shun you because of what the Speck magic has done to you?”

I hung my head. She had taken both my hands in hers, and that simple act of honest affection in the midst of her anger moved me terribly. I spoke simply. “Sometimes I think you need to be protected from your good intentions, Epiny. Now is one of those times. You may have the moral fiber not to care what others think of you. But what others think of you may well cost Spink a pro
motion, or you may find that other officers may not wish their children to play with yours. Think of what it would do to your status among the women you have championed if they found out you are related to a man they have accused of the two most heinous crimes that exist. I think you must know by now that I’ve been accused of murder. Until I can prove I am innocent, I do not think our connection should be revealed.” I squeezed her hands affectionately, wincing at how thin her fingers felt, and then let them go.

“No, do not argue with me about this now,” I cautioned her when she opened her lips to speak. “I’m on a desperate mission tonight. The one man whose testimony could prove my innocence has just escaped premature burial. He’s what they call a ‘walker.’ He’s in my cabin recuperating, but he’s still very weak. I need to get a doctor to come out to see him. Or, failing that, I need to know what I can do to help him recover. My life depends on this as well as his.”

She began shaking her head slowly before I’d even finished speaking. At my final words, a look of despair crossed her face. She spoke softly. “I don’t know of anything you can do, Nevare, other than the obvious. Give him water and thin soup, if he will take it. I’ve seen one other ‘walker.’ A woman came into the infirmary tonight, trailing a shroud sheet. She begged us all to leave Gettys forever for the sake of her children. She begged us to make sure her children were taken safely west. Then she lay down and died again. Someone recognized her and went running for her husband. The poor man came racing to the infirmary in shock. He said she’d died hours earlier and he had put her body out. We had to tell him that she’d died again. Dr. Frye only made it worse when he tried to tell the man that his wife had never revived, that it had only been an evil Speck magic reanimating her body. I wanted to throttle the man.”

“Dr. Amicas knew about ‘walkers’; remember how he insisted on waiting before he sent bodies off to be buried?”

“Well of course I do! You were among those who ‘died’ and returned. As were many whom you sent back across the bridge. As was Spink.”

“Where is Spink tonight? Does he know that you’re here?”

“He doesn’t. He was called away from our home early today. So many of the higher-ranking officers have become ill that the junior officers are being called in simply to keep some kind of chain of command functioning. He didn’t want to leave us, but he had to go. Some sort of trouble with the prisoners. It was his duty and I understood that.

“When a runner came to our door tonight saying that a sick man was asking for me by name, I knew it was my duty to come here. The man in that bed in there has no one else. His wife died in childbirth the year after the regiment came here. I was shocked the first time I called a meeting for the women of the post to talk about improving out safety on the streets, and he walked in. I thought he came to mock us, or perhaps worse. But ever since then, he has been one of our staunchest supporters. He was the first man to join in our promise that if ever he heard a woman blowing a whistle for help, he would stop whatever he was doing and come to her aid. And he has kept that promise, more than once, even if the woman was a common prostitute. He has been faithful to our cause. So, you see, now that Sergeant Hoster is the one who needs help, I must return that faithfulness.”

“Hoster?” I was shocked and amazed. It couldn’t be the same man. “But I saw him just a few hours ago. He drove the wagon that brought Scout Hitch’s body to the cemetery.”

“You know how suddenly the plague can strike, Nevare. And taking bodies to the cemetery might be how he became infected. We know so little.” She gave a sharp sigh of frustration. “And I should get back to him and ease his discomfort what little I can. He’s very ill, the sickest man I’ve seen tonight. It’s a shame to see such a charming, gentle man so stricken. I fear he may die, and I should be shamed if there was no one at his side when it happened.”

My mind was reeling with that description of Sergeant Hoster. It did not seem the right time to disillusion her. His deception of her made me despise him more than ever.

“I’ll let you go, then. And you think there is nothing I can do for Scout Hitch?”

“Nothing except pray that he has a strong constitution. Wait. I’ll give you one of the powders we’ve been using. Willow bark, feverfew, and a bit of sulfur steeped with simper leaves. We’ve been brewing it up as a tea. To be honest with you, I can’t tell if it helps or not. I’ve been spooning it into Sergeant Hoster for an hour now, with no change that I can see. The only certain thing I know is that people who drank the Bitter Springs water as soon as the fever came on seem to be recovering. Slowly, that’s true, but their fevers are not as extreme and they aren’t hallucinating.”

“Do you think Bitter Springs water would help Hitch?”

“If we had any left, we could try it. But I’m afraid I’ve given it all away. I doubt it would be of much help. The small quantities we brought with us only help if taken at the first sign of the disease. I had one extra bottle that I had kept in reserve. I sent it to Colonel Haren when I heard he was stricken. He died anyway. I think the disease was too well established in him to yield to so small a quantity of the water.”

My last hope fluttered and died away. “Well. Can I get one of those powders from you for Hitch, please? And then I must be on my way back out to him.”

“Of course. Wait here. I’ll fetch it for you.”

She went back into the infirmary. I was left standing outside. I tried to fit my image of Sergeant Hoster with the man that Epiny had described. Obviously, he showed such a very different face to the ladies. He’d always been a tyrant to Ebrooks, Kesey, and me, but what sergeant is not seen as a tyrant to the men beneath him? I tried to pare away his dislike of me to see what sort of a man he might have been. I didn’t have enough to go on. Nevertheless, I had to admit to myself that I’d felt a flush of relief at Epiny’s news that Hoster seemed to be dying. He was the one who most ardently believed in my guilt. Once he was gone, perhaps everyone else would let the matter drop. I could hope. I felt a twinge of guilt at hoping for the man’s death, but consoled myself that the feeling was mutual.

Epiny appeared a short time later clutching two little muslin bags of herbs. “Steep one bag in boiling water, and be sure you squeeze it well to make sure that it reaches full potency in the
drink. I’ve given you two. If the first one helps him, then give him the second one, and come back to town for more. But, Nevare, don’t hope too hard. This round of Speck plague is the most vicious I’ve seen. It’s worse than what you had at the academy and even worse than the sort that hit Bitter Springs.”

“Epiny, I fear for you. What if you catch the plague again?”

“I don’t think I shall. Everyone I’ve talked to says that if you’ve had it twice and not died of it, it won’t bother with you again. Besides, I don’t see you cringing and hiding from your duty. You’re handling all the dead from this plague, and from what you’ve said, you’ve a sick man in your own home. Why do you think I should do less?”

I smiled regretfully. “That’s a discussion that we have no time for just now.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “There are several discussions that are going to have to wait. Just because I’ve spoken to you civilly, don’t assume that I’m not still furious with you. And hurt by what you and Spink have done. It’s going to be a long time before I trust either one of you again.”

“But Epiny, I—”

“No. Not now.” She was adamant. “But when this is over, Nevare, I intend to give you no quarter. And I do not think that your sister will think kindly of you when she hears of how she has been made to suffer by your silence.”

Her last words quenched me. I felt a selfish brute. Over the last few days, I’d allowed myself to forget about Yaril’s plight. Betrothed to Caulder Stiet; if my father could force that on her, she was completely under his dominance. I discovered that I had been toying with the idea of fleeing to the Specks because I suddenly recognized how selfish that decision would be. No. I had to endure life at Gettys and make something of myself, and that included providing a home for Yaril where she could have some say in her own future. My resolve hardened. “I will do better,” I said aloud, and the words surprised a feeble smile out of Epiny.

“You had better,” she warned me, “for I can’t imagine what you would have to do in order to do worse.” She surprised me
with another hug. “Hurry along. We both have to get back to our patients.”

She had turned and was walking away when I called after her, “Are Amzil and the children still all right?”

She stopped short and turned back to me, and this time her smile was stronger. “They’re fine, Nevare. And now that I know they’re yours, I’ll look after them even better.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded, but the door had closed behind her.

I tucked the two herb bags into my jacket pocket. Then I went to the regiment’s stable area and after a short search found Clove crammed into a stall that was too small for him. I found a hackamore that would fit him and strapped a blanket to his back for makeshift tack, and we were soon on our way home. No one saw us. It had been a long time since I’d ridden him that way, so the only pleasant part of the journey home was how swiftly it went compared to my long walk there. Even so, we did not gallop along, but went at a sensible pace through the moon-silvered darkness.

Light still glowed faintly from the windows of my cabin as I approached it. I dismounted, put Clove up hastily, and then, with a small shiver, hurried past the two coffins to my door. “Hitch, I’ve brought medicine for you,” I called.

And stopped.

I didn’t need to cross the room to know he was dead. He lay on my bed, one thin hand stretched out toward me as if pleading for understanding. His face had fallen on his bones, and his jaw hung slack and awry. When I did cross the room and touch him, he was still warm, but it was the fading warmth of a recently vacated chair rather than the warmth of life. Still, I shook him and called his name and even bent to put my ear to his chest, but it was useless. Scout Buel Hitch was gone.

“Oh, Hitch. What have you done to me?” I asked his empty shell. It offered me no answers.

He wasn’t a small man, and I was weak with both weariness and despair. Nevertheless, I managed to carry him from my bed
back to the cold wooden coffin that awaited him. I draped him again with his sheet, and set the lid once more on the box. Then for a time I stood there, staring down at it and wondering at what moment life became death. I set my hand briefly on top of his casket but could think of no prayer nor even a final word to utter. He had been wrong at the end. I hated not him but the magic that had poisoned him. I settled for “Good night, Hitch,” and left him there.

Tired as I was, I still had a hard time bringing myself to lie down on the bed where Hitch had finally died. It seemed slightly macabre and more than a little unlucky to sleep in a dead man’s last bed, but I finally decided that my luck was already so abysmal that I couldn’t worsen it. I thought I would have a hard time falling asleep, for my mind whirled with worries and conflicts, but I think I slept almost as soon as I closed my eyes.