Irons in the Fire (55 page)

"He'll be at your disposal," promised Lady Derenna.

What gave Lady Derenna the right to answer for Welgren? Branca followed the noblewoman out of the garden and around the house towards the stable yard. It didn't matter that the herbalist would be just as keen as Lord Narese to debate how plants could be used in healing. What gave any noble the right to assume everyone else was at their beck and call?

"Good, he's nearly done." The noblewoman surveyed the few humbly dressed men and women still waiting outside the storeroom that had been given over to Welgren. She knocked on the door and went in. "A moment of your time, if you please."

"A moment's silence, if you please, so I can listen."

Branca looked through the door to see that Welgren was leaning over in front of a shirtless man sitting on a stool. Beside them, the table was laden with his pestle and mortar, leather pouches and twists of parchment, and an array of bottles. The herbalist was holding one end of a thin metal rod to the man's naked chest, the other end carefully inserted into his own ear.

"If you could take a deep breath and try to hold it, please."

A dirty swathe of bandage stained with pus and blood lay on the cobbled floor. As Welgren moved away, Branca saw the patient's face. His eyes were sunken, his complexion unhealthily yellowed. If he was in good health, he'd be handsome enough, with thick fair hair and strong features.

"That's Karn!" Trembling with the shock of recognition, she darted in through the open door and slammed it closed behind her.

"What?"

As Lady Derenna turned towards Branca, the man snatched the copper rod from Welgren and lashed out at the herbalist. Welgren recoiled, but not fast enough to save himself from a stinging blow across his upraised hands.

"What--?" Lady Derenna's question was cut short as the man Branca knew to be Karn seized her. Stepping behind her, he slid the copper rod across her throat. Holding it at both ends, he pulled it back hard. Lady Derenna arched against him, her chin forced upwards. She clutched at the rod, trying to drag it away, but he was too strong.

Sunlight filtered in through the dusty panes of the high barred windows. Branca heard muffled sounds from the yard as everyone went about their normal business outside.

"Get away from the door." Karn's shadowed eyes were murderous.

"Whoever you are, that wound needs treating." Welgren tucked his hands under his armpits, wincing with pain.

"It hasn't killed me yet." Karn's gaze didn't waver. "You, bitch, away from the door."

"There are three of us and one of you." Branca tried desperately to think of some aetheric enchantment to use.

"Two when I snap her neck." Karn drew back harder on the sounding bar and Lady Derenna choked. "And his hands are already broken."

"I believe they are." Welgren sat down heavily on the stool.

"Move away from the door or I'll kill her, and then him. Then I'll ram this rod into your eye and out through the back of your head," Karn promised Branca.

She didn't need Artifice to know that was no empty threat. Her feet felt mortared to the floor, though. She couldn't move if she wanted to.

Lady Derenna snatched at the chain hanging from her belt and stabbed her little knife into Karn's thigh. Taken by surprise, his hold on the sounding bar loosened sufficiently for her to drive an elbow into his ribs.

His scream of pain was out of all proportion to the strength of the blow. Doubled up, he reeled away. Branca saw a festering wound in his back oozing fresh red blood. In the next breath he recovered though, sending the copper rod slicing audibly through the air to strike Lady Derenna's head. She fell like a sheep stunned for slaughter.

Welgren sprang up from his stool. Wounded or not, Karn was ready. But Welgren wasn't trying to seize him. Instead, he threw a glittering shower of liquid all over the Triolle man's face and naked chest.

"Don't touch him!" Welgren stretched out a hand to hold Branca back.

She dodged around him to help Derenna. Acrid vapours caught at her eyes and throat, rising from the floor where the liquid had landed.

Moving away from the door, she gave Karn his chance. He snatched at the door handle, wrenching it open. Branca saw raw redness spreading across his bare skin as he ran into the yard. She tried to shout but the fumes from whatever Welgren had thrown were scouring her throat. All she could do was cough. Helpless tears streaming from her eyes, she saw Karn knock down a groom with a single punch and scramble into the saddle of the horse he'd been holding.

"Stop him!"

Stronger voices took up her feeble cry but the men by the gate were taken unawares. The sound of Karn's steed was lost amid confused questions before another groom thought to find a horse and give chase.

Welgren managed to stop coughing. "Let's get her out of here."

Lady Derenna was already stirring as he slipped his arms under her, raising her from the dirty floor. Branca went to help support her. "What was that?"

Welgren wiped his watering eyes on his shoulder. "Vitriol solution."

Outside, the mounting block was conveniently close. Between them they half-led, half-carried Lady Derenna to sit on it.

"What do we say to my lord?" An agitated woman caught at Branca's sleeve.

"I don't know," she snapped.

The woman backed away, affronted.

"Just sit still." Ignoring the discolouration spreading across his own hands, Welgren carefully felt along the vicious bruise running from the corner of Lady Derenna's eye into her hair. "Branca, who was that?"

"Ow." Lady Derenna winced.

Branca looked around but no one was paying much attention to them amid the uproar. "A Triolle spy. His name is Karn. He's supposed to be dead."

"How did you know he was here?" Welgren parted Lady Derenna's hair with gentle fingers.

"We didn't." Branca stifled another cough. It was just too painful. "We only came to warn you to be on your guard."

"How did you recognise him?" Lady Derenna glared at Branca, her eye swelling.

She saw Lord Narese hurrying into the yard. "Later."

"My lady." He came over to clutch Lady Derenna's hand, aghast. "Who did this?"

The men and women of the household gathered round, all loudly insisting that the attacker had been a stranger.

"Enough!" Lord Narese's rebuke silenced the clamour.

Welgren spoke first. "Her ladyship needs to lie down quietly in her room."

Lord Narese clapped his hands. "Bring a hurdle!"

"I can walk," Lady Derenna insisted.

Branca dutifully offered her arm.

Lord Narese nodded unhappily. "Very well."

Everyone obediently backed away. Branca had to admit that this Lescari habit of servility had its uses. In Vanam, a double handful of people would still be offering advice and taking offence when they were ignored while a crowd of onlookers ten deep would all be noisily revelling in the excitement.

It seemed to take three times as long to get back to Lady Derenna's bedchamber as it had to walk down to the stable yard. The noblewoman was leaning ever more heavily on Branca as they negotiated the final flight of stairs.

"My lord." Opening the bedchamber door, Welgren balanced due deference with the authority of his profession. "May we have some warm water and a clean cloth to bathe her ladyship's injury?"

"Of course." Lord Narese hesitated.

"Go and see if your men have caught the scoundrel," Lady Derenna hissed.

"Indeed." Spurred to action, he hurried away.

"Lie down."

Lady Derenna did as Welgren commanded, a faint groan escaping her.

"How badly did he injure your hands?" Branca went to draw the curtains.

"He may have cracked a bone or two but it's not as bad as I made out." Welgren turned his attention to Lady Derenna. "As for you, my lady, I don't believe your skull is cracked, though your head will feel as if he split it like a ripe melon for a day or so."

"What about his wounds?" she asked, her eyes tight shut.

"The vitriol solution will leave him sore." Welgren flexed his bruised hands with a grimace. "But I'm amazed he can walk with that gash festering in his back, never mind steal a horse."

"You said he's supposed to be dead." Lady Derenna squinted at Branca. "What did you mean, and how did you recognise him?"

"Charoleia said he had been snooping around her affairs in Vanam," Branca said flatly. "Later she found out he'd sent spies hunting mercenaries for Master Hamare of Triolle but by then, she had word he'd been killed."

Welgren nodded. "Anyone leaving him with that wound would think so."

"You saw him in Vanam, I take it?" A tear escaped Lady Derenna's swollen eyelid.

Branca nodded rather than lie outright. She had seen Karn's face when she was brushing as lightly as she could against Charoleia's thoughts. The beautiful woman's willingness to encompass the man's death had unnerved her more than she had dared show. Trusting in the honesty of Aremil's motives was one thing. Trusting all of their fates to Charoleia was something else. At least she hadn't learned anything too dreadful, not so far anyway.

"I think he's been on our trail for a while," Welgren said unhappily. "Last market day, one of Lady Shaptre's grooms asked if I'd tend a man who'd been injured by a pitchfork during haymaking. That's who this man Karn claimed to be."

"We can just thank Halcarion I happened to see him." Branca wondered if the goddess was favouring them with good luck or bad. "What did he ask you? What did you tell him?"

"Nothing." Welgren shook his head. "I'd only got as far as cleaning that wound and listening to his heart and lungs with my sounding rod. Neither sounded overly healthy and that infection will probably be the death of him anyway."

"Let's hope so." Lady Derenna shifted her head on her pillow, her eyes still closed. "But we must leave, before he can tell anyone we've been here."

"Unless Lord Narese's men catch him." Welgren looked at Branca.

"I don't think we can count on that," she said reluctantly.

Welgren bent to look at the lurid bruise spreading across Lady Derenna's face. "I'll make a poultice for that, and find something to ease your headache."

"Tend your hands," she said faintly. "We need to ride on today. Branca, tell Aremil what's happened."

Welgren ushered Branca out of the room and shut the door gently. "Stay with her until I come back. She shouldn't try riding today."

"Then we'll have to ask Lord Narese to lend us a carriage. She's right, we can't stay here." Branca looked down to see her hands were shaking. "Can you do that? Then when you get back, I must warn Aremil that this man Karn is still alive."

"I imagine his lordship will try to talk her out of leaving." Welgren managed a wry smile. "Not that he'll succeed."

Branca watched him go along the corridor. Her hands were still shaking. How long would it be before she was calm enough to reach through the aether to Aremil?

It was all very well using Artifice to knot the different threads of their plotting together. But warfare was coming, any day now. Aremil had said so. She hadn't thought about it before now, but her only weapon was Artifice. After the horrid shock of the day's events, she had better give some serious thought to using it for protection and, if need be, attack.

Derenna could have been killed. They all could have died. Karn's merciless threat echoed in her memory. He would have driven that rod through her eye and into her brain without a moment's hesitation.

She looked down and saw that her fists were clenched. Once she'd warned Aremil, she decided, she'd see what Kerith could tell her of the harsher, more aggressive enchantments that fascinated him so. What might Jettin know that she could use to defend herself and those travelling with her?

What could Master Tonin tell her of those more aggressive enchantments that the ancient races had linked to the merciless north wind? She'd have to think carefully how best to phrase such a request if she was to win his help rather than his censure. Or perhaps those Mountain Men could tell her something useful. Their tales of the mysterious
sheltya
working up in the remote mountain valleys might serve to illuminate some of the puzzles that still teased Vanam's scholars. She should ask Tathrin to speak to them on her behalf.

She spread her fingers and saw that her hands were still. As soon as Welgren returned, she'd shut herself away in Lord Narese's curio room and work her Artifice.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Failla

The Three Pigeons Inn, in the Lescari Dukedom of Carluse,

38
^th
of For-Autumn

"What brings you back this way?" The innkeeper set the platter of roast pork and turnips down. "You were heading west, weren't you?"

"You remember us?" Nath poured ale into his tankard.

"I never forget a pretty face." Red-faced and rotund in his long apron, the man winked at Failla, more paternal than hopeful.