Many Roads Home (15 page)

“Later. Sleep now.”

The man muttered something incoherent and rolled over. He was asleep before Yveni had straightened up.

There was much to do while Paole rested, since they hadn’t made any effort to set up the camp. Poor Peni was still in harness, but she was such a placid old thing she hadn’t complained at all. He unhitched her and gave her feed and a long lead to allow her to graze. He ate some stale bread while he collected water and dug a latrine. Kirten fever lasted four to five days, if the patient survived so long, so they’d be here a week or so. He’d paid no attention to the supplies in his weeks of sulking. Now he had to be responsible about such matters.

By the time Paole woke three hours later, Yveni had cooled boiled water for him to drink, herbed flat bread made, and a rabbit ready to be spit-roasted. He’d also bathed and changed into the clothes Paole had bought for him, and the tent was up.

Paole looked around the campsite and scratched his head. “Been busy, haven’t you?”

“Someone had to be. I’ll make tea.”

“Wait. I’m filthy. Let me wash.”

“I’ll bring fresh clothes.”

“Being friendly all of a sudden, aren’t you?”

Yveni flushed. “I wronged you, badly. I want to make amends.”

“Whatever you like. It won’t matter in a week’s time.”

Yveni didn’t chide him for his attitude. He would simply prove him wrong.

He’d only intended to bring the man his clothes, then leave, but by the time he reached the stream, Paole was naked, sluicing sweat and grave dirt off his body, his long thick plait unbound. Yveni stared at his back. The man was well made, he’d guessed that, and the muscles in shoulders and thighs were truly impressive. But the scarring…

“Staring at something, Yveni?”

“You were whipped?”

“Did you bring soap?”

Yveni started, and then remembered he had. He tossed it over to Paole, who immediately sat down in the water and dunked his head. Ignoring Yveni, he began to wash his blond hair methodically from the scalp down, using careful measured strokes as if it was a familiar ritual.

“Wh-who beat you?”

“Masters, who else?”

“When you were a child?”

Paole didn’t answer. Yveni knew what he would have said. “Gods, Tilin—”

“Don’t think about it. Naught you can do, not now. Become a duc and do it then.”

“You believe my story then?”

Paole paused, then shrugged. “Maybe you’re lying, maybe you’re not. I guess I don’t really care any more.”

“I can prove it.”

“I just said I don’t care. Leave me in peace, Yveni. I’ve things to think about and you’re distracting me.”

Despite the irritated words, Paole’s manner was more sad than angry. Yveni left him to it and made tea.

Paole ate the offered food in silence. “What do you know about kirten fever?” Yveni asked as Paole sipped his tea.

“No cure, almost always fatal.”

“Not almost always. Not in fit young men. You have a real chance.”

“Never heard of anyone beating it, boy.”

“I have. The treatment is to relieve the symptoms?”

“Aye. Reduce fever, ease pain, keep fluids up. But it never works. That’s why the master never tried with her.” He jerked his head towards the girl’s grave.

“The baby was newborn, and she was only very young. They might not have saved her, but you’ve got a much better chance.”

“Maybe. I have papers to write out. My will, your manumission. Want to make sure no one gives you any trouble over the wagon and Peni.”

“Will you stop talking like that?” Yveni wanted to shake him, not that he would make much of an impression.

“Face facts, Yveni. The fever takes hold in two days. I’ve only that long to arrange matters. Once I’m dead, you have to prove you’re free and you own what I leave you. People know that wagon. They’ll ask where I am.”

“You do what you like, but
I’m
going to concentrate on making sure you survive.”

Paole sipped his tea and didn’t react.

“Does your gift work on yourself?”

“No. I’m going by what I’ve seen. You’d be better off leaving now, boy. I don’t know why you’re bothering with me.”

“I don’t know why you bothered with her, since you knew she was dying.”

“Didn’t want her to die alone,” he mumbled. “Was only decent.”

“I guess you’re the only one with decency around here. The rest of us are just scum. I’d have walked right past that girl and left her to die on her own. You know what we Tuelers are like.”

“Some of you
are
like that.”

“And I can tell you about a Uemirien or two I wouldn’t trust my sisters with as well,” Yveni snapped. “I’m staying, so stop wasting your breath. If you want to do these papers, I’ll help you. Then we need to prepare for you to be sick. We’re short of supplies. I’ll have to go to that town to buy some.”

“Maybe I don’t want some clumsy Tueler nursing me. Ever done anything of the kind?”

“Yes, I have. My father had a stroke and for the last six months of his life, I was the one who bathed him and fed him and tried to help him learn to speak again. I—”

Yveni’s throat closed. He’d tried not to think of his father all this time, because it hurt so.

Paole reached out a big hand and patted him. “If you really insist, you can help.”

“Thank you.” He grinned, though his eyes were wet. “Now put all your energy into fighting the fever and not me.”

“I’ll do my best, boy.”

Paole couldn’t go into town with Yveni, and he felt it would cause less of a problem if no mention was made of the dead slave. “It’s not like anyone would have reported her missing or be looking for her,” he’d commented bitterly.

Yveni would pass himself off as Karvi, and as Paole’s apprentice if anyone was curious, but Paole thought they wouldn’t be. Since Paole had all the medicinals he needed, and the supplies were mundane, no one would be interested in a random youth, not in a market town.

So it proved to be, and no one paid him any attentions or remarked on his fake Karvi accent. He returned by early afternoon. Paole had not only written out a short, straightforward will and the manumission papers, but had dug out three books and was busy making notes. “How do you feel?” Yveni asked.

Paole looked up. “Like that question will drive me mad if you keep asking it. You’ll know when I’m sick, boy. Put that all away and let me show you this.”

In his neat hand, Paole had listed the stages of kirten fever, the treatment and the danger signs. “If you can keep the fever down, that might help. But you can do nothing for the internal damage. I either survive that or I don’t. Once the blistering starts, that’s it.”

“Internal…you mean, even if you live, you’ll be sick?”

“Why do you think they don’t bother treating slaves with it?”

“But…will you ever get better?”

“In time. But not your problem because you said you’d leave after, and I’ll hold you to that.”

“All right.” But Yveni had no intention of being bound to a promise that heartless.

Chapter Seventeen

The boy’s sudden altruism was a distraction of sorts from thinking about his fate, but Paole was realistic enough to know that was all it was, and not salvation. He prepared the antipyretics, the pain relievers, the cloths, soothing teas and the instructions more for Yveni’s sake than his own. None of it would do any good but it would help Yveni believe he’d done his best, and when Paole finally died, perhaps that would ease his conscience.

Why did he bother? Habit, mostly, he told himself as Yveni carefully wrote down the explanations of what to do and when with the drugs. Mathias had made him a healer and he would be a healer to the last, even if it was only of the boy’s feelings. Left to himself, he’d have prepared a poison draft and swallowed it as soon the fever took hold. He thought seriously about preparing one anyway. He could tell the boy it was another pain reliever and Yveni would never know…

But that wasn’t
fair
and if Paole was to die soon, he wanted to die being as fair as he could, even if he’d had precious little fairness in his life. If Yveni wanted to fight this battle, then let him have a chance to win.

“Paole? Tell me about your masters?”

His fist closed involuntarily over the list of drugs, crumpling them. Yveni eased it from his hand and straightened it out. “Why?”

Yveni looked up at from under his lashes. “I just wanted to know…how you learned to read and write. Who taught you about healing. Who whipped you.”

“Not my idea of light conversation, boy.”

“You have no happy memories?”

Luis and Ishma. Puppies in the barn. Being bought by Mathias and realising that finally he had a master who’d never hit him, and wanted to treat him well. Not many in twenty-eight years of life. “Not enough to tell you about. I learned to read and write with my first owner, because he wanted to sell me when I reached puberty, and a literate slave is worth more. He sold me to a herbalist, who sold me to another, who left me to his son, who sold me to my last master, who died after freeing me.”

“But why would he sell you when you reached puberty?”

This boy had been raised so innocent. Paole looked him in the eye. “Because he liked little boys without body hair.”

Yveni didn’t get it at first. Paole looked down at the notes, hoping maybe he wouldn’t. But then he heard the gasp. “You? Were you…?”

“Raped? Yes. And the other boys. Illegal, even here, but no one would believe a slave, and no one was likely to catch him.”

Yveni covered his mouth. “Tilin?” he whispered. “Oh gods.”

“Look, boy, the child most likely went to a family who wanted to buy a child cheap and rear him to work in their business or their kitchens. Not the best life, but not the worst. Some owners are kind, like my last, and will free a slave once he’s done good service.”

“But not all are kind.”

“No. It’s not a kind trade. You know that already.”

“Paole—”

“I don’t want to talk of it, either. We’re done here and I’m hungry. Think you could make me some of those pretty cakes of yours, now you know I’m not an evil violator of children?”

Yveni flushed, which amused Paole no end. All he deserved, the little shit. Why hadn’t he just
asked
?

He was tired as well as hungry, and with nothing left to do, he decided he could stretch out and watch Yveni work with fat and flour and honey to create one of his tasty treats. “You know,” he reflected, “the only thing I could think was wrong, was that you objected to me sleeping with other men.”

“No! I mean…that wasn’t the problem.” The boy’s flush got deeper and he became quite fascinated by rubbing suet into the flour. Paole could understand that. Yveni’s fingers were rather well shaped. Watching them could be quite pleasurable.

“They come to me, you know. I never ask. Not sure why.”

“Because you’re—” Yveni’s mouth snapped shut.

“I’m…?”

“Handsome.”

Paole lifted an eyebrow. “I’m scarred and foreign and blind in one eye.”

“You are? Which eye?”

Paole pointed to the left. “Third master. Beat me into unconsciousness, gave me this scar on my forehead. The sight was gone when I came to. I can see a tiny sliver of what I used to on that side, and that’s all.”

“That’s why you missed the girl on that side of the road.”

“Most likely.”

Yveni nodded and continued to knead the mixture in the bowl. In other circumstances, Paole would watch carefully to learn the task, but now he felt there was little point. For the first time in his life, he had no obligation to do anything, and if this was the last chance for a rest, he’d take it.

“Handsome, huh?” he said once Yveni had set the bowl under a cloth to prove.

Again Yveni flushed. He could have been such good company.

“Yes.” The boy wouldn’t meet his eye. “Compared to many I’ve seen.”

“Many Uemiriens?”

“Uh…yes. And Tuelers.” He folded his arms and glared. “You know this already, you bastard.”

“No, not really. I thought they were attracted by the fact I was passing through. No consequences.”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Why don’t you ask them?”

Too late now, he thought, but didn’t say. “Not important. I enjoy it and so do they. Have you ever…?”

“No!” Yveni stood and stalked off to the stream, probably to wash his hands, certainly to avoid answering embarrassing questions. Served the brat right, poking his nose where it wasn’t wanted.

Paole grinned. Not dead yet. He could still have a little fun with this one.

The cakes were good. Yveni kept shooting Paole suspicious looks as if he feared the man would ask him something else about his virginity. Paole had no real interest in the subject, but Yveni’s squirming was funny. What age did they wed in Tueler? His sister had been betrothed—fourteen, he’d said. Strange the boy was not.

Ah, it didn’t matter now. None of it did. He only wanted to lie by the fire and rest, and not think of death for a bit.

Yveni wouldn’t sit still, and while Paole watched the rabbit roasting, the boy went into the wagon, searching again for who knew what. A few days ago, it would have infuriated Paole. Now, he didn’t care. The wagon was Yveni’s now. Paole regretted Peni most of all. She’d have to be sold, and she was an old girl, not likely to be treated well.

Mathias’s cabin was another, lesser regret. All his books, his lovingly carved furniture. The essence of a decent man, and his grave. No one who would appreciate it as a gift, and Yveni had a destiny elsewhere. Ah well. He’d left one life when he’d been captured at four years old. He was simply leaving another now. There had been many times he’d thought he’d be killed at the hands of a master, or a servant abusing their position to take out petty anger on a helpless slave. This way, it had been his choice. There were worse things. Dying alone was one.

Yveni emerged from the wagon. “What about this book?”

Paole didn’t recognise the fat volume with a green leather cover. “What about it? There are a lot of books in there, boy. Don’t use most of them. I only brought them with me because I was planning to sell them in Kivnic, but you interrupted me.”

Yveni pulled a face. “Haven’t we been over that enough,
master
? It’s in Uemi.”

“Which is why I don’t use it.”

“Yes, but it’s a book about illnesses and cures. Maybe there’s something in here about kirten fever.”

“If the Uemiriens had a cure, wouldn’t your friends in Sardelsa know of it?”

“Maybe, but they wouldn’t have talked of it because kirten fever doesn’t occur there any more. I only know about it because I studied my father’s health programmes.”

Paole grunted and poured himself more tea. “What does it say?”

“Hold on.” He peered at the text using the light of the oil lamp. Paole regretted he’d never learned to read his native language. The book Yveni held was an old one, and possibly Mathias had never read it either.

“The author says that he’s observed more people surviving kirten fever if the fever is allowed to run and not suppressed too much. He thinks it’s because it burns the infection out of the body.”

“Heard that idea before, boy.”

Yveni looked up. “Never tried it?”

“I’ve never treated kirten fever. I’ve just talked to those who have.”

“So what if he’s right?”

“What if he’s wrong and you kill me faster?”

“Does the fever kill? Or is it just a symptom?”

Paole furrowed his brow in concentration. He’d never thought about it like that. “Don’t know. Too high a fever kills, I know that for sure. Seen it myself.”

“But what if it’s not
too
high? Is it dangerous then?”

“Just unpleasant. Don’t see the point of making someone who’s dying suffer more, though.”

“Do you have a thermometer?”

“Somewhere. Never use the thing. Yveni, this is pointless—”

The boy glared at him across the fire. “No, it’s not. If you’re willing to try and to put up with the discomfort, what have we to lose?”

“What if you can’t control the fever and it shoots up?”

“I won’t let it. Please, Paole? I want to try. I want you to live.”

Paole shook his head. Certainly a waste of time, but what harm would it do? “As you wish. Do you know how to use one?”

“Yes, Doctor Kardwil showed me. At the castle infirmary.”

“You were a nosy little brat, weren’t you?”

“My father put a lot of stock in a well-rounded education.” Yveni grinned. “And besides, it kept me out of mischief, he said.”

“Wise man.”

“Yes.” Yveni’s smiled slipped a little. “Now tell me where to find the thermometer.”

He woke with a headache, which might have been because he was tired, but it wasn’t, not with the slight aura in his vision too. Should he tell the boy?

No, they’d prepared as well as they could. He didn’t want to spend the day—possibly his last well day alive—with Yveni watching him anxiously. More anxiously.

So he wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and went to poke the fire, before surreptitiously dosing himself with a pain reliever for the headache. He filled a bucket with horse feed and went over to say good morning to Peni. He’d miss her. She’d been no youngster when Mathias bought him. She had to be nearly twenty now. “Still beautiful, aren’t you, sweetness?” He scratched under her chin and she pushed at him with her muzzle, soft brown eyes all knowing and forgiving. Now Mathias was dead, she was the oldest friend he had.

“Paole? Are you all right?”

“Waiting for the water to boil, that’s all.”

He didn’t look at the boy. He had soft brown eyes too, but often they were filled with judgement and anger. Yveni was born to be a master, not a slave. Fate had thrown them together, but they couldn’t be friends. Peni was a friend. Owned, ordered around, treated like a possession, just as he had been. Paole decided that he’d never let her be sold. He’d make Yveni promise to have her put down decently by a proper knacker. They were quick, the good ones. “Sorry, sweetness,” he whispered into her big ear. “I’d like to care for you for the rest of my life, but I won’t be able to.”

Yveni had gone. Paole went off to relieve himself and pull himself together. It’d be a long day.

Paole was hiding something from him, and Yveni knew what it was. If the man wanted to pretend he was well, then…let him. There was little to be done but wait.

Paole’s appetite was right off. He nibbled one of the sweet cakes, but all he really wanted was tea with honey in it. Yveni supplied him and didn’t comment on him not eating. So long as he kept his fluids up, that was all he needed, for now.

Paole wandered off by himself for a bit, went to talk to Peni and to stretch his legs. Yveni cleared up and went over to the forlorn little grave at the edge of the clearing. He didn’t want to imagine a second grave beside it, but he couldn’t help himself.

“She needs a marker, her and the baby.”