none (14 page)

Damon nodded. “Where did you learn this, Ferrika? I feared I would have to forbid you to use old folkremedies which do more harm than good. This is the treatment used at Nevarsin, and I had to struggle to

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have it used in Thendara, for the Guards.”

She said, “I was trained in the Amazon Guild-house in Arilinn, Lord Damon; they train midwives therefor all the Domains, and they know a good deal about healing and caring for wounds.”

Dom
Esteban frowned. He said, “Women’s rubbish! When I was a lad, we were told never to bring heatnear a frozen limb, but to rub it with snow.”

“Aye,” broke in the man whose feet were pulpy and swollen, “I had Narron rub
 
my
 
feet wi’ snow.

When my grandsire froze his feet in the reign of old Marius Hastur—”

“I know your grandfather,” Damon interrupted. “He walked with two canes till the end of his life, and it looks to me as if your friend tried to make sure you had the same good fortune, lad. Trust me, and I will do better for you than that.” He turned to Ferrika and said, “Try poultices, not hot water alone, but black thornleaf, very strong; it will draw the blood to the limbs and back to the heart. And give them some of it in tea too, to stimulate the circulation.” He turned back to the injured man, saying encouragingly, “This treatment is used in Nevarsin, where the weather is worse than here, and the monks claim they have saved men who would otherwise have been lamed for life.”

“Can’t
you
 
help, Lord Damon?” begged the man Raimon, and Damon, looking at the grayish-blue feet, shook his head. “I don’t know, truly, lad. I will do as much as I can, but this is the worst I have seen. It’s regrettable, butj—”

“Regrettable!” The man’s eyes blazed with pain and fury. “Is that all you can say about it,
 
vai dom
 
? Is that all it means to you? Do you know what it means to us, especially this year? There’s not a house in Adereis or Corresanti but lost a man or maybe two or three to the accursed catfolk, and last year’s harvest withered ungathered in the fields, so already there is hunger in these hills! And now more than a dozen ablebodied men to be laid up, certainly for months, maybe never to walk again, and you can’t say more than ‘It is regrettable.’” His thick dialect angrily mimicked Damon’s careful speech.

“It’s all very well for the likes of you,
 
vai dom
 
, you willna’ go hungry, what may happen or no! But what of my wife, and my little children? What of my brother’s wife and
her
babes, that I took in when my brother ran mad and slew himself in the Darkening-lands, and the cat-hags made play wi’ his soul? What of my old mother, and her brother who lost an eye and a leg on the field of Corresanti? All too few able-bodied men in the villages, so that even the little maids and the old wives work in the fields, all too few to handle crops and beasts or even to glean the nut-trees before the snow buries our food, and now a good half of the ablebodied men of two villages lying here with frozen feet and hands, maybe lame for life—regrettable!”

His voice struggled with his rage and pain, and Damon closed his eyes in dismay. It was all too easy toforget. Did war not end, then, when there was peace in the land? He could kill ordinary foes, or leadarmed men against them, but against the greater foes—hunger, disease, bad weather, loss of ablebodiedmen—he was powerless.

“The weather is not mine to command, my friend. What would you have me do?”

“There was a time—so my grandsire told me—when the folk of the Comyn, the Tower-folk, sorceresses and warlocks, could use their starstones to heal wounds. Eduin”—he gestured to the Guardsman at
 
Dom
 
Esteban’s side—“saw you heal Caradoc so he didna’ bleed to death when his leg was cut to the bone by a catman sword. Can’t you do something for us too,
 
vai dom
 
?”

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Without conscious thought, Damon’s fingers closed over the small leather bag strung-round his neckwhich held the matrix crystal he had been given at Arilinn, as a novice psi technician. Yes, he could dosome of those things. But since he had been sent from the Tower—he felt his throat close in fear andrevulsion. It was hard, dangerous, frightening, even to think of doing these things outside of the Tower,unprotected by the electromagnetic Veil which protected the matrix technicians from intruding thoughtsand dangers…

Yet the alternative was death or crippling for these men, indescribable suffering, at the very least, hungerand famine in the villages.

He said, and knew his voice was trembling, “It has been so long, I do not know if I can still do anything.

Uncle…?”

Dom
Esteban shook his head. “Such skills I never had, Damon. My little time there was spent workingrelays and communications. I had thought most of those healing skills were lost in the Ages of Chaos.”

Damon shook his head. “No, some of them were taught at Arilinn even when I was there. But I can donothing much alone.”

Raimon said, “The
 
domna
 
Callista, she was a
 
leronis…
 
”

That was true too. He said, trying to control his voice, “I will see what we can do. For now, theimportant thing is to see how much of the circulation can be restored naturally. Ferrika,” he said to theyoung woman who had come back, carrying vials and flasks of herb salves and extracts, “I will leave youto care for these men, for now. Is Lady Callista still upstairs with my wife?”

“She is in the still-room,
 
vai dom
 
, she helped me to find these things.”

It was in a small back passage near the kitchens, a narrow, stone-floored room, lined with shelves. Callista, a faded blue cloth tied over her hair, was sorting bunches of dried herbs. Others hung from therafters or were stuffed into bottles and jars. Damon wrinkled his nose at the pungent herb-smell of theplace, as Callista turned to him.

“Ferrika tells me you have some bad cases of frostbite and freezing. Shall I come help put hot-packs

about them?”

“You can do better than that,” Damon said, and laid his hand, with that involuntary gesture, over his insulated matrix. “I am going to have to do some cell-regeneration with the worst ones, or Ferrika and I will end by having to cut off a dozen fingers and toes, or worse. But I can’t do it alone; you must monitor for me.”

“To be sure,” she said quickly, and her hands went automatically to the matrix at her throat. She was

already replacing the jars on the shelf. Then she turned—and stopped, her eyes wide with panic.

“Damon, I cannot!” She stood in the doorway, tense, a part of her already poised for action, a part

stricken, drooping, remembering the real situation.

“I have given back my oath! I am forbidden!”

He looked at her in blank dismay. He could have understood it if Ellemir, who had never lived in a

Tower and knew little more than a commoner, had spoken this old superstition. But Callista, who had

Page 52

been a Keeper?

“
 
Breda
,” he said gently, with the feather-light touch on her sleeve that the Arilinn people used among themselves, “it is not a Keeper’s work I ask of you. I know you can never again enter the great relays and energon rings—that is for those who live apart, guarding their powers in seclusion. I ask only simple monitoring, such work as any woman might do who does not live by the laws of a Keeper. I would ask it of Ellemir, but she is pregnant and it would not be wise. Surely you know you have not lost that skill; you will never lose it.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “I cannot, Damon. You know that everything of this sort which I do willreinforce old habits, old… old patterns which I must break.” She stood unmoving, beautiful, proud,angry, and Damon inwardly cursed the superstitious taboos she had been taught.

How could she believe this nonsense? He said angrily, “Do you realize what is at stake here, Callista?

Do you realize the kind of suffering to which you condemn these men?”

“I am not the only telepath at Armida!” she flung at him. “I have given years of my life to this, now it is

enough! I thought you, of all men living, would understand that!”

“Understand!” Damon felt rage and frustration surge up inside him. “I understand that you are being selfish! Are you going to spend the rest of your life counting holes in linen towels and making spices for herb-breads? You, who were Callista of Arilinn?”

“Don’t!” She flinched as if he had struck her. Her face was drawn with pain. “What are you trying to do to me, Damon? My choice has been made, and there is no way to go back, even if I would! For better or worse, I have made my choice! Do you think—” Her voice broke, and she turned away so that he would not see her weeping. “Do you think I have not asked myself—asked myself again and again—what it is that I have done?” She dropped her face into her hands with a despairing moan. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t even raise her head, her whole body convulsing with the terrible grief he could feel, tearing her apart. Damon felt it, the agony which was threatening to overwhelm her, which she kept at bay only with desperate effort:

You and Ellemir have your happiness, already she is bearing your child. And Andrew and I, Andrew and I… I have never been able even to kiss him, never lain in his arms, never known hislove…

Damon turned, blindly, and went out of the still-room, hearing the sobs break out behind him. Distancemade no difference; her grief was
 
there
 
, with him,
 
inside
 
him. He was wrung and wrenched by it,fighting to get his barriers together, to cut off that desperate awareness of her anguish. Damon was a Ridenow, an empath, and Callista’s emotions struck so deep that for a time, blinded by her pain, hestumbled along the hall, not knowing where he was or where he was going.

Blessed Cassilda
, he thought,
 
I knew Callista was unhappy, but I had no idea it was like this… Thetaboos surrounding a Keeper are so strong, and she has been reared on tales of the penalties for a Keeper who breaks her vow… I cannot, I cannot ask anything of her which would prolong hersuffering by a single day
 
…

After a time he managed to cut off the contact, to withdraw into himself a little—or had Callista managedto rebuild her taut control?—and to hope against hope that her anguish had not reached Ellemir. Then hebegan to think what alternatives he had. Andrew? The Terran was untrained, but he was a powerfultelepath. And Dezi—even if he had been sent from Arilinn after only a season or so, he would know the

Page 53

basic techniques.

Ellemir had come downstairs and was helping Dezi with the work of washing and bandaging the feet ofthe less seriously hurt men in the lower hall. The men were groaning and crying out in pain as thecirculation was restored in their frostbitten limbs, but, although their sufferings were dreadful, Damonknew they were far less seriously injured than the other men.

One of the men looked up at him, his face contorted with pain, and begged, “Can’t we even have adrink, Lord Damon? It might not help the feet any, but it sure would dull the pain!”

“I’m sorry,” Damon said regretfully. “You can have all the soup or hot food you want, but no wine or strong drink; it plays hell with the circulation. In a little while, Ferrika will bring you something to ease the pain and help you sleep.” But it would take more than this to help the other men, the ones whose feet were seriously frozen.

He said, “I must go back and see to your comrades, the ones who are worst hurt. Dezi—”

The red-haired boy looked up, and Damon said, “When these men are taken care of, come and talk tome, will you?”

Dezi nodded, and bent over the man whose feet he was smearing with strong-smelling salve andbandaging. Damon noticed that his hands were deft and that he worked quickly and with skill. Damonstopped beside Ellemir, who was winding a length of bandage around frozen fingers, and said, “Becareful not to work too hard, my darling.”

Her smile was quick and cheery. “Oh, it is only early in the morning that I am ill. Later in the day, likethis, I have never felt better! Damon, can you do anything for those poor fellows in there? Darrill and Piedro and Raimon played with Callista and me when we were little girls, and Raimon is Domenic’sfoster-brother.”

“I did not know that,” Damon said, shaken. “I will do all I can for them, love.”

He came back to where Ferrika was working with the worst of the hurt men, and joined her in thepreliminary bandaging and soaking, giving them strong drugs to ease or blunt the worst of the pain. Butthis, he knew, was only a beginning. Without more help than Ferrika and her herb-medicines could give,they would die or be crippled for life. At the very best they would lose toes, fingers, lie helpless andlamed for months.

Callista had recovered her cool self-possession now, and was working with Ferrika, helping to puthot-packs about the injured men. Restoring the circulation was the only way to save any of their feet, andif feeling could be restored in any part of their limbs, it was a victory. Damon watched her with a remotesadness, not really blaming her. He found it hard to overcome his own disquiet at the need for returningto matrix work.