The Bonemender's Choice

HOLLY BENNETT

Copyright © 2007 Holly Bennett
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now
known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Bennett, Holly, 1957-
The bonemender’s choice / Holly Bennett.
ISBN 978-1-55143-718-7
I. Title.
PS8603.E5595B653 2007 jC813’.6 C2007-902361-4
Summary
: In this third volume of the Bone mender series, Dominic’s children are
kidnapped, but before they can be sold into slavery, a deadly plague strikes.
First published in the United States 2007
Library of Congress Control Number:
2007926215
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs pro-
vided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing
Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province
of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover artwork, cover design, interior maps: Cathy Maclean
Typesetting: Christine Toller
Author photo: Wayne Eardley
The author is grateful for the support of the Canada Council
for the Arts which enabled the research for this book.
In Canada:
PO Box 5626, Stn. B
Victoria, BC Canada
V8R 6S4
In the United States:
PO Box 468
Custer, WA USA
98240-0468
www.orcabook.com
Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.
010  09  08  07   •   5   4   3   2   1   

For Kate and Wally, who have cheered me on this adventure from
my first hesitant steps, and provisioned me along the way with
everything from pirate books to my very own tiny Elvish muse.

Acknowledgments

With the kind permission of the great Canadian musician and songwriter Willie P. Bennett, I have given a couplet from his song “Brave Wings” to Féolan.

Note: These two maps are drawn to different scales.

G
ABRIELLE GAZED DOWN
at the little village. It was just a handful of modest cabins, the farthest one a charred mess of caved-in blackened timbers. At least, she thought, the wind had been in their favor, and the fire had not spread to the other dwellings.

Jacques, Gabrielle’s guide, had already ridden ahead, eager to arrive with his help. She hoped she
could
help. Burns were not only terribly painful, they were among the most difficult injuries to recover from. If she could save the girls—and by the guide’s account, she was not certain she could—there was no telling what sort of life they would face.

As Cloud carried Gabrielle into the village, Jacques pointed her toward one of the little cabins. “Aline’s waiting,” he said. The door opened, and the woman ran to meet them, weepy with mingled hope and fear. Smudged still from the fire, hair mussed, she bore the hollow haunted look of new grief.

“Thank the gods you’re here. My poor girlies. My poor little girlies!”

She stopped in front of a small cabin—”My mother’s house,” she explained—and paused in the doorway.

“I hope I haven’t done wrong,” she burst out. “Old Anna, that’s my neighbor, she told me to coat ‘em up in butter—”

“Tell me you didn’t.” The words were out before Gabrielle could stop them, and she rued her own brusqueness. The popular folk remedy was harmless enough on superficial burns, but with the injuries these children must have, it would be disaster. The thought of trying to clean rancid goat-butter from open wounds filled her with despair. But the last thing this woman needed was a scolding.

“I didn’t,” Aline said. “I couldn’t bring meself to, on that raw terrible...” Again, sobs overtook her as she pushed open the door. “I just poured cool water over their little legs. It’s all I could manage.”

“You did exactly right!” said Gabrielle. “I couldn’t ask for better.” She laid a reassuring hand on the woman’s shoulder and felt it slump with relief, but she didn’t linger. With the opening of the door, her mind had veered mid-flight to the sounds coming from within. There was no screaming—not any longer—but rather a stream of hopeless gasping mews exhaled on every breath.

“They’re quieter now,” offered an older woman—Aline’s mother, no doubt—from within the single room of the house. “The pain must be easing.”

Gabrielle knew better. The pain would not be less—if anything, it would make itself felt more fiercely as the first shock wore off. The girls were simply exhausted, unable to summon more than this feeble expression of agony. She knelt beside the two small bodies that lay together, stomach-down, on a pallet in the middle of the house.

Gabrielle’s eyes traveled over their light brown braids, pale freckled faces turned to each other, thin stick arms. Their eyes, dull with pain, were a matching hazel brown. Identical twins,
they were, not more than four or five years old. The burn searing across the backs of their legs was a mess of red flesh and black char, but she knew she must leave it for now. First things first. Shock, lung damage, infection—any one of these could kill children so young.

Their pulse ran faint and rapid, their breathing the same. The airways, though, seemed fairly clear—only an occasional cough or raspy breath. They’d kept low to the ground, had perhaps been spared the worst of the smoke. Gabrielle laid a hand first on one thin back, then on the other, as she closed her eyes and let the world fade away. In the deep quiet she created around herself, the healing light kindled in her hands, and she went with it, sinking her awareness deep inside her patients. Yes, their lungs were doing fine. But the children’s strength was nearly gone, seeping away with each panting breath. Deep in their chests, Gabrielle felt the twin hearts laboring too fast, too weak. The trauma, the pain, the terrible injury itself—it was too much for such small bodies to withstand. The girls wavered on the thin dividing line between life and death. Soon they would be beyond returning.

Gabrielle had been in that gray land herself. She knew it could be called a kindness to let the girls slip away, free of the pain and the fear. But she thought too of Aline’s stricken careworn face, of the girls’ father braving fire itself to save them. If she could bring them back, she would.

She sat up. “Aline? I need your help. Your mother’s too.”

The girls’ grandmother was at her side already. “Anything. And call me Colette.”

Gabrielle was checking the burn now. It was as deep and ugly as she had ever seen, eating in some places right through the skin
into muscle tissue, but she saw cause for hope as well. The beam had fallen square across the girls’ thighs, managing against all likelihood to miss both knee and hip joints. That would be a blessing if they managed to pull through.

“You’ve done a good job at rinsing off the wound,” said Gabrielle, “but it needs to be cleaned more. You see here”—she pointed—”where a piece of nightgown has burned on, or here where the skin has made a blackened crust?” Her clear green eyes met Aline’s fearful brown ones, held them steady. “These need to be pulled away. It won’t be easy, and it will hurt your daughters. But if you can do this, then I can be working at the same time to strengthen them and help them to endure it, and they will have a better chance of living.

“I think,” she added quietly, “that this may be their
only
chance of living. Can you do it?”

Aline’s eyes flinched over the crusty surface of her daughters’ legs. As if in anticipation, one little girl gave a sudden cry and thrashed feebly.

Aline glanced at her mother, pulled her mouth into a determined line and nodded. The older woman spoke for both: “Whatever’s needed.” Gabrielle pulled out her tweezers and scalpels and showed them how she wanted it done. Then she rummaged in her bag once more for the two big jars she had brought along for this very purpose.

“What’s that, then?” asked Aline, a little suspiciously.

“This is honey,” replied Gabrielle. “A treatment I learned from the Elves. It fights infection and seals over the wound to protect it. Much, much better than butter. When you have cleaned things up as best you can—you won’t get everything,
but try to clean away any charring bigger than, say, your fingernail—then I want you to drizzle the honey over the entire area. It will make a sticky mess, but I want every speck of that burn coated in honey.”

“All right but...” Aline took a deep breath. “No offense to you, Lady, but I thought this is what you came here for? Will you not treat their wounds?”

“I will be treating their wounds from the inside,” Gabrielle said. “I’m going to help their hearts to beat and their spirits to hold fast to the earth. It will look like I am asleep, but I will be working very hard to keep your girls alive. If you need me, call my name and I will awaken.”

She expected—and got—the white-eyed, half-frightened look of wonder that came over the two women’s faces. Until she had met the Elves, she was the only one she knew with this power to heal from within.