The Will of the Empress (36 page)

“Oh, good,” said Jak, applying himself with gusto to his veal with caviar. “I was afraid that pinecone you’ve been sitting on so righteously was dug in permanently.”

“Jak!” cried Ealaga, shocked. Ambros and Daja groaned. Tris shook her head over this unexpected side to the nobleman, while Briar cackled wickedly. Glancing at Sandry, he thought to her,
Nice to see someone who will say what he thinks straight out.

She made a rude gesture in reply.

You never learned that from the duke
, Briar told her.
You learned that one from
me. “I’ll have to remember that pinecone,” he said to Jak. “Every time she loses it, you think life is safe, and then she finds it again.”

Sandry threw a roll at him and looked at Jak. “You’ve never been like this before,” she accused.

Jak cut another bite of veal. “See, I’m off my leash. I don’t have to worry about pleasing you
or
the empress.”

“So why don’t you leave?” asked Briar, curious. “If it’s that much of a pain?”

“Because I like being useful,” Jak replied. “Don’t you?”

The evening took a lighter turn after that. They lingered at the table, talking long after the last crumbs of their fruit and cheese were gone. Then they went to the sitting room to play games, tell stories, and nibble on cakes for tea. Even Daja stayed and seemed at least to be happy for something to take her mind off Rizu. At last Jak said good-bye in the front hallway and went on his way.

Sandry sighed as the door closed behind him. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to know him better now,” she told the rest of them. “Maybe I would have liked him enough to stay—but
I couldn’t. Not and leave Uncle without someone to look after him properly.”

“We’re hardly going to talk you out of that,” Briar said. “We all like the old man. And he doesn’t play games with his people.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Ealaga told them wistfully. “But Her Imperial Majesty really has done so much good for the empire.”

“And she’s done it without me,” Sandry replied. “As soon as I’m gone, she can get back to her real work. She’ll hardly know I’m gone.”

Tris thought that Berenene would remember Sandry for quite some time, but she also thought that another yawn like the one that had just overtaken her might split her jaws apart. “I’m for bed,” she said drowsily. “Good night, everyone.”

She climbed up the staircase, Chime flying in loose circles over her head. It was time for the nightly battle she always fought when she shared sleeping quarters with Chime. Who knew so much space could be taken up by a small glass dragon? she asked herself for the thousandth time. She just sprawls somehow, and manages to fill any bed or bedroll I want to sleep in…

Just before she reached the top step, Tris felt something, though she could not be sure what it was. A cold pocket of air? she wondered.
Slimy
cold air, if there’s such a thing?

It was her last coherent thought before her foot slipped.

Tris fought to turn and fall the way her teachers in hand-to-hand combat had taught her, but some other force yanked both of her feet high in the air. She did not simply fall. With Chime’s screams like scraped crystal in her ears, Tris cartwheeled and bounced down the long stair, hitting every hard step with what felt like a different part of her body.

W
hile servants ran for the best healer in the district, Sandry requested, and got, a heavy sheet of canvas. She spread it out next to Tris, struggling not to look at her sister’s contorted body. I’ll just cry if I do, and if I cry, I’m no good to anyone, she told herself, smoothing the canvas over and over. She looked around. “Briar?” she asked, her voice still rasping.

“Right here.” He had come to stand on Tris’s other side, knowing without asking what she needed from him. Together, using their power as carefully as they had ever done, Sandry and Briar worked with the hemp cloth, wriggling it very carefully under the unconscious Tris. All of their concentration was on getting the cloth in place without causing her more pain. By the time it was under her, the healer and her two assistants had come. The woman nodded in approval of their work, then stepped back. The assistants let their magic flow out to grip the makeshift stretcher. Gently they raised it and floated Tris upstairs.

Sandry trotted after them. “She’s a mage, she’s a mage with weather, her hair is her mage kit,” she explained breathlessly, frightened for Tris. “Chime, go to Briar, you can’t help her. Chime, I mean it! Don’t make me use magic on you!” When Chime reluctantly changed course and flew back downstairs to Briar, Sandry babbled on: “Please, whatever you do,
Viymeses, Viynain
, don’t undo Tris’s braids or you’ll release something. I think they’re spelled so only she can untie them—”

They had gone into Tris’s room. Now the healer turned back, her finger to her lips. “We will tend to her. Thank you for the information about her power, and her braids. Now let us do our work.” She closed the door in Sandry’s face.

Briar and Daja came up the stairs at a slower pace, Briar with Chime on his shoulder. Once the door was closed, the only signs of life inside came when the assistants popped in and out with requests for hot water, cloths, tea, and the like. Sandry, Daja, and Briar sat on the floor out of the assistants’ way, Sandry with Chime in her lap, Daja and Briar leaning against each other.

Ambros and Ealaga had stayed below to settle the household and to bring in a mage to see what had made Tris fall so spectacularly. When they finally came upstairs, Ealaga ordered a footman to bring chairs for everyone. She and Ambros took their own seats, waiting for news, while the three young mages lurched to their feet to sit in a more dignified way.

After half an hour’s silence, Briar announced, “We can see magic, you know. There was no need to call an outsider in. There wasn’t a spell on the steps.”

“Have you studied curses?” Ambros asked quietly.

“Just the usual stuff, no specialization,” whispered Daja. “They’re disgusting.”

“Yes, but some people here use them.” Ealaga said. “A very few are so good that they can place a curse in a hidden place, where even those who see magic won’t see it. There it remains until it’s called to life. Then it will seek out its target.” She looked at her hands. “Ishabal Ladyhammer is said—in whispers, you understand—to be able to wield curses without detection. Subtle curses. Ones that seem like accidents.”

“But then every time there is a household accident, people could well think they had drawn the wrath of the empress,” protested Sandry. “You would follow that road to madness!”

“Or to very well-behaved citizens,” Daja murmured.

“It was an
accident
,” Sandry insisted, her face white. Did I bring this on Tris? she asked herself. Is she hurt now because I couldn’t be a good girl and simply wait out the summer to go home?

“When I fall on stairs, I land on my knees or my back or my side,” Briar said hesitantly. “If I’m on my side: I roll, if I’m on my back, I slide. On my knees sometimes, I slide down a little.” Briar traced a vine on the back of one hand,
his voice muffled. “I never cartwheeled. I never bounced. She couldn’t even grab hold of the rails—did you see? But she was taught how to fall, same as the rest of us. She can twirl a mean staff, she can kick a fellow’s”—he looked at Ealaga and changed what he was about to say—“teeth up between his ears, and she can fall properly, so she doesn’t hit anything important. So she can stop herself and get back on her feet. Except here she just kept going.”

“They hope if she stays behind, they can persuade her that her interests are better served in Namorn?” suggested Ambros. “What she can do—it is so very overwhelming. To manipulate the weather itself…”

“But if this is a curse from Ishabal, and Tris finds out, I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes,” pointed out Daja. “Trader log it, I wouldn’t want to be
near
her. Tris certainly won’t be hoping to work for the crown!”

Sandry nibbled her thumbnail, considering what Ambros had said. “She’s the most fearsome of us, on the surface of things,” she commented slowly. “What if they just didn’t want her going with us?”

Briar shrugged. “Easiest solved. We don’t leave without her.”

Sandry agreed, but her skin crept at the same time. Tris’s injuries weren’t as simple as a broken leg. Even with a good healer, she would need time—weeks—to recover. How many things could go wrong if they stayed on here for weeks?

The clock had struck two and Daja was drowsing when the bedroom door opened. The healer emerged. She was sweaty and shaky. Her hair straggled out from under the cloth scarf that covered her head. One of her assistants had to help her to stay on her feet; the other carried her medicines.

The healer looks like she battled Hakkoi the Smith God and lost, thought Sandry, rising to her feet. Everyone else stood to see what the woman had to say.

“The last time I treated anyone so badly off, he’d fallen thirty feet down a cliff, and he died.” The healer’s voice was an exhausted croak. “Your friend won’t die. Miraculously, she has five broken ribs, and none of them punctured her lungs. None of the broken bones cut through the skin, a blessing I never looked to get.”

“A very well-crafted curse,” muttered Ambros.

Ealaga glared at him. “How bad is Tris?” she asked.

The healer had looked at Ambros when he said “curse.” “Ah,” she murmured. “Things become clearer. It explains much.” She sighed.

Sandry beckoned to the assistant who held the woman upright and pointed to her chair. Getting the hint, the young man carefully lowered the healer to the seat. Ealaga whispered to the maid who had stayed up in case anyone needed anything. The girl scampered off.

“Your girl has no punctured organs or skin. She has a broken collarbone, a dislocated shoulder, two small cracks in her skull, a broken cheekbone, one arm broken in two
places, a broken wrist, five broken ribs, a dislocated hip, three breaks in her right leg, and a broken ankle on the left. She also has several broken fingers and toes,” the healer said once she’d caught her breath. “It is a miracle, or, if it is a curse, as you say, then it was deliberately constructed to save the girl’s life. There is only one curse-weaver in the empire with that level of skill, and that is all I will say on that topic.”

Sandry, Briar, and Daja exchanged horrified looks. They had all seen their fair share of injuries and healing. Never had they seen anyone who had endured the mauling Tris had.

I’m going to be sick, thought Sandry. She bit the inside of her cheek and forbade her stomach to misbehave.

“I did what I could tonight,” the healer continued. “She has been very well taught—I was able to work inside her power and around it with very little difficulty indeed. It’s always delightful to handle a mage who has been trained by good healers in the art of keeping power controlled. The hip and shoulder are back in their sockets. I was able to heal the ribs and skull completely—they are the most dangerous breaks. She is fortunate that she had no blood collecting inside her skull. I started the healing of the collarbone and jaw, and braced the broken limbs. I have safeguarded her for infection and shock. Tomorrow, when I come, I will bring two colleagues who will help to undo what healing has been done tonight on those breaks I was unable to look after, and begin clean healing for the rest of the broken bones.”

“Begin?” Ambros asked with a frown. Briar was nodding.

“This is not as simple a matter as a single broken arm or leg, good
Saghad
,” the healer’s male assistant replied at his most polite. “The more injuries the victim endures, the more time is needed for healing. If the healers do not take care, the repair will be weak and the bone will break again. Or scarring will take place and will put the patient’s entire body at risk.”

The senior healer nodded.

“But we were planning to leave for Emelan soon,” Sandry heard herself say.

“My dear
Viymese
, forgive me,” said Ambros as the maid arrived with tea for everyone. She served the healer first as Ambros continued, “This is my cousin, Sandrilene,
Clehame
fa Landreg, who is also
Saghada
fa Toren in Emelan. These are
Viymese
Daja Kisubo and
Viynain
Briar Moss. Your patient in there is
Viymese
Trisana Chandler.”

“Clehame.”
The healer bowed her head, but did not try to get to her feet. She impatiently waved away an offer of cakes from the maid. “The girl—Tris?—she tried to tell me she was leaving soon as well. I let her know she won’t be leaving that bed for at least a week—more, if she tasks herself.”

Sandry firmed her lips, which tried to tremble and make her look like a pouting child. “As my sister, she will have the finest care money can buy,” she informed the healer.

“Hmph,” replied the woman. “Not much family resemblance. But it is as I have told you. She asks to see the three of you. She will not take the sleeping medicine until she sees you, so please, attend to her immediately, so she will sleep.”

Chastened, the three young mages filed into Tris’s room, Chime riding on Daja’s shoulder. Once inside, they all stopped to stare. One of Tris’s arms and one of her legs was bound to slats and covered in tightly wrapped bandages. Splinted fingers and toes had their own wooden supports secured with white linen. All of her braids hung loose. The lingering tracks of the healer’s magic were evident on Tris’s skull and body. None of them had ever seen anyone so badly hurt that they weren’t on their feet in a few days, given a good healer.

Tris looked naked without her spectacles, which had been smashed in her fall. Sandry went to Tris’s writing box and took out one of the spare pairs of spectacles that lay with the pens and ink sticks. Carefully she settled them on Tris’s nose, taking care to touch none of the bruises on Tris’s face. “At least your nose wasn’t broken,” she whispered.

Tris raised the unbroken arm and laid her splinted hand on Sandry’s. Her magical voice, while exhausted, was not as faint as her battered form might lead them to expect.
Don’t put off leaving for me,
she told them, her magical voice reaching Briar and Daja as well.
You meant to go day after tomorrow—go. Don’t risk getting stuck here.

We’re not leaving you
, Sandry retorted, her chin sticking out.
Don’t be ridiculous.

Don’t
you
be ridiculous!
Tris snapped in reply, her thought-voice as stern and forceful as pain and drugs would allow.
I can catch up once I’m able to ride. I move faster alone than you will in a group. And when I go, I’ll have cooked up a shield that will return any ill wishes and curses to the sender, whether I see them coming or not. But the longer you put off going, the more they’ll be able to put in your way. Right now they seem to think
I’m
the biggest threat. They have no idea how dangerous you all are. That will help you. Take Zhegorz and Gudruny and the children and go, now.

“I don’t want to say it,” Briar said aloud, “but she makes sense.”

“I hate it when she does that,” added Daja.

Sandry glared at them. Apparently Daja and Briar had yet to reopen their connection to each other, though obviously they had renewed their ties to Tris and Sandry.

This is no time for jokes!
she shouted.

“Oh, there’s
always
time for jokes,” Briar replied with his sweetest smile.

The healer’s male assistant opened the door. “She says to come out.” He walked over to the bed and picked up a cup of dark liquid. “And she says
you
will drink this.”

“Go home,” croaked Tris. “I’ll catch up as soon as I can.”

“We’ll do it,” Briar assured Tris. He leaned down and
kissed her unbruised forehead. “You’ve got a good plan there. Get better.”

“I’ll be happy to leave as soon as possible, Rizu or no,” Daja added, kissing the top of Tris’s head carefully. “Don’t mind Sandry. She only goes on Her Nobleness when she’s frightened.” She followed Briar out of the room.

Tris looked at Sandry. The healer cleared his throat.

“I feel like I’m deserting you,” Sandry explained, looking at the floor.

“Try feeling like you’re using common sense,” Tris suggested quietly. “That’s what I do when I’m doing what I think is right.” She swallowed the medicine. The healer set the cup aside and steered Sandry out of the room, closing the door behind them. A last look at Tris showed Sandry that her eyelids were shut. She was already asleep.

The 23rd – 26th days of Rose Moon, 1043 K. F.

Landreg House

Dancruan, Namorn

Sandry lowered the lid on her last trunk and locked it, then nodded permission for the footman to take it away. She wondered if she ought to look in on Tris one last time. Tris had barely woken for two days, steeped in the spells of three healers. Sandry, Briar, and Daja had already said
their good-byes to her around midday. Somehow Sandry doubted Tris would be up at dawn to wave good-bye to their small caravan of three mages, Gudruny and her children, Zhegorz, and the ten men-at-arms Ambros had detailed to escort her to the border.

Sandry looked at Ambros, who sat in her window seat reading an account book. “I wish you wouldn’t send those ten guards with me,” she told her cousin. “You need them back home and we’ll move faster without them.”

“It would look shabby if we sent you off without,” Ambros said in his dry way. “I will not let it be said that I failed in my duty to you.”