by Andre Norton
They had no healer with the caravan—at least there had been no mention of such, though the girls were kept so carefully apart from most of the group, closely guarded by warwomen. She did have certain drugs which, taken in too heavy doses, would bring about the high fever that marked the outset of the plague. However, to use those on herself would dull her mind, and that she could not have. She did not know how long the mirror change would hold—it might have to be renewed, perhaps even each night.
Could she counterfeit the symptoms of plague well enough to stamp belief in her fellow travelers? With Hulde two seasons ago she had seen one case—strictly isolated when discovered—but they dared not refuse the aid of a healer. Luckily the plague had not spread but she remembered Hulde’s treatment—and that the Wisewoman had pressed home the point that once the skin eruptions appeared there was nothing to be done but give the victim certain drinks and make sure that he or she was kept warm and clean.
Their patient then, a trader from the hills who had been found in the fields outside the town, had survived, but he would bear until his death day the skin scoring of the disease.
“What’s to do?” Leela’s voice was cross. She must have been roused by Twilla’s shifting on the pallet, those were so closely set together.
“It is hot—so hot—” Twilla allowed her voice to die away weakly. She had put the mirror into tight safety against her skin but she believed it time to take the plunge into the act with which she must impress those about her.
“Stupid!” Leela snapped. “ ’Tis cold enough to freeze the scales off a blackfish. Git to sleep.”
“Hot—” Twilla pushed aside the top folds of her cloak. “My head—the pain—”
“Shut your jaws, you back there!” Tathan’s harsh whisper was enough to rouse them all. “What are you blabbin’ about?”
“ ’Tis the healer,” Rutha made answer. There was a shifting around as the others roused.
“Hot—so hot—” Twilla allowed her fretful voice to slide up the scale into a sound strong enough to carry through the wagon. “My head—Hulde—mistress—give me to drink of a potion—my head—”
“You, Iyt,” Tathan ordered, “light the lantern. That one makes no sense. But she’ll learn not to disturb the sleep of her betters!”
They were all awake now, moving to sit up on the pallets, though Twilla judged that more by sound for until the fire snap was set to the wick in the lantern there was no light—even the moon sickle had disappeared from overhead.
“Move—blast you sniveling demon spawn!” Tathan, with the lantern in hand, pushed past Hadee with a shove which sent the slight girl back painfully against the side of the wagon bed. Rutha and Jass had already pulled aside and Leela pushed Askla out of the way. Then Tathan was standing over that end pallet and had swung the lantern well down.
Was it holding? Had she been successful, or had her desire deceived her? Twilla gave a moan and flung up her arm, pushing the cloak hood well away from her face while the light of the lantern shown full upon her.
“By the Fins of Gar!” She felt Leela jerk away. “What—”
“Have you never seen plague?” If Rutha felt fear there was no note of it in her voice. “She claims to be a healer does she not? Who better would be one to bring such upon us? Who knows where she was before we started on this trail? Perhaps it takes a time for the evil to work within one’s body before it makes itself known!”
Even Tathan had fallen back a pace. So, Twilla thought with a small spring of self-confidence—they did see what she wished—she was stricken in the sight of all of these!
“Dump her!” Jass cried out. “Get her away!”
There was shaken laugh from someone, near hysteria from fear. Then Rutha spoke again:
“We have been close with her these ten days. She has shared food and drink with us. It is said that so does the plague pass—through closeness and sharing. If we leave her we have not done ourselves any good. She is a healer and carries a healer’s pack. If we can get through the haze of the fever upon her she may be able to help herself, perhaps us all, through her knowledge. But,” she had crawled partly into the lantern light and was now facing Tathan, “if you value your skin with your commander, warwoman, you will see he has word of this. You have kept us so close that she has not been near others of the caravan—therefore they may not be plague-taken if they keep their distance.”
“Call upon your heart power then, that Captain Was-ser sees it as you do. Otherwise, gal, we’ll all end with our throats slit and the wagon burned about us!” There was actually a shiver in Tathan’s last words.
Twilla tensed. Would the common sense Rutha had voiced hold, or would the guards be ignorant enough to follow Tathan’s dire suggestion? If that seemed to be coming closer to it she must move fast to undo what she had with over self-confidence done. Hulde had always urged upon her a careful forethinking of any action to do with power—this might be a disaster because she had not really done that.
Her fellow travelers had withdrawn as far as they could to the fore of the wagon leaving her, the lantern now beside her, isolated.
“She’s our death!” Jass said in a tight voice.
“You said,” Leela ignored the farmgirl and by her choice of words was speaking to Rutha, “that she might carry her own healing—”
“It is possible. But what would you choose from that pack of hers if you have it open? We are not trained in herb art.”
There was movement. A shadow loomed over her and Twilla was cut from the lantern light by the bulk; of the fishergirl’s broad shoulders. She turned her head a little.
“Leela?” she dared suggest, now, that she had moments of consciousness—she must do what she could to carry out Rutha’s sensible suggestion.
“Me!”
“Drink—please—”
The shadowy Leela turned her head and spoke over her own shoulder. “You there, Iyt—hand down the water bottle—”
“And have the plague slobber on it?” countered Tathan’s lieutenant. “Are you mad, fishergirl, or just dull-witted?”
“Leela—” Twilla allowed herself a fraction more voice, perhaps enough to reach Rutha, upon whose good sense she might well have to depend. “I am fevered. In the pack—the twigs tied—in—in green threads,” she made her speech as halting as she thought she now dared. “Break into water—give—”
She felt rather than saw the other jerk the precious healer’s pack around. The lantern light shifted as that was moved to a better position for the rummager.
“Found ‘em!” Leela announced triumphantly what seemed to Twilla a breath-holding time later. “All right, do we git that water, or do you answer to the captain when he asks why we ain’t doin’ what we can?”
“Warwoman,” Rutha’s clipped city speech was as sharp now as if she gave orders to some dull-witted maid servant within her own walls, “do we wait for our deaths or do we do what we can?”
“She be sick—how does that one know what is to be done? We don’t come to more water until midday tomorrow and if she fouls what we have—”
“You know the use of that sword you wear, do you not?” demanded Rutha. “To each their own talent. If a healer can heal others then she has the knowledge to also heal herself. Here—if you can—pour a portion into the cup and let us see to it!”
There was movement in the dark wagon and Rutha, must have prevailed, for Twilla caught sight of an edge of a cup within the lantern light and saw Leela thrust into it the small twist of twiglets. Not a remedy for fever but something to depend upon in times of stress to clear the mind for straight thinking—and she certainly needed that now.
She pulled herself up a fraction so that her bespelled face was well seen. Twilla braced herself on her arms, not expecting these who were well aware of the plague ravages to aid her. But Leela was still beside her and held out the cup from which there now arose an aromatic scent. She could sip, and then drink until the twigs were exposed and the liquid all inside her.
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Now there were sounds from beyond the wagon. Tathan had gone for her superior and it sounded as if more than one of them was returning. Then a man’s voice sounded from outside.
“You’ll keep your distance—get back from me, woman. We cannot leave any behind. We are pledged to a number and those we deliver, even if we have a wagon load of bodies to make up our score. As soon as we are over the pass news will be sent ahead. But you will move out in the morning in your proper station, understand. You—none of you are to come near any others. We’ll stack supplies and you can pick them up as you come. You say that this one claims to be a healer and has supplies—all right try her own treatment on her if you can. But—by the Horns of Ramu, woman, you and all with you keep your distance.”
If Tathan raised any dispute to that they did not hear it. Then she clambered in over the driver’s seat.
“You heard the captain,” her voice was sullen. “We takes our chances and there’ll be no dumping. He had the right of that—we bring in our full score. Didn’t Ro-been last season bring the body of one as fell to death at the crossing? Had to prove they started with full number. All right—what do we do?”
She sounded oddly at a loss, much of her loud-voiced authority seemingly stripped from her.
“She came a little out of the fever,” Rutha answered. “Told us what to do. Fill that cup again, Iyt, we may well need it.”
“Who you speakin’ to, smartmouth!” growled the woman. “How can you be sure she told you true?”
“Better to try something than wait for the worst to strike us,” returned Rutha. “Here you are, Leela, see if you can get this down her. You know,” another shadow joined that cast by Leela, “it is odd that such illness can do to one, she—perhaps it is the swelling of her skin, but she looks almost like another person.”
Twilla thought it time to make a small recovery. “Thank you, Leela,” she said in a near normal voice as the fishergirl held out the second cup. This time she pulled herself into a sitting position and took it into her own hands, swilling the leaves in the rusty water from their carrier.
“Last year—there was plague—a merchant—”
“A stranger from the north,” cut in Rutha, “yes, the council were much worried. But—he recovered did he. not? Yes, and it was your Wisewoman who cured him!” she ended excitedly.
“Yes, Hulde had a great knowledge—I have some, but only a little compared to hers. What I do now—that is of her learning.” And in the light of the lantern she deliberately not only swallowed the contents of the cup but chewed away on the sodden leaves it contained.
“Stay apart from me for three days,” she said, spitting that cud of leaf into her hand. “If by that time the blisters on the skin have run their full course—then I think you have nothing to fear. But I shall make it so. Leela,” again she appealed to the shadow who had drawn back at her warning, “go you through the pack again. You will find a small box which is marked with the sign of a flying bird. I shall not touch it so there can be no fear of any of you. Take out the paste you find within and roll it into small balls. Then let each one of you take one. You will feel drowsy—you will wish to sleep. And this you must do. Since the caravan would move on leaving us to be last it will not matter if we do not arouse at the first horn call. Tomorrow you will still feel tired but by the next sun all should be well. This Hulde uses in times of danger—”
Danger for some highly nervous patient who must be calmed before hard treatment. It was powerful but not dangerous and would give them sleep, take them through the first hours of their present fears.
“Wisewoman’s messes—” began Tathan, but again Rutha interrupted.
“Are better than anything your captain offers us,” the girl returned in a clipped voice. “Twilla, if we come out of this I will indeed speak well of healers.”
4
FOR THREE DAYS now they had been the tail of the caravan winding up, through the pass, and so out of the world they knew and into the unknown. Twilla had come to the end of her supplies of the mild sedative she had used to calm her companions. Since none of them had developed any sign of the plague they lost some of the rigid tension which had gripped them all on the first morning they had pulled out to be last in line.
Though they were anything but forgotten by the captain. One of his men appeared—at a prudent distance—each morning for a report on Twilla, on the chance that any of the others had so begun to suffer, on what supplies they would need. And since the report remained an ever satisfying one Twilla lost little by little her apprehension of what might await them now in the matter of ostracism over mountain.
She had allowed herself a gradual recovery, though one far more speedy than would have been normal for a true plague victim. By trading on her healer knowledge and the awe that her wagonmates were beginning to display for that, she succeeded in getting them to believe that indeed it was Hulde’s discoveries of yesterday year which served her apprentice so well now.
Twilla had urged upon them the warning that they were better out of the wagon as much as possible so that at night they now lay in blanket bags (against the chill of the high regions) beside the fire. Tathan was undoubtedly convinced that no one was going to strike away from that fire into the unknown—they were too far now from any possible settlement or outlying farm—even if those living there would dare to offer them refuge.
Rutha and Leela had become Twilla’s nurses. Odd partners that they were—educated merchant’s daughter, unlettered fishergirl—they shared an intelligence which did not need the nudging of book learning to awaken. Both of them, when they decided Twilla had reached a stage of convalescence wherein company would not be amiss, began to ask questions about herb lore.
She had dragged out that small book with its very tiny crabbed writing, meant to seal as much to a single page as possible, which listed herbs and the remedies for common ailments such as might visit any household during the seasons.
With a stick she drew on a cleared space of soil the outlines of leaf and flower shapes and drilled her listeners in what to look for. Lord Harmond might not want wisewomen, but he could not deny to any woman the right to care for her own household and kin.
Askla listened also, but it was plain that she had yet only a child’s interest, one quickly broken as she tired. Jass took a word in the proceedings now and then, sometimes scoffingly, but she was more attracted to Tathan and Iyt. The latter had been telling tales of battles, of the green demons and of great doings ahead and the once farmgirl listened with an awe and interest surprising to discover in one landborn. As for Hadee—the serving maid from overseas—she registered aversion to anything Twilla said, declaring loudly and long, that all such knowledge was of the dark and those who followed it would be possessed by the blackest of spirits. It had been difficult to get down her the pellets Twilla prescribed—only under the dire threat of Tathan’s fist had she gulped them in.
At night they slept—and Twilla was free to further her own plan. She held to it doggedly. Surely a combination of a haggish face, and her supposed service to the caravan would impress Lord Harmond, set to uphold customs as he was.
With moonlight and mirror she wrought as might an artist painting some masterpiece. The red marks on her face had become quickly eruptions—enough to repulse even friends. Rutha had asked over and over if there were not some healing she could bring to them and Twilla answered only that the disease must run its course and that the breaking of those eruptions and their draining would bring relief and a far step toward health again.
The night after they had crossed the pass, after Rutha had shared around the last of the sedative paste, Twilla waited tensely for their sleep. Then she sent into the heart of the mirror the full of her concentration. The change in her eyes—they now seemed smaller and red-rimmed, the eyes lashed thin and pale—could well have been left by an onset of a severe disease.
The badly swollen reflection of her nose she pondered over. None of them had commented upon it,
not even Leela with whom Twilla had been closest since before she began this mage labor. She could hope that, in the shock of her illness and the plague mask, they had truly forgotten what she had once looked like. No, she did not believe that she need lose that added bit of ugliness.
Now she concentrated on the skin, erasing most of the outer signs of eruptions, bringing in their places the beginning of pock marks which left her cheeks with a scaly, almost ragged, appearance. She surveyed the result of her efforts for some time, the dying fire giving her light enough for a critical evaluation, then she slid the mirror back into concealment.
There was one more obstacle ahead. Surely the out-landers had some form of medical attention, even if Lord Harmond had set his will against healers. There were men who could set bones, perform rude surgery and the like who traveled with an army. If such a one was sent to inspect them Twilla thought her disguise would hold. She would not have been so sure if she faced such a one as Hulde.
Before sunset she was to be proven right. The long line of the caravan had crunched the trail down from the heights. Before them stretched wide the new land. There were lesser heights to be crossed and those hid and revealed, hid and revealed what lay ahead.
To the south, stretching as far west as eyesight could reach was plains land. Twilla making her first attempt at walking beside the wagon, Leela solicitously beside her, thought she could also see evidence of man’s coming there in suggestions of fenced fields and a small blot or two, which might signal the planting of a farmstead.
However, to the north there was no light and openness. Rather, like a shadowed fortress looming over the country, stood a dark blot, which covered all which might lie there.
That—that could only be the forest—the dreaded territory in which lay the mystery which had been so fatal to those who had attempted to learn any secrets it hid. She studied it carefully. Such a huge and thick stand of wood as to blot out the land was unknown in Varsland where delvings, slashings, and the ever-present demands of humankind had been known for untold years. Trees in the east were, as it seemed herded by man, orchards bloomed and bore to order and were pruned, and otherwise bent to the will of the owner. Even the few firs which grew in the yet unstirred corners looked small and thin as if they hoped to be overlooked and forgotten.
