The Queen and the Cure

by Amy Harmon

  “Run along, boys. We will have the captain come to our lessons one day. He can tell us about one of his adventures then,” Sasha called from the door of the Great Hall. Kjell tried not to raise his eyes, knowing seeing her would hurt, but it was like holding his breath, futile and unavoidable. He filled his lungs as he met her gaze. Her cheekbones were flushed with two deep splotches of color, and Padrig sighed, bowing deeply as he excused himself.

  “Where is your guard?” Kjell asked the queen softly.

  “I am here, Captain,” Isak spoke from behind her. The queen stepped aside and let him exit the Great Hall.

  “Two men are outside the front entrance, two at every other entrance. One there,” he pointed to the end of the long hall that extended from the foyer, “and one there.” A guard named Chet moved from beneath the broad staircase and bowed his head, greeting the captain. Kjell hadn’t even known he was present.

  Kjell grunted in satisfaction. “Will the children return?” He asked Sasha.

  “Not today. They were promised a sweet in the kitchens, but their studies are complete for the day.”

  “Much has been accomplished in a month,” he said.

  “Yes. And there is still much to do,” she replied.

  Their eyes locked, drinking each other in, their words falling off as their hungry observations interrupted their stilted exchange.

  “There is white in your hair, Captain. At your temples,” she breathed, and a radiant smile split her face. She reached a hand toward him before snapping it back, like she’d forgotten she wasn’t supposed to touch him.

  Kjell tugged at his hair the way the young boys had pulled at their own, minutes before.

  “That makes you smile?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered, and he heard emotion in her throat.

  “Why?” he questioned, incredulous.

  “I have not seen you this way,” she replied.

  She had not seen him this way. The memory of her fear in the alley in Brisson, of her dread that he would die in Dendar with a head of dark hair rose to his mind.

  “I was not as pleased as you to note the change,” he confessed.

  “Vanity is for the weak,” she teased, but her throat convulsed as if she swallowed back grateful tears, and he looked away, unable to abide her smile or her sweet relief without breaking his promises.

  He turned to leave, but she stopped him.

  “There is something you should see, Captain. Isak could . . . follow.” Her sentence rose on the end like a question. Kjell nodded, making sure Isak heard the request.

  “At your service, Majesty,” Kjell said, inclining his head. Without further ado, she headed in the direction the children had gone, but instead of going to the kitchen she turned down the corridor that led beyond the huge galley. At the end of the wide hallway, she opened a door to a flight of stairs that disappeared into darkness after the first few steps.

  “Isak? Light?” Kjell asked, pulling a torch from the sconce in the corridor. Isak obeyed and the sconce whooshed to life in Kjell’s hand. Sasha immediately began to descend, her hand against the rock wall. Kjell stopped her, grabbing her arm, not liking the darkness or the unknown destination, and instructed Isak to move past them, leading the way with glowing hands and curious feet.

  Once Kjell touched her, he couldn’t let her go, and they stood for a heartbeat, his breath stirring her hair on the step above her before they began to descend behind Isak.

  “There are twenty-eight steps to the bottom,” Sasha said softly. “I discovered this place when I was just a girl and thought it a den of witches. I had forgotten about it. But King Aren reminded me yesterday that this was . . . Princess Koorah’s . . . special chamber.” She said Koorah’s name carefully, as though she didn’t want to explain her significance to Isak.

  Kjell stiffened and knew Sasha felt his response.

  “There are oil lamps on every surface, Isak,” Sasha instructed as they neared the bottom. Isak lit the lamps, one by one, and as the wicks caught, the cavernous room brightened until the shadows danced. Bottles and vials lined the shelves, and a dried out inkwell and two leather-bound books, complete with drawings and detailed descriptions, were open on a sturdy table as if someone had been perusing them recently.

  “Koorah was a Healer, but she wanted to be a physician too. There are notes on everything—the tonics and ointments she created from the herbs of Caarn—and there are journals there,” Sasha pointed at the far wall, “filled with accounts of healings and sickness. Aren said that she believed the ability to heal shouldn’t be limited to the Gifted. She wanted to share her gift.”

  Kjell touched the bottles, noting the careful labeling—tonic for fever, for snakebites, for coughing, for stomach ailments.

  “These cures have to be older than I am,” he whispered, and immediately regretted his choice of phrasing. “They are liable to poison anyone who partakes.”

  “But they could be replicated,” Sasha urged.

  “Sasha,” he sighed. Then he flinched. He had promised himself he would not say her name, that he would remain removed and politely appropriate. “Majesty, I am a warrior who has been given the gift to heal. I am not a scholar or an alchemist. I can barely read and would go mad in this room if left here more than an hour. Surely, you know this.” He cursed himself again. He did not need to remind her of their familiarity.

  She smiled at him, her lips curving in a way that was both tender and tortured.

  “Yes. I know this. I am going to seek out the gifts of my people. If we do not know what we are capable of, what we each have to offer, then we waste time and talent. We are not all Tree Spinners. We are not all Growers. It is time we discover what hidden abilities exist among us. These are Koorah’s books. I only wanted your permission and your approval if we find someone who could continue her work. Perhaps . . . you would like to take them to your chamber, to look through them first, before you allow someone else to study them?”

  Kjell looked at Isak, who hung back, his expression carefully bland, his eyes neutral. Kjell was not fooled. He had little doubt his men had all heard the name Koorah by now, and that they had all discussed Kjell’s possible link to the princess of Caarn in great detail. It was his own fault, he supposed. He had argued heatedly with the queen in the corridor where her picture was hung. Even so, his men were like gossiping hags, the whole lot of them. They all spent too much time together, cared too deeply about one another, and were endlessly curious about him. It had always been that way. The more he kept hidden, the harder they looked.

  “Where would I begin?” he murmured, touching the page of the book that lay open on the table before him.

  Sasha moved to the shelf that held the volumes. She pulled the first one down, ran her hand across it, wiping at more than three decades of dust.

  “The best thing about books is that you can start wherever you like. The pages are in order, but no one will know if you read the last one first.”

  He took the heavy volume from her, enjoying the weight and the shape of it, the permanence and the possibility. If it had belonged to his mother, he would like to read it. Alone. With care.

  His eyes skipped back to Isak and away again.

  “I would like to begin immediately,” Kjell said abruptly.

  Sasha smiled, nodding, and he realized she misunderstood. He shook his head, correcting her assumption.

  “The vials and potions can wait. The books as well. I want to know which gifts exist in Caarn.”

  He needed to find another Healer.

  They began their query in the Great Hall, but quickly discovered the foolishness of the idea and retired to a clearing at the wood’s edge. The Gifted were destructive. The edict had gone out—passing from mouth to mouth and ear to ear—that King Aren and Queen Saoirse were in search of rare gifts, and for an entire day the clearing was filled with both the curious and the brave. People were slow to come forward, afraid of laughter or scorn, but with a little reassurance from the ki
ng and kind pleading from the queen, the Gifted began to show themselves.

  Kjell stood to the side, his hand on his sword, his eyes on the gathering, letting the king and queen conduct the quest. He kept close enough to observe and far enough away not to obstruct. The king was fascinated by the demonstrations and displays, laughing and clapping his hands in appreciation of every effort, big or small.

  And some were very small.

  A woman who had come to Caarn from another village in Dendar could make herself the size of a caterpillar. Her husband raised her proudly in the palm of his hand for them all to see before setting her back down so she could resume her size.

  One of the young maids who had come from Jeru, a woman they called Tess, had a hidden gift as well. Sasha questioned her in surprise, asking her why she had not shared her ability sooner. Tess shrugged and worried her hands.

  “It’s a silly gift, Majesty,” she said. She chewed her nail, caught herself, and shoved her hands into the deep pockets of her long apron.

  “All gifts are welcome,” Sasha urged.

  “I can call water,” she admitted.

  “From the skies?” the king asked, surprised. Such a gift would be powerful indeed.

  “Perhaps. I haven’t tried very hard. There was never a need before. It is easier to call the water beneath my feet.”

  “Can you show us?” the king pressed.

  Tess stepped out of her shoes and woolen socks and lifted her skirts to her knees. The assembly watched as the dirt around her bare toes became increasingly damp, growing in an ever-widening pool.

  “My mother would slap me when I was small. She thought I . . . she thought I was wetting myself,” she said in a rush. “I would think of water, and it would just . . . rise. I’ve gotten better at controlling it.” The little maid turned red. “I know where to dig the wells, where the water is fresh, and where it will quickly run dry,” she added. “Maybe that could be of use?”

  “Such a gift would have been greatly appreciated in a place I once lived,” Sasha said quietly. Her eyes found Kjell’s before shifting away.

  A man named Gaspar, who had come from outside of Caarn and sought work in the castle guard, stepped forward next. He was quiet and competent, always willing to do whatever was asked of him.

  “I cannot change . . . but my eyes can,” he said simply. With no further explanation, his eyes became elongated, the irises yellow, and the pupils tall and oddly-shaped, like those of a feline. “I can see in the dark. It makes me a good hunter, a good watchman.” He looked expectantly at Kjell as he spoke, clearly eager to share his skill where it would be most appreciated.

  “Tell Lieutenant Jerick. You will take the darkest shift,” Kjell called out. The man nodded, pleased, and the demonstrations continued.

  Emboldened by the cat-eyed watchman, a few others came forward, shyly displaying talons, tails, spikes, and gills. The changes exhibited were small, partial, and specific, and none of the people who stepped forward could change entirely. The queen nodded encouragingly.

  “There were Changers like that in Quondoon. Surely there is a use for your gifts here in Caarn.”

  “I can change,” a man spoke from the crowd. “But not on land.”

  “Completely?” the king pressed.

  “Yes, Majesty. When I am in the water I can become any sea creature I wish.”

  “How much water do you need?” Kjell said, raising his voice above the murmuring of the excited spectators.

  The man shrugged. “It depends on the size of the creature I become.”

  Kjell looked to Tess. “Can you make a pool for the Sea Changer?”

  Tess stepped forward eagerly, hiking her skirts once more, and the water grew around her, a muddy patch that quickly became a large puddle.

  The man asked the ladies to avert their eyes. None of them did. He shrugged, indifferent, and began to remove his clothes. The crowd gasped. Very few of them knew what Changing entailed.

  “Have you ever seen a fish wearing a tunic?” the man asked with a smirk. “When I shift, my clothes fall off, and I’d rather not get them wet.” A few of the gathered villagers turned their heads, mortified, but most watched as, with an audible plop, the man became a small orange fish, not much bigger than the palm of Kjell’s hand. He swam in circles in the murky water before flopping on the ground beside the puddle and morphing back into a man. He calmly clothed his nakedness, a bit of mud smeared across his cheek.

  A child of twelve or thirteen, a boy named Dev with green eyes and hair almost as red as Sasha’s, made the wind gust around them, whipping at the queen’s hair and parting the king’s beard.

  “That’s a gift, isn’t it Highness?” his mother asked, unsure. “He’s a Tree Spinner too, but he spins like a storm. When he spins into a tree, he knocks the leaves off all the branches around him.”

  “It is indeed a gift,” the king reassured as the boy sent a happy breeze through the uppermost boughs of the nearby trees.

  A woman introduced her husband, Boom, claiming he was a special kind of Teller.

  “I speak for him because his voice is so loud, it’ll make your ears bleed,” the woman explained. “That’s why we call him Boom. Even when he whispers it’s too much. He talks with his hands or writes on a slate to communicate most of the time.”

  The man had a chest cavity like a lion and ears like a mole, as though the sound of his voice made his own head ache. Boom walked into the trees, putting a hundred feet between the gathering and himself. When he opened his mouth and said “good day,” the sound reverberated like a gong, and everyone assembled clapped their hands over their ears in pain.

  The king asked Boom to walk to the borders of Caarn and try once more. He did so, his voice cutting across the distance clear and bold and decidedly less painful to endure. The king declared him the castle crier, charged with relaying royal messages throughout the valley, and the man found himself suddenly employed.

  The gifts were odd and assorted, and more plentiful than Kjell had hoped. But as the day unfolded, no Healers revealed themselves. The gift of the Healer is the easiest to deny. He needed Gwyn of Jeru, the old Seer who could sense abilities in others, but he feared discovering a good diviner might be even harder than uncovering another Healer.

  As the sun began to sink behind the trees of Caarn, the crowd thinned and the sharing of talents ebbed. The night watch began their rounds, the king and queen returned to the castle, and the gates to the keep were lowered. Kjell retired to his small quarters in the garrison and opened the book that belonged to another Healer of Caarn, a woman he’d never known. Painstakingly, he began to read, to peruse the pages, hoping to find answers to questions he’d never asked before.

  Who were you?

  Who am I?

  How did you find the strength to leave?

  ***

  The tables were laden with everything a man could grow, in a variety only a child could dream up. The meat was still scarce—a few wild turkeys, two geese, and one of the chickens brought from the Bay of Dendar—but two more deer had been felled since Kjell had slain the doe, and what was lacking in meat was more than made up for in everything else. Grain had been harvested and ground to flour to make breads of every kind. Bread stuffed with berries and wrapped around apples or studded with raisins and sprinkled with herbs, made the air smell of yeast and spice.

  Stringed instruments and mellow drums made from the branches and trunks of fallen trees made warm music. No trees were cut down in Caarn. The tree had to die naturally before the wood was gathered. The people believed the trees gave freely of their branches and their leaves, their nuts and their needles in exchange for long life. Acorns were roasted, pine nuts were collected, sap siphoned, but only as much as the tree wanted to give. The trees had little use for any of the things they freely gave, and Kjell pondered whether the trees of Caarn had bleated like engorged milk cows, begging for relief, during the four long years no one had tended to them. Since the Spinners had been roused an
d the village enlivened, the forest floor had been harvested almost as thoroughly as the fields.

  The celebration spilled out from the castle to the courtyard to accommodate the numbers, and the watch on the city walls was frequently changed, allowing Kjell’s men and the new sentry to participate in the day-long festivities. The queen’s guards were instructed carefully, but Kjell spent the hours of dancing, feasting, and celebration watching the corners and the lovely queen, fingering the blade beneath his sleeve and the sword swinging in its sheath.

  Sasha wore the deep green of Jeru trimmed in the gold that suited her so well. The sleeves of her gown were wide, the edges trailing as long as her skirts, the bodice slim and the neck low, revealing the tops of her freckled breasts and the length of her slim throat. She wore her hair confined in dozens of braids coiled in dozens more, her golden crown resting in the wreath of her woven tresses.

  Just before sundown the king instructed the trumpets to sound and the drums to rumble, announcing the court of honor to be conducted in the main courtyard, where the guard could stand at attention and the villagers could fill the lower bailey. Kjell played his part, bowing his head and dropping to one knee, allowing King Aren to pronounce him a defender of the realm. He kept his eyes on the king’s boots as Aren laid his staff against Kjell’s shoulders, one at a time, knighting him. The people rubbed their hands together in appreciation, creating a sound that mimicked the whisper of the leaves in the forests that surrounded them, crying his name and declaring him an honorary son of Caarn.

  Kjell didn’t know the custom but remained kneeling, his eyes level, trusting that he would be instructed to rise when the court of honor was complete. The king turned to his queen and extended his hand to bring her forward beside him.

  Sasha curtsied deeply before Kjell, but when she placed the palm of her hand demurely on his bowed head, Kjell didn’t look up. He was afraid his eyes would give him away, dishonor the queen, and insult a king who had done nothing to deserve the offense.