The Wanderer's Mark: Book Three of Imirillia (The Books of Imirillia 3)

by Beth Brower

  It was Eleanor.

  “I am so tired,” Basaal murmured.

  “You should be,” Ammar said from nearby. “We gave you something to help you sleep.”

  Clearing his throat, Basaal braved the words. “And my eyes?”

  “I have done all that I know how to with the materials at hand,” Ammar said practically. “The Aemogen physician had never seen Arillian salts before, but he did well to wash it out as soon as they could force you to let him. The salve I applied should remain in place for a day, so we will remove the bandages tomorrow. You should sleep through until then—I’ve a theory it helps with the healing,” Ammar added.

  “Are you feeling any pain just now?” Eleanor asked quietly.

  “Yes.” Basaal moved his fingers to find hers.

  “I am not in any way saying you deserved this, Basaal,” Eleanor said, “but you seem to have an extraordinary gift in aggravating people to violence against you.”

  Ammar’s laugh could be heard from across the room, where he was preparing a draught for the pain.

  “I thought that was the plan.” Basaal coughed. “You two don’t seem to be taking my impending blindness very seriously at all,” Basaal said with a short breath. Every movement caused his eyes to burn all the more.

  “I do not think it will cause you to go blind,” Ammar said. Basaal could hear his brother’s footsteps walking towards him. “Drink this,” Ammar said.

  Eleanor urged Basaal to sit up if he could. It was unbearable. He hissed from the pain. Eleanor put one hand to his back as Ammar brought the sleeping draught to Basaal’s lips. The taste was not a pleasant one, but Basaal forced himself to swallow.

  “You are a desperate sadist,” he said to Ammar and then coughed again, “come all the way to Aemogen just so you can ply your poisons down my throat.” The thought caught in Basaal’s mind, and he shifted his head in the direction of his brother.

  Ammar laughed. “I’m not here to poison you, Basaal. Do not worry your pretty head about that. I have even attended to your freshly split lip. You never could avoid a fight, could you?”

  Eleanor helped Basaal lie back down. “Who did you cross fists with this time?” she asked patiently.

  “Emaad,” Basaal said sleepily. “It was Emaad.”

  “The sedative must be taking affect.” Basaal could hear Ammar’s voice, though it was faint now as sleep was claiming his attention. “He is confused.”

  ***

  Basaal slept soundly until the following afternoon, when Ammar decided to remove the bandages and assess the injury. Eleanor sat beside him on the bed, her hand on his forehead, knowing the coming pain would wake him. Ammar began unwrapping the bandages from Basaal’s swollen eyes.

  “I did not realize the great physician of Zarbadast made house calls,” Eleanor said in Imirillian as Ammar worked. Basaal began to stir.

  “I didn’t realize you two could not live without me,” Ammar replied. “Literally.” A frown appeared on Ammar’s face as he placed his fingers gently near Basaal’s eyes. The burns on the skin near his left eye were raw and bright, but there was little or no damage near the right. Basaal sucked in between his teeth and spoke as he roused himself from sleep.

  “You’ve come to kill me at last.”

  Eleanor’s lungs tightened as he spoke. She cleared his hair away from his forehead and smiled, forgetting he could not see it.

  “I am going to try and open each eye to see the damage done,” Ammar said. “It will be very painful.”

  Basaal set his face, the same determined expression Eleanor had seen before. She reached down, her fingers wrapping around his, tight and still. Edythe entered, Miya following, carrying water, clean linens, and several springs of dried lavender.

  “Ready?” Ammar asked Basaal. The younger prince nodded. Ammar pressed his fingers against Basaal’s left eyelid and eased it open. Basaal flinched and breathed in tightly but held still. Ammar frowned again then slowly pulled away his fingers and inspected Basaal’s right eye.

  Basaal dug his fingers into Eleanor’s palm. “And?” Basaal said, struggling to speak even after Ammar had closed his eyelid.

  Ammar’s expression was tired. “Vision in the right eye will clarify after only a few days. The left is a more difficult guess. If there is not a full recovery, I would guess you will not loose much sight, but your vision might be blurry.”

  The physician held up a small vial of amber liquid. “This can be applied directly to the eye,” he explained. “It was brought down from Zarbadast, and one of its purposes is to treat Arillian salts. It will burn, but it can help heal what damage you have sustained. It should be applied every hour for the next two days and then three times a day after that.”

  “Show me how,” Eleanor said.

  Ammar looked from Eleanor to Basaal. “It is simple, really,” he said as he uncorked the vial and leaned it towards Basaal’s eye. “Can you open your eye, Basaal?”

  He did not respond verbally, but Basaal forced his right eye open, and Ammar dripped the liquid into it.

  “Oh!” Basaal opened his mouth from the shock of it, as if he had fallen into a freezing river. Eleanor grimaced as he gripped her hand tighter. She glanced at Edythe, who watched the process with a troubled frown. When Basaal opened his left eye, it looked cloudy.

  “Does any light come in?” Ammar asked. Basaal shook his head and clenched his jaw for the pain. Ammar placed the drops in Basaal’s left eye with, from what Eleanor could see, the same searing results. He then returned the vial to the table near the window.

  Eleanor placed her hand on Basaal’s face, careful to avoid touching the burned skin around Basaal’s eyes. There would be scars. The sound of clinking glass brought Eleanor’s attention back to Ammar, who was busy mixing powders into a cup of water.

  “This is what helped you sleep so deeply before,” Ammar said. “Your body will have a much needed rest, and I will be here to attend to you when you wake.”

  Basaal nodded and breathed slowly out of his open mouth.

  Eleanor moved her hand behind his neck and helped Basaal into a position where he could drink the physician’s concoction. He tried to say something to her, but she could not understand.

  “What is it, Basaal?” she asked. But his long slow breathing betrayed him to be falling asleep. His grip on her hand loosened, and Eleanor laid Basaal’s head back against the pillow.

  After Miya and Edythe had removed themselves from the room, Eleanor left Basaal alone on the bed, coming to sit in a chair beside Ammar. She covered a yawn.

  “I must return to the business of state,” she said, watching Basaal as she spoke.

  “How came you by these scars?” Ammar asked as he reached across, lifting Eleanor’s wrist, and moved his fingers over the ridges.

  “The slavers of the Shera Shee,” Eleanor said.

  Ammar lifted his cheeks in sympathy. “Are there others?”

  “They cover my ankles and cross my back, like an endless line of rope,” Eleanor stated. “And you can see my chin well enough for yourself.” She moved her finger across the line that wrapped across her neck and up through her lip.

  Ammar looked at Eleanor with an honest concern. “There is a cream, which I left back at the pass with most of my supplies, that should help. It will not take away the marks, but it would make them look less angry.”

  Eleanor nodded, and moved her fingers along the lines on her wrist before she stood. “Will you care for him, Ammar, while I am gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “I will have a messenger outside the door at your disposal,” she said. “You are guarded and not free to wander at will, as you are technically a prisoner of war, but send for me for whatever you need.”

  Ammar gave a dark half laugh. “Would that I could be more amused by this turn of fate.”

  A tired smile came to Eleanor’s lips. “You will find no assassins here to trouble your sleep.”

  “What I have found here,” Ammar replied, his eyes w
andering to Basaal’s sleeping form, “is far more troubling, I assure you.”

  ***

  “He’s muttering in a language I can’t understand,” Sean said as he walked along, almost trailing behind Eleanor. “But the farmer with him said he’s a friend of yours and that so is the girl.”

  Ignoring all discipline, Eleanor ran into the stable yard, her hair flying out behind her. Zanntal was looking around, trying to direct the stable boy in Imirillian, tired and frustrated, holding a wide-eyed Sharin. When his eyes found Eleanor, his expression left behind its worry. Eleanor threw her arms around him. Sharin then reached for Eleanor, sliding into her arms. Holding Sharin close, Eleanor whispered comforts into her ear.

  “Getting that herdsman’s wife to let us leave for Ainsley was a near impossibility,” Zanntal said, obviously tired and hungry. “I could not understand a thing they were trying to say, and Sharin cried the entire journey.”

  Miya came rushing out. “Sean said there was a child?”

  “Yes,” Eleanor said as she pulled Sharin’s hair back from her face and kissed her cheek. “This is Sharin. She came over the mountains with me. Please take her to be washed and fed, then let me know how she fares.” After Miya had left with Sharin, Eleanor took Zanntal’s arm and walked with him to the travelers’ house. “You may bathe and change, if you wish, before the evening meal.”

  “The woman we stayed with stole my robes while I slept and scrubbed them so hard I am surprised I was able to put them back on,” Zanntal said. “But, she did mend the rends from the mountains.” Zanntal had never looked so serious. “I hope I will not disgrace you before your nobility.”

  Eleanor laughed as they climbed the stairs of the travelers’ house. “We are not quite so formal here in Aemogen,” she assured him. “What have you picked up of the language?”

  “No, I need nothing,” he said, stuttering over the words.

  Eleanor laughed again. “It’s such a relief to have you here. Tomorrow I can take you to see Basaal.”

  Zanntal grabbed Eleanor’s arm in response. “My prince is in your country?”

  “Yes,” Eleanor said, turning serious. “I will tell you a little now and more after you have been settled. For Aemogen rides for war in only a handful of days.”

  ***

  Basaal slept the entire day, not waking once when Ammar had applied the amber liquid to his eyes. He finally stirred after the windows had turned dark, and Ammar’s dinner was long since eaten. Eleanor had not yet returned, and Ammar wondered if she would sleep elsewhere tonight.

  Basaal yawned and lifted himself up against the pillows. He moved to rub his eyes before Ammar could warn him, and Basaal hissed at the result, leaning his head back against the wall. Ammar watched his youngest brother with curiosity.

  “Did you always plan to come to her?” Ammar asked in Imirillian.

  “Pardon?” Basaal replied, sleep heavy in his voice.

  “Did you always plan to come to her?”

  “No,” Basaal said as he rolled his head back against the wall, his face pointing towards the ceiling. The movement brought lines of pain to his face. “Yet, here I am despite—”

  “Despite?”

  “Despite knowing that even if I were still in camp, I could never send my army against the people of this country.” Basaal sighed, and set his mouth in a rueful line. “I was doubting the invasion, in whatever form, long before the Illuminating God forbade me from marching my army into Aemogen.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Knowing that his brother was skeptical of his religion, the younger prince expected no more of an answer than what Ammar gave. Basaal shifted towards his brother and tried to open his eyes. His right eye appeared to have cleared, and he could see a vague shadow where his brother was. But it stung too much to open his left. He gave up and swung his legs off the side of the bed, sitting up, feeling the warmth from the nearby fire. “You and I have had many private conversations, questioning Father’s motives, especially during these last several years of his aggression. I came to respect this people and could not bear the thought of being responsible for destroying them. But that does not mean I ever thought to join them.”

  “If you did not come to them, how is it you are here?”

  Basaal cleared his throat and felt embarrassed. “I’d developed an irrational desire to know if Eleanor had arrived home. And so, the night I rode out to the pass, I foolishly decided to investigate an old fortress in the mountains, known and used only by the Aemogen army. I was captured and brought here for public trial.”

  “The charge?”

  “High treason,” Basaal replied. “The time I’d spent in Aemogen qualified them to try me as a citizen.”

  “The penalty?”

  “Death.”

  Ammar cocked an eyebrow. “The tale gets better and better.”

  “I’ve told you before of the Aemogen legal system,” Basaal said as he tried again to open his eyes. “I stood before them, hearing all their accusations against me, not able to utter one word in my defense. My sentence would have been death, and they would have voted for it, every single one of the council, but someone did step forward and argue for pardon on my behalf. Eleanor.”

  Ammar’s face was partly hid in the shadow of the melting candle, yet his eyes still watched Basaal intently. “And?”

  “Eleanor argued they should spare me,” Basaal said as he raised a hand to his swollen eyelids and touched the tight skin around his left eye. “She reasoned for my life by arguing I had spared her life and sought to protect Aemogen from the emperor, therefore showing character and true intent. She also spoke of all the pains I had taken to prevent another Aramesh. I do not think any of her arguments were swaying the council until, at the end, when she revealed to them and to the court that we had been married, and I was her husband.” Basaal frowned. “She asked for claim on my life and volunteered the terms of pardon. In the end, they voted to spare my life.”

  “And let me guess the rest of the tale,” Ammar said smoothly. “You, who should have been grateful to Eleanor for risking her reputation and, possibly, the respect of her people to save your life, instead refused to show any gratitude for the gift of it.”

  “She took away my choice in the matter,” Basaal whispered.

  “It sounds like she preserved your life.” Ammar shifted on his chair and leaned forward.

  “I was forced,” Basaal insisted. “I could not choose to return to the service of the Imirillian Empire, I could not choose to disappear, I could not choose to stay and earn her trust. It was decided what I would do.”

  “Did you say as much?” Ammar asked.

  “I said awful things—so did she,” Basaal said and then laughed. “You know, she even told me that, after the war ends, I would be free to go, free to disappear and never see her again.” He paused, speaking quieter. “That sounds just as unbearable, but—”

  “Will you go?”

  “I am not sure if I will even survive the war,” Basaal stated blankly. “Since I have promised to fight for Aemogen. And now—” Basaal groaned, lifting his hand to his eyes. “What kind of devilry were you up to? How came you to join Drakta’s emissary?”

  “I had convinced Father to try one last effort at diplomacy. He sent me as punishment, I am certain. Blindfolded, riding an uncomfortable horse, hearing jeers I thankfully did not understand—Drakta acted on his own accord when he attacked you, but Eleanor is right, you are provoking. It’s a wonder that she loves you as she does.”

  Basaal opened his eye and stared at the shadow that was his brother. “I don’t know what to do with love, mine or hers. I still can’t grasp that I am now separated from Imirillia forever. And she, fairly or unfairly, has become the symbol of that. I’ve been trying, Ammar. I really have. And, once or twice, it’s been as if we were back in Zarbadast, contented with each other’s company. But then,” he made a motion with his hand, “it’s gone. A word, a misplaced expression, and all is replaced by pride or circumstance
. To make it easier, I tell myself she doesn’t care for me in a significant way.”

  Shrugging, the physician sounded as if he had lost interest in the topic. “She appears to.”

  “What?”

  “Care,” Ammar said, “despite more pressing responsibilities.”

  “Well,” Basaal said as he shook off his serious thoughts with a black grin, then grimaced at the pain of it. “How could she resist?”

  Ammar guffawed. “Very easily, I assure you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “It’s settled then,” Eleanor said, drumming the table with her fingers. “We will send the Imirillians, save Drakta, back to Shaamil with a stalling response, as our forces move into the Maragaide valley.”

  Crispin had said earlier that the Imirillians were close to clearing the pass but had no hope of making enough headway to break through Aemogen’s fortifications within the week. This was a relief to Eleanor. They reviewed again the progress of the smithies then heard a report Thayne had received from Marion. Several of the explosives were en route to Marion, and Thayne would leave three days early to be in position with his Marion troop the day before Crispin would lead the attack.

  Edythe then reported she was preparing a group of women to come through the mountain to see to the wounded after the fight. They were gathering blankets, preparing basins and rags, and searching for herbs and teas.

  “And, will there be a celebration, per Aemogen tradition, the night before the armies depart?” Thayne asked.

  The thought surprised Eleanor. She glanced at Aedon and then at Thayne, rubbing her finger along the wood grain of the table. “I don’t see how we can hold with the tradition, Thayne,” she finally said. “The entire nation is heading to war. It is not always a time to dance.”

  “Begging your pardon, Eleanor, but this is exactly the time,” Edythe affirmed quietly. “All of your men are marching to battle. Their wives and sweethearts deserve to dance with them one last time. We should come together, regardless of the situation, as we Aemogens always do.”

  Aedon leaned back in his chair and looked toward Eleanor.