The Physicians of Vilnoc

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Oh. Thank you.” Pen accepted it, and the clerk nodded and skittered out without waiting to take a reply; understandable. Visitors to the hospice court were as few as could be arranged at present. Master Rede had forbidden the soldiers to come see their comrades ill with the bruising fever, a prohibition that had not been hard to enforce.

  Pen opened it, scattering sealing wax on the tiles, and was both pleased and disappointed to find Nikys’s handwriting. He’d been hoping for some—preferably helpful—replies to his urgent notes about the contagion. But this was fine, too, since it began, We are all well here.

  I imagine you’ll first want any news from town about the sickness out at the fort. She had that right. Gossip in the marketplace is not yet too worried—most people seem to think it’s some camp dysentery or summer fever. In which case you should have been home by now. As you are not, I conclude this is something more difficult. It is, as always, useless to expect Adelis to write, so please, if you’re not returning to Vilnoc today, send me some news of you. Make him write it honestly, Des!

  If the sickness has come to town, I have not yet heard of it, but that’s no surprise. I expect the Mother’s Order would be the first to know.

  Some small household news tidbits followed, including, We did remember to feed your sacred pets. Lin even undertook to clean their boxes, which made Pen smirk a little. Pen kept a small menagerie of rats for magical trials—young, healthy, tame, flea-free, non-biting rats, which last Pen had assured by the application of a bit of shamanic persuasion. He’d never been able to convince their housemaid that cleaning up after them was a holy task, or even within her duties at all, but apparently Nikys, or necessity, had better luck.

  At least it’s not dolphins, Nikys had once sighed to Lin. His wife had wholly disapproved of Pen’s shamanic experiments with the harbor dolphins, even though Pen hadn’t actually drowned.

  Yet, muttered Des, who’d been on Nikys’s side.

  Reading on: Your correspondence is piling up. Let me know if I should bundle it up and send it out to the fort, or hold it for your return.

  Florie has been a bit fussy—Pen frowned—but Mother says it’s too early for her to be teething. So maybe she just misses you, as I do. Come home safe and soon!

  Your loving Madame Owl.

  Pen vented a hopelessly fond sigh, folded the letter back up, and tucked it away inside his sash. He had a chamber full of sick men waiting. And another after that. Maybe he could write a reply during supper, which he’d have to stop for anyway.

  * * *

  As he knelt beside his first patient in the next chamber, the man’s hot hand wavered up and feebly clutched Pen’s, halting its blessing. “No!”

  “Let me pray for you, young man.”

  “You aren’t praying. Bastard’s necromancer. You’re doing some magicky thing.” He scowled, fretful, feverish, and frightened. “Maybe a curse.”

  He wasn’t the first soldier to suspect the uncanny extras, as most who didn’t already know who Pen was at least realized what the silver braid in his sash meant, but he was the first to object.

  “Magic, yes, a little, but I assure you, it isn’t any malediction. It’s an aid against the fever.” Pen knew better than to promise it was a cure. “Come now, I treated you last night, I know, soon after you came in.”

  But as Pen lifted his hand, the soldier muttered incoherent protests and thrashed away, falling out of his cot, which brought the attendant orderly trotting over. He shied again as Pen tried to help him up, and Pen stood back, frustrated. Was the lad a secret Quadrene, or just full of nursery tales about evil sorcerers? Or both.

  “Try to calm him down,” Pen told the orderly. “I’ll come back later.”

  But Pen had been a subject of worried gossip and slanderous speculation in here already, he discovered when two more sick men refused his aid. He seriously considered knocking them all unconscious with that brain-trick he’d been trying on his rats at home, and treating them anyway, but that skill was… not perfected. Also, the household cat was growing finicky about eating his failures.

  He knelt beside the last cot, whose occupant was beyond protest or even awareness of Pen and his magic. Pen made his ministrations quiet and brief. This one wasn’t going to be a good example to point out to his chamber mates about the harmlessness of Pen’s doings, Pen feared.

  He needed one of their own authorities to back him up; Master Rede, probably. Pen reflected glumly that Master Orides might have had more clout than the younger physician, and maybe more old tricks tucked in his green sash for dealing with uncooperative patients. As a last resort, Pen might try dragging in Adelis, but if the soldiers were that sick and scared, even ingrained military disciplines might break down. Rede first, then.

  He spotted the man he sought under the opposite colonnade by the apothecary’s chamber, talking with an orderly. They both broke off as Pen clipped up, the orderly making a vague salute and heading away to his tasks. Pen hadn’t yet crossed paths with Rede at his early breakfast, nor coming back from Des’s feeding, either.

  “Master Rede. I’m facing a mutiny among some of your patients. Mostly I suspect due to sheer ignorance on their parts, but I don’t think they’ll accept tutoring from me. You might have better—” Pen broke off, staring at the gauze bandage wrapping Rede’s left arm; his hand shot out to grasp his wrist and turn it over. “What have you done?”

  Des’s Sight answered his question even as he asked it. The skin beneath the gauze was sprinkled with an array of tiny inflamed dots, recognizably flea bites. “I told you not to do that!”

  Rede shrugged away. “It was then or never. The rat died the next hour.”

  “It should have been never. Sunder it! I knew I should have killed that thing on the spot last night. And the fleas that rode in on it.” Upset, Pen pulled Rede’s other arm out, searching for wounds. “Did you make it bite you as well?”

  Rede brushed him off, grimacing. “We already have one man bitten by that rat. I’ve set him in a chamber apart, although he didn’t want to stay here. We didn’t need a second example, and besides, this way I might tell whether was the rat or its fleas.”

  Too late, Pen groaned inwardly. Brave, determined, desperate, deprived of sleep—no wonder Rede wasn’t thinking clearly. It was a miracle—maybe?—that he wasn’t down sick already, one way or another.

  I don’t sense any godly residue, Des answered literally the question Pen hadn’t actually asked her.

  Agh.

  Keep an eye on those bites seemed a stupid thing to say, since no doubt Rede would be observing them obsessively. “Come find me at once if they appear to be doing anything that ordinary flea bites would not,” said Pen instead.

  “Of course,” said Rede, in far too careless a tone for Pen’s liking.

  A bustle at the courtyard gate drew both their attentions.

  One soldier supported another, limping. Two more were being transported on army stretchers, poles gripped on each end by bearers. Far too much blood was splashed around on the wrong sides of their skins. Pen was disturbed to recognize a couple of the Rusylli camp guards he’d spoken with the other day.

  “What’s all this?” said Rede as he hurried up. “A fight?” He glanced beyond the gate, but no further parade of injured men followed.

  The answer came from Adelis, striding in behind them. His scarred face was tight with that particular flavor of fury that masked furious worry.

  “It was the Rusylli. Most of the encampment rose up last night, overpowered the gate guards, and fled down the road. They passed by the village quietly in the dark, thank the gods, but did stop to steal a few horses from our pastures along the way. The most of them are still afoot, though, so my cavalry can overtake them.”

  “They left their house-carts?” said Pen. Well, they’d have had to.

  “They left nearly everything. We’d deliberately limited their provisions to short reserves, so they can only live off the countryside. How many farmsteads they’ll r
aid along their route before we catch up will depend on how fast we move. They’re heading up into the western hills, as nearly as we can make out.”

  Wild, rugged country; hard to live in, easy to hide in. Pen said uncertainly, “If they have their women, children, and old with them, surely they couldn’t put up much of a fight?”

  “Ha. You’ve never watched the Rusylli women, children, and old cutting the throats of enemies wounded on a battlefield. They creep over the ground like murderous gleaners picking up fallen grains. Penric—what did you say to those people day before yesterday?”

  “Me!”

  “They’re not fleeing their captivity. They were largely reconciled to that. They’re fleeing this bruising fever, their blue witch. More afraid of it than they are of me, which I’m going to have to teach them is an error.”

  “I didn’t say that much,” Pen protested, “apart from a bare description of the disease to find out if they recognized it. I suppose they could have picked up some marketplace gossip from the village—I know you let a few of them go in for supplies. Or from the gate guards, who do talk to them, to while away the hours if nothing else.” Rybi’s lover, or seducer, had been such a gate guard, Pen recalled. “And I know their children sneak away to play with the village children, who sneak away to play with them. Who knows how lurid their chatter was.”

  Adelis’s lips tightened in vexation at these likelihoods.

  It seemed doubtful that these rag-tag Rusylli could cross two entire realms and succeed in reaching the Uteny River, but the trail of bloodshed and destruction they’d leave while recklessly trying was horrible to contemplate. As much as Pen sympathized with their fears, he sympathized more with the hapless Orban farmer families who’d be caught in their path. Worse, they already might be carrying the disease with them, spreading it as they traveled; more lethal to more people, ultimately, than their warriors.

  To be honest, murmured Des, that’s just as likely to come from Adelis’s troop.

  No better.

  Aye.

  A couple of alert orderlies had arrived during this exchange. Rede motioned the whole lot of them toward his treatment rooms, but then wheeled back to Adelis.

  “General Arisaydia. Especially if we’re going to need more sick-chambers for wounded, I’m thinking we could shift all the fever convalescent to one of the barracks, if it could be cleared out for them.”

  Pen blinked. We’ve treated a whole barracks’ worth of patients so far…? That was upwards of a hundred men. No wonder everyone was exhausted.

  Adelis, listening, made a motion of assent. “You have that many recovering? Good. See my second. The barracks closest to the hospice would be best, I suppose.”

  “Yes, please.” Rede made a hasty salute and hurried after the injured men.

  Adelis’s irritated gaze fell on Pen. “Riding out after Rusylli had not been in my plans for today, but here we are. Do you think your translation skills, or, er, other skills, might help convince them to surrender?”

  Pen threw up his hands. “You have other translators. You don’t have other sorcerers.” At least unless someone from his Order answered his pleas for help. Maybe he should dispatch more notes. More strongly worded. “If I’m here, doing this, I can’t be there, doing that. Pick one, Adelis!”

  Adelis snorted out his breath through his nose, in his version of concession. “…Stay here.”

  He exited the gate, the aide at his heels already taking orders for the cavalry expedition.

  Pen turned back toward the sick-chambers.

  * * *

  In the late afternoon, Pen plodded uphill from his rounds in the village, mulling. In the very extended family of tanners, another man and a woman had fallen sick. One household had refused Pen entry. The little boy and his mother were still alive. The younger carter seemed on the mend, but his elder brother was worse—could Pen come back tonight? He glanced up at the fort gates to find himself following a sedan chair across the drawbridge, its bearers wearing the green tunics of servants to the Mother’s Order in Vilnoc.

  Pen sped his steps, catching up as the bearers set the chair down in the middle of the hospice courtyard and helped its occupant clamber from the wicker seat. Doffing her wide-brimmed hat, she tossed it onto the cushion. She was a slight, aging woman in a simple tunic dress, but belted with the green sash of a senior physician. Pen’s heart lifted in hope. Had someone sent them help?

  Rede appeared from the door of a treatment room, wiping his hands on a cloth, and his lips parted in what Pen guessed was the same hope. He hurried out to the chair. Pen’s quick glance by Sight at his left arm showed the flea bites under the now-grubby wrappings healing at about the usual rate for flea bites, for what that was worth.

  The woman clutched what Pen recognized as one of his notes from… however many days ago that had been. Not a speedy response, but definitely something. At last.

  Turning, she took in his summer vestments. “Ah, you are Learned Penric?” She waved the note.

  “Yes, Master—?”

  “Tolga.”

  “And this is Master Rede Licata, senior physician in this fort.”

  She gave Rede a solemn nod. “I’d heard about Master Orides. He was a fine physician and a good man. I am so sorry.”

  “As are we all, ma’am.” The two healers eyed each other with professional interest, evaluating.

  Rede evidently passed her muster, for she nodded again and turned to Pen. “We received your letter. What we think might be the first case of your bruising fever turned up on our doorstep this morning. I’ve come out to see your patients for a comparison.”

  Faint disappointment crossed Rede’s features, but he murmured, “Of course,” and gestured toward the sick-chambers. “We have, unfortunately, plenty of examples for you to look at.”

  This was not a tour Pen needed to take. “Des and I must pay a visit to the kitchens,” he told Rede. “I shouldn’t be long.”

  “Right.”

  As he strode off, he heard Tolga saying to Rede, “So what exactly is this sorcerer doing for your men?” and Rede replying, “Well, let me show you…”

  His routine in the killing room having become practiced and efficient—chickens again—Pen returned to find the pair of them emerged from their inspection and perched on one of the stone benches in the shade of the colonnade, talking with a serious air. Rede saw him and motioned him over, shifting to give him room to sit.

  Pen sank down with a tired breath, eyeing the Mother’s woman across Rede. “Can your Order send us any help out here?”

  She shook her head in polite regret. “In fact, I’m hoping I might take you back with me to look at our case.”

  Rede sat up, frowning. “We have all he can do right here. You have one”—he waved at his row of sick-chambers—“we have forty-eight.”

  It had been forty-seven a while ago…

  “Plus however many in the village,” Rede continued.

  “Two more today,” said Pen.

  Tolga grimaced. “I’m not naïve enough to think our first case will be our last, and neither are you.”

  All the more reason, Rede’s expression suggested, though he bit back saying so aloud. “In any event, General Arisaydia called him out to the fort. Only the general can release him, and he’s not here right now.”

  Tolga turned more directly to the pair of them. “I’m sure that is not so. As a divine, his own Order must have his first allegiance. A senior sorcerer, even more so—they go where they will, I’ve heard.”

  “That,” said Pen, “is more-or-less true, yes. And I came here.” Leaving the conclusion to her. But… town. The menace was now inside Vilnoc’s walls, it seemed, with Nikys and Florina and the rest of Pen’s little household.

  “I could lend you my chair. Or send one for you.”

  That was nearly tempting. In a sedan chair, he might doze on the way, getting double use out of the time. But Pen shook his head. “I can borrow a horse from the fort. It would be faster
.”

  “You’re going?” said Rede uneasily.

  “I think I better had. To be sure what’s going on.”

  “Only so long as you come back.”

  Pen rested his elbows on his knees, and his forehead in his linked hands. “Even with all my magics, I can’t be in two places at once. If we could scare up another Temple sorcerer, any Temple sorcerer with a reasonably well-tamed demon, I’m sure I could train him or her in this one basic technique in a few hours.” He frowned at his feet, adding with muted vehemence, “Even a hedge sorcerer.”

  Tolga asked, “Have you heard from any?”

  “Not so far.” Pen sat up. “I sent out letters at the same time I sent yours. Orbas is not all that rich in Temple sorcerers—there were more at my old chapterhouse back in the cantons, for all that its archdivineship wasn’t a quarter the size of this duchy. Are there any stray mages you know of that I don’t?”

  “I don’t see how I would,” said Tolga, looking at him askance. And… covetously? “My Order isn’t hiding any away. We don’t even have a petty saint right now.”

  “More’s the pity.”

  “Aye,” she agreed ruefully. Her chin lifted in determination. “You’ll come today?” she urged.

  “Yes,” Pen reluctantly promised. “I have a round of treatments to complete here, and then I should wash up before I start out. But I’ll ride in before nightfall.”

  She gave a sharp nod of acceptance, and victory. Rede’s shoulders slumped.

  “I must away, then, and carry the word back to town.” She rose and motioned her bearers, who’d been sitting warily in the scant shade of their vehicle, as far as they could get in all directions from the hospice colonnades. They jumped to their feet, as ready to be gone from here as their mistress, if for other reasons.