The Physicians of Vilnoc

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “Let me through,” Pen snarled, and didn’t wait for a reply. A dozen heavily armed soldiers recoiled out of his path.

  No unwelcoming committee greeted him this time. Everyone in sight whisked out of it, into the huts or the trees.

  Pen, after a frustrated moment, stood in the middle of the clearing and bellowed in Rusylli, “If someone doesn’t come out and talk to me right now, I’m going to burn every one of your huts to the ground!” He illustrated this empty—probably—threat by setting alight a small, innocuous shrub that straggled nearby. Summer-dry, it went up with a satisfyingly menacing roar. It died down just as fast, but Pen kept an eye out to be sure the conflagration didn’t spread.

  After a couple of minutes of skittish silence, a familiar figure emerged from one of the huts: Rybi’s aunt Yena. Her gray-muzzled hound, whining and cringing as he neared the incendiary Penric, nonetheless faithfully followed, and Pen thought of Maska.

  Bravely, Yena straightened her shoulders. “What is it, god man?”

  Pen thrust out a hand with a few iridescent dead flies in it, and demanded, “Is this the blue witch?”

  She drew nearer and peered, then glanced up at his wild-eyed state as if fearing for his sanity, or possibly for anyone in range of his insanity. “I don’t know…?”

  “Do you know anyone who might? Likely an older woman, or someone from the western clans.”

  Her lips compressed in thought. “Maybe. Wait here.”

  She vanished into the grove. Pen jittered in impatience and anxiety.

  In a few minutes, more minutes, she returned with an even more aged woman. This one was a proper crone, rheumy-eyed and hobbling on a stick, and Pen wondered if she’d been one of the weak ones left behind when the encampment had tried to escape. Adelis had mentioned such, though only to speculate why they hadn’t been killed or suicided when their kinsmen fled, a dreadful defiance sometimes practiced among the Rusylli at war.

  Pen asked her, “What do the western Rusylli call this kind of horsefly?”

  She squinted shortsightedly into his palm, then jerked back and made an averting hex sign, of no actual magical value. “Those evil things! We called them blue witches when I was a girl. Give you a nasty bite. We killed them wherever we saw them.”

  “Bastard’s tears.” Pen scrunched his eyes in something like a prayer of gratitude; drew a deep breath. “Thank you.”

  He shoved his sample flies back into his sash and ran for his horse.

  * * *

  Penric found Adelis in his map-room-and-scriptorium, sitting at his writing table with his arms folded atop it. The groom from the abattoir and a wiry, leathery-faced man Pen whom recognized as the fort’s cavalry master, Captain Suran, stood before him. All three men looked around as Pen panted through the door.

  “Well, here’s the mage himself,” said Adelis. “This should settle the matter.” He raised his eyebrows in curiosity at Pen’s hectic state. Pen dug half-a-dozen dead blue flies out of his sash and cast them across the table. Adelis leaned back, startled at this abrupt, bizarre gift.

  “Here are our killers. Or at least the contagion’s couriers. These are what the actual western Rusylli dub blue witches.”

  Adelis frowned in surprise. “Not a sorcerer or a ghost or a demon or a nursery tale? I thought that was what you were thinking.”

  “I was. I’m fairly sure that’s what my first Rusylli informant thought, too. But you know how that goes. One person recounts an observation, the listeners misunderstand, mishear, or just embellish it according to their fancy, and three relays down the line it is changed out of all recognition. Sometimes just one relay.”

  “How, couriers?” said the cavalry master. “What can horseflies have to do with this bruising curse?”

  “Cursed, certainly by me, but not a curse. The fever’s not uncanny, however ghastly. The contagion is carried in the blood. Rede guessed it right, though it wasn’t rats and their fleas to blame after all. From horse to human, apparently, through the cuts made by these blood-sucking flies. One bit me down in the Tyno temple a while ago.” Pen didn’t add his theological speculation about that event.

  He held out his left hand in evidence. A trickle of blood still spun over its back, although Pen expected that was mostly a side-cost of his shamanic persuasion upon the mare. It would only confuse his audience to stop and try to explain that right now, and the demonstration was, ahem, handy. Usefully dramatic, supporting the unwelcome news he was going to impart next.

  “Mine isn’t a guess, Adelis. I went to look at the horses in your cavalry’s hospice pasture. I collected these flies there, some from directly off their hides. I could see the disease within them. Five gods know, I’ve been studying it deeply enough in people for the past weeks. Bloody staggers be sundered, it’s the same sickness, and why didn’t anyone tell us…! The infected horses act as blood reservoirs for it. They need to be slain and buried at once. The flies, well, Dubro and I and everyone else can go after them, but we’re much more able to find the horses. I still don’t know if ordinary horseflies or houseflies can also act as blood-couriers, once the sickness is established in an animal, but I doubt anyone will complain if we kill them too.” Pen paused for breath.

  The groom made a harried gesture at Pen as if to say, See, there was what I was trying to tell you all!

  The cavalry master had drawn back in repugnance and dismay. “All our horses?”

  “Gods, I don’t know. I hope not. The ones who are far into it, displaying obvious symptoms, you can identify for yourselves. You already have. The ones in the early stages, Learned Dubro and I could likely tag for you, and so spare the clean ones. If we have time.” Pen was already so late getting back to his next round in the hospice. But, since it was a matter of perception, not the more taxing magical manipulation, maybe he could let the bulk of the task fall on Dubro and Maska? “I don’t know yet if horses that appear to have recovered can still act as blood-reservoirs or not.”

  “If you call for our well-seeming mounts to be taken out and killed, it’s going to cause a mutiny among my men.” And the cavalry captain looked as though he didn’t know which side he’d be on.

  Adelis was equally appalled. “Must they be? Can’t you heal them as you’ve been doing for my men?”

  “In theory? Maybe. It would have to be tested. But right now, over in the hospice, we’re having to choose which men to save. If you dump a hundred horses onto my roster as well, I’ll be able to save no one.” He added in reluctance, “Once all the people, here and in Tyno and Vilnoc, are past the crisis, maybe Dubro and I could try. Something.”

  “But if you have your way, my horses will be killed by then!” With a gesture at Pen, Captain Suran demanded, “Do you believe this wild tale, General?”

  Adelis’s hand drifted to touch the touch the burn scars framing his eyes. “Yes,” he said heavily. “In matters of his craft, Learned Penric is unequalled in my experience.”

  Since Adelis’s prior experience of sorcerers, Temple or hedge, was almost none, this wasn’t as ringing an endorsement as it sounded, but the horse-master nodded unhappily.

  “And the Rusylli,” Pen added. “I must treat them, too, if they will let me back into their camp.”

  Adelis looked as though he’d rather put his cavalry horses first, but this time he didn’t try to argue. To be fair, the Rusylli were sufficiently horse-mad, they might have agreed with this.

  “…Which makes me wonder if the Rusylli encampment will be protected from new cases by its distance, as it seemed to be at the first outbreak. I think the blue flies can’t go too far without their horses, or the disease would have traveled east from the steppes long before this.” Pen paused, shaken by a horrific notion. Could he himself have carried the disease into Vilnoc, hidden within his borrowed army mount?

  It was already there by then, Des chided him. Calm down, Pen.

  Oh. Right. But that it had traveled somehow from the fort to town, quite possibly in or with a horse or its flies
, as it seemed to have hitched its ride from Grabyat, was a logical-enough speculation.

  “Were any sick horses or mules taken into town, do you know?” Pen asked.

  “Of course not,” said the cavalry master, and “Uh…” said the groom.

  All three men looked at him. He went mute, frightened.

  “Spit it out,” Adelis growled, “or it will go badly for you.”

  The groom gulped. “Maybe… somebody who was told to take a few down to the tanner might have taken them into the town market and sold them, instead? Not me!” he added hastily. “He didn’t get much for them, if so.”

  The market. All sorts of people from all over town might have gone to the market on the dangerous days that the sick horses were present, explaining the random distribution. And, as Pen had just experienced, the bites of the flies were hardly noticeable, and so not recalled a few days later when the first fever symptoms showed. Other horses as well, probably, and oh gods someone was also going to have to trace those.

  Adelis rubbed his face in uttermost exasperation. He pointed to his cavalry master. “Find out if this is true. If it is, secure the man or men and report back to me.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the daunted Suran.

  “Gods, I will hang them,” muttered Adelis.

  “I’ll help,” Pen told him through his teeth.

  “I thought you weren’t allowed to kill.”

  “By demonic magic. Ropes are not included in that. Executioners are in the white god’s flock, come to think. I’ll at least give the hangman my learned blessing, if this proves out.”

  Adelis shook his head. “I do wonder about you some days…” He sat up, gathering himself to issue the necessary, unpleasant orders, and called for his aides.

  Before he left the scriptorium, Pen seized quill, paper, and ink to write a hasty note to Nikys, warning her of the newly discovered danger.

  …At once devise a covering, cheesecloth or gauze, for Florina’s cradle. Fasten it firmly around the edges so no fly can creep through. If the cloth can be found, makes tents for everyone’s beds as well. In the tighter wooden houses of the cantons, Pen thought a person might stretch and tack cheesecloth across the windows for insect-proof screens, but the open Cedonian-style architecture in Orbas would make this unfeasible. Still. Tell our neighbors with children this trick. He thought a moment. Better, tell them all. Kill any fly you see within the house, but not with your hand. I’ll be back as soon—he scratched this last line through. I don’t know when I will be back. Things are about to get even busier for me here, but we may be able to find our way to the end of this thing at last.

  And then another letter to the medical officer at the border fort, describing Pen’s new findings, the blue fly, and his drastic recommendations for containing the contagion. He trusted they’d found themselves their own sorcerer by now to endorse his advice, not to mention carry it out, or it was going to sound like raving. And—Pen stifled a moan—someone was going to have to examine the entire track through Orbas that Adelis’s cavalry had taken chasing down the Rusylli… He finished with a shorter scrawl to Tolga, who at least required less explanation.

  He shoved all three notes into the hands of Adelis’s clerk with a demand to dispatch them instantly, and hurried to the hospice.

  * * *

  Rede and Dubro were coming out of a sick-chamber together when Pen jogged into the hospice courtyard.

  “Where have you been?” Rede’s voice was edged with the sort of anger only fear lent. “We expected you back hours ago!”

  Pen danced up to him, grabbed him by the hands, and spun him around. “And time well-spent it was! Rede, I’ve cracked this nut!” Well. In theory. Practice was going to be harder, but wasn’t it always?

  Rede shook him off and stared at him as though he’d gone mad, which Pen supposed he looked. Elation hadn’t been anyone’s face around here for a while.

  Eagerly, Pen dug out his sample flies and repeated his explanations. The two men drew close, ex-farmer Dubro nodding understanding sooner than Rede did. Hesitantly, Pen added to Dubro, as he had not to Adelis, a fuller description of his and his demon’s experience before the Bastard’s altar in Tyno.

  Dubro’s eyes went wide. “Do you think you were god-touched?”

  “The Bastard being what He is, I never quite know. But Des reacted the way she does to the divine, which is to retreat.” Cower, to be precise.

  No need to be rude, she sniffed.

  “And the fly bite”—Pen waved his left hand—“would be typical of His humor.”

  Rede captured his hand and squinted at the wound, which was finally crusting over, in professional curiosity. Glancing more closely at the bloodstains on Pen’s tunic, he frowned. “That’s your blood? Not a patient’s?”

  “Shamanic magics are a whole other discipline, which I will be delighted to describe to you in detail—”

  “I daresay,” murmured Rede, who was beginning to know him.

  “But not right now. First I need to take Dubro—no, first I need to—no, first I need…” Pen paused and took a deep breath, holding it for a moment, then began again. “First I need to take a pass through here and tap my worst-off patients. Then I need to take Dubro to the cavalry stables and show him how to discern the sick horses. This isn’t going to make us popular over there, so I have to make sure everyone understands the onus falls on me, not him.”

  “If anyone complains,” said Rede grimly, “take their names. I’ll draft them as relief orderlies. That should educate them in a hurry.”

  Pen nodded agreement, gathering that this wasn’t in the least a joke.

  “May I treat more patients?” said Dubro. “I think Maska could, now.”

  “No. Well, maybe. If there is going to be an end to this thing, I may not have to guard your demon’s endurance as closely. But separating the sick horses and eradicating the flies comes first for you, because that will stop new cases from coming.”

  “How soon?” asked Rede, intent.

  “Not wholly sure, but I realize now it had already started to happen, before the cavalry came back with all their sick—men and mounts and parasites—and began it all over again.” And the Rusylli, never forget them. “I must have killed all the blue flies in the fort along with the others, around when I was first divesting chaos. However long it takes for the disease to brew up in the last man bitten, that will be our end-point.”

  Until other flies flew in, from whatever pockets they were breeding at—odd corners of Tyno, up and down the river valley, and oh gods, Vilnoc. Infected animals in the village and town were going to be a thornier problem than in the fort, as no one was going to be willing to give up their valuable beasts if they weren’t obviously very sick.

  General Arisaydia having no direct authority to order such compliance among civilians, Penric would have to call in Duke Jurgo on that problem. Adelis, bless him, had been fielding inquiries from the duke right along, not to mention shielding Pen from demands that he attend on the palace, giving the very just excuse that Pen had been up to his elbows in the sick and shouldn’t enter there. If any of the duke’s family, retainers, or servants had come down with the bruising fever, Pen had no doubt his priorities would have been abruptly rearranged for him. Persuading Jurgo to support the slaughter out of his purse, argh that was not going to please his patron duke; add that to Pen’s list of chores. Next-next.

  Rede’s breath drew sharply in. He grabbed Pen’s left hand again and bent to stare at the scab. “Last man bitten. Is that you?”

  “Uh…” In the excitement of his discovery, Pen hadn’t even thought of the disease being included with the holy gift of inspiration. Might the white god have made sure that Pen could not possibly miss the point by sending him an infected fly? Pen was afraid the answer was Absolutely.

  Be careful what you pray for, sighed Des.

  “It’s too soon to tell,” Pen told Rede and the freshly anxious Dubro. “But in any case, Des can cure me just as we cure others.
She once healed me of a fractured skull, and trepanned me for the clot to boot. Of course, the problem was I had to stay conscious through it all…”

  “Mother’s blood,” swore Rede. “I want to hear that tale.”

  “Later,” Pen promised. “Best over a gallon of wine. Oh.” He turned to Dubro. “This may not have come up in your training, but one sorcerer cannot heal another. Incompatible demons. Before you go home, I must teach Maska some more tricks for keeping you well.”

  Dubro’s eyes were still wide. “Thank you…?”

  Pen grinned at both men. Compelled by his momentary euphoria, they smiled back, rare and welcome expressions. “All right. Let’s get to it!”

  * * *

  After his pass through the sick-chambers, Pen put the most important tasks in train as quickly as he could. In the cavalry stables, Dubro proved able to sort out the diseased mounts almost as readily as Pen. Leaving Captain Suran to deal with the uproar in their wake, Pen led his colleague down to Tyno for the first time, through orienting visits to his sickest patients, and on to the tannery. Pen was unsure if the heavy outbreak of fever in that clan was from fly bites or the infected blood to which the tanners had been exposed in their work, but then, he was still unsure whether Master Orides might have picked it up from those first autopsies. In any case, they found alien flies in the smelly work-yard. Blue witches, indeed.

  Maska dispatched them handily. Evidently, the dog-demon relished hunting deadly blue flies quite as much as hunting rabbits or weasels back in his farm days. So Pen was confidently able to leave the pair to quarter the village and its environs looking for more. Any sick horses or mules would have to be left until someone with more authority could get here, but with the flies gone, they wouldn’t be such an immediate hazard.