“Ouch, ouch, ouch!” I whined, trying not to wake Tyrell. The Reb snoozed on the ground next to Al, whom he’d tied to a tree. Just to make sure that the horse didn’t disappear again, a slack rope had been tied around his neck and around the stirrup of the saddle. Tyrell used the saddle for a pillow, with his jacket for padding. If Alcibiades moved more than a few feet away the rope would tighten and jerk the saddle out from under his head, waking him up. I guessed old Al must’ve really had a talent for getting himself loose if the trooper had to take that kind of care.
“You sounds worse for wear,” said Romulus. “Feet OK?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Bad blisters. Dadburned boots. Shoulda gone barefoot, like a sensible girl. I may have to ride all day. That’ll be bad if there’s a scrap and I have trouble puttin’ weight on my dogs.”
“So to speak,” the Marshal smiled. Whoa! Romulus has got a sense of humor. How about that.
Uh…yeah.” I tested my toes by trying to walk normal. Wincing, I made a disgusted sound. “Not good.”
“If they as bad as all that, we has to fix ‘em.”
I gave him a doubtful eye. “Fix ‘em? How? There some magick spell for that?”
He smiled again. “Actually, yeah.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve spillin’ chicken blood and chantin’ in Roman, I’m all for it. What do we do? Whatever it is, we have to get away from Tyrell. I don’t want him knowin’ about me yet.”
“Come along, then.” Romulus picked me up like I was the morning newspaper. He hauled me off to where I’d washed myself earlier. Setting me down on the bank of the run, he said, “The Stone and the Morphageus can do it.”
“Huh? Jasper can heal wounds?” Wow! That’s more than most Army doctors can do, from what I hear tell from soldiers.
“If they’s somebody willin’ to accept the wounds from you.”
“There’s always a catch with magick, huh? Are you sayin’ somebody has to want to be blistered in my place?”
“Uh-huh. If they don’t make the choice then it won’t work.”
I looked at him for a long moment, a mosquito whining in my ear. “Nobody here but us, you know.”
“Oh, I knows it.”
“Awful kind of you, mister.”
“Way I looks at it, we’s all likely to live longer if you’s in one piece.”
I wasn’t as sure about that as he seemed to be, but gave him the benefit of the doubt. “Then you’ll have bad feet. How’s that help us? It’s just shiftin’ the burden to somebody else in the group. As a whole, we’re still crippled.”
“Not if I takes the wound someplace else.”
Aha.Clever. “You can do that?”
His big head nodded. “Long as the wound itself gets transferred, the place can be different.”
“OK, then. How do we do it?”
“You just talks to Morphageus and asks. Then we holds hands and it happens. Easy.”
“Well, that sounds simple enough. Let’s---” A jolt hit me. Midnight had passed hours ago. “Oh-oh.”
“What?”
“My three days are up. His magick charge is gone.”
Romulus swatted a mosquito. He didn’t seem to have any worries about any black magick stain from that. “Did he tell you how to accept new magick?”
“Yeah. Said I had to do him favors and such. Or pull energy from Songlines.”
He held up a hand. “No Songlines until you knows how.”
“Don’t worry. He made that real clear already. We don’t want to leave a smokin’ crater here.” I waved the tin cup. “A favor it is, then.”
The instant I said it Jasper’s goofy voice rang in my head. “And I know just the one I want!” If he’d had hands he’d have been wringing them with proverbial glee.
“Why do I have this sinkin’ feelin’ in my belly all of a sudden?” I sighed.
“So little faith,” he pouted. “After all we’ve been through together.”
Rolling my eyes, I said, “That’s just why I’m worried. Romulus wants to accept my wounds. What’ll that cost me?”
“Fifty cents.”
It’s that easy? “Really?”
“Oh, you wish, girlie. For a wound transfer? That’s heavy magick.”
I should’ve known. “I ain’t gonna have to paint myself in colored rings and crawl around naked, am I?”
“Heck, no. This is easy. Trust me, you’ll like this.”
Three minutes later I felt as sick as I’d felt in a long time. Puffing away on one of Tyrell’s cigars, which Romulus had to pilfer from the sleeping captain’s coat, I just knew that my face looked the same color as the grass. People choose to do this? For fun?
“If this is what adults do,” I croaked, “then I’ll stay a kid, thank you very much.”
Jasper laughed in my head. “Where’s your spirit of adventure? What kind of Stone-Warden can’t handle a little tobacco smoke?”
I waved a hand to try to clear the thick fog away. “Little? It’s like suckin’ on a locomotive’s stack.”
“Sweet ambrosia, I call it!” A satisfied breathing sound filled my ears. “You humans know how to live…when you ain’t bashin’ each others’ heads in and such.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, fix my feet. I held up my end of things.”
“Indeed you did.” The cup stretched out into Morphageus, Dread Sword of Nicotine Poisoning. “I have to be in my best shape for this.”
“Your Sunday-go-to-meetin’ outfit?” I asked, gagging.
“Yeah, somethin’ like that. Hold his hand.”
I reached out and took Romulus’ giant mitt with mine. He squeezed it gentle-like. It was warm and rough. My other hand gripped the sword’s hilt. It felt pretty much the same way, like a person’s palm. I swear, that’s the creepiest part of this whole magick business.
“Are there magick words I have to say?” I asked, hoping that the more I talked the less I’d have to puff on that awful instrument of doom.
“Not for this. That’s Songline stuff. Just relax and let Uncle Jasper work his wonders.”
My feet started in to itching. As much as I wanted to scratch them, something told me that it wouldn’t be good for the spell. So I set my jaw and waited things out. Romulus clamped down on my hand some more. A light breeze blew away some of the foul smoke. Looking down, I saw tiny lights swirling around my feet, like blue-white fireflies.
“Where?” asked Jasper.
I sat fascinated by the lights and didn’t get what he was asking. “Huh?”
“Where does he want the wounds?”
I looked over at Romulus. “He wants to know where.”
“Upper arm, if you please,” he answered.
The second the words left his mouth, my foot-lights whirlwinded up to his burly left bicep, which he’d already bared. I felt a sting, as if a mischievous somebody had pinched my feet. My poor hand got crunched in Romulus’ fist, then released. The little lights sank into his skin like water into a washcloth. As they faded away, leaving the usual after-smell of brimstone and lily, I could see two nasty open blisters. The Marshal flexed his arm but showed no other signs of distress.
“Huh,” I breathed. My feet no longer hurt. In fact, every ache I’d had in my whole body had vanished, along with all of the exhaustion. I felt like I’d been reborn.
“No extra charge for the other stuff,” Jasper told me in a perky voice as I stripped off my socks and gazed at my pristine pink feet. “Now get back to our cigar.”
After dutifully sucking on the awful weed some more, and just as dutifully upchucking into the creek, I plopped down on the bank, Romulus patting my back. I guess he thought that could help, somehow. My sword looked like a cup again. Lucky thing it did.
Cigar stub still glowing in my hand, I heard Tyrell say from the edge of the thicket, “Ah, I remember my first stogie. How this takes me back. Since we’re all up, let’s breakfast and get on the road. Dawn’s coming soon.”
20/ Fredericksburg
/> I didn’t want to think how an adolescent sword might behave around a floozie.
Tuesday turned out to be a repeat of the first day, for the most part. At first light we were packed up and heading toward Fredericksburg with me giving thanks for my new feet. I made sure to take care of Romulus as much as I could, bringing him water and anything else I imagined he needed. It was the least I could do for the favor he’d done me. Though he never said so, and would’ve rather have died first, I got the feeling that the pains of mine that he’d accepted wore on him. You’d have thought that him being so big and strong would mean that my little aches could hardly make an impression. Maybe the spell increased the misery to match the strength of the receiver, so that it’d be a meaningful sacrifice. When I asked Jasper about that he told me that he didn’t arrange it that way, but that you couldn’t always tell how magick would work on a particular person. After all, Romulus had already been witched into human form, so maybe the new spell ended up being that much of an extra burden because of it.
Tyrell alternated between cheerful and edgy. One minute he’d be tipping his hat to folks we passed on the road, grinning in that devilish way of his. The next he’d be quiet and alert, dark brows furrowed as he peered at each bush or tree as if an ambush lay in wait behind it. Why he got more antsy the further we traveled into Confederate territory I couldn’t figure. Seemed to me that he ought to be singing his Rebel head off. After all, if we kept going the way we planned we’d pass right by his home town of Williamsburg. But then, McClellan’s army had run rough-shod all over it on the advance and now troops were quartered in it. Maybe that knowledge had the captain concerned.
Whatever it was, Romulus bore the brunt of his bad mood. More than once Tyrell snapped at him to hurry up, grumbling about ‘lazy darkies dragging their feet’. He seemed to think that Tom was sabotaging us somehow. Poor Romulus, back in slave mode, just took it quiet-like and kept on walking. Since I had to maintain my pose as his owner there wasn’t much I could do to help. I had to try and tread middle ground. Whenever Tyrell launched one of his tirades at Romulus I’d bat my eyes, act all sweet, and tell the cavalryman that he imagined things. I insisted that Tom had always proved as loyal as the day is long. Making up a long tale about Tom having trekked through floodwaters once to get medicine for my late lamented daddy, I managed to distract him for a bit. Soon he’d returned to humming happy tunes and complimenting ladies on their bonnets as if there weren’t a war for a thousand miles.
A little past noon we got to Fredericksburg, crossing the Rappahannock on a guarded bridge. Challenged by a sentry, Tyrell showed him some sort of paper and he waved us all through. A thriving river town of a few thousand citizens, Fredericksburg held more than its normal number at the moment. Southern soldiers and Richmond refugees, crossing paths as they moved in opposite directions, bumped shoulders with local inhabitants and slaves. Considering that a huge hostile army lay just fifty miles away, things looked more normal than I’d expected. Stores did business, checker-playing geezers sat on benches giving unwanted advice, noisy kids ran about causing trouble. The last group made me think of all the good times with Eddie. Wiping my eyes a little, I promised myself that Eddie would be able to play in the streets again, no matter what it cost me or how long it might take.
Jasper had been quiet most of the morning, but now that we were in town he started chattering away, thrilled by all of the new sights and smells. Good thing nobody could hear him but me. He hollered insults at people who got in our way, made fun of odd-looking folks, and drooled over every cigar and whiskey flask in sight. Ladies’ perfume really seemed to set him off. Please, oh please, don’t let us pass any fancy girls like Silky Sadie. I didn’t want to think how an adolescent sword might behave around a floozie.
“Hoo-eee!” he whistled, almost deafening me even though no real sound hit my ears. “You mortals sure know how to live! Looky, looky! And you say this is a small backwater town?”
“Yep,” I told him, eyeing the muddy river. “Literally.”
“Can’t imagine what Richmond’s like, then. Or Washington City when we ain’t bein’ chased by Bullies.” There was a breathless pause. “Oh, we are gonna have such a good time in London!”
Yeah, if we find a way through the big battle that’s brewin’…and find Roberta’s ship while being chased by the scum of the South, since there’s a bounty on our heads…and get across the ocean without a Merchantry squadron sinkin’ us…and make it in and out of the Proprietor’s headquarters with the same skins we started with.
I stopped to scrape off a horse flop from my boot. “Don’t count your debauches before they’re hatched, mister. After that wretched cigar I plan to do a lot more on my own from now on.”
“Hey, you never know when you’re gonna need a little magickal help from your buddy Morphageus. Wouldn’t hurt to bank some of that witchy energy for a rainy day.”
Screwing up my face, I gave in a smidgeon. “OK, I’ll sniff some perfumes while we walk.”
“And maybe run your hand over some velvety fabric, like that lassie’s wearin’ over there.”
“Where?” All I saw was some tired-looking soldiers and supply wagon teamsters watering their mules at a trough.
“To the right, outside the druggist’s.”
I spotted the girl in question, who looked even younger than me. She sat on a bench, yawning, playing with a cat’s-cradle. It looked like she was waiting for her ma to come out. Her velvet dress, a rich green, must’ve cost more than every bit of clothing I’d ever owned.
“I see her. You want me to start pettin’ perfect strangers in enemy territory? What if she takes offense? Or even worse, her folks?”
Jasper snorted. “Didn’t you just say you were gonna shift for yourself? Here’s your first chance. Use your imagination.”
“All right, but if I get my arm busted by some outraged mama I’m gonna rent you for a spittoon.”
Zigzagging through the crowd, I took advantage of Tyrell’s distracted maneuvering around the army wagons to skip up onto the pinewood walk. In two seconds I stood in front of the little girl. “Hey,” I said with a little wave.
“H’lo,” she answered with a smile. Glad to have somebody close to her age to talk to. Only child, I figured.
“I can never do that,” I went on, nodding at her cat’s-cradle. “Too clumsy. I got farmer fingers.”
She giggled. Her voice tinkled like a tiny silver bell. I bet you get your way a lot with all of that cutesy stuff, don’t you? “It’s not so hard. Takes a lot of practice is all.”
“Ain’t you hot in that dress?” I asked, getting all clever. “Petticoats and velvet and all?”
“Lordy, yes,” she whispered, looking around to see that she wasn’t being overheard by her mama. “I declare, this is the itchiest thing anyone ever made with a needle and thread. But we’re supposed to set an example for the lower orders, Aunt Polly says.”
Aha…no mama. Being reared by a snooty aunt. I took on her own sneaky tone. “Well, I’m one of the lower orders and the only example you’re aunt’s settin’ for me is that my betters is all gonna collapse of heat stroke, wearin’ a dress like that in the summer. Can I feel?”
“Go ahead. I’ll watch for her. Just don’t wrinkle it.” A real Southern rebel, this one.
I stroked the sleeve of her dress like she was my favorite hound dog. In my head Jasper made the cooing sound of a flock of satisfied pigeons. “Ooh, it is thick, ain’t it?”
“Sure is. Fabric came from New Orleans. Makes you wonder who’d wear it all the way down there.”
Out of the corner of my eye I caught Tyrell, hollering at Romulus. Mad at him for losin’ me, I expect. “Sure is nice. You’ll be glad to have it come winter, anyhow.”
She shrugged. “I suppose. What’s your name?”
“Verity,” I told her without thinking, wincing inside as I did.
“Oh, real smart,” Jasper snickered. “Hope the Merchantry ain’t usin’ ten year-old spies d
own here.”
“Jeanie,” my new friend said with that same ‘I-just-love-everybody-even-the-poor’ grin. “Jean Louise, actually. Jean Louise Fairfax.”
Romulus headed my way, Tyrell keeping a stern eye on him from atop Alcibiades. He kept the horse smack in the middle of the crowded street, not caring who he blocked. I eased backward off the walk. “Pleased to meetcha, Jeanie. But Daddy’s sent our hand after me, so I hafta go. See ya.”
When I’d gone a full thirty feet away from her and had almost met up with Romulus, Jeanie stood up, waved, and hollered in her high but surprisingly loud voice, “Bye-bye, Verity!” Half the street stopped what they were doing to look our way.
“Bye-bye, Verity,” Jasper mimicked. “Have fun outrunnin’ the Bullies!” He returned to his usual voice. “Gee, you think there’s anybody in Fredericksburg now who doesn’t know you’re here…including Johnny Reb over there?”
Tyrell glared at me, frowning. I sighed in disgust. Oh, boy.The free world might be countin’ on the wrong girl.
“Miss Mary, what was that all about?” the captain demanded, clutching the life out of his gloves.
“Nothin’, sir,” I said, all sweetie-pie. ”Just admirin’ her cat’s-cradle.” A thought jumped at me. “My poor brother Eddie taught me how to make them, just before he left us for the last time.” I added a tiny sniffle for effect.
Softening some, Tyrell growled, “Did he also teach you to give folks a false name when holding a civilized conversation?”
“False name?” I remained the picture of innocence. “I gave her no name at all, sir.”
“I clearly heard her call you Verity.”
Uh…now what? Think, girlie. “Oh, that. I complimented her on her lovely dress so much that she got it into her head that I was joshing her. So I swore to her, just playing around, that Verity was my middle name.” Weak, but better than nothin’.
Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) Page 20
