Bonemender's Oath

by Holly Bennett

  “I’m all right!” she yelled. Tried to yell. She wasn’t all right, she knew that already, but they mustn’t know it. All would be lost if they came to her now.

  Appalling, how her fingers fluttered so uselessly at the blade, how deep and agonizing its bite. How the blood welled into her hands until they lay hidden in a slick pool.

  Healer, see to thy own wounds. Her old teacher Marcus’s words were commanding, but Gabrielle’s mind was too frightened and confused to obey. The noise of the fighting boomed and receded in her head. Pain clawed away her thoughts. Focus eluded her.

  Gabrielle took a slow, painful breath and another, trying to clear the mist that was creeping into the corners of her vision. She groped for the healing light that had served her so often on behalf of others. She could not tell if she slipped into trance or oblivion, but she was beyond stopping it. Her eyes closed, and the roars and screams of battle faded away.

  SO IT WAS that Gabrielle never witnessed the event that Derkh and Féolan could only speak of afterward in halting awestruck words.

  Derkh and Féolan stood shoulder-to-shoulder against four men, black-hearted, thinking now only to exact a high price for their lives.

  And then it was as if some raging storm flew in among them, a deafening wind that scattered men before it like so many leaves. Their assailants flew like rag dolls into the air, crashing down against boulder and scree. Only one was able to rise again to make his terrified escape.

  Féolan’s firm hand restraining his sword-arm was all that stood between Derkh and panic. He did not know, afterward, if he would have tried to flee or attack. As it was, he stood paralyzed, beyond speech or rational thought.

  “They are seskeesh, rare creatures of the high mountains,” muttered Féolan. “I do not know why they have come down so far, but they are friends.” The amber eyes that appraised him now did not strike Derkh as especially friendly, and alarm clamored in him as the larger of the huge beasts shouldered past and hunkered down beside Gabrielle. Féolan made no move to stop it (as if anyone could!) but followed to Gabrielle’s side. I forgot about her, Derkh thought, sick now with grief at the sight of her still form.

  He watched Féolan feel the pulse in Gabrielle’s neck, smooth back her hair, kiss her white brow. Only when the giant creature laid a hairy finger on Féolan’s cheek did Derkh see that he was weeping. Féolan reached up, laid his hand on the shaggy wrist and spoke quietly in Elvish.

  Making the strangest noise, a noise Derkh could only call crooning though deeper than any man’s voice, the seskeesh scooped up Gabrielle’s limp body as easily as Derkh would a baby and strode off.

  “Let’s go,” said Féolan. “We’ll get her to shelter first, and then see if there’s anything I can do for her.” His voice was so tight that Derkh didn’t dare ask more. He did his best to master his shaking legs and followed.

  THE SESKEESH DID not lead them back to the cleft in the rock where they had first met her, as Féolan expected. Instead, she and her companion led them almost due north into higher country. Fifteen minutes of hard climbing—fifteen minutes that seemed an age to Féolan, anxious as he was to tend to Gabrielle—and they stood before the gaping mouth of a high-ceilinged cave. The two seskeesh strode in, while Féolan and Derkh hesitated just inside the entrance, blinded momentarily by the sudden dimness. The air inside was thick with the musky animal odor of the seskeesh, and something fresher: the resinous smell of evergreens.

  Féolan picked his way after the seskeesh. She was about to lay Gabrielle on a pile of balsam branches stacked against the stone wall of the cave. “Wait,” he said. Amber eyes, eerily lambent in the gloom, regarded him. Pulling the cloak from his pack, he spread it out over the branches. “Now.”

  His mind raced as he bent over her still form. She breathed still. Her pulse was quick and thready. The knife hung beneath her rib cage. He could not sense the bright mind he loved. Scrabbly disconnected thoughts flickered in Féolan’s mind, and he forced himself to put them aside. I cannot help her if I fall apart.

  Reaching for Gabrielle’s pack, he emptied it beside him, identifying each item more by feel than sight. Yes, here a cloth bag full of clean bandaging. Here a smaller bag with packets of herbs. Did she go anywhere without them?

  “I need hot water for a poultice.” He spoke to himself, and the hand on his shoulder—a fleeting, shy touch—startled him momentarily. He had all but forgotten Derkh.

  “I’ll take care of it,” said the boy, and Féolan looked up gratefully, only to be shocked anew at the extent of Derkh’s hurts. His face was unrecognizable, an angry welt of injury, and even in the dim light of the cave exhaustion was plain to read in his eyes and posture.

  “Derkh. You should be getting care yourself. I’m sorry—”

  An impatient headshake cut him off. “I’m sore, that’s all. Not dying. I’ll get wood.” And he was gone.

  Precious minutes ticked by while Féolan struggled to make the seskeesh comprehend the need for fire. For medicine. For her life. He thought, in the end, she had given permission as long as the fire was outside the cave. He hoped so.

  While wood was gathered and laid, and water set to heat, Féolan merely sat with Gabrielle, trying to send strength to her, trying not to be frightened by the eerie sense that she was absent from her own body.

  “It’s boiling now, Féolan.” Derkh’s voice was hushed, his own fear now plain. Gathering up the medicine bags, Féolan followed him outside.

  “Let’s see...” Flipping through the labeled packets, he pulled out those he recognized. “Comfrey, goldenseal, good. Rattleroot—I don’t know what that is. Willowbark is more for a fever drink, I think. Hawkweed...”

  Was it the hawkweed he had gathered with Gabrielle a year ago? He could see the field now, a grassy sky dotted with blazing orange stars. He couldn’t remember what she said it was for, but he would use it anyway. For luck. For love.

  Careful to keep the bandage cloths from trailing on the ground, he sorted through until he found one big enough to fold into an envelope around the assortment of herbs. He tied it securely, and handed it to Derkh.

  “Put it gently in the boiling water, then take the pot off the heat. When it’s cool enough that you can put your hand against the pot without burning, bring the whole thing in to me.”

  There could be no more delays. It was time.

  GABRIELLE WANDERED IN a dark, featureless land. She walked directionless, blind, not knowing what else to do. Her home was lost to her. Longing squeezed her heart, but already what she longed for grew vague and shapeless. She was between worlds, she knew: on the journey of the dead.

  Gabrielle.

  She lifted her head. Had she imagined it?

  Gabrielle, hear me. Come back.

  Féolan? Féolan, I’m lost.

  You are found. Gabrielle, follow me. Come back.

  Her feet had stopped their dreary trudging. She turned, almost reluctantly. It was so far. And...she remembered now. It hurt back there, hurt worse than anything in her memory.

  Féolan, I’m afraid.

  The reply was urgent, almost angry. It set her direction like a beacon light on a foggy coast.

  You are a healer, and you are needed! Do not abandon your body before its time. Come back to me!

  His mind now was like a thread of light pulling her back. Gabrielle grasped the gleaming thread, and followed.

  THE PAIN WAS a fire in her breast, red and raging. It blocked out every other thought.

  You are not the pain. You are yourself.

  She struggled to rise above the flames that burned within her. New strength seeped into her as Féolan lent his own energy to her effort.

  Light careful breaths from the abdomen eased the searing bite of each rush of indrawn air. Gabrielle gathered her concentration. You are not the pain. She felt her mind come back as the familiar ritual engaged her. Diagnose the injury.

  She focused in. The blade appeared in her mind’s vision as a black emptiness thrust deep into livin
g tissue. The shock of it—her own body rent so—threatened to overwhelm her. Talons of fear gripped at her. I can’t. I’m too hurt. Too weak. The dark place called: a place, it seemed now, of comfort. Of release.

  Attend to the patient! Marcus’s gruff voice was a terse command. Attend to the patient, as you have vowed to do. The old words of the Bonemender’s Oath, words she herself had recited and meant with all her heart, sounded like a trumpet call: To attend to the patient above all concerns, unswayed by the winds of politics or prospect of recompense... The complete oath took shape in her mind, formed in the same elegant script that engraved the pewter vessel Marcus had given her to mark the end of her training. Gabrielle had never abandoned a patient yet. She would not do so now.

  Layer by layer, she explored the damage. It was injury to the diaphragm, not her lung as she had feared, that made her breath burn. That would heal. The blade had plunged through the upper section of the liver, angling toward her left side to nick the top shoulder of the stomach, and then—oh, Marcus, help me.

  Her life hung by a thread, or rather a knife tip. If it had not been a short blade, the kind designed to lie hidden along a man’s forearm, she would be dead even now. As it was, the tip lay embedded in the lower heart path artery, the great artery running from the heart through the trunk of the body. Though much blood had escaped, especially when the knife had been jarred during the trip to the cave, the blade still made an imperfect plug, holding back the powerful gushes that would otherwise have burst from the wound. A quarter-inch of steel was all that stood between Gabrielle and a quick and bloody death.

  FÉOLAN TOOK A deep breath. He had cut away the bloody cloth around the wound and sponged it off as best he could. Derkh kneeled beside him with a pressure pad of bandaging.

  Gabrielle. He could feel her presence now, though she felt far away. Far away, working, he hoped. Gabrielle, I’m going to pull out the blade now.

  The alarmed reaction was almost like a blow. She leapt into his mind, her urgency unmistakable. NO! Féolan frowned, confused. Was it just her fear? It didn’t feel like fear. And she knew as well as he a knife could not be left in a wound.

  She was speaking now, trying to. He bent low, his ear brushing her lips.

  The word was barely a breath, but it was clear enough. “Wait.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “WHAT does Uncle Tristan say?” Matthieu’s eyes were trained on his father, Dominic. Dominic’s eyes were trained on the parchment just delivered into his hands, and his lips were set in the straight thin line that signaled anger.

  “He says, let’s see...that everyone is fine, and that he is bringing Rosalie and her father back here for a visit.”

  “That’s not all!” protested Matthieu. “Look how much he wrote!”

  “That’s all for boys,” replied Dominic firmly. He glanced at Solange, tucked into her favorite rocking chair by the fire with baby Sylvain, and shook his head.

  “Matthieu, I told you,” Madeleine piped up, exasperated, “you shouldn’t ask. It’s better to be really, really quiet, so they forget you’re there. That’s the only way to find out stuff grown-ups don’t want you to know!”

  “A strategy that I have used myself to good effect, many times,” said Solange, smiling. “This time, however, we remembered you.” She reached out her hand for the parchment and read the letter herself—silently.

  THE NEWS COULD not be kept from the children for long. Normand, for one, was so outraged by the assassination attempt that he could not have kept quiet about it to save his life. Soon most of Chênier would be buzzing with the news, and so Madeleine and Matthieu were told the contents of Tristan’s letter after all, albeit a glossed-over version.

  “He’s a bad man, isn’t he, Mama?” said Matthieu as Justine came to the end of her account, and Solange, overhearing, surprised them with an uncharacteristic outburst.

  “There isn’t a word in any language bad enough for that man!” she declared and swept out of the room.

  Tristan had been right to suggest leaving Blanchette. Away from the scene of the attack, it was easier to shake off the shadow of what had happened. And even with LaBarque safely imprisoned, Rosalie and André were grateful for the security of the castle. “It’s just nice to go to bed at night and not have to wonder if it’s okay to fall asleep,” explained Rosalie. Justine nodded sympathetically, snugging her sleeping baby tight against her body as if he might be the next victim.

  They were in the kitchen, working out the menu for the next day’s picnic excursion into the hills. The outing had been Solange’s suggestion—another surprise—and everyone had welcomed it immediately. “We all need cheering up,” she said. “And high summer is upon us. We should get out into the air and sunshine. It would not please your father to see me shut myself behind stone walls and refuse the gifts of nature.”

  THE DAY WAS fair and golden, and thanks to their grouchy but devoted cook they ate very well indeed. So well, in fact, that afterward most of the adults were inclined to drowse in the sun and recover.

  Matthieu and Madeleine surveyed the lolling grown-ups with disgust. André sat against a tree, his face covered with a napkin. Their mother lay on a blanket in the shade, baby Sylvain at her breast. Dominic sat beside them, awake but distinctly dopey-looking. Solange, Tristan and Rosalie talked quietly together. Matthieu summed up the verdict with one word:

  “Boring.”

  He looked at Madeleine, grinned, and launched himself at Tristan.

  “OOOF!”

  Rosalie let out a startled shriek as Tristan collapsed beside her, propelled by fifty pounds of boy. She watched the ensuing wrestling match with amusement—Tristan was having a hard time holding his own against such overwhelming enthusiasm. At last Matthieu, heaving and giggling, was duly pinned and released, “On your own recognizance, mind.”

  “Uncle Tristan,” begged the boy.

  “What now, you bundle of trouble?”

  “Tell us again how you beat that guy—LaBarque.”

  “And Rosalie too,” prompted Madeleine. “She beat him too.”

  “She did, indeed!” agreed Tristan. He had never been able to resist a good story, thought Rosalie, as he launched into a re-enactment of the scene.

  “So then I dove under the table and grabbed his chair!” Tristan, already on his knees, ploughed into the delighted Matthieu and flipped him over. “And then we wrestled”—great scuffling and grunts—”until finally I hauled him to his feet with his own knife against his throat”—and there he stood, one arm wrapped around the giggling boy’s chest and his index finger tucked under his chin.

  Rosalie caught Madeleine’s eye and rolled her eyes. “Boys,” she said, and Madeleine nodded knowingly, though her grin was as wide as Matthieu’s, and her eyes shone with excitement. Then Rosie happened to glance at Solange, and her own smile faded. Solange stared at the horizon as if she didn’t hear, but her distress was plain to see. Her whole body was rigid with tension, her lips pressed together hard.

  “Tristan.” Rosalie reached out and tapped Tristan’s calf. He glanced at her, distracted. “Not now,” she said softly.

  “Aw, Rosie.” He threw her the devil-may-care grin that she had always found charming—until today. “Don’t be so stuffy. We’re just playing around, aren’t we, Matthieu?” And turning his back on her, he launched into Scene Two of Tristan Saves the Day.

  Anger ran so hot at his off-hand dismissal that her cheeks burned with it. You childish, self-absorbed, unthinking, rude... Her mind ran out of words to shout, and all she had done was glare and turn red in the face.

  Abruptly she remembered Solange. She turned—but Solange was on her feet. Dashing a cheek with the back of her hand, walking with the dignity she never seemed to lose, she headed over to the “lookout chair” that had been carved into a natural stone formation that offered a view of Chênier and the Avine River.

  Rosalie watched her go, helpless, wondering what she should do. She looked around for Justine, but Justi
ne was soothing Sylvain to sleep. Rosalie didn’t know Tristan’s mother well enough to know if she should follow or respect her solitude.

  She glared again at Tristan, still goofing with the kids, still oblivious. He should be the one going over there. Oaf, she thought. Firing off one last, withering but completely ignored look, she screwed up her courage and followed Solange.

  “I DO NOT think I will ever be able to joke about that,” said Solange as Rosalie approached. Rosalie sat quietly beside the older woman.

  “I’m sorry you had to hear it,” she said. “Tristan should have thought—”

  “Tristan has his own way of dealing with troubles. But I cannot bear to think of what might have been. For my husband to give his life in battle, and my children to risk theirs, only to be repaid in such kind!”

  They sat in silence for a while, looking over the sweep of land, feeling the sun’s warmth and the sweet breezes. Then Solange turned and looked at Rosalie for the first time. “If that man had had his way and taken my son in his treachery, I do not know how I could have continued. There is not enough courage left in me to face such a loss.”

  Rosalie’s own eyes stung with tears. Her own awkwardness forgotten, she leaned over and brushed the older woman’s cheek with a quick kiss before returning to the picnic.

  Tristan was lying on a sun-drenched rock, chewing on an apple. The kids, apparently, had gone off on an adventure of their own. He hoisted himself onto one elbow as Rosalie came near and squinted across the meadow at Solange.

  “What was that all about?” he asked.

  “Open your eyes, Tristan!” Rosalie snapped. “Everything is not a game!” Tossing her dark ringlets, she stalked off to join Justine. Tristan stared after her, his face a caricature of baffled innocence.