Norton, Andre - Anthology

by Magic in Ithkar 04 (v1. 0)

  Anvadlim's first patient was borne in by two servants. Faces impassive, they lowered the litter to the floor and left.

  Slow, stertorous breathing. Obtunded or comatose. The man's face was crusted with vomit and dirt. When Anvadlim brushed the thick black hair, lice scuttled. The injury was obvious: a blue throbbing lump told of a sharp blow to the skull. Broken, perhaps. He leaned closer and winced at the man's sour breath. He pulled down the blanket: rough clothing, but well made. It still smelled of woodsmoke. The fellow could not be a longtime derelict.

  He pulled back the eyelids and held a candle close. Bad. It meant ill when the windows of the soul gaped wide.

  "Head injury, yes," he mused, "and little I can do about that. But there's something else. How came he so neglected?" He pulled the blanket all the way down. Leather boots, worn at the heels—well soled, though, and the uppers made of fine warm fur. The leather trews were stiff with dirt and urine, but once they had been double sewn with sinew. He opened the laced shirt: good muscle, not yet wasted to thinness. He frowned. Something was familiar—

  With a wet cloth he wiped the face. The skin was tanned by wind and weather. Anvadlim rocked back on his heels. He knew this man. He'd been drinking at the Bibulous Bullock, only last night. Too drunk to stand, perhaps, but not injured. Mim never tolerated brawls.

  Hadn't he seen this man carried out? Something strange about that, too: it was by a servant in pink and silver. Why would Krimar's household bother with a drunken trapper? With shaking hands Anvadlim penned his notes: Serious head injury. Nothing to be done save rest and pray. Then he stumbled from the tent. Fortunately, a fair-ward stood just outside.

  Anvadlim hailed him. "I'd like you to look at something for me." He shoved the man into his tent and pointed to his patient.

  "Not you, too," the guard protested. "Never saw this man. Never heard no report. Want to file a complaint? As it's their contest, it would go to House Krimar, I'd be supposing." Anvadlim shook his head, and the guard left.

  "So that's how it is!" Anvadlim started to slam his belongings into his small wooden chest. Behind him, the patient's breath slowed. "May Krimar rot alive!"

  A contest indeed! Lithras's hands shook with fury as she scooped up her sekh amulet. Yd sooner sell myself on the street — it's honest work and less harm to it. True, the position of "bodykeeper" would have been an easy living, in a noble's house. But her mother had been a healer. Lithras was not, but some things are sacrilege, even to the unsanctified.

  Her eyes were so clouded with tears that she stumbled into Anvadlim without recognizing him. He seized her by the shoulders. "Just a moment. Where are you going?"

  "What does it matter to you? You and Peldras are welcome to your pus-filled contest. I give you joy of it." She sniffed, wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and looked up. Why was Anvadlim carrying his wooden chest? And a leather knapsack? "So you're already packed to move in with Lord Krimar? I'm sure he'll keep you entertained. You can practice cutting. You'll have plenty of subjects any time you wish." She struggled to get away. "Let me go!"

  The flap of Peldras's tent opened, and the old physician came blinking into sunlight. "I say, it's hard to do my work with all this noise." Then he recognized his fellow contestants. "Is something amiss?"

  "Pestilential right there is!" Anvadlim roared. Then, more quietly, "What sort of case are you treating at present?"

  "I'm not certain I should—" Peldras began.

  "Tell me, then, is it a head injury? A bad one?" Both waited for his answer.

  "Well, yes, as a matter of fact..." The fellow bumbled into silence.

  Lithras and Anvadlim reached the tent as one and pulled aside the flap. On a cot lay a comatose form: a woman whose long hair was matted with blood. Lithras staggered back. The woman wore bright upland clothing, and her hands were work rough. Lithras had seen her only the day before and given her the entire supply of merrywort. She felt as if she might vomit. "How was she hurt?"

  Peldras shrugged. "That does not concern me. She was brought in as one of the test cases. I have made my diagnosis, and determined there is nothing to do. I await my next assignment. Interesting, is it not?"

  Glykso's voice boomed out, and all three jumped. "Consultations are forbidden. Do you wish to be disqualified?"

  Perhaps a holy man could help, Lithras thought. "There is something wrong. Surely you, a priest of the Three Lordly Ones, would wish to know."

  Glykso's lips curved in what might have been a smile. 'There is little of which I am ignorant, child."

  "Reverend Father, it is about House Krimar's hiring trials. For bodykeepers. You must know that it was set up as a test of skill, to determine the most qualified contestants."

  "House Krimar is accustomed to seek the best." Glykso's voice held no inflection.

  Anvadlim broke in. "What my young colleague means to say—and what I mean to say, as well—is that some of the cases were no accident. We have seen identical injuries: burns, crushed feet, and head wounds. I fear willful harm is being done. Two of yesterday's patients were slaves of House Krimar."

  "And theirs to deal with as they wished," Glykso said. "I gave leave for the testing. I do not concern myself with trifles. Slaves are mere property."

  Lithras's hand flew to the killing knife hidden at her belt. She herself had been a slave. Anvadlim held her arm.

  "What, then," the physician roared, "of free citizens— supposedly under protection of Ithkar law? One lies dying in my tent."

  "I fail to see the problem," Peldras interjected. "We were in a trial of skill, were we not? And thus we were given interesting cases." He gestured vaguely and backed toward his tent.

  "Precisely," said Glykso. "House Krimar has long held a special place with the temple. You, Anvadlim, should appreciate their patronage of . . . science." The physician dropped Lithras's arm and took one step forward. Glykso scurried behind the guard. "Arrest them for causing a disturbance." The fair-ward hefted his pike but made no move.

  "Please," Peldras said, "can we not be civilized?"

  Anvadlim ignored him. "I'd curse you, Glykso, but my spells never work. And of course sorcery is unlawful at Ithkar."

  Lithras spat at the priest's feet. "My mother would have wished you this: May you receive always what you deserve." She turned toward Peldras. "You, it seems, have earned the same."

  Glykso pounded at the fair-ward's back. "Seize them!" The guard still did not move. "Seize them, I say." He raised his arm again, then clutched at his chest. His face purpled.

  Anvadlim smiled. "Warden," he said, "there exists an emergency. You should summon a physician. Only the best will do: the future bodykeeper-in-residence to Lord Krimar." Peldras nodded and smiled. "Your first patient," Anvadlim told him, "is even more illustrious than Lord Krimar and his household." Glykso now had sunk to his knees. Peldar stumbled toward him. His hands wavered in mystic passes. They left him to it.

  A cold wind harried Lithras and Anvadlim toward the gate. Lithras strode angrily. Despite his greater height, Anvadlim had to hurry to keep up. "Stay a moment!" he gasped. "A healer must never stop learning. I've always wanted to study the herbal secrets of the north, though none would initiate me."

  "Nor me either," Lithras said. "My mother was to do so, but she died in the war." She shrugged off the intervening years of misery and shame. "What I know, I have picked up myself, here and there. I've taken a notion to study cutting, of late." She must be honest. "I warn you, I can work no magic. This is not only at Ithkar, under the ban. I am no anointed healer, but a maimed thing, unfinished."

  Going out through the gate, they struggled against*an incoming tide of fairgoers. At last they reached the banks of the river Ith. Boats bobbed at moorage; one could carry them anywhere. The river bank was trampled by thousands of feet, rutted by hundreds of cargo wagons. Heedless of her shoes, Lithras stepped to the water's edge.

  The knife at her belt had stuck in its sheath. She drew it for the first time since it had been soiled. Her captor's blood
was only brown dirt. Cold currents rinsed it away.

  As she resheathed the blade she felt a scrabbling at her breast. Curious, she pulled out her amulet. The blackstone carving gleamed in the thin sunlight. Both the sekh's wings were whole. She smiled. Well, it might be some minor magic happens, from time to time.

  The year was running to autumn. From Galzar Pass down to the river Ith, the wind swept cold, sharp as a clean knife. Lithras filled her lungs, tucked the amulet inside her dress, and walked beside Anvadlim toward a southbound boat.

  HONEYCOMB

  Esther Friesner

  Rain at Ithkar Fair: an inconvenience, surely, and a rare occurrence, but nothing that had not happened before. The nobles lodged in the temple guest house stood by the windows in the common room and watched the gray skies tip out their load of rain. Some went so far as to write bad poetry, which was meant to evoke the day's morose quality in the hearer, but which somehow succeeded in its aim for all the wrong reasons. The lovely young lady Demaris produced a sonnet that was pregnant with world weariness and heartfelt sighing after Higher Things. Lord Yevri paid her an embarrassment of compliments on her flawless way with morbidity, and soon the pair of them were closeted in his room, finding better ways to pass a rainy day than poetry.

  Rain at Ithkar Fair: The less fortunate attendees prayed to the Three Lordly Ones to call back the waters, at least until fair's end. They cursed the muck that puddled under their blankets as they struggled to keep dry. Strangers became close comrades, writhing together under the wagon-beds, trying to avoid the gusty showers. When curses and prayers did nothing, they tucked their heads deeper into the folds of their sodden blankets and imitated the winter-deep slumber of bears, waiting in oblivion for things to improve.

  Rain at Ithkar Fair, like rain anywhere, must end. And many new things sprout to life after a good rain. Scarron crawled out of his soaked woolen cocoon and wiped dripping strands of brown hair out of his eyes, blinking at a clear sky and what had come to Ithkar under cover of the rain.

  "Malfora, look there." He prodded the dun-colored lump huddled into the small of his back. "We've got a new neighbor."

  The lump grunted and produced a sleepy-eyed face framed by damp yellow curls. "Where?" She scrubbed her eyes and hauled herself on top of her companion for a better view.

  "Over there, to the right. Get down, you're too high up to see. One stall over from the fat man's magic dishes."

  It was so. Malfora squirmed farther out of her blankets and bobbed her head down, as her brother instructed. None of the stalls in their vicinity had true walls. Most had cloth partitions that stopped two spans above the ground. From her cat's-eye vantage, Malfora spied a pair of slim white feet going busily back and forth inside the stall that had been vacant only the other day. They were bare feet—a lady's feet with the toenails tinted dusty rose—and very pale, yet somehow they passed through the ubiquitous fairground mud without stain. The grimy pair under the ramshackle wagon exchanged a knowing look.

  "Magic," said Malfora.

  Her brother nodded. For those two there had always been something sorcerous about ordinary cleanliness, but the dainty, disembodied feet two stalls over were a miracle walking on mud. Scarron slid from under his little sister's bedroll, sending her tumbling into the muck with a squall of outrage. He hauled himself up by the nearest cartwheel and tugged the hem of his green tunic down sharply.

  "What do you think you're doing?" snarled Malfora, wriggling out of her blankets. A bucket hung from the side of the wagon, more than halfway filled with water. The girl watched as her brother washed the morning's dirt from hands and face, disturbing several more ancient layers of soil at the same time.

  "We're going to pay a visit," Scarron mumbled through cupped hands. "Can't pay a visit looking filthy."

  "You're not that filthy."

  "No, but you are." And before Malfora could escape, he had her by the scruff of the neck and was scouring her down to the skin. A few minutes later, the children presented themselves at the curtained front of the nearby stall.

  Like their own place, it was a rickety thing, a mere formality of canework overspread with a thin cloth roof to keep off the sun. Some of the better stalls fronting the path boasted a narrow counter at the front, but for the most part the tradesmen backed their wagons into the stalls and used either the footboard or a "found" plank balanced across the wagon-bed to serve the purpose.

  A knowledgeable visitor paying a call at one of these stalls before it was opened for business could not knock to announce his presence. One good rap on the cane struts might topple the whole structure, especially after a hard rain had softened the ground to goo. A better way would be to shout the stall-keeper's name. But ... if you did not know that person's name?

  "Well, go on! What are you waiting for?" Malfora gave her brother a jab in the ribs that sent him stumbling forward, limping slightly. (Malfora had not accepted her enforced cleansing without a good fight.) Recovering his balance, Scarron cleared his throat a few times, uttered several anonymous hailing cries, and finally clapped his hands imperiously at the dangling green baize curtain.

  At first his summons drew no reply. Malfora began to curse his ineptness so fluently that a passing bravo did a double take and added several new expressions to his own scurrilous vocabulary from the ten-year-old's supply. Malfora had run out of words for her brother and was going on to excoriate the unseen stall-woman when a hand as white and slim as the feet glimpsed earlier pulled back the curtain.

  "Yes, child? May I help you?"

  Scarron gulped. There was some mistake. There had to be. A lady with a face so fair, slanted eyes the color of amber, hair a floss of snow, did not belong so far from the temple guest house. No, even that wasn't fit to house her. She belonged in the temple itself—not as servant, nor guest, nor even priestess, but as mistress. In that first moment, Scarron was convinced that someone had miscounted; there had been more than three Lordly Ones, and this was the unreckoned fourth come home at last.

  Malfora was still too young for religion to be more than a hasty charm mumbled to keep off the night grims. She shoved her brother aside and said, "I'm Malfora. This is my brother, Scarron. We sell carved bowls, two stalls down from you. What do you sell? When did you get here? Where did you come from? Did you come in the rain? Wasn't it awful? I hate the rain. What's your name?"

  The lady threw back her head and laughed, a liquid, rippling sound. She extended her hands to the little girl, and Malfora took them. Seven silver rings glinted in the new-washed sunlight.

  "I am very pleased to meet you, Malfora. I am Siluia, and I am a candlemaker."

  The child nodded solemnly. "Good. You can stay."

  "Malfora!" His sister's unthinkable rudeness to the visiting goddess shocked Scarron out of his daze. He jerked her back by the shoulder and gave her a shake. "You say you're sorry!"

  Malfora set her lips in a way that declared she'd sooner die. In the five years since death had made him her parents as well as her brother, Scarron had come to recognize that look. It meant business.

  "My lady, forgive her. My sister hasn't any more manners than a piglet. In fact, I've seen some pigs that— ouch!"

  The piglet in question kicked like a mule. Rubbing his assaulted shin, Scarron threatened every facet of Malfora's life while his sister danced out of range, giggling.

  "Please, I take no offense," Siluia said. She laid her ringed hand on Scarron's arm. He felt blood flush his face at her touch, cool and tingling even through his thick tunic. "You were certainly here before I, and first-comers ought to have some say in who becomes their neighbor."

  "Last year we had another carver set up right next to us." Malfora crossed her arms, frowning. "His bowls weren't nearly as nice as ours, but he sold them cheaper. And he polished them with fish oil. Stinky fish oil!" Her short nose crinkled at the reeking memory.

  "Well, I promise that my business will not compete with yours, little one." The pale lady beckoned, and Malfora ventured b
ack to have her curls stroked and smoothed. Scarron glowered, caught in the snare of unreasoning envy. "My candles are sweetly scented, made only of the finest, freshest beeswax. I use no tallow, which smokes and stinks. What's more, it may happen that those who buy my candles will afterward buy your bowls, to set them in for burning." Her golden eyes sparkled with merriment. "I will suggest it."

  "My lady, you needn't—"

  "Don't call me that!" All warmth vanished from Siluia's voice. Her back stiffened, small breasts pressing against the smooth azure cloth of her dress. "I am Siluia; nothing more!" She spun on her heel and ducked back behind the green curtain.

  "What did you say to her?" Malfora demanded, pounding her brother's arm. "You stupid ox, she's nicel She said she'd help us! What did you say to insult her like that?"

  Scarron stood there, staring at the wavering sheet of baize, his mouth moving without sound. At last he said, "I don't know ... I don't know ..."

  Malfora spat on his sandals, totally disgusted. She had never seen any person—any thing —to compare with the strange stall-woman for beauty. She tucked her icy paws into her armpits to warm them and flounced off to prepare for the day's business. She left her stone-struck brother to follow her or take root, whichever.

  Scarron shook off his stupor and was soon helping Malfora arrange their stock of bowls for sale. A treasured plank, wide enough to display two score and ten bowls to best advantage, was laid across the tail end of their wagon. The bowls came in all sizes, an assortment of shapes, and a rich variety of woods.

  As the elder by fully four years, Scarron had charge of the family purse. Now he hauled it up from its hiding place inside his tunic and flicked the coins into separate piles, by denomination. He nodded once, content that there were enough of each to provide change for the day's customers without his having to send Malfora sprinting to the changers' booths. Somehow his half-wild little sister always managed to "lose" a handful of the smaller coins en route back from the changers—a loss accompanied by the scent of burnt sugar on her breath.