He shook his head.
“What is rule number one?” he said.
“Don’t draw attention to yourself,” Alia said immediately.
“Combat rule number one.”
“I don’t know but judging by your face, probably something about not interfering in a sword fight whilst using a bow,” Alia said, looking crestfallen.
“Good guess,” Jonas said, face angry, wiping and sheathing his sword.
“I’m sorry.”
“I had this under control.”
“I’m sure. But he was probably right about his men. They are probably on their way now and not far off.”
Braxis coughed and was silent. There was a lot of blood around him on the forest floor.
Jonas shook his head. “Go get Felix and the horses,” he said. “And be quick. You’re probably right, his men will be on their way.”
Alia nodded and ran off.
Jonas shook his head again. This was not the plan but ultimately they were still alive and unhurt so all in all, he’d take that. He looked around a moment and retrieved the crossbow. He winced when he saw the condition of it. “That’s going to be trouble,” he said quietly before slinging it over his shoulder by the attached strap. He then reached down, grabbed Braxis’ corpse and walked quickly towards where Alia had collected the horses.
Good to his word, Felix had not run and helped Jonas to tie Braxis to a horse whilst Alia kept watch.
“Let’s get out of here before trouble arrives,” Jonas said, mounting his horse and pulling Felix up behind him. Alia looked at the body attached to her horse, decided to say nothing and mounted up.
*****
Marlen had been able to see his destination from a fair distance, as the village had been built on a hill from which it had sweeping views of the area, and of anyone who tried to approach. This had been important when the hill had just housed a fort, but then a settlement had emerged to supply the soldiers with essentials: alcohol, food, flesh. Many soldiers had stayed in the town when their time was up, but that couldn’t save the fort, which had long since gone, and the village now hung in a state of indecision: neither small enough to really be a village, although that was what everyone called it, but too few to be a town, or anything really near it. Still, the place was proud, and as Marlen approached past the bumpy landscape where older homes had been robbed away for their resources, he saw that two old soldiers remained on guard on the main road, with no real powers to stop anyone, just playing out a tradition that was otherwise worthless. Well, worthless to Marlen.
He strode on, and was soon nearing the soldiers, who’d noticed him and come together to engage in a deep exchange.
“Greetings men,” Marlen called out, and he saw their lined faces looking with surprise at him.
“Greetings traveller,” replied one throaty voice, “but we must warn you. Our town has suffered a misfortune, and no one wishes to enter.”
Marlen smiled to himself. He knew all about this misfortune: the local girls, and young women, were beset by a fainting sickness. They would be fine, living normally if not afraid, when one would faint, and soon they all would have collapsed. Healers had come and gone, God had been prayed to, but nothing stopped the fainting spells, and soon people avoided the village in greater and greater numbers in case they caught the curse, because what could it be but God looking down with anger? But Marlen wasn’t afraid, instead he was confident he couldn’t catch whatever ailed them, and he was fascinated, deeply, deeply fascinated to know what was happening here. Was it a disease he hadn’t come across? Some sickness he could learn from? Where other healers had fled in fear and failure, he believed wholeheartedly he would not fail. He would certainly not run.
“I have come to help,” he told the guards, who were still looking sceptical.
“We’ve been cursed, sir, cursed, nobody comes to help.” It was less a statement of fact and more desperation.
“As you are about to find out, I am not ‘most people’,” and Marlen smiled. His teeth were perfect, although the self-belief in his features appeared to the guards to be bordering on fanaticism.
“Are you sure? We can pay, we have money put aside, we can pay whatever you want.”
Why did it always come down to money?
“Just let me speak to your elders, please.”
Marlen was led through the village, and there was a cliché among people who hadn’t travelled that when a stranger, a newcomer, went through a village people looked out, if not came out, to stop and stare and see the intruder. Marlen had always thought this born of false judgements against closeted communities because there was plenty of travel in the empire, but today, as the three of them tramped through, people really did come flocking to windows, a cry really did go up, and soon a crowd had formed behind the group, of men and women and children, all looking, all fascinated, all disbelieving someone had actually come to help.
The word which had gone ahead brought a swift meeting, as four of the most senior people in the village gathered in a small group to welcome Marlen. They were three women and a man, and he could see on their faces the strain of the past few months, the pressure of dealing with a village they had been forced to conclude was cursed. But there were also the first traces of hope, as they began to let themselves wonder if this stranger would be the difference maker. No, not let, they were desperate to hope, and they were about to cling onto him.
Introductions were given, and soon Marlen was explaining what he’d heard about the village from the area, and how he’d come to offer his services. He was then given the real story from the elders, and on this occasion it seemed to fit: a few months ago during a village gathering one girl had fainted, another had followed and soon all the young women were falling down insensible, and doing so at irregular intervals. Smiling inside with the joy of a mystery about to be solved, Marlen asked to meet all the women, and the elders rushed about to organise.
A cottage was soon emptied of residents and given over to be a makeshift office, and the first of the girls came in. She was of average height, willowy, and with red curls that would have pleased the aesthetes of the capital. Marlen began his examination by asking her questions about what had happened, and she described suddenly feeling dizzy, her blood pumping and then finding herself on the floor, knees and head hurting. But while they were talking Marlen was making a physical examination. He wasn’t like the pretend healers who would use these meetings to run their hands over women’s bodies for sexual pleasure, because as he moved his hands over her they never actually touched, and more importantly he was beginning to see her body differently, beginning to let his abilities take over and show him the situation. And as he read her body he found nothing wrong, nothing at all. Which was interesting, and did lead to a particular diagnosis. Not a pleasant one, but a truthful one.
The rest of the day involved speaking to the rest of the young women, and the pattern was repeated. All spoke of their panic and their collapses, all had perfectly healthy physical bodies. Marlen’s mood darkened throughout the day, because he soon realised what was happening, soon knew exactly the cause and the treatment, but hung on in case of something new. But there was nothing new, this was hysteria, all in the mind. He knew that if one person fainted, seemingly for no reason but because of hunger or fatigue, then the chances of another fainting rose. And after two the minds of these women, and men, grew paranoid, and the chance of fainting rose further, and a whole group could faint out of sheer panic. No curse, no gods, no illness, just the feeble mind of humanity.
Marlen couldn’t tell them this, of course not, and so when he gathered the elders he lied to them, gave them a false diagnosis and prescribed a course of medicine which would have to be cooked up and taken daily for a year. But he didn’t do what the fake healers did, promising an instant cure which would be shattered the next faint. He told them it would be a battle, they would take the pills and the faints would continue, but if they kept the regiment up the gaps would grow larger,
the faints less, and slowly the village would heal.
Then there was nothing left but to promise to return to collect a payment in a year’s time, and leave the village, his disappointment at not finding a new disease utmost in his mind.
*****
“Alright. I give up. I’ve been trying to work this out for the best part of a day now, but enough,” Alia said, depositing her tankard on the tavern table none too gently.
“Enough what? What are you talking about?” Jonas said, giving her a curious look before taking a sip of his own drink.
“What’s wrong with you?” Alia said, looking at him intently.
“You’ve lost me,” Jonas said, though he put his drink down.
“We’ve just broken our biggest ever case. Collected our biggest bounty.”
Jonas thought about that. “I suppose we have,” he admitted.
“So why are you so bloody miserable?”
“Miserable?”
“You’ve had a face like thunder ever since we caught him. Every time we’ve completed a job in the past you’ve been a picture of relaxation. For a day or so anyway.”
“Ah,” Jonas said, frowning.
“Ah? What exactly am I missing here? From your attitude anyone would think we lost the man rather than collecting on him. We got him. We got paid. Time for the next one.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe we got him or maybe time for the next one? You’re not thinking of retiring on me are you?”
Jonas stopped and looked her in the eye. “No, I’m not retiring. Not yet.”
“So?”
“So what?”
Alia growled in frustration. “Is this some sort of test? What am I missing here?”
“No. It’s not a test,” Jonas said. “Not for you anyway.”
“Then I really don’t understand.”
Jonas looked at her intently for a minute. “There’s something else,” he said.
“So what aren’t you telling me then?” Alia said, eyebrows raised.
“Braxis wasn’t our target. Not really.”
“I’m pretty sure it was his name on the bounty sheet.”
“Well, yes. But he wasn’t who I’m after.”
“You know what? I knew there was something fishy about this bounty. All this distance from home. It had nothing to do with me being over-comfortable.”
“There was a bit of that too,” Jonas said.
“Whatever,” Alia said. “So you going to fill me in, or should I stay in the dark?”
“It’s dangerous,” Jonas said.
“Because we’ve just been baking cakes so far,” Alia said tartly.
“He’s dangerous,” Jonas said.
“Who?”
“The man I suspect is Braxis’s boss. Or at the least senior partner.”
“We’re talking someone powerful then,” Alia said, frowning.
“I’m not sure powerful is the right word,” Jonas said.
“Are we talking magic here?” Alia said suddenly.
Jonas looked around quickly but it didn’t look like anyone was listening. “You need to be careful using words like that,” he said quietly.
“My apologies,” Alia said. “But answer the question.”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“He’s a healer gone bad. He can do exceptional things. Magic is probably a factor at the moment.”
“Right,” Alia said, face flat.
“I didn’t really want you involved in this,” Jonas said.
“Tough,” Alia said. “You started the job, we see it through.”
“This will be far more dangerous than anything we’ve done before,” Jonas said softly.
“I’m ready,” Alia said.
“No one is ever ready for this,” Jonas said.
“I’ve watched your back for some time now,” Alia said. “You really going to abandon me now?”
“No,” Jonas said.
“Besides, you leave me here, I’ll race you to him.”
“That would be … unwise.”
“Then we’re better off looking into this together. What leads do we have?”
“A dead Braxis.”
“Ah. Now I understand the thunder face.”
“I think we have more though. Braxis was very keen to get the paperwork back. I know that was our plan, but it suggests there might be something more incriminating than we thought in it.”
“We can go over it again of course,” Alia said. “From what I remember it’s mostly shipping information. For people.”
“People who have been injured. Or are ill,” Jonas said.
“Must be difficult to transport,” Alia said. “Though I suppose those are probably the sort of people that a healer would want to see.”
“I think there’s more to it though,” Jonas said. “There’s not a lot of money in healing poor people, certainly not enough to pay to transport them.”
“You think he’s fixing them and selling them as healthy?” Alia asked.
“The thought had crossed my mind,” Jonas said.
“That’s… I’m not sure how to describe that,” Alia said, pondering.
“Monstrous?”
“Part of it, certainly. Can you imagine giving someone hope then taking it away?”
Jonas looked uncomfortable.
“Let’s leave that one there then,” Alia said. “Shall we go look at the papers we have, see if we can get any idea of where this healer might be?”
*****
Daeholf smiled. “It looks like we are heading in the right direction after all.” He waited for a response, but Trimas just stared out ahead of him.
“You’re very quiet today,” Daeholf noted, looking over as they rode along the trail.
Zedek was taking his turn scouting ahead and Daeholf wanted to use the opportunity for a quiet chat. Sometimes Zedek just didn’t see things the way they did, despite his best efforts.
"I’ve been thinking about families. I miss my daughter," Trimas said distantly.
"You've not talked about children before," Daeholf said, surprise evident on his face.
"Not really, no," Trimas admitted.
"How old is she? Is she pretty?"
"She's eight."
"Ah. So, should I look her up in ten years then?"
Trimas gave him a withering look. “Twenty. And even then, no.”
"Sorry. Though to be fair, it's exactly what you'd have said in my position."
"Maybe," Trimas admitted. “Probably,” he added after a moment.
“So where is she?”
“With her mother, only almost no one knows I’m the father. We’ve been careful, and given what has happened since, it was the right way to go.”
“I can see that. Do you get to see her often?”
“Not really, no.”
“If she’s eight then that would have been before all the trouble.”
“Yeah.”
“So how did you know to keep her secret?”
“You don’t know that much about senatorial families, do you?”
“Not really, no.”
“She wasn’t planned.”
“I guessed that much.”
“She was the result of an indiscretion with the daughter of another senator. It wasn’t something that either of us could admit to. Or be allowed to admit to.”
“An indiscretion? Just the one?”
“No. More than one.” Trimas said it with a smile.
“That’s more like it.”
“She’s my only child that I know of though.”
“Ah, the soldier’s excuse.”
Trimas gave Daeholf a pointed look.
“Hey, none that I know of either.”
Trimas grinned at him.
“So tell me more.”
“Not much more to tell really. Other than she’s a Valades.”
“Fuck.”
“Very much.”
“That explains a lot then.”
“An awful lot.”
“So you visit then?”
“Occasionally.”
“Does she know you’re her father?”
“Yes. Yes, she does. Her mother insisted, despite my objections that it would be safer if she didn’t. I’m glad she did.”
“How do you explain your absence?”
“I’m a soldier.”
“Of course. So do you send them money or anything?”
“Occasionally, if I have some spare and there’s someone I can trust to carry it. I am somewhat down on resources of late though, you may have noticed.”
“Aren’t we all.”
“Choices and fate.”
“Yeah. So how do they manage?”
“Oh, they’re looked after.”
“Is it amicable with the missus?”
“We’re not married,” Trimas snapped.
“You know what I mean.”
“Sorry. We’re fine. We both agree it was a mistake at the time but there’s no hard feelings from her.”
“She marry someone else then?”
“She hadn’t when I saw them last but that was some time ago.”
“You never thought about…”
“No, it was never like that between us.”
“Ah.”
“How long has it been since you saw them then?”
“More than two years.”
“Ouch. Been a bit insensitive of me parading my inability to see my family then hasn’t it?”
“No, not really. Does me good to think about them sometimes.”
Daeholf was quiet for a minute. “The emperor has a lot to answer for,” he said eventually.
“Him and the rest of the senate.”
“One day, maybe, we’ll be able to do something.”
Trimas snorted. “I think you’ve already made a good start with the flag thing. That really didn’t go down well.”
“It was a bit rash. But I was angry and it got the message across.”
“I know, I was there, remember?”
“Yes, and thanks again for that. I didn’t really have a plan about what I was going to do next.”
Trimas chuckled. “That much was obvious.”
They rode along in silence for a few moments, listening to the wind in the trees.
Dark Healer (An Empire Falls Book 1) Page 14
