Ellaeva stared at the flask in his hand, and he hurriedly tucked it away. Her gaze flickered across his face, and away again, the condemnation in her eyes clear. Drink had ruined more than one good commander. Any major event, she’d said. Becoming dependent upon the alcohol would qualify.
I never drank before I lost Zaheva. The thought burned with humiliation. He’d been so lost in the days after her murder. He’d had so much anger, directed at everyone, including himself, because he didn’t know the identity of the murdering bastard, because he should’ve been there and wasn’t, because she wouldn’t be dead if he met her as planned. And mostly at Drault, for being the reason she rode out alone. So much anger that he’d tried to drown it in the bottle, but the emptiness in his soul still burned as badly as the whisky in his belly. That anger and emptiness bubbled up anew, and he stamped on it. He didn’t need the distraction.
“What can we do about the meat? Will more get sick?” Lyram looked back up at Ellaeva from the flask.
“Maybe. But we only have five sick so far, and if they’d eaten contaminated meat at a main meal, there’d be more. I suspect the meat was corrupted sometime after the serving of the last main meal. The sick would have touched the meat or eaten a snack since then. As for the meat...there is nothing we can do. Wall this section off. Allow no one to touch it.”
Lyram scrubbed at his eyes. “This means short rations.”
“That’s not the worst part. We need to talk about those already infected.”
He stiffened, as though winded by a blow. “Yes?”
“This infection is virulent. The slightest touch will pass it from person to person. There is no cure, and the end is terrible. I... I saw it once, when I was thirteen, but no one listened to me. I still remember the agony, the screaming, the infected writhing in pain and attacking anyone, everything, even each other.” Her expression twisted, and she paused for a long moment before taking a deep breath. “They will... eat... each other, or even themselves, gnawing on their own flesh until they die of massive blood loss. I do not wish to see it again.”
Thirteen when she saw people chew themselves to death? What else did she see? Barely twenty, and she’d seen more, and worse, than he ever had—certainly more than he’d seen at her age. It wasn’t the life he’d wish for any daughter of his, if he ever had one.
“How do we stop it?” he said.
“They must be killed.”
Though he’d half-feared to hear those words, they still struck him like a fist to the face. He closed his eyes, one hand gripping his chin. A terrible decision, and a terrible thing to do. Though he wanted to do anything but, he nodded. “I’ll do it.” His voice came out rough, but sure. He couldn’t ask another to take on this task.
“You cannot. You risk infection. I must do it.” She pushed past without looking at him, her back straight.
How could one so young be required to bear such a terrible burden? Those called to serve as Battle Priestesses were considered exceptionally blessed, but in that moment he saw only a curse. He stood with his eyes closed and his hands hooked over his shoulders, the cavern air cold against his flushed cheeks, then took a deep breath and hurried to catch up.
“I’ll come with you.” Where to do it? And how? He didn’t want to slaughter them in front of Leinahre and the other wounded—didn’t want to slaughter them at all. Nor did he want Ellaeva to hunt them down one by one.
Right now she certainly looked like the cold hand of death. Her lips were set in a thin, grim line, and her eyes turned hard and chill. On the surface, she looked emotionless, but he’d worked with enough men in enough tough situations to recognise the suppressed pain in the rigidity of her body.
“We have medicinal stores.” He’d hadn’t had a chance to catalogue them yet, though, so there was no knowing what was in there. “And the kitchen garden, part of which grows herbs. There must be something we can use to quieten the victims before...” He couldn’t make himself finish the sentence, and he swallowed hard.
“Hemlock.” Ellaeva nodded tightly. “Maybe nightshade.”
Instead of heading for the courtyard, at the top of the stairs she stepped back into the pantry. Dried herbs lined several shelves here, and more bunches hung from the ceiling. The smell of herbs and spices left the air thick and choking. She examined the plants, leaning close and fingering a few leaves until she found something that satisfied her—a bundle, tucked away in a corner and bound with red twine. “Wise to keep this separate from the cooking herbs.”
Lyram took it from her. “Can we put it in something? Wine perhaps?”
“Tea. Hemlock is bitter.”
They exited via the kitchen. Galdron had evidently been there ahead of them; the kitchen was in a state of uproar, with some of the women weeping. The fires blazed hot, stoked almost beyond what any mere mortal could bear, and the charred remains of meat sank slowly into ash and cinders.
When Lyram finally found a woman calm enough to listen to him, he ordered tea to the banqueting hall. Waving Ellaeva out of the kitchen, he hurried from the hysteria and took the grand stair. Though his heart ached for the distraught servants, he lacked the luxury of the time necessary for soothing their fears rights now.
In the banqueting hall, Leinahre looked at him askance when he told her to take the uninfected men and go.
“Why? I have other patients.”
“They are virulently ill.” Ellaeva found a mortar and pestle amongst Leinahre’s accoutrements and began grinding the hemlock leaves.
Leinahre’s eyes narrowed, and she tried to step closer to Ellaeva, but Lyram intercepted her. It would be better if she didn’t see what they were brewing for the ill.
“Someone’s using magic, Leinahre.” He took her hands, his voice soft. “To infect people. If you stay, you risk catching it. Take the wounded to the second-floor tower room. I’ll call for you when it’s safe to come back.”
She hesitated. “A frictionnaire? Here?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What are you going to do?” Her huge blue eyes widened, and she began to tremble.
Those eyes, so large in her young, sweet face, made her look so vulnerable. Lyram hesitated, then pulled her into his arms. He rested his chin in her hair, the way he’d done when she was young and new to the Aharris household, and so desperately lonely. “There’s no cure, and I’m sorry, but the end is agony. I would spare them that, as much as I would spare everyone else in this castle that fate. I need you to take the wounded and go.”
Ellaeva glanced over from where she ground the herbs, her eyes uninterested. The bland expression reminded him of her warning, and he became uncomfortably aware of Leinahre pressed against him. But why shouldn’t he offer an embrace in comfort to a long-standing member of his household and as much a friend as any vassal could be to a member of the high nobility? Especially in circumstances as bleak as these. Still, when was the appropriate moment to release her, without appearing too hasty or too lingering?
A clatter of feet on the servants’ stair in the tower announced the arrival of the tea. Ellaeva returned her attention to the hemlock, and Lyram let go of Leinahre.
“Go,” he said. “Now.”
She chivvied the wounded men from the room, holding the red-and-green tartan skirts of her kirtle high as she guided them into the tower stair to the second level. A servant coming up the grand stair left the tea on a table and disappeared back the way she came, while the wounded still filed from the hall. Leinahre, following behind them, cast a look of chilling malevolence at Ellaeva before she too disappeared into the stairwell.
“She doesn’t like me,” Ellaeva said.
“I’m sure she does,” Lyram said, but the words sounded lame even to his own ears. Leinahre’s wasn’t the only dislike directed at Ellaeva from among his people. Many of the soldiers didn’t like her either, and Everard, cynic that he was, harboured a deep, abiding distrust.
A faint smile curved her lips, though it held no mirth. “Few lik
e me, Lord Aharris. People aren’t fond of those who are prepared to do the hard jobs that they themselves fear to do.”
Wasn’t that the cold hard truth? Recriminations abounded after the Siege of Invergahr, with many people telling him what he ought to have done. Easy to offer an opinion afterwards, when they weren’t present at the time. Someone had needed to make the decisions. That someone was him, and there were no good choices.
Just as now.
“Please, call me Lyram. I’ve never been fond of the appellation ‘lord’.”
Now the smile touched her eyes. “As you wish..., Lyram.”
The brief moment of pleasure as she spoke his name died as one of the sick coughed, reminding them of the grim task at hand. Ellaeva dumped the ground hemlock into the tea, and crossed to the five infected. Two were women from the castle, servants of the castellan. Do either have children? The nausea in his stomach froze his tongue. Had he ever done anything this cold-blooded? But they were doomed, either way. This is mercy.
He squatted beside one of the men, a middle-aged career soldier from his home guard, and took care to stay well out of reach. This close, the infected stank—not the sweet smell of a wound gone bad but an almost animal-like wild stench. The soldier’s eyes were so bloodshot he couldn’t discern their colour. Were they green or grey? Memory eluded him.
The man’s name came more easily to hand.
“Rest, Badden. Rest easy, man. There’s an illness in the castle, but the tea will help. Are you in pain?”
The man nodded, the skin around his eyes tight with strain and his jaw set. Restlessly, he clenched and unclenched his hands.
Lyram caught Ellaeva’s eye as she held a cup of tea to the lips of the man next along, and indicated the soldier’s hands. Her expression hardened at the sight, and she nodded. Loss of control, she’d said, and a wild violence. It had begun already. A fast-moving corruption indeed.
“The tea will help with the pain,” he said to the soldier. “You’ll sleep for a bit, and feel better. It won’t take long.”
Ellaeva shook her head. “Fast,” she said. “You’ll feel the effects fast.” She shuffled along and held a cup to Badden’s lips. “A deep lassitude will come over you. Don’t fight it. This means the medicine is working.”
She looked like stone, as always, a beautiful, perfect statue carved from cold marble. This was the mask she wore to protect herself from what must be done.
“Everything will be fine,” Lyram said. The lie weighed heavy on him, even though it was right. He fought to keep his face calm and reassuring.
Standing from the last of the sick, she jerked her head for him to follow her, and retreated to the bench where Leinahre’s apothecary tools rested.
Lyram joined her and leaned against the wall with his arms folded as if to drive the chill of self-loathing from his body.
“This is right,” he whispered. “There’s nothing else to do.”
“Sometimes what’s right and what must be done are not the same thing.”
The breaths of the dying began to slow, rattling in their throats. Her right hand rested on the bench next to her hip. He looked at it for a long moment, listening to the rasping. Unable to endure, he took her hand in his.
Her gaze flicked to meet his, and she squeezed his fingers.
Tears pricked his eyes, and he blinked before they fell. “How do you bear it without crying?”
“If I started, I would never stop.” She did not meet his eyes.
They stood, hands clasped, as the infected slipped into a deep sleep.
Lyram studied their faces, relaxed now as the hemlock took its course, and tried to memorise their features. Badden, with his broad face and squashed nose. The two serving women, one old enough to be a grandmother and the other middle-aged. Two soldiers of the castellan.
Eventually they slipped into unconsciousness. From within her robe, Ellaeva produced a needle-pointed poniard. She went about the gruesome work with quick efficiency, rolling each man or woman on to their side in order to slide the blade into the soft spot at the back of the neck where it joined the skull.
“Can’t you...” Lyram waved his hands, then extended his arm the way she’d done with the enemy rider outside the castle, trying without words to indicate the way she killed with a touch.
“No. It is something I may only call upon in defence of my own life, and it is at Ahura’s discretion to grant it. I only used it on the battlefield because my sword was wrapped and bound.” Her jaw tightened as she laid the last of the lifeless heads on the ground with extreme care. “At least two of the five Battle Priestesses preceding me died because the touch failed them—whether because they abused the privilege or because Ahura was done with their service and called them home.”
Two out of five. He closed his eyes against the sudden rush of sorrow for her. She must wonder if she would bring it to an even one out of two. “Poor reward for faithful service.”
“There are no rewards for being a Battle Priestess.” She thrust the poniard back inside her robes. “Only pain, duty, and obligation.”
The words left him cold. Though she did well keeping her thoughts and emotions from her face, the more time he spent with her, the better he became at reading her anyway. These deaths weighed on her, despite her attempt at matter-of-factness. How many other lives burdened her shoulders? What other truths of the life of a Battle Priestess preyed on her in the smallest hours of the long nights? Words failed him, and in desperation he reached out and caught her hand.
She met his eyes for a brief moment. Hers were dark as night, like Zaheva’s, but bitter with a depth of pain that left him weak at the knees. How could one woman—one girl—carry such weight? She squeezed his hand in acknowledgement. Was there anything he could say to make her feel better? Anything to buffer her from the cruel hand dealt her? But words failed him, and so he said nothing, only clasped her hand in the silence. It was all he could do to share her burden.
A sharp rap on the barred door broke the moment, and Ellaeva pulled her hand away.
Regretfully, he let her, and turned to the door. “What is it?”
“Sir.” The thick wood muffled Everard’s voice. “There’s an emissary, sir. From the enemy camp.”
Lyram reclined in a chair, drowsing and savouring the languorous heat from the fire and the moment’s silence after the ordeal of the day—silent, anyway, except for the pounding of stones against the castle walls. The barrage had ceased long enough for the emissary to approach and gain admittance, and the continued onslaught told him nothing good about the enemy’s intentions. Even now, Galdron and Ellaeva would be escorting the man to the withdrawing room.
Through half-lidded eyes, he watched Everard prowl restlessly around the table in the dying light of the sun, examining the tactical maps laid out there from each side, while the castellan watched. Galdron had sent out scouts in the first days of the siege, but most failed to return, and the maps showed only scant information. Lyram pressed his lips together and scowled. More wasted men. The initial arrival of the enemy claimed their best scouts, and none who remained were skilled enough to risk their life creeping amongst enemy lines. He could go himself—a misspent youth in the king’s rangers had honed his stalking abilities—but Ellaeva would veto that idea for sure.
“What do you suppose they want?”
Lyram’s gaze slid to Sir Janun, who was seated in one of the burgundy velvet chairs well back in the corner of the withdrawing room. “Our surrender.” Me.
The castellan grunted. “Will these measures her holiness insists on prevent the spread of the illness? Five dead already! I’ve known illness to spread like dragonfire, but nothing like this.”
Even here, in the quiet sanctuary of the withdrawing room, the acrid tang of smoke penetrated. While they awaited the coming of the emissary, Lyram had ordered soldiers to wrap the dead in the banqueting hall in canvas and burn them in the courtyard. Galdron personally supervised the walling up of the meat store, and no one el
se had come down ill in the past two hours. As fast as the corruption spread, someone would have if they’d been exposed.
Lyram let out a long sigh, picking at the velvet nape of the chair with his free hand. “I think so. I hope so.”
The castellan grunted again and settled back in his chair.
Everard ceased his prowling and stopped in front of Lyram.
Lyram swirled whisky in his glass, waiting for his aide to speak, and sniffed the liquor appreciatively. A better drop than he’d become accustomed to of late, and without that too-sweet aftertaste the whisky carried sometimes. Perhaps a new flask would help.
“Why send her to greet the emissary?” Everard pitched his voice too low to carry to the castellan’s corner.
“So they will know Ahura is on our side.” Lyram sipped at the whisky without meeting Everard’s eyes.
“She’s pretty.”
Lyram choked, coughing and spraying expensive liquor on his aide and the thick, blue carpets. He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. “Excuse me? Pretty like a blizzard. Best to remember she’s as deadly, too.”
“Aye.” Everard cocked his head, like a bird inspecting a worm. “You washed and trimmed your hair.”
It hung in still damp locks against the nape of his neck, so he didn’t bother denying it. His left hand strayed to his beard. Though he’d not gone so far as to shave, he’d trimmed the whiskers as well.
Everard said nothing, though his lips twitched.
“It’s important to look the part if I want to be taken seriously.” Lyram glanced at Janun, but if the castellan had any interest in the conversation, he hid it well, with all his attention focussed on paring his nails with a small knife.
“Don’t make a mistake, sir.”
“A mistake?” Lyram jerked his attention back to Everard. “What kind of mistake? With Ellaeva? She’s sworn to the goddess, man.”
“Aye, but I’ve not seen you so...” His aide hesitated, evidently choosing his words carefully. “Alert. Not since...”
In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1) Page 12
