by Cate Rowan
With six acknowledged wives, just how many other women were there? What if Kuramos had dozens, even hundreds, hungering for him, each begging and scheming for his limited time, to get him into bed, to touch him, to feel his powerful hands gliding over her skin…
Varene could almost excuse this wife’s insulting temper. Almost.
Sulya slid off the bed, her sullen glare on Varene. “Here’s my son, Sorceress. Since you claim to be here to heal him, do so.” She moved to the wall and continued in a lower tone. “It will soon be clear you have no skill.”
After an irritated pause, Varene looked at Kuramos. “I can’t make promises about his recovery. I can only try to determine what the illness is, and treat him and the others as best I’m able.”
His eyes locked on hers for a moment, evaluating. After a curt nod, he turned back to the bed.
Surprisingly, the rigid planes of his face softened as he gazed upon Tahir.
Varene blinked and gazed at the sultan’s profile a moment longer. Was it possible that this tyrant possessed an abiding love for the child?
Feeling somehow embarrassed, she cleared her throat and turned to the boy.
Now that Sulya no longer guarded her son like a fanged wolf, Varene stepped toward him, her full skirts dragging across the carpets. He hadn’t seemed to notice the new voices in the room, and that worried her. If he were sleeping, it was a deep slumber indeed. Or was it worse?
She slid her fingers over his small palm. His skin was too warm, parched and dry to the touch. She turned his hand over and gently tugged up a fold of thin skin. Instead of snapping back, the fold drooped down into place. She pressed her thumb on the flat of a nail, turning the nailbed white. When she let go, the nailbed took too long to pinken. His body needed liquids. “How long since he passed water?”
Sulya reluctantly met Varene’s gaze. “Half a day.”
“What has he eaten or drunk since his fever began?”
“Juice and broth early on, when I could get him to take it. Then he said his throat hurt too much, and he refused everything.”
“Children can be difficult patients,” Varene murmured. Wrestling with a four-year-old was not an easy task for anyone, much less a worried parent.
She searched the boy’s drawn, gray face. Faint purple shadows had formed beneath sunken eyes. “How long has he been ill?”
“Since just before dusk last night.”
She touched the boy’s pale face and pushed a dark lock off his cheek. “The first signs?”
“A fever. He asked…” Sulya swallowed, and her voice quavered. “He asked if Naaz was angry with him, because he was burning.”
“Naaz?” Varene glanced at the other woman. “Your sun goddess?”
Sulya’s eyes flashed her scorn. “The only goddess.”
Varene bit her tongue. It wasn’t the time to debate religious differences. “He’s still very hot. Have there been other symptoms?”
“Not yet,” Kuramos said, drawing closer to the bed. “But some of the others who fell ill…” His large hands gave a minute jerk. “When their fevers finally broke, they began to cough, some very badly, and they labored to breathe. Toward the end, there was… blood on the kerchiefs.” His teeth clamped together as if staunching the memories.
An agonized stillness blanketed the room. Varene looked away from the sultan’s tortured expression, wondering who had passed away to make him grieve so.
She, too, knew the heartache of mourning…
Cease, Varene. Other aches must be the priority now.
She touched her palm to Tahir’s, then laid her other hand on the boy’s throat. Closing her eyes, she felt the infection warm her skin.
“What are you doing?” Sulya gasped. “She has her hands on his throat, she could kill—”
“Quiet!” Kuramos’s voice sliced through the air, silencing his wife.
Focus. Varene’s breathing slowed as she tried to feel what was wrong with Tahir, what she would need to do to help him.
She summoned her kyrra, the soul magic she used in her healing. It rolled from her core to her fingers, a sweet joy that always made her wish to sing out, despite the grievous circumstances under which she often called it.
She slid her awareness into the boy’s body, sensing the torment of his raw throat, the fire of his fever. The infection was growing in his lungs, too—a wet rattle that would thicken, impeding the flow of life-giving air. Blood oozed through his veins and his body cried out for water.
But though she could feel where he was suffering most, she didn’t recognize the ailment. It wasn’t anything she’d treated before, nor did it have the feel of anything she’d studied in her long-ago apprenticeship. Her disappointment spurred a wordless groan.
Her old master, Yolin, had long made it clear that Healers would never be able to control all the maladies of the world. Mother Fate will make her own decisions, he’d often said. You cannot cure everyone or everything. Be at peace with that. She supposed it was true.
But she’d still fight.
She nudged her kyrra into her palm and out, soothing Tahir’s throat so he might at least drink. His distress eased, giving her the hope that her powers might be of some use against the mysterious malady. After sensing and cataloguing all she could about the illness, she pulled back into herself and opened her eyes.
As her lashes parted, Kuramos spoke. “How is he?” He squared his shoulders as if to bear the weight of her answer.
“He needs liquids. Badly. I’ve done what I can for his throat, so he’ll be more willing to drink when he wakes. But if he isn’t willing…” She turned to Sulya and held her gaze. “You must make him. His body needs it.”
“But what of the fever?” the woman said. “Of a cure? You can’t do more for him?”
“I’m not yet sure what the illness is. As soon as I have a better idea, I’ll attempt a cure. I must see the others who are sick, and ask questions of those who are awake. The aid I’ve given his throat is only temporary.”
“Pah, you see?” Sulya stared at her husband and dismissed Varene with a cutting gesture. “She knows nothing. Why should we believe her?”
Varene’s gaze stayed pinned to Sulya, but Kuramos’s silence told her he had the same question.
“The two of you,” Varene said coolly, “are free to take my advice or not, as you wish. He’s your son.”
“You don’t even know what the illness is,” Sulya hissed.
“I understand the body and its needs.” Sulya’s distrust had clearly blossomed into a severe dislike and the feeling was quickly becoming mutual. Varene relinquished Tahir’s hand and turned to his father. “The jencel-bird told me twelve people were sick before he left to fly to Teganne. How many have fallen ill since then?”
“Four—all of them my wives.” Despair threaded his voice. “And three more servants have… passed.”
Varene gave a minute nod. “Is the illness also occurring outside the palace walls?”
“Not so far.”
“That’s fortunate,” she said, then caught Sulya’s eye. The woman was Tahir’s mother, and no good could come from alienating her further. “Thank you for your time. I hope to be able to help your son.”
Sulya made a disbelieving noise low in her throat.
Varene stepped toward the sultan. “May I see the other patients now? It will help to see the range of symptoms before I attempt a course of treatment.”
“Of course.” He swiveled toward the door, but his gaze was the last part of him to turn from his son.
As Varene walked out behind him, she felt Sulya’s resentment cleave her spine like a cold blade.
When they entered the hall, Kuramos lifted Varene’s travel sack with a flick of his wrist and headed back toward the courtyard. The Healer marched forward until she was parallel with him. He considered whether to be annoyed or amused by that.
“I need a list of all who are sick.”
“I’ll see that you get one.” He kept his gaze ahead, al
ways watching for an enemy, even here deep within his safest walls.
A few steps later, she spoke again. “How many of the patients used to meet or work with each other? Spend time together?”
He pursed his lips in thought as they re-entered the heat of the courtyard and strode along one wall. “All, most likely,” he said at last. “They’re all connected to at least one of the others in some way.”
“Have any of the caregivers become ill?”
“Not yet,” he said grimly.
“How many are there?”
“Several physicians from the city proper.” His mouth turned sour at the very thought of them, especially of Sulya’s brother. “And Sohad, the assistant to my deceased Royal Physician. Sulya, of course. And me.”
The Healer’s sudden silence after the rapid fire of her questions surprised him. When he glanced at her, her startled expression quirked his brow. “What is the matter?”
“Oh. Nothing.”
Was it that he’d termed himself a caregiver? Could she find that so hard to believe, when he’d visited and helped each of the ill—and was responsible, as Sultan, for every being in his realm?
“You’ve had no symptoms?” she continued with more poise.
“None.”
“You’ve been with other patients besides Tahir? Touched them, been in contact with them for prolonged periods of time?” A blonde lock slipped from her ponytail and fluttered by her nape.
“I have.” Dabir, Dabir. You are missed… “The others who’ve cared for the sick have also had extended contact. None of us have symptoms. And yet many in the palace are frightened. Some servants have refused to do their jobs.” His mouth hardened.
She hesitated. “What did you do about them?”
His gaze snapped to hers. “What I had to. What your Prince Alvarr would have done, no doubt, if he wished to quell anarchy and keep his throne.” If he had the guts.
Her gaze bounced away from him, flitting around the garden like a spooked parakeet.
At last the Healer’s steely bravado was cracking to expose the vulnerable core beneath. A knot of guilt lodged between his shoulders, but he let it be. Better for her to be wary than too bold.
“Well,” she murmured, “it’s fortunate none of the caretakers have become ill. The sickness sounds less likely to spread from person to person than I feared. Still, we should be cautious.” She lifted her palms. “Speaking of caution, is there a basin where I may wash my hands before I see the next patient?”
He’d never heard such a request before. Could it be an odd Tegannese ritual—perhaps of symbolic purification before performing magic? He led her into the center of the courtyard, to a waist-high fountain that drained into its own base instead of into the lily pools. On its marble rim lay a bar of soap shaped like an exquisite leaf and smelling cleanly of olive oil and lime.
Varene wet her hands under the stream of water and rubbed the soap over her fingers, hoping the familiar ritual would hide the disquiet she felt under the sultan’s watchful gaze. She found herself chattering to relieve her tension. “You seemed to find my request unusual. Many people do. But I’ve found that clean hands lessen the spread of certain ailments.”
After a moment, he dipped his own palms into the flowing water. “We are a clean people, Healer, and if you think this will help, then I too will wash.”
A flustered pause later, she extended the leafy bar to him. He rubbed it over his hands while she rinsed her own and gazed at his fingers from beneath her lowered lashes. His hands were muscular. Powerful. They could easily squeeze the life from a man… and perhaps had.
And yet here he was cleansing them, and thus engaging in a small act of mercy.
His sapphire ring flashed and caught her eye. The blue stone sparkled, the eye of the snarling golden lion that encircled his finger. She recalled his nickname: The Lion of Kad.
And here under the sunlight of Kad, so far from her home, she’d grown as nervous as a lion’s next prey.
She hated it. Hated the loss of control, hated the required subservience. And it was a position into which she’d let herself shrink.
Kuramos might be a sultan, but she was his equal. Any man’s equal.
Righteous ire surged into her, but she glanced down at her own hands, at the plain gold ring on her littlest finger. No special design etched its surface, no gem emerged above the crisscross of fine scratches from decades of wear, and no happy memories clung to the metal. She wore it to remind herself of her own folly long ago.
She might be his equal, but rash decisions brought rash consequences. She wouldn’t repeat her mistakes.
“Healer.” His deep voice broke into her thoughts. “Do you really believe this malady isn’t contagious?”
She dried her hands slowly and thoroughly on the linen towel, buying time to collect her thoughts. “I’m told the illness hit quickly, and I’ve only examined one patient.” She took a deep breath. “But for what it is worth, my instinct—and it’s no more than that at the moment—concurs. I have hope that this sickness can’t spread directly from person to person.”
He watched her a moment longer, perhaps testing whether he trusted her words. Then his shoulders lowered and he gave a deep sigh.
Mother Fate, please let my hunch be true… “Even if I’m right,” she continued, “the sickness could still spread—in whatever way it infected the ill in the first place. So even if I can heal it, we must find its origin or source to protect others.”
“I understand.” He wiped his own hands on the damp linen towel and straightened, staring into the fountain. Then he looked at her, and his green eyes wielded the force of an ocean wave. “Healer…thank you.”
The wave washed over her toward an inner shore, and her lips warmed with an unexpected smile. “You’re welcome.”
In silence they returned to the courtyard’s edge, and he led her into a wide keyhole doorway.
Elegant simplicity clad the antechamber beyond. Vessels of colored glass and ewers painted with exquisite scenes nestled in alcoves along each wall. Woven flowers and leaves radiated across the carpets while jasmine blossoms scented the room from a vase on a low table. A cushioned window-seat showcased a shaded view of the courtyard gardens. Several books neatly piled on the seat told of its frequent use.
A plump maidservant in the white and gold silks of the palace uniform had been sweeping the marble floor exposed near the whitewashed walls. At their entrance, she dropped to her knees, her eyes furtively taking in Varene’s face and clothing before she trained them modestly on the fringed rug before her.
“Is the Sha’Lai awake?” the sultan asked.
“Yes, O Lord.” She answered without raising her gaze.
“Good. Fetch the physician’s assistant and the Staff Mistress, please.”
Please? Varene noted in surprise. The maid dipped her head and rose to do her master’s bidding, skirting wide around him and Varene.
Kuramos watched her roundabout route and set his mouth in a grim line. “If the illness isn’t contagious, that will be a relief to many.”
“Kuramos?” queried a tired voice from the inner chamber.
“I’m here, Dearest.” He gestured for Varene to accompany him through the curtained arch.
On the enormous bed lay a brunette in an emerald tunic. Her fatigued air and the dark circles under her eyes somehow didn’t detract from her beauty, or her dignity. A necklace and bracelet of clustered rubies lay coiled on the night table by her side, as if she planned to recover shortly and return to life as usual.
“Pah, Rajvi!” Kuramos scolded. He laid Varene’s pack by the doorway and stepped toward the bed. “Where are all your servants? This place is as empty as an old nest.”
“I sent them away.” She looked up at him with a quiet smile. “They’ve been so frightened of catching the illness.”
“They should be most frightened of you becoming more ill—” he began with a scowl.
“Don’t be angry, O Lord, it was my de
cision. The physicians have been here, and Sohad checks on me as often as he can. And as you saw, faithful Bhakti stayed anyway.”
He grunted, still displeased. “Sulya sent her servants away, too. But not, I think, for the same reason. And you need assistance now, while you are bed-bound.” He sighed. “I hope I’ve brought aid.” He waved Varene into the room. “This is Varene na Seryn, the Royal Healer of Teganne. Healer, this is Rajvi, my First Wife, the glorious Sha’Lai of Kad.”
“I’m hardly glorious at the moment,” the Sha’Lai said with a self-deprecating smile Varene liked immediately.
Varene stepped forward and curtseyed in the formal Tegannese style, the fingers of both her upturned hands descending to just above the rugs as she slowly lowered herself. She rose and spied an amused twitch of the sultan’s mouth, one that told her he’d noticed her omission of that courtesy when they’d first met. Considering the manner of my initial welcome to Kad, it serves him right.
“Teganne…” The Sha’Lai’s brows ascended—much like Varene’s had when Gunjan had said he was from Kad. “Be welcome, Royal Healer.” Rajvi’s tone was gracious, but her voice raw and weakened. “Thank you for coming to our aid so far from your homeland.”
“Esteemed lady,” she answered, “I hope to help. May I examine you?”
“Please do.”
Varene moved to the bedside and evaluated the Sha’Lai’s skin, eyes, and demeanor. The sultana acknowledged great thirst and a burning throat, and had been forcing herself to drink from the half-empty pitcher of lemon water sitting within reach. Varene nodded approvingly, then laid her hands on Rajvi’s wrist and throat and sought deep for the cause of her illness. All the while, she was aware of Kuramos’s penetrating gaze.
As with the sultan’s son, she sensed no match with maladies she knew. Disappointment curled in her gut. If only she had answers, she could do more, she could heal…
