The Southern Trail (Book 4)

by Jeffrey Quyle

  “Miss Prina, take a sip of water from Marco’s finger,” Mersby said quietly, as Marco obligingly held his finger forward, still shielded out of the sight of Conor.

  “That is wonderful!” the girl gushed a moment later with a smile. “I didn’t know what to expect.”

  “Prina! What is going on over there?” Conor loudly demanded to know.

  Mersby discreetly shook his head as the girl looked up at him.

  “You’ll have to find out for yourself, Conor,” the girl obligingly said. “Just do this and get healed. Don’t you want to hold me in your arms?” she asked.

  “Oh, for blue skies!” the injured nobleman swore in exasperation.

  “Come over here and perform this miraculous cure! How can Prina like it? She’s not even injured,” the nobleman whined. He looked at Marco incredulously when the enchanted golden finger was placed before him, but when Prina wheedled him on, he took a drink of the water.

  “What in blazes?” he asked in astonishment. “That’s a very good trick! How did you do that? I don’t care if I don’t even get miraculously healed, that was a bravo performance!”

  “We’ll be on our way,” Gaddis began to move the trio or visitors out of the amusing room.

  “Will I really be healed? When?” Conor asked as they headed towards the door.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow to check on you,” Marco answered. “You’ll probably need a couple of days to heal such severe injuries.”

  No other noble patient proved to be as entertaining as Conor the duke had been, but Mersby congratulated Marco at the end of the visit, as they climbed into the carriage for the ride home.

  “You’ve met a number of people today, Marco,” he stated. “If you have them healed, on their feet, and out of the infirmary within a day or two, they will tell half the court about you, before Argen even knows you’ve been in the palace.”

  The next day the nobles’ infirmary was emptier, and Marco treated those who remained with casual ease, even Conor.

  “Don’t feel that you must make him too healthy,” Prina told Marco when they entered the room. The girl had overcome her shyness, and delighted in the opportunity to tease Conor about all that he was unable to do while his arms were in casts.

  Marco dosed all those in the palace infirmary, then returned with Gaddis to treat the pair of servants who had been newly admitted to their less august hospital.

  The following day, Mersby surprised Marco. “Why don’t you go on your own to the palace? The guards recognize you by now, and Gaddis knows to expect you. I’m not necessary at this point, and there are other things I need to get done.”

  And so Marco rode one of the prince’s saddle horses to the palace, and went to see Gaddis.

  “We’ll go see the nobles, who should be emptied out of the infirmary by now, based on your track record,” the steward told Marco. “And then we may do one more little task,” he said as he eyed Marco speculatively.

  They walked to the infirmary for the nobles, where only two rooms were still occupied.

  “Great hero, would you like to come to a small party tonight?” Conor, the occupant of the second room Marco and Gaddis visited, asked, as a doctor used a saw to cut away the plaster casts from his arms.

  “May I bring my friend?” Marco asked. “She’s Prince Mersby’s niece, Ellersbine.”

  “Conor! This is Argen’s rival!” Prina squealed.

  “Well, we can see that the better man won the match,” Conor answered. “You’re the worthless fellow who Argen claims Ellersbine has fallen to since he threw her over?”

  “He didn’t throw her over,” Marco started to argue heatedly, before Gaddis placed a hand on his arm.

  Conor took a sip of the water from Marco’s finger as he looked up.

  “Ellersbine is a wonderful girl, and I enjoy her company a great deal,” Marco said, trying to control his words.

  “Well, we’re having a party to welcome Conor back from the brink of death,” Prina began.

  “Perhaps some poetic license, but who can blame me?” the nobleman smiled. “We’ll be at my club, the Columb Club, shortly after sunset. Be sure to stop in. And you too Gaddis,” he added playfully.

  “And risk breaking your heart by stealing the lovely Prina from you? I think I’ll pass,” the steward said primly, and then he and Marco left.

  “Well, now you’ve got a chance to really shine, if you’ve been invited to one of Conor’s parties,” Gaddis told Marco as they walked down the hall. “He’ll make sure everyone in court knows that you’re his hero.”

  “Would you like to do something out of the ordinary?” Gaddis asked, as they began to climb an unfamiliar set of stairs.

  “Would you recommend it?” Marco asked cautiously. They reached the top of the stairs, which provided access to a short hallway, an imposing set of doors, and a quartet of guards.

  “If you want the king to hear good things, this is the place to show your talents,” Gaddis nodded at the guards, who looked at Marco carefully, then opened the double doors.

  The hallway extended beyond the doorway, but it was seemingly not the same hall. On the side of the door where Marco, Gaddis, and the guards stood, the hall had the typical somber, overwhelming darkness and black character that was the uniform style throughout the palace.

  Except in the hallway that Marco peered into.

  The extended hallway was light, with pink paint, lace curtains, crystal chandeliers, and potted plants providing ambience. There was no sign of the darkness of the palace in the hallway.

  “Let’s go, shall we?” Gaddis stepped past the gawking Marco, and walked through the doorway.

  “What is this place?” Marco asked. He followed Gaddis, and no more than cleared the doorway than the guards outside closed the doors behind him.

  There was a sound of women’s voices.

  “This is the king’s harem,” Gaddis said, observing Marco closely, with a grin on his face. “The king will be sure to be told that I brought an unknown, handsome young man into the harem this morning.”

  “What are we doing here?” Marco asked nervously.

  “We’ll have you treat all the girls. If any of them have any pains, bruises, aches, scrapes, or anything else, you will treat them so that they all return to physical perfection, just the way the king likes,” Gaddis said airily.

  A heavyset woman came out from a side door, to stand directly in front of the pair. She did not in any way match any expectation Marco had for a resident of the king’s harem, and he stared at her in confusion.

  “This is Madame Lafarge, the house mother and chaperon for the harem members. She’ll escort you around the hall,” Gaddis said. “Madame, this is Marco, an enchanted sorcerer and tremendous healer, who I’ve brought here today to treat any and all of your girls who wish to be in peak health.

  “He’s extremely fond of Princess Ellersbine, the present or former fiancée of Count Argen,” Gaddis said significantly.

  “Does the king know? Has he approved having this handsome young man given free license to poke and prod and undress the girls?” Lafarge asked.

  “I,” Marco stuttered nervously, “I don’t need to see anyone undressed,” he said hurriedly. The woman studied him through half-shut eyes for a moment, then abruptly clapped her hands.

  “You may go, Gaddis. I’ll take the boy from here,” Lafarge waved towards the door.

  “Come along with me,” she reached out to take Marco’s arm, and firmly dragged him with her as she began to walk down the hall. Marco heard the door close behind him, and turned his head to see that Gaddis was gone.

  “Giselle!” Lafarge abruptly called as she forced Marco down the hall.

  “Yes?” a girl’s pleasant voice carried from an open doorway.

  “Go treat her,” Lafarge released her grip on Marco and pointed at the door.

  “Yes? What is it?” the girl’s voice carried more loudly from the doorway.

  “Go on. Go treat her or get out,” th
e woman gave a stern-voiced ultimatum.

  Marco stepped to the door and knocked on the door frame.

  “May I come in?” Marco asked.

  He heard something drop and hit the floor.

  “Who’s there?” the voice asked. “Madame Lafarge?”

  Marco turned to look at the woman behind him, but the lady was gone.

  “My name’s Marco,” Marco answered. “May I come in?”

  There was hesitation. “Yes,” the voice said with a profound resignation and sadness. “Come in.”

  “Are you decent?” Marco asked, feeling at a complete loss.

  “Decent? Is that the word you want to use? What, are you here on the freak show tour?” the voice was louder, and then suddenly there was a woman standing in the doorway, just four feet away.

  She had a veil across her face, and cloth wrapped around her forehead and skull. One eye was covered by another cloth that was wrapped to dip across her face; altogether Marco could only see one eye and an eyebrow, and very little else.

  “How did you get in here? Did you pay someone to come have a look?” her voice was loud and angry. There was shuffling noises nearby, and Marco sensed that heads were popping out of doorways along the hall to see what was happening.

  “Well here, have a look. Go tell everyone what you’ve seen,” the girl’s hands reached up and grabbed pieces of the veils she wore, unwrapping them in a split second, and Marco stood, noisily taking in a quick gulp of air in shock and pain at the sight of the girl’s ruined face.

  She had one eye missing, due to the vivid red knife cut scar that ran up and down the left side of her face, including through the empty eye socket. Her nose was gone, leaving two large dark holes in the center of her face that were surrounded by red flesh. And scars covered her cheeks, more knife slashes that disfigured one side of her mouth.

  “Oh dear God,” Marco exclaimed.

  “You think this is the work of some God?” she asked quietly.

  Marco looked away, in shame and shock, and saw several beautiful faces looking at him from various doors.

  “Go ahead, look away,” Giselle said. “Have you seen enough? Gotten your thrill? Ready to go tell everyone what you’ve seen?”

  “I didn’t know,” Marco said weakly.

  “Go, just go,” the girl said in disgust, then she turned and stepped back into the interior of the room, out of sight.

  “Are you ready to go?” Lafarge was at his side again suddenly, her iron grip holding his arm, and she started to drag him back towards the door.

  “Wait,” Marco said after four steps.

  “There’s no waiting. I don’t need some pretty boy crudzeinne coming in here to peek at the pretty girls and cop a feel. You go out and tell Gaddis not to bring you or anyone like you back here again,’ Lafarge said vehemently.

  Marco’s feet locked in place, frozen by the word she had used. ‘Crudzeinne’ was a word from the old language of Prester John’s nation, a word of contempt, a designation of disgust at unprincipled self-serving action.

  “You know the language of the old ones?” Marco asked in a low voice, speaking in the language the woman had accidently dropped into her emotional condemnation of him.

  She stopped pulling his arm, and stared at him.

  “What do you mean?” she asked in the language of Docleatae.

  “You used a word from the kingdom of Prester John,” Marco answered. “Why did you send me to see that girl?” he asked in the same voice.

  The woman looked at him warily, then looked down the hall, making multiple heads of girls disappear from view.

  “Come with me,” she said as a command, then dragged him into a small office, and closed the door.

  “What are you doing speaking that language in the palace?” she asked.

  “You started it; you called me a crudzeinne,” Marco said.

  “That’s because I was angry, and I didn’t expect anyone to know the word or what it meant,” she spoke. “Who are you?”

  “I truly just came to offer to treat the health of the harem. Gaddis thought it would lead to the king hearing good reports about me,” Marco bluntly laid out the truth.

  What happened to that girl? Why is she here?” Marco asked.

  Lafarge studied him closely. “She is an example,” the woman decided to speak. “She is an example of what happens to the women of the harem if they are not faithful to the king and the king only.”

  “The king did that to her?” Marco asked in shock.

  “No, her lover did it, to prove his loyalty to the king. Count Argen had a dalliance with her, and when he grew tired of it, he went and told the king, and offered to teach her a lesson that would be a reminder to all the girls,” Lafarge said.

  “Argen? Argen did that?” Marco felt both illness and rage. “I shouldn’t have let him live,” he muttered to himself.

  “You’ve met the man, apparently,” Lafarge said. “I know it’s absolutely wrong for the ladies in the harem to be unfaithful, but Argen took a sick, foul pleasure in torturing the girl. He’s a monster.”

  Marco sat silently, thinking of the pain Giselle must have felt. He thought about alchemy and how he had treated Mirra; he thought about the water of the healing spring; and he thought about the powers of his sorcery.

  “Was she beautiful?” Marco asked absently.

  “Of course she was,” Lafarge almost snapped at him. “But not an exotic beauty. She was a very wholesome, warm beauty – a country-girl-come-to-the-city beauty.”

  Marco sat, thinking.

  “I can heal her,” he said finally.

  “Heal her? Heal what? Make the scars lighter?” Lafarge asked scornfully.

  “I can heal it all,” Marco said determinedly. He stared at the woman. “I will fix everything. Argen won’t get away with this.”

  “Do what? Grow back a nose? Grow back an eye? Stop it,” Lafarge dismissed him.

  Marco stood, and made his hand glow, then made a small ball of light form in his palm, rise into the air, then circle around above Lafarge’s desk.

  “I can do it,” he said. “I can do a great many things.”

  Lafarge sat back. “A sorcerer at your age? Stars and skies!”

  “I need for you to get some things for me. Will you?” he asked.

  “You are serious about this?” Lafarge asked.

  “Dead serious,” Marco answered. “Here’s what I need,” he said, “arsenic salts, woodworm ashes, fat from a river fish,” he rattled off a list of several items, and looked to see that Lafarge was just staring at him.

  “I can’t just go and order those things from the kitchen,” she protested. “Give me that list of things again,” she said as she pulled a quill out of its holder and pulled a piece of paper out of a desk drawer, then wrote down Marco’s dictation.

  “I’ll see if I can have these for you tomorrow; will that be soon enough?” she asked.

  “It will be fine,” he answered. “If you get them, I’ll treat the girl. Shall I go treat the others in the meantime?”

  “Stay here while I send a messenger out to start collecting these,” Lafarge said. Marco made the ball of light and the glow in his hand extinguish, as he waited for her to leave the room. When she returned minutes later, he stood, and she escorted him back up the hallway.

  He glanced at the doorway of Giselle’s room as they passed it, but several steps later they stopped at another door. “Rose, you have a visitor,” Lafarge called. “When you’re done with him, take him to Lica’s room, and have her pass him along.

  “Come see me when you’re done,” Lafarge told Marco, and then she walked down the hallway.

  “What is it?” a woman asked, coming to the door and confronting Marco. She was a beautiful woman, one with hair more purely black than any he had ever seen on a person, and she had a pale complexion, which provided a profound contrast to her hair. She wore a robe that seemed to be a comfortable garment made of faded light flannel.

  “Oh,
a man, here in the harem. Or are you a boy? I can’t decide, you’re right on the edge. What are you?” she asked.

  “Nervous,” Marco answered without irony.

  “With good reason; if the king finds you here he’ll have you put to the sword,” the girl said. “So why are you here?”

  “I have an enchantment that can help heal pains and aches and wounds,” Marco answered.

  “You’re the boy who just got chased away from Giselle, aren’t you?” Rose accused him suddenly.

  “Yes,” Marco said. “I didn’t know that happened to her. I’m sorry,” he was at a loss for words.

  “I am just here to see if you would like a drink of water from an enchanted spring. The water will help heal anything – a rash, a cold, a headache,” Marco tried to make it sound commonplace.

  “I’ve got a cyst,” Rose spoke in a very low voice. “Can you cure it?”

  “Absolutely,” Marco said.

  “Come in here,” she invited him into her room, and led him to a bedroom. “Here,” she turned her back to him and suddenly dropped the robe to her waist, revealing an back that was sculpted from pure, smooth, white alabaster – except for an angry red spot in the center of the small of her back. “Can you treat it?” she asked.

  “May I touch it? Only the cyst – I won’t touch you anywhere else,” Marco assured her.

  “Go right ahead,” she said with self-assured composure, looking over her shoulder at him.

  Marco squatted, then put his finger in his mouth, took a long sip of the spring water, then rubbed the moisture over the sore for a few seconds.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  “Spit? You put spit on me?” Rose’s voice rose dramatically. She shrugged the robe back in place and turned towards him with an angry expression.

  “Wait!” Marco protested. “Here, just taste this finger – really,” he urged. “It’s not a joke, not a trick.”

  Suspiciously, the harem member grabbed his hand, looked at it, then did as instructed. Her face lit up with shock, and she sputtered out the moisture in her mouth. “How in the world did you do that?” she cried.

  “That’s the enchantment. It’s water from a healing spring. Take a drink; it’s good for you. A drink of this now, plus the water I spread on your cyst, should be enough to make it go away in a day or so,” he told her.