The Clandestine Circle

by Mary H. Herbert

  “Elenor, when was the last time you fetched water?”

  “Just before you left,” she replied. “You told me not to go out until you came back.”

  Linsha shook her head in disbelief at her old friend’s confusion. “That’s not what I said. Elenor, I asked you not to go back to the Dancing Bear or down to the waterfront. I didn’t mean you had to lock yourself in the house.”

  “Oh,” said the old woman weakly.

  “Who knows? Maybe it saved her life,” Mica put in.

  The two women looked at him in surprise. Linsha hastily introduced him. “Elenor, this is Mica, the governor’s healer.” Then, to him, she asked, “What do you mean?”

  He lifted his shoulders slightly. “If she didn’t leave, she probably wasn’t exposed to the disease. I believe it spreads through some kind of contact. Perhaps skin to skin.”

  Linsha thought about that. It made sense. Such a reason could explain why she had not yet caught the disease, for even though she had been on the ships and around the harbor district, she had not touched anyone that was ill at the time.

  Elenor nodded. “He’s right.”

  The dwarf crossed his arms and looked away, obviously dismissing the old woman.

  Linsha gave her a glass of water to sip and said, “Why do you think so?”

  Much of Elenor’s spirit was returning, for she leaned across the bed and lightly poked the dwarf in the stomach. “I may be old, but I am not entirely befuddled. I remember an epidemic like this. So many years ago. My grandfather and grandmother died of it.”

  Mica’s attention returned with a snap. “When was this? Where?”

  Elenor’s hand fluttered. “Nigh on sixty years ago, I’m thinking. I was just a little thing.”

  Mica looked skeptical. “Then how do you know it’s the same thing, if you were young then and you’ve locked yourself in now?”

  “The Kellen boy came to help me for a day or two. He brought me news and fetched water and helped me in the garden. But …” Her face screwed up in worry. “I haven’t seen him for a few days. I hope he’s all right.”

  “So do I,” Linsha said soothingly. “We’ll look for him when you’re feeling better. Now, please, Elenor. Tell Mica about the plague.”

  “It happened around Kalaman.”

  “That territory was controlled by the Dark Knights during the war,” Mica observed.

  “I know that! Now, do you want to hear or not?”

  To Linsha’s surprise, Mica bowed politely and sat on the corner at the foot of Elenor’s bed, his mouth shut.

  “The plague came out of nowhere,” Elenor went on. “It nearly wiped out our village and several more besides. I remember my grandma was so sick. Same symptoms, if Kellen was right. Fever. Dark red blotches. Running bowels. Terrible dreams. My grandma died in two days. Even the healers couldn’t cure her. They were horrified.” Her voice faded away, and she stared into the distance of old memories.

  “Do you remember how the disease was stopped?” Linsha quietly prompted.

  Elenor lifted her hands in an apologetic shrug. “I don’t know. It left the valley as quickly and mysteriously as it came. Our priest of Mishakal blamed it on evil magic, but he died before he could learn the truth of it.”

  Mica made an inarticulate sound and bounced to his feet. “Fine. Thank you for your tale,” he said to Elenor, then he spoke to Linsha. “Please finish here, squire. We still have our task to finish. Today.” And he stamped out of the room.

  “Stiff-necked, insufferable old stick-in-the-mud,” muttered Linsha.

  Elenor laughed softly and patted her arm. “Don’t take him seriously. He’s not as stuffy as he acts.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Look at his eyes. They aren’t hard and cold and shifty. He’s being careful about something, but he cares more than he reveals.”

  Linsha exhaled in a snort. “If you say so.”

  Since Elenor felt stronger and able to cope, she convinced Linsha that she was well enough to be left alone. Linsha brought her some tea and filled every pitcher, bowl, and bucket in the house with water. She promised to return as soon as she could and left Elenor sitting comfortably in bed with her tea, some oat cakes, and a ewer of water close at hand.

  Linsha finally came outside where the horses were tethered in the shade and Mica stood, tapping his foot impatiently.

  She held up a finger to forestall any complaint. “Thank you very much for helping my friend. Whether or not you care, it means a great deal to me.”

  The dwarf hesitated and glared at Linsha, who kept her expression benign. “You’re welcome.”

  Linsha remembered Sable’s scrap of news about a past plague and wondered if there was any connection to Elenor’s story. Perhaps Mica knew, since Lord Bight had told him what the dragon said. Thoughtfully she asked, “Did Elenor’s story mean anything to you?”

  Mica snorted through his large nose. “The ravings of a sick old woman. Now, unless you have any more old friends to visit, let’s go.”

  Linsha decided not to waste her time by responding to his bad temper. She swung into the saddle and led the healer through several more streets to Watermark Street. The road was an old one, one of the originals from Sanction’s early days. The buildings were of old weathered timber, darkened stone, and crumbling brick. Shops, houses, and workplaces crowded haphazardly on both sides of the road and along narrow alleys. Usually, this time of day, the street would be lively with pedestrians and conveyances alike, but on this day, the area was nearly deserted, except for a few people clustered in the shade of an outdoor patio beside a tavern and a few carts and wagons in the street. A cat, perched on a low stone wall, watched Linsha and Mica ride by.

  They walked their horses several blocks north until Linsha came to a halt in front of a small group of shops bisected by an alley. There she dismounted and, after tying Windcatcher to a hitching post by the board sidewalk, waved at Mica to follow. The shop she wanted was in the alley. She turned into the side street and nearly walked into a nondescript work horse facing out toward the street. The horse was hitched to a wagon that sat parked close to the left side of the alley.

  Linsha’s suspicious were not aroused until she glanced in the wagon bed. Then her eyes narrowed and her hand automatically loosened the strap on her sword sheath. The wagon had been loaded carelessly with a variety of things: clothes, furs, bolts of cloth, bags of salt and spices, boxes, personal items, weapons, a money box, and half a dozen new pairs of boots.

  Wordlessly she held up her hand to Mica to stay back, and she glided like a cat toward the scribe’s shop. A wooden sign decorated with a relief carving of a quill pen and a scroll hung above the shop door. The door stood wide open. She pressed back against the wall and slid a look around the corner. The front room was a wreck of torn maps, spilled ink, and scattered parchment. Inside, she could hear muffled voices—two, she guessed—and a mix of cracks, thuds, breaking glass, and slammed doors.

  Suddenly a short muscular man came hurrying into the front of the shop carrying an armload of blankets, hangings, and woven rugs. Grinning, he hauled his load out the door and came face-to-face with Linsha’s steel.

  He opened his mouth to yell. Linsha waved the tip of her blade an inch from his eye and shook her head. The sound died in his throat.

  Mica swiftly dragged the man out of the doorway, and while he bound and gagged the first looter, Linsha weaseled into the shop to find the second. She followed the sound of breaking wood into the back rooms and to a small storeroom. The second man was there, bent over an oak chest that so far resisted his efforts to open it with a pry bar.

  She studied him carefully from the hall before she attempted to approach him. This man was different from his companion, for he had smooth muscles, a slim build, and the lithe grace of a predator. Linsha had seen men like this before, and they were always as fast to strike as a snake. She didn’t want to give him the opportunity to attack first.

  “Drego!” he suddenly
shouted. “What’s taking you so long? Get your carcass back in here and load up these wine bottles.”

  Linsha saw a stool lying on the floor, probably kicked aside by the looters. She noiselessly picked it up and pressed back by the door to wait. The sound of splintering wood came from the storeroom, followed by a chuckle of glee.

  “Hey, Drego, I got it.” The voice approached the door.

  Linsha mentally counted the paces to the door—one, two, three—and out of the room he stepped, just as she swung the stool around, aiming for his head.

  But the intruder was as fast as she feared and suspicious of his friend’s silence. He had already drawn his knife and came out the door looking for trouble. He saw Linsha before he saw the stool, and he instinctively twisted aside and flipped the knife in her direction just as the stool caught him on the shoulder. The stool and the looter fell to the floor in a heap.

  A tearing pain caught Linsha in the muscle between her neck and shoulder just above the collarbone. She started to reach for the embedded knife, but the intruder, although dazed by the blow, squirmed to his knees and threw himself at her. Linsha barely managed to fend him off with a kick to his face. The effort cost her balance, though, and she crashed into the wall and slid to the floor. She cried out as the impact jarred her wound.

  Her opponent was tough and furious in spite of his pain. Blood streamed from his broken nose, and he favored his left arm where the stool struck him, yet he pushed his body up and dived after the knife stuck in Linsha’s shoulder. His weight fell on top of her, pinning her to the floor. His fingers snatched for the knife, causing it to tear deeper into the muscle.

  Linsha gritted her teeth. With one hand, she struggled to fight him off, and with the other, she groped for her own blade in its sheath at her waist. They writhed, tangling their legs and banging into the wall.

  Someone stamped loudly into the hallway. “Lynn!” Mica snapped. “What are you doing? Quit fooling around and subdue the scum.”

  The looter lifted his head in surprise and saw the stocky dwarf standing a few feet away with a large cudgel in his hands. He hesitated, and Linsha could imagine the thoughts running through his head: take his chances with two opponents here or be hanged by the City Guard for looting. She recognized the flickering change in his eyes and sensed the abrupt tensing of his body just before he struck. This time she was ready for him.

  She threw up her arm and blocked his second grab for the knife. Giving a tremendous heave with her lower body, she threw the man off-balance enough to give her a chance to wrench her own blade out.

  He grabbed her hair and slammed her head into the wall. His fingers closed about the leather handle of his knife and wrenched it out.

  Burning pain seared across her neck and chest. Furiously Linsha brought her dagger close by her side and drove it upward. She felt the blade puncture flesh, glance off bone. Hot blood spilled over her. The man’s weight sank slowly down on top of her until she couldn’t breathe.

  Suddenly she was free of the looter’s weight. Mica heaved the body off her.

  “Are you hurt? Dragon’s bones, answer me.”

  Linsha tilted her eyes down to looked at the tears and the blood soaking into the scarlet and gold tunic. “Damnation. Look at this. Another uniform ruined. They’re going to start making me pay for these.” Frowning, she pushed herself up the wall to a sitting position. “Oh, and thanks for your help,” she added sarcastically.

  The dwarf leaned his cudgel against the wall. “You’re the sell-sword bodyguard. You’re the one paid to do the fighting.”

  “Why are you so bloody patronizing?”

  “Why are you so self-serving?” he retorted.

  “Arrogant!”

  “Insolent!”

  “Sulky, grouchy, and a pain in the butt.”

  “Shallow, meddlesome, and a pain in the butt.”

  The absurdity of their argument suddenly struck Linsha, and she began to laugh. “See? We do have something in common,” she said before her laughter turned to a grimace of pain and fresh blood darkened her scarlet tunic.

  Mica shook his head. “Here. Let’s get you cleaned up. I’ll take care of that wound,” he said gruffly.

  He gently pulled away her tunic and the cotton shirt beneath to reveal the wound on her neck and shoulder. The wound was messy and deep but mostly superficial, and he quickly cleaned it and pressed a soft cloth against the torn skin and muscle. He paid no attention to the gold chain about her neck.

  “You saw me heal Commander Durne’s head wound. I’ll heal your injury the same way.”

  “I may be a sell-sword but I’m not stupid. I know the mystic power of the heart,” she murmured irritably.

  “Good.” He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against her skin. Humming to himself, he concentrated to draw his power from his inner being through his arm, his hand, his fingers and down into Linsha’s knife wound.

  A tingling heat spread over Linsha’s shoulder. It warmed her blood and went tingling up her neck, along her arm, and over her breast. The pain retreated until it was little more than a gentle ache. She relaxed, musing over the unique feeling of someone else’s power healing her body.

  Mica blew out a long sigh and sat back on his heels. “There. The skin is closed. The muscle will be sore for a few days and you’ll have a scar, but it’s healing.”

  “Thanks, Mica,” she said. She sat for a few more minutes and drank a cup of water he brought her, then she climbed carefully to her feet. The loss of blood made her weak and a little dizzy, but she pushed the fatigue aside and went to work. While she searched the house, Mica dragged the looter’s body outside, where the guard patrol could pick it up. They met back in the front room where the old priest sold his work.

  Silently they looked around at the devastation. The room had been trashed by the looters as they searched for things of value. Scrolls, parchment, vellum, and delicate sheets of handmade paper lay strewn everywhere, torn and shredded or lying in pools of spilled ink. Quill pens had been torn and bent and scattered over the counter. Old maps were ripped from the walls and torn to pieces. A broken shelf spilled its books on the floor, and a smashed lamp lay in a puddle of oil that seeped into the wooden floor.

  “Well,” said Linsha, gazing at the mess, “I hope his records weren’t in here.”

  “I doubt it. They’re probably with his personal things. So where is he?”

  The lady Knight grimaced. “In his bed. He’s been dead for a day or two. The entire place is a wreck. The looters have been here for a while.”

  Mica snatched a broken quill off the counter and tossed it to the floor. “Blast it! I really needed to talk to that priest.”

  “I’m sure he would have preferred that, too,” Linsha said dryly.

  Ignoring her remark, Mica left the shop to search the rest of the priest’s residence. Linsha went outside to bring their two horses into the shaded alley. She took off her blood-soaked tunic and tossed it over her saddle horn. Her shirt was bloody as well, but not as bad, so she dabbed it off as best she could with some muddy water from a public pump and left it to dry. Unwilling to listen to Mica’s irritations, she started to straighten up the shop. Ostensibly she did it to look for the records. Internally she wanted to do something for the dead scribe within. She didn’t know him, had never been in his shop, yet he had died alone and lay unburied and vulnerable to scavengers. The least she could do to honor the dead was fix some of the dishonor done to him.

  For nearly an hour she labored to clean the floor and counter and put things back in order. She was kneeling beside the counter, picking up broken glass, when the sound of heavy boot treads interrupted her quiet thoughts.

  “On your feet! Who are you, and what are you doing in here?” demanded a harsh voice.

  Linsha snapped out of her reverie and came alert. As she slowly stood upright, her sharpened attention picked out something in the big wooden counter she hadn’t noticed before. But there wasn’t time to investigate. Two Cit
y Guards, both dwarves, stood by the door, their swords pointed unwaveringly at her. She saw with some amusement that their eyes widened at the sight of the bloodstains on her shirt.

  “I am Lynn of Gateway,” she answered. “Squire in the service of the lord governor. I am, as you can see, trying to clean up this mess.”

  The second dwarf started forward. “Lynn. I’ve seen you before.” He lowered his sword. “She was in the guards until the governor picked her out,” he told his companion.

  The first guard sheathed his weapon. “Sorry. We’ve had reports of looters in this area. We saw the horses and the wagon—”

  “And the man tied to the wagon wheel,” added the second dwarf. “That got our attention.”

  “I would worry if you didn’t investigate,” Linsha said. She explained her mission to the shop with Mica and told the guards briefly what had happened. Mica, hearing the voices, came out to join her. He was empty-handed.

  The guards stayed for a few minutes then left, taking the prisoner and the wagon with them. The dead priest and the looter they left for the dead wagon to retrieve.

  Mica took in the changed state of the shop. “Looks better,” he admitted.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then look at this.” She bent over and pointed under the counter. The counter was a large, heavy fixture made of oak stained and aged to a deep, rich brown. The front, facing the door, was trimmed with simple panels; the top was flat and featureless, save for the nicks and stains of steady use. In the back lay a trove of shelves, cupboards, drawers, and slots. Linsha had already refilled some of the shelves with the salvageable parchment, scrolls, and sheets of valuable paper. But on the end abutting the wall was a narrow drawer built into the bottom of the countertop. Linsha hadn’t noticed it until the guards disturbed her and she looked up at just the right angle. It didn’t have an obvious handle or lock, only a finger-sized indentation at the top edge. When Linsha tried to pull it open, it remained firmly in place.

  Intrigued, Mica moved in for a closer look. He poked and prodded, tested every inch of the visible drawer front, thumped and pushed until at last a pleased smile creased his bearded face. He pulled a slender silver pin out of the side of the drawer, slid the top panel sideways out of its slots, and pulled out a drawer. The compartment within was deceptively large and, to the delight of both Linsha and Mica, it was filled with four large folio books, leather bound, hinged with steel, and embossed with symbols of the god, Mishakal.