Heroes at Risk

by Moore, Moira J.

  The path to recovery sounded exhausting.

  “And while there appears to be no infection about your hand, you’re to have your bandage changed at least three times a day to make sure it stays completely clean. I don’t want it complicating matters. Make sure there is salt and mercury in the poultice.”

  Salt and mercury. That wasn’t what Healer Cree had said. But then, she hadn’t actually examined my hand.

  “You’re to have lots of sleep and no excitement. And don’t expect to be back to normal anytime soon. Something like this can take months to clean out of the body.”

  “Months!” I said, shocked. I was going to feel like this for months longer? I would go mad. “What about bench dancing? Can I do that?”

  “Do you feel like bench dancing?”

  “No.” The very idea of it just made me want to curl up and sleep.

  “There’s your answer.”

  “But wouldn’t it be good for me? To sweat out the illness or something?”

  He snorted derisively. “How positively barbaric.”

  All right, then.

  “Take her home,” Pearson said to Taro. “And be quick about it. We need this room.”

  He left then. Really, he should assume a more sedate pace. Watching him move about could make a person dizzy.

  Chapter Eighteen

  We took a carriage home, and Taro was all for bundling me up to bed, but there were a few things I felt I had to do before shutting myself away for the day.

  Ben was back from his errands, cooking soup in the kitchen. I watched him from the doorway for a moment. He was so involved in what he was doing, chopping vegetables with fluid precision. He had no idea what was coming.

  I cleared my throat. “Ben.”

  He looked up at me. “Shield,” he said. Then he seemed to take a closer look at me. “You don’t look well, Shield Mallorough.”

  “That’s one of the things I have to talk to you about.”

  He put down his knife. “Is there something wrong?”

  “Can you leave this for a while? I’d like you to come up to my room for a bit.”

  “Of course.” He covered the pot and followed me up to my sitting room.

  Once we were settled, I asked, “Have you been using niyacin powder in the poultices for my hand?”

  He blinked in surprise. “Yes, of course. It’s a common medicine to prevent infection.”

  “Well, it turns out I have a negative reaction to it. I turns out it could kill me.” I hated saying that. It sounded so ridiculous. And it sounded like I was accusing him of something. I wasn’t. I didn’t blame him.

  “My lords, I had no idea.” He leaned back from his proper position at the edge of the settee. “I will, of course, stop using it immediately.”

  “Thank you. I’m looking forward to feeling better soon.” And quickly getting back on the roster.

  “Please accept my apologies, Shield. I had no idea—”

  I raised a hand to stop him. “The healer said the powder is often used. You had no way to know I’d react that badly to it.”

  “That’s very gracious of you.”

  “No, no, not at all.” No stalling now. It was time to get it over with. “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

  “I see,” he said calmly.

  An odd reaction to a warning of bad news, I thought. Was it possible he already knew? It was his daughter, after all. “I have been told that Sara has been arrested for the murder of Yuri Izen.”

  His eyes widened, and then he stood abruptly, turning his back on me.

  The silence stretched, and I had to resist the stupid urge to ask him if he understood. Of course he understood. He wasn’t an idiot.

  So instead I said, “I am very sorry.”

  He turned back around. It was hard to read his expression. He seemed annoyed more than anything else. “I have to admit I was worried she might have had something to do with it.”

  “You what?” I squeaked.

  “She was a servant of his. She left his house immediately after his death was discovered. And while we didn’t see each other often, I was always able to find her when I wanted to. I haven’t been able to contact her since she left the mayor’s home. I’d hoped it was only a coincidence.”

  “I see.” He hadn’t told me that. Had he told anyone? Was it realistic to think he should? She was family, and he would have had no way to confirm whether she had anything to do with Izen’s death if he hadn’t been able to speak with her. For all he knew, she really had nothing to do with the mayor’s death but had feared suspicion and had run in an ill-advised attempt to avoid it.

  Except they thought she’d stolen his ashes, too. There had to be a reason for that belief. “To your knowledge, did she believe that using the ashes of lucky people would bring her good fortune?”

  He appeared even more surprised than when I’d told him his daughter had been arrested. That was odd.

  “You know of such things?” he asked in a voice lowered nearly to a whisper.

  “Of course. Everyone knows.” Didn’t they?

  “People of your,” Ben stammered, “of your stature shouldn’t be bothered with such things.”

  “What things?” I asked, deciding that to question him on what he meant about my stature would take us off on a tangent.

  “Foolish things,” he muttered.

  “You feel believing in casting is foolish?” Thank Zaire. I thought absolutely everyone in the city was going mad.

  He wiped his mouth and avoided answering that question. “Has she confessed?”

  “I’ve been told she hasn’t.” I found it curious that he immediately assumed she was guilty. And was prepared to admit that to me.

  “So there will be a trial?”

  “There damn well better be.” With a possibility of a finding of not guilty. To hear Risa speak of a trial followed by a sentence, as though the trial were nothing more than a show for the sake of procedure, had chilled me.

  “Good.” He nodded, and he kept nodding. “Good. Good. Thank you for your time, Shield Mallorough.”

  I didn’t try to keep the poor man with me. I doubted he would want to discuss such a personal tragedy with me any more than he had already. And there was nothing I could say to comfort him. Soothing lies never did anyone any good, and it wasn’t as though I actually knew anything about how a trial or anything else in this matter would work.

  I had another distasteful task to perform. One I wasn’t sure I should be performing. Risa had told me about Ben’s daughter because she felt we, the people who lived with him, had a right to know. I didn’t know if I agreed with that. This information fell purely in the category of Ben’s personal business.

  On the other hand, this did involve murder. Perhaps something this serious transcended personal business. And Ben might need more time to himself, might want to spend more time with his daughter. If everyone knew why, they would be more understanding. I hoped.

  If there was anyone who was the arbiter of correct behavior, at least in his own mind, it was Chris LaMonte. He was the oldest of all the Sources and Shields in High Scape, and he thought that gave him some sort of authority. There was no real hierarchy among Pairs, and if there were, Taro and I would be considered the senior Pair in High Scape because we had been there the longest.

  I wanted someone else’s opinion on what I should do with the information I had, and it seemed to me that LaMonte would be the best person to ask. He thought a lot about what kind of conduct was appropriate in what kind of circumstances.

  I went to his suite, considering it the first logical place to look for him. He surprised me by opening the door. That was unexpectedly easy.

  “Dunleavy,” he said in greeting. Then he squinted at me. “You look like the moon.”

  I was pretty sure that was a Source way of saying I looked terrible. “Thanks. Can I talk to you?”

  His eyebrows flew up in surprise. I didn’t blame him. I never really wanted to talk to LaM
onte. He was so arrogant.

  “Please come in,” he said, standing aside and letting me into a sitting room that was surprisingly dark. Dark brown walls, black furniture, deep red carpeting. Very depressing. “Please have a seat.”

  “Thank you.” Once we were seated, I went straight to the point. “I learned today that Ben’s daughter has been arrested for the murder of the new mayor. They think she stole his ashes, as well.”

  LaMonte was clearly shocked. “Who told you that?”

  “Risa. The Runner.”

  “She shouldn’t be telling you things like that.”

  I kind of agreed with him, but when he said so in that chiding, pompous tone, it made me want to find a good reason to disagree. “She felt we had a right to know because we live with him.”

  “That may have been so had Ben been the one suspected of murder, but his daughter has nothing to do with us. His family business is his own.”

  “So you don’t feel we should tell the others?”

  “Certainly not. I am ashamed of you for telling me.”

  All right, all right, I got the point. I was completely in the wrong.

  “I hope I can rely on you not to treat Ben any differently because of this.”

  “Of course not.” It was nice to know he thought so highly of me.

  “Then we need say no more on the subject.”

  Fine with me. Gods, he was so annoying. I was so glad I’d asked. Damned waste of time. And it was past time I was in bed.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Abrupt though his manner had been, Healer Pearson appeared to know what he was talking about, as after a day or so I began to feel a great deal better. I hadn’t realized how tired I had felt, how constant the nausea had gotten, how much my head had hurt.

  I didn’t suggest we return to the roster. I wanted to, now that I was feeling a little better, but I didn’t want Pearson to feel forced to take us off. If he did, he would then send a report to the Triple S council to inform them why the removal was necessary. While the removal was quick, I had no doubt that resuming our duties would be a much longer process, because we would have to convince Pearson I was well again, wait for him to write another report and send it to the council, then wait for the council to actually read it, make a decision and send word back that we could work. That could take ages.

  I sipped on a cup of tea the healer had recommended. I had to give him this, he recommended good tea. It smelled nice and was soothing on the stomach.

  “You have a letter from Morgan Williams,” Taro called from the foyer.

  I was in the kitchen. It was so childish to shout from the kitchen to the foyer. I did it anyway. “Who’s Williams?”

  “The chap who owns the bordellos.”

  Oh, that was right.

  Firth, who had been silently buttering some toast as a prelude to escaping my presence, raised her eyebrows at me in an expression of disapproval. “You are keeping company with the owner of a bordello now, are you?”

  My first impulse was to exult over the quality of his services. Since that would be a lie in which I could be too easily caught, I said, “I am.”

  Taro entered the kitchen at this time, handing me the correspondence.

  “Do you really think that’s appropriate?” Firth demanded.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Taro asked.

  “He lives off the profits of people selling their bodies for money!”

  “It’s perfectly legal.”

  “Unfortunately, a great many immoral acts are perfectly legal. That does not mean those acts should be condoned or executed.”

  This was not a discussion worth having. I opened the envelope and found within it an invitation to dinner. This created a sort of conflict within me. The dinner at Fines’s home had been interesting enough, but I’d felt very out of place there. However, it would clearly irritate Firth if Taro and I accepted the invitation, and given how much Firth was aggravating me, I thought it was time to return the favor. I handed the letter to Taro. “I’d like to go.”

  He read it quickly and smirked. “Should be interesting.”

  Firth huffed. “If you aren’t going to have any respect for yourselves, you might show some consideration for the rest of us. What you two do reflects badly on all of us.”

  “What the two of us do also reflects very well on all of you,” Taro retorted, and I thought it timely that Firth be reminded of all the exceptional things Taro had done.

  Firth clearly disagreed. “Arrogance does not become you.”

  “On the contrary, it’s one of my most endearing qualities. Ask anyone.”

  “Dunleavy,” Firth said to me, attempting to cut Taro out of the conversation, going so far as to put her back to him. Which was really odd, as he was standing right there. “You have never been foolish. You know this is an inappropriate course of action. Why are you pursuing this?”

  Really, I had to frown at her, she was overreacting so very much. “It’s dinner,” I said. “I was introduced to this man by respectable people and found him amiable. I’m not going to let people who have never met him shape my opinion of him.”

  Firth stared at me. “What happened to you while you were away? You were so decent before you left.”

  “And you weren’t nearly so judgmental.” I’d really liked her before we’d left. She’d made me laugh. She’d been able to make Taro blush. Anyone who could do that was someone to admire. This new—or old but previously unrevealed—side to her nature was really disappointing.

  “I’m only saying what all the others are thinking.”

  Was she? That was even more disappointing. It still wasn’t going to change my mind. “I’ll send an acceptance when we get back,” I told Taro, for Firth’s benefit.

  Firth left. Success.

  Taro took the mug from my hand, sniffed at its contents and gave it back.

  Then I smelled the mug. The tea smelled normal.

  “Aside from annoying Firth,” he said “which is a motive I can commend given her behavior, you don’t really want to accept Williams’s invitation, do you?”

  “There’s no reason not to.”

  “Really,” he said with flat skepticism.

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Just that you aren’t the sort to approve of someone like Williams.”

  I found that insulting. “And you’re the sort who would approve?”

  “I’m not saying I approve, just that I don’t disapprove.”

  “But you feel I do disapprove.” Because I, apparently, was judgmental and rigid and would therefore look down on people because of issues that were none of my business.

  “I’m just saying I thought you’d be uncomfortable with the idea.”

  “All out of nowhere, without my having said anything about anything to make you think that way.”

  “I’m not trying to start an argument.”

  “Is there some reason why you don’t want me to accept this invitation?”

  He held up his hands in a mocking gesture of surrender. “Far be it from me to have reasons.” He backed out of the kitchen.

  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was probably insulting to someone.

  Really, I didn’t know what was wrong with him lately. He was so touchy. He was almost never in a good mood. I hated to even think this, it was so shallow, but he hadn’t been much fun lately.

  “Not one more step!” I heard LaMonte roar, and I ran from the kitchen to the front door, from where I’d heard the shout. LaMonte shouting was such an unanticipated event that I envisioned something catastrophic occurring.

  At first, all I saw was LaMonte glaring at a strange woman standing in the threshold of the residence. Then I saw the crowd of strangers behind her. I thought of the time a furious, frustrated crowd had nearly torn down the residence during the Harsh Summer. Then, they had felt the Pairs weren’t doing enough to calm the violent, unseasonable weather. What had them so enraged this time?

  “Kafar told u
s,” the woman claimed with the air of someone who was repeating herself. She was wearing a dark dress that hung close to her arms and legs, and a dark leather apron. I could smell her from where I stood. Not necessarily a bad smell, just kind of astringent. “Why won’t you heal us?”

  Oh, hell. That was right. Kafar. The man Taro had completely failed to heal, because Taro couldn’t do that sort of thing. I should have expected that to come back on us in some way.

  “Sources are not healers, you ridiculous woman,” LaMonte said, and I had a feeling he was repeating himself, too. He held his head high so it was easier to peer down his nose at the interloper, who was about his height. “Clear off before the Runners come and arrest you.”

  “You have to heal us! It’s your duty!”

  “It’s our duty to protect the city. That is all.”

  That was, I thought, a rather warped way to interpret our obligations. What was the point of preserving a city if one didn’t preserve the people who lived there? Not that we could do anything for individuals.

  It was quite a crowd, several dozens of men, women and even children, all wearing dark, practical clothing. They covered the driveway and were obstructing traffic on the street. This couldn’t end well. I stood beside LaMonte. “Source Karish wasn’t able to help Kafar,” I told the woman.

  “Hush, Dunleavy,” LaMonte hissed. “I’m handling this.”

  Don’t hush me. “Source Karish can’t help you.”

  The woman squinted at me. She was pale and sweating, and the lines about her eyes made me wonder if she had a headache. “You his Shield?”

  “Aye.”

  “Fetch him.”

  Really, how dare she give me orders?

  But I could see that all the people behind her were as pale and shiny as she, and at least a handful of them looked an alarming shade of green. One man was holding a young boy, about five years old, I guessed, in his arms. The child was exhausted, his head lying against the man’s shoulder, too tired to fuss about his discomfort. The sight of him made me ashamed of my impatience.