Someone was hurrying. She looked up as footsteps rapped across the baked clay of the courtyard and was surprised to see Turga himself striding toward them. He did not look happy.
“Derkh. Get Yolenka. Hurry!” Féolan could speak enough Tarzine to stumble through a simple pick-up or payment, but not this. Whatever “this” was.
Turga’s tawny skin flushed dark with annoyance as Féolan tried to explain Yolenka’s absence. Finally she came hurrying from the gatehouse and took her place at Gabrielle’s side. Turga fired out a question.
Yolenka faltered. Turga snapped his fingers at her, impatient with the delay. Slowly, she turned to Gabrielle.
“He ask...he ask if you are afraid to treat the Gray Veil.”
“The Gray Veil? What is that?” Whatever was rampaging through Baskir, was her first guess.
Yolenka swallowed, her eyes worried. “Is very bad sickness, makes sick person strangle in the throat. It spreads fast, can kill anybody but”—and her voice went very quiet now—”always more children die.”
FÉOLAN WATCHED GABRIELLE’S color drain to ashy gray, longed to jump up and comfort her and steeled himself not to. He remembered her dream, her constant anxiety in recent days about the children, and knew her fear. She’ll give us away to Turga, he worried, and then saw in the man’s grim dismissal that he interpreted her reaction as fear of the disease itself. Looks like he expected as much, Féolan thought. He gathered his strength and sent it out to Gabrielle.
She was already pulling herself together. He saw it in the straightening of her back. Felt it as his mind touched hers.
“Ask him who is sick, Yolenka. Ask like you are curious, not worried.”
The reply confirmed their fears. Yolenka could not keep the emotion from her voice as she passed on Turga’s words.
“Is girl. He say she is just slave, but worth good price.” She hesitated, glancing at Dominic, but he gestured at her to go on. His face was wooden with the effort to hide his feelings.
“He say he does not want lose his profit.”
GABRIELLE FOLLOWED ZHIRAK up the narrow stone stairway, wondering how on earth she would stop the children from giving her away. Turga’s instructions—to stand in the doorway as far from “the girl” as possible and attempt to diagnose her illness from there—worried her too. It went against her instincts to keep a distance from any patient—let alone her own niece.
The landing was close now, and no telling how nearby the children were kept. Could she call out to them? She had not yet encountered anyone who spoke Krylaise, but still, her actions might seem suspicious.
A tune popped into her head—a little children’s nonsense song that she had sung to the kids when they were little. Was bursting into song on the way to diagnose a terrifying disease any less suspicious than shouting out a warning? Maybe not—but she was running out of time. She took a breath and began to sing, first under her breath as if to herself and then loudly, as the words fell into place:
“Madeleine, just keep silent
Matthieu, please be quiet
Pretend you don’t know me
And safe you will be.
“Madeleine, just keep silent
Matthieu, please be quiet
Pretend you don’t know me
And safe you will be.”
They met a guard at the top of the stairs, who pulled out a ring of keys, led her to the third door and opened it. He stood back, unwilling it seemed to enter the room himself.
Gabrielle took a deep steadying breath and stepped inside.
Matthieu sat on a cot, his shorn head in his hands. His body was rigid with effort as he stared at the floor. She heard him sniff, understood he was fighting tears as well as the need to fling himself against her. Her own tears, pity and anger and relief combined, welled hot in her eyes, and she was glad the guard could not see.
“Hi,” she said softly, striving for the neutral, calming tone she used so often in her work as a healer. “Don’t say anything yet. Don’t even look until you feel ready.” The room was dim and too warm, but Matthieu seemed all right. Madeleine, she saw, lay on a cot on the far side of the room, apparently asleep.
“My dad—” The words came out in a rush of breath.
“He’s here,” said Gabrielle. The narrow shoulders straightened, and she felt Matthieu’s wave of exultation, but he kept his face down. She pitched her voice lower. “We are going to get you home, but you have to be patient. We’re still figuring things out. Right now, they sent me to look at your sister. How is she?”
Now, slowly, Matthieu lowered his hands and turned toward her. His brown eyes, shining with tears and hope and worry, squeezed at her heart. She wanted nothing more than to rush over and gather him into her arms—but she couldn’t.
“Matthieu, I’m not allowed to come in—not yet. I have to report back to Turga, and then I hope he’ll send me to heal Madeleine. But I need to try to figure out what’s wrong with her.”
Matthieu nodded. His eyes darted to a third cot, an empty one, and away. There was a rusty patch on the floor nearby. Gabrielle had seen stains like that before. What had happened here?
“At first I thought she was just sad,” Matthieu said. “We had—” He swallowed, tried again. “There was another boy here. He was killed and...” Matthieu was crying openly now, and Gabrielle found herself on the cot beside him, holding him tight, Turga’s rule forgotten. She would do no less for any strange child.
A heavy tread, a startled exclamation. They both looked up to see the guard’s head in the doorway. His barked command and gesture were plain enough. Gabrielle settled for one last squeeze and reluctantly returned to her station in the doorway.
Slowly, Matthieu found his voice. “Maddy wouldn’t eat or talk or do anything for a couple of days, she was so upset. But then yesterday, I got her to sit up and eat. That’s when I realized she was sick too.”
“How does she feel, Matthieu?”
“Mostly she has a really sore throat. A bit of fever and headache too, I think, but not too bad. She doesn’t seem all that sick, but she’s been sleeping most of the day.” He looked up at Gabrielle. “Her voice sounds funny.”
“Funny how?” Gabrielle kept her tone level, but Matthieu’s words had given her a chill. Yolenka had had only a moment to describe the progression of the Gray Veil to her, but Madeleine’s symptoms fit. On the other hand, they fit any number of common childhood illnesses. She clung to that thought.
“I dunno. Kind of like she’s talking through her nose. It just sounds different from normal.”
“Okay, that’s a good observation.” Gabrielle smiled at Matthieu. “You’d make a good bonemender.”
That won a smile, though fleeting. “What are you going to do now?” he asked.
Gabrielle considered. “I don’t think I’m going to wake her up. If I can’t examine her, I doubt I can learn much more from her than you just told me, and it will be hard for her to pretend like you did.”
Matthieu nodded. “Can I tell her when she wakes up?”
“You’d better!” Gabrielle smiled again. “And I think I will be back soon. Right now I’m just going to see if I can sense anything more.”
Gabrielle closed her eyes, let the world fade away and stretched out her mind to the sleeping girl. Madeleine’s sleep was uneasy— Gabrielle could feel her discomfort, the occasional flares of pain that must come from her throat. She did not get the feeling of desperate illness—Matthieu was right in that. But there was something else, wasn’t there? Like a fungus growing secretly in the dark, some vague sense of looming threat.
Gabrielle didn’t know if Madeleine had caught the Gray Veil. But her niece was in danger.
That Gabrielle knew beyond doubt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ZHIRAK KEPT A GOODLY DISTANCE between them as he escorted her back to Turga, Gabrielle noticed. And Turga himself was so far away she practically had to shout. He was seated against the wall of his audience chamber and held a hand up to
stop her as soon as she was in the door.
“Does it really spread that easily?” she asked Yolenka who was stationed at Turga’s side.
“He is more careful than most.” Gabrielle had never seen Yolenka so subdued. She lifted worried amber eyes to Gabrielle. “I will not say he is stupid.”
Turga barked out a question.
“Does she have it?”
“I can’t tell for sure without examining her,” Gabrielle replied. “I have seen children with similar symptoms who had nothing but a bad cold. But—”
He interrupted abruptly.
“Does she have sore throat?”
“Yes.” There was no reason to sugarcoat it. If Turga believed Madeleine had the Veil, he would send Gabrielle back to treat her.
Turga’s features tightened. There followed a long exchange with Yolenka.
“He say, if you treat, you stay in cell until she is better and you and boy are for sure also healthy. If she die, you leave Rath Turga, not touch anything or go near any person. He pay two bars of gold if both live. He say nothing if girl dies, but I say he must pay for your danger. He say half bar of gold then.”
Gabrielle understood the need for such bargaining, but it shocked her all the same. She tried to collect her wits.
“All right, of course. No, wait—Yolenka, tell him I will do it if the others in the group agree. I need to talk with them first.”
“TONIGHT? BUT HOW will you get the children past the guards? Or avoid pursuit?”
“We have between now and midnight to figure that out.” Dominic was grim with determination, but Gabrielle knew he was no closer to an answer than she was. “If we don’t come up with a plan, we’ll have to postpone it,” he admitted. “But assume that once Yolenka’s performance is finished, we will come for you.”
Gabrielle had told them all she could—the location of the room, the position of the guards, the little she could offer about the type of lock on the door. She had brewed up whatever medicines she had that might be of help and learned everything Yolenka could tell her about the Gray Veil. It was time.
THE GUARD RETREATED to the end of the hall as quickly as he could, and Gabrielle did not hold back: She swept Matthieu into her arms and held him tight. For once, he didn’t wiggle away impatiently. Gabrielle could feel the tumult of warring emotions within him, realized that if she held him much longer he would give way to the sobs he was trying with all his might to overcome. She eased back, and Matthieu followed her lead.
“I think you should see Maddy right away. She seems a lot worse.”
The worry in his voice was enough to take her at once to her niece’s bedside.
Madeleine was awake, watching them. She mustered a wan smile for Gabrielle, and then the tears came, welling up and spilling down her cheeks. She didn’t seem to have the energy to wipe them away.
Gabrielle smoothed the tangled hair away from the girl’s face and gently wiped the wet streaks off her cheeks.
“Hello, dear one,” she murmured. “It’s okay now, Maddy, we’re going to look after you. We’re going to get you better and take you home.”
Madeleine did look worse. Her fever was only a little higher, but the blue eyes were dull and her skin shone with sweat.
“Is your throat still sore?” asked Gabrielle.
Madeleine nodded slowly as if it pained her.
“Really sore.” The words came out nasal and slightly slurred, each syllable an effort. A thin track of spittle spilled from the corner of her mouth.
“Can I take a look?”
The foul odor of Madeleine’s breath almost made Gabrielle recoil. She knew, of course, that a throat infection sours the breath, but she had never smelled anything so awful on a child. Her belly tightened. Yolenka had described exactly this.
The room was too dim, however, to see into a person’s mouth. And it was late—it would only get darker from now on. Gabrielle looked around the little cell. There was one patch of strong light on the floor, streaming in through the high narrow window.
“Matthieu, I need to get Madeleine into that bright spot. Can you help me?”
Was she endangering Matthieu, getting him so close to his sister? Gabrielle hesitated. Surely he had already been exposed.
Matthieu was at her side instantly.
“C’mon Maddy, out of bed with you!”
Madeleine’s lips twitched into a smile, and Gabrielle marveled at Matthieu’s deft touch. He’s like Tristan, she thought, so carefree and silly, but when you need him, he doesn’t hold back.
Between them, they helped Madeleine slip out of bed and lie down on the floor, her head angled into the sunlight. Now Gabrielle could get a good look.
And there it was—the gray plaque growing over Madeleine’s tonsils. The Gray Veil. Mottled, leathery and alien, it lay over the girl’s throat like some parasitic leech. It’s just an illness, like any other, Gabrielle told herself—but she could not shake the revulsion she felt at the sight of that gray coating.
She got Madeleine tucked back into bed and coaxed the willowbark tea into her, spoonful by spoonful, encouraging her through each reluctant swallow. Then she settled herself beside the little cot, took one hot trembly hand in hers and closed her eyes.
“IT’S JUST THE one guard, but we’ll have to take care of him before he raises an alarm.”
Féolan and Derkh both nodded in agreement. They were not permitted to bring weapons into the stronghold, but Féolan’s thin blade could be strapped against the inside of a man’s thigh where it easily escaped the casual inspection given to wandering peddlers. Derkh had managed a decent copy of the cunning Elvish work, so they had two between them.
“The guard has a key to the cell,” continued Dominic, “but we aren’t sure about Madeleine’s manacle.” Surely the gods would not send him such a fate, he prayed—to have to choose between leaving one child or losing both.
“If I can smuggle in Derkh’s filigree tool, I’m pretty sure I can pick that lock,” offered Féolan.
“You’ll have to get away right after Yolenka’s dance then,” said Dominic. “We’ll be waiting for you.”
“Getting in isn’t the problem, though, is it?” Derkh didn’t like to state the obvious, but without a viable escape plan there was no rescue. “We could fight our way out of the building, even with the kids, but then there are the three guards at the gate...”
“And the ten horses in the stable. I know.”
They had spun all kinds of wild scenarios—somehow killing both the fortress and gatehouse guards without raising an alarm, overwhelming the stable hands and leaving half a dozen horses saddled and ready to fly from the stronghold, even sneaking in and killing the horses (which would not prevent Turga’s men from running after them, with every chance of quickly catching up). Nothing had promised any real chance of success.
Dominic dropped his head into his hands and screwed his eyes shut. There had to be a way. But in the darkness came another terrible thought: Even if he got the children safely back to the ship, would they live? Whatever this Gray Veil was, it was enough to make Yolenka, who appeared cowed by nothing, subdued and tense. And Turga, by all accounts, lived in fear of the very words.
Before he could thrust it away, his fear took shape behind his eyelids: He saw his two children—his babies!—lifeless on the deck, shrouded in saffron sailcloth, two unbearably sad silent bundles. The terror that clutched his belly at the sight made him groan aloud.
He opened his eyes, tried to blink the vision away, but the image was stuck now in his brain. Two bundles, two limp and lifeless—
Dominic straightened, his face caught in comical transition from despair to excitement.
“We’ll say they’re dead.”
Twin blank confused looks greeted his announcement. He held up a hand, stalling their questions, thinking it through.
“I’m serious. We’ll say the children are dead. We’ll bundle them up like corpses and carry them out. People here, they’re afraid to get withi
n ten feet of this disease. We’ll say...” Dominic groped after something that made sense. “We’ll say it was part of Turga’s deal with Gabrielle—that if they died, we would get them out of here before anyone else could catch it.”
The two men were nodding now, seeing the possibilities.
“If Turga shows up, we’re in trouble,” said Féolan. “And we’ll have to hope no one gets curious about how Matthieu went so quickly. But I think you’re right, Dom—they won’t want to get close enough to investigate, they’ll just be glad to see the end of us.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
TURGA LOUNGED BACK on his mound of sumptuous silk-covered cushions, a picture of elegant detachment. Or so he hoped. He admired and enjoyed a stirring performance, but was not about to show this fallen dance-mistress just how unsettling and exciting she was.
He thought he had seen her best when she cut loose in the open courtyard. There, the sensuous promise of what she had called the “sniff from the wine bottle” had been married to a breathtaking athleticism that proved her boasts about her past career. Now, though, in his private quarters, she revealed yet another side: provocative, lyrical, intimate. As though all the moods and passions of a lover were turned into dance, he thought.
The musician, on the other hand, was barely adequate. Turga had the distinct impression that the poor fellow was struggling to keep up with Yolenka. At times it seemed the dance was entirely new to him, that he was learning it as he went along.
Perhaps it was so. Yolenka had promised Turga something just for him. Was she inventing this dance on the spot, tailoring it to how she judged his taste? If so, she was a discerning woman indeed.
Too soon the performance drew to a close, and Yolenka kneeled before him in the classical dancer’s courtesy, the bright, fluttering veils and sashes pooling around her.
It was irresistible. He threw detachment to the winds and stood, clapping loud and long. Yolenka tossed her mane back from her face. Her golden eyes caught his as she offered a slow smile of acknowledgment. A sheen of sweat gleamed on her forehead and across her collarbones. Turga pictured himself drying it off with jasmine-scented toweling. Then he pictured himself kissing it off, and a bolt of desire ran through him. What he could do with a woman like this!
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