Marissa nodded.
“You look like you must be feeling better?”
Marissa nodded again, wondering how the woman knew who she was and that she’d been sick. Is sick, Marissa corrected herself.
“Tarc said you guys might want to go with the caravan if it goes direct to Clancy Vail. Norton, he’s the caravan master, says he might go direct if Tarc’ll ride as a bowman, but he wants to talk to Tarc himself. Do you know where he is?”
Marissa shook her head. “No, but Tarc’s not a bowman. Talking to him… it’d be a waste of the master’s time.”
The woman goggled at Marissa for a moment, then grinned, “You have no idea, do you?”
“No idea of what?” Marissa said irritatedly.
“That your nephew’s probably the best bowman in the world. That he’s the reason the road to Clancy Vail’s safe again.” The woman cocked her head to one side, “I’d better come back. I don’t think I can trust you to pass on a message.” She turned and strode away.
“You must be mistaken,” Marissa called after her.
~~~
When Eva got home, Marissa said, “A strange young woman came by today, all dressed in leather and looking for Tarc. She thinks he’s a bowman.”
“Oh. That’d be Lizeth,” Eva said. “Did she say whether the caravan’s going to take the Clancy Vail road or not?”
“She claimed,” Marissa said slowly, “that the caravan master wanted to talk to Tarc first.” She paused for a moment, then continued doubtfully, “About his services as an archer.”
“We’d better get Tarc over there as soon see comes back then,” Eva said. “Getting you to Clancy Vail would be a lot easier if you could ride in one of the sprung caravan wagons.”
“Tarc is an archer?”
Eva nodded as she walked on into the kitchen. She called back, “As soon as Tarc gets back and we send him to talk to Norton, you and I should go on another walk. We’ve got to get you in a little better shape before the trip. Even riding a sprung wagon’s gonna be tough.”
Archer? Marissa thought. That takes years and he’s just a kid!
***
To Marissa’s astonishment, Tarc returned from his visit to the caravan master to say that the caravan was going to brave the Clancy Vail road in three days. The date they’d leave was to be kept absolutely secret for fear the bandits had informers in the town. One of the caravaners with a sprung wagon had agreed to take Marissa as a passenger.
When she sat down—with some trepidation—to discuss the possibility of a move with George, he’d immediately said, “Of course we’re moving.”
“But your business…!”
“I can move my business,” he said waving dismissively. “I can’t replace my wife. I… I thought you were…” he swallowed, “I thought you were almost dead.” He shook his head, “To see you up and around, already looking so much better… It’s like a miracle. You’ve got to stay with your sister for treatment, so we have to move to Clancy Vail. We can’t very well ask her and her family to uproot their tavern and move it here. The needles of a tailor’s trade are a lot easier to move than a tavern.”
“But your commitments…” she said, referring to the garments people had commissioned from him. “And, and, starting all over in Clancy Vail, without established customers.”
“There’ll be a market for quality in Clancy Vail, just like there is in Cooperstown,” he said confidently. “Once people have seen what I can do, customers will come. Eva says I can work at their tavern to make ends meet until business picks up.”
“What about your commitments?” she said, unable to believe he would simply walk out on garments he’d promised.
He put a hand on her shoulder, “I’ll have to come with the next caravan. Meanwhile, I’ll finish my commissions. If another caravan doesn’t come soon, I’ll just use the time to make up exhibition pieces I can use to develop business in Clancy Vail.” He looked her in the eye, “I’d need to stay here to arrange the sale of our house and say goodbye to our friends anyway.”
Marissa’s eyes were full of tears. Partly because of the sacrifices her husband was so willingly making, partly for the loss of her home, partly for the loss of their friends, partly…
But mostly tears of joy for the stolen span of her life she was beginning to think her sister was getting back for her.
Chapter Ten
Marissa was riding on the driver’s bench at the front of the sprung wagon. Eva walked on one side of the wagon and Daussie on the other. Marissa and Eva’d been taking turns telling Daussie stories from their youth. Funny ones mostly. Reminiscing seemed to wash away the bits of resentment Marissa still felt for her lack of talent.
Eva started a funny story about one of her early cooking failures but then stopped suddenly at a thrumming sound.
It came from what Marissa thought was two wagons ahead. Where the guards’ wagon was, almost at the front of the caravan.
Eva’s head turned to the front and her eyes grew distant. The thrum repeated itself, then came again, and, moments later, again. It kept coming, thrum after thrum, every few seconds.
Not sure what she was hearing, Marissa looked at Eva again. The wagons were stopping but Eva was striding rapidly toward the front of the caravan.
A spike of fear shot through Marissa. Were the years of life she thought’d been returned to her about to be taken away? “What is it? Are we under attack?”
Just as Marissa was thinking there was no one around to answer her questions, Daussie said, “No. Well actually, the caravan is under attack, but don’t worry. We’re not in danger.”
A couple of guardsmen rode by on either side, heading to the front. Plaintively, Marissa asked, “What’s going on?”
“Outlaws felled a tree across the road up ahead,” Daussie said calmly as if it were everyday news.
“We are under attack!” Marissa said as if Daussie hadn’t already told her that. She was trying to control the panic in her voice and wondering how her niece could sound unhappy but unafraid. Panicked, she asked, “What’s the thrumming sound?!”
“That’s Tarc’s…” Daussie paused as four guardsmen rode by, this time heading to the rear. She wouldn’t have been heard over the hoofbeats.
Marissa turned to watch the men riding to the rear. Are the guards fleeing? she wondered. Cowards, leaving us to our own devices?
Daussie continued her interrupted explanation, “The thrumming’s from Tarc’s bow.”
Marissa turned to stare at her niece. Somehow, while Marissa hadn’t been watching her, the girl had gotten up on the bay horse that’d been tethered to the wagon.
Another horse galloped up, abruptly stopping near Daussie. It was the young woman who wore the leathers. She had her sword out and looked even more fierce than she had before. Dangerous. Focused intently on Daussie, she said, “Do you know where they all are?”
Daussie calmly said, “The ones up by the roadblock are dead or running. There’re eight coming up on the rear though. We’ve only got six guards back there.”
“Any on our flanks?”
Daussie nodded, “But they aren’t going to be able to pose a threat. You should help out with the ones at the back.”
With a sharp nod, Lizeth smacked her horse’s hindquarters with a flat of her blade and resumed her gallop to the rear.
Marissa turned back to Daussie, “What makes you think you know what’s going on?”
Daussie gave her a look, “Same sense that lets us see inside people. It also senses people a long way away.”
“People on our flanks? You sense bandits to either side?”
Daussie nodded.
“Are you crazy?” Marissa’s eyes roamed the forest, “There’re outlaws out there and you just sent the guard girl away?!”
Daussie nodded but had a distant look in her eyes. She held up her left hand for a pause, saying, “Just a moment.” She cocked back her right arm.
Suddenly four men with machetes burst out of the w
oods on their right.
Daussie threw something their direction.
It landed in front of them, bursting to fragments and making a splash.
One after another, the four men stumbled, began coughing, then fell to their knees gasping for breath and desperately rubbing at their eyes.
“What the hell was that?” Marissa asked.
“Extract of cayenne pepper,” Daussie replied distantly, her eyes focused toward the front of the caravan. Then she turned to Marissa, “Everything’s okay. The bandits that attacked the front are all dead. So are the ones at the back.” She grimaced, “A couple of our guards at the rear got injured though. I need to get Mom and take her back to help them.” Her eyes searched Marissa’s for a moment, “You should get some rest.”
With that, Daussie kneed the bay horse. It took off toward the front.
As Daussie passed the wagon in front of Marissa’s she shouted at its driver, jerking a thumb at the four men gasping on the right. “Tie these guys up.”
Flabbergasted by Daussie’s claim, Marissa couldn’t bring herself to believe the attack had been defeated so suddenly. She climbed off the bench and back into the wagon, taking a hidden position where she hoped she could see without being seen. As soon she got into position Tarc galloped past the left side of her wagon, heading to the rear.
Distracted, Marissa wondered what Tarc was doing. Shouldn’t the caravan’s bowman stay at the front? When she turned her eyes back to the front she saw the driver of the wagon in front of them had dismounted with a machete.
As if it were a routine chore, he strode over and started killing the four outlaws Daussie’d disabled.
For a moment Marissa considered shouting at him—telling him he was just supposed to tie them up. By then he’d already killed three of them.
Besides, Marissa realized she couldn’t imagine why murderous outlaws should be left alive.
She held her tongue.
Eva rode by on Daussie’s bay horse, heading to the rear after Tarc. Marissa heard the bay horse slow. By the sounds, she could tell Eva’d dismounted. Eva must be getting some of their medical supplies from the little wagon they’ve been trailing behind this one.
A few minutes after that, Daussie came loping toward the rear, Hareh running behind her. Daussie slowed for a moment and, spying Marissa in her hiding place, said, “The danger’s over. We’re just heading back to do what we can for the injured.”
With a quick glance ahead, Marissa said, “The man in the next wagon killed the outlaws you disabled.”
Daussie’s glanced that way, lips pressed together disapprovingly. “I should’ve expected that I suppose.” Her eyes turned again to the rear, “Try to rest. I’m going to go help my mom.” She loped off again, now following Hareh who’d passed her while they were talking.
Marissa sat until her pounding heart had slowed.
Then till her tremors subsided.
Nothing was happening.
Growing bored, Marissa carefully climbed out of the wagon and started toward the back of the column. So many of the caravaners had headed that way already she could justify it to herself as a safer place to be. Besides, she was curious to see what her sister did for any of the injured. Probably just applied bandages, Marissa thought. Her weird powers won’t help there.
As she walked to the rear, Hareh ran forward on his way to the wagon full of medical supplies. Marissa was moving slowly enough that she was just getting to the back when Hareh passed her again, carrying a pair of heavy water bottles. Marissa made her own way through the crowd by following him as if she belonged there.
When she arrived, she found Eva tending one of the caravan’s strapping young guards. The man had a massive wound across the front of his left upper arm. Marissa thought it must’ve come from a sword or machete.
For some reason, Tarc was holding a belt twisted tightly around the arm above the upper end of the cut.
Eva had the arm laid out on a cloth Marissa recognized as having been through Eva’s pressure cooker. She was sloshing the wound out with some water from one of the bottles Hareh had been carrying. Saline, she thought, remembering them talking about saltwater solutions back at her house.
The saline’s really swirling around in that wound, Marissa thought. Then realized Tarc must be stirring it with his talent.
Eva set the jar of saline down in front of Daussie where she knelt at the man’s hip. Daussie bent down closer to it and Marissa suspected the girl was going to surreptitiously move some of the saline into the man’s veins. They’d told her that was one of the first things Hareh had been able to do in the way of treating patients.
Meanwhile, Eva unstoppered another jar—by its smell, moonshine—and used its contents to wipe down the man’s arm. Marissa expected the man to cry out when a little of the alcohol got in his wound but he didn’t move. She looked up at him and saw his eyes were peacefully closed.
Behind her, she heard someone murmur, “… already dead?”
Someone else said, “No, just passed out…”
Eva opened another cloth bundle and let out a little curse. Turning, she said, “Daussie, we need one of the finer suture kits to repair the artery.”
Without saying anything, Daussie leaped to her feet and ran through the crowd toward the front.
Eva picked up a couple of the instruments from the bundle and bent over the man’s arm. With quick sure movements, she sent a curved needle in and out of the wound, never touching the needle—nor the thread it pulled—with her hands, only with the instruments. Marissa supposed it was wrong to be so much more impressed with her sister’s skill at sewing human flesh than she was with all the uncanny things her sister did.
Daussie arrived back with a smaller bundle. Eva tied off the heavier suture she’d been using at one end of the wound and started sewing in the depths of the other end of the wound using the smaller needle and finer suture from the kit Daussie’d brought.
Tarc leaned close as if to watch, though he wouldn’t have been able to see since whatever Eva was sewing lay submerged in blood.
He must be doing something with his talent, Marissa thought.
Rather than going back to kneeling over the bottle of saline, Daussie knelt at the other end of the wound. She picked up the bigger instruments Eva’d been using at first. She continued sewing the flesh Eva’d been working on at that end of the wound, using the heavy suture.
A quick glance showed Marissa that the saline bottle Daussie been transferring was empty anyway. She realized Hareh stood next to her. Whispering, she asked him, “Is Eva really sewing up an artery?”
Hareh nodded. “Fortunately, it was only cut part of the way through, so all she’s having to do is repair a large hole in it.”
“How does she know what she’s doing beneath all that blood?”
Hareh gave her a side-eyed glance. “Um. Years of practice?”
Realizing Eva was using her talent to see the ends of the artery, Marissa felt embarrassed to have asked such a stupid question. One that might’ve caused other observers to start wondering. People who might decide Eva’s ability seemed witchy. After a moment, she said, “She can probably tell by feel, huh?”
Hareh nodded. “She says that’s really important…”
Eva suddenly lifted her head, “Daussie,” she said, “You’re about to close the biceps over the musculocutaneous. Keep working on the brachialis muscle until I can stitch the nerve with this fine suture.”
“Dammit!” Daussie muttered under her breath. She sounded frustrated with herself. “Sorry.”
“Too many things to think about. I know. You’re doing well.” She glanced up at Hareh. “Can you switch out that empty bottle of saline?” she asked, glancing at the one by their patient’s hip.
“Yes ma’am,” Hareh said, sounding chagrined, Marissa thought he was feeling embarrassed for not thinking of it himself. He put the second bottle where the first one was, setting the empty one aside, then he knelt by the man’s hip.
/> Keeping an eye on the level in the bottle Marissa could see it was dropping, presumably as Hareh moved the saline into the man’s veins.
Their patient let out a moan and started to lift his head.
Eva leaned his way a moment and his head fell back. Abruptly she staggered to her feet, saying, “I’ve got a splitting headache. I’ll hold the tourniquet Tarc. You take over suturing before I make a mistake.”
He flashed wide eyes up at her but leaned away so she could grab the belt.
Grabbing it, she collapsed down where he’d been sitting. That put her head much closer to the guard’s, Marissa thought.
Tarc said, “Um, I’m not sure I can sew…”
Tiredly, Eva said, “Then let Daussie finish the artery and do the nerve. You suture the muscle layers.” She sagged off to the side looking exhausted.
Marissa knew proximity made their talents work better. Eva must’ve really been straining to keep the man asleep while she was suturing his artery.
Without saying anything, Daussie and Tarc switched places and instruments.
The remainder of their repairs were anticlimactic. Eva slumped by the man’s head. When Daussie thought she’d completed the repair of the artery, Eva released the tension on the belt tourniquet. She had to tighten it again while Daussie put in another stitch, but then it held. Repairing the nerve didn’t take Daussie as long as the repair of the artery had taken, then she had Hareh get her some powder she spread in the wound before she started helping Tarc close the remainder of muscular portions of the wound.
Marissa leaned closer to her son, thinking that powder looked suspiciously like some of the “magical dust” charlatans dispensed. “What’s the powder?”
“Antibiotic,” he replied.
“And what’s antibiotic?” she asked, frustrated that he was making her draw it out of him.
“A chemical… um, a medicine that kills germs.” Apparently realizing her lack of understanding, he said, “Germs are what cause infections. Little animals, so tiny they’re invisible, that eat away at your flesh and often release poisons.”
Hyllis Family 06 - Sisters Page 23
