Echoes of Betrayal (54 page)

“If you kill me,” Dorrin said, meeting his gaze, “he will certainly die. You cannot heal him.” With that, she ignored him, letting the power flow out of her hands and praying—trusting—that Falk’s goodwill guided it. Beclan went limp; Dorrin closed her eyes, wishing there’d been any period in that tumultuous year when she could have learned more about healing. How could she tell if—when—Beclan was healed unless he opened his eyes and sat up?

After a time she felt herself drifting into darkness, an empty husk blown along a forest floor. Then nothing.

When she next opened her eyes, daylight came through the cottage windows. She was on the floor of the main room, wrapped in a blanket, and she had scarcely strength to move a hand. “She’s awake,” she heard someone say. And then, “Can you sit up?”

“No.” Someone behind her lifted her shoulders and pushed a support behind her; she felt dizzy for a moment, but that eased. She looked around. The bodies of the dead had been removed, the blood scoured from the floor. Duke Mahieran lay on blankets, as did Beclan. Both appeared to be sleeping; she saw them breathe.

“You fell over,” one of the men said. “But they’re alive.”

“Paladins don’t get weak when they heal,” another said. “At least that’s what the Marshal says.”

“Want some sib?” asked yet another.

“Thank you.” Dorrin wormed a hand out of the blanket to take the mug offered her. Sib—hot and thick, a soldier’s brew—cleared her head, though not all of her memory. She could feel strength returning. She freed her other arm. “What was the housekeeper’s name?”

“My lord?”

“The woman who died. Who was she?”

“I—I don’t know—”

“Surn,” said another. “She was nearly blind.”

“Where is her body?”

“On the kitchen table, my lord, where they were hurting her.”

Dorrin unwrapped the blanket and clambered to her feet, stiff and aching. She had not noticed her own minor wounds at the time, but the soldiers had bound them up after she fell. She’d taken worse in her years as a mercenary.

In the kitchen, the soldiers had laid a tablecloth over Surn after straightening her limbs. “The only thing is, my lord, you said build up the fire—it’s so warm in here.” It was hot, and it smelled like death. Dorrin’s stomach churned.

“Is there a shed, some protected place in the cold we could lay her safe?”

“A woodshed only. But it’s nearly empty.” The man looked at her, hesitating, clearly waiting for orders.

“We’ll use that. Find us a plank or a hurdle.”

“Yes, my lord.” He hurried out and returned in a few minutes with a plank. They moved Surn’s body to the plank and carried the old woman’s remains out to the woodshed.

Once Surn’s body was out of the kitchen, Dorrin could see that the soldiers had done their best to clean it up. Considering only two of
them were unwounded and they’d had the wounded to look after as well, she commended their work. “But we need to eat,” she said. “All of us. Which of you is the best cook?”

Feet shuffled. “Um … my lord … don’t none of us know how. Only sib.”

Dorrin had not expected this. All the mercenaries learned at least some rough cooking. But from their expressions, these had not.

“I will, then.” On the hob, Surn had set grain to soak overnight for breakfast porridge and beans for some later meal. Dorrin washed her hands in hot water (they had at least been able to boil water) and set to work. First the porridge pot onto the fire, then a check of the pantry. Surn must have baked the day before: there were three and a half round loaves on a shelf. That was a mercy, but it wasn’t enough if they had to stay more than a day.

The sizzle and smell of frying bacon and sausage drove away the other smells and soon brought the less-wounded to the kitchen. Dorrin set one of the men to slicing bread and another to chopping onions and mushrooms; she put those in a frying pan and set them to the fire. A third she told to stir the porridge.

“He’s waked up,” someone called from the other room. Dorrin left the pan of mushrooms and onions, now beginning to sizzle, and looked through. Duke Mahieran and Beclan both had their eyes open; Beclan was speaking to his father.

“Breakfast soon,” Dorrin said, and turned back to the cooking. Let them think what they would; they were alive. The shift from warrior to healer to cook suddenly seemed funny to her, and she chuckled.

“What, my lord?” asked one of her helpers.

“We’re all alive,” she said. “And we have food to eat and a fire to cook it on. Isn’t that something to rejoice in?”

“I suppose …” He eyed her warily as he sliced into another loaf.

Porridge, sausage, bacon, bread, honey from the jar in the larder, dried fruit … Dorrin set it out on the table, and while the soldiers carried food to those in the other room, she took one of the raggedly cut slabs of bread, dipped honey onto it, and ate. Then she went to speak with Duke Mahieran.

Though pale from blood loss, he looked in no danger of dying, and he had an appetite … he was halfway through the bowl of porridge
already. Dorrin made a pad of the blanket she’d been wrapped in and sat on the floor near him.

“A bloody business,” he said. “Too many lives lost. But at least Beclan’s alive and himself.” He glanced at Beclan, who nodded at Dorrin, his mouth full of bread. “He is, isn’t he?” Mahieran asked softly.

“He is indeed,” Dorrin said; she had sensed nothing evil in him from the first. Nor would the enemy have nearly killed one of their own. “He was not invaded.” As Mahieran’s face relaxed, she said, “My lord, I’m afraid I must remind you that we are not safe yet.”

“You think there are more?”

“There might be. The worst of this is that I do not know—no one knows but themselves—how many are left, of either Verrakaien or the Bloodlord’s priests. We must get you and Beclan back to the safety of your home—however safe it may be—and more than that ensure the safety of the king. But eight of your soldiers left alive are wounded, and three cannot travel.”

“One will have to go and take word that we need help,” Mahieran said. Then he grimaced. “No … if they are waiting, they’d simply kill him.”

“Exactly,” Dorrin said. “We must travel together when we go, or stay together when we cannot travel.”

“If we had carts—”

“They brought provisions in a cart,” Beclan said. “And surely the outer guards have carts.”

“The outer guards are all dead,” Mahieran said. “At least—we believe so; the ones we found were dead.”

“But the carts might still be there,” Dorrin said. “Maybe even animals to pull them. We’ll look.” She pushed herself up, wincing at the various pains.

“My lord, you should rest.”

“There isn’t time,” Dorrin said. “Or you’ll be suffering from my attempt at making bread, because Surn’s won’t last the day. My cook taught the Verrakai children to bake this year, but I was too busy. I can fry things or boil them, but not bake.”

The two able-bodied soldiers went out with Dorrin to search. They found more bodies, a mutilated horse—“They used it for blood magic,” Dorrin said—two hitch lines of horses, and five two-wheeled farm carts. Despite the need for haste, Dorrin paused beside each
dead Royal Guard to say a prayer. As the soldiers gathered the horses and hitched some to the carts, Dorrin tried to think how to move the bodies, but there were too many. In the end, they dragged them into groups and covered them with branches for protection until a larger burial party could retrieve them.

Slowly—too slowly for Dorrin—horses, carts, and some provisions from the Royal Guards’ camp arrived at the cottage. By then it was well after midday, and the beans and beef she’d started after breakfast were ready.

“No, we can’t make the house by dark, not starting this late,” Mahieran said. He had slept awhile; Beclan, whose only injuries had been to his head, was now up and around. He had brought down all the rest of the bedding and warm clothes from the upper story, and without being asked had taken on the job of cleaning up dishes and pots in the kitchen.

“Then we should leave tomorrow,” Dorrin said. She went outside again; the bodies of the Verrakaien and the priests still lay in a heap. They should be burned, she knew from Paks, to dispel any lingering evil. When she put a torch to them, the flames leapt up as if she had poured oil on the bodies. Flame and smoke whirled, making dire shapes. Dorrin stood watching until the flames died down and the ash blew away on a clean north wind.

Nothing happened in the night; Dorrin slept soundly and woke at first light. She roused the others, then started breakfast in the kitchen. By full daylight, the more able-bodied were packing to leave. They had ample horses—the Royal Guard horses, except for the dead one, as well as those they’d brought. Provisions could be packed on the unridden horses; the carts would carry the wounded. Beclan insisted he could ride and helped with the packing. Dorrin didn’t argue with him, but exchanged glances with his father, who shrugged.

Before midmorning, the little caravan started for Mahieran’s country home. Surn’s body rode alone in one cart. Duke Mahieran rode alone in another, swathed in blankets and cushioned on straw, and six of the injured soldiers rode in the other three.

They did not stop except to rest the horses and in the dusk met the first outer guards of the household. A messenger rode on to alert the household that the Duke was on the way.

When they reached the house, torchlight glittered on the snow outside and the house windows blazed with light. Servants came with a padded chair to carry the Duke inside; Beclan started to follow and then looked back at Dorrin. “My lord?” he said just as his mother, Celbrin, appeared, wrapped in a fur cape.

She grabbed Beclan and hugged him, then turned to Duke Mahieran. “If
that person
is out there in the dark, I will not have
that person
in my house! She nearly killed our son—and now you come home injured—”

“If by ‘that person’ you mean Duke Verrakai, she is welcome here as my guest,” Mahieran said.

“You can’t mean that! And I won’t have it.” She pushed past Beclan to scream at Dorrin. “You sent your own mother to her death; you killed your own father. You nearly killed my son and the Duke! You should have been killed with the rest of the Verrakai—better ones died and you still live!”

Before Dorrin could speak or move, Celbrin yanked a long curved knife from under her cape and thrust it at Dorrin. Only the years of training and war made it possible to flinch aside; the knife grazed her shoulder but did not penetrate her mail.

“I’ll kill you!” Celbrin said, lunging again. But Beclan had moved, grabbing her arm and pulling her away. “Let me go!” she cried, flailing at him with her empty hand.

“No,” Beclan said. He took hold of her other arm, and held her firmly.

“Then she’s enchanted you—”

“She’s saved my life,” Beclan said. “And Father’s. It was not her fault.”

“Drop the knife, Celbrin,” Mahieran said. He waved servants forward. “Take it, if she will not drop it.”

“You will find out!” Celbrin said, her voice still high and shrill. “She is not what she pretends to be. She brings doom with her.” She spat at Dorrin, but the gobbet fell short. Beclan turned her around, and servants moved in to take the knife and force her up the steps and into the house.

“You
are
welcome here,” Mahieran said. “You saved Beclan and me, and whatever Celbrin feels—”

“I would not intrude,” Dorrin said. “You have outbuildings. I
have slept on hay many a night. I can stay there overnight and leave at dawn.”

“No,” Mahieran said. “We have much to discuss—what other dangers you foresee, how best to meet them. I will not lose the value of your experience and knowledge, or so ill repay what you have done for me and mine to satisfy her. And I need to know what set her on this road.”

“Fear for her son. Fear for you.”

“Not alone. As you suggested. Please, as my fellow peer, enter my house and take refreshment and rest.”

Dorrin hesitated, but it would be an insult to Mahieran—to the royal house—if she refused. She was tired and in pain. A bath, a night’s sleep … She bowed slightly and went up the stairs; the servants carried the Duke in his chair through the wide doorway and shut the great leaves of the doors behind them both.

Mahieran’s house was larger than her own and far more luxuriously appointed. Mahieran ordered his servants to carry him into his study and another servant to summon his physician. Dorrin followed him, as he asked her to do, and found herself in a large room with a fireplace at one end.

More servants brought food and drink and at Mahieran’s orders poured mugs of sib for them both.

“Father, I told her maid to give Mother a quieting draught,” Beclan said as he came into the room. “I went with her to her chambers and tried to talk to her, but she burst into tears and would not answer me.”

“Thank you,” Mahieran said. “And now will you take care of ensuring that Duke Verrakai has a room far away from your mother and that it is prepared for her?”

“Yes, sir,” Beclan said. He looked at Dorrin. “My lord, I will have your baggage taken there unless you wish it elsewhere.”

“Thank you,” Dorrin said.

“My lord Duke, I hear that you are injured.” This was a physician by his gown. One shoulder bore the Mahieran crest, and his robe was belted with crimson. Behind him, servants carried his paraphernalia.

“We both are, Gans,” Mahieran said. “Duke Verrakai sustained wounds in the same engagement.”

“Yours are more serious, my lord,” Dorrin said.

“We shall see,” the physician said. He attended Mahieran first, however, tut-tutting over the most serious wound. He offered Mahieran numbwine before he started, but Mahieran refused with a quick glance at Dorrin. She hoped he wasn’t making a competition out of bearing pain. Soon the sharp smell of herbs steeping in hot water replaced the fragrance of the food the servants brought. Mahieran ate one-handed while the surgeon worked on his arm.

“Not too much, my lord,” Gans said. “It’s been long enough with only a field dressing to bring up a touch of fever. You’ll drink this—” He offered Mahieran a goblet of water mixed with an infusion of herbs; Mahieran grimaced but drank it down. “—to purify the blood. Anything else?”