The Shining City (44 page)

“I do no‟ want tea!” Nina said angrily. “Tell me, what do ye do here? I thought ye were in prison, awaiting trial with all the rest o‟ the laird o‟ Fettercairn‟s henchmen.”

“Oh, but I am no‟ a henchman, my lady,” Dedrie protested, opening her brown eyes wide. “I am a healer, and where else should a healer be but at the Royal College o‟ Healers?”

“But ye were arrested! Brought here to Lucescere to face charges!”

“No charges were ever laid against me,” Dedrie said in a hurt voice. “I‟m naught but a poor auld skeelie. All I‟ve ever done is try to help and heal, as a skeelie should.”

Nina groped for a chair and sat down. Her head was whirling with so many questions and accusations she could frame none of them. It seemed impossible that the weeping, furious woman she had seen manacled and under guard in Fetterness should be here, plump, rosy, and smiling, in Johanna‟s comfortable suite of rooms in the Tower of Two Moons. Nina‟s dazed eyes took in the fact that Dedrie was dressed in the green robe of a healer, with the usual heavy pouch of powdered herbs and tools at her waist.

“But how?” she managed to say.

Dedrie smiled, and for a moment Nina saw a flash of malicious glee in her eyes. Then the moment was gone.

“Indeed I do no‟ ken why ye are so surprised to see me, my lady,” Dedrie said, bustling about the room, swinging the kettle over the fire and laying out a tray with clean cups. “I have been here for more than a month now, helping Mistress Johanna with her work and attending lectures at the Theurgia.” She laughed. “Och, I ken I‟m auld for it. The bairns must think me a right auld biddy.

It is interesting, though. The things I‟m learning! I feel downright humble to be allowed in.”

As she spoke, she made tea and brought it to Nina‟s hand. Nina took it and raised it to her lips, then suddenly put her cup down so roughly the tea spilled. She rose to her feet. “Where is Johanna?” she demanded. “I need to speak with her at once.”

“Och, she‟ll be a while yet. Bide a wee, and drink your tea.”

Nina shook her head. “Ye think I want to drink aught made by your hand?” she said coldly. “I am no‟ such a fool.”

Dedrie‟s face suddenly turned ugly. She pressed her hands together before her, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Nina waited for the burst of words, but none came. Instead, after a moment, the skeelie gave her a pleasant smile, saying chidingly, “Och, there‟s naught in there but rose-hip syrup, chestnut flowers, and honey, my lady. Ye fear I‟d try to poison ye? Here in Mistress Johanna‟s rooms? Why would I do such a thing?”

“Why indeed?” Nina answered.

“Exactly! I have no desire to hurt anyone. I‟m right happy to be here. Come, my lady, sit down.

Ye seem hot and ruffled. Would ye prefer something cool? I have bellfruit juice or fresh lemonade—”

“Nay. I want to see Johanna. I need to see her now!”

“Very well, I‟ll call her.” Dedrie moved towards the inner door, then paused, looking back at Nina with a sharp, cold look. “Do try no‟ to upset her,” she warned. “My poor mistress has suffered much grief these past few months. She needs kindness and sympathy in these hard times.”

Nina opened her mouth to retort angrily, then closed it again, utterly dumbfounded. Dedrie smiled at her and rapped gently at the door.

“Mistress Johanna? I‟m so sorry to disturb ye, ma‟am, but ye have a visitor.”

“Coming!” Johanna called back.

Nina heard rapid footsteps and then the door opened and Johanna came out. Nina was surprised at the sight of her. The last time she had seen Johanna she had been white and haggard, racked with grief over her brother‟s death. Now she looked calm and content, with a dreamy smile on her face.

“Nina,” she said, and came forward, smiling. “Good to see ye!”

“And ye,” Nina replied, allowing herself to be embraced.

Johanna led her to sit down, asking her how she was, and Roden, and Iven, and Dide.

“Fine, fine, they‟re all fine,” Nina answered distractedly.

Johanna acknowledged her words with a vague nod, then turned her head and smiled at Dedrie, saying, “Och, ye dear, ye‟ve made us tea already. What would I do without ye?”

“It‟s my pleasure,” Dedrie answered, bringing Johanna a cup and then bending to arrange the cushions at her back more comfortably. “Are ye hungry? I have some little honey cakes here, or I could ring for some soup if ye like.”

“Nay, I‟m fine, thank ye,” Johanna answered, sipping her tea.

Nina regarded her closely. Was it her imagination or were Johanna‟s pupils far too small?

Certainly the healer had a dazed, dreamy expression on her face, as if she had just woken up.

Nina pressed her hands together, a nagging worm of anxiety wriggling in her stomach.

“Now what can I do for ye?” Johanna asked, holding up her cup so Dedrie could refill it. “Ye are looking rather white, Nina. Is all well with ye?”

Nina looked from her to Dedrie, and back again. “No, it is no‟,” she said bluntly. “Johanna, do ye no‟ ken . . . do ye no‟ ken who this is? She‟s the laird o‟ Fettercairn‟s skeelie.”

“Aye, o‟ course I ken,” Johanna said comfortably, smiling at Dedrie. “And a fine skeelie she is too.”

Nina tried to choose her words with care. “Ye do ken, do ye no‟, that she has been accused o‟

murder? And necromancy?”

“Aye, and stuff and rubbish it is too,” Johanna replied. “As if Dedrie could possibly be guilty o‟

such dreadful deeds! Why, she is the kindest, most thoughtful—”

“Och, please, ma‟am, ye‟ll put me to the blush!”

“How I ever managed without Dedrie is beyond me,” Johanna continued. “I‟m so glad she came to me for help. Why, if it were no‟ for her—”

“Now, ma‟am, that‟s enough, please,” Dedrie said firmly, bringing the plate of cakes and offering it to Johanna, who took one and ate it absentmindedly.

Nina was dismayed to find she was near tears. It had wearied her, rushing through the crowded city in the heat, only to find someone she thought of as an enemy where she had expected to get help. She took a deep breath and managed to swallow her distress.

“Aye, I need your help,” she said to Johanna, who was gazing at her with a look of mild inquiry, her head lolling back against a cushion. “I need a healer.”

“Why, what is wrong?”

Nina took a deep breath. “There‟s fever . . . in the prison. I am no‟ a healer, as ye ken. I do no‟

ken the best thing to do. . . .”

“Fever! In the prison! Och, my poor laird!” Dedrie stood stock-still, her hands clasped before her breast, then turned to look at Johanna pleadingly. “Oh, ma‟am, may I go? My laird is elderly now and much weakened by his weeks imprisoned. A bout o‟ jail fever would kill him.”

“O‟ course ye must go,” Johanna said. “Take whatever ye need from the simples room. Ask Annie and Mirabelle to go with ye, to assist ye. And Dedrie, take a plague mask. I do no‟ want ye catching the fever.” She smiled at the skeelie fondly.

Nina swallowed her distaste. “I do no‟ ken if the laird is ill too, or any o‟ his men, but it would be wise to check him,” she said. She found she had difficulty framing her next words, knowing how Johanna must feel about Rhiannon, her brother‟s killer. She forced herself to speak. “It is Rhiannon o‟ Dubhslain who is ill, though, very ill. May I take one o‟ your healers to her?

Perhaps this Annie . . . or Mirabelle?”

Johanna sat bolt upright, her cup tumbling from her hands to crash and break on the floor. “Ye dare . . . ye dare ask me . . .” she began, in a high shrill voice. “Ye want me to succor that . . .

murderess . . . that foul . . .” Her voice failed. She flung up her arm to cover her face, beginning to weep in great heaving breaths. “Get out!” she rasped. “Get out!”

“But Johanna . . .”

“Get out!”

“But she is ill, very ill. . . .”

“I hope she dies,” Johanna spat, staring at Nina with blazing hatred in her eyes. “I hope she suffers terribly first.” Then the healer turned and pressed her head into Dedrie‟s lap, the skeelie bending to embrace her.

Dedrie looked over Johanna‟s distraught form at Nina, and this time she made no attempt to hide the malice in her smile. “I would beg ye to leave now, my lady,” she said in a treacle-sweet voice. “I do no‟ wish ye to upset Mistress Johanna any more. I mean no disrespect, but it was cruel o‟ ye, cruel and thoughtless, to ask her to do such a thing.”

“Aye! Cruel!” Johanna cried out, her voice muffled by Dedrie‟s embrace.

Nina stood up. “I‟m sorry, I did no‟ mean to distress ye,” she said. “But ye are a healer, sworn to help and heal all those in need. I thought—”

“Get out!” Johanna screamed.

Nina bowed her head and left the room.

She stood for a long moment on the landing outside, staring out the tall windows at the green branches swaying in the breeze. She had to repress her own misery in order to think through what had just happened in the healer‟s room. Nina had not seen Johanna in such distress since the death of Tòmas some twenty years earlier. Johanna was renowned for her composure and strength in times of trouble. All through war and rebellion and plague, Johanna had alleviated pain and suffering and fear with her calm good sense and steadfast courage.

Nina tried to think how she would feel if it had been Dide shot in the back by a wild satyricorn.

Would she have felt such savage hatred towards the archer? Would she have wished her

brother‟s murderer dead, even without a trial to establish the truth of the shooting? Nina would like to think she would not, but in truth she could not tell. She sighed and went down the stairs, crossing the garth towards the Royal College of Sorcerers.

She found Isabeau at last in the library, reading a great heavy book with the title
Ghosts and
Ghouls and Ghasts
picked out in gold. The Keybearer looked up as she came in and smiled warmly, putting her book down and coming forward to embrace her. “Nina! How lovely to see ye. But what is wrong?”

Nina told her about Rhiannon, and how Johanna had refused to send anyone to tend her.

“I‟ll come at once,” Isabeau said. “I was only just worrying about Rhiannon. See this book I am reading? I‟ve been brushing up on my knowledge o‟ ghosts and hauntings, and very troubling reading it makes too. It‟s sorry I am indeed that I have no‟ found the time to visit her again.

Come, I just need to get my healer‟s bag from my rooms. Walk with me and tell me more. Ye say Johanna was very distressed?”

Nina told her everything, including how the lord of Fettercairn‟s skeelie had somehow wormed her way into Johanna‟s confidence. She described the healer‟s lassitude, her dreamy expression and her contracted pupils, and wondered aloud if Dedrie had somehow drugged Johanna, having had a bad experience with the skeelie‟s basket of potions and poisons before. This reminded her of Elfrida and her visit to the healer, and how edgy and nervous she had seemed. Isabeau listened to all she had to say with great interest, as she retrieved her healer‟s bag from her suite of rooms at the very top of the tower and sent one of her maids running to the stables to order horses.

As they made their way back to the prison, a passage through the crowds cleared for them by four tall guards, Nina told the Keybearer how troubled she was about the conditions at Sorrowgate Prison. She told Isabeau about the mysterious disappearance of Bess Balfour, after she had been strung up for the rats to gnaw on by the warder of Murderers‟ Gallery, and described, with some exasperation, how much it was costing her to keep Rhiannon in a cell of her own, with two meals a day and clean sheets and blankets once a week. By the time they rode under the cruel portcullis, Isabeau was frowning and Nina was feeling much easier in her heart.

“It must no‟ be allowed,” Isabeau said tersely. “Lachlan must be told! Why have ye no‟ told him yourself?”

“I canna get near him,” Nina said. “The court is like a hive o‟ hornets, all buzzing around.

There‟s this new unrest in Tìrsoilleir, and all the scandal over Bronwen and this Yeoman that Prionnsa Donncan killed. No‟ to mention the upcoming wedding!”

“Aye, I must admit it‟s been mad,” Isabeau said. “I have had a lot on my plate too.”

“Aye, I‟m sorry. I didna ken who else to come to.”

“Ye did right,” Isabeau answered. “Lachlan will see me!”

“Once he would‟ve seen me too, at any time,” Nina said unsteadily. She dashed her hand across her eyes. “But I am no‟ in favor right now, given that I keep importuning him on Rhiannon‟s behalf. ”

“Och, well. He loved Connor dearly and misses his wise counsel. We all do. He had an uncanny knack o‟ getting to the truth o‟ a matter.”

Having left their horses in the care of Isabeau‟s guards, they climbed up the twisting stairs to Rhiannon‟s cell. The satyricorn was gravely ill, Nina could tell at once. She lay in a tangle of hot, damp sheets, her eyes unseeing, her face flushed as red as if she had been eating scorch-spice. Isabeau wasted no time in forcing her to drink a bitter cordial made of powdered willow-bark, feverfew, wormwood, and borage, easily evading Rhiannon‟s wild struggles, then stripped her and bathed her in cool water. She sent Corey running out into the city streets to purchase a cup of snow from the icemongers, and squeezed lemon over it and fed it to Rhiannon with a spoon. Hamish, the other guard, rather sulkily brought soup that Isabeau sniffed suspiciously and then poured into the stinking chamber pot.

“Remove this at once,” the Keybearer said coldly, “and bring us a clean one, then have a messenger sent to the Tower o‟ Two Moons, to Gwilym the Ugly. I want fresh cooked soup, and nettle tea, and agrimony water, and an infusion of yarrow and vervain. Tell him I want plenty o‟

it, and I want it now. Mistress Rhiannon will no‟ be the only one sick in this foul place. Tell Master Gwilym I want a team o‟ maids too, to scrub out the cells and strew them with fresh herbs. They had best wear gloves and masks. Oh, and tell him I want another message sent to the kennels. I want all the cairn terriers brought here and set to catch the rats. Have him search out some ferrets too, to go where the dogs canna. Is that understood?”

Hamish gaped at her.

The Keybearer clicked her teeth in exasperation and sat down to scribble a hasty note, which she then gave to Corey to carry, he being the younger and more willing.