| |
The room was small, with walls of bare, whitewashed stone. A tiny cot had been made up with a roughly-cut piece of undyed wool for the blanket. A little table sat across from the cot, with a single candle. Beneath the table was a backless stool. And that was the extent of the furniture. The floor was covered with fresh rushes, and had been washed recently with vinegar. The smell was a bit overwhelming, in fact, and made her eyes water. She tried to open the wide, leaded glass window, but she found that it had been sealed shut with wax, and the handle had been removed. Presumably this was to prevent noxious vapors from penetrating the window, but all it did was keep the vinegar smell from dissipating. After five minutes in the room, Stasya had a headache and had to lie down.
Just about the time that Stasya was starting to wonder if she was going to truly be sick, the door opened again, and one of the masked, white-robed guards came in. Stasya looked at this grim, alien figure. She could make out nothing behind the black eyes of the mask. “Um, hello,” said the figure, after a moment. The voice was curiously high and soft. “I’m terribly sorry to disturb you. But do you need anything? Food, perhaps? Water?”
“Fresh air,” croaked Stasya. “I’m choking on vinegar here.”
“Oh, that,” said the figure. “We’re really not supposed to open the windows, especially not on a burning day, but seeing as how you’re one of Earstien’s angels, I suppose you know what you’re doing.” The figure dug under its robes and then dropped something metal onto the table. It was the missing handle of the window. “Try to reseal the wax if you can. Perhaps you know a spell for that?”
“Or I could use the candle,” said Stasya, jumping out of bed immediately and cracking the window open. She stood there, taking in long, deep breaths of clean air, until the guard spoke again.
“Is it true? That you’re one of Earstien’s angels, I mean?”
“Yes. I’m a hillichmagnar. All four of us are.”
“Amazing.”
The guard continued to stand and watch her, until Stasya was finally moved to ask, “Did you need anything else?”
“Um, as it happens...oh, it’s a bit embarrassing. I’m supposed to...well, I should tell you first that I’m a lady. Or a woman, I suppose I should say, because my people were farmers. Calleigh is my name. Calleigh Dell.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Stasya had an inkling why a woman had been sent to her chamber. She and Evika had often been called upon to do something quite similar at the Civic Hospital in Tendria. This Calleigh person seemed so flustered that Stasya decided to take pity on her. “I suspect you are here to check my person for signs of the plague, am I right?”
“Yes. And I’m sorry to say that you will need to be in, er...a state of undress for me to....”
Stasya was already unlacing her trousers. It was humiliating to be looked at in that way, but she had been examined plenty of times before, and the only thing to do was to get through it as quickly as possible. In less than a minute, she was naked and lying on the bed, while the long beak of Calleigh Dell’s white mask hovered over her.
The woman gasped and pointed at Stasya’s neck. “What are these marks! Oh no! They are like the plague, but not.”
“I had the plague,” Stasya whispered, not liking to remember the fetid hospital in Nivia. “I had buboes on my neck and under my arm.” She lifted her arm and pointed to where the lumps had once been. “But I recovered. It’s thought that if you have the plague once, you won’t get it again. I think it’s true. I...I had to nurse many dying patients back in Loshadnarod, but I was fine.”
“That’s remarkable. So few survive.” Calleigh stepped back and informed Stasya they were through. She then apologized again for having to perform the examination and turned her back while Stasya dressed.
“So where are you from?” Stasya asked. Even though Stasya knew she didn’t have the plague again, she was probably going to have to endure this indignity every day for as long as the quarantine lasted. She might as well know something about this person who was getting to know her in such a very intimate way.
“Me?” squeaked the woman. “I’m from Keneshire, but I’m no one important. I’m just here as assistant to the great physician, Alwin Garnett.”
“Who?” asked Stasya.
“Alwin Garnett,” the woman repeated, as if this name ought to have been well known to anyone. “He’s the foremost expert on the manifold causes of our great pestilence—vapors, humors, astrological convergences. He’s an expert on all of these things, and a great many more. He’s a very great man.”
“And do you enjoy working for him?”
The bird-headed mask tilted to the side quizzically. “Enjoy? He’s...well, he’s a very great man. The duke and duchess trust him in all sorts of matters. All sorts of matters, yes.”
Stasya had the distinct feeling that the girl was not saying nearly as much as she could have. But before she could press for more details, Calleigh excused herself and backed out of the door, locking it behind her.
***
CAEDMON PULLED BACK on his trousers, wishing the big guard in the white robe would have the decency to turn around as he did this. He had already been checked; what did the man think he was going to see now that he hadn’t seen before? But the guard stood there, looking at him from the door and occasionally reaching up to scratch under his long, beak-nosed mask.
“Did you need something else?” Caedmon eventually asked. His tone was less than courteous, but considering how little care the guard was taking to be polite, he wasn’t going to go out of his way to spare the man’s feelings.
“The men at the gate said you are Caedmon Aldred,” said the guard, in a deep bass rumble. “Is that so?”
“It is,” answered Caedmon. He could always hope that was the end of the conversation, but everyone always had more questions after that first one.
“This must be quite the homecoming for you, then.”
“Yes, I have been to Leornian many times,” Caedmon said shortly, as he struggled to put his undershirt back on.
“You were born here, too, I think. Or nearby, at least. I make a study of accents, you see. Among other things, of course. Your accent is a nearly perfect example of a Mid-Trahernshire drawl, quite typical of the older nobility.”
Caedmon finished lacing his undershirt and looked up at the darkened eyeholes of the mask. “You do know I am nearly a thousand years old, do you not? A man’s accent can change a great deal in that time.”
“Oh, I have no doubt,” said the guard. “Someday, perhaps you and I will have leisure to consult together on these matters. I have no doubt that you would be an invaluable source for my next book. Philologists make all sorts of educated guesses as to how Edmund Dryhten and Broderick Gramiren and Queen Ferryn spoke. You could actually tell me.”
“I suppose I could,” said Caedmon, in a tone that he hoped suggested that this was not something that he looked forward to doing.
“I am afraid I am being a bit of a pest,” boomed the man. “I will not ask your forgiveness, however, as you are a man of science, like myself, and you know how impatient one becomes with the forms and rules of politeness when one is in search of knowledge.” He bowed and tipped his mask slightly, as if it were a hat. “My name is Alwin Garnett, and I am your humble servant, my Lord Aldred.”
“Just ‘Caedmon’ will be fine.” It was true that he had a number of titles, accumulated over the centuries like barnacles on the hull of a ship, but no one he liked had ever called him “Lord Aldred.”
“I suppose you are wondering why I am here,” the mysterious Mr. Garnett went on.
“I had supposed you were here to examine me for the marks of the plague,” said Caedmon. “And having now discharged that duty, I assume you are eager to be about some other business somewhere else.”
Garnett let out a booming laugh that sounded a bit too forced. “Yes, my lord, it is true that I am a very busy man. I have been advising the duke and duchess for some time on the most efficacious ways of avoiding infection. This mask here,” he tapped the long beak, “is an invention of mine.”
That was probably untrue. Stasya had pointed out that something similar was being used in Nivia, but Caedmon didn’t wish to start a dispute with this man over his qualifications. If he indeed had the ear of the duke and duchess, then it would probably be wise to avoid offending him, if at all possible.
“I consider myself an amateur student of magy,” Garnett went on, “so I am naturally most curious to consult with you on the theory and practice of that most noble of arts. I spent some years in Sahasra Deva, learning from the master sorcerers of their court. No doubt there is much we could learn from each other. But for the time being, I am afraid that you will have to remain in this room. If there is anything you desire, please be sure to call for a guard—there are two at the end of the hall.” Garnett left, and the door locked behind him.
Caedmon never liked to make hasty judgments where people were concerned. After nearly a millennium, he had found that people could still surprise him. But in his experience, ordinary people who thought they could study magy in order to gain power were either fools or criminals. It still remained to be seen in which category Mr. Garnett belonged.