Chapter Thirty-Six

 

 

Av slipped out of the house quietly and closed the door behind him. Everyone else was fast asleep. His father, despite recovering from the rib and the cough, still slept more soundly than he ever had before. Perhaps that had something to do with the children wearing him out, or the fact that he couldn’t wake at every little sound any longer. Maybe Ervam’s hearing was going; maybe he was going soft.

Or maybe he knew who was leaving his home and why.

Spring had come several weeks before, but Av had put off leaving because he knew that where he was headed the snows would be deeper. He hoped that with the extra time, the roads north would be clear and he wouldn’t become stuck in some backwater village.

Not because he had anything against small villages, but because he wouldn’t know anyone there. He had managed to control his temper while around family. There was a long history for him to fall back on. There would be nothing to stop him from breaking a stranger for not bringing him food quickly enough.

On his back was a pack with a few items in it. The ring box was wrapped in a shirt, at the bottom of his bag. Then there was a change of clothing, because he didn’t plan on being that long and some food, carefully packaged and stolen from his father’s pantry. He’d pay for the food once he returned, even if Ervam insisted he had been welcome to it.

As he stepped onto the road, almost an hour later, he knew that Jer would be waking about then. The sun was rising over the horizon and Jer was up with the sun. He would cook a meal for the children, make tea, and sit for a while before he went looking for Av.

Over the weeks, Av had left his bedroom a little later each day. He had done it to give himself time when he finally left. No one would be looking for him until he was almost to the palace. By then it would be too late.

Come evening, Av would be on his way with a horse, and if anyone told his brother where to find him, he’d come back and slaughter them.

Av kept that thought in mind as he walked. By noon he was at the palace, stable boys skittering out of his way when he walked towards the building. The stable master gave him a wave, meaning to shoo him off, then turned to the boys, shouting at them to get the master’s horse ready.

He didn’t have a horse, but at least he knew there’d be one waiting for him.

Av searched out Laeder, finding the scribe in the library with his head down and back turned.

“Where is she?” Av growled.

The scribe squeaked as if he had been poked with a sharp object, spinning on Av. “Where’s who? Oh, you must mean Telm. She’s in the healer’s hall.”

The initial fear filtered away, but still remained underneath it all. Laeder was becoming very good at hiding his surprise, but he’d never be able to rid himself entirely of the emotion. It infuriated Av, but he turned on his heel and marched off.

Best not to get distracted now, of all times.

Av marched into the healer’s hall and went directly for the desk where the healer on duty sat. She looked up at him, recognition and surprise playing over her features. He recognized her as well, the one who had seen to Aren in the summer.

Stopping just short of the desk, Av eyed the woman. She stared back at him, not questioning him but not giving him any information either.

“You saw to Lady Aren Argnern,” he said finally.

“I did,” she said.

“She told me she was a virgin,” Av growled.

The healer arched an eyebrow and sat back in her chair. The look was supposed to put him off, but her body betrayed the fear she was trying to hide.

“You should trust a lady,” the healer said finally.

“Her sister is afraid of males,” Av said. “Not just men, but boys as well. That sort of fear comes from very specific sources.”

“A man can damage a woman in such a way without raping her, Lord Av Marilton,” the healer said as she stood. “Unless she has suddenly become Lady Aren Marilton, it is no one’s business, but most especially not yours, as to the state of her body.”

“She is mine,” Av snarled.

He slammed his hand onto the desk, meaning to startle the woman. She simply stared at his hand, then looked up his arm and finally met his eyes. There was no longer fear there. The healer had magic and knew that Av had been told. Jer had been the one to ask, after all, if she had the special skills required to heal an injured body. It would be her magic going against his skill as a warrior, and the woman was certain her magic would be faster.

“Prove it,” she said. “A little show at a ball means nothing to me, especially when Lady Aren is no longer with us. What are you doing here, if she is not?”

“I came to speak with the only person who knows for certain where she is,” Av said.

He still didn’t know the way just that it was in the north by the border. Telm would tell him one way or another how to get to the village.

“Telm knows the way?” the healer asked. “She is, after all, the only one in the healer’s hall.”

“Laeder told me she was here—why?” Av demanded.

“I don’t know. She checked herself in but refuses our magic. She’ll take the things for cough and cold, but the one time we tried to slip her something more, she attempted to stab an apprentice with the cup. We’ve been telling the rest of the court that she is suffering the effects of her rank and age.”

“Which isn’t true,” Av said. “And if you’re telling everyone else that, why are you telling me this? I thought you healers held confidentiality above everything else? You won’t tell me about Aren, who is clearly mine, but you’ll tell me about Telm?”

“Telm is in danger of dying if she doesn’t agree to a healer,” the woman said quietly. “As master, is it not your duty to drag stubborn ranks about? We’ve no right when she denies us our duties.”

“As is her right,” Av said. “Perhaps she’s decided this is her time.”

“Would you want to bring Aren back to find her head of house dead?”

Av felt a trickle of fear. “She’s probably saying no for the same reason Aren isn’t here. The faster I can find Aren, the faster Telm will get better.”

“Are you certain of that fact?” the healer asked.

“Yes,” Av said. “If simply bringing Aren back doesn’t help Telm, then at least she’s got a better chance of making Telm submit than I do.”

The healer considered Av for a very long moment, then she said, “Very well, I will allow you to see Telm, but only for a moment and I will be there with you. I do not need you putting undo pressure on her and causing her more harm.”

“You can’t identify anything about what’s wrong with her?” Av asked. “Surely you have skills beyond those skills.”

“Those skills still require touching the patient. She won’t even let us help her to the piss pot. Won’t let us bring in one of the hall servants to help her because rumour might spread. A little rumour is much better than the whisperings that we’re poisoning her to help Para take over the house.”

“We probably shouldn’t have left court,” Av said with a sigh.

“That Laeder fellow’s been stepping in as head of house, keeping the servants in line at the least,” the healer said. “He’s a head on his shoulders and is respectful, for being a commoner. It’s the wards who are doing the whispering and there’s no chance of a lady that age listening to a man only a few years older than she is who is competition for the affections of the lords who will be returning come spring.”

“Are you trying to subtly say that there’s muttering about same-gender couples as well?” Av asked.

“Yes, but why be subtle when you can be a warrior about it all?” The healer sneered back at him.

The wards were under the protection of the throne. Only the one who sat the throne, her mate, or the steward, could ever give out discipline. Anyone else who tried had to answer to the one who sat the throne. Which meant that Telm would have controlled the young women over the winter but only because Telm knew how far she could push the wards.

Laeder, as a commoner and young man with no title at court, had nothing to fall back on. The scribe was likely afraid of disciplining the ladies because what he knew of discipline and what palace ladies were used to were two entirely different things.

“Depending on where she is, I could be back within a week,” Av said. “Court won’t resume right away, but I can handle the wards while Aren recovers.”

“You aren’t mate to the throne, which means that your brother isn’t steward,” the healer said. “None of you can do anything about it.”

“We can if we wish to answer to Aren. I would be more than willing to tell Aren who I beat and why I beat them. If she believes I’ve crossed a line, then she can tell me.”

“With a pan to the side of your head.”

“That’s why we have healers with special skills,” Av said. “Show me to Telm. I need to be gone as soon as possible.”

“It’s a little late to start travelling now, isn’t it?” the healer asked.

“Only if I plan on sleeping,” Av said, watching the healer walk away from her desk.

He followed her down the hall to the last door. Of course they would tuck Telm away someplace that a person wandering about the hall wouldn’t think to look. The sign on the door said ‘supplies’ but all the doors had hooks for signs.

The healer opened the door and motioned Av inside.

It was not a supply closet at all, simply a sign on the door to keep prying eyes away. The room was dimly lit by an orb that gave off just enough light to see the dim form on the bed. Av stepped into the room and breathed in just enough to smell the air. No scent of sickness in the air, no putrid smell, which said to him that this was not an illness of the body but something else entirely.

Likely the healers knew that much.

“Telm,” he said, waiting as the form on the bed groaned and turned towards him, “tell me where she is.”