A Crown Disowned Page 24

  Sea-Rover crew of his little ship, Spume-Maiden. "Give you good greetings,

  Rohan," she said. "Well met after a successful journey. Set the pack down.

  Someone else will carry it for you."

  "Not likely, Ashen," Rohan said. "Granddam Zaz has been most particular about who touches it. Seems that only I will do." He glanced around. "A lot has changed since I went away, it would seem. How d'you find your way around? Oh, I see. Signposts. That's clever. Hope there's one saying 'This way to the

  Sea-Rovers' place.' "

  Something wriggled and chattered under the shawl around Zazar's shoulders, and a furry nose poked out, sniffing the cold air.

  "Weysei" Ashen exclaimed. "You—you brought her with you!"

  "Of course I did. I couldn't leave her behind, not when she offered to go,"

  Zazar said.

  Delight and concern warred within Ashen as she stroked Weyse's head. How would this little creature fare with the war-kats stalking through the encampment?

  She would find out soon enough, for Rajesh and Finola appeared as if out of nowhere, to station themselves by her side. Weyse stared at the war-kats and, as if nonplussed, the war-kats stared back. Then they turned away and Finola began to wash. Ashen breathed once again, relieved that a catastrophe had been averted. It would have brought an ill omen to Zazar's arrival had they decided that Weyse was prey, a suitable mouthful for any who chose to chase her down and trap her, and there was none who could say them nay, not even Zazar herself.

  The Wysen-wyf had been watching the interplay between the furred ones as if she knew the outcome beforehand. "Well, that's settled," she said. "Show me to this tent and let me catch my breath. Then we will go and see the men Rohan tells me are suffering from something called Dragon's Breath."

  "How was your journey?" Ashen asked as the three of them made their way down one of the snow-packed streets. Already the newfallen flakes were ankle deep, and the passageway would need to be swept again.

  "The water was choppy and the ship tossed more than I was comfortable with, but we survived. The coastline is still marked with fire-mountains, though they are not as active as they were at first. Daresay they'll start up again if the Great

  Foulness decides to come down from the north."

  "You can't think such a thing is possible!" Ashen protested.

  "I can't think it isn't. His Putrescence must think by now that the war needs his personal rotten touch, what with his pet Sorceress dead and all. Very brave of Harous to have fought her. She was a danger to all she came in contact with."

  Ashen exchanged glances with Rohan and bit her lip. Obviously he had told her the story he had concocted for the benefit of those who had not encountered

  Harous and Flavielle and suffered for it. She nodded; she was not yet prepared to tell Zazar the truth about Harous's association with that evil woman, though that time must come. "Even bf aver, Ashen said, "for Hynnel to have killed her.

  He was grievously harmed in that encounter and it was for that, as well as many other things, that I have begged you to come."

  Zazar shrugged. "I knew I would be sent for, sooner or later. Is this the tent you spoke of?"

  "Yes. Come inside. I gave orders that you should have hot soup waiting for you.

  And for Weyse," she added.

  Zazar, Ashen, and Rohan entered the shelter and 2t Zazar's direction the young

  Sea-Rover put the bulky pack on the camp bed. Zazar took off her shawl and cloak, laid them aside, and looked around with a skeptical expression on her face. "I suppose this will do," she admitted grudgingly.

  "It's as good as any accommodations we have," Rohan said. "You even have a small brazier, to keep you warm once it's lighted. Now, if you don't need me for anything else at the moment, I must report in."

  He gave them both a salute and ducked back out through the tent opening.

  Ashen also removed her cloak and sat down on the bed. She uncovered a tray that had been left on the little table beside Zazar's bed. The soup was still hot enough to steam in the chilly air. She offered it to Zazar. "Here, please- The soup will warm you up and make you feel better."

  Zazar, unaware that the chair she now occupied was considered a luxury, accepted the cup of warm liquid and drank half of it. Then she set the rest down for

  Weyse and turned to Ashen. "Very well, let me take out a few things from my pack and then I'm ready to go see the people you are so concerned about that you dragged me halfway across the world. Weyse, you stay here."

  The little furred creature seemed perfectly content to obey, snuffling greedily over the cup Zazar had given her. Zazar retrieved the shawl from where she had dropped it and arranged it on the camp bed for Weyse to snuggle into later, if she wished. Then the Wysen-wyf opened her pack, took out a few items, and tucked them into a smaller pouch. She drew the strings tight and slipped them over her wrist, and donned the cloak again.

  Ashen fastened her own cloak and then the two of them left the shelter.

  "As you'll see, the infirmary tent is close by. The one Gaurin and I share is just a few steps farther on." Ashen indicated a place where Gaurin's spring-green ensign flew, indicating that the General of the Nordorn Army was in the camp. "You'll soon learn your way around."

  "Bet it takes a large brazier to heat that place. I wonder why he has to have such a bigger tent than mine," Zazar commented, peering through the doorway left in the snow wall.

  "Of course it's bigger," Ashen snapped. "It has to be! He's the commander of the

  Nordors and second only to Lord Roy-ance himselfV She bit her lip but couldn't call back her sharp words.

  Unexpectedly, Zazar grinned. "For a while there, I thought you'd lost all your spirit. Good to see you haven't.

  Yonder's a banner with a pestle and mortar. Is this the infirmary?"

  "Y-yes, it is," Ashen stammered. It was the first time, to her recollection, that Zazar had ever teased her. She had been known, many times, to torment those she was fond of, particularly Rohan and sometimes even Gaurin. In a flash of insight she realized that this marked some kind of turning point in their relationship, but what this actually meant, she could not tell. At the least,

  Ashen felt an unusual trace of affection radiating from the old woman.

  They entered the tent, into the familiar, to Ashen, smells and sights of the sickroom. Efficiently, Zazar examined the few men still present with battle wounds. Most had been discharged and only the worst hurt still remained. The other patients were, expectably, accident cases or, more numerous, frostbite victims.

  "And how are you treated?" Zazar asked one.

  "Snow packs, marm," the soldier told her. "Then, when we're thawed out a bit, warm compresses."

  "That's good. Very good."

  "Mostly, we gets our ears or noses frozen when our hoods fall back and we don't notice. Sometimes toes or fingers gets it, too. Don't take long, not in this weather, y'see."

  "Yes," the Wysen-wyf said, nodding. "I do see."

  Then she turned to Ashen. "Show me the others."

  The two women moved toward the curtained-off area. Inside, the women Ashen had trained had just finished changing the beds and helping the disabled men into fresh clothing. The laundresses had not yet come to gather the soiled linen to be washed.

  "Greetings, Hynnel," Zazar said. She pulled up a stool by his bedside.

  "Well come indeed, Madame Zazar!" Hynnel exclaimed. He immediately began coughing. "Forgive me. Sometimes, when I speak too loudly or enthusiastically, this happens." He wiped his lips on a scrap of linen he grabbed from a nearby stack of similar pieces of cloth, clean and neatly folded.

  "Do you often bring up anything when you cough?" Zazar asked.

  "Not often, though it seems I should. Mostly, I am just exhausted by it."

  Zazar opened her pouch, selected a small packet, and shook the contents into the cup that was always nearby Hyn-nel's bed. She poured water into the cup, stirred the mixture, and gave it to him
. "Here," she instructed. "Drink it all down, no matter how bad it might taste."

  Obediently, Hynnel put the cup to his lips and swallowed. Then he handed the cup back to Zazar and smiled. "It isn't nearly as nasty as I thought it would be, and I can feel the heaviness in my throat and chest loosening a little."

  "Good," Zazar said. "That's its purpose. This is no remedy, understand, but if it eases your symptoms, that cannot be a bad thing."

  "Most gratefully accepted, great Wysen-wyf."

  "You may have to cough again, and if you feel the need, do it. It will be to your benefit to bring up what's troubling you."

  "I will." Then Hynnel lay back upon his pillow, pulled the bedcovers up, and fell into a light sleep.

  "I have never before seen him do that—pull the sheet and blanket over him, I mean," Ashen whispered, not wanting to disturb Hynnel's slumber. "He is always complaining of being too hot."

  "Yes," Zazar mumbled absently. With a touch so gentle it did not disturb the sleeping man, she took his wrist and counted the heartbeat. Then she felt his forehead, pulled up one of his eyelids, and sniffed at his breath. When she had finished, she beckoned Ashen to follow her outside the curtained-off area.

  "You say he complains of being too hot?" she said.

  "Yes. And the other men as well. We can scarcely keep up with their demands for cool water and ice packs to put on their chests. They say they are burning up."

  "Hmmm." The Wysen-wyf absently tapped her fingernail against her teeth, thinking. "There is no fever. I would have felt it on his skin, or smelled it on his breath. There was something, though, something else—"

  At that moment, three laundresses came in to gather up the soiled clothing, bearing fresh garments to replace the used ones. They brought the usual whiff of sulphur with them as they entered.

  Zazar reached out her hand and caught one of the women by the arm. "You, there," she said imperiously.

  'Ts done nothing wrong!" the woman exclaimed. Fear reflected in her face and her eyes opened so widely the whites showed all around the irises. "Fs no thief, marm, never stole nothing!"

  "Nobody is accusing you." Zazar leaned forward and took a deep breath, smelling the stack of clean clothes. "Where d'you go to do your washing?"

  The woman relaxed just a little. "Why, to the hot pools, marm."

  "Hot pools. And the water smells like this?"

  "Yes, marm. Fearful stink it is some days, but you gets used to it." The woman laughed suddenly. "You thinks we heats our water over cookfires? Couldn't keep up with th' demand, if you takes my meaning!"

  Ashen frowned, puzzled. One small mystery solved, but another revealed. "I've never heard of any hot pools," she said. "Where are they?"

  "Why Powers love you, marm, they's just a bit off to th' east, they is, and around a bend. Some of us can drive, so we takes the dog sleds there and back.

  With enough willin' to go, light enough work. Better'n back home in Rendel where we has to scratch for what we gets and keep fires under kettles at that."

  "Put away your clean linen inside, and gather up the soiled clothes. Then show me the pools," Zazar ordered. She turned to Ashen. "I want to try something.

  Look you, ever since the stirrings from the north began, we have been troubled by unrelenting snow and cold and ice."

  "That is true, if you leave out the fire-mountains."

  Zazar made an impatient, dismissive gesture. "That's nothing but the Great

  Foulness creating deep stirrings that make the earth crack. Perfectly natural, if you can call such disturbances things of nature. No, snow and cold and ice are his, and precede him like an army of heralds."

  "Then," Ashen said slowly, "the men suffering from Dragon's Breath are not hot—"

  "—but cold!" Zazar finished for her. "Here, let me show you. Is there water heated?"

  "Yes, we always keep some at simmer for emergencies, to wash away the matter that comes out sometimes when their cuts are nearly mended, and for the frostbite victims as well."

  "Show it to me."

  Puzzled, Ashen directed Zazar to the place at the far corner of the tent where their tiny remaining stock of medicines was kept. A small kettle sat to the rear of the brazier, and nearby stood a larger vessel full of water with which to replenish it.

  "Close your eyes," Zazar ordered.

  Ashen obeyed. She felt a draft as if of the tent flap opening and then shutting again, and heard some soft splashing.

  "Give me your hand."

  Ashen held out her hand, felt Zazar's strong old fingers on it, and then it was plunged into liquid. She cried out and struggled against that implacable grasp but to no avail. Without willing it her eyes jerked open. "Why would you scald me, Protector?" she protested. "I have done nothing—"

  "Look, Ashen." Zazar released her hand and gave her a scrap of linen on which to dry it. "This water is not hot. It is near freezing. See the bits of ice still floating in it."

  Ashen rubbed her hand, trying to understand.

  "It is in how the mind perceives what has happened. You were expecting hot water, and so your mind told you that was what it was. You know better now, don't you."

  "Y-yes," Ashen said.

  "As with you, so with the men beyond yon curtain. When they are in the process of thawing, frostbitten fingers, toes, noses, ears feel as if they are afire.

  The Dragon's Breath froze the lungs of any who breathed it in, and it registered with them as burning instead."

  "Then what we—what I have been doing has only made them worse!" Ashen exclaimed, appalled.

  "No, you did the right thing and for the same reason that you do not plunge frozen fingers into hot water to thaw them, not if you want to keep them intact.

  Now the time has come to introduce these poor frozen bodies to warmth. I was thinking of a hot bath and wondering how I could arrange it under these conditions. Now the way is made plain to me."

  "We will need the sleds for the men, and litters as well. I'll go and get Rohan to arrange for them."

  "Yes, do," said Zazar, already lost in her own thoughts. "I have something else in mind for him to do as well, and the sooner he starts, the better."

  While waiting for Rohan to organize a stretcher party, Ashen and Zazar returned to the Wysen-wyf's tent. There, Zazar said, she wanted to inventory the stores of medicines she had brought with her, and Ashen could help.

  "I've got something that, when taken over time, will help boost men's resistance to the cold," Zazar said. "We'll have to measure doses carefully. Supplies are limited until I can go back to the Bog and bring more, now that I know what's needed."

  "Anything, at this point, will help," Ashen said somberly.

  "And," Zazar added with a mysterious tone, "I have a little something else in mind as well."

  It was on Ashen's lips to ask what that might be when they ducked through the opening to Zazar's new living quar- ters and she caught sight of a tableau that almost stopped her heart.

  Rajesh and Finola had returned to the tent, nudged their way inside, and made themselves at home. Rajesh occupied the chair, and Finola reclined at her ease on the bed, with Weyse clutched in her paws. To Ashen, it appeared, at first glance, that she had Weyse's head in her mouth. Ashen took a step forward, a cry of protest on her lips, but Zazar stopped her.

  "Look again," the Wysen-wyf advised.

  A rumbling purr, interspersed with contented trills, filled the air. So far from harming Weyse, Finola was industriously washing the odd little creature with her rough, pink tongue, and both the war-kat and Weyse were enjoying the experience immensely.

  "I don't believe you need be concerned about Weyse's safety in camp," Zazar said. She laughed aloud, a sound that Ashen had heard but seldom, and never, in her recollection, in amusement. Derision, yes, and even disbelief, but never delight, such as now.

  Someone outside the tent cleared his throat, signaling for attention. "Come in,

  Rohan," Zazar said, still chuckling.

 
"I have four sleds ready and enough litters for the rest," he reported. "What is that?"

  He was staring, unbelievingly, at the scene on the camp bed.

  "One of Gaurin's war-kats—"

  "Finola," Ashen supplied.

  "Yes, Finola. Well, she seems to have adopted Weyse."

  Rohan began to laugh in turn. "And just look at Rajesh!" he exclaimed. "He looks every inch the proud papa!

  "Well, it's plain to see that it's safe to leave Weyse alone while we go to find these hot pools," Ashen said. "What of Gaurin? Did you tell him what you were about?"