"Oh my," said Phais.
"A tisane of gwynthyme and silverroot," said Bekki. "That is what Beau said."
Loric's fingers flew as he untied the sack. "Aye, he did, but what proportions the ingredients?"
Anguished, Bekki shook his head.
Loric snatched out a cloth-wrapped bundle of sprigs and turned to Tip. "Tipperton, dost thou remember the proportions?"
"Proportions?"
"How much gwynthyme to silverroot."
Tip frowned, trying to remember. "I think he said in equal measure. Yes, half and half, that's what I recall."
"Swift, chier," urged Phais as Loric darted away, "there is not much time."
Another shallow breath rattled in and out of Beau.
And then another.
And another…
Within a candlemark Loric returned, a steaming cup in hand. "Whether or no this is in equal measure only Adon can say."
"Pray to Elwydd it is so," said Bekki.
Loric spooned small amounts of the brew into Beau's lips, while Tip held the buccan's hand and Phais held Tip to her. Bekki paced back and forth, and Captain Brud squatted in the cell door.
As Bekki came past the captain for perhaps the hundredth time, Brud said, "Lord Bekki, I just recalclass="underline" a Dvarg emissary in King Agron's halls awaits your return."
Bekki stopped his pacing. "An emissary?"
"Aye. From Mineholt North, he said. Rode to our gates in August. Insisted on waiting for you. Wouldn't take no for an answer. King Agron himself came and talked to him, and then allowed the emissary in, though he did send the Dvarg escort away. I think they are quartered in a farmhouse nigh."
"Do you know why they have come?"
Brud shook his head.
"There," said Loric, setting aside the empty cup and spoon, "it is done. Now all we can do is wait."
In the early candlemarks of the morning, Beau's breathing eased. Phais laid a hand on the buccan's brow, then said, "His fever has diminished."
Tip burst out in tears.
Loric took up the bag of gwynthyme. "I will instruct the healers in the way of its preparation."
Brud stood. "Lord Bekki, I will escort you to the palace." Brud turned to Tipperton. "You, too, wee one. You need the rest."
Tip rubbed a sleeve across his eyes and shook his head. "No thank you, captain; I'll sleep on the floor right here."
Phais reached out to the buccan. "Nay, Tipperton, for the risk is high that thou wilt come down with the scourge should thee stay."
As Tip started to stubbornly shake his head, Brud said, "The muster, my friend, we must soon answer. And better a healthy scout than a sick one."
Tip's shoulders slumped. "The muster. I had forgotten." He turned to Beau and squeezed the unconscious buccan's hand. "I'll be back on the morrow, bucco, you can count on that. You get better, you hear me?"
Beau did not respond in any manner whatsoever.
As they entered the palace, a footman leapt to his feet. "My Lord Bekki, you are back."
Bekki cocked an eyebrow at the footman.
"My lord, I have been instructed to have you wait in the anteroom while I fetch Emissary Dalk."
"Dalk is here?"
"Aye."
Bekki looked at Tip, and at the buccan's frown, Bekki said, "From Mineholt North. He has a yellow beard."
"Oh yes. Now I remember. One of the council of captains."
As Tip and Bekki stepped into an anteroom, the servant hurried away.
Within a candlemark, yet buttoning a shirt, Dalk hurried into the chamber and knelt.
Bekki's face blanched to see such a move.
Dalk glanced at Tipperton.
"He is Chak-Sol," said Bekki, his voice but a whisper, his fists clenched as if for a blow.
"I bear ill tidings, DelfLord Bekki, your sire, DelfLord Borl, is dead."
"Oh no," said Tipperton, dismayed.
Bekki's knuckles went white on his clenched fists. "How?"
"A Squam arrow in the Skarpal Mountains."
Bekki slammed the butt of a fist to a table, the wood splitting with the force of the blow, Tipperton jumping in startlement.
"We wreaked great vengeance," said Dalk.
Slowly, Bekki released his clenched hands and cast his hood over his head in the Chakka gesture of mourning. A silence fell upon the room for long moments. Finally Bekki asked, "The mineholt?"
"It is in Lord Berk's capable hands. Even so, DelfLord, your holtwarder grandsire calls you back, for war burns upon the land and the mineholt needs your rule."
Yet covered with dark pus-running boils and black buboes in armpits and groin, Beau did not waken the following day. Even so, his fever continued to abate and his breathing to ease, and he took water and kept it down.
The day after as Tip sat vigil beside the bed, just as Phais stopped by to see to the buccan, Beau opened his eyes and smiled wanly at Tip.
"Oh, Beau, Beau, I thought we had lost you. Captain Brud said you were dead."
Beau weakly lifted a finger and beckoned, and when Tip leaned down to hear, Beau whispered, "The report of my death was quite premature."
Tipperton laughed, and Beau faintly smiled, but Phais shook her head. "By less than a candlemark, I ween."
Beau's hand dropped back to the cover, and he closed his eyes. Tip waited, but it soon became apparent that Beau's exhausted body demanded sleep.
"Come, Tipperton, we do not want to overtire him," said Phais.
As they walked out from the makeshift infirmary, Tip asked, "What of the other patients?"
"All but a handful are responding to the infusion."
"Getting better, you mean?"
"Aye. It seems that Beau has struck upon a thing sought after for untold ages: a sweeping cure for the plague."
The news flashed throughout the city, yet the quarantine was held in place, for before lifting it the king would be certain that all was as it seemed. Nevertheless, the citizens celebrated, for Litenfolk and Elves and Dvargs could not be wrong, now could they? And in the palace, Agron breathed a sigh of relief, for a fear-driven revolt was averted, though but barely. He sent criers throughout the city, proclaiming the quarantine would be set aside as soon as all was deemed well. The criers also proclaimed the king's amnesty for any crimes short of murder committed during the panic of the past month. And the citizens themselves, casting about for any excuse, laid the guilt for such acts on the doorstone of Modru.
Within the week it was clear that the combination of gwynthyme and silverroot was effective, and instead of six out of seven falling to the scourge, only one in a hundred died… and these perhaps from complications rather than from the plague itself. And so the king declared the city open. The gates were cast wide, but only a few people seized the opportunity to flee Dendor, for wonder of wonders, something had been found which would entirely slay the plague.
Yet none had the heart to tell the citizenry that silverroot, plentiful in Dendor, only grew in certain places, and gwynthyme, golden gwynthyme, was extremely rare in spite of the surplus the healers now enjoyed.
During this same sevenday, the king readied for his journey west to the muster at Alvstad. And Tipperton, too, prepared for the day of leaving. Even so, he spent many a candlemark at Beau's bedside, chatting with his ill friend and playing his lute and singing to all of the stricken.
As for Beau, within a day of his regaining consciousness he began taking broth for sustenance; and the next day he ate soup and bread sopped with the liquid; and finally he ate a bit of solid food on the day after. "This grub will put some meat back on those bones of yours," said Tip as he carried a full tray into the cell on that third day.
Slowly the pustulant boils began to recede and the black buboes to wane. Nevertheless, Beau looked a mess, or so he did say the day he caught his reflection in the small mirror from his medical bag, a glass he used to check for breath and breathing.
"Captain Brad, he said I was dead, eh?"