The soldier turned and spoke to someone, and then Captain Brud came to the wall. "Is that you, Sir Tipperton, Lord Bekki?"
"It is," growled Bekki.
"Aye," called Tipperton, gesturing at the pack ponies behind, "and we've brought gwynthyme."
"A moment," called Brud, and disappeared from view.
After a while, the side postern opened, and Brud stepped out, a soldier at his side holding a lantern to light the way. "I have your escort."
Tipperton frowned. "Escort?"
"Aye, Sir Tipperton. You and Lord Bekki will need escort and protection. The city is under curfew. The citizens have rioted twice."
As Tip and Bekki dismounted to walk their ponies through the gate, Tip said, "Rioted? Why?"
"The plague. It runs wild. Fully a quarter of the citizens have died."
"Then take us to the prison," growled Bekki, "to Sir Beau Darby. We have what he needs."
Brud's face fell, and Tip's heart flopped over.
"But he's dead, Lord Bekki," blurted the soldier at Brud's side. "Beau Darby is dead of the plague."
Chapter 18
The air went out of Tip's lungs. Blenching, he turned to Bekki, tears flooding the buccan's eyes, and he fell to his knees.
Captain Brud leapt forward to aid Tipperton, but Bekki was there before him. With a flinty gaze, Bekki looked up at the soldier who had blurted out the woeful news and then back to the captain. "Dead? Beau is dead?"
Brud cast his aide a withering glance, then turned to Bekki and Tip. "We are told he died this morning."
Tip struggled to his feet. "Oh, let us hie to the prison. I would see him one more time ere they burn him with the others."
Through the twisting way under the walls they hurried, and beyond the inner gate a mounted escort waited. Captain Brud sprang to the back of a horse and said, "Come. I will lead the way."
Now astride their ponies, Tip and Bekki rode into the city, mounted soldiers fore and aft. Along the narrow streets they ran, hooves aclatter on the cobbles. Past shattered doors and broken windows they went, and buildings burnt to nought but charred shells. Through soldier-warded barricades they passed, Captain Brud's orders opening the way. Soldiers afoot and on patrol watched as they cantered by, as did citizens from windows above, citizens pale with fear and shouting imprecations. It was clear that dread ruled the city, as in the days of the Gargon, though no Gargon this; for a Gargon could be slain, but what, by Adon, would slay a plague?
None of this ruin and fear did Tipperton note, for his chest was hollow, his heart numb, his mind filled with grief.
Oh, if only we'd come earlier… If only…
At last they drew up before the gates of the prison. Bekki sprang down and helped Tipperton to dismount. "Bring those three large sacks," he snapped at Captain Brud, then at Tipperton's side stepped to the prison gate.
A soldier on duty stood across their path. "You cannot go in."
"Out of the way," growled Bekki, his knuckles white on the haft of his war hammer.
Confusion filled the soldier's eyes, and he turned to Captain Brud. "Let them pass," called the captain, but Bekki had already shoved by, Tipperton in hand.
Toward the prison doors they strode, Brud and two others following, these latter three each bearing a sack of gwynthyme.
As they entered the prison, a man at an entryway table looked up and protested, "Here now-"
"Sir Beau Darby, where does he lie?" snapped Bekki.
The man looked to Captain Brud, who nodded.
"Third floor"-the man pointed at a flight of stairs- "that way. The Alfs are-"
But Bekki did not stop to listen to what the man said, and instead with Tipperton headed up the steps.
Up they went and up, cries of delirium and pain echoing through the halls and along the walls of the stairwell. On the way up they passed two white-clothed men coming downward, bearing a litter on which a small corpse lay.
Tip drew in his breath. "Is it-?" No, it was instead a child: nought but skin and bones and black boils.
On up went Bekki and Tip, Brud following, the captain yet bearing a sack. Of the other two soldiers, there was no sign.
They reached the third floor and stepped through an iron-barred gate standing open. Down a central hallway they went, open-gated cells left and right, cells filled with the beds of the sick and dying, stricken people moaning in pain, fevered, covered with pus-running boils and writhing in agony, some not stirring at all. White-clothed people moved among the victims, soothing brows with cloths of cold water, feeding them sips of a liquid, closing the eyes of the dead and drawing sheets over their bodies.
They came at last to the cell where Phais and Loric sat vigil. And at hand in one of the cots was a small form. It was Beau. Gaunt, wasted, boils oozing, darkness in his armpits and groin, Beau lay unmoving. Tip gasped, a trembling hand flying to his mouth upon seeing Beau's emaciated frame.
Weeping, Tip stepped to the bedside. "Oh, Beau, Beau, why did you have to catch this awful scourge. Why did you have to go and di-"
A shallow breath rattled through Beau's cracked lips and into his lungs.
"He's not dead!" cried Tipperton. "Bekki, Phais, Loric, he's not dead!" Tip fell on his knees beside the bed and grasped one of Beau's limp hands. "Oh, Beau, you're not dead."
Phais knelt beside the buccan and circled an arm about him. "Not yet, Tipperton, but soon. Soon."
"Not if we can help it," snarled Bekki. "We've brought gwynthyme." Bekki turned and snatched the sack from Captain Brud.
Phais's eyes widened and she looked back at Bekki. "Gwynthyme? Ye twain were successful?"
He dropped the bag beside her. "Aye. That we were."
Phais's eyes widened. "So much?"
"There's two more bags like it," said Bekki, turning to Brud.
"Downstairs at the entry," said the captain.
"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."