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?"
"Not Brud, Beau, but an aide instead, though it was just a repeated rumor," replied Tip. "He has since apologized."
Beau took one last look in the mirror. "Well I can't say I blame the one who started the rumor for thinking so; I'm quite ghastly, you know."
"Beau, if you think you look bad now, you should have seen yourself three days past. I mean, you looked-" Of a sudden Tip's eyes flooded. "Oh, Beau, I thought you were dead."
Beau's own eyes filled with tears. "So did I, Tip. So did I." And he reached out and squeezed Tip's hand.
Tip smiled and then looked at the buccan. "But you didn't die, Beau, and that's all that counts… that and finding a cure for the plague."
Beau's eyes widened. "Oh my, I did, didn't I? Even so, I wish it had been twenty-five or thirty or more years ago and by someone other than me."
Tip raised an eyebrow. "How so?"
"Well, if any had known of it back then, perhaps my parents would still be alive."
"Oh. I see."
The buccen fell to silence, each wrapped in memories and thoughts, but after a while Tip said, "Bekki's leaving in a day or so; he's DelfLord of Mineholt North, you know."
"Yes, and I am terribly sorry that his da was killed. I told him so yesternight."
Tip looked out the barred slit of a window. "I'll be leaving too. Riding in the king's cavalcade. The muster in Alvs-tad is but three or so weeks hence. Agron says we'll be using remounts, for time is short but the journey long."
"Oh, right." Beau sighed, then said, "I'll follow when I'm better."
"Oh, Beau, I'd rather you'd not. It will be perilous in Gron, and-"
Beau thrust out a negating palm. "All the more reason I need to be there, Tip. I mean, who's going to take care of you when and if you require healing."