His wide mouth quirked. “True, young judicar, but it also sets up the courts in which to try cases; not all come before the Marshal-General.”
“This does.” Seri gave him a flat stare for his amusement, and his face sobered. “It is a matter the Marshal-General must decide, and we must see him. If he cannot see us now—”
“If you’ll allow, I’ll let him know you’re here; so far as I know he has no one with him.” The man slid past them, and strode down the hall. Aris looked at Seri, not knowing whether to follow or not. She leaned against the doorpost, peeking in.
“I wonder if he’s dying.”
Aris looked too. Unbidden, his magery stirred; he squashed it down. “I think he must be,” he said.
“You should,” Seri said, flicking him a glance. “Even if we haven’t seen the Marshal-General yet.”
“It’s against the Code; it’s not right.”
“You should.” He wondered if the Marshal-General himself were that certain; Seri had the rooted integrity of a tree, that cannot be but what it is. Were all the old peasant breed like that, so sure of themselves, so all-of—a-piece? What would it feel like? He himself, his magery flickering inside him, often felt he was made of shadows and flame, shapeless except in opposition to each other. He could just remember, in his early childhood, someone explaining that light existed by itself, but shadows only when something stood before the light. Now Seri nudged him into the room. “Go on, Aris. I’ll tell the Marshal-General—”
The boy—man?—on the bed was older than either of them; Aris could tell that, but not how old he was. He would be tall, if he stood, and would grow taller yet, if he lived. Can I? he asked himself. He had never actually healed someone so close to death, not a human person, not someone so large. Did that make a difference? He wasn’t sure. Seri nudged him again. She would not give up, but she had no parrion of healing, the way her people thought of it. Our people, he reminded himself. He and Seri were one people, whatever anyone else said. She had stood by him in the grange, and he would stand by her . . . meanwhile, he felt his mage powers lean toward the sick youth, as if they could reach out of himself.
He came closer. From the shallow, uneven movement of the chest, he deduced lung trouble: he knew that much from animals. Was the thinness from that, or from not being able to eat for coughing, for lack of breath? With a sudden lift, he felt the power take him over, an exhilaration like none other unless birds of the air felt this way, swooping and gliding. He let himself flow with it, barely aware that he murmured words he’d overheard in childhood. His hands glowed; he laid them carefully on either side of the youth’s sleeping head, ran them down to his shoulders, then over his chest. Something prickled in his palms, harsh as nettles or dry burs. He wanted to pull back, but knew he must not. Behind him, he heard Seri’s indrawn breath, but he paid no attention to it. She had seen him do this before; she always gasped, but he had learned it meant nothing. She would watch and wait, and be there when he had done.
Darkness retreated slowly, grudgingly, from his light; he could feel, in his hands, the slow withdrawal of something dire from the youth’s body. He had no name for it, and it didn’t matter. The light either worked, or it didn’t; when it worked, it healed old wounds as well as new ones, fevers as well as wounds. If he could hold his focus until all the damage had been repaired, the youth would wake whole and free from pain, healthy as if he had never been sick.
But that was the limit: his own strength, his own concentration. He could feel the sweat trickling down his face; he knew his sight narrowed to a single core of light, and he dared no attention to interpret what his eyes could see. Only with the vision of power, which perceived each strand of disease or injury, which knew when the light had worn or driven it away, dared he perceive. Hearing had gone, and most of eyes’ sight, and even the sense of where he was, when the last dark shadow fled. At once, his power snapped back into him, and with it, all his strength. He fell, knowing he was falling, trusting Seri to be there, to catch him, as she had been from the first time he’d used this power.
Hearing returned while he was still crumpled untidily on the floor. Seri’s voice, sharp, and a deeper rumble somewhere overhead.
“—because I told him to, sir! He would not break your law, but—”
“Will you just stand back, child, and let me see the lad. I’m not going to hurt him. He’s fallen.”
“He always does,” said Seri, somewhat more calmly.
Another voice—the man they had first met. “You mean he’s done this before? Healing?”
“Yes, of course. He’s always done it, until the new Code came out, and the Marshal said he couldn’t. That’s why we came.”
Aris managed to open his eyes. His vision had not cleared: would not, for some little time. But he could see Seri, standing stiffly, ready to fight if she had to, and the man whose office this was, and a great lump of a man who must be the Marshal-General. Aris swallowed, with difficulty, and smiled. “Please don’t worry,” he said to the Marshal-General. “I’m all right.”
The man grunted, and came nearer; Seri moved out of his way, scowling. “You’re the color of cheese-whey, lad, and your eyes no more focus on me than a newborn’s. If this is ‘all right,’ I would hate to see you sick or wounded.”
“Is he all right?” Aris asked. The Marshal-General, so close, looked even bigger, heavier, almost as if a great oak had chosen to move and lean over him. He glanced down, half-expecting roots instead of worn boots.
The other man answered, in a lighter, clipped voice that carried some emotion Aris could not read. “He’s got the color you had before; he’s sleeping peacefully and breathing normally, and I could swear he’s gained a half-stone. . . . I suppose we’ll know when he wakes.”
The Marshal-General’s hand, hard and warm, cupped Aris’s chin. He felt no fear; here was nothing uncanny, but strength and gentleness allied. Less frightening than his father’s steward had been, less frightening than his father, for that matter.
“Lad—from what your friend says, you knew you broke the Code, to use such magic.”
“Yes, sir.” He didn’t try to explain.
“Your friend says you did it because she told you to—was it then her fault you broke the Code?”
He could feel himself turning red, hot to the ears. “No, sir, of course not!” He quoted carefully: “ ‘Let each yeoman take heed for his own deed, for if one counsels wrongly, yet the ears which listen and the hands which act belong to the doer.’ ”
“Mmm. You have learned to recite, but yet you do not obey. What then should the judicar say, in such a case?”
Behind the Marshal-General, Seri opened her mouth; Aris shook his head at her. “It is my deed, and my fault, sir. I know that. But . . . but the boy was so sick, and if I waited he might not live. That’s why we came, to ask you to amend the Code to allow healing. The judicar should say I was wrong, and punish me—but you, sir, can amend the Code.”
“To save you punishment?” The Marshal-General’s face gave nothing away to his still blurred vision. Aris shook his head. “No, sir. Even if you amend the Code, I broke your rule before you changed it. But others who heal won’t have to be punished later.”
“Alyanya’s flowers!” Strong arms gathered him into a rough embrace. “D’you really think I’d punish a boy who healed another, who gave his power until he looked near death? If you need punishment, the way your power wounds you is punishment enough. I had thought the healing magery all destroyed, and all rumors of it lies, with the sick charmed perhaps into thinking themselves well. But I saw this myself, saw you heal—”