Rummaging in the steward’s clothes chest, I found a clean nightshirt, soft and thin from years of wearing. I asked D’Natheil to help me lift Tennice and get the shirt on him. The young man did as I directed. As I peeled the remains of Tennice’s shirt from his back, D’Natheil’s eyes narrowed. “What is this on the back of him? He is no warrior. Nor slave, nor servant either, by his manner.”
On Tennice’s back were the knotted, ugly telltales of my friend’s captivity. Shy, scholarly, brilliant Tennice… My stomach clenched with anger and revulsion. “He was beaten,” I said. “Cruelly beaten, put to the sword, and left for dead. Those in power wanted him to betray his friends, to tell our king that my husband and our friend were planning to steal his throne. Tennice didn’t want to say anything that would make our fate worse. He tried very hard.”
“But he did as this king wanted?”
“Yes.”
“Betrayed his comrades—your husband, your friends?”
“Yes, but—”
“He should have died in silence. With honor.” The Prince sounded as though he needed to scour his hands. “How is it you still care for him?” His scorn was hot on my own back.
After we settled Tennice on the pillows, I tied the loose neck of the nightshirt and drew up the blanket. “It wasn’t Tennice’s fault. Karon forgave it, and I know the others did, too.”
“To forgive such a betrayal—”
“Forgiveness has nothing to do with the offense or its consequences, only with the heart. They needed no proof of Tennice’s love, and they’d have done anything to spare him this. They were going to die anyway. There was no honor in any of it.”
“You must hate the ones responsible for such deeds.”
“For many years I hated them, but now… I don’t know. Hatred won’t undo what’s been done.” D’Natheil gazed down at the sick man for a moment.
Then he walked out of the room.
I watched Tennice long into that night, holding him as he thrashed and moaned in delirium, sponging his face and hands when he sank into a feverish stupor. While he was quiet, I occupied my thoughts with the incredible events of the evening. It was impossible to grieve for Celine. She had been so full of joy in her going. I could not regret bringing her purpose and laughter at the end of her life. Kellea was a different matter. To leave her loose with the knowledge and anger she bore—and so close to the Zhid—was a risk. But the girl was surely capable of defending herself. We couldn’t take her prisoner.
And Dassine… such an incredible story. Two worlds, reflections of each other. What had made J’Ettanne’s people forget their duty? Corruption? Fear? Perhaps simply living in a world that was not their own had dulled and destroyed their memory. I could understand that. Perhaps they had felt what was happening to them, and created their stories and traditions, Av’Kenat and all, in an attempt to remedy it. Whatever they had done, it seemed it had not been enough.
Storytelling had been such a part of Karon. How he would have relished this one. So much explained about his people. A tale of wonder, he would say, and his eyes would slip out of focus and he would lose himself in the imagining, building his power as he experienced every adventure for himself.
As the night slipped away, my thoughts lingered on Karon as they had not since the day I had walked out of Evard’s palace. For all these years I had refused even to think his name, though reminders of him lurked everywhere like thorns waiting to draw blood: a dew-laden rose, the whisper of rain moving across the meadow, the morning sun at just the angle he had declared to be the most perfect—
The floor creaked. Startled from dreamy dozing, I almost leaped out of the chair I’d pulled up to Tennice’s bedside. The candles had gone out, and someone stood poised at the edge of the shadows. “I came to see if all was well with you and your friend.”
“Yes. Thank you, D’Natheil,” I stammered, smoothing my tunic and pushing the hair out of my eyes. “Tennice is asleep. I must have fallen asleep, too. I need to fetch Baglos.”
He was already gone again. As I walked into the kitchen to wake the Dulcé, I shuddered slightly. The scent of roses still lingered from my dreaming.
CHAPTER 23
For more than a week, Tennice hovered between life and death. Baglos and I got enough tea and broth into him to sustain him through the bouts of madness that battered him like waves in an ocean of terror. The wound itself should have been well on its way to healing in a week’s time, but it swelled and seeped black fluid just as D’Natheil’s had done. Baglos swore it was tainted by Zhid poison. He had seen such wounds often, he said, with exactly the same symptoms. Unfortunately his people knew no remedy except to seek out a Healer.
Baglos seemed to take Tennice’s illness as a personal affront, and he expended hours of tender care on the sick man. Over and over, as he redressed the wound, I would hear him murmuring indignantly, “Why, why, why Zhid poison? Those men were not Zhid. They did not want him dead…”
Not Zhid, no. The attackers had been ruffians with brawn enough to smash shop windows, but so little skill they could be outfought by one warrior, a girl of twenty, and an aging scholar with poor eyesight. True, Graeme Rowan, a man I knew to be a Zhid informant—still a puzzle in itself—had been in the street nearby. Yet, if the attackers were Graeme Rowan’s men, then why was Rowan so ill prepared for our escape? Maceron was there, too. He had hunted Karon and betrayed him to Darzid… Darzid who had been hunting D’Natheil. But if the attackers were Maceron’s men, out to destroy a den of sorcerers at Darzid’s behest, then why Zhid poison on their blades? No arrangement of alliances and evidence made sense.
My companions were no help in clearing up my confusion. Though D’Natheil had found his voice, he was more aloof than ever, as if the breach in his wall of silence made companionship less necessary. He refused to be drawn into conversation with me beyond the plan for our current meal or setting the watch. Poor Baglos fared little better, despite his frequent attempts to engage his master in discussion of the future. D’Natheil would either interrupt him with a rude command or bolt outdoors. For either of us to see the Prince except at mealtime was an event worthy of remark. Strangely enough, Tennice’s illness was the single thing that drew him into our company.
On our third night at Verdillon, Tennice became so violent in delirium that neither Baglos nor I could control him. We were struggling to keep him still, when his flailing hand sent Baglos sprawling. The loud crack when the Dulcé‘s head struck a table said nothing good about the his ability to come to my aid. I was desperately trying to prevent Tennice from kicking over the lamp when he cried out in mindless terror and one of his hands smashed into my eye. Temporarily blinded and losing my hold, I felt hands drag me away and thrust me firmly into a chair.
I pushed back my hair and wiped my watering eyes to see D’Natheil sitting on the bed behind Tennice, wrapping his arms around my friend’s writhing body. One by one the Prince captured the flailing limbs, trapping them within the confines of his own long arms and legs. “Tassaye, tassaye,” he whispered. Softly, softly. Before very long Tennice gave a shudder and fell still, though his haunting moans and terror-glazed stare yet tore at my heart. I grabbed a damp cloth and blotted Tennice’s face, using the opportunity to spoon willowbark tea between his dry lips. Soon it seemed the worst was past.