Releasing her shielding made her feel exposed. She shifted uncomfortably and pulled the bedcovers up under her chin, as if physical covering would make up for her lack of mental protection; but she didn’t reestablish her barriers.
By the time she felt the healer near the cottage, she was sweating and exhausted—but she knew that she was almost as strong as she had been before Winterseine captured her. If she couldn’t work as effortlessly, at least her shields were stronger.
When Tris came into the room to check on her, he frowned and felt her forehead. “How do you feel?”
Rialla shrugged carefully; the work that she’d been doing gave her a nasty headache. “Not too rough.”
Tris grunted in acknowledgment and then said, “Lunch first, then a nap.”
Rialla fell asleep before he got back with lunch.
Rialla opened her eyes sometime later to find the oil lamps on and Tris muttering at the game board, apparently playing a game of Dragon against himself.
She watched for a while and then said, “Black wins. If you move the black sparrow to the left three spaces, then the black stag can take the white dragon in two moves.”
Tris tilted his head at the board, then got up from his stool. He moved around the table to stand by the bed and look from Rialla’s point of view. He rubbed his beard and slanted an assessing glance at Rialla over his shoulder.
He began to reorganize the board for a fresh game. “Are you ready for a rematch?” he asked.
Rialla gifted him with a lazy smile and sat up. “Ready to lose again?”
He raised an eyebrow, and with laughing eyes he bared his teeth at her and made his first move. “Enjoy yourself now, sweetheart. You won’t feel like it later.”
The room was silent and all but humming with intensity—Tris was as competitive as Rialla. After twelve moves Tris had it won. He sat back and relaxed while Rialla stared furiously at the board, looking for a way out.
“Tell me about Laeth,” asked Tris while he waited for Rialla to move.
Rialla looked at him warily. But after another glance at the board, she decided that he wasn’t trying to distract her. With a shrug, she moved one of her mushrooms and killed his rat, knocking the piece lightly off the board as she set the mushroom in its place. “What do you want to know?”
Tris moved a frog and said, “It takes an unusual Darranian to make a successful mercenary.”
Rialla frowned at the game, still unwilling to concede. She poisoned his frog with her other mushroom before she spoke. “Laeth is… I suppose ‘unusual’ works as well as anything else. He’s a genuinely nice person who takes great pleasure in shocking people, especially people he doesn’t like.
“He’s a decent fighter in practice, and I understand that he’s better when the fighting is real—I stay out of the real battles. I’m a horse trainer, not a soldier… or a spy either, for that matter.” Rialla paused to think, and then smiled. “He’s also a diabolically clever practical joker.” She shrugged, uncertain how to proceed.
Tris had waited for her to finish talking before he moved an owl to eat the mushroom that had killed his frog. Without looking up as he took her piece off the board, he said, “I take it that you are friends as well as associates.”
Rialla gave him a keen glance and asked, “Why are you so interested in Laeth?”
Again a heavy, mobile eyebrow crept up toward Tris’s hairline. “I only met him twice. Both times were under less than ideal circumstances. If I’m going to help you get him out of Westhold, as it looks like we’ll have to, I’d like to make sure that I’m risking my skin for someone other than the arrogant aristocrat that I met when Karsten was poisoned. So, how well do you know him? Is he a lover, a friend, an acquaintance…”
“He’s a friend, a good one,” Rialla answered. She looked back at the board, and missed the subtle relaxation of the healer’s shoulders that would have told her that her answer was far more important to him than he’d indicated. “He wouldn’t make a good lover—he’s too much in love with Marri.”
“Karsten’s wife?”
Rialla shifted her wolf an extra square since Tris wasn’t paying attention to what she was doing. She nodded her head in response to his question and then explained, “Not that he’d do anything about it. He was in love with her before she was betrothed to Karsten. When he found out that she was to marry his brother, Laeth left Darran and turned up in Sianim. Marri came to Laeth’s room to warn him that someone was trying to blame him for the attempted poisoning.”
Tris nodded, took Rialla’s wolf off the board and replaced it with his fox. Rialla objected hotly to the implicit accusation that she would try and take advantage of his inattention and move extra spaces, a practice that was legal only if your opponent didn’t notice what you’d done.
Tris crossed his arms and held his position. Pouting, Rialla killed his fox with her remaining mushroom. The rest of the game was mercifully short; Rialla didn’t enjoy losing.
Rialla awoke sometime in the middle of the night to the sound of violent pounding on the cottage door. She sat up and waited, unable to leave the bed.
She heard a woman’s voice. The words didn’t penetrate the door, but the tone was frantic. It was answered by a lower rumble that she assumed was Tris’s. A moment later the healer entered the room, followed closely by the small, cloaked figure of the Lady of the Hold.
This time Tris lit the room more conventionally, by lighting a candle with flint and steel and using it to kindle the lamps.
Marri took off her cloak and looked around for somewhere to set it. Finally she simply dropped it to the floor. She looked as though she hadn’t slept for several days. Her complexion was gray, and dark circles surrounded her eyes.
“Rialla,” Marri said, her voice hoarsely urgent. “Laeth told me that I should come to you if I needed assistance. I don’t know who you really are, or what you are doing with Laeth, but I need…” She stammered a little.“ He needs help, and I don’t have anyone else to go to. Lord Jarroh wants revenge, and he’s convinced that Laeth killed my husband.”
Rialla nodded and patted the side of her bed. “Sit down,” she said briskly. Marri perched on the edge, as far from Rialla as she could.
Tris pulled up his stool and tried to appear innocuous.
“It doesn’t sound like Laeth had much of a chance to tell you anything.” commented Rialla. “Laeth is a good friend of mine”—she looked pointedly at the distance that Marri had left between them—“nothing more. We were sent from Sianim to prevent the murder of his brother. You can judge our success for yourself.” Rialla shrugged and ran a weary hand through her hair. “I hope I’m more successful at preventing Laeth’s hanging.”
“They’re not going to hang him; they’re going to draw and quarter him,” said Marri in a small, shaky voice, “tomorrow morning.”
“What?” exclaimed Rialla, throwing her blankets back and jumping to her feet. Tris’s hand was there to catch her when her leg failed. “Whatever happened to a ‘fair and deliberate trial’?”
“Lord Jarroh has declared that there isn’t any doubt of his guilt. Lord Winterseine will swear he saw Laeth stab my husband,” she replied, shrugging hopelessly. “So I came to you.”
“Scorch it,” said Rialla in frustration, “how in the name of Temris am I going to be able to help him with this plaguing leg?”
Tris abandoned his mild demeanor and pushed Rialla back down on the bed, saying, “Stay there. Now, miss.” he turned to look at Marri, “can I trust you to keep your tongue to yourself?”
Marri nodded mutely.
“Well enough, I suppose,” Tris said, turning to Rialla.
He reached down, pulled his knife and sliced the fresh bandage off her leg. The leaves smelled as bad as the last set he’d removed. The healer’s face was grim as he peeled the dressing away.