Someone was in the outer room; she could hear them talking. As they came closer to her room, she distinguished Winterseine’s voice. She sat up and waited for the door to open.
Terran led the way, followed by Winterseine and Tris.
“May I see the wound?” asked Winterseine. “Not that I doubt your skill, healer, but I want to see it for myself. If she is going to be badly scarred, she will be of no use to me.”
Without a word Tris threw back her covers and cut the unbleached cloth off her leg. The inflammation was gone and neat stitches ran the length of her thigh. It wasn’t healed, but it was obviously no longer serious.
Winterseine looked impressed. “You do good work, healer. What did you use to draw the poison?”
Tris stared at him long enough to be insolent, then said, “A poultice.”
Winterseine smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “We all have our trade secrets, don’t we?”
“When will she be able to travel?” asked Terran, breaking the tension in the room. Rialla had forgotten that Terran was there; he had a way of fading into the background.
“It depends on how you are traveling,” answered Tris civilly enough. “She can ride in about a se’ennight. If you have a wagon, you could try it in two or three days, though five would be better. In a se’ennight the risk of infection will be significantly lower.”
Lord Winterseine nodded and ran a finger down the stitches, pushing to test for hidden infection. Rialla knew that her face retained its slave-impassive expression, but she could feel Tris’s sudden rage. Startled by the first specific emotion she’d caught from the healer, she shifted her gaze momentarily to look at him. There was nothing more in his face than there had been a minute before; it appeared that she wasn’t the only one capable of hiding emotions. She lowered her protective barriers, but the brief flash of anger had faded and he was as veiled as ever.
“Very well,” said Lord Winterseine, “we’ll be back in a week for her. It will probably take at least that much time before everything else is cleared up anyway.”
“Remember, Father,” said Terran’s meek voice. “We have to leave soon,” he continued. “There is a shipment expected at Winterseine hold a fortnight from now. We can wait a week easily enough, but no longer than that.”
Rialla started and stared at Terran, forgetting her role for a moment—luckily no one noticed. She focused her gift tightly and probed, but the results were the same. Lord Winterseine was opaque, but she could sense his presence. Tris she was aware of on another level, but she couldn’t sense Terran’s presence at all.
“Of course.” Lord Winterseine turned to the healer and said, “I hope it is not an inconvenience for you to keep her here until we leave.”
“No,” replied Tris. “I’ll total your bill and have it sent to you. When you have paid it, you may have your slave back.”
“Certainly,” said Winterseine. “Send it in care of my son.” He walked out, followed by both Terran and the healer.
Rialla stretched thoughtfully. She’d never met someone whom she couldn’t sense at all. She was running into several things that were odd: first the healer and now Terran. It could be that her abilities were not as functional as she’d thought. They certainly seemed to have a few quirks.
Tris had started through the doorway from the other room when another knock sounded. He smiled and shrugged, closing the door behind him.
Rialla listened as he put salve on a little girl’s injured puppy, set a farmer’s broken arm and arranged for someone to help the farmer out until the arm healed. A woman came in mumbling something about her kid (Rialla wasn’t sure if it was a goat or a child) and Tris left with her.
Rialla slept as long as she could, then set up imaginary games of Steal the Dragon until she grew bored. Tris stopped in briefly as the sun was setting, but was called out again by the smith, whose wife was having difficulty delivering her third child.
Rialla threw the covers back restlessly and limped to the window. The sill was as wide as a narrow bench; she perched on it and stared into the night sky. It was nominally better than counting the fifty-seven boards that served as the ceiling, held down by four hundred and twelve nails.
Rialla fidgeted and finally got up to gimp across the floor again. She lacked any method of lighting the lanterns on the wall; she knew that Tris had flint and steel around, but it was hidden well enough that she couldn’t find it.
She searched both rooms twice, more for something to do than because she needed light. The moon was shining through the window, giving her almost as much illumination as a lantern would have.
Finally, she went to the wall in the bedroom. It took her a while to find the catch for the hidden closet, but not as long as it took to overcome her scruples and look. She salved her conscience by reasoning that if Tris were worried about her rummaging around, he wouldn’t have shown her the secret door in the first place. At last the door slid open, divulging what it hid.
Most of the weapons she had used or at least seen used, but she was mystified by a short, forked stick with a strip of catgut connecting each prong of the fork.
“It’s a spear thrower.” Tris sounded weary as he observed her from the open door and waved on the lights. “The man who made it for me called it an atladl. If you look in the closet, you should find five small spears that match the design on the haft. The end of the spear fits on the thong, and you throw it almost the way that you’d throw a javelin. It’s not quite as accurate as a bow and arrow, but it’s faster to use and easier to hide from the gamekeepers.”
Rialla nodded, trying not to look as guilty as she felt, and slipped the weapon back into the closet. She got to her feet easily, though she grimaced when her weight was on her bad leg.
“Have you had anything to eat?” she asked, when she got a closer look at his face. “I took the liberty of raiding your larder. There’s a plate of cheese and sausage on the foot of the bed.”
“Thanks,” he said, sinking down beside the plate and looking at it with faint interest. He must have washed off in the creek, because his linen shirt was wet on the sleeves and collar.
“How did the birthing go?” she asked, sitting on the floor when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to move for a while.
“Not good,” he said and shook his head, staring at the piece of cheese he held in his hand, as if it had turned green. “There were twins and the first one was a breech. It died before I got there. The second one is small, but the smith’s cottage is clean and warm; he should be fine.”
Rialla could see that the death bothered him more than weariness. She took a piece of goat’s cheese and nibbled at it while she tried to think of something to say to distract him.
“Tell me,” she asked, “how did you become the healer here? All the stories say that shapeshifters keep to their own kind.”
He looked at her, and faint amusement crept into his weary eyes. “I am not a shapeshifter. Shapeshifters get their amusement by eating innocent young virgins who stupidly wander alone in the forest. Mind you,” he said, taking a bite of the cheese with more enthusiasm than before, “that’s not to say that they don’t deserve it. Stupid young girls who get caught alone in the forest fall prey to anything that crosses their paths, be the beast animal, human or shapeshifter. The moral of the story is,” he took a piece of sausage, “don’t be a stupid young virgin.”
She grinned at him and said, “Thanks for the advice. I’ll remember that. So what are you, and why are you here? I’d think that if you were going to fraternize with humans, you would at least pick a group of people who weren’t liable to burn you at the stake if they caught you working magic.”