Kismet's Kiss: A Fantasy Romance (Alaia Chronicles) (9 page)

His wife knew him well enough not to comment. “Mishka hasn’t shown any signs? Or Sulya?”

“Neither. Not yet, at least. Maitri won’t let Mishka enter her bedchamber, just in case. Which isn’t easy for a child.”

“No.” Rajvi picked at a loose thread at the edge of a sheet, worrying it between her nails. “None of this is easy for anyone. Least of all you.”

He shrugged. “All we can do now is hope Naaz will hear our prayers.”

She looked up. “Maybe She has.” Rajvi nodded once more toward the doorway.

“Maybe.” But his voice betrayed his doubts.

CHAPTER SIX

A
s soon as they re-entered the sunshine of the courtyard, Sohad turned to Varene and gave a half-bow. “Where would you like to go now, Royal Healer?” His tone was devoid of warmth.

“I can carry my pack,” she said half-apologetically, reaching for it.

He drew it out of her reach. “The sultan told me to help you with it, so I will.”

“No, really, it’s fine…” She put her fingers on the canvas.

He raised his chin and stepped back, keeping the pack in his grasp. “I’ve been given an order by my sultan, Healer. I intend to obey it.”

She stopped and blew out a breath. Clearly she was doomed to garner enemies in Kad. “All right. Though perhaps you and I should come to an understanding.”

She mustered the kindest smile she had in her arsenal, but did not curtsey or bow her head. Diplomacy was important, but so was the authority she’d need to do her job. “I want you to know that I appreciate the…awkwardness of your position. You were the assistant to the Royal Physician, a man who is very recently deceased. Now someone else has appeared out of nowhere to take his place—amid a crisis, no less.”
And that person is Tegannese and a woman, to boot.
“I imagine all this was a bit unexpected.”

In fact, she suspected Sohad wanted Yaman’s job. No one became the assistant to a Royal Physician—or Royal Healer—without ambition. Another universal prerequisite, or so she dearly hoped, was healing talent.

Sohad listened to her speech without betraying any emotion. His closed lips remained firm.

Sweat broke out at the small of Varene’s back.
Please, let me say the right thing, find the right words. Let me have ONE person on my side in Kad.
“The sultan wishes us to work together, and as Yaman’s assistant, you know the patients, and how things are done here. If I ask for your advice on a matter, I hope you’ll give it.”

He inclined his head politely. “Of course, Royal Healer.” But the cool hue of his eyes remained, meaning his trousers were still in a twist. He’d give only what he had to.

So be it. “I’m certain your help will be invaluable. As for where I’d like to go, first I want to cleanse my hands.”

She walked to the fountain Kuramos had showed her and washed while Sohad waited beside her, blank-faced and yet still bristling with hostility.
A shame. His lanky features might even be pleasant when they’re not knitted into a scowl.

“I’ve already seen Prince Tahir and the Sha’Lai.” She gestured toward Rajvi’s door. “Please take me to the patients suffering the most.”

Sohad blinked and pulled his head back a fraction. “Are you certain? That would mean palace servants, but the royal family’s importance…”

She cocked a brow. In Kad she was expected to take care of the royals first, regardless of urgency? Royal privilege was one thing, but in matters of life and death, privilege held little sway with her. The patients most in need deserved her aid first. She hadn’t expected that others would see it differently.

But then, she wasn’t a servant of the palace, nor dependent on the royal family for her daily bread or her life. Maybe Yaman had taught Sohad to give the ruling family precedence. She certainly hoped it wasn’t a
royal
expectation. She’d think much less of Kuramos if it were.

Well, since she wasn’t being paid for her service here, she’d do things as she saw fit. “I’m certain. Take me to those most ill.”

His eyes flickered with something she couldn’t interpret. “The infirmary, then,” he said. “Follow me, please.”

Follow, follow, follow. Was this what all the women did here? Man in front, woman in back. Last.

The courtyard’s fragrances and bird calls quickly faded behind them as they moved through hall after grand, stately hall. Guardsmen ignored her. Servants gazed curiously at her clothing from beneath politely lowered lids. A nobleman she recognized from the throne room stopped in his tracks and stared as she and Sohad walked by in silence.

At last they neared a wide door guarded by a statue above: a beautiful and forbidding woman holding a scroll and torch. The Kaddite goddess Naaz, Varene guessed. Creator of life, supreme sentencer of death.

She didn’t much care for that second part, and gazed with resentment at the statue’s implacable face.

They passed under it into what was clearly the Royal Physician’s working area. Jars of herbs, much like her stores at home, lined the top shelves. Some names she recognized, but others were unfamiliar. Two body-length tables sat near shelves populated with medical instruments, only some of which she could identify. Many others looked rather barbarous. Was that a fleam for bloodletting? And a trepanon to bore holes in skulls? She fought to keep disgust from her face. At least the place smelled clean and was well-kept.

Sohad bowed, his mouth a flat line. “Of course this Infirmary is at your disposal, as am I.”

“Thank you,” she replied with an internal sigh.

“Ridiculous!” boomed a baritone from a connecting room. “We must continue the venesection! Bad blood’s the cause here. Open the veins to let the rotted blood out.”

“Bah!” answered a tenor. “Fevers develop from an excess of yellow bile. These people need emetics. A judicious application of
nux vomica
will do it. I’ve been doing this for three hundred years, and
my
patients never need more treatments.”

Curious and disgusted, Varene stepped toward the voices, but behind her, Sohad grumbled. “Windbag frauds. Patients never need more treatments when they’re
dead
.”

Varene whipped her head around to look at Sohad. Had she really heard that? But he’d turned away to lean her pack against the wall. His rant was accurate, at least. Venesection and emetics! Had time run backwards? She moved decisively through the open doorway toward the speakers. “Good evening, sirs.”

Three men in vermilion robes rotated toward her as one. Their gazes took in her gender and her odd clothing, and each looked as if he were smelling a privy.

“May we help you?” asked the tall baritone, a man with a hawk’s nose and a brow like an overhanging crag. His nose hitched higher as she neared.

“I appreciate the offer,” she said with a determined smile. “I’m curious about your ideas about this illness. I’m—”

“That’s not our concern,” said the tenor, whose mushroom-colored beard had been braided into a six-inch plait. “We’ll choose the course of action and instruct you on how to medicate the patients. Servants,” BraidBeard grumbled to CragBrow. “They should know their place. Uppity even within the palace of the sultan, can you imagine?”

“My lords, I see we are having a bit of miscommunication.” Varene’s smile grew feral. “I’m not sure you quite understand who I am.”

“We don’t need your name, woman
,
” said CragBrow. “Just do as you’re told.” He turned his tall body to face his colleague, presenting Varene with only his shoulder. The third man, pale and rheumy-eyed, shot her an uncertain look over CragBrow’s shoulder before closing ranks with the other two.

The moment bulged and sizzled. These men deserved a comeuppance. She selected her words carefully. “I think not, my lords. I will do as I choose.”

As CragBrow swiveled, aghast, BraidBeard’s face mottled. “Who is your overseer, woman? She’ll be informed of your insolence. No doubt you’re in trouble already, dressing so deplorably in the palace.”

“Oh my,” she said, tilting her head to the side, mock-sweetly. “I would
love
for you to tattle. I suspect my ‘overseer’ will be outraged to be called
her
.”

“Enough!” BraidBeard stomped his sandal. “Your impudence is without bounds. Assistant! Assistant!” he shouted until Sohad came near. “See that this maidservant gets a beating.”

With delight, Varene watched emotions war on Sohad’s face—anger at being called so dismissively, joy at being able to one-up men he clearly didn’t respect, and resentment at the truth. Which would he choose?

Sohad clasped his hands behind his back. “Good sirs Kemal, Hatim, and Bairam,” he said, nodding at each one in turn, “I’m afraid such will not be possible. At least not without the express permission of the Great Sultan himself.”

Matching incredulous frowns grew on the lips of CragBrow-Kemal and BraidBeard-Hatim. Bairam’s eyes had taken on a hunted look at the mention of the monarch.

“The woman you speak of,” and Sohad gave Varene a respectful nod, “is the Royal Healer of Teganne. She’s here by the Sultan’s own request. In fact, he informed me that since Yaman is dead, she should be treated as if Yaman had come back to life in her. So, technically, she outranks even you.” He gave an apologetic bow, but as he descended his mouth formed a tiny smirk.

“Pshaw!” Kemal’s hairy eyebrows, each like little nests, rose high.

“Preposterous!” said Hatim, straightening his spine in affront. “The sultan would never invite a heathen sorceress into his palace! If I thought that true, I’d leave the palace at once.”

Sohad seemed to relish this for a moment, and stretched his hand toward the exit. “That is, of course, your choice.”

A great deal of sputtering commenced, along with nervous glances from Bairam. “An outrage,” sputtered Hatim.

“Indeed,” said Kemal, and lowered his voice. “Perhaps delirium is one of the illness’s symptoms. We should warn the Sultan that the illness may be spreading.”

“Please do tell the sultan of this exchange,” said Varene, ever so sweetly.

The triumvirate exited with shocked grumbles and more looks of disbelief.

Varene pivoted toward Sohad and beamed a grin. “Well done. And now that we’ve removed the idiots, let’s get to work.”

One side of his mouth curved in return, and for a split second, she saw approval in his eyes.

S
ohad led Varene into the men’s infirmary hall with its two rows of raised pallets. He wondered what the Tegannese woman would think of it, and tried to see it as she might.

The austere room overlooked the river and the sultan’s annually flooded wheat fields. The view and afternoon sun lent an artificial cheer to a room that death knew well. Sohad’s remaining patients had refused to let the curtains be drawn, despite the heat.

Of the twenty pallets, five were occupied. Four had been emptied in the last three days, their occupants succumbing to the sickness. The faint stenches of stale sweat and fear hovered in the air. Occasionally patients coughed so hard it seemed their lungs might leap out their mouths.

The city’s physicians had only made the patients worse. And as much as Sohad wished otherwise, he didn’t yet have the experience or knowledge to cure this scourge—nor the authority to overrule others’ harmful tactics.

She
had the authority, and had just used it. But did she have the skill the patients would need? How could a
woman
do what Kad’s leading physicians could not?

And would she employ her unholy magic to do it? The sultan had brought her here, so Sohad could only assume the great lord had his reasons. But sorcery tore at the fabric of man’s righteous submission to the gods. How could the sultan choose magic over piety?

The Healer’s outlandish skirts swirled around her as she moved toward nearest pallet and touched the patient’s hand. Sohad crossed to the other side of the pallet, away from her. He clasped his hands behind his back and did his best to look, and feel, uninvolved.

Ferran’s portly jowls jiggled when he opened his eyes and saw Varene. He withdrew his hand in surprise. “Who are you?” he gasped, clearly hoarse and in pain.

“A Royal Healer. I’ve come to help you, if I can.”

She looked in control, Sohad grudgingly noted.