The Godspeaker Trilogy (107 page)

The hurt in her voice pained him like a knife thrust. Oh, Hettie. If this business costs me Ursa … “You’re imagining things. I’m not lying to you.”

“Being old doesn’t make me stupid, Jones. And being my friend doesn’t give you leave to be insulting.”

Before he could stop her she’d climbed down off the peddler’s van, even though it was moving, and gone round the back again to travel inside.

I’m sorry, Ursa. I know I’ve upset you … but it’s better this way. You don’t want to know the things I’ve been told. You never want to see the horrors I’ve been shown.

How he wished he didn’t know them. How he wished he’d never seen.

Please, Hettie. Get us safe to Kingseat and help Rhian to her throne so I can pass this burden of secrets to her and be a simple toymaker again.

Hettie’s reply was to send another miracle.

It happened the next morning, in a village called Heddonvale. The royal procession had spent the night in common woodland and at first light, after a brief service conducted by Helfred, started travelling again. They reached Heddonvale mid-morning, where they were greeted by a chaplain who railed against Rhian as an unnatural woman led astray by the forces of evil, and declared anathema on any who would aid her. Rhian defended herself vigorously and soon they found themselves in the centre of a shouting crowd in the high street. Some villagers sided with the chaplain, others with their new queen.

Dexterity stood up on the driving seat to get a better look at the commotion. Behind him, the van’s wooden hatch slid open.

“What’s all that shouting, Jones?” Ursa demanded. “Since the chaplain can’t come out and I’m keeping him company you’ll have to tell us what’s going on.”

“Another chaplain,” he said, shading his eyes with one hand. “Stirring the crowd against us.”

“It seems to be working,” said Ursa. “They sound irate.”

“It’s not his fault,” Helfred chimed in. “He’s got no choice but to follow my uncle’s commands. If he disobeys he’ll face interdict … or worse.”

Which may have been true but it didn’t much help matters. If Rhian had misjudged the people’s love of Eberg and his daughter…

Before that unsettling thought had time to bloom further Dexterity heard another shouting voice. He turned.

A man was running towards them. “Help! Help! I need Physick Graythorne, help!”

“What’s that?” said Ursa. “Is someone calling for a physick?”

“Yes. Ursa—”

She slammed the hatchway shut and a moment later appeared with her physicking bag beside the van. The shouting man passed her, his face shiny with sweat and maybe tears, running as though a fiend was at his heels.

“Physick Graythorne! Physick Graythorne! Are you gathered here? I need you!”

“I’m here!” a man replied, stepping clear of the villagers ranged around Rhian. He was younger than Ursa by some thirty years. “Joby!” he exclaimed as the shouting man staggered to a halt. “What’s happened?”

The man Joby bent over, heaving for air, seemingly oblivious to the gathered crowd. “Rogue swarm. Got Walder.” He straightened and pointed back down the street. “His father’s bringing him.”

“Did I hear that right, Jones? Rogue swarm?” said Ursa. “Is he talking about bees?”

“I don’t know,” said Dexterity. “I’m not a beekeeper, Ursa.”

“Tcha!” said Ursa. “Much good you are!” Hefting her physick’s bag, she marched past the bodyguards and the dukes, the ranting chaplain, Rhian and Alasdair, and presented herself to the other physick. “I’m Ursa. Are we talking bees?”

The man stared at her, bemused. “Yes. Bees. I’m sorry, who are—”

“I’m the queen’s physick,” said Ursa, planting her bag on the ground. “We can swap entertaining flux stories later. Now I’ve heard of bees swarming but what’s this rogue business mean?”

“Means there’s been a mistake,” said Joby, breathing easier now as he stared back along the street, his face pinched in a worried frown. “Worker bees aren’t supplied proper with doings for the new hive. Makes them angry. They don’t go peaceful-like, looking for a new home. Walder couldn’t hear the difference in the swarm’s voice.” A choked sob escaped him. “Poor little chap, he got in the way.”

Ursa took his arm. “And who’s Walder?”

“The beeman’s son. He’s nine,” said Physick Graythorne, and shook his head. “A bad age for swarm-sting.”

“I’m telling you, Physick, he’s mortal sick,” added Joby.

“Can you use a second pair of hands?” said Ursa. “Not that I’ve had much doings with rogue bees, but—”

“Yes. Yes. It might take two of us,” said Graythorne. “If you can spare the time … if the queen permits—”

“Permits?” Ursa gave him a look to blister skin. “You think I’d ask permission to do my healing work? What kind of a physick are you? What kind of a queen do you think Rhian is if you think she’d expect me to ask her permission to heal a child—or that if I did she’d have the nerve to say no!”

“Graythorne!” said the village chaplain. “I forbid you to take any help from this woman. She is under interdict by association and—”

“You hold your tongue!” said Ursa, furious. “You’d let a boy die and call yourself a man of God?” She looked at Graythorne. “Is your clinic close? There must be supplies you need.”

The physick nodded. “Yes. Of course. I’ll be back in a moment.”

As he shoved his way through the crowd, Ursa turned. “Jones!”

“Yes, Ursa?”

“Back of the van, under the bench. Green pouch tied with blue cord. Bring it!”

“I’ll take it to her,” said Helfred, through the open hatch.

“The queen said you were to stay in there,” Dexterity answered, tying off the horses’ reins. “Best obey her, Chaplain.”

Helfred, scowling, handed him the pouch Ursa wanted through the hatchway. “If there’s a child in need, Mr Jones, then I—”

“The village chaplain can see to his soul. Please, Helfred. Her Majesty doesn’t need anyone else to worry about.”

“Tcha,” said Helfred and banged shut the hatch.

“That’s it, Jones,” said Ursa as he handed her the green leather pouch. “Now just you stand back. This is physicking business.”

Seated on her magnificent stallion, the king beside her on his restive blood bay, Rhian leaned down. Her eyes were anxious. “Ursa … can you save the child?”

Ursa looked up from unknotting the pouch’s laces. “I won’t know till I’ve seen him, Majesty. And even then … well. Some folk are struck funny when it comes to a beesting. But I’ll do my best, God knows I will.”

“Here they come!” shouted someone in the crowd. “Beeman Loryn and Walder!”

Everyone looked. Puffing and panting his way up the village street, a grizzled man with a small lolling boy in his arms. Toiling in his wake, a weeping woman. The boy’s mother, surely. Such terror in her face.

The sour chaplain pushed forward, daring to lay a hand on Rhian’s bridle. “I tell you this is forbidden by the Church! You are a hussy and your marriage is unlawful! Get you and your rabble gone from our streets or by Rollin I shall—”

“You little man,” said Zandakar. “Get back from her … or die.”

Gasps from the crowd as Zandakar nudged his black stallion closer. Bright morning light glinted on his knife.

“No, Zandakar!” said Rhian. “I’m in no danger. Put your blade away.”

Zandakar’s blue hair, much longer now, shone like sapphire in the sun. “ Wei . He threatens you. He is not safe.”

Wei . The watching dukes could guess that word. Rhian flicked a glance at their shocked faces, knowing too well how this appeared. Dexterity felt his skin crawl.

Zandakar, obey her. The trouble you’ll cause us if you don’t!

Rhian lifted her chin. Her eyes were coldly angry. “Zandakar. I am hushla . Do as I say.”

A muscle leapt along Zandakar’s jaw. Then he nodded. “Zho. Hushla.” He sheathed his blade.

More protests and babbling from the chaplain and the crowd. Then everything went silent: the beeman and his son and the weeping woman were in their midst.

“Where’s Graythorne?” said Loryn and laid his child on the hard ground. The woman knelt beside him, keening with fear.

“I’m here,” said the physick, shoving his way back through the crowd, burdened with a physicking bag and two corked jugs. “Let me see him. Physick Ursa, you’ll look with me?”

“I will,” said Ursa, and with a grunt crouched beside him in the street.

The swarm-stung boy Walder sprawled insensible, his naked body a mass of swollen, weeping boils. Dead bees tangled in his curly yellow hair. His father and mother clutched each other, stricken.

“It’s not promising,” said Ursa.

“No,” said Physick Graythorne.

“Save him. Please save him,” sobbed Beeman Loryn. “My poor Walder!”

Graythorne uncorked one jug and poured something brown and sticky down the boy’s swollen throat. Ursa pulled her mortar from her physicking bag, slopped in a splash of oil then added some dried plant from the green leather pouch.

Graythorne stared. “What’s that?”

“Yadder-root,” said Ursa, grinding hard with the pestle.

“Yadder-root? I don’t know—”

“It’s a Dev’kareshi plant. Strong blood purgative.”

“Foreign?” said the physick, doubtful. “Can I trust—”

“You can try,” said Ursa fiercely. “Can it hurt the boy now?”

Walder’s mother wailed, hearing that. Her husband, his arm around her shoulders, pressed his cheek to hers and groaned.

“All right,” said Graythorne, his face drawn and defeated. “As you say. I doubt it could hurt him now.”

A terrible hush descended, broken only by the harsh, dry sobs of Walder’s mother. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. A cow lowed. Comfortable, familiar sounds made ugly by this looming tragedy.

As Ursa carefully trickled more pinchfuls of the powdered yadder-root into her mortar and Physick Graythorne watched anxiously to see if his brown elixir was taking any effect, Dexterity let his gaze roam the weeping, watching crowd. Fresh young girls, worry-worn women. Farmers and shopkeepers. Cheeky boys and their sober older brothers. Villages were small places where every face was known, if not loved. Where joy was shared joyfully and one broken heart broke all.

“Don’t just stand there gawking, Jones!” said Ursa. “Help us get this paste on the child!”

Kneeling, he joined her and Graythorne in smearing the stinking concoction over the boy’s hot, lumpy skin. The child whimpered pitifully as the greeny paste touched him, but there was no fighting strength in the sound of protest.

Walder was dying.

“How quickly does this yadder-root work?” asked Graythorne. His eyes were hollow with despair.

“Quick enough as a rule,” said Ursa. “But this time …” She flicked a look at the boy’s distraught parents. “I’ve never seen so many beestings before.”

Rhian looked to the village chaplain. “A prayer,” she said. “Walder’s one of your own. Don’t abandon him because of me.”

“Chaplain Mede?” said Walder’s mother, her voice catching on a sob. “Call for God’s grace! Please ask God to save my boy!”

“I will not!” spat the chaplain. “Duchy Linfoi is under interdict! A prayer for the dying will perjure my soul!”

His refusal sparked more furious outcry. Rhian, the king, Ursa and the nearest villagers, they all shouted at the recalcitrant man. Letting the protests wash over him, Dexterity again wandered his gaze across the tear-streaked faces of Heddonvale’s people.

Hettie stood among them, her fair hair bedraggled and covered in an unravelling gossamer shawl, her hands folded before her, her brown eyes haunted and brimful of tears. They met his, and held his, and she slowly shook her head.

No, Hettie! Do something! Don’t let this little boy die!

Physick Graythorne pressed his fingers to the boy Walder’s throat. Let them rest there a moment then sighed, and looked up.

“Listen to me! Listen! ”

The shouting stopped.

“I’m sorry. So sorry. But Walder is dead.”

“
N
o!” screamed Walder’s mother. “No, not dead, not my little boy!”

“It’s God’s will!” said Chaplain Mede, lifting his voice above the crowd’s wailing and the terrible weeping of the dead boy’s parents. “This is a judgement. We allowed this wicked woman and her blasphemous followers into our village and God has judged us for our sin!”

“How dare you say so!” King Alasdair shouted, as Rhian choked back a sob and the dukes sat straighter in their saddles, hands hovering above the hilts of their swords. “You think God makes his point on the bodies of children? If anyone in this place has lost sight of God it’s you, Chaplain Mede. Not Her Majesty. She’s the Church’s true daughter and unlike you she grieves for Walder. He was her subject and as her subject she loved him.” He stared at the villagers. “She loves every one of you. She is your queen !”

Chaplain Mede started ranting again. Still kneeling with Ursa, Dexterity looked at her face. It was still and sad. She’d seen a great deal of death in her time. He took her hand in his and squeezed, then looked for Hettie.

Yes. She was still here, in the crowd, weeping.

Do something, Hettie! Don’t just stand there in tears.

She shook her head. I can’t, Dexie love. But you can. You can save him .

Her lips hadn’t moved but he heard her voice anyway. A whisper, a breeze of words, sighing through his heart.

Me? I can’t save him!

She smiled. Yes you can, my love. Trust me. Trust God. Have faith … and save the child .

Before the last echo of her words faded he felt a wave of scorching heat rush through his body. He stared at his hands. beneath the dried smears of Ursa’s ointment his skin began to glow.

Ursa noticed. “Jones?” she said, alarmed, letting go of him. “What’s that? Good God have mercy. Are you doing it again ?”

He couldn’t answer. There was a roaring in his head as though his skull were full of flames. Memory returned.

Oh dear. Yes, Ursa. I’m doing it again.

He looked for Hettie … but Hettie was gone.

Everyone scrambled to get away from him, even Walder’s distraught parents. The villagers were shouting and pointing. Chaplain Mede gobbled, incoherent. Ursa kept hold of Physick Graythorne, keeping him safely at a distance. King Alasdair’s arm slid around Rhian. A terrible hope was burning in her eyes.