Authors: Dennis L. McKiernan
The Dylvana turned to Tryg. “Hast thou a teapot? No? Then an earthenware vessel will do.”
With Thar watching, Arin plucked blue petals from the flowers and cast them in one of Tryg’s wide-mouthed mulling jugs. When she judged she had enough, she poured the boiling snowmelt in as well—sufficient to make a bit over a quart of tea altogether. A sweet fragrance wafted up from the jug, heartening all those nearby.
“Aiko, Yngli,” she called to the two as the beverage steeped, “ye need both drink a cup of this as well, for I would not have ye come down with fever, drenched as ye were.”
Moments passed and moments more as the benefit of the petals infused throughout the hot melt. Finally Arin dipped up a spoonful of the steaming liquid and blew on it and then tasted it. With a nod, the Dylvana filled a cup and motioned Aiko to do likewise and to pour one for Yngli too. As Aiko complied, Arin stepped upon the crate to stand at Egil’s side. She waited long moments for the steaming tea to cool down, testing it now and again. Finally, slowly and carefully, a bit at a time, she began spooning small sips of the clear liquid into Egil’s mouth as he reflexively swallowed. After a while she gave over the task to Thar.
Arin turned to Orri. “Captain.”
“Lady.”
“The wounds of thine other men—”
“Ar, nothin’ as bad as Egil’s, them what wasn’t killed outright. We patched up most aboard.”
Thar looked up from his task. “Ye’ve done enough, Lady. I’ll see to their scratches.”
Arin smiled at the healer and turned again to Orri. “Is Egil married, betrothed, promised?”
“Ha!” Orri barked a laugh. “Nay, Lady. He be free wi’ th’ women, and they be free wi’ him.”
“Then, Captain, when he has had his cup of tea and another, I would have thy men bear him to my quarters at Blackstein Lodge where I may tend him in the days to come.”
Orri’s eyes widened, but he said, “Aye, Lady.”
Arin poured herself a cup of arél tea and then moved to where Aiko sat with Yngli. As the Dylvana took a chair, she said to Aiko, “Egil will be moved to our quarters at Blackstein Lodge.”
Aiko’s dark eyes betrayed no hint of approval or censure. Instead with a faint nod of her head, Aiko acknowledged Arin’s words.
“We cannot afford to lose him,” added the Dylvana.
Again Aiko faintly nodded.
Yngli turned to Aiko. “I’d ask ye t’ come t’ my home, but I think my wife w’d take an axe t’ me.”
Aiko looked at him impassively, then said, “If I did not take my sword to you first.”
Yngli laughed, heartily to begin with but fading to silence as he looked into the warrior woman’s eyes. He shuddered, dropping his hands to cover his crotch. “Why, I b’lieve y’would at that.” Abruptly, Yngli downed the last of his arél tea, then stood. “As long as Captain Orri’s buying, I be thinkin’ I’ll ha’e me some ale.” He turned to Arin. “Thank ye f’r th’ tea, Lady.”
“I thank thee for thy help, Master Yngli,” she replied.
Yngli bowed to them both—“Ladies”—and spun on his heel and shouted, “Hoy, Tryg, set me up a mug o’ ale!”
For long moments Arin sipped her tea in silence, then turned to Aiko. But before she could say aught, Thar called, “Lady Arin, Egil’s had his two cups o’ tea.”
Wearily, Arin pressed her fingers to her eyes, then stood. “Captain Orri?”
“Har there, Bili, Svan, Angar, Rolle…take up Egil’s litter and bear him t’ th’ Blackstein, t’ Lady Arin’s quarters.”
“Cover him wi’ a cloak or two,” added Thar, “it still be rainin’ out.”
As they carried the unconscious man away, Aiko got to her feet and donned her still wet cloak and said in a low voice, “Then you think, Dara, as do I, that this is the man of your Seeing?”
Arin caught up her own cloak and turned to the warrior. “Art thou forgetting Alos?”
The corners of Aiko’s mouth turned down. “Dara, how can you think of Alos when Egil is the one?”
“Alos, too, has but one eye,” responded Arin, the Dylvana,
looking about. “And speaking of Alos, where has he gotten to?”
They found the scraggly old man lying under a table in the corner, surrounded by empty ale mugs and clutching an empty brandy flagon and sleeping in his own vomit.
Aiko covered her nose in disgust, but with a sigh Arin said, “We must take him, too.”
Aiko’s eyes widened, then she said, “To the boathouse where he sleeps, neh?”
“Nay, Aiko. To our quarters in the lodge.”
Aiko looked down at Alos in disgust. “But, Dara, he is foul,
fuketsuna,
unclean.”
Arin settled her cloak about her shoulders. “Then we will have to bathe him.”
“Huah!” Aiko shook her head. “Scour him, you mean. And pumice his teeth and mint his breath and burn his clothes as well.”
“Enough, Aiko,” admonished Arin. “He has but one eye, and we must discover if he is the one.”
“Jikoku,”
growled Aiko…then sighed. “If it is your will, Dara.”
With that, Aiko reached beneath the table and dragged Alos by his ankle out from under, ale cups rattling in his wake, the flagon lost to his grip. Then with a grunt she hefted him up and across her shoulders. And with Orri and his raiders looking on in wonder, she followed Arin across the floor and out into the dank night, a thin thread of vomit-tainted drool dribbling from Alos’s slack jaw and leaving a wet trail behind.
I
t was well past mid of night as Arin sat staring into the flames, trying to
As the lodge boy passed through the room carrying the old man’s clothes out to the greatroom hearth to be burned, in through the door came Thar, the healer bearing a bulging leather sack. He momentarily paused and frowned at the ruckus in the next room, then a look of understanding crossed his face. He stepped to the Dylvana’s side and raised his voice above the howls and said, “Right, Lady, I ha’e th’ herbs and stones and powders ye asked fr, though th’ gettin’ o’ some o’ them were a fair quest i’ itself. Ha’ t’ look through all me goods. Ha’ t’ get old Maev up fr some o’ ’em.” He set the bag on the small table next to the chifforobe.
From the next room there came a sodden
thunk!
and the yowling ceased.
“Aiko?” called Arin.
“He tried to get away, Dara, but slipped and hit his head” came the reply.
Arin raised a skeptical eyebrow but did not question Aiko further. Thar pointed to the leather bag. “Ye look at
what I ha’e brought and make certain I got all that be needed. I’ll go peer at Alos, see if he be truly injured or no. But, Lady Arin, do not start mixing the medicks wi’out me. I c’n use th’ knowledge o’ th’ sleepin’ draught t’ aid them what need such.”
“A sleeping draught and a potion to ease pain, Thar. I shall show thee the making of each.”
Thar bobbed his head and then stepped into the next room as Arin began laying out the contents of the bag: harf root, laka reed, soda stone, oil of cod…
The lodge boy came back through carrying a fresh pail of steaming water. Moments later he stood shuffling from foot to foot at Arin’s side. “Beggin’ y’r pardon, Lady, but”—he swallowed—”
she
wants th’ chewin’ stick, th’ p-p-pumice, ‘n’ th’ mint leaves, er, ‘right now,’ she said, she did, Lady, beggin’ y’r pardon.”
Arin unloaded the rest of the bag and found the requested items and gave them to the lad.
Back to the other room he sped as Thar returned. “Alos, he be no th’ worse f’r th’ havin’ o’ a knot on top o’ his head, though how it came about from a slip, I nae c’d say.”
Arin sighed and cast a glance toward the room where Aiko could be heard muttering words in her native tongue. As the Dylvana turned her attention back to the goods on the table, soft moans from Alos began as well.
“This is the way of a sleeping draught, Thar,” began Arin.
From the bathing room Alos’s moans became a feeble yowling only to be choked into muted squawks as if something had been jammed in his mouth.
Arin heaved a sighing breath of resignation…and then took up the mortar and pestle. “First thou must grind the soda stone into fineness, thus….”
* * *
Once again Arin sat before the fire and gazed intently into the flames, yet the vision simply would not come to her. Which of these two—the scrubbed and scoured, flatulent old man whimpering in his sleep on a pallet on the floor, or the bandaged younger man in the bed— which of
these two was the one-eyed person of her vision, she could not say.
In one corner with her back to the wall Aiko sat in a lotus position on a square of tatami, the woven straw mat from her family home in Ryodo and borne with her throughout her travels. Her hands curled laxly on her thighs; her eyes were closed, though she was not asleep but resting in deep meditation. She was dressed in a black silken chemise, and the tattoo of an ornate red tiger could just be seen glowering balefully out from between her breasts. Her leather-and-bronze armor was racked in the chifforobe, but on the mat before her lay her two gleaming swords. Her hair was still wet from her own bath, and her glowing skin held the sheen of gold, for she had needed to scour herself free from the taint of the old man’s layers of filth.
An anguished groan brought Arin to her feet. Egil began to stir, and then to thrash and shout, his hands clawing at the bandages. She hurried to the bedside and tried to hold him still, but in spite of his weakened state, she had not the strength to do so. Aiko appeared at the opposite side of the bed and grabbed an arm. Egil’s good eye was wide open and filled with berserker madness, and he hissed in muted rage, yet drugged as he was he could not overcome the two of them. Of a sudden he slumped and began to weep and mumble men’s names—“Ragnar, Argi, Bram, Klaen…”—his voice fading as he spoke, and then he closed his eye and fell unconscious once more. Arin felt for his pulse. It was strong and steady.
An unspoken question in her eyes, Aiko looked across at the Dylvana. “Orri said he had ill dreams,” whispered Arin.
“Is it safe to let him be, Dara?”
Arin nodded. “He seems to be sleeping again.” She glanced at the window. It was yet night. “Return to thy rest, Aiko. I will remain on watch.”
* * *
As the first light of day seeped through the lodge windows, Arin stood and stretched, then stepped to the bedside and again measured Egil’s pulse. As she did so she looked down at his face only to find his good blue eye
fixed upon her, his gaze now filled with sanity and not berserker madness.
“Am I dead, Lady? Gone beyond the sky?”
Arin smiled. “Nay, Egil, thou art yet in Mithgar.”
Egil put his hand to his bandaged head. “I should have suspected. I am in too much pain to be dead. Though you are the vision of an
engel.
”
“
Engel?
” Arin’s face clouded momentarily. Then she laughed. “Oh, I see: one who lives beyond the sky.”
A faint smile crossed Egil’s features, then he grunted and struggled to a sitting position. “Where am I? Who are you? Last I remember, the damned Jutes were pursuing and flaming arrows were thick as flies on a dung pile.”
Arin began preparing a potion, adding tepid water to a white powder in a cup and then stirring. “Thou didst fall to thy fever.”
Once more Egil touched the wrappings passing ’round his head and down his cheek and under his chin only to go back up and ’round and down again several times. “Poisoned blade, I wonder?”
Arin shook her head. “I think not. Unclean, mayhap, even foul, perhaps from grume long past, but not poisoned. Thy comrades did well to treat the gash with salt water, for it washed the wound free of filth, but not ere some of the foulness tainted thine own blood and thou didst succumb to the ill vapors. But thou art now on the journey to wellness, for Thar and I treated thy wounds and thy fever.”
“Thar? Healer Thar? Then, Lady, I am in Mørkfjord?” Egil looked ’round the room.
“Aye. In Blackstein Lodge.”
Egil’s eye widened at the sight of Aiko sitting as still as a statue of gold and of an old man snoring on the floor, his fingers scrabbling at the pallet as he dreamed. “Again I ask, Lady, who are you, and who are your companions?”
“I am Arin, Dylvana of Darda Erynian, the Great Greenhall to the south.”
For the first time Egil saw what she was. “Elf,” he whispered half to himself.
Arin canted her head toward Aiko. “My companion is
Aiko, Ryodoan by birth, past Warrior of the Mages of Black Mountain, but now in service to me.”
Egil started, and stared at the meditating woman. “Warrior? Mages? Black—?”
“The old man thou shouldst know, for he is Alos of Mørkfjord.”
“Alos?” Egil slowly shook his head, then winced with the movement of it. “I would never have recognized him as the beggarly old man who sleeps in Norri’s boathouse. Why, he’s clean for a change.”
Arin smiled faintly. “Scrubbed to a fare-thee-well by Aiko.” The Dara set the spoon aside and held out the cup to Egil. “Drink. It is a potion to relieve thine aches.”
“Good,” grunted Egil. “My head is pounding and my stomach churns as if I’d been on a ten-day drunk; my forehead and cheek are sore to the touch; and my left eye burns as if it has been dipped in a molten pit of Hèl.”
“Thy head pounds loudly for we had to fill thee with brandy ere we could work on thy wounds. Thy stomach suffers for it.”
Egil smiled above the rim of the cup.
“Thy forehead and cheek ache from the sword slash; it is yet a raw wound, though now sewn shut. It will hurt for some days and leave a scar.”
“A handsome scar, I hope,” said Egil. “What about my eye?”
Arin did not immediately answer, but waited until he had downed the potion, then said, “Egil, thy left eye is gone, destroyed by a reaver’s sword.”