Baroness of Blood

ELEVEN

When Marishka and Ilsabet went riding, Peto accomplished nothing until they returned. He tried to work, but the papers he read, the decisions he made, were all colored by the thought that his love might be waylaid by rebels, killed, raped… The horrors of his imagination were endless.

As a result, when two of the guards came riding back to the castle with news of an accident, Peto was the first one down the stairs to the courtyard. When he heard that Marishka had been the victim, he did not ask for details, but ordered the guard off his mount.

"Send for the troop surgeon," he ordered, "and a healer. Don't delay."

Peto rode out in the company of the second guard. When he reached the high flat meadows, he tried to relax. The rolling grasslands were hardly the place for a fatal accident, he decided. Probably everyone was being overly cautious, as they should be.

Then he saw Marishka lying so white and still among the yellow wildflowers, and sorrow filled him. "Is she dead?" he asked Ilsabet.

Ilsabet shook her head.

"Their horses bolted after stepping on a snake," one of the guards said. "Ilsabet managed to control hers; Marishka was not so lucky."

"Where is the horse?" Peto asked. He was a sol-dier, used to venting strong emotion with blood. He'd feel infinitely better if he could kill the beast.

"Dead, Baron. It ran off the side of the cliff road."

"Marishka jumped deliberately, or she would have gone over with the mare," Ilsabet said.

It was the last word either of them spoke. They sat on either side of the unconscious girl waiting for help.

Peto's campaign surgeon was a seasoned soldier. He arrived a quarter hour after Peto and examined the unconscious girl carefully, beginning with her limbs. "Her leg is broken," he said. "And the bump on her head worries me."

"Will she be all right?" Peto asked.

"I think there may also be some damage to her back. We'll have to wait until she's awake to determine the extent. In the meantime, I should set her leg while she's unconscious and save her some pain."

Peto watched the surgeon cut away Marishka's leather boots, then left the man to his work. It would not be correct for Peto to see his future bride so exposed. And Ilsabet was with her to comfort her if she woke.

Marishka had often spoken to him about the Seer's message-that nothing Marishka did would alter her fate. He hadn't understood then; he began to understand now. He'd been so worried about the rebels killing or kidnapping her, but in the end she had been harmed anyway by something as insignificant as a meadow snake. Marishka would undoubtedly tell him it could as easily have been a piece of bad meat or a fall down the always slippery castle stairs.

"No!" he whispered to whatever gods ruled this land. "You will not have her."

When Marishka finally woke, the air had cooled with evening. She lay in the same place where she had fallen, but now there were blankets beneath her and a tent erected around the spot to shade her from the setting sun. She looked from Peto to Dow, the old healer, then at the surgeon. "So much effort for me," she said.

"Whatever is needed," Peto replied.

The surgeon examined her first. Though her head hurt terribly and her stomach seemed queasy, she could move her limbs. But when she tried to sit up, she cried out in pain and pressed her palms to her head. Dow moved to her side, a bottle in his hand.

"Drink this," he said. "The mix is old, but your sister is out gathering the herbs for a more potent tea. We'll take the headache away soon enough.

"She has knowledge of what is needed?" Peto asked.

"A good deal, most of it self-taught. I think with proper training she could become a great healer."

"Nonetheless, check the herbs she brings. I wouldn't want a mistake to weigh on her conscience or yours."

"Certainly, Baron."

When Ilsabet returned she seemed out of breath and her hair had fallen loose from its clip, moving in the faint breeze like the silver grass just beginning to bloom in the meadow. She handed Dow her cache and sat, obviously waiting for praise.

He would have given it anyway. Into the already boiling water he threw mugwort, valerian, wound-wort, and the potent wild onions that were just beginning to poke through the warm soil. He added a large quantity of honey to the mix, for the herbs would be too bitter to drink without it. Though Ilsabet had not been asked for them, she separately brought potent black nettle leaves, mullein, and yarrow. "The cook at Argentine says these make an ideal poultice for bruises. I thought you might try it on her head and back."

"Perfect, child, though I don't think her back needs any treatment."

"She woke?" Ilsabet asked.

"Then dozed off again. Wake her, if you wish. She asked that you do so."

Ilsabet turned to her sister and took her hand, calling her name, embracing her carefully when she opened her eyes. They propped up Marishka's head and shoulders so she could drink the tea while Dow applied the fresh poultice to the bruise on her forehead.

They stayed in the field that night. While the others slept, Marishka had strange dreams of Sagesse and her prediction, of being cold, alone. She stood outside a tomb in a land she did not recognize. Her body had lost its color, her hair and skin had become the silver of the moonlight. She heard a howl in the distance, but it brought no fear. Instead, she fell forward and, without knowing how, bounded in the direction of the cry.

She forced herself awake. Her head pounded. Not wanting to wake anyone, she reached for the teapot. Though the steeped herbs had become bitter, she drank the brew eagerly and slept.

In the morning, the guards placed her on a pallet and carried her down the steep road. Later, safely ensconced in her room with a pot of tea on the table beside her and her head wound washed and wrapped, she dined with Ilsabet, Mihael, and Peto, eating sparingly.

Peto was surprised at the change in Marishka's sister. Ilsabet seemed pleased to help plan the wedding, offering suggestions on how to decorate the great hall for the banquet. Peto wanted to request that she swear allegiance to him at the wedding, but recalling her defiant pose some months earlier, decided not to remind her of it. If she was content to forget the past, he would do the same.

When Marishka began looking tired, Ilsabet poured her a cup of tea. Peto said goodnight, but ilsabet stayed, holding her sister's hand until Marishka slept. Later, when Marishka woke with her head pounding, her servant came in, heated the pot, and poured a cup of tea. The brew seemed somewhat more bitter than it had been earlier, but it relieved Marishka's pain. Sleep came easily.

In the morning, Marishka and Peto ate together. Though Marishka felt famished, the first bite of her meat and apple tart made her gag, and she settled for a bit of fruit and some unleavened bread and more tea brought up personally by the healer.

"She seems so pale," Peto commented to Dow.

"She's lucky to be alive. Give her time to recover," the healer replied with a chuckle. "She'll dance at the wedding, believe me."

Marishka lay back and smiled bravely, though thoughts of last night's dream, the tomb, and the wolf refused to dissipate even with the soft sunlight falling through her open window.

"Let me sit there, Peto," she said pointing to a chair beside the window. When the healer said it was all right for her to move, he carried her there, propping up her broken leg, moving a table and second chair close by. They played cards until afternoon when Ilsabet took his place.

"Did you sleep well?" Ilsabet asked.

Marishka nodded, then tears came to her eyes. She dabbed at them and told her sister about the pain and terrible dream, and about Sagesse's predictions. "I'm probably just silly but I feel my life slipping away." She gripped her sister's hands. "Ilsabet, I'm so afraid. I don't want to die!"

Ilsabet held on to her tightly. "Then don't," she said. "Fight whatever happens, make your own fate."

"That's easy for you to say…"

"Don't talk about what I do. You do it!" Marishka cried openly. "The Seer said I would not have a long life."

"You never told me that."

"I never told anyone." Marishka calmed herself enough to describe everything she'd seen in the Seer's cave, and everything the Seer had said to her. "So you see, my fate is decided," Marishka concluded and began to cry again.

A servant heard the sobbing and came into the room, stopping when she saw Ilsabet at her sister's side, holding her tightly, stroking her hair. It occurred to the woman that Ilsabet had never looked so beautiful. There was no reason for the change-no special hair arrangement or color in her gown. A trick of the light, the woman thought as Ilsabet motioned her to go.

Even after her success with the rats, Ilsabet hadn't considered that she had any real power. The poisons from Jorani's collection had provided the means, and it had been Jorani's education that had shown her the way.

But once she had been on her own at Argentine, surrounded by a wealth of different herbs with a multitude of uses, once she had begun to read and study, her ability-her power! — became clear. Even then she had not been certain of it until the fox disappeared and she knew beyond a doubt that she had the ability to kill.

Her experiments with the nettle poison had been rash, but they'd taught her much. In large quantities, the poison killed immediately; in smaller doses, it took time.

ELAIME BERGSTROM

There would be more risk in repeated doses, but small doses would make it seem as if the victim had sickened and died, a more natural end than a healthy person suddenly keeling over. Sunstrokes were rare in this cloudy kingdom, and little else would kill so quickly.

So she had waited for exactly the right moment to arrange Marishka's accident. Now that it was over and the girl was confined to bed, she'd stay at Marishka's side, the perfect loving sister with plenty of opportunities to see that Marishka and Peto would never wed.

"She should never have sworn loyalty to him," she said aloud as she sat alone in her chamber, brushing her pale blond hair. She'd spent the entire day with Marishka. Now that their lives were not filled with the demands of their father or the constant nervous presence of Lady Lorena, they had a chance to know one another. Though Ilsabet still thought Marishka over-emotional and easily flattered, she had to admit Marishka admired her a great deal, and admiration itself made Ilsabet warm to her.

"If only she hadn't made Peto love her," she added, also aloud.

Marishka's death would be slow and painful, and Ilsabet would be at her side through it all, comforting her, crying with her. No, she'd never be suspected of any crime. If she considered the matter, she would have been astonished that she felt no pangs of conscience, but only a growing excitement more internal and intense than any she had ever felt before.

She did not consider it.

Instead, she thought of how devastated Peto would be as he watched the one he loved die. There would be no wedding, no rejoicing, no child to unite their kingdoms.

She smiled at the thought; she could not help but smile. As she did, she saw her reflection in her mirror blur and fade into a pale, swirling cloud. In the center of it, she saw an old woman's face.

"I know who you are," Ilsabet whispered. "Your threats don't frighten me. Go back to your cave where you belong."

She picked up her brush and began to run it through her hair, staring at the mirror as if Sagesse were not staring out of it, her eyes condemning Ilsabet for what she planned, her soft whisper trying to turn Ilsabet from the path she had chosen.

"Your power is not this great," Ilsabet whispered, and some moments later was rewarded with the sight of her own face once more clear in the glass.

She didn't look like a murderer. Her eyes seemed to have darkened to a more vivid shade of blue. Her hair, though still thin, had lightened and taken on the lustre of silk threads.

It's just the sun and all the excitement, she thought, then dismissed the matter before she might glimpse the truth.