Briar's Book Page 3

  The soldiers brought them out by way of a ladder that led up to a large grating in the market square. They lifted it to emerge inside one of the canvas tents used to cover sewer entrances when repairs were made underground. Now the tent hid them from the view of passersby. Someone had backed a covered wagon up to the flap.

  They do this all the time, Briar thought, as the soldiers placed Flick’s litter in the back of the wagon. They have the clothes already made up, and the wagon, and folk see the tent every day, so they don’t guess there’s sickness and run mad. His respect for the duke rose several notches. Twice he’d been caught in mob panic when the news got out that disease was in Hajra’s slums. He’d escaped once to watch through sewer grates as people destroyed their own district out of fear of sickness. The second time, trying a bit of theft during the riot, had earned him a broken arm from a shopkeeper with a club.

  He climbed into the wagon behind Rosethorn and settled into the corner. Rosethorn sat next to Flick, bracing her on the floor of the cart as they lurched forward.

  Once they were moving, Rosethorn checked Flick’s pulse and temperature. The street girl watched her and Briar, eyes glassy. “Willowbark tea, for a start,” muttered Rosethorn, partly to herself and partly to Briar. “Why willowbark tea, student of mine?”

  “To bring down the fever and make the ouches less,” he said promptly. “Maybe aloe balm for her skin? I saw her scratching the bumps.”

  “Shouldn’t I wash her first? Give me a suggestion,” ordered Rosethorn. Noting the alarm in Flick’s eyes, Rosethorn smiled reassuringly at her. “Yes, I said the bad word—’wash.’ It won’t hurt, not much. It didn’t kill him.” She jerked a thumb at Briar. “So it shouldn’t kill you.”

  Flick grinned. Turning over on the litter, she began to doze.

  When they reached Urda’s House in the Mire, they entered the building through a back way built for quarantine: a separate, enclosed staircase with a gate that could be locked. The stair led to the third floor, which was empty when they arrived. Here the guards placed them in one of two large rooms just off the third-floor porch. Briar tried the inner door to the rest of the house and found it locked.

  Examining his surroundings with a critical eye, he saw that it was well supplied. Deep, locked cupboards lined the two short walls from ceiling to floor, and cots lined the long walls. The shuttered windows were barred to keep unwilling guests inside. The only unlocked room that they might enter was the washroom, set up with privies in cubicles, showers, troughs for washing clothes, and a great hearth in which a huge kettle of water steamed.

  Flick got off her litter and sat on a cot, looking around. The guards spoke briefly to Rosethorn, then left. Briar listened as they first barred the outer door behind them, then walked into the second room that opened on the porch. He could hear them moving in the next room, settling in. He realized that in taking care of them the guards had already exposed themselves to disease and would have to place themselves in quarantine.

  Going to the door that led outside, Briar opened a small speaking-window set in the wood at adult-eye level. It was covered by two lengths of finely woven sheer cloth, one fixed to the inside of the opening, the other to the outside. Both screens radiated a touch of magic. Holding his hand palm-out to the closer one, Briar found that someone had written magical figures on the cloth, the signs for health and purity. Smart, he thought. This way folk that’re cooped up here can talk to outsiders without making them sick. He drifted over to the door that led to the inside of the house. It too had a smaller speaking-window, as well as a large sliding door set into the base. When he tried the sliding door, he found it locked from the other side.

  “Bath time,” said Rosethorn, gripping him by an ear and gently tugging him to his feet. “In there.” She pointed to the washroom. “Get soap from the cupboards, wet down, lather up, stand under the grate, pull the rope. Clothes go into that.” She pointed to a closed chute in the wall. “You’ll find fresh new robes on the bench inside. Flick, I know you don’t feel well, but cleaning up will help.” She guided Flick to the other side of the partition that separated one of the rough overhead showers from the other.

  Once he had scrubbed thoroughly and rinsed, Briar found the new clothes Rosethorn had mentioned. The chief item was a loose garment like a robe secured by a cloth belt. He also found a fresh belly-wrap, a pair of gloves, and a cloth mask. Holding gloves and mask, he went into the main room and made a happy discovery: while they were washing, someone had slid food trays through the big lower flap on the door.

  He carried the trays to a table. There were warm flatbreads, hardboiled eggs, and a pot of lentils stewed with onions and bay leaves. There was also a pitcher of fruit juice. Plates and eating utensils he found in a cupboard beside the table. He was just serving the food when Rosethorn and Flick emerged from the washroom, dressed as he was. They already wore their gloves, and their masks were tied around their necks.

  “We got to wear this stuff?” Briar asked Rosethorn, pointing to his mask and gloves. “If we’re to get these spots, we already got ’em, right?”

  “Wrong. You wear them unless you’re eating or drinking,” Rosethorn told him firmly as Flick took a seat. “No arguments. And please stop talking as if we just dragged you out of jail.”

  Briar grinned at her and began to eat.

  Flick ate a little and drank as much juice as Rosethorn could get into her. Then the sick girl went to bed. Already bored, Briar washed and dried the dishes. Rosethorn made willowbark tea. When it was ready, she woke Flick again. The girl protested drinking the bitter liquid but didn’t have the energy to stand up to Rosethorn at her most insistent. Once Flick had sagged back onto her mattress, Rosethorn covered her, stood, and stretched.

  Someone rapped on the door to the outer stair. The screened grate at adult-eye level slid open. “Rosethorn?” It was Niko.

  Briar followed his teacher to the door. Standing close, the boy heard her quietly tell Niko, “You knew. You knew a plague was coming.”

  Niko’s reply was a tart, “I didn’t know much.”

  “You knew something. Green Man keep us, every minute healers get to prepare—”

  “When you experience the absolute welter of bits and fragments that are the picture of time to come, you may scold. I only knew after midnight yesterday what we might face. Might.” The sharp tone in his voice grew sharper. “I also saw fire and riot that may or may not happen, here or elsewhere around the Pebbled Sea—street fights and a rebellion against a king. Shall I take ship and warn every port that something bad will happen this spring?” His voice had risen. He caught himself and fell silent. Taking a breath, he added, “I got most of the things you requested here in the city. Your healer’s oil must come from Winding Circle—why did you not have it with you?”

  “I thought all I would be facing was winter colds and pains and a shortage of chilblain salve!” hissed Rosethorn. “Not a brand-new disease! I should be working on a cure at Winding Circle right now!”

  “That’s enough,” ordered Niko softly. “I am sorry I questioned you.” He fell silent for a moment. When he spoke again, he did so in a whisper. “My dear, I admit that you will be needed desperately for your ability to unravel an illness and find its cure. Unfortunately, the gods placed you here. I know you dislike nursing above all things—but there is nothing we could have done to prevent it. Which do you think is more important: immediately isolating the few who were exposed to this child, or letting you go, possibly to bring infection to others?”

  “Don’t lecture me on the need for quarantine, Niko,” Rosethorn snapped. “In case you’ve forgotten, I wrote the quarantine instructions for Summersea! I know I have to stay here!”

  Niko sighed. “Have courage. There are other experts in this kind of work. I am sure that Dedicate Crane will find a way to identify the ailment and its cure.”

  “Yours is a happy nature,” retorted the woman. “Crane will need help. With that lordly manner of his, I doubt he’ll
manage to keep anyone else for more than a day.”

  Niko shook his head. “You can’t be that worried, if you can take the time to insult your colleagues. I’ll come back with these things as soon as I can.”

  Frowning, Briar stepped back as Niko closed the grating and Rosethorn turned away from the door. Somehow the boy had always known his teacher was uncomfortable with others. She seemed to like him well enough; she adored Lark, and enjoyed the company of Niko, Frostpine, and the duke. He even suspected she’d come to like the girls, but when it came to outsiders, she hid her softer nature and showed only thorns. Watching her handle Flick, he’d been surprised at how gentle she was. To hear she disliked working with people was no surprise. But Rosethorn was frightened?

  That frightened him.

  When the duke and his escort came to a halt at the gate of Discipline Cottage, a curly-haired dog two and a half feet tall at the shoulder burst out of the open door, barking wildly. Sandry and Tris dismounted with a splash, hurrying to get to their pet before he could terrify the horses. The soldiers grinned as the big dog raced around both girls, shrieking at the top of his lungs. Behind him came a tall, broad-shouldered girl with mahogany-colored skin—Daja Kisubo, another of Briar’s housemates. Rather than go to tea with the duke or visit the market that day, she had chosen to stay home and assist her teacher Frostpine with a particularly complex piece of metalwork.

  “How did it go?” Sandry called over the dog’s noise.

  “Fine,” Daja shouted. She bore no sign of time spent in the forge, but wore a clean russet tunic and dark leggings. “The shield will be grand, once it’s cleaned and polished.” Her dozen braids were still wet from the bath; her round face was freshly scrubbed.

  Out of patience at last, a scarlet-faced Tris yelled, “Little Bear, down!”

  The dog Little Bear dropped to the ground and rolled onto his back, pawing the air.

  “I’m not washing him this time,” Daja informed Tris calmly.

  “Young ladies,” said the duke. The girls looked up at him. “Tell only Dedicate Lark what Rosethorn said—no one else. Once rumors get started …”

  “We understand, Uncle,” replied Sandry. Tris dipped a small curtsey. Daja looked from them to the duke, frowning.

  “Aren’t you coming in, your grace?” asked Lark from the cottage door. Like Rosethorn, she wore a green habit to show she served the gods of the earth. Unlike Rosethorn, Lark was tall and willowy, graceful rather than crisp. Her dark bronze face was catlike, with its small chin and wide cheekbones, and was framed with short-cropped black curls. The girls saw worry in her dark eyes as she glanced from them to their escort.

  The duke shook his head. “I need to speak with Honored Moonstream on a matter of some importance. Good day to you, Dedicate.” He bowed slightly in the saddle, then urged his horse forward. His guards followed.

  “You’re getting soaked, all of you,” Lark said, watching the duke go. “Come inside. Where are Briar and Rosethorn and Niko?”

  “In Summersea,” replied Tris shortly as the girls passed Lark. Little Bear would have followed, but Lark shook her head at him.

  “You stay and get wet some more,” she told him firmly. “Rinse that mud out before you come in!” She closed the door in his face.

  Once Sandry and Tris had shed their rain gear, they sat at the table with Lark and Daja. Sandry told them what she knew of the day’s events. Tris watched Lark, not liking what she saw. The laugh lines around the woman’s eyes and mouth had deepened; her lips were tight. She looked weary.

  “I don’t like this,” Daja said quietly when Sandry had finished. “Not at all.” Getting up, she went to the cottage’s shrine in the corner by the front door. With a hand that trembled, she lit the candles for health and luck and set a pinch of incense to burn.

  “I knew they had read omens for an epidemic,” Lark commented, watching Daja. “Moonstream summoned the full temple council and all the healers while you were gone and told us. Ah, I was being silly.” She scrubbed her face with her hands.

  “Silly how?” asked Sandry, putting an arm around her teacher.

  “It’s been three years since our last epidemic. I’d hoped it might stay that way forever. I don’t know how Crane’s going to manage without Rosethorn,” Lark said, getting up to make tea. “He’ll say she got herself thrown into quarantine on purpose.”

  “What has Crane to do with anything?” Tris inquired. None of the young people at Discipline Cottage liked Crane, the mage who was also first, or head, dedicate of Winding Circle’s Air Temple.

  “He and Rosethorn are always set to finding the nature of any new illness and creating a remedy,” explained Lark.

  “He and Rosethorn work together?” asked Daja, shocked. “They hate each other.”

  “I didn’t say they liked it,” replied Lark with a tiny smile.

  Little Bear crept in the back door, looking as meek as a thoroughly soaked large dog could look. His ears were down; his tail gave the tiniest of wags. Since the mud had been rinsed from his coat, no one told him to go. As Lark poured out tea, the dog trotted over to them. Something made him rock back on his haunches and whine deep in his throat.

  “What?” Tris demanded, wiping her lenses with her handkerchief.

  Little Bear circled the table, sniffing each girl. He whined again.

  “You don’t get fed until this evening,” Daja said curtly.

  The dog trotted into Briar’s room; a moment later they heard him whimper. Coming to the door of the main room, Little Bear barked sharply.

  “Briar’s not coming,” Sandry told him, her mouth quivering. “Now stop it.”

  “I don’t see how he can know Briar’s not coming back,” remarked Daja impatiently. Frightened by the other meaning of what she’d just said, she added hurriedly, “Not right away. He’s not coming back right away.”

  Sandry and Lark made the gods-circle on their chests.

  Tris thrust herself away from the table so hard that she knocked over the bench on which she sat. Struggling to pick it up, she cried, “It’s their own fault! What were they doing mucking about the Mire anyway? Everyone knows the poor breed disease!”

  Sandry and Daja held their breath as Lark gazed soberly at Tris, raising her eyebrows. Even Tris knew she had gone too far. Her face was beet red with embarrassment and fury, but she met Lark’s brown eyes squarely.

  “If they could afford decent places to live, and expensive health spells, they would not be poor, then, would they?” asked Lark.

  That made Tris look down. She scuffed her foot along the wooden floor.

  “I know you are upset,” Lark continued in that quiet, disappointed tone that made the girls wish they could hide. “You four have not spent a night apart since you came to us, and the spinning of your magics has made you closer than siblings. But you must not let distress make you cruel. Rosethorn is there because it is the way of the Circle to help all, not just those who can pay. Briar went there because that is the soil in which he grew.”

  With each word Tris seemed to shrink a little more. Lark never scolded them.

  “She didn’t mean it,” offered Sandry, hoping to make peace.

  “Whether she did or not is beside the point. No one asks to live in squalor, Tris. It is just that squalor is all that is left to them by those with money.” Lark stood, her shoulders drooping. “When I got the wheezes, what the healers call asthma, I couldn’t work as a tumbler anymore. The only place I could afford to live was the Mire.”

  She walked into her workroom and closed the door. Tris ran upstairs, sniffling. Sandry went into her ground-floor room as Daja walked over to Briar’s open door. Little Bear looked up at her, tail fluttering. Daja sat next to him and let the dog put his head in her lap. Outside she could hear the light patter of rain deepen as it fell harder than ever.

  Steepling her hands before her face, Daja whispered the prayer her people spoke each night before they went to sleep: “Trader, watch over those of our kindred, in
port or at sea. Send them fair winds to speed them home.”

  3

  Some time after Niko had left, Briar heard the inside door rattle. Someone was pushing things through the lower flap: a large metal box with straps to hold it closed, jars of liquids and salves, a second water kettle in addition to the one that had already been in the room.

  Flick had woken from her doze and seemed restless. “What’s all that?” she asked as Rosethorn and Briar carried the new supplies to the table.

  “Things to help me care for you and to help others unravel what your pox is,” said Rosethorn.

  Curious, Flick got out of bed and came to sit with them. She propped her chin on her elbows and scratched one of the raised bumps on her cheek.

  “Stop that,” Rosethorn ordered. “If you feel well enough to walk around, you’re well enough to have some juice.”

  As Rosethorn poured a cupful for their patient, Briar ran his fingers over the metal box. Like the gauze screens on the outer door, it was written over with signs for health and purity, pressed into the metal and worked into the leather straps.

  “Sickness is a real thing, as real as air or insects,” Rosethorn explained to Flick, taking the box and undoing the straps. “We can’t see it without help, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. With the right magics and tools, you can uncover what disease has tainted.” Some of this she’d taught Briar over the last year. “That means we take samples not only from those with the disease but also from the ones close to them. We hope to get a look at the early stages of the sickness, before it turns mean. I wish I’d thought to keep a grip on your friend Alleypup. We need him for this.”

  Rosethorn worked off the box’s tight-fitting lid. Inside lay stacks of square white cloth pads. Each was paired with an undyed bag that sported a paper tag on its drawstring. Beside those were flat plates made of glassy black rock and another stack of cloth masks. Briar also noted a tightly stoppered and wax-sealed bottle of liquid ink and a pair of writing brushes. All of these things were in a tray that fitted inside the box.