Briar's Book Read online

  Briar stayed and watched as those not at the meeting—House workers and members of the Duke’s Guard, all gloved and masked—carried in more patients. By noon every bed was filled. Workers then laid pallets in the broad center aisle. Once those were made up, ten more sick were brought in. A screen was put around the coughing man. He had survived the night, but his breath now bubbled horribly in his throat.

  Intimidated by the new adults, not liking the fact that they tended patients without gentleness, Briar stayed beside Flick’s bed. He left only to fetch water, visit the privy, or fill cups from the big pot of broth and the bigger one of willowbark tea set up on the table.

  Outside the night’s storm continued: its winds moaned through the cracks in the walls. As workers brought fresh lamps to relieve the gloom, Briar made a happy discovery. The spots on Flick were shrinking and fading. When Rosethorn came back, he dragged her to Flick’s bed. “The pocks are going!” he said gleefully. “She’ll make it!”

  Rosethorn took Flick’s pulse, then tried the heat on the girl’s forehead and chest. “Still feverish, though not as much,” she remarked. “We’ll just have to see.” She looked up at Briar, who scowled at her calm way of receiving the best news he’d had in a while. “She may be on the mend. That fever is more dangerous than the spots—I don’t like how it resists the willowbark. In any event, you have to leave her for a while. We have work to do.”

  “Who’ll look after her?” demanded Briar.

  “The people who work up here, for now,” said Rosethorn.

  “But they aren’t careful. They just poke the sick ones and go.”

  Rosethorn frowned. Briar huddled into his clothes, expecting to get the rough side of her tongue. She looked to be in that kind of mood.

  Instead she took a breath and resettled the strings that held her mask around her ears, getting her temper in hand. “They’ll look after your friend as well as anyone. There is work for plant mages, and it must be done now.”

  Briar put his cups down with a sigh and followed her out. They passed three other large rooms like theirs on the way to the inner staircase. Those wards were filled too. More than half of the people who worked in them wore the blue habits of the Water Temple, a sight that comforted Briar. Though the new healer in their room, Atwater’s daughter, seemed all right, he had never met any of the others who worked in Urda’s House. What he did know, from Rosethorn’s tales of arguments with them over the winter, did not leave him with much confidence in the locals.

  “Why serve here, if they don’t like poor people?” he asked Rosethorn as they descended the stairs.

  She smiled crookedly. “Some care. Some do it because it’s fashionable these days to take an interest in the Mire,” she explained. “Some because it’s the only work they can get. Between guild charity funds and the duke, they’re paid a decent wage. Some cared once, but they’ve seen so much poverty that their hearts broke.”

  There was a sobering thought, Briar reflected, that you could love something and lose that love. Would he ever run out of love for green things? He brushed Rosethorn’s sleeve with his fingertips so lightly that she didn’t feel it.

  No, he thought with a smile. I’ll never run out of that.

  They passed the second-floor landing and the ground floor, ducking around people who carried supplies upstairs. At last they came to a vast cellar. This floor too was busy: storerooms of all kinds lined one side of a stone-walled corridor. Opposite them were the furnace and pump rooms that got water to the wards.

  Rosethorn headed straight to the last storeroom and entered. Briar, following, saw a large, brightly lit chamber lined from ceiling to floor with shelves. More racks of tall, freestanding shelves covered the floor. Jars of medicines sat on them, each container bearing a light coating of dust.

  “One of their people—who fled two days ago—sold all the medicines I brought here over the last eighteen months,” said Rosethorn, surveying the jars. “And the medicines I freshened up when I visited. Here’s what’s left, and it’s more than a year old. If I could find her I would … well, never mind. This is what we have. You and I will restore or add as much virtue as we can to every shred and drop.”

  Briar’s heart sank as he looked at all the shelves. “Can’t somebody else do it?”

  “Not like we can.” Rosethorn took fat pottery jars marked Willowbark from the shelves closest to her and placed them on a workbench at the front of the room.

  “Can we just get fresh from home?” asked Briar. This looked to be a long, dull, thankless chore.

  “The whole city wants fresh medicines. Do you think Urda’s House is at the top of the Lord Mayor’s list?” Rosethorn shook her head. “Stop dancing, and get to work.”

  Picking up a knife from the workbench, Briar used it to break wax seals and pry the stoppers from the jars. The bark inside was dry, brittle, and scentless. “This is more than a year old,” he announced, testing the bark with his magic, trying to judge how long it had been parted from its trees. “Like maybe two years.”

  “Of course it is,” Rosethorn said. The sarcasm in her voice was not for him. “Why should this task have anything easy about it?” She yanked two large baskets from under the worktable, one for each of them. “Dump the jars into these—we’ll do more if we go by basket instead of jar.”

  Once the baskets were full, Rosethorn lowered herself to the floor in a tailor’s seat. “What we do is become the queen tree, the one from which all other willows are born—”

  “Is there such a queen?” Briar asked, intrigued.

  Rosethorn gave him a stern look. “The willows believe it, and they’re the ones that matter. May I continue?” Briar nodded. She gave him an extra moment, just to be sure, then resumed. “Our magic will be the queen’s sap that we put into this bark, to make it young and strong again.”

  She removed a vial from her pocket. It held the oil he called “Weigh anchor,” because it was used to get a magical working started; Rosethorn named it “Facilitator.” She had taught him to blend carnation, lotus, and myrrh oils in just the right way, so their powers of strength, purification, and the penetration of obstacles were at their height. She had even given him a rare compliment on his most recent batch, telling him she could feel it from across the room. Now, knowing what came next, he offered his hands.

  She put a drop at the center of each palm, a third between his eyes. He felt them like tiny suns, their strength mingling with the magic in his blood. Rosethorn did the same to herself, then drew her basket onto her lap, steadying it with her oiled palms. Briar sat on the floor, his legs to either side of his own basket, placed his hands flat on the sides, then closed his eyes.

  She towered in his mind’s vision. He’d forgotten how it had taken his breath to see the tree-giant she was inside her pearly skin. He was stunned now, awed and a little frightened.

  He touched her knee with his foot and mind-spoke: You’re like a giant shakkan, with all that power in you.

  Tend your bark, she ordered him, not unamused.

  Briar drew away and thought about his own magic. So he was a queen willow now, was he? Better to be a king willow, he thought privately, trying to see it. Inch by inch he shaped himself: pale heartwood, gray bark riddled with fissures, long and wistful branches, lancepoint leaves. His power shaped him and made the veins in his leaves shimmer. The basket turned as clear as fine glass to his power; he settled himself in its contents, feeding the dry, weak bark as if it were his own.

  Enough. Rosethorn had touched his arm to speak to him. Hold the tree in your mind, but release this load of bark. We have more to feed.

  He drew himself in, opened his eyes, and checked the basket. Its contents shimmered in his vision as they would have had they just been cut from strong trees.

  Not too shabby, he told himself. Careful to hold the king willow in his mind, not letting its image break apart, he filled the jars he had emptied. I can do this, easy.

  He and Rosethorn worked on four baskets each, re
newing the bark’s power to banish fever and pain, then returning it to the jars for use. When they had revived it all, Briar examined the king willow. For a moment he’d wondered how it would be to sink roots and sprout leaves. The idea was tempting, a way to escape this house, with its smells and cross people and the dying. A way to sit alone and love the sun.

  Fighting the willow’s pull, Briar looked around. Someone had left them a tray with a teapot, cups, bread, and a thick wedge of cheese.

  “Food!” he said gleefully. The king willow’s temptation evaporated. “Ain’t soup neither!”

  “It isn’t soup either,” Rosethorn corrected him wearily. She struggled to her feet. “I hope there’s honey somewhere. I need it.”

  There was honey. Briar added plenty to the tea and watched sharp-eyed as she drank it, then gave her bread and cheese. Satisfied that she was eating, he gulped down his share of everything. When they’d finished, he felt just as fine as rubies.

  “Say, Rosethorn?”

  She stared at the bread in her fingers as if it were sawdust. “What?”

  “When’s your birthday?” It had come to him between willow baskets. To have the same birthday as Rosethorn—that would satisfy even Lady Sandrilene.

  Rosethorn smiled crookedly. “Longnight.”

  He blinked at her. That couldn’t be. “Longnight?” It was the hammer of winter, the night when all fires were doused and everyone prayed for the sun to rise.

  She nodded, her smile twisted. “Doesn’t that put paid to those who claim our birthdates determine our lives? What kind of plant mage has a birthday on the longest night of the year?” Rosethorn sighed. “I celebrate at Midsummer instead—though not too much, as I get older. Who wants to be reminded of birthdays?” Raising her slender brows, she asked wickedly, “Still haven’t picked one, boy?”

  Briar shook his head gloomily.

  “Well, don’t look to me for help. Mine was the gods’ own little joke. Now, where were we?”

  Next came wild cherry bark, as dried up and stale as the willow. After three baskets each of that, Briar felt a little tired, but not enough to stop, not when he saw the shadows under Rosethorn’s eyes. Instead he kept at it and gave lost vigor to coltsfoot, catnip, and plantain, all remedies for coughs or fever. Coming out of his trance after waking a basketful of red clover, he discovered Rosethorn was missing. He found her in the farthest corner of the room, her back to him and her hands over her face. Rosethorn—who terrified most of those with sense and everyone without it—was crying. Worse, she wept in the soft, dull way that meant she’d been at it for a while.

  He wrapped his arms fiercely around her waist, resting his cheek on her back. “I’ll find that light-fingered woman if I have to turn over every rock between here and the Bight of Fire,” he whispered passionately. “Wherever she took the coin she got from selling your medicines, it ain’t far enough to dodge me. I’ll cut her in bitty chunks for you, would you like that? You could grill her over a fire and then feed her to sharks, like you always threaten me. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “I’m sorry,” Rosethorn whispered. “I didn’t mean to do this.”

  To hear her apologize for a fit of weeps just as the girls did nearly broke his heart. He’d never guessed how much of himself he’d tacked to Rosethorn, who feared nothing and nobody. “I’ll give you her skin for a drape,” he offered. “Just tell me, and I’ll do it, I’ll bring you her nicking fingers in pickle juice. I—”

  “No,” she said, trying to smile as she turned to face him. “It’s not this—chore. Though I hate being down here without even a window, among all this, this mast.” The word meant the litter of leaves, bark, and twigs that lay on the ground in the forest; it startled him that she used it to refer to the contents of these jars. She wiped her face on her arm, smearing the dust on her cheeks.

  “Where’s your handkerchief?” Briar asked.

  Rosethorn shrugged.

  He undid the strings that held her mask and wiped her cheeks with it. Her skin was dry and slack, he noted. Even her lips were pale. She looked—the best word he could think of was “shadowed.”

  Shadowed, he thought again, an idea tickling his brain. She feels like a plant in the shade.

  He stepped back from her. Had there ever been a day when she had not gone outside? He had run to the Water Temple or the Earth Temple with her in the foulest rains, or just walked, following Winding Circle’s spiral road all the way down to the Hub and back out again as they stopped to examine every sleeping patch of flowers and vegetables.

  “Should we go on the roof?” he inquired.

  Rosethorn shook her head. “I’m not wilting for lack of sun, boy,” she informed him.

  He wasn’t convinced she was right about that, not entirely.

  Tears began to roll down her cheeks again. “Oh, dear,” she whispered, turning her face away. “I want to be home,” she said, almost to herself. “With Lark and the girls and even that idiot dog. I want people to stop—gabbling at me. I want my own workshop, and my own garden.”

  “I gabble at you,” Briar pointed out softly.

  “You don’t,” she said, once more wiping her face on her sleeve. “Not about cost, or when at the latest you have to get what you want. You aren’t telling me to obey you or make things clear to someone or do written reports every day. You don’t cough on me or vomit on me….” She took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t be weepy if I weren’t tired. And if you ever tell anyone I got foolish like this, I’ll deny it,” she added, trying to sound like the Rosethorn he knew.

  Briar reached out for the girls. Who at home was free? Not Sandry; she and Lark were rubbing oil into a length of undyed cotton like that used for masks and gloves. Not Daja either; she was helping Frostpine pour molten iron into a mold. Tris sat in Rosethorn’s workshop, a book open before her, staring glumly out the window as rain streamed down outside.

  Tris? Briar called silently to her. I need my shakkan brought here right away—that and some of the potted herbs growing in the house. Living plants, mind.

  You want me to come all the way down there with a load of plants? was the redhead’s indignant reply. On a day like this? She waved at the rainswept garden.

  Please, he replied solemnly. It’s important.

  She reached back along their bond, feeling his distress, and looked at Rosethorn through him. If she noticed the tearstains or the bleak expression in Rosethorn’s eyes, for once Tris was diplomatic enough to keep silent. Oh, all right, she said, exaggeratedly patient. It’s not like I have too much to do.

  Briar turned to Rosethorn. His silent chat with Tris had come and gone in a flash. “Look, we’re both wore out. We did enough to hold them for an hour, I bet. So let’s catch us some winks now, what do you say? I’ll do it if you will.”

  She gripped his earlobe. “Street slang,” she remarked.

  “You’re right, it is,” he said blithely. “How ’bout them winks?”

  “Are you trying to look after me?” she wanted to know.

  Rather than answer so tricky a question, Briar yawned. Rosethorn’s eyelids fluttered. “We should do more,” she said, her voice soft. She fell silent, deep in thought, and Briar went to borrow two blankets from another storeroom. When he returned, she was curled up in a corner, already napping. Gently he covered her. It was cold in the cellar. He wrapped the second blanket around his own shoulders and took down jars of stale blackberry syrup for stomach ailments.

  When Briar realized that his shakkan was somewhere near, he got to his feet. Rosethorn was still asleep; she had been up often in the night, trying to help the consumptive man. Briar put aside blanket and syrup and left the cellar. Halfway up the stairs, he remembered his cloth mask and settled it over his nose and mouth.

  “Goods coming in,” someone at the front door was shouting. “All back. Back!”

  I’m here, Briar heard Tris say in mind-speech. I hitched a ride with supplies from Winding Circle. The carter was only allowed to put everything onto the
house porch, though, and they’re making us go outside the fence. I won’t even get to see you, will I?

  Dunno, Briar told her sadly. Prob’ly not.

  Quarantined members of the Duke’s Guard kept the sick who were able to walk away from the door. Two blue-robed healers went outside, a blinding shield of white light raised before them like a wall.

  “Will that stuff hurt what I have coming in?” Briar asked Jokubas Atwater.

  The man scowled at Briar. “This is not your affair,” snapped the head of Urda’s House. “Get back to bed where you belong.”

  “That’s no invalid,” said one of the guards. “That’s Briar, Rosethorn’s boy.” He winked at Briar, taking the sting out of Jokubas’s behavior. “She’s got things coming in, lad?”

  Briar nodded. “Plants.”

  “The cleansing spell will not hurt plants,” Jokubas said irritably. “I thought you and she were enhancing our medicines.”

  “We are,” Briar said evenly, without another word. The white light ahead of the two healers trickled around and through a pile of crates, baskets, and a lone wicker container without a top.

  That’s it, Tris told Briar, watching through his eyes. I just grabbed what looked sturdy enough to survive the trip.

  When house staff walked out to get the supplies, Briar did too. The moment he peered into the basket, his spirits rose. Whether by accident or because she’d learned something from Briar and Rosethorn over the long winter, Tris had chosen plants Briar himself might have picked. The basket held not only his shakkan, but also one of Discipline’s many protective ivy plants. Tris had even brought the small herb garden from the windowsill of Rosethorn’s shop: marjoram, oregano, fennel, dill, and spearmint. All possessed some property of healing or protection in addition to the flavors they gave to food.

  You done good, Coppercurls, Briar called out silently to Tris, who was climbing into the wagon for the trip home. I owe you.

  Piffle, she replied, warmly pleased. Like I said, I’m not exactly busy.