Diannah, Duchess Setigera had been holding the marble mortar long enough that the cold stone felt warm. She worked the pestle methodically, grinding crushed, dried herbs to powder. Fresh herbs were more efficative for medicinal purposes, her Grace – or rather ‘Caidrin’, as she’d insisted Diannah call her – had said. But the fresh stockpiles and garden were spent, so dry would have to do.
The leaves smelled like sage.
Sage prevents sausage meat from spoiling. I suppose it would do for fresh wounds, as well, Diannah allowed.
It was well into the last watch of evening, and she’d been at it since late afternoon. Her shoulders and back ached, but the monotony had worked. Her swirling thoughts and fears had dissipated, leaving her empty but calm.
“Your Grace?” a tentative voice queried from the door.
Diannah looked around, blinking, to find herself alone in the tiny room where the dried herbs were stored. “I’m not sure where she’s gone,” she told the young peasant girl clutching the oak jamb and peering past it into the room. “Have you tried the great hall?”
“Nay, your Grace. It’s you I been seeking. There’s a lad asking for you.”
Someone who couldn’t be expected to seek her out, then. Probably one of the patients. Nodding, Diannah rolled her aching shoulders, wiped her hands on her divided skirt, and followed the woman to the hot and airless kitchen.
The guard at the postern opened the exterior door, pointedly not looking at her as she passed, and closed it. Diannah heard the clunk of heavy bolts laid in place, and knew herself abandoned.
Off west, toward the river, a frog wailed in the night. From the east, the direction of the open gate to the manor’s courtyard, around the corner of the manse came the sounds of humans walking, talking, even singing softly near the fires. From the arrow-slit windows of the darkened wards came occasional moans…and sometimes screams. But back here, the shadows were empty.
I’m outside the manse and alone, Diannah realized with a painful thump to the back of her breastbone. The fog of fatigue that had weighed down her thoughts dissipated in a wash of fear as her heart stuttered in her chest. It was suddenly all too easy to remember her conversation with King Dirk Alzarin.
“Is anyone here?” Diannah whispered, her throat dry as if she’d had nothing to drink all day.
She’d started to back toward the door when a slim shadow separated itself from a gutted woodshed near the treeline.
It’s not a lad at all, Diannah realized when the ascetic, grey-eyed figure dressed in doublet and trews stepped into a pale wash of moonlight.
“J’Lian,” she whispered, starting forward, her hands reaching to prove through touch this was no spectre. The sword, bloodstained clothing, and tales of ‘Havoc’ style tactics performed by a group of Roenish guerillas made clear her foster sister’s enterprises of the past fortnight, and that her twelve years of lessons were being put to use.
But the figure flinched away, avoiding a sisterly embrace.
Diannah took a shaky breath, trying to exhale the hurt. It was J’Lian, after all. The stray cat her da had taken in had never tamed, and no one but Lania dared touch her with impunity.
“G’Lian,” the shadowy figure responded in a deeper register than Diannah had expected. “J’Lian’s safe across the Mirze.”
For a moment their mutual loss darkened the night, and Diannah wondered. Is it courage, what she does? Or does she think she has nothing left to lose? And what can I do about it?
YOU ARE READING
Havoc's Daughters
FantasyThe legendary mercenary once caused the Cumberan invaders so much trouble they dubbed him ‘Havoc’. But twenty years have passed. Peace has transformed the mercenary into a respected Roenish lord who fights most of his battles in Court. Now th...
