Ghost Fields - Book One of The Fields of Mendhavai Trilogy

Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

True to my word, I kept Danu’s cup full through the night. I continued my diligence after the meal by circulating him through the affair where nearly everyone we met made a toast he was obligated to drink to. I found Danu to be a very merry drunkard, and soon he plopped down with Captain Lauda’s men to play dicing games while singing loudly off key to every tune the musicians played.

I’d left him there and begun to help clear the tables when Peps appeared at my side.

“M’Lady,” his whisper was near inaudible. “Yer needed in th’ infirmary.”

I glanced at him questioningly. My good humor was quickly replaced by concern. The poor man’s face looked drawn and haggard and I’d never seen him looking so confused. True it was late, past midnight, though many still continued the festivities, but his was more than normal tiredness. His eyes seemed to glow angrily in the low light from the lamps and hearths. I gestured for him to take the lead and we slipped quietly out of the hall.

I stopped in the doorway. Peps posted himself outside the infirmary across the hall where he could get a good view of what was going on; when I wasn’t standing in his way, at any rate. I watched curiously, unnoticed, for several moments.

Veyga was stooped over one of the cots grumbling to himself with a curious mixture of anger and annoyance. I tensed; in a corner, several people in long flowing purple robes of various shades were gathered around a table eating hungrily from the tray at its center. I counted five, three women and two men who looked tired and worried. They were bony and frail, tattered as if they had suddenly been picked up by a gust of wind and blown about like leaves in the fall to land at our doorstep. Their robes hung lankly from their shoulders and they all ate as though they’d been without food and rest for several days. The lower hems of their robes were darkened with wetness and their feet were all wrapped in warm woolen rags. I glanced at the hearth where several pairs of shoes were laid out to dry. Occasionally they cast concerned glances toward Veyga and the cot but appeared to know enough to leave the Healer to his duties. Else, he’s already reprimanded them for meddling and ordered them fed to keep them out of his way, I thought with an inner grin for the Healer.

I couldn’t see who lay in the cot but, judging by the layers of quilts over the person, he or she was quite ill. Veyga did not leave the cot-side; he’d already had all his medicaments and a bowl of steaming water moved to a table near his elbow.

I hovered in the doorway, my body growing more tense by the moment; I was loath to become noticed. And I really, really did not want to get mixed up in this. It’d been such a pleasant evening. I wanted to end it that way and this matter appeared ready to upend the whole thing. I took a deep breath.

“Come, come, my Lady. You can’t dally there all night,” Veyga said without even turning before I could release the indrawn breath.

I let it out in a puff and resigned myself to losing that grand feeling of fleeting happiness that had been with me since the ice cracked. I was the Lady of these holdings and it was my responsibility to take care of anything that came up, no matter what it interrupted or how distasteful I found it. I shook my head in annoyance and stepped into the room. At Veyga’s spoken words the faces at the table had turned toward me.

One of the women, a tall willowy blond, swallowed her last bite hastily, sipped some wine to wash it down then cleared her throat and stepped forward. She bowed to me, quite lower than protocol called for with even the lowliest peasant and nearly fell over with dizziness before she straightened. I caught her by the elbow, perhaps gripping a bit too tightly, and led her to another cot, a little away from all the concerned and prying eyes.