Havoc's Daughters

Chapter 6 - Night 1: Diannah - Stories in the dark

That’s enough for tonight.” 

Diannah blinked and looked up when she felt the light warmth of the lady healer’s hand on her shoulder, and only then realized the duchess was present and had spoken.She straightened, peeling her fingers from the pestle she’d be using.

Eleni, the exotic foreign woman who’d been stripping the inner bark from a pile of willow twigs, took the mortar with its green paste that had been sage, dipped a curtsey to Caidrin Alzarin, and left the storage room. 

Her back crackled as she stretched, but the pains of her body were distant, muffled with the horror she’d worked herself into exhaustion to forget. 

The wards were full:  men, women and children, and more than half of them her own people. Even in this little stone room off the pantry, Diannah was aware of them. She felt light-headed from the constant mantra of well-wishing, and had no time to pick and chose the recipients. But the focus of her efforts was the great hall, the ward where her father lay unconscious with an open wound that could bring fever.

Mother died of fever.

But this time I know. This time I can help. She renewed her resolve as she turned to face the lady healer. 

Despite her straight spine, the woman looked translucent with fatigue. 

Diannah added the wish that sleep would bring refreshment.

“You’ll want to see your father before you retire,” said Lady Caidrin, pinching the flame from the stub of candle on the workbench. “Let’s take care of that first, shall we?”

The ward was dark, though a candle burned at the far end where a pair of peasant women kept watch. Lady Caidrin carried a tallow wick, and by its rancid light Diannah examined first her father’s face, then his leg above the plaster. The shadowy mound heaped over his foot turned out to be a cinder cat, not a blanket. Diannah shooed it away and it went, but from the way it melted into a dark corner she guessed it would be back as soon as she left. That was all right, though. That the beast could do no harm was one of its properties. By the same token it could work only minor mischief, and had to return anything it ‘borrowed’. 

Da was unconscious yet, and the foot was warm without being fevered, but the warmth might as easily have been due to the cinder cat. 

She closed her eyes, sighing a prayer of relief. As she stood she caught the gleam of candlelight on eyes.

Blade.

She ignored him, but felt the touch of his gaze long after the ward was out of view.

The lady healer led the way upstairs to her own room, which was untenanted except for a rather large red-brown and black-striped wildcat sprawled haughtily in the middle of the bed.

“Accommodations are limited, I’m afraid,” Lady Caidrin offered when Diannah hesitated in the doorway. “This and the library are the only two rooms not given over to other purposes at this point. I could have a pallet made up for you in the library, but…it would be best if you stayed with me.”

Diannah nodded acquiescence. She eased around to the far side of the room, between the canopy bed and the stacks of stored furniture, to perch on the rail of the box frame containing the down mattress. With a suppressed groan she leaned over to remove her boots. She didn’t usually wear boots indoors, but they were practical enough. Judging by the healer’s small collection of footwear, her feet must be as slender as J’Lian’s. 

The cat condescended to sniff the hand Diannah reached out to it, but he was not interested in being petted and stalked to the balcony. The gauze curtains hung limp, unruffled by even the faintest breeze, but prevented night insects from entering. From the ledge the cat leaped to a jutting cornice, and thence made his way up to the roof.