All Fall Down Read online

  For lack of anything better to do, I tried to calculate how long it might take for Frin to travel to Lystare and inform my superiors of my capture. By all rights he should have been able to take my mare, abandoned in Aunde, but there was no guarantee one of the other inhabitants might not try to lay claim to so rich a prize. Very well, I would allow that he would might have to walk. The tiny hamlet had not even been noted on my maps, but I had estimated it lay a little more than a hundred miles from the capital city. Walking at a brisk pace, a man might be able to achieve that distance in a week—possibly less, if he were able to obtain the occasional lift from a passing carter or merchant. Still, it would probably be some time before anyone with the means to do anything about it learned of my capture.

  And once they did, what then? Even if Frin had managed to commit the faces of the slavers to his memory, they had been very careful not to call one another by name during the raid. Their anonymity would no doubt protect them from any sort of reprisals. No, my only chance of salvation lay in someone traveling to the slave markets of Myalme and making inquiries there. Even then I was none too sanguine about my chances for rescue. Our sale had been a quiet, underhanded transaction. We hadn’t even been placed on display for the general round of buyers to see us. Who would ever know that a small group from Aunde, including a displaced physician of the Golden Palm, had been sold there one evening?

  As if to mirror my dark mood, the skies chose that moment to open up. For a few moments it seemed as if the heavy canvas that covered us would be enough to protect us from the deluge, but that hope proved short-lived. Once the material was soaked through, it began to drip upon me and everyone else in the back of the wagon. The other occupants scrambled to grab their blankets to protect themselves as best they could, while I once again offered the meager protection of my cloak to Elissa.

  From a storage trunk located immediately behind the driver’s seat, Dorus produced a broad-brimmed felt hat, which he grimly clapped on his head. However, he did not stop, instead slapping the reins across the horses' backs to increase their speed as best they could in the rapidly liquefying mud of the roadway.

  His haste led me to wonder whether we were drawing near to our destination. I hoped so. No matter what awaited us at the end of our journey, surely it couldn’t be any worse than the increasingly sodden misery in which we all sat. Beside me, Elissa began to shake with the cold. The poor girl had been taken in only her shift, which of course was completely unsuitable for the wet, cold weather.

  There wasn’t much I could do besides let her burrow up against me in a vain attempt to combine our body heat. Although I was better dressed than most of the other captives, in a plain but well-made gown of wool with detachable sleeves and a stout chemise of medium-weight linen, the garments didn’t do me much good once they were soaked through. At least I had been wearing my sturdy calf-high boots when the slavers captured me. They protected my feet much better than the low indoor shoes most fashionable women wore. But dainty slippers served no purpose in the rough life I normally led, and I saved such fripperies for the times I was back in Lystare and briefly engaged in the social whirl that seemed to swirl endlessly around my town-bound family.

  An increasing darkness outside the wagon told me that night would soon be upon us. I huddled in my cloak and wondered how much farther we had to travel. Certainly Dorus didn’t intend to keep driving on through the night? At some point the horses would need to rest. Besides, even in Farendon it was not entirely safe to journey on the road after darkness fell, and Seldd was a much wilder, less civilized place.

  But then the wagon shifted as we turned down a fork in the road. Beneath us the ground felt rougher, the way even more rutted—if possible—than the main road had been. I leaned away from Elissa to look past Dorus’ shoulder, but the falling rain and approaching dusk revealed nothing but a thick darkness. Then I saw a wavering orange glow that must be torchlight, shimmering through the rain. Slowly a high stone wall came into focus, a wall in which was centered a sturdy wooden gate. On either side of the gate stood a guard dressed very much like the men-at-arms who rode with us.

  Their swords remained in their scabbards. Obviously they recognized Dorus and his wagonload of fresh slaves. The casual way in which they greeted him made me wonder how often the steward was dispatched to Myalme to bring in another group of workers for the estate.

  The flickering torchlight did little to reveal our surroundings. We were now in some sort of courtyard; I could hear the wagon wheels rattle against stone, not churned mud. Shadowy forms of tall buildings seemed to rise around us on all sides, but I could not make out any architectural details, save to note that the castle—if that was truly what it was—apparently had been constructed of the native dark-gray stone that seemed to be the chief building material in Seldd.

  The wagon ground to a halt. Elissa looked up at me with wide, dark eyes. I wished I had more words of encouragement for her, but at the moment I felt quite as frightened and cold and uncertain as she looked. All I could muster was a fleeting smile that was little more than a grimace, and I could tell it did nothing to reassure her. She bit her lip and looked away.

  Dorus climbed off his seat and made his way around to the back of the wagon. At the same time, the two guards who had had outrider duty the entire trip dismounted and flanked him.

  “Out, then,” he said curtly.

  Although his accent was thick, I had no trouble understanding him. Well, that answered one question of mine, anyway. I was glad I had held my tongue throughout the journey. He was not the sort I would have wanted listening in on my private conversations.

  Awkwardly, our muscles stiff from the protracted journey, we climbed out of the wagon. The rain still beat down, but as we were all soaked through anyway, it didn’t seem to make much of a difference whether we were under the dripping canopy of the wagon or the open air. At least the ground under our feet was rough flagstones and not ankle-deep mud.

  From somewhere beyond the wagon several more figures appeared, a man and a woman. In the flickering torchlight it was difficult for me to make out their features, but they seemed to be somewhere in late middle age. They spoke a few words to Dorus in their native tongue, and he gestured toward the rest of the group from Aunde, pointedly not including me with the other captives.

  The woman nodded, and waved her hand toward the others even as she spoke a few words that none of us could understand. But her intent was unmistakable. She obviously wanted them to follow her.

  Elissa gave me a quick, frightened look. Confused, I began to move along with the rest of them, even though I was fairly certain I had been excluded from her direction.

  Dorus spoke immediately. “No. Not you.”

  Halting, I looked over at him but remained silent.

  “This way.” And he pointed toward the main keep and began to walk in that direction, the rain sluicing off his broad-brimmed hat as he did so.

  I had no choice but to follow, my mind racing with questions. Why would I be separated from the rest of the captives from Aunde? Hadn’t I been sold as a slave along with all of them? Why then would I not be taken where they were? Although I had no way of knowing for sure, I guessed that the man and woman were taking the other slaves to their quarters. It was far too late in the evening to be setting them to any tasks.

  But it certainly was not slave quarters I entered now. The shadowy form of the main castle keep swallowed up the two of us as we entered. Immediately there was respite from the relentless rain, but inside it was hardly warmer than it had been in the courtyard. Thick candles shuddered in their sconces as the draft from the open doors blew down the hallway ahead of us, and I shivered.

  The narrow corridor opened up into a larger hall, and in here at least a fire burned brightly in the enormous carved granite hearth at the far left side of the chamber. Evidently we had arrived not long past the evening meal, as I saw slaves still working to clear away the wooden plates and bowls and wipe down the three long tables t
hat stood in the center of the hall. I received a few curious looks as we passed, but this room was apparently not Dorus’ final destination.

  At the end of the hall opposite the hearth, a narrow flight of stairs curved up and out of sight, apparently leading to a tower of some sort. It was in that direction which Dorus headed, with me trailing ever more uncertainly in his wake.

  I usually prided myself in being of a practical turn of mind, of not giving myself over to fancies and speculation. Certainly that sort of behavior was not desirable in one who had to work with the sick or injured. In those situations one had to attend strictly to the here and now, or the patient would inevitably suffer. But I could feel my stomach growing tighter with dread as we mounted the stairs. For what purpose was I being led to this tower? I counted myself a woman of the world, and I knew how much at these people’s mercies I was. If I were to be used in the worst way a woman could be, this seemed to be the place to do it.

  Dorus paused on a landing, in front of a sturdy iron-barred oak door. He knocked, saying a few words in a questioning tone.

  The door opened, and a thin-faced boy of probably no more than sixteen or seventeen looked out. He seemed to answer Dorus’ question with another question, and he looked at me with some uncertainty.

  Then I heard another voice from inside the room, this one deeper and with the unmistakable tones of command. The boy stepped away from the door, and Dorus entered, indicating that I should follow.

  Not knowing what else I could do, I did as instructed. Behind me the boy closed the door, and I jumped slightly. Then I straightened and moved forward with exaggerated dignity, hoping that no one had noticed my uneasy start.

  The chamber was circular, as was to be expected in a tower room. It had no fireplace, but a brazier to one side helped a bit to offset the chill of the damp night. Faded hangings depicting hunting scenes hung on the stone walls, in another attempt to ward off the cold. On the floor was a surprisingly fine rug of Keshiaari weave. Two chairs flanked the high arched window on the far side of the room. From one of them rose a man.

  He was quite tall. I am not a slight woman, but the top of my head probably would not have even brushed against his chin. His nose had obviously been broken once and set badly. He wore a simple dark tunic, although a wool mantle held with a fine brooch of carbuncles and gold added a note of somber elegance to his appearance.

  I waited as he stood silent for a moment, staring at me. Although I would not consider myself vain—I had always been called the “handsome” Thranion daughter, as opposed to the “pretty” one—still I would have preferred to have a chance to change out of my filthy and sodden gown, to wash my face and hands and hair, before being subjected to this sort of inspection.

  He spoke then, in the common tongue. His accent was considerably better than Dorus’, although he still tended to burr his “r”s and add too much emphasis to other consonants. “Dorus tells me you are a physician.”

  Even as I took in the words I could feel a wave of relief wash over me. So this was why I had been hustled away from the other slaves. The chief slaver must have informed Dorus of my claims to be a member of the Order of the Golden Palm, and he had known that my skills would be needed here at the estate.

  “Yes, I am, my lord,” I replied, lifting my left hand to show the many-rayed sun tattooed on my palm. I could only hope that he would understand what the tattoo meant.

  Likewise, I was uncertain as to how I should address him. Dorus had of course not warned me that I would be meeting the lord of the manor. However, “my lord” seemed safe enough—and I seemed to recall that Seldd had a different system for its land-owning nobles than my own country of Farendon. In Seldd, there was a king, and then a vast group of nobles who held their own ancestral lands, all of whom were simply called “Lord.” There were none of the intricate hierarchies of my own kingdom, with dukes and barons and baronets and counts and who knows what all else, each with his particular form of address. I could still recall how incensed a particular duke had become when I had accidentally addressed him as “your Excellency” instead of “your Grace.” Luckily, I was the only person who could soothe his young wife’s morning sickness, and she had kept him from throwing me out in the street. Still, I couldn’t help but reflect that the Selddish way was much simpler.

  “I am Lord Shaine,” he said. He studied me for a moment longer and frowned. “Are there many women in your Order?”

  “Some,” I answered slowly. So that was it. Still, I was used to that sort of reaction, even in Farendon. Just because the founder of my Order had been considerably more enlightened in terms of seeing women as capable as men didn’t mean that the rest of society necessarily viewed the matter the same way. I could only imagine Seldd, backward as it was, would be even more prejudiced. I lifted my chin and continued, “Not as many as there are men, of course. Oftentimes it is difficult to convince one’s family that training with the Order is a respectable alternative for a woman.”

  “But not in your case.”

  While I did not feel entirely comfortable discussing such matters with a complete stranger—and one who technically owned me—I decided candor was the best policy. “Not when my father had two other daughters’ dowries to take care of, my lord.”

  That comment elicited a smile and a show of white if somewhat uneven teeth. “Well enough.” Then his expression sobered, and he said, “Then let us see if you can help yet another patient.”

  I grasped the satchel I had held in my right hand all this time and nodded.

  “This way,” he instructed, and then added, his gaze flickering over to Dorus, who had stood to one side throughout the preceding exchange, “That will be all, Dorus.”

  The steward inclined his head, but I caught the narrow dark glare he gave me before he turned to leave.

  Still, whatever the cause of the steward’s hostility, this was not the time to be worrying about it. Lord Shaine pushed aside one of the faded hangings, revealing another door that led to a smaller set of stairs. I followed him up the narrow steps, clutching my satchel grimly and hoping that I wouldn’t trip. There was no handrail, and I could only imagine that a stumble here would do little to reassure Lord Shaine of my competence.

  At the top of the stairs was another door, which he pushed open, even as he said, “Auren? I’ve brought a physician.” Then he moved into the room, and I entered behind him.

  The room was smaller than the chamber we had just left, but more elegantly furnished. Another fine rug covered the floor, and the hangings looked newer. The furniture had touches of elegant carving, and a pewter vase holding some last straggling autumn blossoms sat on the bow-legged table next to the bed. But noticeable beyond all that was the sweet-sick smell of diseased flesh.

  I looked down to the bed to see a pale-faced girl of probably no more than thirteen or fourteen, her black-smudged brown eyes enormous in her thin face. She gave me a listless glance and then shut her eyes again, as if she hadn’t even the strength for so slight an effort.

  Lord Shaine’s face was expressionless, but I could see the tension in his shoulders as he looked down at the girl. Then he glanced over at me and simply, “This is my daughter. You will heal her.”

  Chapter Three

  For a moment I could only stand there, staring at him. His tone of voice invited no argument or comment. Still, this was what I had been trained for…although I feared, from the smell in the room, that I might have been brought here too late to do any good.

  “I will examine her,” I said. “But I will need a basin of hot water and some soap first.”

  “For what?”

  I set the satchel containing my medicines down on the stone floor and spread my dirty hands before him. “How do you think her wound became infected in the first place?”

  He scowled, the line between his brows becoming more pronounced as he did so, but to his credit, he did not waste time arguing with me. Instead, he turned and shouted something down the stairs.

 
; Assuming he had called out to the young slave I had seen earlier, I made my way to the dresser on the side of the room opposite the bed and set my satchel down on the scarred wooden top. For necrotic tissue, I carried little with me that might help, although I had a tincture of poppy mixed with other herbs that could at least help her with the pain. For these sorts of injuries, the Order advised packing the wound with honey, as it seemed to inhibit the spread of infection and often actually aided in the growth of new, healthy tissue. Maggots were helpful as well, since they would eat away the diseased flesh and leave the sound portions of the limb alone.

  As I had thought, it was the young slave boy who came up the stairs carrying a basin of faintly steaming water, as well as a thick bar of yellow soap and a rough linen towel. I indicated that he should set the items on the dresser next to my satchel. He did as I instructed, and then disappeared back down the stairs. Ignoring him, I went to work scrubbing my hands, using a small brush I carried in the satchel to get the grit out from under my nails and the embedded dirt from my cuticles.

  Lord Shaine looked on in silence as I performed my ablutions. Once I was done, I set the damp towel to one side and picked up the small bottle that contained my tincture of poppy.

  “Auren?” I asked, casting a questioning glance at her father.

  He nodded, even as she wearily opened her eyes and gave me the unfocused look of one long lost in pain and fever. I would need to give her some willowbark tea as well, but for now the management of her pain was the most important thing.