Redder than Blood by Tanith Lee

Author:Tanith Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2017-02-27T10:19:06+00:00

4

“They know of her, and have sent begging for her. She’s a healer and they’re sick. It’s not unreasonable. She isn’t afraid. I have seen her close an open wound by passing her hands above it. Yes, Skorous, perhaps she only made me see it, and the priests to see it, and the wounded man. But he recovered, as you remember. So I trust her to be able to cure these people and make them love us even better. She herself is immune to illness. Yes, Skorous, she only thinks she is. However, thinking so has apparently worked wonders. She was never once out of sorts with the child. The midwives were amazed—or not amazed, maybe—that she seemed to have no pain during the birth. Though they told me she wept when the child was put into her arms. Well, so did I.” Draco frowned. He said, “So we’ll let her do it, don’t you agree, let her go to them and heal them. We may yet be able to open this country, make something of it, one day. Anything that is useful in winning them.”

“She will be taking the child with her?”

“Of course. He’s not weaned yet, and she won’t let another woman nurse him.”

“Through the forests. It’s three days ride away, this village. And then we hardly know the details of the sickness. If your son—”

“He will be with his mother. She has never done a foolish thing.”

“You let this bitch govern you. Very well. But don’t risk the life of your heir, since your heir is what you have made him, this half-breed brat—”

I choked off the surge in horror. I had betrayed myself. It seemed to me instantly that I had been made to do it. She had made me. All the stored rage and impotent distrust, all the bitter frustrated guile—gone for nothing in a couple of sentences.

But Draco only shrugged, and smiled. He had learned to contain himself these past months. Her invaluable aid, no doubt, her rotten honey.

He said, “She has requested that, though I send a troop with her to guard her in our friendly woods, you, Skorous, do not go with them.”

“I see.”

“The reason which she gave was that, although there is no danger in the region at present, your love and spotless commitment to my well-being preclude you should be taken from my side.” He put the smile away and said, “But possibly, too, she wishes to avoid your close company for so long, knowing as she must do you can barely keep your fingers from her throat. Did you know, Skorous,” he said, and now it was the old Draco, I seemed somehow to have hauled him back, “that the first several months, I had her food always tasted. I thought you would try to see to her. I was so very astounded you never did. Or did you have some other, more clever plan, that failed?”

I swallowed the bile that had come into my mouth. I said, “You forget, Sir, if I quit you have no other battalion to go to.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.