E. Tubb - The Terridae

He added, "If it is a matter of other business I will be pleased to help."

"A boy," said Dumarest. "A mute about ten years of age. You know him?"

"Anton? Yes."

"He was hurt and I wondered if he'd called here for treatment."

"It is possible," said Pandion. "I have not seen him myself but I have been standing here only a short while. You know him well?"

"No, but I am concerned."

The old monk smiled with genuine pleasure. "He may have asked for help. If so Carina Davaranch would have attended him."

She was tall with cropped hair forming a golden helmet over a rounded skull. Her brows were thick, shadowing deep-set eyes of vivid blue. Her mouth was hard, the lips thin, carrying a determination matched by the jaw. A woman entering her fourth decade yet appearing older than she was. Her hands with their bluntly rounded nails could have belonged to a man.

"You need help?" Her eyes met his own, lifted to the dried blood on his scalp. The dull green smock she wore masked the contours of her body. "You'll have to sit-you're too tall for me to reach."

A man cried out as Dumarest obeyed, pain given vocal expression from a figure stretched on a table to one side and flanked by two others wearing green. Both were males, neither young, monks now busy closing a shallow wound. There was no sign of the boy.

"An accident," she said, noting Dumarest's attention. "A carpenter was careless with a chisel. Now let me look at that head of yours."

He smelt her perfume as she leaned over him and wondered why she had chosen to use it. A defense against the odors natural to such a place? A desire to assert her femininity? Backing, she reached for a swab, wetted it with antiseptic, washed off the dried blood.

"Hold still!" The sting was sharp but quickly over. A spray and it was done. "Just leave it alone for a while and you'll have no trouble. If you can afford to pay for the treatment put it into the box."

A gesture showed where it was. As he fed coins into the slot Dumarest said, "How long have you worked here?"

"I arrived on the Orchinian ten days ago. A mistake but I'm stuck with it and I don't like being idle. The monks were willing to let me help."

"Did you treat the boy?"

"The mute? Yes. He has a bruised ankle and minor lacerations but he'll be fine in a few days if he gives it rest." She added, "A pity. A fine boy like that. If he was mine I'd turn harlot if there was no other way to buy him a voice."

"Don't blame her."

"Her?"

"His mother. I've seen her-she's dying."

"I didn't know." Carina looked down at her hands then met Dumarest's eyes again. "Was I so obvious?"

"No." He changed the subject. "What brought you to Shard?"

"I told you-a mistake. I was on Zanthus and two ships stood on the field. I flipped a coin and the odds were against me. Luck, too-I chose the wrong one. Well, thank God I've money to get away from here. And you?"

Dumarest was in trouble unless he found his stolen possessions. Shard had no industry, no easy source of natural wealth. He had been lucky but to live for weeks in the hills required gear and supplies he no longer had. Without money he was stranded and to be stranded was often to starve.

He said, "I'll make out."

"I'm sure you will." Her fingers were deft as she touched his wound. "And maybe you'll learn to duck next time."

"I'll try."

"You do that No! Wait!" Her fingers held him down as he made to rise. Strong fingers which quested over his skull, the lines of his jaw, lingering on the bones of cheeks and eyebrows. He thought of a surgeon searching for fractures or a sculptor molding a mass of yielding clay. "I'd like to paint you," she said. "Will you sit for me?" She sensed his hesitation. "I'll pay," she added. "It won't be much but I'll pay."

Across the room the man who had cried out rose to sit upright on the edge of the table. He was sweating, his face drawn, haggard. Against the cage of his ribs a broad swath of transparent dressing glistened over the neatly sutured wound.

Looking at him Dumarest said, "Have you treated anyone today for multiple lacerations? A man, middle-aged, skin torn on the face, back and shoulders."

"No."

"Has anyone else?"

"I've been on duty since dawn." Her fingers fell from his cheek as she stepped back from where he sat. "We've had a woman with a cut lip, a man with two broken fingers, three kids with burns and scalds, a girl who'd swallowed poison. A quiet day. Maybe the infirmary treated the man you're looking for."

"Could you find out?"

For a moment she stared at him then, without comment, left the room. From an annex he heard the blurring of a phone, her voice, a silence, her voice again. Returning, she shook her head. "No."

"Thanks. I owe you a favor."

"You can repay." She loosened the fastening of her smock. "You can take me home."

Home was a studio set high under peaked eaves, a place bright with windows admitting light which shone on the flaking walls and bare wood on the floor-a loft which held a wide bed, a cabinet, tables, chairs, an easel at which stood the woman and a chair on which Dumarest sat.

It faced the foothills, the tangle of brush now a darker green because of the shifting light, a mass now ominous, menacing, with its hints of lurking dangers. An impression heightened by the dying sun, resting low on the horizon in a sea of umber and orange, russet and burnished copper. An angry sun dying with the speed with which it was born and soon to plunge the world into night.

"Earl! You moved!" Her tone was harsh with genuine anger. "How can I capture your mood unless you hold still?"

A rebuke she had won the right to give and he froze again, eyes searching the brush. Jarl could be lying among the brambles, torn, bleeding, waiting for death. Or he could have found a hole in which to hide until it was safe to return to the town. That safety would come after dark when he would scuttle into a room somewhere to be tended by those with common interests.

But Kelly would be unharmed.

"Earl!"

"Sorry." The pose was awkward and he had held it for too long. "Can I stretch?"

"Later."

She was a martinet but she knew her trade. Her fingers moved with deft grace and her face was lost in the abstract world of a creative artist. A trick of the light turned a pane of the window in to a mirror and he watched the tilt and movement of her head, the helmet of burnished hair which framed the strong-boned face. She had changed and now wore a smock which hung loosely from her shoulders, bound at the waist with a scaled belt. A smear of paint on her cheek robbed her of years and she looked somehow young and full of childish enthusiasm.

The illusion was born of mirrors and light and he looked away to search again the brush, the approaches to the town. In the far distance something moved and he tensed, narrowing his eyes, but it was only a scavenger snouting the dirt. He had sat to long and would soon need to be going.

"Now?"

"Now." she said reluctantly. "Come and tell me what you think."

He paused before answering, studying what he saw. The clothing was correct; gray tunic and pants with high boots, the hilt of his knife riding above the right. The background was the same; the foothills beyond the window, the brush, the dying light painting the sky. But the man she had depicted seemed a stranger. The face was a mask fashioned of hate and hurt and a cold determination. A blend swamped by a ruthless savagery which gave him the air of a crouching beast of prey.

"Is that how you see me?"

"That's what I think you are." she corrected. "Not on the surface but way down deep where it matters. A basic animal fighting to survive in the best way it can. The only real difference between you and the rest of us is that you are good at it. Annoyed?"