Maggie Furey - Harp of Winds

Tilda looked up to see a man of medium height and indeterminate years, his fair hair threaded with brighter strands of silver. His expressive face, though drawn and haggard with weariness, was lean and well proportioned/: and pleasing to the eye, but his light blue eyes were snapping with irritation. Without waiting for an answer, he snatched aside the blanket that covered the stranger and cursed. “Melisanda have mercy—what a ghastly mess! Are you dimwits so impossibly dense that you; can’t contrive a simple bandage? You might as well have left the poor bastard to bleed to death, and allowed me a decent night’s sleep for once. It would have come to the same thing in the end! At least he’s unconscious, so I won’t be plagued by the sound of his screams!”

All the while he had been talking, Benziorn was unpacking a bag that he carried with him, and handing his instruments to the girl who had gone to fetch him, who emerged from her voluminous cloak as a delicate pale-haired waif with a ruthless streak of efficiency. She immersed the instruments and bandages in boiling water while the physician cleaned the stranger’s wounds, all the while keeping up a continuous peevish grumble.

“His chest is no problem—the wound’s a slice across his ribs, not a stab, and his jerkin protected him . . . He’s in shock from blood loss, though—couldn’t you idiots have kept him warmer? Nasty head wound . . . If we move fast and we’re lucky, we might be able to save the ear . , . What’s keeping you, Emmie?” he demanded.

The blond girl simply responded with a smile. “Ready now, Benziorn!

“You! Whoever you are,” the physician snapped. “Fetch me more lights! Candles, lamps, whatever! Hurry!”

Tilda jerked upright as she realized that he was addressing her. Jolted into action by his peremptory tone, she scurried off to do his bidding. When she returned to place her handful of garnered candles, as instructed, around the head of the stranger, Benziorn was already stitching .with deft, economical motions. As she came close to him, Tilda noticed a familiar smell on his breath, and realized, with a shock, that the physician had been drinking, Dear Gods, she thought—what kind of place have I come to?

Jarvas surveyed his little kingdom, looking around at the scenes of squalor and poverty. Some three dozen families were camped within the hall, dividing the space with sagging partitions of blankets, sacks, or whatever came to hand. Children slept together like puppies in tangled nests of blankets, while mothers tended stewpots and sewed hopelessly at clothing whose original fabric was indistinguishable beneath rainbow layers of patchwork* Old folk, wrapped in cloaks and shawls, snored in corners or competed with steaming laundry for space at the fires, while groups of men sat cross-legged in the lamplight, gambling for pebbles with knucklebones. The topaz eyes of several cats blinked and gleamed in the firelight. Somewhere in the shadows, a baby cried. Every face was scarred and haggard with hunger and hardship.

Jarvas felt a presence beside him. Tilda was looking at his people with horror and pity on her face. “At least they aren’t starving now!” There was a defensive edge to his voice. “At least they aren’t freezing in the streets tonight!”

“There are so many of them,” Tilda murmured. Compressing her lips, she looked away. “Your precious physician is drunk she added in scandalized tones,

Jarvas nodded. “He usually is. Once, he was the best physician in Nexis. He made a comfortable living treating the merchants and such—until the night those hideous monsters struck.” He sighed, “Benziorn was away from home, attending a sickbed, when one of the creatures got into his house and slaughtered his wife and children. Ever since then, he’s been drinking—it cost him his house and his livelihood, and he was a stinking, starving wreck when I took him off the streets,” Jarvas shrugged. “We’re lucky to have him, though. Drunk or sober—he’s still the best!”

“I’m glad to hear it,” There was a bitter edge to Tilda’s voice. “I’d hate to think we risked our necks for some stranger, only to have him finished off by a drunken physician! Why did we do it? We must have been mad!” There was a note of shrill desperation in her voice.

Jarvas shook his head. “I’m blessed if I know!” At the time, it had seemed the only thing to do, but helping that one man had probably spelled the end of this refuge for all these others! “It might take a day or two for Pendral to find out who I am,” he went on grimly, “but after that, they’ll be coming here, for sure.” He sighed. “Get some rest now, Tilda. First thing tomorrow, I’ll send Emmie to fetch your son—then we need to start thinking about getting out of here!”

Tilda’s home was in the mare’s nest of squalid alleys, upcurrent from the great white bridge that leapt the river beside the Academy promontory. Having been sent by Jarvas to collect the streetwalker’s son, Emmie walked quickly through the baffling maze, shivering in the chill of a damp gray dawn. Today, the stout stick that she always carried for protection was being put to the use for which it had been originally intended, for her sturdily shod feet kept slipping in the deep layer of freezing, slushy muck that slicked the cobbles. The alleyways stank of rot and mildew and decay, of human filth and human waste. Emmie knew it well—the stench of utter poverty.

The dark hulks of damp, half-derelict buildings with boarded windows towered over her on either side, cutting off most of the leaden morning light and turning the narrow ginnels into threatening tunnels of gloom. On each side of her were doorways; some had cracked and rotting doors that hung drunkenly askew from a single rusting hinge; others were merely dark and gaping holes that might have concealed any amount of dangers.

Emmie hurried past these, her nerves strung tight, cursing Jarvas under her breath for sending her on such an errand. This was the safest time to visit these poverty-stricken haunts, for most of the inhabitants would be sleeping after their desperate deeds of the previous night, but Emmie felt uneasy. Though the alleys were deserted, she imagined hostile eyes in every gaping doorway. Glancing around warily and checking the knife at her belt, she drew her concealing hood more snugly over her tangle of pale gold curls, and walked on, repeating Tilda’s instructions to herself, over and over again. Gods preserve us! she thought. What an appalling place to raise a child! Suddenly, Emmie heard a bloodcurdling snarl. One of the tilting doors in front of her burst open, to reveal a huge and shaggy white shape, its lips wrinkling back to reveal savage yellowed fangs and drooling jaws, its eyes kindling with a menacing fire. Never taking those glaring red eyes from her, the dog slunk out into the street, plainly nervous but determined. Blocking her way forward, it broke into a torrent of guttural barking.

Emmie froze in her tracks, her heart hammering wildly, and took a firmer grip on her stick. Time seemed to stretch as she noted the knobs and ridges of bone that stuck out through the creature’s dirty, matted white fur—and the row of swollen dugs that hung from its hollow belly. Despite the danger, she felt her heart contract with pity for this poor starveling mother with a hungry litter to feed.

Emmie understood a mother’s instinct. She’d had a little one of her own, and another on the way, when her husband, Devral, a young storyteller, had been snatched by the Archmage’s soldiers and vanished forever from her life. The shock and grief of his loss had made her lose the baby too, and in the hardship that followed, her little daughter had died of a fever. Suddenly she was swamped by a wave of fellow feeling for the wretched creature before her. For all its size, the dog was young—full young to be a mother, Emmie thought, noting its gawky appearance and the huge paws that seemed to promise further growth. This was probably its first litter. Despite its skeletal, filthy appearance, its eyes were clear and its matted coat thick. There was no sign of mange or madness. In the pouch at Emmie’s belt was food—bread, cheese, and meat—intended for Tilda’s son. No doubt the animal had scented her provisions, and desperation had driven it to attack.