Ginn Hale - Lord of the White Hell book Two

Javier had made his choice. And in his place, Kiram knew he would have done the same.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Kiram asked and he noted the relief in Javier's expression.

"Not here, not yet," Alizadeh told him. "But if you'd tell Rafie what we're doing I'd appreciate it."

"What are you going to be doing?" Kiram stood.

"We'll try opening the shajdi without Calixto's medallion. We should be done by the fourth bell."

"I'll tell Rafie." Kiram eyed Alizadeh. "If you hurt Javier I'll never forgive you."

Javier looked embarrassed and Alizadeh just laughed at the warning. "I wouldn't risk incurring your wrath, Kiram. Have no fear. Javier will be perfectly safe with me."

Kiram found Rafie in his office. Instead of the desk a businesswoman would have used a large marble pharmacist's table stood at the center of the room. Medical tomes and jars of dried herbs filled the shelves. Rafie was engaged in grinding dark violet flowers in one of several mortars. Kiram noticed the fresh, white prayer clothes folded at the side of the table.

Rafie was neither pleased nor surprised to be informed that Alizadeh had decided to begin Javier's training that afternoon.

"I should have known he wouldn't wait." Rafie handed Kiram a small clay jar. A milky cream filled the red interior. It smelled a little like cut grass.

"Halda salve," Rafie informed Kiram. "You should take it with you after your duke and my Bahiim are done."

Kiram resisted the urge to poke a finger into the cream. Instead he closed the jar and set it aside.

"I don't suppose any of this has made you rethink your decision to become involved with a Cadeleonian nobleman?"Rafie inquired.

Kiram suppressed a laugh. It wasn't as if he had carefully considered a relationship with Javier and then decided to become involved. Reason had nothing to do with any of it.

"It doesn't change anything." Saying the words made him feel stronger, more assured.

"Well, then you'd better pay close attention, because you may well need to know a few of these things when you find yourself fleeing into the Mirogoth forests." Rafie beckoned Kiram to his shelves and handed him a book titled The Physician's Garden: Poisons and Cures.

Kiram spent the next two hours learning to recognize and prepare the most basic of medical herbs. Halda for burns, duera for pain, yellow coinflower to cleanse, and sunvine to waken.

While Rafie displayed and explained the habitat and preparation of each plant, Kiram cleaned, peeled, and then ground the white pulpy mass of a halda root into a creamy salve. He plucked and crushed deep violet duera flowers with wax-dipped fingers to keep the juice from numbing his hands. Twice he mashed his thumb while attempting to crush the slick seeds of a sunvine. A pungent, earthy smell rose off the dried heads of the coinflowers as they steeped in hot water. Kiram wasn't sure if he liked the fragrance or not. Either way it made him sneeze.

Very distantly Kiram heard the city bells ringing. Rafie carefully siphoned the duera Kiram had made into a vial, then sealed that with a daub of black wax.

'There's enough in that vial to kill a grown man, you realize," Rafie said.

"I'll be careful," Kiram assured him.

"Yes, you should be very careful if it comes to that." Rafie gazed intently at Kiram. "Cadeleonian beer will hide the taste and color of duera and so will a beef stew, but remember that duera burns off if it boils."

Kiram wasn't quite sure of what to say. He couldn't imagine poisoning someone, but clearly Rafie could. Perhaps he even had.

Rafie met his shocked silence with amusement. "I'm not telling you to go out and murder people, Kiram. I'm just telling you how it can be done-either to you or by you. Someday you may need to know."

"Haveyou needed to know?" Kiram couldn't keep from whispering despite the fact that they were alone.

"Yes, I have," Rafie replied. "And fortunately I reheated the stew enough to boil off most of the duera before I ate it. I was dazed for most of a week but I survived."

Before Kiram could pursue the subject farther, Javier leaned in through the doorway. His hair looked as if it had been whipped by storm winds and his skin shone, both with a sheen of sweat and the pink glow of a slight sunburn. That, combined with Majdi's red coat and the sword he wore, lent Javier the definite look of a sun-beaten pirate.

"You look like you've just come back from sea."

"I feel more like I've been walking on the sun," Javier said.

Kiram could see his fatigue in the way he leaned against the doorframe. His muscular arms hung languidly and his dark lashes shadowed his eyes. Kiram thought he hadn't seen Javier look so tired and pleased with himself since he took the Grand Champion's cloak at the autumn tournament.

"We've finished. Alizadeh wants to know if he can have those clothes now."

Rafie scooped up the clothes and withdrew to the garden without comment, leaving Kiram and Javier alone.

Kiram picked up the jar of halda salve that Rafie had shown him how to make. "You need a bath and a bed."

"Are you offering yours?" Javier asked.

"You know that I am."

Javier's lips parted as if he would make some flippant remark. But then he simply smiled.

Kiram led Javier along narrow back alleys, avoiding the busy crowds thronging Gold Street. After a day of so many surprises he felt that he, as well as Javier, needed the quiet and peace of empty spaces. A black crow flew above them but it didn't make him feel protected as it once would have.

Javier walked unusually close to him, perhaps too tired to restrain himself. As they passed under flowering almond trees, their arms brushed, their shoulders touched. Heat radiated off of Javier's skin and the smell of sweat hung in air.

"You're quiet," Javier commented.

"Just thinking."

"About anything I would understand? Or is it all pistons and steam chambers?"

"It ought to be, but no." Kiram wanted to tell Javier that he was worried for him and for himself. Instead he said, "I was just wondering what I should pack ahead of time so that when we have to flee for Yuan in the middle of the night I'll be prepared."

"Really? What were you considering?"

"A heavy coat, or two light ones?"

"Probably all three. You're terrible with the cold." Javier looked thoughtful. "You know, we'd be wiser making north to the Mirogoth lands. The border is closer and Cadeleonians are common enough there not to attract too much attention."

"I'll fit right in with all the Cadeleonian mercenaries and Mirogoth wild men."

"If we rubbed a little kohl around your eyes, got you a few bracelets and rolled you in the dirt you could pass for one of the Irabiim."

"I'll pack dirt and bracelets along with my coats then." Kiram smiled as if they were both joking, but he knew that they weren't, not really. Humor made the thought of exile easier to face. If it happened, then it would happen. Brooding wouldn't stop that.

The perfume of honey wafted over them from the Kir-Zaki candy shop. Kiram's mother waved from the door. Kiram waved back but then pulled Javier through the house gates before either of them could be asked to sample the sweets. In the courtyard Kiram dodged his sisters' invitation to lunch, assuring them that he and Javier had already eaten.

"Andyou two have been to the Civic Gymnasium as well." Dauhd gave Kiram a knowing grin. Kiram couldn't believe that word of his encounter with Musni had gotten around so quickly. Siamak's silent, reproachful glance assured him that it had, and no doubt the story had become more interesting in the retelling.

"We didn't have a chance to sample the baths while we were there and it's been such a hot day. We both need to wash before we could offer any decent company." Kiram began backing towards the house.