Selfer considered. “Mounted, yes, if I send along one of my cohort. We could transport the bodies on pack mules and be there and back easily by nightfall.”
“Very well,” Dorrin said. “Who is from that vill?”
“Just me and Piter here,” the older man said. “Jen was my cousin.”
“Then, Captain, find this man something less conspicuous—” The first man was wearing a gray silk shirt, embroidered blue-velvet doublet, a satin scarf around his neck and a black velvet cloak draped over all “—and do what is needful.”
Within the half-glass, the two from Kindle were on their way home, with the bodies of their dead and the escort; the other freed prisoners had agreed to stay as servants for the time. Two claimed skill with needlework; Dorrin assigned them to restyle Verrakai finery to more practical garments.
Now she must deal with the younger children, still up in the nursery. That took much of the afternoon, conferring with the nurserymaids and interviewing the children. Dorrin had little experience with children; these seemed normal enough, and she took the maids’ word for their character.
Except for one, Restin, a nine-winters boy, whom the maids said had been a rambunctious, difficult small boy but had “improved” after a long illness. She’d noticed Restin doing exactly what he was told—never complaining, never arguing, always mild and biddable.
Always watching her. Something about him made her uneasy, and she could not define what it was except his eyes seemed too adult, too knowing, for a nine-winters boy. Was he actually older, within the Order of Attainder, only pretending to be nine? She called the oldest of the nursemaids out of the room.
“Restin—are you sure he’s only nine winters?”
“Yes, ma—my lord. He does seem quite the little man, doesn’t he? But it’s his way, not his age. Some children, you know, ‘specially them as has the death-sickness, they change. The fever, his mother said.”
Cold ran down Dorrin’s spine. “The death-sickness?”
“It’s like they’re dying, long afore the crisis. Sickly, weakening. Then the fever takes them. Then the priest prays over them—the only good I ever hear of them.”
“Where?”
“They take ’em to the old keep, when the fever comes, to save the other children sickening. Two or three hands of days, it is, and when they come back, they’re different. Stands to reason, my lord. It’s the same with black-foot and red-spot and lump-jaw, all those ails children get. Like as not the child’s changed. Curly hair straight and straight hair curly. Only with death-sickness, they’re quieter, easier to manage, more grownup.”
They would be, if they were in fact adult minds—adult selves—in a child’s body. Adults biding their time. Adults who—she could hardly imagine this—would kill their own children to disguise themselves.
“When was Restin so sick? How often does the death-sickness come?”
“It’s mostly before they lose their milk teeth,” the maid said. “But sometimes after. Restin—it was five winters back, same year as Lord Carraig died.”
Dorrin shivered. Her father’s older brother; she remembered them both, too well. Could it be Carraig looking at her from Restin’s nine-winters face? “How many of the children here have had the death-sickness?”
“We’ve been worried about Mikeli; he’s pale and not growing well this past year. That’s an early sign, often. His mother bade us watch him closely. He’s four winters; I can show you—”
“What about older children, the ones sent off to Vérella?”
The maid frowned and began counting on her fingers. “Kosta, he’s twelve winters, and Berol, he’s eleven. Rolyan, Pedar—it’s strange, my lord, but boys get the death-sickness more than girls. I said once to my lady that maybe girls were stronger and she slapped me to the floor. But Syryan, she had it. A right little fireball she was before, all temper all day long, but after as ladylike as you please.”
And Dorrin had sent Valthan off with the prisoners thinking the adults would be the worst problem, that most of those children were not yet skilled in magery. Five children’s bodies that might—every instinct told her did—conceal adult intelligence, experience, and magery.
How long had it been going on? She remembered now one of her older brothers who’d been very sick and afterward seemed different. How many generations? Were some of those minds even older, passed down from one generation to another all the way back to Old Aare?
And what was she going to do about it? Her oath to the Crown required that she eliminate the threat from Verrakai. Carraig, if that’s who really inhabited Restin’s body, fell within the Order of Attainder. But who could believe that? She had to tell Valthan; she had to tell the prince. And she had to protect herself and the other children from whatever Carraig might choose to do.
“Since Restin is so mature,” she said to the maid, “I will want to speak with him in a little. He will better understand the situation than some of the others, don’t you think?”
“Yes, my lord,” the maid said. “We’ve made him our helper, you know.”
That did not surprise her. Restin, even in the shielded nursery, would be able to use his magery to charm the nurses. “Send him to me after supper,” Dorrin said. “I’ll be in the dining room.”
She found Selfer and explained what she understood. “I cannot be certain without forcing Restin to reveal himself—there’s a phrase that may work—but I dare not wait to warn Valthan. They will not have made it to the main road today; we must send a courier.”
“What can Valthan do? Did your binding of magery include the children?”
“Yes, it did, but I am not sure how long those bindings will last in my absence. I’m not sure what else might work. Numbweed, perhaps. Its effects might dull the magery. I’ll ask—”
In the kitchen, Farin the cook, back at work with additional help from the freed prisoners, led Dorrin to the pantry. “In that locked box.”
Dorrin tried the keys she’d found in the basket of things taken from the Verrakai women. One opened the box. Inside were packets neatly tied shut, tiny jars and bottles, and a smaller locked box. The cook pointed. “That there’s numbweed to put in wine for the pain of wounds, and that’s gnurtz, for calming someone in a fever rage. It dissolves in sib, but not in wine. That box is powdered deathwish, grows on rotting logs in the forest. Only the duke is allowed to use it.”
“For suicide?” Dorrin asked. She was sure it was not that, but wondered what the cooks had been told.
“Oh, no,” Farin said. “But if someone’s dying anyway, in pain, ’tis said a few grains on the tongue will ease it more than numbweed and give an easy death. Not for the likes of us, of course.” She sniffed. “Just for the lords and ladies.” She went on. “Now, that there is boneset, you put it in sib if someone’s broken a bone and it’s said to heal faster. And that’s lungwort, steep it in hot water and breathe it for lung fever. Some says mix it with comfortweed is best, but my lady—she that was, I mean—” Another worried glance at Dorrin, who managed a smile. “She didn’t like to do that. Now this one is shaved hadjan bark, whatever a hadjan is, something from the south I think, good for proud flesh, they said.”
“And you mixed these things with food and drink here?”
“Aye, my lord, all but the deathwish, that we weren’t ever to touch.” She leaned closer and her voice dropped to a whisper. “My lady that was … one of the chambermaids said she had a box like this in her own room, hidden in a hole beside the fireplace, with this and more. They could have mixed things themselves but they wouldn’t stir sib where servants could see.”
“I see,” Dorrin said. She saw too many dire possibilities. “Do you know if this … gnurtz? … controls the magery of the person with fever rage?”
“Yes, it does,” Farin said, nodding vigorously. “They said—my lady that was and the Duke that was—for ordinary folk like us numbweed was the most we’d need to fall asleep, but gnurtz did the same for them, mind and magery alike. That’s why I put a little in the children’s food last night, to quiet ’em like you said.” Her brow furrowed. “That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?”