Tredik gave him a grateful glance, both for finding a non-cash solution and for treating the debt seriously. He was of a man’s size, but still remained a boy in so many ways. Pel couldn’t remember having been that innocent. Tredik tucked the small bottle into his torn tunic, and made his escape.
He was the last of the brawlers to seek out Pel’s assistance. Mioklos’s son Nerry wouldn’t lose his left eye, but it had been a near thing. He was going to have one impressive scar, though it would never look as though it belonged upon the round and cheerful face that bore it. His sister Las was probably to blame for the entire mock tournament, whipping up their newfound patriotism into a frenzy. She had come out of the battle without a wound, and, Pel was sure, was lying her heart out regarding her involvement. The boys half admired and half resented her, seeing her as a pesty younger sister, but also, maybe, a future Tiger in her own right. Pel had known plenty of brave and fierce women who had fought for the Bloody Goddess. Please, he thought, may Las be a force for goodness—real goodness. He admired the Irrune for calling such a tournament, allowing any fighter to come forward and try their skill.
Pel had had few dealings with the Irrune since his return. The largely Rankene and Ilsigi population of Sanctuary had gone on with their lives as usual, trading and cheating, raising children, making love, building, eating and drinking, gossiping and arguing. It was splendidly normal in his eyes, a life he would never have foreseen taking joy in. Blasphemers, brutes, thieves, philanderers—so many would have merited death or punishment by Dyareela, but Meshpri—Meshpri loved them all. Pel had to work hard to live up to his new goddess’s altruism. But that was why she was a goddess, and he a poor, flawed mortal.
Maybe a roughed-up mortal if he didn’t pay attention to his potions! He went over to the altar where he had a beaker simmering over a candle. This medicine relieved the tightness of a weakening heart. It took two long days to prepare. Two pinches of heart root into the potion caused the liquid to foam up the sides of the ceramic beaker. As the bubbles subsided, the brew turned a bright red. Pel breathed a sigh of relief.
An answering exhalation made him jump. Heart root dust flew everywhere. He had been so intent on his preparations that he had not noticed the muffled shape just inside the door of the temple.
“Forgive me!” he exclaimed, hastily putting down the bottle of powder.
He glanced down into the beaker. A miracle that he had not accidentally dumped in more of the powerful ingredients. An over-measurement would have caused the potion to thicken and overflow spectacularly; plus, the stain would have been difficult to get out of the smooth stone surface of the altar. All was well. He turned his attention to his visitor.
The shape stirred slightly, and a pair of deep amber eyes rimmed with kohl looked out at him through the shadow cast by a fold of silky bronze cloth.
“You concentrate so deeply,” a husky female voice said. Pel didn’t recognize it. This was not Kadasah dressed up in camouflage. “I have been watching you. You are very careful.”
“Not so careful,” Pel said, with rueful humor. “I don’t normally ignore customers, M’sera … ?”
But no name was forthcoming. She was an Irrune; the accent was unmistakable, and she was tall. If he had been standing beside her, the top of her head would have been level with his mouth. The eyes studied him deeply.
“We … I … need someone who takes care of others. I hear you can keep a secret. Is it true?”
“I promise it,” Pel averred. “If you ask for my services, I will not tell anyone what passes between us. You pay for both treatment and confidentiality.”
“Under pain of torture or death?”
Pel eyed her, but the amber gaze didn’t waver. She wasn’t joking. “I have vowed to care for the sick and injured, though I hope not to have to suffer to help others. How may I aid you?”
The honey-colored eyes held steady for a long moment, as though making a decision. “I am not your patient. If you choose to come with me you must tell no one where you have been or what you have done. Do you swear?”
“Not to you,” Pel said. “To my patient, whoever he or she may be, and whatever it is the patient wants kept secret.”
A nod. “Then, come.”
“Wait,” Pel held up a hand. “I can’t bring my entire pharmacopaeia with me. What am I to treat?”
Another hesitation. “Infection.”
The sun had fallen behind the buildings. Long shadows dropped cool darkness upon Pel’s shoulders as he followed the woman between buildings. The last legitimate deliveries were being made, such as beer and provisions to the taverns. Pel caught a tempting scent of roasting meat wafting out of the door of one establishment. A patient of his, a fragile young woman whose persistent cough he had cured, raised a hand from the table she was clearing in greeting to him. He waved back, tilting his head toward her with an unspoken question. Before the young woman could respond his escort shot out a long, narrow hand from inside the folds of cloth, and grabbed his arm, pulling him into the shadows.
“Please do not speak to anyone,” she whispered. “No one must know where you are bound.”
Pel forbore to remind her he didn’t know where they were bound. “They will think I am behaving oddly if I don’t pass the time of day with them,” he told her, reasonably. “Walk ahead of me a few paces so we’re not seen together. I’ll keep an eye on you.”
The woman fell silent, then nodded. “All right.”
Pel hefted his sack of herbs and medicines, and wondered whether he was walking into a trap. His guide was not a young woman, and the rich fabrics spoke of someone who was well-connected at court. Everything about the silent shadow who flitted ahead of him in and out of lantern-light made him believe she was a noble, even royal. She was intelligent, too. She had picked a moonless night, one cooler than the last several, ensuring that most of the folk who would otherwise be sitting on their doorsteps or on stools outside of the inns moaning about the heat would have fled indoors.
His guess had to be at least partly right. Though the alleyways and narrow streets through which they passed were not ones Pel normally traveled, he knew they were approaching the palace. Naturally, she did not advertise their arrival by marching up the long approach to the well-guarded gate. Instead, she joined the slow-moving queue of suppliers and workers who trudged toward the dimly lit postern gate and the kitchens. Pel would have thought that one among them would have turned to notice the bundle of bronze silk among them, as distinctive as a jewel on a burlap sack, but not one of them looked up from his or her burdens. Either they were well schooled with beatings or threats to ignore the sudden presence of their betters, or she carried some magical device on her to conceal herself. No, it wasn’t magic, he realized, as he shuffled forward in between a barrowload of cabbages and a herd of goats hoping to get at the sweet-smelling green globes ahead of them. It was fear. He’d heard of the Irrune response to those who failed to heed their customs. Pel could almost scent the waves of dread as the silk-clad figure pushed by, heading for a corridor that led off the main passageway to the right. He was well-familiar with the smell, having inflicted it on hundreds, if not thousands, of sinners during his life as the embodiment of Wrath.