A Time of Exile - Katharine Kerr [172]
Faced with this utterly unexpected fairness, Calonderiel could do nothing but agree to look them over, and everyone trooped out to the stables. The mares were indeed fine breeding stock, young, healthy, and handsome.
“Done, then, my lord,” Calonderiel said. “I’ll take them gladly in trade for the stud for the sake of peace between our two peoples.”
“Splendid, splendid! That gladdens my heart, good sir. Here, lad!” This to a stable boy, who was hanging round to stare goggle-eyed at the elves. “Get those mares on lead ropes and bring them out to the courtyard.”
As they were leaving the stables, Aderyn noticed a young man lying on the straw in an empty stall. Even though the day was warm, he was wrapped in a blanket, and his face was a deathly sort of pale.
“My lord?” Aderyn said. “What’s wrong with that fellow?”
“He’s dreadfully ill, I’m afraid, and it aches my heart, because he’s one of my sworn riders and a good man, too. Our local herbwoman has him lie out here during the day, you see. She says he’ll soak up the vitality from the horses, and it’ll help him.”
Superstitious nonsense, that, but Aderyn refrained from saying so outright.
“I happen to be a herbman, my lord. Would you like me to have a look at him? Maybe I’ll see somewhat she missed, like.”
“Gladly, good sir, gladly. His name’s Meddry. I’ll just take our other guests on into the great hall.”
For all that Lord Gorddyn called him a man, Meddry was really little more than a boy, about fifteen and most likely brand-new to the warband. He was far too thin and hollow-eyed, with his pale blond hair sticking with sweat in wisps to his pinched face. When Aderyn knelt down beside him, Meddry propped himself up on one elbow, tried to speak, then began to cough, the most horrible hacking deep cough Aderyn had ever heard a man give. He threw one arm around Meddry’s shoulders and supported him until at last he spat up—not rheum, but blood, bright red and clotted. Aderyn grabbed a twist of clean hay and wiped his mouth for him.
“Dying, aren’t I?” Meddry whispered.
“Not just yet, and maybe not at all.” Aderyn came as close to an outright lie as he could get. “We’ll see what we can do for you, lad.”
“I can spot false cheer by now, herbman.” With a sigh he flopped back down into the warm straw.
Mostly to check how much vitality his newfound patient had left, Aderyn stared into his eyes, then nearly swore aloud as he recognized the soul who in his last life had carried the name of Maer. At that point he remembered the strange womanlike sprite he’d seen hanging round Lord Gorddyn’s gates, and his blood ran as cold as the sick boy’s.
“You’ve got a strange sort of lover, don’t you, Meddry?”
His face turned first so white, then so fiery with shame that Aderyn knew that his loose arrow had hit the mark.
“You’ve got to leave her alone. She’s what’s killing you. Hush! Don’t try to argue with me. Just listen. She’s so desperate to please you that she wants to look like a real woman. She’s doing it by feeding off your life. I can’t explain any better than that, but it’s making you ill.”
In a stubborn burst of energy he shook his head no.
“We’ll talk more later. You rest here for now, and I’ll send one of your friends to you.”
Aderyn hurried into the great hall, where Calonderiel and the other elves were just finishing up their mead and preparing to leave. He took Lord Gorddyn to one side for a hurried talk.
“My lord, your rider’s close to death.”
Gorddyn swore and stared down at the floor.
“I might—just barely might, mind—be able to help him. Tell me, how long has he been ill?”
“Well, he didn’t come down with the actual fever until the spring, and he’s only been spitting up the blood for the last few weeks, but truly, he started acting strange months ago. Last winter, it was,