Shadow War - Deborah Chester [62]
“My guards,” she replied, her voice a strangle. She was thinking desperately, trying to devise a plan to escape. All the while a derisive voice in the back of her head jeered at her: Oh, yes, how safe it is inside the palace. You may roam anywhere you please. Why not dismiss your guards entirely? But telling herself how stupid and naive she’d been did not help. This seemed to be a day of hard lessons.
He was eyeing her in a speculative way she did not like, obviously taking in the richness of her velvet gown and fur-lined cloak. Her veil had come loose in the struggle. She tried to pull it back in place, but it would not stay.
“Where is the healer, my lady?” he asked with a little more respect in his voice. “Is this his room?”
She nodded. “He went to make a potion for me.”
The thief pushed himself away from her with a scowl. He crossed the room in two long strides and came back again. “Agel, Agel, where are you?” he muttered, shoving back his tangled hair from his face. “How long has he been gone?”
“Only a few minutes,” she answered.
The thief, if he was a thief, grimaced impatiently. He seemed very nervous, and he was limping. She noticed his footgear was worn through as though he had walked a long distance. He looked half frozen as well. He had no cloak, and what remained of his tattered tunic was silk. One of his hands looked burned; the flesh across the back was puffed an angry red.
“This was the only window,” he said. “Tell me, is there more than one entrance into the infirmary? Or must I reach it by the passage outside?”
“I do not know,” Elandra replied calmly. She had revised her original estimate of him. By his speech, he was provincial but not lowborn. He looked worried rather than insane. A thief did not refer to his intended victim by name and fret because he had stepped out for a few minutes. She decided he meant her no real harm.
“My guards are outside in the passage. You must wait until the healer returns.”
He pulled at the back of his neck, tipping back his head in a weary motion. “There is no time,” he said.
Without further hesitation he went to the medicine cabinet and started picking through the bottles there, examining one after the other as though he could read the arcane symbols on the labels.
“Ah,” he said finally, lifting one to the light. “That will do for a start.”
Tucking it in his pocket, he started for the window.
“Wait!” she said. “What is your need, stranger? Why do you come here in this clandestine way, asking for our healer by name? Why do you hurry away, when you need care for your hurts?”
With one hand on the open windowsill, he hesitated. The thin sunlight slanted across his face, picking up the molded angles of cheekbone and jaw. His nostrils were etched fine, and there was a hint of tender fullness about his mouth.
The door opened without warning, and the healer walked in.
Startled, Elandra whirled with a gasp and pulled her veil across her face. The stranger dropped to a quick crouch, looking as though he would attack.
Only Agel kept his composure, although he stared very hard at the stranger for a moment. Then he shut the door as though his were an ordinary visitor. He glanced once at Elandra with a frown, then held back what he had intended to say.
“Well,” he said at last. “This is unexpected.”
“Agel! At last.” The stranger hurried to him and gripped his sleeve. “You must help me at once.”
“I am with a patient.”
“Gault above, don’t be an ass.” The stranger didn’t even throw Elandra a look, although Agel kept glancing at her. “Put her out, and listen to me. There can be no delay.”
“I will not dismiss her Maj—the lady,” Agel said severely. Red crept into his face, and Elandra could have throttled him herself. The idiot would give her away yet. “Her well-being is of the utmost importance.”
“Nothing is more important than what I need you to do.”
But Agel was drawing back with a stern shake of his head. He looked angry, embarrassed, and disappointed. They obviously knew each other. In fact, there was a similarity to the shape of their