The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [141]
“Not by poison on a blade, if that’s what you mean. If dirt’s a poison, then that’s what it was, all right.”
By that time Gerran had woken. When he tried to turn over, Neb pushed him down again. “Lie still,” he said. “The worst is over, I hope anyway.”
“So do I.” Gerran’s voice trembled. He took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh.
“Ye gods, Neb!” Salamander stepped forward. “I never knew that you were a chirurgeon as well as a scribe.”
Neither did I. The thought struck him so hard that Neb couldn’t speak.
“My thanks,” Gerran whispered.
“Welcome, I’m sure.” Neb found his voice again. “It must hurt like a cold wind from the hells.”
Gerran mumbled something that might have been, “It does do that.”
“Just rest.” Neb patted his patient’s good shoulder. “Get as comfortable as you can, Gerro. You’ll be staying here for some days, by the way. You can’t ride until the wound heals, or you’ll open it up, and we’ll have to start all over.”
“Whatever you say,” Gerran whispered, but the words were clear enough to understand.
Neb turned away and saw Salamander smiling at him with an ironic twist of his mouth. The sight woke Neb up—he could think of it no other way, that he’d been asleep, and now he was awake. Close at hand? he thought. My wyrd’s been sitting here right in my hands all this time.
“That tunic, Neb,” Salamander said. “I suggest you might want to change it.”
Neb looked down at his front and found the linen streaked with blood and pus.
“So I do. Nicedd, don’t let him get up just yet. The pair of you can finish the mead in that flagon. When I come back, you can go get your dinner.”
“My thanks, my lord,” Nicedd said. “I’ll bring you back some, too.”
“I’m not a lord.”
“But I thought—” Nicedd stared at him, utterly confused. “Doesn’t the king—ah, horseshit! I don’t know what I’m saying.”
Neb recognized him. He’d forgotten the lad’s name, but he did remember that he’d known him once. Nicedd had been a silver dagger, then, too, somewhere in their mutual past.
“You’re worn out, is why,” Neb said briskly. “It doesn’t matter what you call me, I’ll be back in a bit.”
Neb left his saddlebags with his supplies in the chamber, then left to change his shirt. Salamander followed him upstairs. He didn’t speak until Neb had shut the door to give them privacy.
“How did you know the wound had gone septic?” Salamander said. “When we were still down in the ward, I mean. It must have been obvious once you got that filthy shirt off.”
“Do you remember when the dragon came to the Red Wolf dun?” Neb said. “Well, Penna saw some wrong thing in his etheric double. I happened to be nearby, and she told me about it. Then later I realized that if an injury showed up on the etheric, it must leave some sort of trace in the aura. There were a couple of people at the dun who had some small hurt—a cut finger and the like—but I couldn’t see anything in their auras. So I discarded my idea until today, when Gerran rode in. I know now that a small hurt leaves no mark. His injury was serious enough to show. You could see the trouble plain as sunlight.”
“You could. I couldn’t.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. I thought of that myself, but the aura revealed no secrets to me, even though I could see the aura itself, of course.”
In sheer excitement Neb turned away and strode over to the window. Down below, servants were hurrying across the ward, carrying lanterns against the gathering night. He could smell roasting meat and woodsmoke from the cookhouse, comforting everyday smells and sights that calmed him. You knew what Clae’s wyrd was the moment that Gerran said he’d train him. Why wouldn’t you know this? Salamander joined him at the window.
“Ebañy, I realized somewhat today, somewhat truly important.”
“So I thought. Could it be that you’re meant to be a healer?”
“Just that. It has to be my wyrd, if I can see things that a dweomermaster like you can’t.”
Salamander started to speak, then looked away, so moved that Neb briefly feared he might weep.
“What?” Neb said.
“In an odd sort of way,” Salamander