The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [20]
“Do you want to go home?”
“I don’t. There’s too much to learn here. I just wish I could get really dry and warm.”
“Well, it’s almost spring. Things will be better then.”
“The days are getting longer, truly.” Branna paused to extricate a clog from a particularly sticky lump of mud.
“And in a few days we’ll move camp,” Dallandra continued. “The ground will be cleaner in the new site.”
Sidro and Pir had pitched their newly-made tent on the edge of the camp, not far from the horse herd. When Dallandra ducked inside, she saw Vek kneeling on the floor cloth and leaning, face forward, onto a supporting heap of leather cushions. He’d come of age the summer past, and as was usual among the Horsekin, he’d been bald until that point in his life. Still short and straight, his hair clung to his dead-white skin. Sidro knelt beside him and wiped his sweaty face with a damp rag. Drool laced with pink stained the neckline of his dirty linen tunic.
“I do think the worst be done with,” Sidro said. “But he did bite his tongue afore I could get him turned over and sitting up like this.”
Branna hovered back in the curve of the wall to watch. Dallandra set her bag down, then knelt at Vek’s other side. When she laid her hand on his face, she found it cold and clammy. He looked at her out of one dark eye.
“I’ve brought your drops,” Dallandra said. “Let me just get them out.”
In response he let his mouth hang open. She rummaged through the tent bag and found the tiny glass vial, filled with an extremely potent tincture of valerian. It smelled horrible and must have tasted worse, but Vek neither squirmed nor made a face when she used the glass stopper to drip a small quantity into his mouth. She could see the cut on the side of his tongue—not big enough to worry about, she decided.
“You know this will help. Good lad!” Dallandra made her voice soothing and soft, as if she were speaking to a small child instead of a boy who was at least thirteen summers old. She was never sure how much he understood when he was in this condition. Afterward he could never remember.
Sidro handed her a cup of spiced honey-water. Dallandra helped Vek drink a few sips to wash the medicine down and the taste out of his mouth. She gave the cup back to Sidro, then patted him on the shoulder.
“You just rest now,” Dallandra said. “Sidro, will it be all right if he stays here with you?”
“Of course. Help me lie him down on those blankets over there. Pir be out with the horses, but he’d not mind anyway were he here.”
“I’ll help.” Branna stepped forward. “Dalla, you shouldn’t lift anything heavy.”
“Perhaps not.” Dallandra laid her hands on her swollen stomach, hanging over the waist of her leather leggings—she no longer bothered to lace them up in front. “This is the part about being with child that I hated before, feeling so bloated and awkward.”
“True spoken,” Sidro said. “But I’d put up with that again gladly to give Pir a child. He does so want one.” She smiled. “He’s not like Laz.”
“I’ve no doubt you’ll get your wish soon. You’re both in good health.”
“So did Exalted Mother Grallezar say. She did tell me that when one woman in a circle be with child, the rest be sure to follow. The smell in the air does induce fertility.” Sidro grinned and took a deep breath. “I do hope she be right.”
“She generally is,” Dalla said.
As if she’d heard, the female child in Dallandra’s womb kicked her, an unpleasant sensation though not precisely a pain, as she’d missed the kidneys—this time. Soon, little one, Dallandra thought, soon you’ll be out, and we’ll both be free of this.
Between them, Branna and Sidro hauled Vek to his feet. He threw an arm over each of their shoulders and let them drag him to the heap of blankets over by the wall of the tent. Once he was lying down comfortably, the two women came back to distribute the leather cushions and sit with Dallandra. Sidro ran both hands through her raven-dark hair, still too short to braid thanks to her humiliation of the summer before, and pushed it back