The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [44]
By then Gwairyc could see even worse sights without feeling sick. Instead he merely felt shamed, as if he’d sunk even lower in the world by simply knowing enough herbcraft to act like the apprentice he nominally was. Still, once the muleteer was lying on a pad of blankets with his ankle wrapped in clean bandages, and his pain eased with one of Nevyn’s herbal mixtures, Gwairyc had to admit a certain admiration for the old man’s skill. When they were sitting by their own fire and eating a delayed dinner, Gwairyc told him so.
‘I wish we had chirurgeons like you with the army,’ Gwairyc said. ‘There must be naught that you can’t cure.’
‘My thanks, but I only wish that were true, lad. There’s many a foul illness that baffles my herbs, wasting diseases of the lungs, strange fevers from Bardek, and the like.’
‘I see. I’ve never been down on the southern coast, but I’ve heard about those fevers. Doesn’t make me want to go there.’
‘Well, even in Bardek the fevers are not what you’d call common.’ Nevyn paused, glancing away in thought. ‘Strange ills can strike a man down anywhere. In fact, my master in herbcraft told me once about a very strange disease that someone contracted not far from Dun Deverry. The patient—one of the king’s own riders—had been wounded in a fight against bandits. They’d finally cornered the bandits in an apple orchard, of all places, one where the trees had gone untended for years, and—’
‘Wait a moment,’ Gwairyc interrupted. ‘There haven’t been any bandits near Dun Deverry for a cursed long time.’
‘True spoken. This incident happened when my master’s master was young, or so he said.’ Nevyn paused to count something out on his fingers. ‘It must have happened not long after the Civil Wars, now that you mention it.’
‘Ah, now that makes more sense.’
‘Anyway, this fellow was a fine swordsman, but he and the warband had never had to dismount and fight among trees before.’
‘That’s doubtless why the bandits made a stand there.’
‘Doubtless, but would you let me finish?’
‘Apologies, my lord. Go on.’
‘So he was too used to trusting his skill. He was an arrogant lad, all in all, but he had reason to be, I suppose. He rushed in and got himself severely wounded. Well, my master’s master managed to stop the bleeding, and the fellow was a strong man, so he assumed that the captain—he was the captain of the king’s personal guard, you see—’
‘Silver daggers, weren’t they?’
‘That’s right. You’ve heard about them, then?’
‘Many a time.’
‘Well and good. That’ll shorten the tale. So just when this captain should have been starting to recover, a truly strange thing happened to his wound. It turned foul and corrupted, but in a way the chirurgeons had never seen before. The flesh turned black at the edges of the wound, like a bit of parchment held too close to a candle. The blackness spread, and the stench was truly horrible. Had he been wounded on an arm or leg, they could have amputated and saved him, but it lay on his thigh too close to the body for any such thing. It must have been a sickening thing, to see the corruption spreading through the captain’s body with naught anyone could do to stop it. Finally he died, so mayhap the blackness reached the heart. My master didn’t know nor did his master. The rest of the silver daggers called it evil sorcery, and for all I know, they were right.’
Gwairyc shuddered. The tale affected him far more deeply than it should have. He’d seen many a man die in battle and others die from wounds afterwards, but none like this, from some black rot that crept along, conquering new territory on a man’s body. It seemed to him that he could almost smell it, just from hearing the description, a rank acid smell like rotting meat. Well, it was rotting meat—the thought nearly made him gag.
‘Are you all right, lad?’ Nevyn was studying his face.
‘I am, my lord. My apologies. It just touched my heart somehow, hearing about Owaen dying like that. Or—wait—was that his name?’
‘Owaen?