The Yellow Silk - Don Bassingthwaite [78]
It seemed like forever before Cado's footsteps returned. "Well?" asked Li. "Did he understand?"
"Yes," said the guard. "He said to get rid of you faster."
CHAPTER 11
On the ratty, threadbare couch, Veseene sputtered and coughed suddenly. Laera jumped up from her seat beside the fireplace and went to her. "Veseene?"
The old woman drew a dry, rasping breath. Tycho had left a cup of water beside the couch. Laera propped Veseene up a little bit and held the cup to her lips. Veseene sipped at it and nodded. Laera took the cup away and slid a folded blanket under Veseene's head to help her stay upright.
"Are you feeling better?"
Veseene gave a shuddering sigh. "Blessed Lliira, yes." She wheezed out another cough, but shook her head when Laera reached for the water again. "I have to be feeling better," she said with a thin smile. "I couldn't feel much worse than I did before."
"Tycho said to fetch an herbalist named Sephera if you needed her."
"Don't bother Sephera." Veseene's shaking hand slipped out from under the blanket that covered her and folded around Laera's. "She'd just lecture me. I'll be fine. How long have I been asleep? What time is it?"
"It's mid-afternoon." Laera squeezed Veseene's hand. The effort it had taken the old women to cast the spell of invisibility on Li had left her incredibly weak, but somehow she had managed to hide the worst of the strong tea's effects until Tycho had left. Laera had almost run shrieking after him when Veseene had begun to moan and writhe.
Veseene hadn't let her. "It will pass," she had gasped. "It will pass!"
And it had. Tortured twitching had faded to occasional shudders and Veseene had fallen into a restless sleep. Laera had curled up beside the small fire, staring into its luminous depths as if she could divine the future from them.
Veseene must have seen the questions she had silently asked the fire reflected in her eyes. Her grip tightened. "You're not so certain are you, Laera?"
Laera tried to find words and failed. She looked down at the worn floor and shook her head. Veseene released her hand, reaching up to bump her chin and nudge it back up. "Never look away, Laera. You have beautiful eyes. Looking away hides them when you should be using them to your advantage." Her hand fell back to the blankets, but her faded blue eyes remained on Laera's. "Why do you want to leave Spandeliyon, Laera? Why do you want to leave an easy life to become a wanderer?"
"I-" Laera started to look down again. She bit her lip and forced herself to look up. She did sink back, though, folding her legs to sit cross-legged, a pose Uncle Jacerryl had once told her was most unbecoming to a young lady of quality. Of course now Uncle Jacerryl was revealed for a thief and a smuggler-and she might not be a young lady of quality much longer. She sighed. "I wanted to leave so that I could be with Tycho. Because I thought he felt something for me." She crinkled her nose. "Now I know he doesn't."
"Don't be too hard on him," Veseene cautioned her with a smile. "He wasn't being very sensitive, but he was just flirting. I know it wasn't meant maliciously. Playing to the audience-any audience-is just second nature to a bard." Her eyes twinkled. "If you were giving lessons to a handsome young man, don't you think you'd flirt with him? Just a little bit?" Laera stared at her in shock.
"No!" she said firmly, but part of her rejected that answer almost immediately. She thought about the pose in which she had arranged herself for Tycho in the library and felt color rise to her cheeks. "Well, maybe," she confessed. "But I wouldn't want to hurt anyone!"
"Neither would Tycho." The old woman sat up a little more. "But even after you found out Tycho didn't feel for you that way, you still said you wanted to take to the road. Did you really think