“No. I’m not. But years ago I had a friend like you.” I halted. The Fool had always refused to go to healers. He’d resisted anyone touching his body for such a purpose. I realized that might not be true for every White. “I’ll send for a healer, right away.”
“No.” She spoke quickly. Her voice was breathy with weakness and pain. “They don’t understand. We’re not like your people.” She moved her head in a feeble denial.
“I’ll do what I can for you, then. Clean and bind your wounds, at least.”
She moved her head. I couldn’t tell if she was acceding or denying me permission. She tried to clear her throat but her voice went huskier. “What did you call your friend?”
I stood quietly. My heart went to a very still place inside me. “He was a jester at King Shrewd Farseer’s court. Everyone just called him the Fool.”
“Not everyone.” She gathered her strength. “What you called him?” She spoke in a learned tongue, without accent, only the dropped words betraying her.
I swallowed fear and regret. This was not a time to lie. “Beloved. I called him Beloved.”
Her lips pulled back in what was intended as a smile. Her breath was foul with sickness. “Then, I have not failed. Not yet. Late as I am, I have done as he bid. I bring a message for you. And a warning.”
I heard a voice in the corridor. “Let me carry them. You’re spilling them trying to hurry.”
“I don’t think you should be following me.” Bee’s retort to Riddle was both tart and indignant. He’d followed her to track me. He was still Chade’s man. Probably Nettle’s as well, when it came to spying. Useless to try to avoid what was coming. But I could spare my guest a bit of humiliation. I took off my shirt and spread it lightly over her. She still gasped at the touch and then, “Oh, warm. From your body.” She sounded pathetically grateful.
A moment later Bee opened the door and Riddle came in bearing the little buckets. He looked at me in my woolen undershirt and then at the table. “An injured traveler,” I said. “Would you run down to the village and bring back the healer?” That would get him out of my way until I had time to wash and bind her wounds.
Riddle stepped in for a closer look. “She’s so pale!” he exclaimed. He studied her face. She stayed perfectly still, eyes closed, but I didn’t think she was unconscious, only feigning it. “She reminds me of someone …”
I didn’t let myself smile. I recalled now that he’d never met the Fool when he was so obviously a White. By the time Riddle knew him, he was the aptly named Lord Golden, a tawny man indeed. But this girl was as the Fool had been in his childhood: pale with colorless eyes and fine white hair.
Riddle’s gaze shifted to Bee. “And? You’re talking now?”
Her gaze flashed to me and then shifted back to Riddle. She smiled artlessly up at him. “Papa said I should try not to be so shy around you.”
“How long have you been able to speak so clearly?” he pressed her. She glanced at me again, seeking rescue.
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” I said, to hurry him away. It worked. He set the little buckets on the table and turned for the door.
“Bring Granny Wirk,” I said to his back. “She lives at the crossroads just on the other side of the Withy.” And she was older than most of the trees in the area and slow to move. A good healer, but it would take him time to return with her. And I hoped to be finished with my own ministrations by then.
Then the door was closing behind him, and I looked at Bee conspiratorially. “I know you couldn’t have kept him from following you,” I told her. “But do you think you can keep Shun occupied? Take her on a tour of the house that doesn’t bring her anywhere near here?”
She stared up at me. Her blue eyes, so unlike my own or Molly’s, seemed to look past my flesh and bones to the heart of me. “Why is she a secret?”
On the table, our guest stirred slightly. She almost lifted her head. Her voice was a whisper. “I’m in danger. Hunted. Please. Let no one know I’m here. The water? Please.”
I had no cup but there was a honey ladle among Molly’s tools. I supported her head as she drank three ladles of the cool water. As I eased her head back onto the table, I reflected that it was too late for me to call Riddle back. He knew she was here, and when he reached the crossroads, Granny Wirk would know we had an injured traveler, too. I pondered a moment.
Bee interrupted my thoughts. “We’ll wait a short time. Then let’s send Shaky Amos to follow Riddle and tell him that our guest felt better and left on her own. And not to bring the healer after all.”
I stared at her in surprise.
“It’s the best we can do,” she said almost sullenly. “If Riddle has already spoken to the healer, it will put any hunters off her trail. For a short time, at least.”