LXIII
"I CAN'T! I can't!"
From the corner of the furnace and woodworking room where he smoothed the sideboards of the cradle, Nylan looked toward the stone steps.
"NO! I won't. I can't."
Beside him, Siret dropped the polishing cloth, then awkwardly bent over, trying to reach the scrap of fabric. Nylan retrieved it and handed the cloth back to her. "Here."
"Thank you, ser. I feel like I can't do much of anything easily-"
"No! It's too white! It's . .. AEEEiiiii..."
Across the room, Ayrlyn set down the lutar bridge she had been working on, nodded to Hryessa, and hurried up the stairs. After a momentary hesitation, Nylan lurched to his feet and followed Ayrlyn, not knowing quite why he did, but feeling that he should.
By the south door to the tower, Jaseen and Istril held a struggling brown-haired figure-Murkassa-dressed in a heavy jacket.
"Too white! It's too white!" Murkassa's flailing arm caught Istril across the cheek, but the silver-haired guard pinned the arm to her anyway, ignoring the red blotch that would be a bruise.
Ayrlyn stepped up to Murkassa, whose body was stiff, and whose screams had become incoherent, and touched her forehead. Murkassa jerked away, but Ayrlyn followed the movements, again touching her forehead.
After a moment, the dark-haired woman slumped, and the two holding her lowered her to the floor.
"Whew!" muttered Jaseen.
Istril put a hand to her cheek.
Ayrlyn bent down and stroked the woman's forehead. "You'll be all right. . ."
Nylan swallowed. Had he felt that unreasoning fear and rage? He studied the figure on the stones. Murkassa's face, though relaxing under the healer's touch, remained drawn. Or was it just thin?
Nylan thought for a moment. Wasn't everyone's face thinner? His trousers were looser.
"Hut fever," Ayrlyn said wryly, straightening up.
"Hut fever?" asked Istril.
"She's not built for the cold-not enough body fat when she came here," explained Ayrlyn. "We really don't have warm enough garments-or sufficient food for a good cold-weather diet. She can't stand the cold. She's afraid of it-with reason-but she can't stand being kept confined." Ayrlyn shrugged. "The conflict just got to her."
"What do we do?" asked the medtech. "There's nothing in the kits, little enough left anyway, and we're saving that for childbirths."
"She'll be all right." Ayrlyn sighed, then sank onto the stairs.
Nylan could feel her exhaustion, almost the way he had felt when he had worked hard manipulating the fields for the laser-or the powernet on the Winterlance. The Winterlance seemed a lifetime ago, and, in a way, it was.
"Just take her up to her bunk. She'll be all right when she wakes." Ayrlyn's voice was low and hoarse.
"You sure?" asked Jaseen.
The singer and healer nodded.
Jaseen turned and called to Weindre, who stood gaping by the stairs from the lower level. "Give me a hand."
"Istril's there."
"Get your rump over here. Last thing we need is Istril lugging weights up.stairs. Then we'll have someone else needing medical care we haven't got the supplies for."
As Weindre neared, Istril said quietly, "I'm sorry."
"You've got nothing to be sorry for," said Jaseen. "Someday it'll be her turn, and she'll need help."
As the two guards carried Murkassa up to the next level, followed by Istril, Nylan said to Ayrlyn, "Stay here. I'll be right back."
He hurried down to the kitchen and cornered Kadran. "I need some bread, something for the healer."
"Healer?"
"Ayrlyn used that healing touch on Murkassa-she went crazy, Murkassa, I mean-and Ayrlyn looks like she's been run over by a couple of horses."
Kadran frowned. "Just a little. You never lie anyway, ser, but some, they'd tell me anything to get more to eat, and we got to keep it fair."
"I know. I appreciate it."
"Here you go, ser." Kadran cut a thin slice from the end of a loaf cooling on the table. "Just try not to talk about it, or everyone will have a tale of some sort."
Nylan nodded wryly. "I'd gathered as much. Thank you."
Nylan carried the thin slice of the bitter and dark bread up the stairs, where he handed it to Ayrlyn.
The healer took it without speaking and began to eat, slowly. More slowly, the color returned to her face. "How did you know?" she asked after she licked the few crumbs from around her lips.
"I could . . . sense it. You sort of manipulated the whiteness away from her, but that takes energy."
For a moment, neither spoke as Jaseen and Weindre trudged back down the steps. Nylan moved to let them pass.
"We got her in her bunk. Istril's staying with her," Jaseen announced.
"Thank you, Jaseen, Weindre," said Ayrlyn.
"No problem. Want you around to do that healing if I need it." Jaseen offered a smile and a half salute. "We're going down where it's warm." After the guards had disappeared into the lower level, Nylan sank back onto the stone step.
"Thank you," Ayrlyn said.
"You're welcome." He added, "I saw Murkassa after you put her to sleep, and I was thinking how thin she was." He shifted his weight on the stone.
"Everyone's thin. Haven't you noticed that?" Ayrlyn glanced down at the entry space by the closed south door, then back at Nylan. "The fact that Istril, Siret, Ryba, and Ellysia are pregnant takes our minds away from it-that and the bulky clothes. We're not on what seems to be a starvation diet, but you need three to four times the food intake if you're active in cold weather, and we have to be active-for a number of reasons-like getting enough wood to keep from freezing. So we really don't have enough food."
"Is it ever going to get warmer?"
"It already is. The ice is thinner on the windows, and before long they'll stay clear all the time." Ayrlyn paused. "I worry about the food, though. Darkness knows what it will be like by early summer."
Nylan nodded. They needed more hares, more game . . . more everything. He knew what he was doing from now on.
"You can't do it all, Nylan," Ayrlyn said softly."
"You can't solve every problem."
"But I have to do what I can." His eyes met hers. "How could I live with myself if I didn't?"
After a moment, she looked down at the stones. Then she raised her brown eyes to his. "I appreciate that, but it will always bring you sadness, because people take advantage of it, just like they only respond to force." Her fingers touched his hand for an instant, and he could feel the warmth that was more than physical-and the sweet sadness-before she dropped them.
He nodded. "I know. So do you."
Their eyes met for a moment before he looked away. Why was she the only one who really understood? Or was she?
After another long moment, he asked, "Do you need anything else?"
"No," Ayrlyn answered with a faint and enigmatic smile. "The bread was fine. I don't need anything else to eat."
Nylan nodded again, and helped Ayrlyn to her feet. "I have to get back to woodworking."
"I know."
Again, he could feel her eyes on his back as he went down the stone steps to the lower level.