Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

Mariam managed a weak smile. “Of course. Anything for you, Linnet.”

Lin reached into her pocket and drew out the stone.

Use me.

Holding it lightly in one hand, she placed her other palm over Mariam’s heart. She could feel Mariam watching her as she let her mind spin away into that space of smoke and words, where letters and numbers hung shining against the sky like the tails of comets.

Heal, she thought, picturing the word in all its separate components, and then in its completeness, the pieces of gematry flying together to form the concept, uncovering the truth of what language had been formed to hide. Heal, Mariam.

“Oh!” Mariam’s gasp broke the silence, and the shadowy world fled from Lin’s vision. Mariam had a hand on Lin’s shoulder, and her huge dark eyes were wide. “Lin—it feels different.”

“Is the pain gone?” Lin demanded, not daring to hope.

“Not entirely—but it’s much less.” Mariam took a breath—still a shallow one, but less ragged than before.

Lin reached for her satchel. “Let me examine you.”

Mariam nodded. Lin retrieved her auscultor and listened to Mariam’s chest—the terrifying clicking and bubbling noises had faded. Lin could still hear a faint wheezing when her friend inhaled deeply, but at least she could inhale deeply. Some color had come back to her pale face, too, and the beds of her nails were no longer blue.

“I’m better,” Mariam said, when Lin straightened up. “Aren’t I? Not healed, but better.”

“It really seems like it,” Lin whispered. “If I try again, or try differently—I need to look at the books again, but Mari, I think—”

Mariam caught at Lin’s hand. “I’m well enough to go to the Tevath, aren’t I? However long this lasts?”

Lin bit back an assurance that of course this would last. She could not be sure, and knew she should not raise Mariam’s hopes unreasonably. But her own hope felt as if it were pressing against the inside of her chest like a bubble of air. For so long, nothing had worked to help Mariam—to have helped her at all, even just a bit, seemed a reason for optimism.

And more than that. It seemed a reason to believe that all she had done, all the choices she had made with Mariam’s healing in mind—perhaps they had been the right ones? She had reached the limit, she knew, of what she could do with the knowledge she’d gleaned. But there was more to be learned from Qasmuna’s book . . .

“Lin?” Chana appeared at the door, looking apologetic. “I’m not sure about the tea, Lin, could you look at it—?”

Lin felt a wave of impatience. Chana knew perfectly well how to make willowbark tea. She slipped her brooch into her pocket again and followed the older woman to the kitchen, where a kettle was boiling away on the stove.

“Chana, what—?”

Chana turned to face her. “It’s not the tea,” she hissed, waving away Lin’s question. “I just heard. The Maharam is at your house. With Oren Kandel. They’re looking through your things.”

“Now?” Lin felt faint. She had expected some sort of reaction from the Maharam to Prince Conor’s visit, but had been anticipating being called to the Shulamat, or perhaps even waylaid and scolded in the street. For the Maharam to enter an individual home without permission spoke of a situation he believed to be extreme indeed.

“I must go,” she gasped, and fled, Chana’s worried look following her to the door. Lin raced back through the Sault, cursing herself for not having hidden the Qasmuna more carefully. She could have taken it with her, rather than merely slipping it beneath her tablecloth. She had been foolish, careless. She was shivering with anxiety as she passed through the Kathot, where long tables were already set up in preparation for the Festival tomorrow night. Silver braziers of incense hung from the trees, and the air was redolent with the smell of spices.

When she reached her house, she saw that the front door was flung open, yellow lamplight spilling out into the street. Shadows moved against the fabric of her curtains. She raced inside, only to feel her heart tumble into her slippers.

It was as she had feared. The Maharam stood by her kitchen table, from which the cloth had been removed. Oren Kandel stood beside him, looking smug; his smile widened when Lin came into the room.

Laid out on the table, like a body ready for the autopsy knife, were all her books—Qasmuna’s tome, of course, and the pages the Ragpicker King had given her. Even the scatter of mostly useless books on medicine and spells she had bought long ago in the market, or at Lafont’s, were there—everything she had collected in the desperate hope she would find answers among their pages.

Lin lifted her chin. “Zuchan,” she said. The formal term for a Maharam; it meant He Who Communicates the Word. “This is an honor. To what do I owe this visit?”

The Maharam struck the floor with his staff, nearly making Lin flinch. “You must think me quite an old fool,” he said coldly. Lin had never seen him look like this: the rage on his face, the disgust. This was the man who had sentenced his own son to exile for his studies into the forbidden. Lin felt a small sliver of ice lodge in her spine. “The Prince of Castellane comes marching into our Sault, our sacred place, because you invited him—”

“I never invited him,” Lin protested. “He came of his own accord.”

The Maharam only shook his head. “Your grandfather, as much bad as there is to say about the man, has never made the denizens of the Palace feel that they are entitled to enter here. The Crown Prince of Castellane would hardly have come marching up to your door had you not let him think he was welcome to do so.”

“I did not—”

“How long has he been giving you books?” the Maharam snapped. The rage in his voice was a pure flame; Oren seemed to be lapping it up, like a cat with spilled milk. “You came to me, asking to see the books in the Shulamat, but you were not satisfied with my answer, is that it? So you went behind my back, in defiance of the Law?”

“The Law?” Lin’s voice shook. “The Law says that above all things, life matters. The life of our people matters, for if we were gone, who then would remember Adassa? Who would open the door for the Goddess to return?”

The Maharam gazed at her coldly. “You say those words, but have no idea what they mean.”

“I know what they mean to a physician,” said Lin. “If we are offered the means to save a human life, we must seize it.”