Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

Then there was Mayesh. An exception to all rules, as usual, he was allowed to come and go freely in the night hours; the Palace needed him, and that superseded all other Laws. But when royal business was done, no matter the lateness of the hour, Mayesh could not remain at Marivent, nor make use of its lavish guest rooms. He was still Ashkar. He would be returned to the Sault like an unwanted package, to seek the solitude of his small house on the Kathot. It would make even a good man angry, and Lin did not think her grandfather was a good man.

She and Oren had reached the city gates, which had been propped open. Mez Gorin, the second gate guard, waited there, his polished wooden staff in his hands. (Staffs had been chosen as the weapons of the Shomrim long ago, since they looked harmless to the malbushim, but were deadly in well-trained hands.) Mez, always kind, had a tangle of brown hair and caterpillar-thick eyebrows. He smiled when he saw Lin, and gestured that she should pass through the gates.

She approached, leaving Oren behind to sulk. Lin could glimpse the bustle of the Ruta Magna through the stone arch, which was etched with a line of a prayer in Ashkar: DALI KOL TASI-QEOT OSLOH DAYN LESEX TSIA. Grant us pardon in this hour, as Thy gates are closed this night. The lines referred to the gates of Haran, the great city of Aram, but gates, Lin supposed, were gates, all the world round. Through these particular gates, Lin could see a scarlet carriage waiting in the road, its doors blazoned with golden lions.

A Palace carriage. Just like the one that had fetched her and Mariam from the square a few days past, but why on earth was it here now? She stared at Mez, puzzled and incredulous, but he only shrugged and nodded, making a shooing gesture, as if to say: Go on, then, get in.

At night, when the city was dark, Marivent glowed upon the Hill like a second moon. In its light, Lin made her way to the carriage—she could see a driver in red livery, perched high on the seat in front—and opened the door, clambering a little awkwardly inside. She was glad for her comfortable tunic and trousers. How noble ladies in all their layers of skirts and petticoats managed these things, she had no idea.

The inside of the carriage was red and gold velvet. Candles in bronze holders were bolted to the inside walls, but only one was lit. And sitting across from Lin, beetle-browed and scowling, was her grandfather Mayesh.

“Zai?” Lin cursed inwardly; she had not meant to use the old nickname. “What on earth—?”

The carriage lurched forward, swerving into the traffic on the Ruta Magna. The Broken Market was in full swing, the glare of naphtha torches turning the stalls to indistinct shadows.

“There is a patient who needs your help,” Mayesh said mildly. “At the Palace.”

“So that’s why all . . . this was necessary?” Lin waved her hand as if to encompass the whole of the last fifteen minutes. “Why you had to send Oren, instead of coming to my door yourself? You knew I wouldn’t want to treat anyone at Marivent?”

“No,” he said. “I assume your Oath of Asaph means something to you. For a Physician should mind not rank, wealth, or age; neither should he question whether a patient is enemy or friend, a native or a foreigner, or what Gods he worships. To heal is as the Goddess commands.”

His tone made her bristle. “I know the words,” she said. “Had you bothered to attend my Oath-Taking ceremony—”

She broke off at the scratch of a lucifer. It flared up with a small flame, which Mayesh used to light another of the tapers inside the carriage. The new light illuminated Mayesh, and the dark red-brown stains smeared across the chest and sleeves of his usually immaculate robes.

He said, “I sent Oren because the blood would have excited comment. I did not want that.”

Lin had gone tense. It was a great deal of blood—a dangerous amount. “Whose blood is it?”

Mayesh sighed. Lin could see two instincts fighting inside him: the first, to tell her nothing at all, as he always had. The second, that he could not hold back if he expected her to treat this mysterious patient. Lin sat without moving, enjoying his conflict. “Sieur Kel Anjuman,” he said, at last. “He is a cousin to the Prince.”

Surprise stiffened her spine. “The Prince’s cousin?” she echoed. “Is there not a Palace chirurgeon to treat him? Some Academie graduate with a bowl full of leeches and a leather strap for patients to bite on?”

Mayesh smiled without humor. “You paint an unpleasant portrait, but I assure you the reality is worse. If Gasquet treats him, he will die. Therefore . . .”

“Therefore, me,” Lin said.

“Yes. Therefore, you. The Prince will welcome your presence,” he added. “He is fond of his cousin.”

The Prince is a corrupt idiot, she thought, and his cousin is probably much like him.

“And what if I can’t heal him?” Lin said. They had left the Broken Market behind and were passing through the streets near Valerian Square. Here the stucco walls were painted with advertisements for public events, from Academie lectures to fights at the Arena. The bright colors swirled together as they passed, a mix of gold and emerald, saffron and scarlet. “What if he dies?”

“Lin—”

“What of Asaph?” she interrupted.

All Ashkar knew the tale of Asaph the physician, after whom the Oath was named. He had been famous, a healer respected inside and outside the Sault for his wisdom and skill. None of that had helped him when he delivered twins for the wife of King Rolant, in the time of the Red Plague. It had been a difficult birth—breech, and the Queen had labored for hours. Thanks to Asaph’s skill, one twin had been born alive. The second had been dead—dead in the womb for days, long before Asaph had been summoned. Not that it mattered. He was put to a traitor’s death: flung from the Hill into the sea, where he was torn to pieces by crocodiles.

It was not a story that would have endeared the Palace to anyone—especially someone already disposed to dislike the residents of Marivent.

“I am not powerless in the Palace, Lin,” Mayesh said. “I will not let anything happen to you.”

The words left her mouth before she could stop them. “I am your flesh and blood,” she said. She recalled the words of the Maharam, so long ago, the way her grandfather had turned away from them. They are flesh of your flesh, those children, blood of your blood. “Yet how long has it been since we have spoken, Mayesh? Months? A year? You have always put House Aurelian and its needs and desires before me, before Josit. Forgive me, then, if I have no reason to believe you will change that now.”

Mayesh raised his gray eyebrows. His eyes, despite his age, were clear, their gaze piercing. “I did not realize you thought me such a villain.”

“I did not realize you thought of me at all.” The carriage had begun to make its way up the steep rise of the Hill, Castellane falling away below. “I suppose you came to me because you think I can be trusted to keep my mouth shut.”

“I came to you,” Mayesh said, “because you are the best physician in the Sault.”

You did not even want me to become a physician, Lin thought. I never had your support. And yet—Chana’s words, spoke so recently, rang in her mind. Your grandfather was never opposed to you becoming a physician. There is much he has done that has earned your anger, Lin. But that was one thing he did not do.

Maybe he meant it, she thought. Maybe.