Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

Prince Conor tore his eyes away from Lin and gazed almost blindly down at his cousin. “If he dies . . .”

He didn’t finish, only spun on his heel and stalked out of the room. Mayesh nodded once at Lin and followed him. The door clanged shut behind them, plunging the room into a terrible silence.

Lin could feel her heart pounding somewhere in the region of her throat. What had she just done? She had just insulted the Crown Prince. She had ordered him out of his own room. She felt a sickly horror: What had she been thinking? But she could not fall to pieces over it now. Her concentration must be on her patient, who was moving restlessly on the bed.

“Hold still, Sieur Anjuman,” she said, bending over him. Like Prince Conor’s, his eyes were gray, fringed with velvet-black lashes.

“It’s Kel. Not Sieur anything. Kel. And if you come at me with leeches, I’ll bite,” he said, with an energy that surprised her.

“No leeches.” She shook the ampoule and tipped up Kel’s head with a finger under his chin. His skin was faintly rough with the beginnings of stubble. “Open your mouth and hold these under your tongue.”

He did as she asked, swallowing as the grains of morphea dissolved. Almost instantly, she saw the tight cast of his face ease, the taut line of his mouth relaxing as he exhaled.

Morphea could suppress breath, but he was breathing easier now. And shock could also kill. Pain loosened a patient’s hold on life; some raced toward death just to escape agony.

“That,” he said, “was surprising.”

“The morphea?” she asked, discarding the empty ampoule.

“Not the morphea. You made Conor leave,” he said. And, despite everything, he grinned. In that moment, he looked like a mischievous boy, like Josit after he had successfully poached apples from the Maharam’s garden. “Not many people can do that.”

“It was awful.” Lin had moved to the table. “I am sure he hates me.”

“He only hates being told what to do,” said Kel, watching her as she returned with a small metal clamp, an ampoule of lunar caustic, a demiard of water infused with levona and mor, and a steel needle and silk thread. “Alas,” he said, glumly. “Needles.”

“If it hurts, tell me. I can give you more morphea.”

“No.” He shook his head. “No more. I don’t mind pain, as long as it’s within manageable bounds.”

Manageable bounds. That was interesting—a dissonance, like his scars. What did young nobles know of pain, and what amount of it they could or could not manage?

“You said you were bleeding out on the Key.” She spoke evenly, calmly, more to distract him than anything else. Having removed the bit of reed still in his side with the clamp, she moved to disinfecting his other wounds with herb-water. She knew it would hurt, despite the morphea. “But you were found at the Palace gates. You had been dumped there—”

He winced, his back arching, and muttered something that sounded like the arrows, and then a name, Jeanne. So had he been visiting a girl in the city? And been robbed, perhaps, on the way back?

“Yes,” he said. “I know who left me outside Marivent. It wasn’t the person who stabbed me.”

She laid the washcloth aside and reached for the lunar caustic. It would stop any further bleeding. It would also hurt. Kel was looking at her quietly. A surprising level of acceptance, she thought. The richer the patient, the more difficult they generally were, complaining about every discomfort. He really was not what she had expected, this cousin of the Prince.

“Right. That was Crawlers,” she said, smoothing the caustic over the wounds. “I was surprised you’d heard of them.” They didn’t seem the sort of city dwellers of whom nobles would be aware.

He smiled wryly. “We all live in the same city, don’t we?”

The bleeding had stopped; the wounds glittered with caustic, a peculiarly beautiful effect. “Do we?” Lin said. “I have lived here all my life; this is the first time I have been on the Hill. Most people will never come here. The nobles and the ordinary people of Castellane—they may all live in the same place, but it is not the same city.”

He was silent. Sweat had broken out across his skin, pasting his hair to his forehead. The caustic would feel like fire on his skin, Lin knew; she had to do more to ease the pain.

Use me.

Lin started. For a moment she thought Kel had spoken aloud, but it was only a whisper in the back of her head. That second voice that all physicians seemed to have, that advised them in times of urgency.

She quickly reached for a salve made from feverfew, whitewillow, capsicum, and a dozen other ingredients sourced from the corners of Dannemore. It was difficult stuff to make, especially when she had only the kitchen at the Women’s House to work in, but it would numb his skin for the stitches.

She began to smooth it gently over his cuts. She heard him sigh; he was looking down at her through half-closed eyes. She capped the salve and reached for her needle and silk. Kel watched her warily—then relaxed as the needle pierced the skin and she began to sew.

“I cannot feel it,” he said, wonderingly. “Truly, that is magic.”

“It is medicine.” She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Once, they were the same. No longer.

“The ordinary folk of Castellane may not come up on the Hill,” said Kel, “but the nobles here would be lost without the city. Not only does it provide them their fortunes, it is their playground. They would die of boredom if confined to the Hill.”

“You speak as if you were not one of them,” Lin said. Taking some herbs from the bag, she sprinkled them on the puncture wound before making another stitch.

“Perhaps I would rather I weren’t.” Kel glanced down and took on a slightly greenish tinge. “I see you are seasoning me like a chicken.”

“The herbs will keep infection away. And don’t look.”

He yawned. Morphea and blood loss were making him tired, she thought. She concentrated on what she was doing. After a few moments, he spoke again. “When I was younger, I thought the Ashkar must be very dangerous, to be kept within walls.”

“When I was young,” Lin said, reaching for bandages, “I thought the malbushim must be very dangerous, for us to have to keep them out with walls.”

“Ah,” he said, and yawned again. “Perspective is everything, isn’t it?”

Having put away her things, Lin took several hammered-silver talismans from her satchel and slid them between the layers of his bandages. “These will help you heal, and sleep,” she said. “What you need is rest, to let your body knit itself together. I will be back in three days to see how you are getting on.”

“Wait,” he said, as she turned to go. His voice slurred with weariness. “Your name, physician?”

“Lin,” she said, as his eyes fluttered shut. “Lin Caster.”