My sweeping lamplight, scanning the garden, illuminated a flattened patch of the toxic weed feverhead by the pond. Tracks marked the grass around the entrance and through the center of the garden. Not just my own footprints, marking a path toward the crying fin, but also a second set, from the pond. Someone had been in here recently, perhaps even this afternoon.
I wasn’t sure what it meant. Maybe nothing.
I gathered the leksot with a fold of my paluma. We could still hope Thendra could learn something from the body and help the Chancellor. An image of my Tashi’s distorted face sliced through my mind. Either way, we’d failed him.
As I passed through the arch and back into the Manor, my brother came around the bend. Our eyes met for a moment, and he shook his head. I lowered my gaze.
We’d failed the Chancellor, too.
* * *
They took Etan’s body away in a covered litter, a flock of physics trailing it, solemn-faced. I pretended to need to relieve myself so I didn’t have to watch. Keeping the mask of calm—don’t be fragile, don’t be weak—had taken a toll. Alone, cracks widened into chasms, and I cried for my uncle until my sobs turned to hiccups. Leaning my forehead against the cool stone wall, I listened to the sound of my brother’s footfalls, back and forth. The familiar sound gave me no comfort now.
I scrubbed my eyes and returned, my legs shaking. Desperation to save the Chancellor had invigorated me, but without that task the energy had seeped out. We made a fine pair, me too tired to stand and my brother unable to stop pacing. When he spoke, his words were rushed and mumbled.
“We have to tell Mother and the rest.” Pure Jovan, always focused on the practicalities. It helped him, but still rankled at me.
“It’s too late to send anything tonight,” I said. “We’ll send a bird to the estates and to Telasa first thing in the morning.” Along with everyone else in the city. Breathing slowly, I wobbled to my feet. Engaging Jov’s memory and the rational part of his brain would help him calm down, so I asked a question to which I knew the answer. “There was feverhead in the garden. There’s no chance the leksot just ate some of that, is there?”
“No,” he said. “You’d have to eat your own weight in feverhead to kill you in the short term. It damages your system over time.” His pace slowed a little. “There shouldn’t be feverhead in the garden, though. We should tell the gardeners.” I nodded along with the pretense that such a thing mattered.
Thendra interrupted us from the doorway, and Jovan fell silent. “Credo, Credola,” the physic said. She wrung her hands and glanced at Jovan. The concentration on my brother’s face intensified as he tried to stop pacing. “Considering what has happened, I am going to recommend to the Honored Heir that all those who came in contact with the diseased animal be quarantined. Neither of you are showing symptoms, no, but since we do not know how the disease was transmitted…”
“Of course,” I said quickly, drawing her attention back to me and away from Jov. “We understand.” My heart beat faster. Whatever had happened to the Chancellor, it had involved that animal somehow. Whether Lord Ectar had brought a diseased animal deliberately or inadvertently, we needed to know. Physically weak I might be, and a proofer I was not, but Etan had not left a potential tool lying about his household unused for long; behind my diplomatic career I had my own training and my own skills in less genteel arts.
Thendra let out her breath. Perhaps she’d been expecting arguments. “I have arranged a litter to the hospital. Who else handled the creature?”
“Credo Lazar, and a few of his servants,” Jovan said. His steps had slowed, signaling he was gaining control over the pacing. “The Talafan nobleman who brought it, of course—Lord Ectar, I believe is his name—and any of his servants who handled it on the way here, I suppose.” He slowed his pace further, finished his eighth step, and stopped with his own relieved sigh. “You might want to send an Order Guard or two,” he added. “I’ve no idea how they’ll react to the quarantine.” He shot me a sidelong look, quizzical but trusting in my plan.
“Care will need to be taken with Lord Ectar,” I said. “There’s no centralized medical care in the Empire. No hospitals. Their physics are hired privately by those who can afford them. Our visitor may not understand what you’re doing.”
“I see.” Thendra frowned. “I do not want to cause panic. News is already spreading of the Chancellor, and the last thing we need is a public scene.”
“I know their culture,” I said. “And I can speak some Talafan. Perhaps I could accompany the Order Guards and help smooth relations?” I used my meekest, most obliging tone. One of my most-practiced. Quiet, shy little Kalina; everyone knew her so well.
“And I could assist with Credo Lazar,” my brother added.
She seemed grateful to have something to do with us. “I will ask the Honored Heir to approve this, yes?”
We hadn’t seen Tain since the Chancellor died. He’d been closeted in his uncle’s room with the body, and though sounds could be faintly heard through the wall, no one had been in since. We tapped tentatively and the muffled sounds stopped. The jangle of beads of the inner door sounded, then the outer door opened a fraction. Tain looked out, his eyes red and his mouth set in a hard line of contained emotion. My heart hurt for him.
“Honored Heir,” Thendra said, “I am proposing to quarantine Credo Jovan, Credola Kalina, and anyone else who touched the diseased animal, yes? May I have your permission to do so, at least until tomorrow?”
Tain frowned, starting to speak, but a hard look from Jovan silenced him. Thoughtfulness chased the confusion from his face as he looked at us carefully. “That would be best, I suppose,” he said, his voice raw. “Please ensure they have every comfort. They’ve lost their Tashi, too.” A pause. Even in grief, Tain was still thinking. “We don’t know whether that animal came here diseased on purpose or not. Please take Order Guards and make sure the Talafan does not leave.”
As Thendra murmured her agreement and turned away, Tain’s hands shot out of the gap and grabbed one of each of ours, wrapping our fingers together and squeezing, just for a moment. I blinked away tears and squeezed back.
The Manor had been a hive before, buzzing with anxious servants and serious-faced physics, Councilors and messengers pounding the winding internal corridors. After the announcement it had emptied like water from a basin, all the noise and energy sucked from the building that had become a tomb. We met four Order Guards at the entrance, uniformed in red-and-blue striped leather vests over their tunics, short swords dangling from their belts. Thendra insisted on a hospital litter for me, and I didn’t protest. It felt easier to close the cloth sides and my eyes as we made our way down the zigzag, hilly streets of the upper city, shutting out the bright merriment of the evening. But voices and laughter and the chink of teacups, music from street corners, and even the faint sound of applause from the closest theater bled through into my dark, cushioned world, an oddly merry background to the grim clump-clump-clump of the Order Guards and the practiced smooth shuffle of the litter carriers. One last night of oblivious normality. In the morning the great bells would ring and the whole city would be in mourning.