Hamish flushed. “Logbook, bah. That’s not real writing. That’s scratches about the day, what worked, what failed. What I tried for various troubles.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And you may be no scholar, but I’ve also seen the books stuffed in between the bottles in your medicine case.”
“Unbound pamphlets and treatises, all of them. Bought cheap or bought used,” he deflected.
“I don’t think that leather binding makes a scholar,” I said. “My brother reads more than anyone I know—and I know quite a few people with libraries full of custom-bound books.”
“Nonsense,” he grumbled, but I noticed he began to make notes about my work, who I cast good health for, when I did my casting, and who got charmed bandages.
A year ago, I thought as I pressed health charms into lengths of linen bands destined to be bandages, I had been deeply uncomfortable when someone suggested studying my practices. It wasn’t merely that Pyord was untrustworthy; I hadn’t appreciated the attention on my gift. A year ago, I allowed, I wouldn’t have been comfortable with most of what my casting was becoming.
The linen glowed with a deep gold health charm, and I rolled it. I never would have chosen to push the limits of casting like this, I acknowledged. Even knowing that the Serafans had employed casting to their gain, there was still something about what I had done with the charmed fabric and the charms on the ships that ran counter to the way casting had, to my knowledge, always been. It was rolled into a commodity now, as clearly as the good health charm was rolled up in the linen I held. What did that mean for the rest of the world, for how nations would interact? I shook my head. That was beyond me, at any rate. I gathered the bandages and delivered them to the ward.
“Miss Balstrade?” I started. No one usually talked to me while I worked in the surgery. Even when I sat within arm’s reach of the nearest pallet while I rolled bandages, the patients seemed, somehow, to know I wasn’t a nurse posted to fetch them water or change their wound dressings. “I don’t know that you’d remember me,” the young man on the nearest mattress said.
I tried to place him—he had a thick dressing over a shoulder wound, and another lapped over his forehead. “Victor. I don’t recall the last name, but from Havensport, yes? And you helped with my fire, when we camped on the march north.”
He grinned sheepishly. “Vernon. Vernon Harrel,” he said. “But yes, I helped dig your firepit.”
“When did you end up in here? I don’t recall seeing you.”
“I was on a northbound detachment. Sent back, wounded in a skirmish.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Was anyone else hurt?”
“A couple cuts, they dressed those in the field.” He paused. “No fear. Was a very small skirmish with some Royalist scouts. Trumped ’em thoroughly. I’m the only fool who took a damn bayonet.” He blanched. “Pardon the language.”
“You have a bayonet wound in your shoulder, you can say whatever you like,” I said. I knew the wounds were cruel ones, created by a triangular blade and seldom healed cleanly without painful festering.
“Nah, it’s better already.” He brushed the bandage on his forehead. “And this one is all my fault, I fell and hit my head on a rock just about as soon as I’d gotten poked. Because I’m a prize idiot.”
“I think if someone drove a bayonet into me, I’d do more than trip.” I laughed. “Do you mind if I—that is, I could cast a little extra luck for you. If you would like.”
He paused. “I don’t know that I would, miss, but thank you. It’s just not been my folks’ way, you know.”
“Oh,” I said. “I—you do know that some of the bandages… and the coats?”
“Yes, sure, we all know. It don’t bother me none.” He fiddled with the edge of his blanket, avoiding my eyes. “I don’t—I don’t mean to offend, but I don’t really believe in it anyway. So for you to cast on me… look, it would be a bit like asking me to join you in praying to the Creator like a Kvys or lighting incense to the ancestors like a Pellian. It’s just not what I believe.”
“I understand,” I said softly. If only everyone could see the light, could feel its gentle joy, I thought, then stopped. There was still plenty to not believe in. Someone could quite easily believe it wasn’t to be tampered with—many of the Kvys certainly did.
“I don’t mean to offend. What you’re doing—it’s real nice,” he said awkwardly. “You don’t have to be here.”
I forced a smile. “I rather feel that I do.”
41
I WOKE IN THE STILLNESS OF MIDNIGHT. EVEN THE USUAL BUSTLE OF activity downstairs was quieted. The majority of the army was encamped at the military school, but I knew that below, on the lawn and in the gardens, patrols still kept watch here, too. The picket lines of an army at war were never asleep, I thought wanly as I padded to the window and looked out. Sure enough, moonlight glinted from a bayonet point at the edge of the portico.
Reassured by the quiet sentinel below, I returned to my bed, but stopped before I slid under warm covers.
There was a footfall in the hallway.
I was sure of it, as I willed the bed to cease creaking and I slid myself back off the edge of the mattress. I shivered; the fire was low and it was too cold in just my shift. But I heard it again—a soft touch of foot on stone, certainly, bare feet or slippers, not army issue shoes or riding boots.
I swallowed. It was understandable, completely, for someone billeted in the house to be up at night, unable to sleep, perhaps checking the sentries outside, reassuring themselves that the night was still peaceful.
Still, something kept me wary, unwilling to succumb to my warm bed while someone waited in the hall outside. I moved against the wall, as the footsteps outside resumed, closer now. Feeling prickles of foolishness at the absurdity of it, I picked up a heavy candlestick and slunk against a thick decorative tapestry. I still glowed like the moon in my white shift, but I was half-hidden.
My door opened.
The figure was female, I was sure, in a dark dressing gown and pointed-toe slippers. Polly. It had to be, the only woman I might expect to see here, at night, who wouldn’t have to slip by a sentry to get in.
Despite the absurdity, I drew charm magic around me and, at the same time, pulled curse into the candlestick, pressing darkness into the metal and holding it there. It felt heavier in my hand.
She didn’t see me; the curtains of the bed blocked her view of my corner, and I saw where she was looking—a lump of pillows and blankets under the quilt that, had I not known better, I would have assumed to be a sleeping form. What Polly, surely, assumed to be my sleeping form.
What was she doing here? I demanded silently, fingers tightening on the pewter candlestick. The weight in my hand was reassuring, but what, exactly, did I intend to do with it?
She stepped inside, movement lithe and quick, and shut the door softly, a faint line of light showing around it where she left it cracked. Quieter that way, I thought.
She stepped toward the bed.
My heartbeat grew faster, pressing against my throat, limiting my inhale. What could she possibly want from me, at midnight, that she couldn’t ask during the day?