“Do you think an illness can pick and choose between you and me?” His bitter gaze mocked her.

“But we came from Sainna over thirty years ago. Where has this illness been hiding?”

“What do you expect of me, Clem? If you need expert understanding, you’ll have to bring a Shaftali healer back from the dead to consult with.”

For Clement to actually be able to resolve one of the problems that were her unfortunate responsibility was a rare event. “As requested,” she said, gloating as she put the thick packet in front of him.

“What? What is this?”

“Well, I can’t read it, since it’s in Shaftalese. But someone handed it through the gate at first light, and told the guard it was from a healer, and that it’s about this terrible illness. Cadmar is suspicious, of course. I myself am wondering why a healer would help us, if that’s what this is.”

“To keep healthy Shaftali from being infected by sick Sainnites,” said Gilly, studying the first page. “That’s what the healer writes here.”

He scanned the documents. “Look: a drawing of a person’s insides. This healer is a bit of an artist.” Later he said, “Well, here’s the answer to why it might take thirty years for the illness to reappear. It’s an illness of rats, he says, and only occasionally does it get transmitted from rats to people. Through flea bites. Now I wonder how the healer figured that out.”

“A rat illness, carried by fleas? It’s bizarre!”

Gilly, apparently fascinated by the healer’s exposition, turned back to the anatomical drawing. “This healer says that if a sick person gets big, painful boils here or here”–he pointed at the groin and the armpits–“then the sickness can only be passed from the sick person to the well person by fleas. But if there are no lumps, then the illness is in the lungs, and can be transmitted by the sick person’s breath. These are the people who must be quarantined, and they almost certainly will die within a few days of falling ill. The others can be cared for in the infirmary, so long as it’s free of fleas, and half of them may survive.”

Clement gazed at the drawing in horrified fascination.

“I think this is no fabrication,” said Gilly. “This healer writes from a knowledge that far exceeds mine.”

“Or maybe it’s the healer’s imagination that exceeds yours.”

“That, too,” said Gilly enviously.

They sat in silence for a while, then Gilly called loudly, “Kelin! Come out of your dark corner!”

Clement looked up as a slim girl, bearing a lamp and an armload of documents, approached out of the darkness. Half a year ago, when Kelin was first released from the children’s garrison, Commander Purnal, who was usually irascible, had acknowledged her potential with what passed for him as eloquence: “Keep her from getting herself killed.” Clement had assigned Kelin to a particularly reliable company, right here in Watfield Garrison. She had wanted to keep an eye on her, for young soldiers did have a way of getting themselves killed. Even though Captain Herme immediately assigned a veteran of his company to look after Kelin, Clement had forbidden the girl to go outside the garrison. Throughout the winter, Gilly had given her an actual education in reading and writing and also in speaking Shaftalese, none of which Commander Purnal bothered to provide his young charges.

In six months, Kelin had never ceased to interest and even delight her guardians. She was eager, high spirited, and unrestrainedly curious. After half a year, the young soldier had an entire battalion of hardened veterans watching out for her as obsessively as any devoted parent. Never had a young woman been more coddled and worried over. Naturally, Kelin complained about it: she was fearless, and could not imagine what her battle‑scarred elders were protecting her from.

Kelin stopped short when she saw Clement, and apparently was confused by the problem of how to salute with her hands full. “You can always greet me,” Clement said.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant‑General.”

“Good afternoon, Kelin. I have been receiving good reports of you.”

“I hope so, Lieutenant‑General.”

“Why don’t you put that lamp down before you drop it and set us all on fire?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Kelin set down her burdens and said apologetically to Gilly, “Most everything is eaten by bugs or covered with mold.”

“Oh, ours was a doomed project from the beginning,” said Gilly lightly. “But it’s kept us out of the rain, eh? And now the very thing we were looking for has been sent to us by a healer.”

Gilly showed Kelin the document, which she studied with interest even though she could read Shaftalese no better than Clement could.

“I thought we killed all the healers,” Kelin said.

“Tell me, Kelin,” said Gilly. “If there were five hundred healers scattered across Shaftal who looked and dressed exactly like everyone else, and if everyone you talked to was determined to keep their identity and location secret, how exactly would you kill them all?”

“One at a time,” said Kelin. “And I wouldn’t give up. Or lie about it.”

“Never give up, and always tell the truth,” said Clement dryly. “It’s amazing we didn’t try that.”

Kelin was more than relieved to be released from the moldy prison, even though it just meant she’d go back to being bruised and humiliated and rolled in the mud by her bunkmates, who were unrelenting in their efforts to improve her weapons skill. With some difficulty, Clement and Gilly convinced Cadmar that following the mysterious healer’s recommendations could not cause any harm, and Gilly and the company clerk spent a day copying and re‑copying a complicated general order that, among other things, detailed the care of the sick, defined methods for killing fleas and domestic rodents, and recommended that the commanders populate the garrisons with house cats. In due time, the responses returned that these measures had proven effective, but that cats were nowhere to be had. Kittens, one commander reported, were sold before they were even born, at exorbitant prices. Besides, commented another commander, what do soldiers know about keeping cats?

If the soldiers had known something about keeping cats, thought Clement angrily as she pored over the duty rosters, maybe the illness wouldn’t have reduced their force by another three hundred irreplaceable fighters. Maybe it was time they learned.

Chapter Four

That year’s spring mud was a tortuous season: rain fell and stopped, the roads firmed up, then rain fell again. Many a farmer, thinking the rain had ended, went out to sow the fields, only to watch the precious seeds wash away. Many a wanderer thought it was time to travel, only to be stranded by renewed flooding and boggy roads.

Norina had been spared such frustrations, for though only a water witch could control the weather, an earth witch like Karis could at least predict it. Norina was able to sandwich her journey neatly between rainstorms, and arrived dry and cheerful at her destination. The same could not be said about Councilor Mabin, who arrived on horseback several days later, muddy and wet, taunted by the sunshine that after four days of rain once again rent through the storm clouds and set the sodden fields to sparkling.

Norina had last seen Mabin the year Leeba was born. Since then, the councilor’s hair had gone to white, and her vigorous frame had begun to shrink. Her face, however, was no more or less hard and embittered than it had ever been.

The councilor was escorted by a half‑dozen black‑dressed, gold‑earringed Paladins–a rare sight these days, for most of the surviving true Paladins had put on plain clothing and were commanding companies of Paladin irregulars, as Emil had done for fifteen years.

Some of these who served Mabin were Emil’s age, and they seemed to know of Norina’s connection to him, for their inquiring glances asked questions about him: What has become of our brother Paladin? Why will he not explain his sudden retirement? These sharp looks were puzzled, impatient, but not condemnatory. Just as a Truthken’s duty was to judge, a Paladin’s was to suspend judgment. With Mabin avoiding putting herself in a position where she would have to answer questions, and with Emil maintaining a bland silence, the Paladins apparently had simply suspended judgment of him, and of Mabin, for five years now.