Ward Against Death Part 12

Ward's collar dug into the back of his neck, and he clawed at the man's hand.

"I will kill you and tell the Council I caught you stealing bodies." The Tracker shoved Ward against the doorframe. "I don't think I've sharpened my blade lately. I can't guarantee a clean beheading."

Ward coughed, struggling for air. The Council was sure to believe the word of a Tracker over a known criminal. Of course, if Ward was dead, it wouldn't matter what the Grewdian Council believed. "Are threats really necessary?"

"My brother's life is more important than yours."

"I'm sure it is."

The Tracker released his grip, and Ward slid down the wall, gasping for air. Before he could catch his breath the Tracker knelt beside him. "You will come with me."

Ward nodded. "Where are you staying? I'll meet you there tomorrow night."

"Now." The hiss of a blade sliding from its sheath punctuated the Tracker's words.

"Now is also good," Ward said, the irony not lost on him that if he was away too long, Celia would also greet him with a drawn blade.

FIFTEEN.

To Ward's relief the Tracker didn't take him to the Collegiate of the Quayestri but an inn near the docks. It was a large, three-story building with the shutters open to allow the breeze from the bay to alleviate the heat in the common room.

They stepped through the front door, the aroma of stew and fresh bread making Ward's stomach growl, and the hint of ale making it churn. The Tracker marched him to the stairs at the back. They climbed to the second floor, navigated a maze of hallways, indicating the inn used the upper floors of the buildings that b.u.t.ted against it, until they reached a worn door at the end of a hall.

The Tracker reached for the latch but didn't open it. Instead, he leaned toward Ward.

"If I don't like your diagnosis, I'll kill you."

Ward swallowed. So it wasn't really a necromancer he was looking for. Fine. He pushed the Tracker's hand aside and stepped into the room.

Darkness engulfed him. The shutters were closed and the damp, acrid scent of vomit permeated the room. Ward sucked in a slow breath from the sides of his mouth. Celia was right. It did work. "I'll need light."

The Tracker shoved past him and after a few bright sparks a tiny flame danced on the end of the wick of a stubby candle. Beside him, in the room's only bed, lay a gaunt man, his skin gray and taut over his forehead and cheeks. His bone structure was delicate, chiseled like most of the n.o.bility in the Union of Princ.i.p.alities, and his skin clung to it with little fat or muscle in between. A thin film of sweat glistened in the flickering light and pasted his shoulder-length blond hair to his skull.

The Tracker crossed his arms, his chin raised as if daring Ward to make a wrong move.

A calm settled over Ward, and his heart slowed. This was what he'd spent his life preparing for. From the time he learned to read, he'd sneaked the few books on medicine in Grandfather's library to his room, reading those instead of fairy tales or prescribed readings on necromancy. In the summer, when traveling across the princ.i.p.alities with his family, he'd practiced herbalism under the watchful eye of his great-aunt Edeena. He'd begged his parents every day, and as soon as he was old enough, they registered him in The Olmech School of Health and Philosophy. With all of his being he believed he was born to break the G.o.ddess's call across the veil, not afterward as a necromancer but before, as a physician.

He straightened his back and stepped to the edge of the bed. "Open the shutters."

"But..."

"It's high summer in Brawenal. I'm sure he, like me, would appreciate a little fresh air. If he's so weak that he catches a chill, the G.o.ddess has already made her decision and there's nothing I can do."

The Tracker opened the shutters a crack, allowing a weak band of moonlight to fall across the sick man's face. He groaned but did not wake.

Ward laid the back of his hand on the man's forehead and on either cheek. Hot, covered with sweat.

"How long has he had the fever?"

"It started last night."

"That's rather soon to a.s.sume he needs a surgeon or a necromancer." Ward looked for the chamber pot. It sat on the floor between the headboard and the bedside table. He took a quick sniff: vomit, not urine or feces.

"It was a surprise seeing you at the cafe. Pietro's been sick for months, and no physician's been able to help. It's a colicky bowel, change your diet. Drink this potion. Spice every meal with that. Once a day. Twice a day. Three different princ.i.p.alities." The Tracker punched the wall, cracking a panel. "Then a few days ago he throws up. Once. The next day it's worse."

Ward set his rucksack at his feet. If the other physicians said it was a colicky bowel, that was where he should start. From school he knew a colicky bowel was an imbalance in the humors, remedied by a change in diet, increased fluids, and sometimes a change of location.

He eased the blanket and nights.h.i.+rt away from the unconscious man and ran his fingers along his abdomen, finding only an old scar along his side. He couldn't tell if the man's gut was distended or not, and with the patient unconscious, he couldn't tell where the pain originated. He leaned in, placing his ear on the man's stomach, trying to determine if the borborygmus sounded normal. The rumbles seemed like every other he'd heard.

Sweat pooled under his arms and across his back. Things were more difficult in practice than in theory. He couldn't tell what was right and what wasn't. He stilled the wave of panic. What were his options? He recalled a section in his surgery book where a patient complained of sudden and sharp pain on the lower right side of the abdomen and within two days took fever and died. When necropsied, it was discovered the appendix had become infected and burst, spreading poison through the patient's body.

But Ward's patient had complained of pain for months.

"What were his symptoms at the beginning?"

"Pain that comes and goes. Constipation, which also comes and goes." The Tracker sounded as if he'd said it too many times.

Ward waited for more but he remained silent.

"It does sound like a colicky bowel."

The Tracker placed his hand on the hilt of his dagger. "Remember what I said about a diagnosis I didn't like?"

"And obviously it's something more serious." Ward yanked open his rucksack and pulled out his book on surgery.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm looking for an answer."

"You've barely looked at Pietro."

"He's feverish, and has what I'm guessing is excessive weight loss. From the chamber pot by the bed, I'd say he's vomiting on a regular basis, which means he doesn't have the proper balance of fluids. His abdomen is without mark, as I suspect is the rest of his body, so the problem lies within. And since I can't cut him open from neck to crotch to look, I need to narrow down the options." He met the Tracker's gaze. "His fever tells me time is of the essence. I am thirsty and hungry and will be able to concentrate better if both were remedied."

The Tracker growled and pulled his blade an inch out of its sheath so it caught the candlelight.

Ward refused to break eye contact or reveal any sign of weakness. Even if he didn't know what the problem was, he couldn't let it show. It was like facing down a mountain cat. Don't show a weakness and it won't think of you as dinner.

The Tracker growled, shoved his blade back into its sheath, and stormed out.

Ward expelled the breath he'd been holding and flipped past the section on anatomy and terminology, uncertain where to look. He didn't have the experience to deal with a situation like this. He should still be an apprentice under Professor Schlier, whose first advice would be to not find himself held at dagger-point to perform an illegal operation for an officer of the highest law. If he didn't work out the situation with care, even if he saved the Tracker's brother, Ward could still end up dead.

Schlier would know how to get out of this mess.

And his next advice would be to calm down and start at the beginning. Well, the question above all else-his future or his life-was how to save the man lying in the bed beside him. What ailment could he possibly have?

Ward flipped a few more pages. He'd read the book more times than he could remember. There were sections on diagnostic procedure-most he'd already attempted-bone-setting, removal of foreign growths, injuries of the head, and studies of individual illnesses. All of which he'd read hundreds of times, and not a whit of it could he bring to mind.

The door opened, making Ward jump, and the Tracker entered carrying a tray laden with a pitcher, two cups, a small loaf of bread, and two bowls wreathed with steam. Ward's stomach growled.

"So?" The Tracker set the tray on the small table beside the bed and elbowed Ward out of the way so he could sit.

"There's a great deal of information to review," Ward said, trying to determine how to get to the food without incurring more of the Tracker's wrath.

The Tracker turned his back to Ward and tried to rouse his brother.

"Even if we have narrowed it down to a colicky bowel with fever and-" A colicky bowel with fever sounded so familiar. Ward closed his eyes, ignoring his stomach, and tried to remember where he'd heard that before. The end of the book in the individual studies?

"What?" the Tracker asked.

Ward flipped to the final section, where the real value of the book lay. Studies of unfortunate individuals and the course of their usually terminal illnesses and the following exploratory necropsies: woman with hard formation in her breast, man with watery breath, man with colicky bowels.

"What?" The Tracker's voice was dark, a definite precursor to violence.

Ward just needed another minute.

Complaint of pain from abdomen that came and went in waves over the period of two weeks.

He skimmed the page. Physician's initial diagnosis was colicky bowel and instigated a change in diet. Symptoms not alleviated. Constipation, vomiting, fever, death. The surgeon who'd performed the necropsy discovered the abdominal cavity poisoned, a hole in the small bowel edged with rotted flesh, and a hard uneven ma.s.s blocking it.

Of course. How could he not remember? It was an exciting surgery that involved the removal of the blockage to alleviate the pressure and eliminate the risk of bursting the bowel.

The Tracker slammed his hand down on the book, knocking it to the floor, and grabbed the front of Ward's s.h.i.+rt. "What?"

"It's a-" He swallowed. He had to sound sure, confident. And really, the symptoms were almost identical. It fit with other colicky bowel situations where often the pain subsided after a hard stone was pa.s.sed in the stool. Why couldn't the stone get stuck, obstructing the body's natural process? "It's an obstructed bowel."

"A what?"

"His body is unable to pa.s.s a stone."

"Why?"

"That's not important. What matters is I can attempt to remove it."

The Tracker narrowed his eyes. "Attempt?"

Ward pried his s.h.i.+rt free. "All surgery is dangerous. The humors can become unbalanced and flesh can quickly rot, but the fever tells me your brother's illness is at a critical stage. Without the attempt he will surely die."

"You say it so academically. That's a real person lying there, not some footnote in a book."

Ward picked up his book and hugged it against his chest. "Death is just another state of existence."

"Necromancers should never go into medicine." The Tracker turned back to his brother.

Ward shoved the book into his rucksack. "So what's your decision?"

He ran a hand over his hair, his expression dark.

Ward waited, trying not to fidget, his hands clasped around the strap of his rucksack.

The silence stretched on. The seconds ticked away with each heartbeat, each uneven flicker of shadows, as the flame danced on the end of the wick. Ward's mind raced through his options. He didn't know if he could perform the surgery, or even if the Tracker would let him go free afterward.

The Tracker smoothed his hair again and squared his shoulders. "What do I need to do?"

"You need to purchase a generous length of fine silk thread, wine, olive oil, a silver cylinder the length of your thumbnail and the width of your baby finger, and a vial of mandragora mixed with zephnyr oil. Also linen bandages, a butcher's ap.r.o.n, and a tarpaulin." Ward wrapped the strap around his hand. "Your brother needs to fast for a day before I can perform the surgery, so I will return tomorrow night."

"And he'll just lie here, dying until then?"

"If his bowels aren't as empty as possible it will increase the likelihood of rot. We will just have to pray the G.o.ddess will keep him alive another day."

"And so you should pray." The Tracker didn't finish his threat but Ward knew it was there.

SIXTEEN.

Ward entered the bedchamber to find the journal open on the floor and Celia reading the parchment. He tugged it from her hands and put it back on the basin.

"Fine. The d.a.m.n thing is an a.s.sa.s.sination a.s.signment, but not for me, and the journal's in some kind of foreign language." The muscles on her jaw tensed. "What took you so long?"

He swallowed and set his rucksack on the floor. "I wanted to make sure I wasn't followed."

"A turtle could have done it faster."

"And I would say a turtle has more experience at these things than I." His stomach growled and for a fleeting moment he regretting rus.h.i.+ng out of the Tracker's room without eating. No. Staying with the Tracker was like playing with fire. Better alive and starving than dead. He pulled out the case containing his surgical implements, unhooked the latch, and placed it on top of the journal.

"These are amazing. What are they?" Celia reached for one of the knives and Ward pushed her hand away.

"They're silver-plated steel knives." He removed a pair of long, thin scissors from their felt and leather pocket, and cut away a square from the back of her ruined s.h.i.+rt. "They are not to be touched."

"I just meant... they're beautiful. I've never seen craftsmans.h.i.+p like that before, and trust me, I know my knives."

"Really?" He set the scissors aside to be washed, and removed his tweezers. He cradled her right forearm in his left hand and pulled out a piece of crystal. She hissed, but managed not to move.

"My mother's specialty was knives: use, craftsmans.h.i.+p, everything. She wanted me to follow in a proud line of knife specialists."

Ward plucked out a few more pieces.

"She would have killed to see these. Where did you get them?"