The Talented Read online

  Strider turned and blew warm air in her face, making her laugh and relieving some of her tension.

  “That’s a nice sound,” a female voice said, and Adrienne turned to see a young, round-cheeked woman standing in the stable doorway.

  “May I help you?” Adrienne asked, wondering who the strange woman was and what she was doing there. It was possible that she was one of the inn’s patrons, but Adrienne did not think so. Most of the people staying at the inn left the care of their horses to the stableboy, and none of them talked to her.

  “You’re good to that horse,” the woman said, ignoring Adrienne’s question. “I didn’t expect that.”

  “Who are you?” Adrienne asked suspiciously.

  “Maureen Cassin. A healer. Why are you good to the horse?”

  Adrienne took in Maureen’s age and the self-assured way she held herself and determined that she was not just any healer. She was Talented. “A horse that is treated well will respond because it wants to please its rider. A horse that knows only the whip will obey out of fear, but he will not put his heart into it, or want what his rider wants.”

  “So you have found that you get better results with kindness,” Maureen said.

  “Yes,” Adrienne replied, growing impatient with the banal conversation. “Are you planning to tell me that you are not a normal healer, or is that supposed to be a secret?”

  “There are not many ‘normal’ healers left in Kessering,” Maureen said, showing no sign that she was disturbed by the change of topic. “You don’t mention that you are a soldier, but then, that is obvious.” She made a point of studying Adrienne’s sword, which hung ever-ready at her hip.

  Since arriving in Kessering, Adrienne’s sword had either been studiously ignored or watched as though it was a cobra poised to strike. Maureen’s study of the sword was different. There was no fear in her gaze, just the calm, steady look of a woman who was not easily unsettled.

  “It is also obvious that you did not come here to ask me about my horse,” Adrienne said. She appreciated the self-assured nature of the woman, but there was something…uncomfortable about the way the woman was questioning her.

  “You’re smart,” Maureen said approvingly. “I said you must be, to have lasted a month, but not everyone agreed.”

  Adrienne wanted to ask who ‘everyone’ was and what right any of them had to judge her, but she had learned from Captain Garrett that staying quiet could often gain more answers than speaking up. As a lieutenant she had practiced that, and found that few people could stand sustained silence for long before they tried to fill it themselves.

  Maureen was no exception. “The others with abilities are curious about you, but some of them are nervous.”

  “Because I’m a soldier,” Adrienne said. She accepted the prejudice now—accepted that the crowd would tense when she walked through the market and the common room of the inn grow quiet if she decided to eat there.

  “We are not used to soldiers here,” Maureen said without apology. “This is a peaceful city. However, if you do develop an ability, it is inevitable that you will associate with others of us with abilities. Therefore, I decided to come and meet you now.”

  Adrienne studied the woman more carefully. She could detect the nerves now, though they were still kept tightly under control, and she was impressed. Maureen was afraid, but she had come today in spite of her fear. “I am Lieutenant Adrienne Rydaeg,” she said, extending her hand.

  Maureen took the proffered hand and shook it. Her grip was firm and the underlying strength apparent. This was a woman who was used to using her hands and body. “Perhaps when you are done here, you would like to see what the rest of us do?”

  Adrienne nodded and called the stableboy over to finish grooming Strider. Thom was delighted as always to handle the big stallion and waved the two women off happily, assuring Adrienne that the horse would be well taken care of.

  “That boy seems to like you,” Maureen commented as they left the stables and began heading down a street in the opposite direction of the library. Adrienne had rarely ventured that way before.

  “Thom is good with horses,” Adrienne told Maureen, “and he doesn’t have the same problem with soldiers that many in Kessering do. It’s nice to spend time with someone who doesn’t think I’m a monster.” She pursed her lips, displeased that she had said so much. Maureen was an unknown entity, one that Adrienne was not yet sure she could trust.

  “Maybe if you didn’t insist on wearing your sword around, people would be more comfortable around you,” Maureen said in a stern, disapproving tone that Adrienne was sure worked well with her patients.

  Adrienne took exception to the tone. She was neither Maureen’s patient nor doing something wrong or foolish. “Maybe if I wore silk dresses and walked like a lady, mothers would stop dragging their children out of my path and men would stop treating me as though I lacked intelligence. I am what I am, no matter what I wear.”

  “Then surely putting your sword away wouldn’t change that,” Maureen pointed out. “Kessering is not a dangerous place; it isn’t necessary to be armed here.”

  Maureen’s disapproval and naiveté helped Adrienne distance herself from the woman and regard her with more objectivity. Maureen might believe that there was no reason to be armed in Kessering, but Adrienne disagreed. For one, she knew how easy it was for a potentially dangerous person to enter Kessering. She had done so herself barely a month ago with no questions asked. And she knew that people could be stupid, and that her presence had frightened and angered a lot of people. Going without her sword now might cause some to view it as an opportunity to show her that they weren’t afraid. She wasn’t worried that she would be hurt, but rather that she would be forced to hurt someone else in self-defense. “I will take that under advisement.”

  Maureen gave a half-laugh. “No, you won’t. Keep the sword if that is what you wish, but do not be upset with people’s reactions to you when you do nothing to counter them. You are the visitor here; if change needs to be made, it is you who should make it.” She made a gesture that seemed to suggest she didn’t care one way or the other. “The healer I’m taking you to meet will probably be so absorbed in what she is doing that she wouldn’t notice if you walked in wearing full armor. Or naked.”

  They came to the door of a small building with herbs hanging in the window to denote that it was a healer’s shop, and Maureen ushered Adrienne in before entering herself. “Louella? It’s Maureen,” she called, glancing around the empty front room.

  “Back here!”

  The voice was low and throaty, which was even more shocking when Adrienne caught sight of Louella. The woman was a few years older than Maureen, in her late twenties, with light skin, golden hair, and sky blue eyes, so rare in this part of Samaro that Adrienne was not sure the last time she had seen the delicate combination. Lieutenant Nissen had pale skin, but his skin was not as pale as this woman’s creamy complexion. The woman was also small—nearly as short as Adrienne, and very slender. With the exception of her height, she was the picture of Almet.

  “I’ve just made the most amazing discovery,” Louella said in that earthy voice, and she held up a bowl of liquid that, although it looked like it might be wine, Adrienne recognized immediately as blood.

  “Did you now?” Maureen asked in a patronizing voice, turning her nose up at the bowl. “I will have to hear about it later. Louella, this is Adrienne Rydaeg, the new trainee.”

  “The soldier,” Louella said, inspecting Adrienne as she might inspect a patient, looking her up and down in a way that was clearly and unapologetically assessing, and no doubt very like the way Adrienne was looking at her. “You must have quite a bit of experience with blood.” She didn’t seem at all suspicious or accusatory, but more as though she was sizing Adrienne up for something.

  Adrienne’s lips twitched. “You could say that.”

  “Did you know blood is made up of many different parts?” Louella asked curiously.

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p; Maureen made a disapproving sound. “Can’t this wait?” she asked. “Blood is a rather distressing topic to discuss when you have company.”

  “The blood will congeal if I leave it sitting,” Louella muttered, bending back to her work. “It can’t wait.”

  “I didn’t know it was made of parts,” Adrienne said, ignoring Maureen and returning to Louella’s question. She was as interested in Louella as she was in the topic, and too experienced with blood to be distressed discussing it. “Blood mostly seems the same to me.” Adrienne knew of a couple different kinds of blood: the slow seep of a cut, the spurt of a severed artery, the sick smell of blood from a gut wound, but for the most part it all looked alike. “What are the parts like?”

  Louella frowned. “I don’t know what they do yet,” she admitted, staring into the bowl as if it held the answers. “This is pig’s blood, fresh from the butcher just an hour past. I can feel the particles, like being able to pick out ingredients in cake batter, but without the pig I can’t tell what they do.”

  “If they do anything,” Maureen said. “Honestly, Louella, what does it matter if blood has parts? We can heal cuts now, can’t we?”

  Louella looked hurt by Maureen’s reaction, those big blue eyes clouding. “Well, yes, but what if the different types of particles do something? Knowing about them could make our healing better, more efficient. Besides, don’t you want to know?”

  Maureen threw up her hands, but Adrienne moved closer to the small, blonde woman. “Could you test what the particles do with human blood?” Adrienne asked.

  “I think so, but the person would have to be bleeding sufficiently and willing to wait while I—”

  Without ceremony, Adrienne pulled up her sleeve, took her dagger, and cut a long, shallow line across the inside of her arm. “Will this do?”

  Louella looked momentarily surprised, but she didn’t waste any time before beginning the study of Adrienne’s living blood. Maureen stared at Adrienne, her expression a mix of disgust and horror.

  “Why did you do that?” Maureen asked, aghast, as though Adrienne had just committed a horrible crime.

  “She needed someone to study,” Adrienne said. The stinging pain from the cut was easy to ignore, and she thought the subtle tingling sensation must be Louella watching—or maybe feeling—what the particles in her blood did. Although Adrienne saw no more than a seeping wound, she was sure that it was more than that to Louella.

  “This is a place of healing,” Maureen said. “This is not a place to harm yourself. And to what purpose? She probably won’t find anything of interest,” Maureen said. “The butcher probably got dirt in the blood, and those are the ‘particles’ she sensed. She spends more time experimenting than healing these days. It’s shameful.”

  Adrienne did not like the derisive tone in Maureen’s voice, nor the look in her eyes that betrayed her disgust. “I’ve seen a lot of men bleed to death,” Adrienne said. “Good men that deserved to live. If Louella can learn something useful, I want to help. If she discovers nothing, then she can heal me when she has satisfied her curiosity, and no one is the worse for it.”

  “Fascinating,” Louella said, sitting back slightly from Adrienne’s arm, where blood was still flowing slowly from the wound.

  “What did you find?” Adrienne asked.

  “I’ll need more opportunities to study,” Louella said, “but it seems that some of the particles—there are different kinds if you remember—help the blood to clot.”

  “You mean they stop the bleeding?”

  Louella nodded. “Yes. I wonder…” The tingling amplified and Adrienne watched the long cut scab over. “I pulled those particles together and sped everything up.” She smiled, pleased with herself as she studied the scab.

  “Why don’t you just finish healing it?” Maureen asked. “She can make it look like there was never a cut at all,” the woman told Adrienne. “She doesn’t need to leave a scab.”

  Adrienne couldn’t decide if Maureen was more disgusted with her or Louella at the moment. She had probably expected Adrienne to be a barbarian, but a fellow Talented healer was probably held to a higher standard.

  “I will finish it,” Louella told Maureen. “I just wanted to see if it worked, if this is what scabs are made of. They are, for the most part,” she said as the tingling resumed and the cut disappeared, leaving smooth, unblemished skin in its wake.

  “That was amazing,” Adrienne said, ignoring Maureen’s displeasure.

  “Thank you for allowing that,” Louella said. “Now I know what one type of particle does.” She looked immensely pleased by the discovery.

  “How many kinds of particles are there?” Adrienne asked.

  “Many. I haven’t been able to get an accurate count of them.

  “Louella, is there any way for you to, I don’t know, boost these clotting particles? You know, some kind of…preventative thing, so that if there isn’t a healer around the bleeding will stop faster.” Adrienne could imagine how useful something of that nature would be in a fight. Blood loss, even if it was not enough to be life-threatening in and of itself, could severely weaken a soldier and make her more vulnerable.

  “Maybe,” Louella said. “I would have to do more research. There are herbs that promote clotting…” She trailed off in thought for a moment before looking up and grinning at Adrienne. “You make a good study.”

  Adrienne smiled back at her. “Maybe I can help you again,” Adrienne said. “Right now, I would like to meet more people with Talents, and I believe Maureen would like to get some distance from me.”

  The woman in question made a sound that was not too difficult to decipher, but said nothing, pretending she could not hear them.

  “Maureen was one of the first healers to develop an ability,” Louella said, ignoring the other healer and focusing her attention on Adrienne. “She’s good, and quite versatile when it comes to what she can heal, but I think she sometimes forgets that we were all using poultices and needles not so long ago. She isn’t interested in learning more about what we do, as long as we can do it.”

  Maureen sniffed and left the room, closing the door loudly behind her.

  Adrienne watched Maureen’s retreating form until the woman had closed the door behind her. “Shall we go?” Adrienne asked, thinking that even if Maureen had still been willing to show her around, she would rather Louella do it. The blonde seemed more real. More genuine.

  “Who do you want to see?” Louella asked. “There are more healers…” Louella regarded Adrienne more closely. “No, you would probably like to meet Pieter, one of the blacksmiths.”

  Adrienne had been hoping to meet a Talented blacksmith since she had first learned of them. From the way the people in Kessering acted toward soldiers, she was pretty sure she would not find a Talented swordsmith here, but a properly balanced dagger, one made with whatever ability the smith could channel into it, would be nice. “Yes, I would like that.”

  The blacksmith’s shop that Louella led Adrienne to was located on the outskirts of the city. The heat and noise made it an undesirable neighbor for many of the other shops, but to Adrienne the familiar sounds were soothing. Smiths and farriers were plentiful in camps like Kyrog.

  She picked up her pace until she was standing in the door of the shop, watching the familiar sight of a big, heavily muscled man shaping iron while a boy worked the bellows.

  The blacksmith thrust the tool he was working back into the red-hot embers and turned to the door, wiping the sweat from his forehead on the back of his arm. “Louella,” he greeted in a booming voice, a smile spreading across his face

  “Pieter,” Louella’s voice seemed even huskier, and Adrienne looked at the woman, wondering about the change. Louella’s expression was the same, however, and Adrienne thought she must have imagined it. She directed her attention back to the man. Pieter, Louella had said.

  “Can I help you?” he asked, casting an experienced eye into the fire at the half-forged tool. Apparently it had not
reached the right temperature yet, because he left the heating metal where it was and returned his attention to his visitors.

  “Pieter, this is Adrienne Rydaeg,” Louella said.

  “The soldier?” Pieter’s smile widened. “I wondered if I would see you here. Wondered too when they would think to train a soldier at all.” He chuckled, and it reverberated in his broad chest like distant thunder. “It took them long enough.”

  “Pieter,” Louella scolded, “it must not have been an easy decision for the commission to make.”

  “Why? They are training people to ultimately fight Almet. They should have started with soldiers, not turned to them as a last resort.”

  Since Adrienne agreed, she felt herself warming to the burly blacksmith. “They think soldiers are too dangerous,” Adrienne told Pieter. “Not to be trusted with a Talent unless there is no other choice.”

  “Dangerous isn’t a good reason,” Pieter said. “I’m strong enough to crack heads, snap necks, whatever you like, and any healer worth her salt would know enough about herbs to poison as well as cure.” He looked at Louella. The small woman with her golden cloud of hair and light skin was a perfect contrast to the large, dark blacksmith. And her look of consternation was impressive on such a delicate face.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Louella squawked, fisting her hands on her hips as if preparing for a fight.

  “And I wouldn’t snap someone’s neck,” Pieter said. “But I could. Everyone is dangerous.” He turned his back to them and grabbed a pair of tongs. “Besides, they made no allowance for bravery or a willingness to fight. But that is a different complaint, and I need to finish this, but if you can wait awhile I would like to speak with you.”

  Louella and Adrienne left to wait outside the blacksmith forge. It was only comparably cooler, but they could talk without shouting over the clang of metal or worrying about sparks flying. “Pieter doesn’t like scholars,” Louella confided. “He doesn’t like the commission at all, I’m afraid.”