Savage Empire

Then he spoke to Lenardo. "Do you understand me?" He now spoke in Aventine.

With the water to release his throat, Lenardo managed, "Aye." It was too much effort to say that he understood the other language too.

"You're safe now. We'll take you to Aradia. I'm going to make you sleep, so the journey will not pain you."

Lenardo wanted to protest, but he was too weak. The black man began to chant something in a language Lenardo didn't know, and he fell into dreamless sleep.

The dreams came later, as he was carried smoothly along in the litter. Or was that a dream too? Four men walking could not carry a litter so that it did not lurch or bump.

The confusing smooth motion was interspersed with strange images-worry about his pregnant wife… her time was due… when he got home, he might have a son. He tried to cry out to hurry-yes-the babe was born. A fine, healthy boy. Maj is fine… happy…

A horse… lame… nothing seemed to help. Poultices. Must ask Aradia…

Lovely girl. Halja… laughing blue eyes, light brown hair. Could he manage the marriage fee before her father gave her to another?

And woven through all the dreams the image of a woman… a woman who blended somehow Into the wolf-stone, the two images shifting… shifting… white wolf… alabaster woman… violet eyes…

He woke in a room, at night, lying in a bed. The black man, sitting beside the bed, rose and gave him water. "Are you in pain?" he asked, still in Aventine.

"No," Lenardo replied, a pang of sudden fear as he remembered, looking for his right arm. It was still there, lying atop the covers like a dead thing, bloated, the streaks of red no worse than before but still there "Are you rested enough to speak?" asked a low-pitched female voice. Out of the shadows at the foot of the bed moved a woman with palest blond hair, her eyes dark pools in the dim candlelight. She reached for the wolf-stone about Lenardo's neck. "How do you come to wear this? I know you not."

"When I was sent into exile, a friend gave it to me. He thought it might protect me."

Her delicate eyebrows rose. "It has, indeed. The hill bandits have enough respect for it that they dared not kill you. It saved you a second time in that you are a Reader, and anyone else might have had you killed."

At Lenardo's start of surprise, she smiled, her pale face momentarily beautiful. "In your delirium, you talked of everything on the minds of the men carrying you-Helmut's lame horse, Jorj's marriage plans, Gron's son… and Gron did not even know he had been, born yet." Pure shame rang through Lenardo. Delirium or no, his training should have kept him from invading the men's minds, let alone babbling out their secrets. But the woman continued reassuringly, "Fortunately, no one but Wulfston spoke your language, so you did not frighten the poor men out of their wits."

"Wolf-stone?"

"I am Wulfston," said the black man.

Confused, Lenardo touched the alabaster wolfs head. "You are called-Wolf-stone?"

"Yes, that is what my name means. When you are well, I will explain how I got the name."

"I am Aradia," said the woman. "May we know your name?"

"Lenardo."

"Well, Lenardo, our first order is to put you back in good health. Let me examine you." As she spoke, a many-branched candelabrum on the table beside the bed… moved. Lenardo saw it only out of the corner of his eye and glanced toward it. It was perfectly still now-no, he must have imagined As he watched, every candle burst spontaneously into flame. At his astonishment, the woman said, "That is an easy trick-the candles are made to burn. I simply work with their natural inclination."

"How can candles have a natural inclination?" asked Lenardo.

"All of nature has desires," said the woman. "Water desires to run downhill. Crops desire to grow. What you call magic is nothing but encouraging things to follow their natural desires."

"Then you savages attack the empire because of a natural desire to kill?"

"No," she replied gently, "because of the natural desire to grow. Now, if you will let me examine your wounds-"

Wulfston stripped away the blankets, revealing Lenardo naked on the bed. "There were no signs on his back, my lady. They seem to have beaten his face and stomach, and he bruised his knees trying to crawl to shelter."

"To water," said Lenardo, recalling that deathly thirst

Gentle pale fingers probed his cuts and bruises, pressed on a rib until he winced. "I wonder if-" She laughed, a light, lovely sound. "But you can tell me, can't you? Is this rib broken?"

He Read it. "Cracked, not all the way through."

"Can you Read other people that easily?"

"Physical things? Yes. No one can block that."

"What help you will be at healing!" she exclaimed.

He had never heard of savages healing or using then-powers for anything but destruction. Could Galen be right? But this was an opportunity to gain her trust, without doing anything that might harm the empire. "I will be glad to repay your kindness by helping you at healing." Perhaps he could gain enough freedom of movement thereby to search for Galen.