The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 7: The Cursewright's Failure, Part 6

The way her tongue had lathed at her lips.

The way Tacen had infected her, not merely with a bite and not even with sexual congress, but emotionally insinuating himself into her sheltered life until she craved him in spite of every ounce of good sense she possessed.

Ammas's eyes traveled from her heaving stomach to the mild bump of her pubis, crested in silken black hair; to the blood oozing from her cleft.

Do it.

Ammas dropped the third leech onto the lowest stretch of her belly, almost concave from her poor diet on the road, directly atop her womb.

Its protesting squeals became screams. Within seconds steam began to rise from its dying shape, adding to the now-thick plumes rising from the ones further up her body.

Exhausted, the cursewright sprawled to one side, slamming the glass lid onto the grave-leeches' jar. The smell improved marginally, but the ones dying on the princess's body did not exactly put one in mind of a rose garden. Now he could only watch, and destroy the leeches if he had used too many.

The steam grew thicker and thicker. He could now smell some of the ingredients that comprised the brew, especially the bitter wine and the sunflower oil. And most encouraging of all, the rotten, mulchy odor Casimir had noticed was beginning to soften, to gentle, to become the forest perfume of a she-wolf so newly turned she might fairly be called innocent.

None of that, however, stopped Ammas's pulse from racing until he saw the grave-leeches had steamed away to nothing. Grimacing, his knees complaining against the extended period he had spent on them, the cursewright dragged himself closer to the princess and scanned her as closely as he could. Her breathing was heavy but no longer strained and stertorous. The sobbing and whimpering had ceased. Gently he touched two fingers to her left breast, closing his eyes, gauging her heartbeat. Not the ragged arrhythmic beat that threatened to cease or even burst at any moment, nor the wolf's pulsing rhythm -- just rapid, as if she had run a race. Slowly his gaze traveled to her hips, the Deyn tattoo, the shape of her sex: still bloody, but no longer flowing.

Ammas collapsed backward with a deep sigh, bracing himself on the floor by his hands, then settling his back against the altar itself. After a moment he looked over at Lena and Casimir. On both her pale face and his dark one were identical expressions of guarded hope.

"She's alive. She'll recover."

Lena gave a whooping sigh of relief and hugged Casimir to her breast, who seemed frankly bewildered. "Thank the gods, thank the gods," she murmured, hiding her face in the boy's kinked hair.

Ammas said nothing for a long while, and when Lena looked up, wiping away the tracks in her makeup worn by her relieved tears, she thought he had fallen asleep. Nervously she stretched forward and tugged the woolen blanket over Carala's form. The girl was fast asleep now, breathing steadily, though her face still bore the pallor of deep illness.

"Lena." She turned around to look at the cursewright, who regarded her from glazed and half-lidded eyes. "Take Casimir into the garden. Help him draw and heat enough water to bathe her. You don't mind, do you?"

"No, Ammas," she shook her head. "I've done it many times at the Lioness. Lots of the girls overindulge on the weekends. I've given plenty of unconscious baths." She colored a little and smiled shamefacedly. "Received a few, too."

"That sounds lovely," Ammas said vaguely. He was looking at Carala again, studious and troubled.

Finally Lena chanced the question. "What happened, Ammas?"

"You mean, how did you fuck it up, Ammas?"

Lena's blush deepened. "No, I didn't mean that."

"You should have," he said sharply, almost waspishly. It frightened Lena and drew a puzzled look from Casimir. Neither had ever seen him like this, and both decided not to leave him alone just yet. Finally he looked up at the ceiling of the temple, distant and lost in shadows. "I think I know. I have to discuss it with her when she wakens. Please help me clean her up before that. I can't leave her for so much as an instant until I know she's awake and healthy. Well, healthy as she was before she drank the cure." Scowling he lowered his gaze to her again. "After that, I don't know. There might be options."

Lena nodded, and after a long, pained look at Ammas, she set toward the postern door. But Casimir lingered, and after a moment Ammas waved him over.

"Hunker down here, Casimir." The boy nodded and obliged. Ammas ran a hand along the boy's head, his callused fingers gentle on the boy's curls, tight and black where Ammas's own were soft and graying. Casimir blushed and looked down. Ammas lowered his hand with a smile. "Didn't get the essay done, I take it?"

The boy shook his head.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Not . . . not really, Ammas."

Ammas nodded, watching the boy thoughtfully. "Deacon Pell?"

The boy looked up with a glare, not directed at his master. "Yes."

Ammas laughed sourly. "I thought so. That useless sack of rat shit."

The phrase made Casimir snort embarrassed laughter, though he stifled it and looked worriedly at the girl sleeping deeply on the temple floor. Ammas kneaded the boy's shoulder comfortingly.

"You saved her life, Casimir. You know that, don't you?"

Casimir looked around, startled, then shook his head in disbelief. "You did that. I watched. All those things you did. Those -- those words. The leeches."

Ammas nodded slowly. "Yes. I did. And if you hadn't come back when you had, Lena would still be scrambling for them down in the catacombs and I'd be whispering against that woman's throat until her heart burst, which would have happened long before now. So forget the essay, and forget that shit Pell. You did a cursewright's job tonight. I couldn't have a better apprentice."

Casimir could do nothing but look at the floor, a tear trickling from his eye even as his smile threatened to consume his entire face. It had, after all, been a tumultuous afternoon.

"Go out back and help Lena. Help her bathe Carala if she wants, but she probably won't. If she doesn't, go up to bed. Someone here needs to get some sleep."

"I want to stay with you," Casimir said at once.

Ammas sighed, too tired to argue. "We'll see." Casimir still hadn't left. "Something else?"

"Just I knew her name wasn't Mari."

Ammas laughed hoarsely. "Wise lad. Go help Lena with the water."

When Casimir had departed Ammas turned his attention back to the deeply sleeping Princess Carala, trying to ignore the voice of his father announcing his sentence for a cursewright who had been found guilty of nearly killing a client through incompetence.