Asharia nodded, impressed that Linsha recognized it. “With a touch of valerian to relax the patient. It’s an old remedy for grippe and dysentery. It isn’t widely used, but we’re trying anything. We’ve discovered most of our patients die from loss of fluids, so we’re hoping to slow down the dehydration and maybe give the people a chance to fight the illness.”
That sounded logical. “Treat the symptoms,” Linsha said.
“For now. Until we can stop the cause.” Asharia paused and laid a hand on Linsha’s arm. “Be careful, young woman. Do not enter the camp. We have guards and runners on the roads, so give your load to one of them and have him find Mica for you. If you do go in, touch nothing. Mica thinks the plague may be spread by touch.”
The lady Knight nodded. “He told me that already,” she said as she hefted the bulky pack. The bottles of extract had been so well packed, she didn’t hear any clink of glass. She bowed a farewell to the priestess and took the dirt road down to Asharia’s refugee camp on the hill just to the west of the temple.
Unfortunately the busy camp, due to its proximity to the temple and the healers, had naturally evolved into a hospital camp and had been one of the hardest hit areas of the city. As soon as Linsha crested the slope near the camp, she saw two large dirt mounds at the side of the road, mass graves for the victims of the plague. A third hole had already been dug, and a row of bodies lay wrapped and waiting to be placed within. Linsha held her breath as she passed. In the intense heat, bodies deteriorated rapidly and the flies gathered in dense clouds. There was a light wind from the west, but all it did was stir the dust on the well-beaten tracks and spread the stench of illness from the camp.
Before her, the road wound along the hill and plunged into a complex of tents, huts, and permanent wooden buildings. She could see only a few people moving about. Many more lay on pallets inside the tents, in the shade of awnings, or under the few scattered trees. If the stench was bad, the sound was worse-worse than bedlam, worse than anything she had ever heard. An endless drone of mingled groans, moans, and soft sobbing filled the air of the camp like the aftermath on the field of battle, and over that rose a babble of shouts, rantings, and screams from those patients trapped in the nightmares of delirium.
Linsha’s footsteps slowed at the edge of the camp. Her hand went unconsciously to the dragon scale beneath her shirt. She looked around for a guard or runner in Temple robes, but everyone still upright was busy in other parts of the camp. She saw only a short gnome sitting on a stool by the roadside. He was busy with pen and paper balanced precariously on his knee.
“Excuse me,” Linsha said. “I’m looking for Mica. Is he still here?”
The gnome scratched his head with end of the quill pen, smearing some ink in his white hair. “Uh, no.” He went back to his sketching.
Linsha tried again. “Sorry to bother you, but I need to know where he is. And I also have this pack of bottles from Priestess Asharia. It is to be delivered to your infirmary.”
The gnome sighed at her interruption. He carefully laid his paper aside and hopped off his stool. “I’ll take the pack to the infirmary. We’re not supposed to let anyone pass inside.”
Linsha looked dubiously at the gnome, for he hardly looked bigger than the pack itself. “It’s heavy,” she warned.
He smiled for the first time. He was a young gnome, Linsha realized, with unlined brown skin and brilliant blue eyes, and he proved quite capable of lifting the pack to his back and carrying it. “Mica left early this morning. He said he was going back to the temple,” he said, turning to go.
Linsha waved her thanks and gratefully turned away from the camp. Now she didn’t know what to do. Mica hadn’t returned to the temple, and he wasn’t in camp. He must be in the city. The only problem was where… She knew she shouldn’t be absent from the palace for long, nor could she search the entire city, but she didn’t want to give up the hunt yet. Maybe, she thought, he went back to the scribe’s house to look for more records. She could look through that neighborhood and hope for a bit of luck.
Setting off at a trot, she followed the track along the outside wall down past outlying cottages and businesses and into the heart of the outer city. She saw signs of the ravages of the plague everywhere she went: barricaded houses, yellow paint splashed on doors, grim demeanors of the people who ventured out, and here and there hastily dug graves in gardens and small parks. The stench of death and sickness fouled the air. Many of the people she did see wore masks or veils to help filter out the dust and smell.
It didn’t take her long to find Watermark Street and the scribe’s shop. To her disappointment, there was no sign of Mica. The shop was shuttered and locked as before; the only difference was a splash of yellow paint on the doorframe. Linsha looked up one side of the street and down the other to no avail. With nowhere else in mind to check, she was about to turn back to the palace when a soft rustle warned her of Varia’s approach. The owl landed on the edge of a roof nearby.
“He is two streets over, in an outdoor tavern,” the owl hissed with excitement, and she winged to another roof across the road. Linsha hurried after her.
From her days patrolling this district, Linsha knew which tavern Varia meant, for it was one of only a few that offered tables set outside in a small garden. Apparently the tavern keeper was either desperate or overly optimistic to have opened his bar this day. Striding with purpose, Linsha took an intersecting street over three blocks and worked her way back through a shaded alley to come upon the tavern from the rear. The outdoor portion of the establishment lay at the back on a bricked patio shaded by a large latticed roof hung with a thick canopy of vines. As Varia reported, Mica sat at a round table, facing Linsha. A human man sat across from him, listening to his hushed talk. Because he had his back to her, Linsha couldn’t see the man’s face, but something about his grizzled hair and the angle of his shoulders looked vaguely familiar.
Linsha knew her red uniform made her too conspicuous to simply ease into the small number of tavern patrons, nor was there enough cover to get close enough to hear what Mica was saying. She had to content herself with a shaded corner behind a pile of empty crates and a framed view of the dwarf and his companion through a gap in the stack.
Varia flew silently across the rooftops and landed with a faint rustle in the foliage of the lattice. She, too, hunkered down to watch and listen.
While she waited, Linsha studied the man with Mica. She had seen him before, she knew that. At the moment, his head was bent over a mug, so the only part of him visible was his hunched back and shoulders and his long, gray-black hair pulled back in a leather thong. Just then a barmaid walked out the door with a tray of mugs, and the man looked quickly around, giving Linsha an unencumbered view of his profile.
A spark of recognition electrified her. By the gods, it was Calzon, the Legionnaire who sold his turnovers undercover in the Souk Bazaar. He looked younger than his usual disguise and better dressed, but Linsha could recognize his aquiline nose and strong chin anywhere. Linsha thought she knew most of the Legionnaires in Sanction, but if Mica was meeting with this member of the Legion of Steel, then he was probably either an informer or a member himself of the Legion. It was possible this meeting was nothing more than a friendly get-together between friends, but Linsha doubted it. Not here; not in the middle of this crisis. She would bet any number of steel coins that Mica was a Legionnaire. A Legionnaire placed undercover as the lord governor’s healer. Linsha wanted to laugh. This is what the Clandestine Circle deserved for disregarding the Legion of Steel.