Clandestine circle

Linsha was amazed. “Mica?” She couldn’t remember seeing the dwarf bearing any kind of weapon besides his surly personality. “Is he still there?”

“I have been watching the temple. He has not returned.”

“Perhaps I can find him. I would like to know what he is up to,” Linsha said, thoughtfully chewing on a piece of hay.

The owl stared at her, unblinking. “May you leave the palace?”

“I was ordered to attend him with his work.”

“That was yesterday,” Varia pointed out.

“Maybe the guards won’t know that. I’ll tell them I am going to the temple.”

Varia tilted her head and fixed a yellow eye on the cat. They stared at each other for so long that Linsha wondered petulantly what they were plotting. She knew Varia was telepathic at short ranges if she wanted to be; were cats, too?

“Fine,” said the owl, breaking the silence. “You may try that. But if you go to the camp, be careful. The plague has hit hard there.”

“Are you speaking to me or the cat?” Linsha said, her voice peevish.

“You,” the owl responded, as if to a small owlet. “The cat has other places to go.”

Linsha’s brow furrowed in perplexity, but she didn’t ask for an explanation. Varia often spoke of things Linsha didn’t understand, and while she could have used her mystic abilities to talk to the cat, talking to animals was something she did only when she had time and a great deal of patience. This morning she had neither.

She yanked her blanket off the floor, upsetting the cat, and jumped to her feet. “I’m going to change. I’ll leave you two to your private chat.” Shaking her head, she climbed down from the hayloft.

Cat and owl watched her leave. A growling purr, almost like laughter, rumbled from the cat’s chest.

“Yes, she is stubborn,” Varia agreed. “And she gets mean as a gorgon when she hasn’t had enough sleep.”

Still rumbling to himself, the cat left the way he came. Varia preened for a minute or two, then flew silently from the stable to keep an unobtrusive eye on Linsha.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The sentries at the back courtyard gate had received no orders about the squire, Lynn, and after seeing her in a proper uniform and listening to her explanation, they let her pass. They watched her proceed down the hill and onto the path that led to the Temple of the Heart and were satisfied.

To appease her conscience and to be sure the dwarf had not yet returned, she went to the temple first to inquire about Mica. The stately white building gleamed pale gold in the rising sun, and its windows were thrown wide open to catch the morning breeze. Despite the hour, the temple grounds were nearly empty and unusually quiet. Linsha walked up the path from the woods, across the neatly tended lawn, and up to the front portico before the door porter saw her and welcomed her inside.

Priestess Asharia overheard her inquiries to the door porter and, drawn by the red uniform of the Governor’s Guards, came to see the visitor for herself. Although her face was drawn and thin from overwork, she smiled pleasantly at Linsha. “Mica has not returned yet. He went to the refugee camp last night to check on some patients.”

Linsha let her face fall, and she shuffled her feet indecisively. “I have an important message for him from Lord Bight. I need to deliver it in person.”

“Oh. Well, if you Want to risk the camp, you could deliver it there. I just don’t know when he’ll be back.”

“Perhaps I’d better. Lord Bight needs him.”

Asharia’s hands clasped together. “Lord Bight is not ill, is he?” she asked worriedly.

“Oh, no,” Linsha hastened to assure her.

“Then if you are going anyway, could you carry something to the infirmary there for me? I was going to send a runner, but you’ll do.”

Linsha agreed. While she waited for the package to be brought, temple servants served a glass of wine, since the meager supply of water was for medicinal purposes only. She sipped it slowly, and she had just finished when the priestess returned lugging a large pack with straps. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” said Asharia. “The extract of lupulin had not been bottled.”

Linsha dredged her mind for that familiar name and came up with memories both uncomfortable and unpleasant of her grandmother forcing the stuff down her throat after she fell ill from a bad meat pie. “Cinnamon, hops, and yarrow for stomach cramps and diarrhea.”

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.