because she remembered nothing that she had experienced during her trance, Nyctasia had no way of knowing whether she had been successful. Her own weakness told her that she had given strength to Corson, but had it come in time to shift the balance towards life? Corson seemed unchanged, still wandering in her fever dreams, and Nyctasia could only continue to nurse her and hope for some encouraging sign.
Corson thought that she had been walking for days on end without finding her way. She longed for rest but felt that she must keep moving on, though she no longer remembered why.
Then someone called to her, and she saw a tall figure coming towards her over the dunes. “Steifann…?” She tried to run to him, but soon stopped, exhausted. “Steifann, help me! I’m so tired…” But it was not Steifann who reached to embrace her. Corson frantically felt for her sword, but it had been lost somehow. She screamed as the grinning specter bent over her, sliding its arm around her waist, trying to force open her mouth with its tongue. Suddenly furious, she struck out wildly at the creature with all her remaining strength, only to find herself lying in a strange room, staring at her own hand. For some reason, a bed slat had been tied to her arm.
Nyctasia scrambled to her feet and ran to throw open the door so that she could summon help if Corson broke free to attack her. She watched from a safe distance as Corson tried to sit up, looking about in bewilderment.
“Steifann…?”
Nyctasia approached cautiously. “It’s Nyc.”
Corson stared at her. “Why is your shirt all wet?”
“This is the broth I was trying to feed you when you knocked me down just now.”
She picked up a broken bowl and set it on the table.
“I did not,” said Corson. She lay back and tugged at the cord at her other wrist. “Help me!”
Nyctasia hesitated, then sat on the edge of the bed and undid the knots. “Who did this?” Corson demanded, frightened.
“I did. You keep trying to kill me.”
Corson looked puzzled. “We have to hurry,” she said vaguely. “It’s almost dawn.”
She fell asleep again before Nyctasia could reply.
Nyctasia laid her palm against Corson’s temple, and smiled. The fever had broken.
“I’m not hungry.”
Nyctasia sighed. “How in the Hlann’s name do you think to get your strength back if you won’t eat?” She began to straighten Corson’s tangled bedclothes again.
Corson picked unenthusiastically at the plate of stew before her. “It’s probably poisoned,” she muttered.
But Nyctasia only laughed. “Do you want me to eat some of it first?”
“As soon as I do get my strength back, the first thing I’m going to do is tear you into shreds, you murderous bitch.”
“I know, you told me. But last time you mentioned it you were planning to cut out my heart and liver and skewer them. Let me know when you’ve decided which it’s to be.”
“I will.” She started to eat the stew, which was not at all bad.
Corson was bored with being confined to bed. She’d been trying for days to provoke Nyctasia, but all her threats and insults had been met with a good-humored patience that was driving her mad. She liked Nyctasia better as a sharp-tongued shrew. “What are you doing now?” she demanded.
“Writing a letter.”
“Where are my weapons?”
Nyctasia paid no attention. Corson looked for something to throw at her, but there was nothing at hand except the stew. She hit the wall with her fist.
Nyctasia looked up. “Do you want something, or are you just trying to annoy me?”
Corson didn’t know what she wanted. When Nyctasia tried to amuse her, she wanted to be left alone, and when Nyctasia ignored her, she felt neglected. Unused to illness, she had no idea that her despair and frustration were only the aftermath of fever. Suddenly she burst into tears.
Nyctasia went to her and embraced her. “You’re a goose! Hush now, listen to me-if you like, I’ll…” she lowered her voice. “I’ll tell you what isnathon scrathling means.”
Corson grabbed her arm. “Tell me.”
Nyctasia whispered something to her and she gasped. “You filthy
…! Get away from me!” She kicked out at Nyctasia who backed away and dropped into her chair, laughing.
“I think I’ll write a letter,” Corson announced.
“Very well.” Nyctasia cut another sheet from her book and dipped the quill afresh. Writing was a difficult skill, practiced mainly by students and scribes.
The wealthy employed secretaries to write their correspondence, and others patronized public scriveners. Nyctasia naturally assumed that Corson meant to dictate the letter to her. “Very well, what do you want to say?”
“No, give it to me. I’ll write it myself.”
Skeptical, but curious, Nyctasia brought her the book and quill, and sat on the bed to watch, holding the ink.
Corson was clearly a self-taught scribe. As she laboriously dragged the quill over the rough paper, the point frequently caught in the fiber, spattering ink across the page. But Corson persisted. “MY DEAREST STEIFANN,” she scrawled.
Nyctasia couldn’t bear it. “Corson, that is a pen, not a sword-don’t stab the paper with it. Hold it loosely and let it slide over the surface.”
“I don’t want lessons in penmanship!”
Nyctasia stood. “I’m going out, then. Shall I bring you anything?”
Corson only shook her head, intent on her writing. As soon as Nyctasia was gone, she tried to follow her suggestions-but it only became harder to control the pen. She tore out page after page and used them up, practicing. The point of the quill soon wore down, but there was nothing to sharpen it with.
When Nyctasia returned after an hour, she found Corson hunched scowling over yet another ragged and blotchy effort. Her hand was cramped and ink-stained, and there was a black smear across the bridge of her nose. She crumpled up the page and threw it at Nyctasia. “Let it slide over the surface!” she shouted. “How, curse you?!”
Nyctasia set down her satchel and looked at the mess Corson had made of her commonplace book. It required all her powers of self-discipline just to keep her temper. “I thought you didn’t want lessons in penmanship. You should be resting, not wearing yourself out over trifles. Lie down!” To Corson’s relief, she cleared the rubbish from the bed and threw it on the fire.
Corson lay back and shut her eyes, too tired even to give Nyctasia an argument.
Her own weakness frightened her more than any enemy. How could an hour of sitting up and scribbling be so exhausting? “I’ll never be well again!”
“You just need time to mend, that’s all. If you’d stop fretting yourself, you’d feel a good deal better. Look-” She reached in her satchel and brought out a matching silver comb and hairbrush. “These are for you. Perhaps they’ll keep you amused for a while. After all, you are the vainest person I’ve ever known.”
Corson was already unpinning her braid. She gathered up her hair and drew the brush through it a few times, but even this soon became tiring.
“Shall I do it for you?” Nyctasia offered.
“Mmm, all right.” Corson loved to have her hair brushed. She toyed with the silver comb. “These are just of a piece with my mirror. Look in my pack-it’s wrapped in a cloth. I meant to leave it with Steifann, but I forgot about it, with all the trouble you caused me.”
“Steifann… is that your friend the taverner?”
Corson nodded. “Best lover in the land. He arranged the passage for us with that Destiver. ‘Old friends,’” she scoffed. “Hah!”
“That’s what you had against her!” said Nyctasia, enlightened. “Corson, I don’t think you need to worry.”
“You don’t know Steifann. He’ll bed down with anyone.”
“Not like you.”
“Are you going to brush my hair or aren’t you?”
“At once, milady!” She wrapped one long coil of hair around her hand and started to brush it slowly.
“He’s probably whoring all over the city by now, and me dying,” Corson mourned.
“The women of ancient Kehs-Edre wore a certain perfume in their hair, when they wanted to keep their men in thrall,” Nyctasia remarked. “I have the recipe in one of those useless books of mine.”
“How can you perfume your hair?”
“Soak a wooden comb in it for three nights and three days, then let it dry. You just comb your hair with it and the scent lingers… men can’t resist it.”
“What a story!”
“It’s true, though,” said Nyctasia, with the conviction of one who has made the experiment. “In hair like yours, the effect would be maddening. I’ll make you a comb like that someday, if you like.”
“When?” Corson asked. She began to feel that she might recover after all.
Over the next week Corson’s health, as well as her handwriting, made rapid improvement. When several days had passed without a recurrence of the delirium, Nyctasia succumbed to Corson’s insistent demands that her weapons be returned.
“Er… do you want these back as well?” Nyctasia asked hesitantly, holding out the golden earrings. “I’ve washed them in vinegar-they’re quite safe.”
“You wear them. If you live long enough, I’ll take them back.”
“Gold doesn’t suit me.”
Corson shrugged. “Keep them.”
With a sigh, Nyctasia changed her silver earrings for the gold.