In Which Hilla Is Asked to Humor

August 4, 1181

The duke's sister was not an unfamiliar figure to Hilla. She was a stepdaughter of Tarien's brother, making her a step-cousin to Hilla's own grandchildren, her granddaughter of her same name included--a granddaughter close in age with Lady Rona herself, and the two of them had been good friends since shortly after Arydath and Tarien's marriage. The younger Hilla even dropped frequent hints of future mutual grandchildren--though so far as the elder Hilla knew, Lady Rona had no interest in that sort of meddling. Still, it had always been a nice thought, even if she herself would be long gone before it could ever happen.

Only, she'd never imagined that Lady Rona would be long gone before then too.

She'd been summoned late the previous night, when one of Sir Ashe's guards had turned up at the castle and told her that Lady Rona was ailing--fine one minute, just laughing with her husband after putting the kids to bed, then collapsed in his arms the next. Hilla hadn't known what to think of that; she'd mainly been annoyed at having been roused at the hour. At least they'd done her the service of sending a rather handsome fellow, but if Lady Rona hadn't been a family friend, she might have put it off until morning.

Of course, once she'd gotten there... That thorn Sir Ashe had fished out of Lady Rona's flesh was of the type she still saw in her nightmares, close to two decades after that horrible spree.

"She's sleeping a little more soundly now, but there's not much more I can do. I'm sorry, sir."

"No." Sir Ashe had not been the first distraught spouse to tell her that. He would not be the last either--one of the sad facts of being a healer. "No, I can't accept that. There has to be something you can do. You haven't tried everything."

"Sir." As always, she knew what she wanted to say. I've been here all last night and all this morning and now the better part of the afternoon. I haven't even left for a bite to eat. Don't accuse me of not doing my job. But this was a grieving man and that wasn't tactful, so she spoke as her mother had trained her to speak. "I'm sorry. I've seen this illness before and there isn't a plant I've heard of that can cure it. If I had the better part of the year and a willing test subject, perhaps I could figure out the recipe for a cure, but it would still be a long shot."

"How long do you have?" How long does she have?

Hilla shook her head. None of the victims of that horrible wave had given her nearly long enough, even with Laveria as a collaborator. "Not more than a week. I hate to be the one to tell you, but you'd best start making your preparations. You'll need a more permanent wet-nurse for your son, and--"

"No!" It was by sheer blessing of the old family sleeping draught that he didn't wake his wife. "Darry won't need a wet-nurse when Rona gets better. She will get better!" He swallowed back some denial-defying sob and stared down at Lady Rona's sleeping form. It was a look of more than premature mourning, than of sorrow and the agony of a broken heart. There was something more immediate, more concrete. Something like an apology. "What do you want? I'll give you everything I have if that's what it takes. More, even! Just help her--"

"Sir, if there was the slightest chance that I could help her, I would do it for nothing." And as a woman who had lived most of her life from fee to fee before her daughter had married a knight, that was not a familiar sentiment. "You're young. Too young to have to learn that simply loving enough won't heal everything. I'm sorry I had to be the one to tell you, but love isn't magic. Even magic can't do everything."

"Don't tell me what magic can or can't do! I know more about magic than you ever--!" He caught himself before Hilla could even fathom the claim. "...Do you know magic?"

She sighed. "There's no such thing as magic, dear."

"You're wrong." It wasn't the first or last time she would hear that either, though never in regards to magic. Was it ever too early for grief to become madness? "Out of anyone in this kingdom, who do you think would know the most about magic? Farilon? Lucien? Aerina?"

"No one in this kingdom knows anything about magic." Except for you, apparently. "No one anywhere knows anything about magic."

And not for the first time in her life, and not for the last, as she studied yet another patient beyond her reach, she wished that she was wrong.

"At least stay with her a while longer?" At last, some hint of reality had struck him. Hilla nodded. That, at least, she could do. "And can you keep the children near her? Darry won't know what's going on. I hate to do that to Yvanette, but she's Rona's best chance."

Or not. "What do you mean?"

"They have magic."

Dear Lord. The poor, stupid man. "Really, there's no such thing as--"

"I know, but they have it! Just humor me for a couple of hours!" He looked over his dying wife one last time before stepping around the foot of her bed, his back to Hilla. "Keep them by her side until I get back."

"And where are you going?"

He didn't look back once as he hurried to the door. "To get the one person in this whole goddamn country who might actually save her."

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