In Which Thetis Has Some Grim News

August 15, 1187

"Welcome home!" Thetis bolted from the couch and to her husband's arms with the enthusiasm most expected of a newlywed--and certainly not of a wife of twenty-eight years! But it had been a tiresome day, and she'd promised to pass along some rather grim news, and Lord only knew how long it had taken her to get that baby down for his nap. If she wanted to greet her husband with that sort of excitement, she damn well would.

"You've been reading dirty Greek myths again, haven't you?" She smacked him on the shoulder. "Hey! I didn't say that was a bad thing!"

"I know, but the kids are home. Besides, the baby is asleep in our room, and any man or beast who wakes him will be tomorrow's dinner."

"Damn it, as soon as he's old enough to sleep upstairs, I'm putting about a dozen locks on our door. But how was the kid's first outing?"

"Not fun. But the baby was on his best behavior, at least." Poor little Octavius--his first ever excursion into the world having to be one of his brother Teodrin's doctor's appointments! And not even the one conclusive one Thetis and Florian kept hoping for either, perhaps stupidly at this point.

"So this doctor's just as much of a bonehead as the others?"

"They're not boneheads, Florian! They've just never seen anything like it." Maybe Severin would come across something in the university library? People could say what they wanted about her son--well, figuratively speaking, as literal privileges were her own exclusive domain--but no one could claim the kid wasn't smart enough to be a doctor. Of course, that would require telling Severin exactly what the problem was... "I don't think poor Teodrin appreciates us talking about this much. But the doctor had something else to say anyway, at least when I mentioned that you were the baron's steward."

"Oh?" Had the man in question held a less important occupation than one of healing, Florian would have barked that the fellow probably had legs, and that it wasn't all that difficult to break into the baron's castle so long as one had the sense not to bring one of his damn kids along (Thetis had yet to figure out exactly which 'damn kid' he meant, and why on earth Florian had thought to bring one in the first place). But for all his eccentricities, he was smart enough to know a genuine concern when he heard of it. "What did he want?"

"You recall that horrible business at the brothel a few years ago?"

"With that ass Maesflein? How could I forget? The dying's so much more painful and drawn out when they miscalculate the length of rope. You know, I bet Lord Severin slipped the hangman some coins for that 'mistake'." He shook his head, smirking all the while. Not for the first time, Thetis marveled at how fortunate it was that Florian worked for the straight-laced baron and that gentle Falidor worked for the good-hearted-but-occasionally-volatile Lord Severin--and not the other way around. "What about it?"

"It seems he's had a number of male patients recently with some serious symptoms, and many of them visited that brothel shortly before the baron had it closed." And God, did she hope none of her sons were among that number! At least Teodrin and downward had been too young for such things at the time. At least Setran, Hamrick, and Dragon were happily married and unlikely to seek companionship elsewhere. And Severin... well, apart from the occasional release of his longing for Rina, Thetis doubted he made a habit of soliciting. "Most of the critical cases at the time were women. He suspects that whatever it is may have a tendency to manifest differently in men and women--affecting women immediately, but laying dormant in men for a time before becoming dangerous."

"So we ought to issue a warning for any men who might have visited that brothel at that time."

Nearly the doctor's words exactly. "That would be for the best."

"Shit." Had one of the kids been in the room, Thetis still might have let the language slide. "Next time I walk past that bastard's grave, I'm spitting on it again."

The only thing that Thetis took offense to in that sentence was the apparent fact that someone had bothered to bury the man. "Throw in an extra wad for me."

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