Read Dragon Tree for Free Online Page B

after wearing one of the albino’s poultices, and a
woman who had labored in childbirth for three days and would surely
have bled to death following the breech delivery, allowed him to
pack her womb with special herbs and was working in the castle a
month later, her babe comfortably asleep in a sling across her
back.
    As for the
knight who now called Taniere Castle home, a five year old scruffy
child could see him dismount to dry a tear off her face, yet a word
of thanks from that child's parent could send him awkwardly back
onto his horse without another word. An occasional hunt would lure
him across the draw but he favored his own company. He rarely went
to the village, and never attended the daily masses held in the
castle chapel. His chambers occupied the entire east tower and
while there were many a maid who would have joined him there with a
crook of a finger, none were ever invited.
    So it was that
when Tamberlane returned from the ill-fated hunt that day, the men
and women working in the wards stopped what they were doing to turn
and stare at their overlord as he rode past, plainly startled to
see an injured maid cradled in his arms.
    While Roland
held the reins of the destrier steady, Tamberlane threw a leg over
the front of his saddle and landed on the ground with the surety of
a big cat. With the wolfhounds close on his heels, he carried the
unconscious girl inside the keep, his boot heels ringing off the
stone floor as he traversed the great hall and climbed the narrow
corkscrew staircase into the west tower. Roland was a step behind
and opened the heavy door at the top before Tamberlane could kick
his way through.
    As usual, the
seneschal's chamber was dark, the shadows thick and black. There
was a solitary candle flickering insipidly in the far corner of the
chamber, a low fire glowing red in the hearth which provided barely
enough light to discern one shape from the next.
    Marak was
there, dressed in his long black robes. He sat in the far corner
grinding some herbs together with a mortar and pestle, but at the
sound of the door swinging open, he looked over.
    While
Tamberlane and Roland waited for their eyes to adjust to the gloom,
Marak calmly set his pestle aside and raised the hood of his robe
to shield his face as he came into the stronger light.
    “You mentioned
you might be going hunting this morning. You did not say your game
would be two legged.”
    “She has an
arrow through her shoulder.” Tamberlane said. “Can you help
her?”
    “One of your
arrows?” Marak inquired, looking down.
    The sublime
reference to Tamberlane's skill with the bow was answered with a
snort.
    The
seneschal’s eyes, unseen beneath the hood, studied the girl’s limp
body, while a pale hand touched the side of her neck to search for
evidence that the blood still pulsed through her veins. Tamberlane
was unsure himself, for he had not felt her move, had not heard a
breath or a whimper over the last mile of their journey.
    With a gesture
that did not promise much hope, Marak skimmed his fingers over the
blood-soaked tunic. “She is almost bled dry.”
    “Can you help
her?”
    “If I say not,
will you toss her over the rampart and go about the rest of your
day?”
    Tamberlane
looked startled for as long as it took the seneschal to echo the
earlier snort and point a long finger at a table close to the fire.
While Roland cleared the board of assorted bottles and pots, Marak
lit several more candles from a taper, all of them fitted with
special metal shields that would shine the light downward, away
from his sensitive eyes. As the gloom lifted, rows upon rows of
clay vessels and pots that crowded the many shelves along the walls
were revealed. Mysterious powders from Africa sat beside those
brought at great cost from the Orient. Wings of small creatures sat
in bottles neatly marked with Latin script. Next to them were pots
of dried eyeballs and venom from a dozen variety of snakes; in
another jar a tiny orange toad was