The Unbroken by C. Clark (ebook reader .txt) 📕

up her body were itching more than she remembered them itching at Luca’s.

That’s because you were unconscious, idiot.

A cry went up as the children, serving as both official and unofficial lookouts, saw her.

“Stay back,” she rasped at them. “I’m sick.” So the children gawked at her and whispered.

“You have the laughing pox,” one of the little ones said, happy to be a know-it-all. “Like Hamid last week.”

Oh. The children she’d been playing with.

It wasn’t long before Jaghotai came up to meet her. Her mother only grunted, but Touraine could see the slouch of relief in her shoulders. “Your man Noé said you’d been taken. He’s been a mess. Thought for sure we’d see you strung up the next day.” Jaghotai came closer and examined a spot on Touraine’s neck. She whispered, “I just thought you’d gone back to your master. Glad to see I was wrong. Was I?”

She pulled back and bared a jackal grin.

“You’ve got laughing pox,” she added. “Makes sense. You didn’t have time to catch it as a child before the Balladairans took you.” She said it almost wistfully.

“Can I just… go lie down?” Touraine growled the words between gritted teeth. “It was a long walk.” Touraine was half a second from passing out, right there in the dirt. Jaghotai grabbed her by the arm to carry some of Touraine’s weight and lead her through. Touraine didn’t have the energy to jerk away.

“Stop. You’ll get sick, too.” Her protest was feeble, and they were already walking. Jaghotai shooed people back.

“Nah. I had it when I was a kid.”

“Am I going to die?”

“If we all died from it, there wouldn’t even be a Qazāl. It’s a weird thing.” Instead of lapsing into her usual glaring silence, Jaghotai kept up the idle chatter as they walked. Touraine wondered if this meant Jaghotai was becoming… friendly. “I don’t really understand it, but Aranen and Djasha do. You get it once, you don’t get it again. It also keeps you from getting the death pox.” Jaghotai helped Touraine slide back into her old bedroll.

The hand supporting Touraine went suddenly slack, and she slammed into the dirt.

“Sky above, Jak—” Touraine groaned and rolled over. “What’s wrong?”

“We don’t get the death pox,” Jaghotai whispered, a hopeful and calculating expression spreading on her face, “because we’ve already had the laughing pox. We need to talk to Djasha and Niwai. We need that Many-Legged priest’s animals again.”

CHAPTER 39A PANIC

Three nights after Touraine slipped out of the town house like a ghost, Luca dreamed, wild with her own fever.

In one dream, on the second night of Luca’s sickness, Touraine led her by the hand, smiling, smiling, and behind Touraine, the gallows, and waiting on the gallows, Cantic, an empty noose swaying in her hand. Above them, a mixed flock of birds blotted out the sun. Crows, seagulls, pigeons cooing and screeching and cawing as they passed.

“You don’t have to do this,” Cantic whispered in her raspy voice as she placed the noose around Luca’s neck.

“Your Highness,” murmured Lanquette, shaking her awake with his gloved hand. “Princess.”

Her eyes fastened on him in the haze of afternoon sunlight. “Something’s happened?”

“You cried out.” Lanquette averted his eyes and removed his hand. “I thought it best to wake you, Your Highness.”

Luca sank back into the pillows, damp with sweat but feeling properly coherent for the first time in a day. She looked her guard in the eye and swelled with sudden gratitude. “Thank you, Lanquette.”

Her relief was short lived. The next day, while she recovered her strength with chicken broth and soft grains, a letter came from the compound with a young soldier wearing a scarf around his face. He left the letter and departed without a word.

That told them enough, even without opening the letter. The compound was suffering from some sort of outbreak, too.

Cantic’s handwriting was hasty: Soldiers ill. Rash, vomiting, death. Does not affect Qazāli prisoners. Using them to try to heal the others. Not helping much. Stay away.

Luca pieced the message together. It seemed like the soldiers had something similar to her and Touraine—except for the death. She was already starting to feel stronger. Was it only a matter of time before it got worse again? Was Touraine dead in the city somewhere? She exhaled sharply, irritated that she even cared.

Cantic was using Aranen and the others to heal the sick soldiers, or at least to help care for them, but there was nothing about how many had succumbed and how many had recovered.

Luca should have asked Aranen more about the sickness. Pride had kept Luca from sending for the priestess when she fell ill herself. Aranen had said Touraine’s illness wasn’t fatal, so she’d decided to let the disease run its course. Luca had been a fool to trust her.

There was one person she could trust who might know almost as much about Qazāli diseases, though.

“Lanquette?” Luca called. “Could you send a message to Bastien LeRoche? I need him to bring his books.”

The next day, Bastien LeRoche arrived at the town house, a satchel on his shoulder and his father’s young manservant laden with more books.

When they joined Luca in her upstairs office, he gestured toward Adile, who waited beyond the threshold for any requests, a scarf covering her entire face save her eyes.

“What—oh.” The young lord looked Luca up and down. His smile was warm and charming. “You have laughing pox.”

“It could be dangerous,” Luca said defensively. “Adile will bring you scarves and gloves to protect yourselves, and you should stay back.”

Bastien laughed and shook his head. “It’s not dangerous. I had it before. It’s common here. When I caught it, my father locked me in my room with only water and…” He trailed off. His face held the shadow of latent rage, but there was no sign of it in his voice. “Well, I didn’t die, so eventually he let me out again.”

Bastien’s eyes flicked toward the servant boy, Richard. “You’ve had it, too, haven’t you?”

“Yes, my