Chapter Two
The Fever and the Coin
We hold vigil over the boy through the night, which seems to unfurl like some endless flower, hours unfolding after hours like black petals without end. It is one of the longest I have ever known.
Gabor burns and thrashes, whimpers at my gentle ministrations. His mewls of pain remind me of the sound Zsuzsi the kitten made when that foul little boy burned her tail years ago. It isn’t the first time that I’ve thought it, that cats and babes sound so alike when they suffer. I do my best not to attend to the noise of his torment, tending instead to the poultices, refreshing them every hour. I’ve crushed honey, garlic, goldenseal, and clove into a sticky paste and smeared it on the wound, and every so often I tip a hot tisane of steeped willow bark and garlic past his lips, though he sputters and flops like a landed fish to evade me. When I must, I pinch his little nose and put my hand over his mouth to make him swallow.
“What a brutal thing it is,” the countess remarks, watching me with her avid gaze. “The way you must hurt to heal. Your heart must be hardened like a stone against others’ pain.”
“I do what I need to, my lady,” I respond softly. Of course my heart is not hardened—I feel an answering stab in my own gut each time the boy moans. But it is my conviction, not my compassion, that the countess needs to see while I struggle to save her son.
We watch, and we wait. In the hours before dawn, his fever spikes and I fear that we will lose him. Beside me the countess turns bone-white. She even reaches for my hand as if we are kin, squeezing it tight, desperate for what little comfort I can offer.
Then the boy’s fever breaks. He begins to stir, asking Zorka for stewed fruit and milk. His eyes, when open, are exactly like his mother’s, black and shining as obsidian. I don’t particularly like small children, but he’s undeniably appealing. Even barely recovered, he reaches for his adoptive mother’s neck and entreats her with kisses, his eyes glinting with sharp curiosity when he looks at me.
“Feed him clear broth, and keep giving him the tisane,” I instruct Zorka. “It’s foul, he won’t want it, but you must insist. And keep his foot bandaged and clean, the poultice refreshed whenever it loses savor. You’ve seen how I make it, haven’t you? I’ll leave you enough herbs to last you several days. After that, his body will flush the sickness of its own accord.”
Zorka nods vigorously, aglow with relief, her eyes fixed on the boy. I am heartened to see she loves him for more than just the fact that her life clearly hinges on his well-being.
“Thank you,” the countess says quietly when I rise from the bedside and join her by the door. Once the boy woke, she withdrew. Unwilling, I think, to disturb or confuse him with her presence. “Your clever hands have preserved my son. I will not soon forget your service.”
“It was no trouble, my lady,” I respond dutifully, though I sway on my feet, half-dumb with exhaustion. “It is what I do.”
Her lips purse with distress, and she cups my face like a concerned mother or sister, though her palms are like petals against my cheeks, far softer than my own mother’s or sister’s have ever been. She smells just as I remember, of dark, luxuriant flowers I do not recognize. “You are dead on your feet, poor thing,” she croons, sweeping her thumbs over my cheekbones. “I’ll have Janos return you to your home. He’ll have a purse of coin for you, as well.”
“Oh, no, I could not, it isn’t necessary—”
“Of course it is, don’t be daft,” she counters briskly, her hands tightening around my face. “You’ve saved my son, my own living reflection. How could I leave you unpaid after such a service? Now go, and rest.” Her eyes hold mine, gentle but relentless. “You are quite remarkable, Anna Darvulia, with your healer’s heart of stone. I hope that our paths cross again, and soon.”
I can think of nothing to do but nod.
I barely remember the rough ride home with the sun cresting the horizon, or the welcome weight of the coin bag that Janos drops onto my palm. My father has already lumbered off to his workshop for the day, where he will pummel metal with more enthusiasm than precision, leaving me free to drop into the bed I share with Klara. She nestles against me with Zsuzsi clutched to her chest, her corn-silk hair tickling my mouth, until her warmth lulls me into a dreamless sleep.
Hours later, I wake to flung-open shutters and the glare of high noon slanting in. Rising blearily, I stumble into the main room, where my mother kneads a paltry ball of dough on our cockeyed trestle worktable while the twins chase Klara all around the room, shrieking like demons. Andras is nowhere to be seen; now that he’s eleven, most days he apprentices with our father, though he never seems to acquire much skill to speak of.
“Out, you rapscallions!” Mama calls over their piping voices. “Out, or you will have not a bite of this bread once it’s done.”
“Mama lies,” Balint informs Miklos, flicking a devilish look at our mother. “Apu would not let us go hungry. Klara, maybe. She’s too skinny already, anyway.”
My chest tightens at the look on my mother’s face. It’s true that our father would hoard the last precious bite to make sure my three brothers were fed, even though Andras can be blockheaded as an ox, Balint a little bully, and Miklos an insatiable glutton despite our scant portions. Father dotes on them despite their faults, calls them his heirs as if they’ll inherit some vast fortune rather than a mountain of debt. Maybe if he didn’t swill most of his earnings at the public house, it would be easier not to resent my brothers for plucking the food out of our mouths. But though they are only little boys, one day they will be men just like our father.
Too often, it makes me loath to love them.
Mama’s eyes flash, for once, and she cuffs Balint so sharply behind the ear that he recoils, howling. “Mind the way you speak to your mother, and of your sister,” she scolds. “You are not so old yet that you’ll escape a hiding for your wicked tongue.”
Balint races past me with Miklos on his heels, tossing us both an outraged look over his shoulder. “I’m telling Apu!” he hollers on his way out. “I’m telling—”
His voice cuts off as the door bangs shut behind them. My mother and I exchange aggrieved looks, and finally she shrugs, defeated. “Even if he does, what of it? More likely than not, Istvan won’t remember by tonight anyway.”
“Would be a miracle if he did,” I mumble sourly, moving to stand beside her and sifting my hands through flour. Klara slinks under my arm like an overgrown kitten, nuzzling her cheek against my side. At six, she’s growing tall, too old to cuddle quite so much; she’s sweeter even than Zsuzsi, who has sauntered over to twine between her ankles now that the twin menaces have been banished. But I don’t have the heart to refuse her. “Shall I help you, Annacska?” she asks, blinking up at me with her startling blue eyes, the same vivid shade as mine and our mother’s. “The potage needs stirring.”
I glance over at Mama, who gives a tiny shake of her head and a significant look. She wishes to speak with me alone. “No, sweetling, but thank you for the offer. Why don’t you run out to the lake and see if you can cut some honeysuckle for us to have with supper?”