“Kel.” She drew close enough to him so that she would not be overheard—she suspected Mez and Levi were still watching avidly from the gates—but not so close as to cause chatter. He was dressed quite finely in silk and linen, all shades of pale ash and smoke and dark soot. His coat was silver linen, the sleeves slashed open, as was the style, to show the shirt of raw silk beneath. He was not wearing his talisman. “Are you all right?”
His pupils were wider than they should have been, his mouth compressed in a tight line. “It’s not me. It’s him.”
She looked at him blankly. It was a hot night; the air felt thick and heavy. She could see the lights of the Broken Market in the distance. The moon hung overhead, a copper penny, yellowed at the edges. “You mean . . .”
“Conor,” he said, in a low voice.
She almost took a step backward. “Kel, he forbade me to come to the Palace. If you want an Ashkari physician, we can find someone else—”
“No.” His eyes were wild. “It has to be you, Lin. I’m asking. If it isn’t you, it won’t be anyone.”
Name of the Goddess. Lin knew the answer before she gave it. For a Physician should not question whether a patient is enemy or friend, a native or a foreigner, or what Gods he worships.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go.”
His shoulders sagged with relief. “We must hurry.” He indicated the black carriage loitering in the road. “I’ll explain on the way.”
Once inside the carriage, she relaxed minutely. At least Mez and Levi weren’t watching. The inside was richly upholstered, cushioning the shocks as they rolled over the pitted surface of the Ruta Magna. Outside the windows, the blaze of naphtha torches created halos of light that cast a blurring softness over the edges of landmarks. Shops and bridges, balconies and flagstones dissolving into a soft wash of gray and black.
Lin said, “Are you quite sure about this, Kel? You didn’t hear Prince Conor when he ordered me out of Marivent. He was quite furious.”
“I am very sure.” A muscle jumped in his cheek. “You are skilled. Very skilled, as I am in a position to know. But there is more than that at work here. You are coming at the express request of Lilibet, because you are Mayesh’s granddaughter. She believes she does not need to worry that you will tell anyone what you have seen.”
“Lilibet—the Queen?” Lin was stunned. “Kel, you are frightening me a bit. If the Prince has injured himself in some foolish way, surely that cannot be—”
“He did not injure himself. He has been whipped.”
Lin sat back, openmouthed. “Who would whip a Prince of Castellane? Are they in the Trick now?”
Kel said, tonelessly, “It was a royal order. He had to be whipped.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kel looked at her in a sort of agony. The angle of the carriage indicated to Lin that they had begun to climb the Hill. She was suddenly desperate to know what had happened. Surely no one would whip the son of House Aurelian with true severity. The body of the Crown Prince was almost holy. He was precious, irreplaceable.
“Conor,” Kel said, “displeased his father. The King felt he should be made to understand his duty. He ordered Legate Jolivet to whip him until he lost consciousness.”
Lin curled her hands into fists to keep them still. The story seemed incredible. The way Mayesh had always described King Markus—distant, dreamy, studious—did not seem to match this behavior at all.
“And the Legate—he agreed to this?”
“He had no choice,” said Kel, almost unwillingly. “Jolivet has always disapproved faintly of Conor, and the way he lives his life—and me as well, by extension; he considers us both a pair of wastrels—but he cares for Conor. He did not wish to do what he did.”
“Has this,” Lin whispered, “happened before?”
“No,” Kel said. He ran his hands through his hair, agitated. “We were in the Gallery. Conor had angered everyone—gray hell, I don’t think there was anyone who wasn’t furious, but still—the King had Jolivet take him to the Hayloft, the room where we train. I went, too; no one stopped me. And Lilibet ran after, calling for Jolivet to stop, but the King’s orders supersede all others. It has just been so long since he has given any.” His breath quickened. “I thought it would be symbolic. A lash or two over his jacket, to show him he’d done wrong. The King was not even there, but Jolivet had his orders. He knew them—and had known them a long time, I think. He made Conor kneel. Whipped him through his shirt, until the shirt came apart like wet paper.” He made a dry, retching noise. Clenched his right hand tightly. “Five lashes, ten, then I lost count. It stopped when he was unconscious.” He looked at Lin. “There was nothing I could do. I am meant to be Conor’s shield, his armor. But there was nothing I could do. I told them to whip me instead, but Jolivet did not even seem to hear.”
There was a metallic taste in Lin’s mouth. She said, “The Legate had his orders from the King. You could not have made him disobey them. Kel—where is the Prince now?”
“Our room,” Kel said. “Jolivet carried him there. Like he carried me, when I came to Marivent.”
“And there was discussion of finding a physician?” Lin could see the white glow of Marivent, swelling outside the windows, as if they were nearing the moon.
“None of the Palace staff know what happened. The Queen was afraid to summon even Gasquet, as the news would travel so quickly through the Hill. That the King had whipped Conor. That there was discord in the House. That Conor had been shamed.”
“I do not see anything shameful about it,” said Lin. “If there is shame, it is the King’s.”
“The Charter Families will not see it that way. They will see it as weakness, a crack in the foundation of House Aurelian. I told the Queen about you—that you had healed me before, that you were Bensimon’s granddaughter. That you wouldn’t talk. So she agreed to let me fetch you. She is Marakandi; they have a great faith in Ashkari physicians.”
“I won’t know,” Lin said. “I won’t know what I can do until I see him.”
She knew, though did not say, that whipping alone could kill a man. Blood loss, shock, even damage to the internal organs. She thought of Asaph and the long fall down the cliffs to the sea. Did they—the Queen, the Legate, even the King—understand what had been done? Surely they had never seen whip scars, that ugly grid of pain and trauma that ached long after the wounds had healed.
“I know,” Kel said, as they passed beneath the North Gate. “But if it were not you, Lin, there would be no one. No other physician who could attend him. I—”
So I am not the best, just the only, she thought, but she was not angry. How could she be? It was so plain in Kel’s face that there was more than duty here, more than obedience that had been drummed into him through years of training. It did not matter how much she believed that, in his place, she would resent Prince Conor, even hate him. She was not in his place. She could not understand.
The carriage had come to a stop in the courtyard of the Castel Mitat. Kel threw the door open, leaping down to the ground, and turned to help her down after him. “Come,” he said. “I will bring you to him.”