Before Simeon could reply, there was a knock at the door. It was Nephtys, the commander of Niall’s personal guard. She said: “Captain Sidonia is here, highness.”
“Thank you. Take her in to my brother — I will come in a moment.”
Simeon asked: “Sidonia? The captain of the Spider Lord’s guard?”
“I sent for her. I think she might be able to help Veig.”
Simeon frowned. “How?”
“Sidonia is fond of Veig.”
Simeon smiled. “So are a lot of other ladies around here.”
“Good. The more the better.”
Simeon was puzzled. “I don’t follow you.”
Niall said: “Sidonia has plenty of courage and energy.”
“Yes.” Simeon had seen her risk her life by driving her shortsword into the stomach of a bull spider that was threatening Niall.
“Then don’t you think she might be able to convey some of it to Veig?”
“How?”
“Simply by wanting to — perhaps laying her hands on him.”
Simeon’s wrinkled brow revealed he was unable to understand what Niall was talking about.
“Don’t you believe that people can give energy to those they love?”
“I’ve heard my daughter say so. But I think that’s only a manner of speaking.”
Niall was disappointed. Simeon obviously found the idea absurd. As a physician he was pragmatic and skeptical. But Niall had seen the young spiders transferring their vital energy to Cheb the Mighty and Qisib the Wise, and knew that it could be done.
“Where is your daughter?”
“She’s at home.”
“Here, in the spider city?”
“Yes.”
Since he had become a member of the Council of Free Men, Simeon had taken over the ground floor of an empty building not far from the square; it saved the daily journey back to the city of the bombardier beetles.
“Could you bring her here? Will she still be awake?”
“Probably. She often waits up for me.”
As Simeon was leaving, Niall realized that Sidonia was waiting outside the door. Niall was surprised to see her; he had assumed she would wait down in the hall. As usual, she was standing to attention, her eyes in front of her so she looked like a statue.
He said: “At ease.” She allowed her eyes to focus on him. “You know my brother is sick?”
“No, sire.” He was probing her mind, and felt her concern. Like most of the women with whom his brother had been involved, she obviously continued to feel a certain affection for him.
He said: “He is suffering from some illness that is draining his energy. Come with me.”
He led her downstairs and across the courtyard to his brother’s quarters. The room was empty except for Veig, who was asleep, his arm outflung, and his maid Crestia, a slight, blond girl who was sitting by the bed, looking pale and tense. She jumped to her feet, for both Niall and Sidonia were her superiors. Niall gestured for her to sit down.
There was no need to probe Sidonia’s mind to sense her anxiety as she looked down at Veig. It struck Niall as odd that a girl with such a high level of self-discipline that she seemed little more than a robot should feel so deeply about his brother.
He asked: “Is he hot?”
She sat on the bed and placed her hand on Veig’s forehead.
“Yes.”
“Do you know how to take away his fever?”
“No.”
“Put your other hand on his solar plexus.”
She looked puzzled; her education had not encompassed such anatomical terms. Niall pulled back the bedclothes; his brother was naked. The chest and belly were covered with curly hair that was damp with sweat. Niall took Sidonia’s right hand and placed it on Veig’s solar plexus. As she sat there, unsure of what he wanted, Niall placed his own hands on hers, then breathed deeply, and allowed himself to sink into a state of deep relaxation. When he was calm enough, his feelings and sensations blended with those of his brother, and he began to feel heat and discomfort. He was interested to observe that Sidonia also followed him into deep relaxation, obeying his thought impulses as if they shared the same body.
Now he began to try to soothe Veig’s fever as though it were his own. To begin with, this seemed to have no effect; on the contrary, the fever seemed to burn more fiercely. Then, slowly, he began to respond, as if Niall — and Sidonia — were whispering words that relieved his anxiety, and he was listening to them.
Suddenly, Crestia reached out and laid her hands on Veig. Although unconscious, Veig responded to her, as if his attention had been drawn to someone else who had walked into the room. Then he seemed to recognize her and relax.
What was happening to Niall was what had happened when he had given energy to the girl in the hospital, and to Charis, the girl who had accompanied the assassins from Shadowland. He was giving energy exactly as he might have given a blood transfusion. Veig absorbed this energy as naturally as he absorbed the vitality that flowed from Sidonia and Crestia. As he did so, his fever disappeared, and he sank into a normal sleep.
For a few minutes more, the three of them sat there, suddenly aware of one another. Niall was interested to observe that they seemed to be sharing the same body, or rather that he was as aware of the women’s bodies as he was of his own. In that moment, he realized why Veig found the opposite sex so appealing. Holding them in his arms was simply a first step toward this mutual exchange of energy.
This was also the reason that the energies that flowed from Sidonia and Crestia were more satisfying to Veig than Niall’s; it had the opposite polarity.
A light tap on the door made them all start. It was Simeon, followed by a woman whose yellow hair flowed over her shoulders. Niall judged her age to be about thirty.
Simeon said: “This is my daughter Leda.”
She had an oval face with firm lips, and serene gray eyes. Unlike the women of the spider city, her profile was not perfect, and on this account was more interesting. Niall felt immediately that he had known her for many years. He was glad that she made no move to curtsy or otherwise show respect to him as the ruler.
She asked: “How is the invalid?”
“Feeling a little better.”
She sat down on the far side of the bed. As he watched her capable brown fingers taking Veig’s pulse, Niall felt his brother was in good hands. He noticed that, even after taking Veig’s pulse, she continued to hold his wrist, as if tuning in to his physical state. She finally laid his wrist on the coverlet.
“He is still very ill.”
“But he was worse before you came. He was in a fever.”
She seemed to understand immediately. “And you took it away?”
“All three of us.”
“Then your brother is in good hands.”
Niall said: “Can you answer me a question?”
“I’ll try.”
“If we can take away his fever, why can we not cure him completely?”
Simeon interrupted: “Because his blood is full of tiny parasites like leeches.” All this talk about healing evidently made him uncomfortable.
Leda said: “But that is not the only reason. I sense that there is more to it than that.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Some kind of hostile force. But it may be possible to neutralize it.”
Niall felt a tingle of hope. “How?”
“In this house you have a room with trees in it?”
Niall stared at her in bewilderment.
“Trees? You mean real trees?” For a moment he thought she must be talking of a painting or mural.
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “There is no such room.”
The maid Crestia said: “Yes there is.” They all stared at her.
She said: “It is part of the cellar. I can show you.”
She took a pressure lamp and pumped it until it glowed fiercely; Niall took another. The others took oil lamps from their wall niches.
As they followed Crestia across the upper courtyard and into the palace, Niall tried to guess what she had in mind. He was sure he knew every room in the building, from attic to cellar. In any case, how could trees grow in a room?
Crestia led the way across the hall and down the cellar steps. The great stone-flagged room had a pleasant smell of stored food: apples, hams, spices, as well as fermenting mead and cider. Game hung from hooks on the beam. Crestia went on through a small door in the corner, which led into a lumber room full of broken furniture and moldering curtains. Niall had glanced into it on several occasions, but since there seemed to be no exit, had not bothered to explore it. Now Crestia picked her way among broken wardrobes, cracked mirrors, and armchairs with springs sticking out, stirring the dust so it made them sneeze. In the far corner of the room, behind a rickety wardrobe, was a small door, held by two drawn bolts. When Crestia pulled these back and tugged open the creaking door — with some help from Simeon — a smell of fresh air blew in.