Chapter 6: The Glacier

By the time I got down to the gate, half the Hold was there in their nightclothes.

The herald was still reading.

"The said Alys Loxley is commanded to return the feral Wystan Hawksley to the King's Eyrie in chains, or be declared outlaw."

Wystan was standing in the gateway in a pair of borrowed breeches and nothing else.

"Tell the King his prisoner walked home," he said.

The herald looked up at him and went the colour of milk.

"You're the feral."

"I'm the king of the Greyspine. This is my Hold. Get off my road."

Bettris was standing just behind her brother.

I saw her sway.

She put one hand on the gatepost and missed it.

Dorrit caught her before she hit the ground.

"She's burning up," Dorrit said. "Alys, feel her."

I put my bandaged hand on Bettris's forehead.

Her skin was hot as a kettle.

Her eyes were rolling, grey and then pale and then grey.

I knew that fever.

I'd sat through it with every boy in the Wing.

"First shift," I said.

Bettris grabbed my wrist.

"Don't tell him," she whispered. "I've had it three days. I didn't want him to see."

Wystan had heard.

He was already on his knees beside her.

The herald took one look and galloped off down the road.

We carried her up to her room.

My voice was nearly gone from the square.

I sang anyway, a thread of it, with her name over the pot song.

Dorrit sat on the other side of the bed with a wet cloth.

After an hour she started humming too, under her breath, so I could rest.

She knew every turn of it.

She'd stood beside me at every calling for eight years.

"Shut up, groom," Bettris muttered through her teeth.

"Make me, mountain girl."

Bettris almost laughed.

Then she arched off the bed and screamed.

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