The Bone Queen Read Free

the dark without hope of rescue, and shuddered.
    “Maybe I can help?” said Cadvan diffidently. “At least, with those who are out. I have a few healing skills…”
    Taran glanced at him, and nodded. “There’s no healers here,” he said. “Even a little is better than nothing.”
    Taking that as permission, Cadvan went to those who had escaped the mine. They were gathered together near a shed, surrounded by other villagers. He paused, suddenly shy of intruding, and approached a man who lay at the edge of the group, coughing violently.
    “Can I help?” he asked the woman who held him. “I might ease the cough…”
    The woman looked up at Cadvan. “You’re that cobbler,” she said.
    “Yes,” he said. “I know a bit about healing…”
    The woman gave him a long, calculating look, but it was free of hostility. Then she shrugged and moved aside.
    “I doubt you’ll stop the coughing,” she said. “When he sets off like this, it goes on and on.” Cadvan knelt down and put his hand against the man’s chest; underneath the convulsing coughs, he felt the rumble of diseased lungs struggling for breath. There were so many in the village like this man, withering away from the illness caused by breathing in coal dust. It killed most miners in the end. Many kept on working until they were unable to. The lucky ones found jobs overground before it was too late.
    “Is he your husband?” Cadvan asked.
    “Aye,” she said, pushing back her hair. “Ten years we been together, Ald and me. The smoke set him off, I reckon.”
    Cadvan could find no injury, so he closed his eyes, sending out his Gift, trying to find the health in the blackened lungs beneath his hands. The disease was beyond his helping, beyond anyone’s help; but he could ease the immediate crisis. Gradually Ald stopped coughing, and he sat up, looking at Cadvan narrowly.
    “You’re that cobbler,” he said, echoing his wife.
    “I am,” said Cadvan. “But I know some other things too.”
    “He was sort of shining,” said the woman, her voice high. “Shining, he was. It’s witchcraft, that’s what that is.”
    Cadvan turned to her, forcing himself to smile. “It’s not witchcraft, but a Gift I have,” he said. “He should breathe easy now.”
    “Shut your face, woman,” said Ald. “He’s a proper healer, he is. You should be thanking this gentleman here. I ain’t felt this easy since I can remember.”
    A few people had gathered around to watch, and a buzz rose among those near by, drawing further attention. Cadvan studied the crowd, wondering if they would turn against him.
    “Is there anyone else who needs healing?” he asked.
    There was a visible hesitation; then a woman came forward.
    “My Breta is cut bad,” she said. “And she’s burned by the fire.”
    Cadvan breathed out, realizing that in the moments before the woman stepped towards him, his whole body had clenched with anxiety. There was no reason why these people should accept him. Revealing his power here was risking suspicion and mistrust, perhaps even violence; but it ran against the grain not to help when there was such need. He nodded, and followed the woman, and began work.
    Cadvan of Lirigon, Bard of Annar. Cadvan the cobbler, taking what business the miners could afford in an ugly mining settlement which had barely heard of the Light. I cannot marry these two things, thought Cadvan. And I cannot kill the Bard in me either. Unless, of course, I kill myself. And I have neither the courage nor the vanity to do such a thing. I have the despair, of course. I have plenty of that… Unconsciously, his lip curled with contempt.
    He lay on his pallet in the small, patched house he now called his home and stared at the ceiling. It was very late the night after the explosion, so late that the first intimations of dawn glimmered on the horizon. He had driven himself to an exhaustion past sleep; all evening and into the night he had worked with the injured, and had comforted