Chapter Seven

Of the Fenians

"You would not think it to look at me now," smiled Regulus, "but there was a time when I was a man of some repute, a merchant with a big future. Believe it or not, I don't regret the way things panned out. My future may not be what it was, but it's still mine, and I like the shape of it more now than I did back then.

"I'm glad to hear it," I answered, not really certain what more to say.

Regulus nodded. "Fenland is roughly self-sufficient. We look after ourselves and we've always been good at it. I suppose your land is the same. We, neither of us, had anything that the other needed, but we, both of us, had something the other wanted . Luxury isn't the same for any two groups because it's defined by what you don't have. What's luxury to me could be commonplace to you and vice versa . That was what the old trading relationship was based on and I didn't see any reason that it shouldn't work again. Why shouldn't it? You still had stuff we wanted—‘luxury items', and we still had stuff you wanted. What could go wrong?"

I could take a guess. "You found that people weren't quite as open and friendly as they had been back in your grandfather's day?"

Regulus nodded and then sighed. "Seemed as if we remembered you better than you remembered us. I don't want to blame religion, but in our absence, your great god seemed to have taken an exception to folk with eyes like ours."

There had been a rising of hardline religious types in the last few centuries, the same people who thought women should be seen and not heard. Xenophobia had become a matter of faith: the Gath had become the only civilized place on earth and people from anywhere beyond the mountains were now demons in vaguely human form who could be spotted by their eyes. Maybe legends of the Fenians had been passed down, misunderstood, and gradually mutated into something more terrifying.

"I led what was supposed to be a trade mission," Regulus went on. "When the local people in the towns and villages threw rocks at us and drove us out, we assumed things would be better in the Castle Complex, away from all these ignorant superstitious types." He shook his head with a wry smile. "We live and learn. When we tried to make contact with the authorities in Woodfall Gath, they took us prisoner. I daresay we would still be there if there hadn't been an uprising of some sort that led to an attack on the jail."

"An attack on the jail?" I asked.

He nodded. "All the prisoners were freed and we fled. Completely lost in the Gath, pursued by the royal guards, we tried to find help anywhere. But all we met was more fear and hatred—the two go hand in hand when it comes to religious intolerance. We were chased, insulted, threatened…" He sighed again. "I couldn't tell you how far we came—no one would even tell us the way out of that hellish place. But then, purely by chance, we wound up in Rand and here on Mathis street, where an old woman offered us shelter. And not just her, but her family and their neighbors, and then the whole street. When the royal soldiers came, the people of Mathis swore up and down that they'd never seen people with such strangely colored eyes. They shielded us from the soldiers and put their own lives at risk for people they didn't even know and whom they had no reason to protect, except for that most basic of all reasons; that it was the right thing to do . I've never been so grateful to anyone in my life, and a bond formed between my people and those of Mathis, the sort of bond that your people once prized over anything else we could sell them."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

Regulus gave a little smile. "Even this has been lost to time. I saw your face, Mistress--Charlotte, was it?—when I mentioned the healing. You know something of it, or at least suspect."

I nodded. "I know that… I know people of your kind have the power to stave off illness in others if they're in the vicinity of the afflicted person. But it doesn't appear to work for everyone."

"No, indeed," said Regulus. "What you know is about what your ancestors understood and perhaps never fully grasped. I believe that misunderstanding and the anger it caused is one of the reasons trade ceased between us. They felt we were holding something over them, when in fact it was something beyond our control."

"Can you explain?" I asked, not fully understanding.

"I can try," said Regulus. "You see, the ability to heal in my people is not voluntary, it is an internal response to a bond formed between two people of different families (it never exists within a family). Amongst my people, it is most often found between a husband and a wife."

"But it could be between two friends," my thoughts rushed ahead. "Maybe two friends who met as children?"

"Rarer," replied Regulus. "Typically, the ability in children is only partly formed. When it does happen, then it tends to exist between two very lonely children, and such bonds are amongst the strongest there are."

"So… if two children, one of mine and one of yours, met and this bond formed, then the one of mine would never get sick?" I asked, just to be sure I fully understood.

"Again, it's rare for the bond to be so powerful as to hold all sickness in abeyance," said Regulus. "But it does happen."

"With very lonely children."

On the one side, there had been Nicolo, who had been thrown out of every village he and his mother tried to call home—a boy who had never known a friend in his life. On the other hand, there was Balduin, treated like a commodity by his own family, hated by his sisters, friendless, and deathly ill. It was the perfect situation to create a bond between the two boys, one which had been almost instantaneous, which had held ever since, and which had preserved Balduin's life through Nicolo's continued love for him.

It was hard also not to wonder if the Queen's own long life was due to her closeness to the boy she'd treated better than any of her own children or grandchildren. And it explained why all those people who had come to Nicolo, desperate for him to save them from some illness or other had been disappointed. Instead, they'd only driven Master Nicolo further and further into isolation, until his only friend in the world was the heir to the throne.

Yet, it didn't explain the child Balduin was holding hostage—certainly there was no bond between them?

But there was also not enough time to test whether or not the boy was healing Balduin, I thought to myself. Nicolo wasn't gone long enough for Balduin to realize the boy wasn't healing him at all.

I couldn't help the smile that took hold of my mouth as I realized the huge blunder Balduin had made—that imprisoned child wasn't healing him and never would, because the child hated Balduin and there was no bond between them.

"I daresay my ancestors did not mean to be heartless," Regulus continued as he gave me a rueful smile. "But there was simply nothing that could be done. People would approach them, ‘ We can be friends, tell me what you want. Money? Power? It'll all be yours if only you'll save me '. But a spiritual bond cannot be created in such a way. It cannot be forced. And when my people tried to explain as much, then it simply seemed as if they were selfish or holding out for a higher price—we were traders, after all. Things then turned ugly. There were fights, some vicious ones, resulting in deaths on both sides. Gradually the mercantile relationship drew back, dealing only with the outlying towns and villages," Like Simnel , I thought, "and then not even them."

"And you thought you could start that relationship up again?"

"That was the plan," admitted Regulus, his eyes twinkling with a hint of ‘ What was I thinking? '. "Perhaps it was always a foolish one. When I was a young man, I cared only for money, and there was surely money to be made here as there had been in the past. I would be the one to exploit it." He laughed. "Look at me now. Does it look as if I was successful?"

"You don't seem too worried about it."

Regulus nodded. "I learned a lesson about money and how little it matters. Maybe I learned that lesson the hard way, but it was worth doing so to find a home I treasure. There's nothing to stop us from leaving now and yet we stay. Partly because we want to; this is our home. And partly because… well, I daresay you can guess."

I looked back at the man who had guided us here and wondered how many people lived on Mathis Street, and how far this bond could stretch.

"How many of them?"

"The whole street," replied Regulus. "It is, I believe, quite unique, but so is our situation. In the history of my people, I do not know if one group has had such cause to be indebted to another. Rand, I am told, is not an area where people live long lives, and there is much sickness here because no one can afford doctors, they must make food last longer than it otherwise would and must work regardless of whether they should or should not. But here on Mathis Street, people do not get sick."

"Amazing," breathed Gerda.

It was amazing. It was also quietly horrifying, because it meant that everything Arthur had been through was for nothing. Balduin, like many of his ancestors, had assumed that having the boy with violet eyes was enough—it had worked once, why would it not work again? But when it had worked that first time, he'd been an innocent child, far from the monster he'd grown into.

"What about Arthur's family?" I asked.

"Killed by the same people who took Arthur," said Regulus, grimly. "We always assumed he had been killed as well. Will you bring him back to us?"

"Of course. If that's what he wants."

"Thank you," smiled Regulus. "I don't know who you are or how you came to be involved in this, but thank you."

"Aren't you curious to know more?" I asked.

Regulus shrugged. "Not really. It has been my experience that there are people in the world who are simply good, and I do not question it. I don't know where I and mine would be, were it not for the kindness of strangers."

I nodded. "I'll send someone back with Arthur in the next day or so. I want to make sure he's safe and… well he's probably in even more danger with us than he would be with you. Thank you for your time."

I stood to leave but Regulus stopped me.

"Mistress Charlotte, we have talked in purely hypothetical terms, but I get the strong sense that we have been talking about more than just young Arthur—that you perhaps know someone else of our kind? Though blood becomes watered down through progressive generations, the first-generation children of one of our kind and one of yours will retain our healing abilities in full."

"Thank you. That's most useful." That confirmed what I'd already assumed, but Regulus had more.

"I think you should also know that it's not entirely a one-way street."

I frowned. "We can't heal you back, can we?"

"No," admitted Regulus. "But something happens when we bond with your kind that does not happen when we bond with another Fenian. We gain something of you."

My frown deepened. "I don't understand."

"I'm not sure any of us do fully," he answered with a warm smile. "But I know my good nature, and the way I stopped caring about money, are at least in part due to the old woman who saved me all those years ago."

A tingle went up my spine. "Are you saying that a Fenian's personality changes when they bond with a non-Fenian? That they become more like the person they bond with?"

"I'm not saying it can happen. I'm saying it does ."

"Tell me," I tried not to sound too excited, but this was more than I could have hoped for, "I know that when you're apart from the person you're bonded to, the healing effect wanes. Is it the same for the changes in personality?"

Regulus nodded. "We've never tested it in detail. But I believe so, yes."

***

"That's why there was such a pronounced change in Nicolo when he left the Gath!" I blurted out into Wylder's face while he sat there non-plussed, believing only half of what I said, but listening politely while I poured it all out. "It always bothered me, because he changed before we reached Simnel. I mean… he changed more once we were there, which I guess we can put down to meeting his mother. But that initial change was because he wasn't around Balduin. He is literally a better person when he's not anywhere near Balduin!"

"Seems far-fetched," observed Wylder.

"Balduin had been healed by Nicolo's presence for the last twenty years, isn't that far-fetched?"

"I suppose…"

"But we accept it because we've gotten used to it."

Wylder held up his hands. "Charlotte, what is it you're saying here? What are you suggesting?"

"Nicolo can be saved!"

Wylder raised an eyebrow. "You sound like the religious nut who accosted me on the street the other night after the taverns closed."

"Wylder," I sat down beside him, "I've always said Nicolo was a good man. I stopped believing it myself after the last time I saw him, but this is proof that I'm right. He is a good man, as long as we can get him away from Balduin. And if get him away from Balduin…"

"Then the king dies," nodded Wylder. "Win-win. Except that getting Nicolo away from the Gath is no easier than killing him. And I'm still not sure we shouldn't do just that."

"Can you think of a more powerful ally to have onside than Master Nicolo?"

"We still have to get him onside."

"You can leave that to me."

"I was planning to," nodded Wylder. "What makes you think this can work?"

I took a deep breath. "I don't believe Nicolo will kill me. As long as the real Nicolo is there somewhere, I don't believe he'll kill me."

Wylder puffed out his cheeks. "You don't make war in a way I recognize, Charlotte, but I do like someone who just lays it all out on the line."

I grinned. "So, you'll let me try?"

Wylder rolled his eyes. "You're going to do it whether I let you or not. At this point my permission is rather superfluous, isn't it?"

"My plan can work."

"Doesn't mean it will."

As usual, he was right. But I was too. It all made sense. Or at least, it all made a weird sort of sense within the remarkable abilities of the Fenians. For the first time since I'd joined this revolution, I could see a path to victory laid out before me, and it wasn't a path that made me sick to tread.

"Can you spare Gerda and Kerys tomorrow?" I asked.

"Why?"

"They can take Arthur home."

"You're not going along?"

I shook my head. "Too much to do here." Actually, I just didn't want that prolonged goodbye. I'd become oddly attached to the child, and would miss his presence, sitting quietly by, watching me as I trained. Because I'd been the one who had carried him out of that cage I thought he'd adopted me, or allowed himself to be adopted by me. It would be a wrench to see him go.

But it was for the best.

It was all for the best.

Since I'd returned from Simnel, it felt as if my world was falling apart, now I felt like I'd placed one brick on top of another; the first step in putting it all back together again.

"ATTACK!"

The scream echoed through the corridors of the revolutionary hideout.

Wylder and I leapt up as a rebel raced in.

"We're under attack!"

"Sound the evacuation!" said Wylder, buckling on his sword. "And fall in the brigade." He would buy time so his people could escape. "Damn it, man, what are you standing about for?"

The man's face was white. "The man leading them… It's the Master."