Linnea's Arc

Chapter 11 of 14

The wagon dust settled, and Linnea stood alone in the barn. The panther was gone. The winged fox was gone. The lord's men had taken all three guardian beasts to the castle. For weeks those beasts had held the crowds in line. They had kept the sick from trampling each other. Now Linnea had nothing but two geckos on a bare shelf and a plan for a door with no name. But a plan needs a place. And the crowds still came. By morning, forty sick people stood outside the barn, pushing, coughing, shoving toward the door. A child fell in the mud. An old man swung his cane at a younger one who cut ahead. Without the panther, the line broke into a mob. Linnea raised both hands and shouted, but no one heard. A cart rolled up through the crowd. Mia stepped down in her dark suit, pearls at her throat, not a hair loose. She was the broker who once charged these people to stand in line, then lied to a lord's captain to keep Linnea free. Linnea did not trust her. But Mia knew how to move a crowd. "You lost your beasts," Mia said. She glanced at the shoving mass and smiled. "I warned you legends are worth more than tools." "They're going to hurt each other," Linnea said. "Help me hold them." Mia tilted her head. "For a price." "No price. Look at them." Mia looked. A woman clutched a limp baby against the crush. Something in Mia's face shifted. She climbed onto her cart and clapped once, loud and sharp. "Sick ones sit down where you stand," she called. Her voice carried like a bell. "Anyone standing goes to the back. Anyone shoving goes home." The crowd froze. She had done this before, at the fair she built. The sick lowered themselves into the mud. The healthy backed away. In a minute the mob became rows. Linnea worked the rows fast. She healed the baby first, then the old man, then a girl with a fever. The blooms in her satchel each held one dose. She pressed a pale petal to each mouth and moved on. By dusk the rows had emptied. No one was crushed. No one was left sick. Mia climbed down from her cart. "That's how you hold a crowd without beasts," she said. "With a voice they obey." "You did it for free," Linnea said. "This time." Mia buttoned her jacket. "But you can't heal in the open again. That mob today? Word spreads. The lord's men will come back for the healer they missed." Linnea looked at the trampled mud where forty people had knelt. Mia was right. The beasts were gone for good. The next door had to be hidden, small, quiet, a room no crowd could find. She had held today. She could not hold another one out here.