noticed for the first time that the man had a slight limp and a blue-green bruise on his wrist just above the edge of the brown glove. of nausea nearly overwhelmed the young scholar; as he focused his senses, he felt the emanations of the disease clearly and knew beyond doubt why this intelligent, articulate man had sunk to his lowly station.
He was a leper.
Chapter Five
"M-my pardon," Cadderly stammered. "I did not know . . ."
"Does anyone . . . ever?" the large man asked, in a snarling voice. "I do not appreciate your pity, young priest of Deneir, but I'll gladly accept your pittance."
Cadderly clenched his walking stick tightly, mistaking the remark as a threat.
"You know of what I speak," the beggar man said to him, "the coins you inevitably will throw my way to alleviate your guilt."
Cadderly winced at the biting remark, but couldn't deny his pity that one so intelligent had sunk so low. He was surprised, too, that the beggar had discerned his order, even though he wore his holy symbol prominently on the front of his wide-brimmed hat. The large man studied Cadderly intently as the tumult of emotions rolled through the young priest.
"Pig," the man said with a sneer, to Cadderly's surprise. "How terrible that one such as I should have sunk to the level of a street beggar! "
Cadderly bit his lip in the face of such dramatics.
"To wallow in the mud beside the wretches," the man continued, throwing one arm out wide, the other still clutching at his mock-wounded chest.
He stopped suddenly in that pose and turned a confused expression Cadderly's way. "Wretches?" he asked. "What do you know of them, arrogant priest? You, who are so intelligent - that is the weal of your order, is it not?
"Intelligence." The beggar spat with distaste. "An excuse, I say, for those such as you. It is what separates you, what elevates you." He eyed Cadderly dangerously and finished, deliberately, "It is what blinds you."
"I do not deserve this!" Cadderly declared.
The man threw his hands above his head and blurted a mocking, incredulous shout. "Deserve?" he cried. He jerked the sleeve up on one arm, revealing a row of rotting, bruised skin.
"Deserve?" he asked again. "What, pray tell me, young priest who is so wise, do those kneeling before, and crawling from, the alleys of Carradoon deserve?"
Cadderly thought he would burst apart. He felt an angry energy building within him, gathering explosive strength. He remembered when he had awakened the trees in Shilmista, and when he had healed Tintagel, had held the elf wizard's guts in while a similar energy had mended the garish wound. A page from the Tome of Universal Harmony flashed in Cadderly's head, as clearly as if he held the open book before him, and he knew then the object of his rage. He eyed the bruises on the large man's arm, filled his nostrils with the stench of the disease that had so tormented this undeserving man's soul.
"Pieta pieta, dominus . . " Cadderly began, reciting the chant as he read the words from the clear image in his mind.
"No!" the large man cried, charging ahead. Cadderly halted the chant and tried to throw up his arms to block, but the man was surprisingly fast and balanced for one so tall, and he caught hold of Cadderly's clothing and shook the young priest thoroughly.
Cadderly saw an opening, could have jammed his walking stick up under the man's chin. He knew, though, that the frustrated beggar meant him no real harm, and he was not surprised when the man released him, shoving him back a step,
"I could cure you!" Cadderly growled.
"Could you?" the man mocked. "And could you cure them?" he cried, waggling a finger toward the distant town. "Could you cure them all? Are all the world's ills to fall before this young priest of Deneir? Call to the wretched, I say!" the beggar cried, whirling about and shouting to the four winds. "Line them up before this . . . this . . ." He searched for the word, his dirty lips moving silently. "This godsend!" he cried at last.
A nearby squirrel broke into a dead run along the branches across the path.
"I do not deserve this," Cadderly said again, calmly.
His tone seemed infectious, for the large man dropped his hands to his sides immediately and his shoulders visibly slumped.
"No," the leper agreed, "but accept it, I pray you, as but a small penance in a world