“That too was in the cards?”
She smiled. She had been about to say something about Lester, but Lomax had put it correctly. Without the cards’ suggestion that she might affect things here, she would not have come. She had no experience in war, but well understood the risk she took coming here.
“We have many wounded,” Lomax said, wiping blood. “Our only doctor was killed. Would you-- could you possibly help?”
“I'm not skilled,” she said. But Lester might be among the wounded. Besides, there would be others like this young guardsman. “I'll do what I can.” She would have to trust the cards to guide her correctly.
She followed him, detouring around a horse and a man that were beyond help. She knew a little herbal lore, she knew how to suture and bind up wounds. If nothing else, she could do as her daughter had done at another place, and mop fevered brows and hold chilly hands.
They reached the bottom of the hill as the daylight faded and the sun eased down. The signs of battle were all around: dead men, dead horses, dropped weapons, and the groans and moans of injured and dying.
“This way, Mrs.-- eh, Knight.”
“Charlain will do.” She followed him meekly to an isolated tent. He pulled back the tent flap and there, lying on a blood-soaked blanket, was what appeared to be a schoolboy. The lad's eyes were glassy and filled with terror and suffering.
“A witch! A witch!” the youth cried, pointing feebly at her.
“Not a witch, Phillip,” Lomax said. “This is Charlain, Kelvin's mother.”
“Don't let her touch me! Don't let her!” He struggled to sit up, blood spurting through knotted bandages. He shrieked at the top of a weakened voice: “Go Way! Burn her, Lomax! Burn-- ” His eyes rolled up until only the whites showed. He stiffened and fell back.
Hurriedly Charlain grabbed his wrist. There was still a heartbeat, but it was faint. A lot of his blood was missing.
“Why is he here?” she asked. She couldn't help but rage that such a young boy had been allowed to fight. It was her motherly instinct.
“He's St. Helens’ friend. Former king of Aratex.”
“Ah.” Formerly the enemy, though it had really been Melbah who governed that country. Kings did get their way, ex or current. “Is there bloodfruit around?”
“There is, back a way in the forest.”
“I'm not sure he can swallow the juice, but-- “
“We'll make him. St. Helens wouldn't like it if he died.”
“St. Helens is-- ” She wanted to avoid the word, but found no way. “Captured?”
“Yes. Or dead. He could be in the same state as this.” His eyes flicked down to the boy. “Phillip here killed the witch.”
“Helbah? Killed?” she asked, appalled.
“Yes. He wasn't supposed to.”
“But Helbah is a good witch!”
“But on the other side. That's how the enemy got St. Helens. We broke the truce, and they seized him.”
She thought: Helbah's still alive. I know, I've read her cards. But she may not remain so long.
“Can you get the bloodfruit?” she asked, turning to the immediate business. “A lot of it? If you have other wounded who have lost blood it could save their lives.”
“I'll send some men back. It's a big grove, but a long ride. They might not be able to get the fruit back until daybreak.”
“That will have to do.” She gave the former boy-king a final check. Unconscious, colorless, he appeared dead. “Are there wounded to whom I can give immediate help?”
“Many. Some not this bad.”
“I'll need help setting bones and severing limbs. Get me your doctor's supplies.”
Lomax nodded, went outside, and began issuing orders. She joined him, and he took her to more wounded and dying than she had seen before in her life.
Men sought their foolish glory, she thought, but for too many this was the reality. It was a shame, but they never seemed to learn.
*
It was nearing dawn when the riders Lomax had dispatched arrived back with the bloodfruit. At her direction the fruit was boiled and the red syrup cooled and administered. First young Phillip, then man after man weakly swallowed a spoonful or a cupful depending on his need. In a surprisingly short time pale faces flushed and men were restored to full vigor.
It was magic fruit, the bloodfruit. The doctor had had the foresight to see it gathered, but in the fighting the wagon with the fruit was set ablaze and destroyed. The doctor had died trying to put out the fire. So until this new supply arrived, wounded men had continually died.
At first she did not recognize him. She had only met him twice, and that under better circumstances. But then the pale, big man she was working on gasped a word, and the word caused her astonishment and joy.
“Jon!” the pale lips gasped.
Lester! This was Lester, her daughter's husband! He had lost a lot of blood but he should be all right once the syrup took effect. Revived by the prospect, she held the brimful cup to his lips and massaged his throat to force him to drink.
“You'll be all right, Lester,” she murmured. “You will be, for Jon's sake.”
He did not respond verbally. His pulse jumped. From his mouth a trickle of blood issued, thicker and darker than the syrup.
Gods, he was dying! Jon's husband was dying, and she didn't know how she could save him. Yet there had to be a way of restoring him. There had to be!
Desperately she checked through the doctor's bag. Containers of herbs, properly labeled, but often a mystery to her. She wished she had absorbed more herbal lore. Which herb, properly administered, would seal his internal wound and allow the bloodfruit to do its work? There had to be an herb that would do this, but was it the sealant root or the stitching flower? Desperately she tried to remember. She had never anticipated being in a position like this! Her arms and legs felt weighted down. Fog filled her head. Invisible bees hummed in it. She was in need of reviving herself.
She took out the jar of sealant root. Should she try this? Suppose it was wrong? It just might be that sealant root was for some other use. Yet to do nothing, or to delay doing something, might mean Lester's doom. She had come to help him! If only she knew how!
When in doubt, ask the cards. It had been the one thing she had always believed in. Without hesitation she took the deck from her pack, shuffled it, and thought of Lester. Then, head swimming, body protesting more than the disapproving glances of assistants, she dealt out the column.
A single pawn card, representing Lester. A new card representing Lester's fate if she did nothing. It was the death card, skull and crossbones. Tell her something she did not already know!
She dealt again. She laid out the card, there on the bloody canvas. The Lester pawn. Now, administer the sealant root, and his fate would be-- the death card.
Her hands shook as she riffled the cards and started the third layout. This time it was the Lester pawn card and the thought of the stitching flower. She held ajar of pink blossoms in her left hand, concentrating. She turned up a card: death card.
No, no, no! There had to be a restorative! Back in the palace she had read uncertainty. Here she read death, only death. Was she too late?
She checked the labels on the jars. Here was a jar filled with white flower blossoms, well dried. But this couldn't be the stitching flower! Yet it was! What then were the pink blossoms in the jar she had held as she turned the card? She read the label, her tired eyes squinting hard: “Stretching flower.” She had had the wrong jar!
Quickly she tried a fourth layout, holding the jar of white blossoms. Pawn card representing Lester Crumb, her daughter's husband. Now I will administer the blossoms in this jar, and--
The sun with a smiling face: recovery card! Lester would recover if she got the herbal medicine inside him in time.
How to administer it? She didn't know, but she had to be swift. Hastily she unscrewed the jar, shook dried blossoms into a cup, added water and a few drops of raspberry wine, stirred it
, and held it to Lester's lips.
She massaged his throat, edging up the cup. Slowly, lest he choke, she poured.
He sighed. His color deepened. His eyes blinked. “Jon? Jon? I love you, Jon! I want you close. Please, Jon, come to bed.”
“Hush, Son,” she said, stroking his forehead. “It's only your old biddy mother-in-law.”
His eyes unglazed and focused on her. His color deepened until it was a bright red. “Thank you, Mrs. Hackleberry,” he said. Then, exhausted, he closed his eyes.
She had won this one, she thought, and with the thought she realized how tired she actually was. She had worked through the night and into the day, seeing nothing but wounds and blood. She closed her eyes, sank back against the doctor bag, and thoroughly relaxed.
Sleep, sleep, sleep, the natural restorative.
*
Helbah remained weak, but revived enough to take some of her own medicines, and they restored her greatly. But her hours of injury had put her dangerously out of touch. She fetched her crystal and oriented on the enemy battle camp. Soon she ferreted out the woman with the violet eyes doctoring the Kelvinian and Hermandy wounded.
A witch, that young man had called her. She looked the part, but Helbah had never heard of another practiced in these arts. She frowned, watching the healings, wishing that she were herself well enough to do more. Magic restoratives were wonderful, but at her age they could do only so much.
Later the woman in the crystal was reading cards beside a dying man and an open doctor case. She watched as the woman laid out a file three times and three times took up the cards. So that was how she was doing it! She was not trained in witchcraft or healing magic, only in the cards-- but they were guiding her well. On the fourth try she found her answer.
Helbah watched as the woman gave the medication and restored the young man to life. Then, exhausted as only someone practicing the art could be, for it drew from the soul as well as the body, the woman sank to the floor of the tent, closed her eyes, and went instantly to sleep.
Interesting. She has the talent. Largely untrained, but there. Another enemy? Or could she-- dare I think it?-- become a colleague? An apprentice, someone to help me fight?
Without quite willing it, she fell asleep herself, dreaming a witch's dreams.
Sometime next morning Katbah entered the room with tail held straight up above his shiny back. He was lean from his ordeal of lending her his life force, but he had taken restoratives and was strengthening. He walked straight to her and stared into her face.
“Those two in trouble again?” She sighed. “Think what we'd have to put up with if they hadn't the minds of grown men!” Actually she was often in doubt about the maturity of their minds; sometimes they were just so confoundedly juvenile that she wished she could take a switch to their little posteriors.
With difficulty she got to her feet, using her cane, and followed her familiar.
*
St. Helens kept his eyes barely slitted and pretended to sleep. He had successfully ignored the pebbles and the lumps of dried dirt. Now a feather danced before his nose and threatened to make him sneeze. He considered grabbing the string and breaking it, and would have done so in another moment. But then the feather wafted out of his sight, mercifully.
From above he heard them whispering. Little dickens, what would they try next?
Suddenly moisture trickled down on the back of his neck, the side of his face, and on his beard. Horrified, he rolled over and roared. “You brats! You filthy brats!”
At the window, two young faces with golden crowns above peered down, grinning.
“That got him, Kildom.”
“You're right, Kildee. Guess this is where we should come next time we have to pee.”
“We can fill up with appleberry juice. Come with a big load. Make him smell sweet.”
St. Helens mopped at the back of his neck. If there had been anything in the cell to throw, he would have thrown it. He sniffed at his hand, shook some yellow drops from it, and swore an oath so villainous it threatened to char the walls.
“Oh listen to the bad words, Kildom!”
“He's a bad man, Kildee; what do you expect?”
The two dissolved into giggling. St. Helens felt like showing them just how bad he could be. Instead he fought to control himself. This was most difficult because his inner nature urged him to rave and rant and make a spectacular scene. It wasn't through having a saintly disposition that he was called St. Helens, but because his temper had once been as explosive as a famous Earth volcano.
“You brats are going to be in trouble!” he shouted. “You can't do this to a general! You're going to be punished! When I get out I'll warm your butts!”
“Listen to him, Kildom. He thinks he's getting out.”
“Never, Kildee. He'll be here forever! Every day we'll come water him like an ugly weed.”
“Until the whole cell fills up with appleberry pee!”
“And him swimming in it like a big fat froog!”
“He's already got a big fat froog-face!”
They dissolved into more giggling, unable to maintain their clever repartee.
"YOU BRATS! YOU FILTHY BRATS!" St. Helens exploded. He was repeating himself, but he couldn't help it. They were supposed to have the minds of men, so a little manly profanity couldn't warp them. Just maybe he'd remember that they were men in boys’ bodies when he got hold of them, and then-- then it would be more than a spanking he'd deliver!
“Do you think, Kildom, that there's another form of elimination! Plants need fertilizer as well as water, don't they?”
“Shit, yes! Let's!”
St. Helens felt his face going purple. He could imagine smoke curling from his ears and his head and body erupting in a geyser of fire. Never had he been more uncontrollably furious in his entire life.
Up in the window he saw that he was being mooned by a plump posterior. Only it wasn't going to stop at that. Oh, for anything to throw, such as a rotten tomato.
“What's going on here?” That sounded like the old witch herself. Unbelievable! Was she going to direct his torment herself? Was her aging anatomy going to replace that of the boys beyond the bars?
Abruptly the bare posterior got covered, but the brat remained standing before the window as if trying to conceal it. “Nothing, Helbah,” one of them said with attempted innocence.
“Boys! Boys! You know better than to act like hooligans! You're going to have to apologize.” It was evident that she wasn't even slightly fooled.
“We were just having fun, Helbah!”
“I'm sure it wasn't fun for General Reilly. Now come away from there this instant!”
The young faces looked down at his sullenly, then disappeared. He waited, but the witch did not take their place. Apparently she hadn't come here to torment him further, difficult as that was to believe.
The witch's familiar appeared, however. The houcat stared unblinkingly at him and at the interior of the cell, then flicked his tail and left without any sign of mischief.
“Witches!” St. Helens cursed. “How I hate the lot of them!”
Later, though not by much, the guard opened the dungeon door and motioned him out. Meekly, mindful of the drawn sword and the fact that he had virtually no chance to fight his way out of here even if he should manage to overcome this guard and take his sword, he climbed the stairs. On the way up, to his astonishment, the two young kings sped past him on their way down. Both boys carried a big bucket of sudsy water, a scrubbing brush, and a broom.
Outside, warmed by the sun and inviting, was a large tub of soapy water.
“Strip! Bathe! Deflea! Delouse!” the guard ordered.
For once in his life St. Helens was only too happy to obey. There was louse grease and soap and a brush and even a washcloth. With near joy for the relief he made use of all of them.
After a thorough cleansing and soak, he saw the guard motioning him out. The man even tossed him a towel. While he was toweling, the guard
brought him loose prisoner clothes to replace the lousy uniform.
He felt remarkably good, he thought while dressing. He turned and there were the two kings, both red in the face. Their heightened color went well with their brickish hair and the plans he was making.
“We apologize, General Reilly, sir,” the king on the left said.
“We'll never come to your window again,” the king on the right promised.
St. Helens grunted, nodding his head in a curt gesture of acknowledgment. He was alert for a trap that was about to be sprung, but in the meantime he'd gotten what he'd wanted for days: a clean hide and the summary execution of the tenants of that hide. He hated lice almost as much as he hated brats!
The brats disappeared. St. Helens was returned to his cell. He stood and gaped at the door.
The cell had been scrubbed spotless. Fresh straw had been provided. What magic might have done readily, the young kings had evidently done laboriously.
“Good gods,” he said. He sank down on the straw, physically more comfortable than he had been since capture. “Good gods, she really is a good witch!”
CHAPTER 19
Revolutionaries
The great war-horse gave a grunt of surprise as Kelvin landed on its broad rump. With his left hand, hardly thinking of what he did but just going with the gauntlet, he pushed the rider from the saddle. Grabbing the horse's mane he took the soldier's place. The reins were loose, but that was no problem to the gauntlet, which snatched them up without his thinking. Immediately he was confronted by a burly royalist swinging down at him, and the right gauntlet countered for him and quickly ended the man's life.
Kelvin caught a squirt of blood as the royalist corpse toppled. He felt his stomach heave, but somehow he was learning to ignore it. Assuredly he and the others here were in the midst of a tremendous fight. It was as if he were in a different plane of reality, something that had nothing to do with home and family and human values.
“Kelvin, watch out!” his father shouted. So much for being apart from his family! But already the gauntlets were blurring as they moved, transferring sword to left hand and reins to right. The new attacker ended his life on the point of Kelvin's sword, blood spraying from his throat, his own wild swing breezing Kelvin's right cheek. No time to think! Just swift positions, as the gauntlets acted, and the effort to fight with everything he and the gauntlets had, just to preserve his life. How he hated this!
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