“All right, you’re set.”
He touched the healed spot, bowing his head. “Thank you.” He hastened to pull his shirt on. “I’m sorry I can’t do more for your arm.”
“Oh. Well, there’s nothing you can do about that.” She had never even considered holding that against him. He wasn’t a healer, and he had done all that a medic could do. He couldn’t help being what he was.
“I’ll get the clinic tent set up.” He grabbed his valise on the way out. Agna blew out the lamp and followed.
Since he was trying to be helpful, Agna kept her silence as the Yanweian set up the clinic tent. She helped when she could, holding supports as she had done with their camping tent, though he took over most of her usual tasks in the process. At long last, the tent was set up, and she let him rest while she saw to the first patient – though she couldn’t stand to wait around and watch any longer, either.
They were camped outside a small village, and only a few patients came by. Between patients, Agna scratched out some rudimentary notes in her logbook, left-handed. She could just about read them afterward. She left empty lines between each entry, so that she might annotate them when she was healed. – If she remembered any of this, so far in the future.
After an initial trickle, no one arrived for the better part of an hour, and so Agna untied the money pouch from her belt and poured it out on the desk. She sorted out the large coins from the small and counted them all. Six unions, thirty-seven head. The exchange between the two was twenty to one, so it totaled just under eight unions. She had brought seven thousand. Agna shoved the pile into her bag and lowered her head to the desk.
She’d earned five and change that morning, though – a small handful of coins stacked separately at the edge of the desk. Two patients, one at their usual rate of three unions, one a little less. She remembered paying a union to the camp cook for dinner and getting some change back. She had earned enough this morning to pay for dinner for nearly a week. Of course, she earned nothing on the days when they were traveling, and she had to eat more than once a day. Agna sighed and lifted her head.
One letter to her parents. Was she being too obstinate? She could put together an argument that might convince them of her fitness to continue on her assignment. She could afford one letter. Postage was three unions to Nessiny, four to Achusa, and one inside Kavera. ...She could afford three letters, then. One each to Esi and her parents and Rone. Of course, that calculation assumed that she could write a letter in the first place.
She turned on the stool. “Could you take dictation for me?”
“Hm?” The Yanweian focused on her, closing his medical text. “Uh...”
“A letter,” Agna prompted. “I’d like to tell my family not to expect any letters from me for a few months, while I heal. So that they don’t worry.” She left the rest implied; she didn’t need to say aloud that she could barely write. It was embarrassing enough to have to ask.
The Yanweian glanced away. “I don’t think I could do that.”
“Why not?” Agna snapped. “Can’t you do one nice thing for me? I’d pay you. All right? I don’t have enough money left to eat, but I’d—”
“Listen.” He sighed. “I can’t. I would, but I can’t.”
“Of course not.”
“Agent,” the Yanweian said, leaning on it in a way that she loathed immediately. That was how the Captain had said it, half-warning, like an adult who is trying not to scold a misbehaving child. “I don’t understand Nessinian. And I doubt your family reads Yanweian.”
Agna opened her mouth to insult him, and then realized what he’d said. She looked like an idiot. Curse him. She turned back to the desk, staring helplessly at her working hand. So she spoke Kaveran and Nessinian, and he spoke Kaveran and Yanweian – it was like one of those logic puzzles from the books she’d read as a child, with foxes and chickens and rivers. “Could you take a letter in Kaveran, then? I can write to Rone and ask him to write to my family.” Postage inside Kavera was less expensive, besides. It was an elegant solution. She’d figured it out. Everything would be fine.
The Yanweian fidgeted in his seat across the tent. “I can’t.”
“Ugh. Why not?”
He crossed his arms, but a flush was spreading over his unbruised cheekbone. “I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll find someone who will, then,” she grumbled. She’d finally lowered herself to asking him for help, and he’d managed to ruin it. Now she’d have to bribe someone else. Her plan would work; it was still a good plan.
One more patient arrived before lunch, and the Yanweian hung back, sulking. Agna gathered her composure and greeted the man, and by lunchtime she had three more unions. When the camp cook came around with his packed lunches, she allowed herself to buy the smallest one. Half a union, ten head. Every little bit was like a bite off of the raft that held her up. It was irritating.
Over lunch, she weighed the likelihood that her parents would order her to come back if she wrote home for money. They wouldn’t care about the money itself, of course; money was just money. But they would judge her for making a mistake, for putting herself in danger. If they wrote to the Benevolent Union or to the Academy to demand that she be sent home, that was that. The entire caravan would know, not that it mattered much; she would lose to the Yanweian; and worst of all, Rone would know that she had proven to be a failure and a stupid child.
She wouldn’t let that happen. No more of this, then. She had to be strong.
The Yanweian took a patient or two while she finished lunch, and Agna mulled over her possible assistants in this letter-writing venture. Who else did she know in the caravan? The Captain, the guard captain, the master of records – they had to be irked with her, after their interview. The book dealer who set up shop next to them seemed intelligent enough, and he was obviously literate. She had looked through his wares a couple of times. That wasn’t much of a relationship. The passenger wagon’s driver, whom she barely knew, even though she rode in the woman’s cart every other day. The Yanweian, out of the question. And the apothecary.
That had promise. The apothecary was Achusan; he would be able to write Nessinian, even if the Achusan dialect was different from her own. It would be readable enough. After a couple of weeks of sporadic conversations, the Achusan did not strike her as the type to hand out favors lightly. His manner was as detached as the day they’d met, and he always seemed to find a humorous failing in one of their patients or the other merchants. Agna had laughed sometimes, but she always left wondering what he said about her to everyone else. She had no question that he would expect payment for his time.
She would have to write fewer letters, if she had to spend money on dictation. If she wrote to Rone, she could ask him to pass the news along to her parents and Lina, and Lina could tell Esirel. No doubt they wrote one another every day.
Bolstered by her plan, Agna tackled as many patients as she could, adding to her little, growing pile of Benevolent Union money. It took her mind off the Yanweian’s stubbornness and the pain in her shoulder, at least for a while.
***
After dinner – more bread and some slices of hard cheese, and handfuls of blackberries, not entirely unsatisfying – she fetched her stationery box and checked her money pouch before striding out of their campsite. The apothecary’s wagon was parked a little ways away from their tent. His wagon was half the size of the Captain’s, a wooden box on wheels covered with an arched canvas roof. His horse was nowhere to be seen, probably pastured with the caravan’s horses. A campfire burned next to the wagon. The apothecary sat at the fireside, with a book in one hand and a ceramic cup in the other. A lantern and a wine bottle flanked him on the ground. Agna cleared her throat, and his gaze swung up.
“May I help you?”
It was a relief to speak in Nessinian for once. “I’d like to hire you for something.”
The apothecary blinked. “My business hours are closed for the day.”
“It�
��s not medicine. I need to dictate a letter.” She tipped her head toward her injured shoulder. “You’re the only person I know here who speaks Nessinian.”
He took a drink. “I suppose I am.” It wasn’t an answer, Agna noted.
“I’ll pay you.” He shrugged. “Ten head.” It was more than she’d tipped anyone to carry her luggage, but it seemed like a low bid.
The apothecary drained his cup and filled it. “Amuse me.” He set the book down and beckoned for her stationery box. Agna took out the notebook with her friends’ addresses in it and handed the box over. Edann found the things he needed, lining them up on the ground. Paper, ink, a sharpened pen, the box of sand. The firelight flashed off his glasses when he looked up. “All right, go.”
“All right.” She took a deep breath. “Dear Rone–” She spelled it. “It’s Furoni.”
“Is that in the letter?”
“No. Just explaining.”
“I’m sure I don’t particularly care.”
It was amazing how he could be so dispassionately jackassed, and only make her want to throw the notebook at his head. It was nothing personal, somehow. He didn’t seem to hate her the way the Yanweian did. He simply hated everyone – except the Yanweian – and she was included.
Agna started again. “Dear Rone. I’m writing this to you through dictation, because I have injured my shoulder. Please don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine after a time. But my letters will have to stop for a while.” She paused, waiting for him to catch up. He curled his fingers for her to continue. Agna cleared her throat. “There was a bandit attack on the camp. The healing art helped – I was able to fight some of them off.” She folded the notebook against her body, the closest she could get to crossing her arms with the sling in the way. She would pay every gold union she made in the clinic for an entire year to see Rone. He would know what to say. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I’m glad you’re out there, protecting the shrines. I’ll have to remember that, so that I won’t be afraid.”
The apothecary had stopped writing, and Agna’s borrowed pen froze above the paper. He didn’t have a barbed comeback.
Agna fought back the threat of tears and tucked her hair behind her ear. “One more thing.” The apothecary reluctantly began to write. His face was impassive. “I’ll only be able to send this one letter. Please tell my parents that I can’t write for a little while, and not to worry about me. Our address is Five Greenarch Court, North Bank, Murio. I’ll repay you when I can. With all my love, and in communion with all creation. Agna.”
The apothecary sanded the page and shoved it at her, spilling sand on the ground. “Take it.”
“I need it to be addressed,” Agna snapped. “There’s sealing wax in the box.” He folded the page, found the wax, and melted the end over the campfire. Meanwhile, Agna unlaced her money pouch, fished out a handful of the coins, and sorted ten of them on the ground. She looked up; the wax was cooling. “Rone Sidduji.” She spelled it again. “Care of Tenken Grim, 1214 Bastion Street, Eastside, Vertal, Kavera.”
The apothecary wrote this, sanded it, and shook off the sand properly this time. He held out the letter, and Agna held out the money. They traded, and he packed away the rest of her things in the box. He handed that over without comment. His silence was unnerving. Agna had spoken to him a dozen times since coming to this godsforsaken country, and he always had a caustic joke about everything. She had turned a corner from a bustling commercial street into a silent alley, and every instinct in her body clamored for her to get this finished and get out before he began to speak after all.
Agna got to her feet and bobbed her head. “Thank you. I won’t trouble you further. Good night.”
“It’s best if you didn’t. Good night.”
Clutching the hard-won letter, Agna detoured to the master of records’ wagon to post it before returning to her own campsite. It had been worth it. Rone would know what had happened, and wouldn’t worry. He would tell her parents, and neither Rone nor her parents would know about the theft. She had taken care of everything for a union and a half, between postage and the apothecary’s fee. And now she could go back to the tent and read and sleep in peace.
Agna: Nelle
Dear Agna,
I was so sorry to hear of your injury. Please take care of yourself. I pray for your recovery every day. My thoughts are with you, and please know that I will be here for you whenever you need me.
With my love, and in communion with all creation.
Rone
***
He wasn’t there for her. He was in Vertal, and he never came.
Agna’s shoulder hurt incessantly. She made herself smile at her patients, channeled her energy through her good hand, and explained over and over that she couldn’t heal herself. In the evenings the Yanweian ate dinner and disappeared. At first she simply thanked her good fortune for his absence, and cocooned herself in the tent. She couldn’t write more letters. She couldn’t draw. She began to re-read the books that she had brought, grew to hate even her favorite, and quit.
Agna ventured out one evening, driven to desperation by the constant dull ache and the scratching of unceasing boredom against her brain. Even with her injured arm, she could wander through the camp and feel sorry for herself. The Yanweian’s thundercloud face, his eye now underlined with flat purple bruises, passed by between the tents. So he had the same idea. No matter; she could avoid him either way, and she was sick of the tent.
The camp continued its business as though nothing had happened. The guards patrolled. The merchants cooked over campfires and drank and laughed. People washed clothes in tubs outside the bath tent. As she rounded the corner at the edge of the camp, she heard the bleating of goats. Still full of human chaos and dirt and animal stink, still merry and vulgar and alive. She despaired of ever going home.
Next in her path was one of the enclosed wagons, its horses tethered beyond the fence. Below the small windows, painted vines and flowers twined along its side. The back door was open, and its inhabitant, a young woman in a bright blue linen dress, was yelling at someone across the way. “Yeah, like you’d know what to do with it!”
“Get killed, most likely.”
“Ha. – Hey, healer.” Agna turned, her ears burning. The young woman on the steps of the wagon smiled and waved, and Agna twitched somewhere around her mouth. “Hard luck, what happened with those assholes in Quickwater. They can’t be picking on our new people. And our doctors! Low. So low.”
Agna stopped in her tracks, taken aback by the unexpected sympathy. “Uh... thank you?”
“Need anything? I can set you up. Free. On account of hard luck. First time, anyway.”
“Talk about low,” the neighbor across the way slung back ironically, and the woman on the steps made a rude gesture.
“Difference between helping and being used.” The woman in the blue dress waved off the facetious argument, refastened the dark, curly hair that had escaped from its ribbon, and focused on Agna. Agna, catching up, processed the botanical motif on the wagon, the mortar and pestle in the woman’s lap, and the bundles of leaves behind her on the steps. Agna’s throat clenched in sudden homesickness. An herbalist.
“So here, for the arm.” The herbalist held up a hand for Agna to wait and darted into the wagon. She returned with a small tin and pressed it into Agna’s good hand. “Rub that in if you can stand it. It’ll help.”
“I... thank you. What do I owe you? I don’t even...” I don’t even know you. Agna slipped the tin into her money bag, all the same.
“Tch.” The herbalist flipped her hands at the notion and settled on the steps with her mortar and pestle. “You busy? Sit a minute if you want.” She tapped a lower step with a bare foot. Agna hesitated, gave in, and sank down on the step. She hadn’t had a civil conversation with anyone other than a patient in... she couldn’t remember how long. Did the business with the letter and the apothecary count?
“So what’s your name?”
; “Hm? Oh. Agna Despana.”
“Nelle,” the herbalist replied. “Swear to you, it isn’t usually like this, getting attacked and all. Usually it’s great. Best place to be.”
A harsh laugh escaped Agna’s throat. “Really.” It was easy for her to say, sleeping indoors where it was warm and safe, without some backbiting viper glaring at her all the time.
“You’ll get used to it. The green ones do, eventually. If not, well, they drop off into some town and we get someone else. Everyone’s free to go.”
“I’m not. I’m on contract.”
“Pff. The Union’d find you somewhere if you really wanted.”
Agna flushed at the accusation and said nothing. The herbalist went on crushing leaves in her mortar. The scent tickled the back of Agna’s brain, distracting her. She knew this, or something like it. Something in Lina’s workroom. Lina had handed her a bottle full of concentrated extract, proud of her new blend, orange oil and night-blooming whitestar and – that was it. Sweetmint.
“...Is that sweetmint?”
“Wintermint. Related.” She held out the mortar, and Agna inhaled the scent. “You interested in this stuff?”
“I suppose so. It’s good to know, in the course of healing. And my sister is an herbalist. I guess most of what I know is through her.”
“Oh, yeah?” Nelle’s voice took on new energy. “So you use sweetmint over in – Nessiny, right?”
“Yes. And yes. Mostly for cooking, though. It can unstuff your nose if you make it strong enough. But mostly it just tastes and smells good.”
The Healers' Road Page 11