“Drink this,” orders Rylla.
“It smells awful.”
“Do you want to cough your lungs out, Erlanna?”
Erlanna takes the cup, and Rylla walks over to Dorrin. Her eyes flick to Merga and Frisa. “Gerhalm walked away into the last snow. Asa van found his body yesterday.”
“Why? He walked into the storm because he couldn’t beat his woman?” Dorrin tries to keep his voice low.
Rylla nods toward the kitchen, and the two walk to the far corner, by the back doorway that overlooks the ice and snow covered pond.
“Gerhalm worked when he was told, did what he was told, and was paid whatever Jisle thought was fair. When the crops were good, so were times. When the weather was bad, so were times…”
“You’re saying that the man had no control over his life, and that the only things he had control over were his woman and his child, and when I took that away, when times got bad, he couldn’t take it anymore?”
Rylla nods. “Merga has no place to go. She’s not strong enough to work the fields for Jisle.”
“Darkness…” Now what will he do? The two will likely starve or…
“She can cook, I’m told, and she could be a serving maid. She was when Gerhalm got her pregnant.”
“I don’t really…” Dorrin sighs. “I’ll work something out, I suppose.”
A heavy knock, repeated twice, thunders on the door. Dorrin looks up, glances at Rylla. The older healer walks to the door and opens it, admitting a heavy man in a long, blue woolen cloak. He sweeps off his hat with dark leather gloves. “Is this where I might find ser Dorrin, the healer?”
Rylla points toward Dorrin. “There he be.”
The man’s eyes fix on Dorrin, avoiding Erlanna and Merga. “Ser Dorrin?”
“I’m Dorrin.”
“I’m Fanken, and I work for Trader Fyntal. His lady is quite ill, with something of a fever and a flux, and the trader would request your immediate attention.” The words are polite, but stiff, as if the man has been instructed to be polite.
Behind Fanken’s back, Rylla nods, pointing to the purse at her belt.
“I will need a moment to finish here,” Dorrin responds, “and to gather a few items that may be of help to the lady. You can wait here, or…”
“I will wait by the door.”
Dorrin turns to Merga and Frisa.
“Can I see the horsey?”
Dorrin swallows, his mouth dry. “I heard that… hard times… have fallen on you… I am… truly… sorry…”
“You did as you saw best, master Dorrin. The summer was good, and we hoped…” Merga chokes back tears, and shakes her head.
“I… could use a cook and serving maid… Not much more than room and board… I’m not… that well-off.” Merga’s red eyes catch Dorrin’s. “I’d not accept such charity… save…” She looks at the dark-eyed child who watches.
“It need not be charity in time. This is sooner than . . I had planned.”
The silence stretches out. Fanken coughs. So does Erlanna.
“She can stay here for a while, Dorrin,” offers Rylla. “You need to go with Fyntal’s man.” She bends over and whispers in his ear. “Healers have few opportunities for real golds.”
“There is that.” He looks toward the door and the dour Fanken. “But if Merga could stay here until I can rough out another room in the storage area, mat might be better.” Dorrin shakes his head. He has only a few golds left, and even pine timbers and planks will not be cheap. Perhaps nothing serious is wrong with Lady Fyntal. He nods toward Merga and walks back toward the herb shelves in the kitchen.
“I told you,” Rylla says gently. “You be putting curses ‘pon people, and they come back.”
“It wasn’t a curse. How can keeping a man from beating a woman be a curse?”
Fanken leans forward, his face stiff, as if to catch every word.
“You can take the little bag there,” Rylla suggests. “Brinn, astra, willow bark…”
The younger healer nods and begins to pack. He adds in pinches of several other herbs, tied in twisted squares of cloth, and a small stoppered bottle of liquid willow bark.
“Remember,” Rylla notes in a low voice as he picks up the bag, “traders can pay in gold.”
Dorrin recalls that he has committed to taking on a servant he does not need-all because he stopped a beating. As he passes Erlanna, the woman coughs again, and his perceptions brush her. Like so many, she has not eaten well, despite her weight, and the sickness preys upon her weakness. How many will die of diseases simply because they have lost the strength to fight them? Too long a winter, and Fairhaven may not have much of a fight.
Outside the healer’s cottage, Fanken walks toward a thin gray. The trader’s man looks from the thin horse to Dorrin.
“I’ll be with you in a moment. I need to saddle my horse.” Dorrin points toward the bam, then continues in the direction he has pointed.
Fanken grunts.
The wind is sharper than earlier in the morning, and the clouds overhead are darker. Without really trying, Dorrin can sense the heavy oncoming snow, and he stops by his house to grab his heavy jacket before going to the stable. Still, he saddles Meriwhen quickly and rides to join Fanken.
“Nice horse.”
“She’s been good to me.” Dorrin turns Meriwhen downhill on the main road, toward the bridge. “Where is Trader Fyntal’s house?”
“On the ridge west of the harbor. Past the third pier and up the road.”
“Do you know how long Lady Fyntal has been ill?”
“No.”
“Did the trader say any more about her illness?”
“No.”
Clearly, Fanken does not like his role as messenger.
“Are you from Diev?”
“No. Quend. Came here as a boy.”
“Ever take the sled runs on the beaches?”
“No. Damned fools who do.”
Dorrin asks no more questions, but concentrates on riding. Lower Diev is warmer than upper Diev, but not that much warmer. Few fires burn despite the chill wind, and the streets are empty except for one mounted trooper bearing dispatch cases and riding out toward the Kleth road.
All three piers are empty, except for a single small fishing boat tied at the first. Beyond the breakwater, the sea is more white than blue, and Dorrin can even see two ice floes tossing amidst the white-caps.
“Too rough even for the Bristans.” Fanken directs his horse up the sloping road toward the ridge top where two solid dwellings of gray stone and timber survey the harbor. Unlike so many houses in Diev, both houses sport healthy plumes of smoke from their many chimneys.
Fyntal’s house is the one closest to the Northern Ocean, slightly smaller, and with a view of both harbor and sea. Fanken rides past the covered porch and around to the stable where a stable boy darts out.
“Just stable the healer’s mount.”
“Yes, ser.” The boy looks away from Fanken, though his lowered eyes glance sideways toward Dorrin.
“Easy, girl.” Dorrin dismounts, and pats Meriwhen on the neck. “Just treat her gently.”
“Yes, master healer.”
Fanken hands the reins of the gray to the boy. “Be back in a bit.” He turns and marches across the rolled and packed snow of the yard.
Dorrin smiles at the blond stable boy.
A heavy white-haired man opens the door even before Dorrin reaches it. He looks down from his four-cubit height at the healer, his bag, and the black staff. “Master Dorrin, I appreciate your coming on such short notice.” His eyes turn to Fanken. “And I do appreciate your getting the healer for us, Fanken. You may go, if you would like.”
“Thank you, ser. I’ll be at the warehouse.” Fanken nods and turns.
Dorrin follows the older man into the foyer, placing his jacket on the old branched cloak tree, and setting his staff in the corner behind the tree. The foyer is paneled in dark-stained oak, and a leaf-patterned Hamorian carpet is centered on
the stained and varnished oak floor that reflects the light of the two gleaming brass oil lamps in matching sconces.
“Leretia is upstairs. She had the flux-all of us did. I think it was some bad fowl. But she just got worse and worse. Wine didn’t help. Neither did warm baths. Don’t believe in healers much, but Honsard’s girl told Noriah how you healed her brother. I thought it couldn’t hurt.”
“How long has she been ill?”
“More than an eight-day. She just lies there.” Fyntal’s voice quavers almost imperceptibly, and he coughs softly and starts up the stairs.
Dorrin picks up the herb bag and climbs after Fyntal, whose booted feet barely whisper on the carpeted steps, so lightly does the heavy man move.
Dorrin feels like his feet shake the stairs.
Leretia lies on a wide bed, pale, thin-faced, and radiating heat. The coverlet, rimmed in Suthyan lace, has been thrown back to her waist, exposing a cotton nightgown also trimmed in lace. On a stool in the corner sits a blond younger woman, eyes dark-rimmed and red, wearing a soft blue blouse and matching trousers.
“So… hot…” murmurs the woman on the bed, but her eyes do not seem to take in either Dorrin or Fyntal, or the younger woman.
“Our daughter, Noriah,” explains Fyntal in a whisper.
Dorrin nods briefly to the younger woman, sets down the bag, and steps to the bed, letting his fingers brush, first her wrist, and then her forehead. He tries not to frown at the knot of white chaos centered below her stomach, nor at the lines of sullen white fire that entwine her.
If he could but cut out that small diseased organ… He wants to laugh. Even if he knew how, he has neither tools nor the skill to cut so deeply. What else can he do? He steps back.
“So sick… am I going to die?”
Dorrin forces a smile. “Not if I can help it, lady.”
“No ‘lady’… just Lera… so hot…” Her eyes glaze as she looks nowhere, and her chest heaves.
Noriah sits up straight in the chair.
“Will you not do something?” pleads Fyntal.
“I could do much, but I would prefer doing the right thing.” Dorrin looks at the older man, who steps back. Noriah opens her mouth, but closes it without saying a word.
The chaos-pulsed section of Leretia’s abdomen is clearly the problem. Dorrin takes a deep breath and begins to weave a shield of order around the small organ-but the chaos/infection fights back. He wipes his forehead, then lets his perceptions examine her body again. There may be a way.
He turns to Fyntal. “I will need some additional materials. We can discuss them.” He walks into the hallway and waits for the trader.
Fyntal closes the door.
“You did not summon me first, did you?”
“No. Sustro… he said she would die. He said I should seek miracles. I thought of… you.”
“She may still die. I am going to try something.”
“You aren’t going to cut her open?” Fyntal’s voice rises from a whisper to a hoarse rasp. “That would kill her.”
“My skills do not lie in those areas. I will need a large basket of clean soft cloths. I will also need a bottle of something like clear brandy.”
“That sounds like a surgeon’s stuff,” protests Fyntal.
“I will not touch her with an edged item,” snaps Dorrin. “I cannot. Do you want me to try for your miracle, or… ?”
“I will get the cloths.” Fyntal sighs.
Dorrin opens the door and steps back into the bedroom where Leretia moans. Her eyes open momentarily, then close.
“Easy…” he says, his fingers touching her wrists, as he begins building his walls of order, including the curved tube that runs from the heart of chaos to the surface of her skin. He pauses and turns to the younger woman, Leretia’s daughter. “Would you help me?”
She steps to the bed. “What do you want?”
Dorrin sketches out a square area above the mother’s stomach. “We need her gown away from that area, so that it is clear to the air.”
Noriah frowns. “You aren’t going to…”
“No cutting. I can’t. But there is an infection beneath that, if I am successful, will burst forth here. I can contain it, but it will be much easier if the… corrupt material does not become fouled in the gown.”
“I’ll take care of mother. Would you…”
Dorrin turns and glances toward the window, through which he can see the white-tipped waves of the Northern Ocean. His eyes touch on the matched oil lamps, evenly set on each side of the window, and the polished glass mantles.
“Ooooo… hurts… so hot…”
“Easy, mother… you’ll be better soon.”
The door opens. Fyntal brings in a basket of soft, folded cloths. A short man behind him carries a corked bottle. Dorrin takes the bottle and extracts the cork, then lifts one of the cloths from the basket Fyntal has set beside the bed.
“Will this do?” asks the blonde.
Dorrin turns. “Yes.” He pours some of the brandy onto the cloth and gently wipes the bare skin. Then he wipes his own fingers. The liquor leaves them sticky, but he wipes off the stickiness with a dry part of the cloth.
He stands over Leretia and continues to build his walls of order, using the pressure of order to constrain the chaos to a tighter and tighter focus, driving it into a tighter and tighter line.
His eyes burn as the sweat drips into them, and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
“Would a chair help?” asks Fyntal.
“Yes.” Dorrin does not look away from the patient, even as he sits beside her, even as he reaches for the top cloth and lays it gently on the bare skin.
“Oh… like a knife… darkness… hurts…”
Dorrin places one hand on her forehead, offering some sense of reassurance. “It will hurt for a little, but we’re all here.”
“Fyntal…”
The trader stands on the other side of the bed, and Dorrin senses the tears that flow down the craggy face. Fyntal says nothing, but holds Leretia’s hand as though it were the most precious of gems.
Dorrin continues to press the chaos back into the diseased organ, but the white fire begins to gnaw its way along the order tube toward her skin.
“Bums… oh… burns…”
Dorrin touches her forehead, willing her to sleep, wishing he had recalled that option earlier.
“What did you do?” asks Noriah.
“Let her sleep,” Dorrin answers, absently. “Should have thought of it earlier.”
How long it is before the corruption gnaws through the smooth skin of her belly Dorrin does not know. But he continues to sponge it away with the cloths, discarding them in turn, ignoring the greenish cast on the trader’s face or Noriah’s stumbled retreat from the room and her chastened return.
The lamps have been lit, and they cast shadows from the room when he cleans Leretia’s skin for a last time and sprinkles the wound, which looks more like a circular bum, with crushed astra.
“I… feel better…” murmurs the older woman.
“Don’t move,” Dorrin says. “Not much, anyway.”
“What did you do?” asks the trader from another chair in the corner. “It looks like you did surgery.”
Dorrin squints, then holds on to the chair. He cannot talk. Then he cannot see, either.
“Catch him…” When Dorrin wakes, lying upon a strange bed, he finds the stable boy sitting on a stool. “Hello.”
“Hello, master.” The boy’s eyes avoid Dorrin’s. “Let me get the mistress.” He darts out the door.
Dorrin sits up. His head aches, and he rubs his neck. This kind of healing is worse than smithing. Since the lamps are not lit, it must be the next day. He hopes it has only been a day. He was supposed to help Yarrl with a cart crane. He finds his boots next to the bed and pulls them on.
“You’re awake.” The blonde, now wearing a soft green blouse and trousers, steps into the room.
“I take it your mother is better.
”
“She’s better. But she’s still hot.”
“She probably will be for days.” Dorrin stands. “I need to see her.”
“I think you need to eat. You’re as white as the snow.”
Dorrin considers the wobbliness in his knees. He grins sheepishly. “You’re probably right.” He follows her down the back stairs to the kitchen, where dried fruit, cheese, and fresh-baked bread are laid out on the table.
After he has eaten, feeling somewhat refreshed, he climbs the front stairs to the main bedroom. Noriah follows. Fyntal, sitting by the bed, looks up. Leretia’s eyes follow the trader’s.
“Good morning,” Dorrin offers.
“Good morning, master healer,” Fyntal says dryly.
“Thank you,” whispers Leretia.
“I still need to look at that wound,” Dorrin says.
“Just a moment…”
The healer looks out the window, noting that the Northern Ocean is calmer, that only a few whitecaps dot the dark blue waters.
“Here…”
Dorrin lifts the dressing, as gently as he can.
“Ooooo…”
“I know.” He lets his senses check the wound. Small traces of chaos still flicker around the opening and within. He concentrates.
“Ohhhh…”
“Oh… I should have warned you.” He looks for the brandy and some more cloths. Noriah hands him the bottle and a cloth. He continues to concentrate until a small amount of greenish pus oozes forth. Then he cleans Leretia’s skin again, and sprinkles the wound with the astringent astra, and replaces the dressing.
“This could ooze for a few days. Keep it clean with the brandy, and change the pad daily, or if it gets sticky. If you get very hot again, don’t wait. Send someone for me immediately.” Dorrin takes a deep breath.
“You don’t do this often, do you?” asks Fyntal.
“No. No healer can.”
“I can see why,” observes Noriah.
“Why did you do it for us?” whispers Leretia.
Dorrin tries not to blush. Then he swallows. “There were two reasons. First, I came because I needed the coin. Second, I stayed because everyone loves you.”
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