by Kelly Coon
“Tell me what’s been going on,” Dagan insisted, and Shep launched into the details.
While they spoke, their deep voices resonating softly as the locusts chirred, I gently tickled Rish’s tummy until I got a grin.
“Rish, please. May I see your arm? I’ll make it so it doesn’t hurt as much.”
His fat lower lip quivered for a moment, and two round drops appeared in his eyes and fell down his cheeks. I smoothed my hand over his brunette curls. “My sweet, I can make you feel better. Will you trust me as your big brother does?”
After a moment, he scowled, but held out his arm. The wound was infected. The stitches were much too wide, and specks of dirt filled the spaces in between.
I looked up at the group when Shep and Dagan finished talking.
“Shep, will you get some Aleppo soap, some sikaru, and a cask of boiled water? Oh! And some clean linens?”
“I would, but we’re out of almost all of our supplies. I do have a little bit of soap, but no sikaru. And none of the tonics that Ummum would use on him. I can’t even help him with the pain.”
I sighed. “Well, what about your neighbors? Would they at least have some sikaru that we could use?”
“In the dead of night?” Dagan looked at me as if I’d grown two additional heads.
“Yes. If it means properly tending to him, we could surely wake someone up.” I rolled my eyes.
Shep shook his head. “Nobody has any. Trust me, I’ve looked. The Palace has confiscated most of the brew, and none of us have shekels to buy it at Assata’s Tavern.”
Frustrated, I sat back on my heels. “Dagan, I cannot heal him without sikaru to properly cleanse everything.”
Shep stood. “I can at least get you the rest of the stuff. I put a pot on the cookfire outside already. Ummum told me boiled water was important for treating wounds.”
Iltani held out her hand toward him. “And I’ll help.”
She grinned, and he assisted her up from the floor with a glint in his eyes.
Gods, this was not the time to flirt.
When they left, Dagan looked at me, confused. “Can’t you simply wash his arm with the soap?”
“Yes, but he needs to be restitched. I can’t sew him up without the sikaru, because the soap won’t kill all of the bad humors inside.”
“But look at it.” Dagan held out Rish’s wound. It did look garish and was obviously causing a lot of pain. “He’s hurting. And we can’t wait until we can get some more sikaru because the guardsmen will be returning at first light.”
“Well?” I sighed, thinking through the meager tinctures I had in my healing satchel. I took them out and sorted them by the candlelight. “I do have a little bit of myrrh oil. It isn’t a good enough alternative, though.” But then I brightened. “Why don’t we go to Laraak to get some brew? We have to go there to barter for more…you know…since your ummum’s things were taken.” I glanced at Dagan. “We could just take Rish with us tonight. Camp outside Laraak’s tents in the cart, and approach them in the morning for what I need.”
“You can’t take him tonight,” Shep said as he and Iltani toted in the water, linens, and a small cake of soap, both wearing secret grins on their faces. When this was over, I was going to have to talk to both of them about their complete inability to flirt at appropriate times.
“The guardsmen check on us in the mornings. We can come and go as we please throughout the day if we’re not working, but they check to make sure we’re here morning and night. They said they’d kill Ummum if we didn’t show up for one of their checks. I think it’s so Uruku can use us as leverage if Ummum doesn’t work out. But I can take care of Rish tonight, Kammani, if you tell me what to do.”
“We have to do something, Arammu. It smells bad,” Dagan said, his brow furrowed anxiously.
Do no harm.
Rubbing my hands down my cheeks, I blew out a big breath. I was tired. Not only were my nerves keeping me up at night, but Iltani had snored like an old sow in our tent in Wussuru. How Arwia and Simti had gotten any sleep with her in their bedchamber in Manzazu was beyond my comprehension.
“Okay. I’ll clean it as best as I can with what I have. Take out the stitches. But I can’t sew it closed without clean tools and a way to make sure no dirt is left inside. I can wrap it, but even then, it could get deeply infected, because he’s a little boy and bound to mess it all up. So I’ll have to stitch it on the morrow as soon as we find some brew. Somehow.” Either we’d have to get back into the city with a bribe or we’d have to get Shep to bring him to us. I rubbed my eyes wearily. Nothing was easy about this. Nothing at all.
I looked at Shep. “Can you help him keep it clean? Change the bandages if he gets them dirty or wet?”
“I can do my very best.”
“Good. I’ll do it.” A sense of dread welled up inside me, but I moved forward anyway. There was nothing else to do. “May I have your dagger, Dagan?”
He took it from his scabbard and placed it in my palm. “Thank you, my sweet.”
Nanaea looked worriedly from me to him. She leaned over and grabbed a candle and sconce. “I’ll hold this near so you can see.”
I dug in my satchel, holding the little jars up into the glow from Nanaea’s candlelight to read their contents until I found what was left of an arnica hemp blend to ward off pain. I sprinkled some under Rish’s tongue.
Dipping my hands into the hot water, I scrubbed myself and Dagan’s dagger with the soap and plunged Rish’s arm in to wash out all of the visible dirt. He flinched and tried to pull it back out, but I murmured reassurances as I washed him. Once that was finished, I drew his arm closer to me and slipped the knife underneath his stitches, pulling out the filthy threads one by one. He grimaced with each gentle tug. After I dosed him with the tiniest bit of poppy, he fell into a light slumber in Dagan’s arms. When I was certain he was asleep, I dripped myrrh oil over the open wound and tied Shep’s linens around his arm tightly. For now, it would have to do.
“I’m all set.” I sat back and began to pack up my things. “We have to go.”
“Why, though?” Iltani nudged Shep’s foot with her own. “I vote we pick an outbuilding and stay put.”
Shep nudged her back. “Sadly, they search those almost every day looking for more stores to steal. You wouldn’t be safe.”
Nanaea tapped a finger against her lip, thinking. “What if we bargained with the traders to stay right inside the trader encampment? They’re close by, and probably would have poison. When we sneak into the city for Iltani to…um…” She glanced at Rish slumbering in Dagan’s arms. “…deliver our surprise, Kammani can also see Rish to stitch him up.”
“They’re thieves and are known to hide criminals, according to Nasu.” Dagan shook his head. “We can get supplies there, but we cannot stay. It’d be better to camp in the open air as Kammani said. In the grove where we hid before.”
“Why can’t you stay there?” Shep said. “They have a lot of goods and are loyal if they like you. They liked Ummum because she tried to help those who were sick, even when they couldn’t pay her. Tell Yashub, the main trader there, that you’re her son. I bet he’d hide you. He hates Uruku.”
“Thieves and criminals. Sounds like a great place.” Iltani raised her eyebrows. “At least they’d have brew.”
I rolled my eyes at her. But Nanaea was right. They were close, but not too close. And trader goods meant that they likely had more tinctures than I could ever get elsewhere.
“We should stay in Laraak. Our whole point in being here is stopping the war that Manzazu is going to bring by getting Uruku off the throne. We can’t do that without supplies.”
“And safety.” Dagan shifted Rish onto his shoulder, then stood.
“There’s safety in numbers.” I stuffed the rest of my things into my satchel and stood. “And less opportun
ity for someone to chance upon us out of the blue. We’ll blend in.”
After a minute, he agreed. “You’re right, of course.” His eyes softened, and he reached over and ran a knuckle down my cheek. “My Arammu. So beautiful and so smart.”
“Oh, for the love of Selu.” Iltani hopped to her feet and yanked Shep up as well. “Please, for the sake of all of our stomachs, may we go? I’d like another drink of brew in this lifetime before I meet the Boatman on the river.”
Dagan smiled sheepishly, but Nanaea gazed at him with pride on her face, poking me in the arm. “He’s a good man,” she whispered as Dagan left the common room to lay Rish down in his chamber.
“He really is.”
Maybe even good enough for marriage. But now is not close to the time to think about it.
“Wait a minute,” Shep said. “How are you planning to get out of Alu? How did you all get in? They’re being really picky about who they let in and out unless you have enough coins.” He leaned against the doorjamb as we stepped out into the chilly night air.
“The south gate.” Dagan pointed the way we’d come.
“You didn’t use Gala’s gate?”
Dagan brightened. “Gala? The Merchant’s Son?”
“Yes,” Shep said. “Remember him? Weak-chinned, always kind of embarrassed about it?”
“I do. He’s a guardsman now?”
“Yep, and he’s at the west gate. Closest to Laraak. I assumed that’s how you entered.”
“Uh, no. We used…different means.” Dagan shook his head as we walked out into the starry night. “Much different.”
“Do I want to know that story?” Shep grinned, baring his sharp incisors.
“Not in this lifetime.” Dagan grabbed my hand and interlaced his fingers with mine, looking back at his brother with warmth in his eyes. “Stay safe, Brother. Take care of the others. I’m counting on you.”
“You know I will. Safe journeys.” Shep’s soft farewell echoed down the path.
Iltani blew him a bawdy kiss over her shoulder.
“Is that an offer?” he called, his wolfish smile lighting up the night.
“A standing one.” She held his eyes as we slinked away under the silent moon until the dark swallowed him up.
But as we ducked through the fields toward the west, her eyes dimmed and her hand strayed repeatedly to the flask at her waist, and despite draining it, she never lost the thirsty look hanging around her like a ghoul.
SHEP WAS CORRECT. After retrieving our cart from the grove, we went to the west gate and watched it from a safe distance. Gala, Dagan’s old childhood friend, stood there whittling a stick, his silver breastplate winking in the torchlight.
No other guardsmen were around.
His shocked expression and knife-slash of a smile when Dagan approached was all the confirmation we needed that he would let us pass through.
Nanaea, Iltani, and I scuttled out from our cover, our prophet’s veils over our heads so Gala wouldn’t know our identities. Dagan explained that we were his servants, and asked for Gala’s silence that he was in Alu. To trust him that he wasn’t there to do any harm, but to help the citizens. Gala looked warily at him for a second too long, but a handful of talents, enough coins to feed his parents and siblings for many hungry days and nights, was enough to secure his promise.
Then we went to Laraak.
Yashub, the head trader, turned out to be a man of my own height, nearly as wide as he was tall. His two front teeth were missing, so his words were softened by a significant lisp.
Despite our showing up in the middle of the night like thieves, he was still wide awake, sitting around a fire, laughing, drinking, and casting lots over six goats with a few of his associates.
Moonlight illuminated rainbow-colored tents that were flung across the encampment like toys scattered in the sand. The rest of the traders seemed to be asleep, their dreams likely punctuated by Yashub’s wheezing laugh.
“Protection?” He squinted weathered eyes under a pair of gray, bushy eyebrows as he scratched his belly. His head. “We don’t have guardsmen here. We deal in goods. Animals. Weapons. Nothing else.”
“We don’t need you to take up arms for us,” Dagan explained. “We’d simply like to stay here, out of sight. As I stated before, you’d be rewarded with food and riches beyond compare. I’m the wealthiest farmer in Alu, and my brothers have been producing grain for the lugal. I can get you as much as you’d need.”
Easy with the promises. I shot Dagan a worried look, but he stood with the confidence of ten men, powerful arms crossed over his chest as if he’d negotiated deals like this hundreds of times. In a way, I supposed he had. He was always the one to bring his family’s produce to the Libbu for trade, and since we’d been in Manzazu, he’d been doing his own bartering there, too. This was simply another transaction to him. A deep, resonating pride filled me.
“I’d need something now to tide me over until these riches made themselves available.”
Dagan patted a satchel at his waist. “Step closer and I’ll show you what we have to offer.”
A man at the fire stood, and Yashub shoved him down, stumbling a bit as he did so. “Ach, this young man isn’t going to harm me. He needs me.” Scratching his head again, he peered into Dagan’s satchel and raised his eyebrows in appreciation. “That’s a good start, my boy. But not nearly enough.”
“My healing services are yours if I could have usage of a tent, and supplies. It looks to me like you’ve a rash or lice in your clothing and hair, and I could heal you.” I held my hands out to the men. “I could help all of you.”
Yashub caught himself scratching behind his ear and brightened. “You a healer? I do itch something awful and wouldn’t mind a powder to fix it, but we are not well stocked in medicines. You’d need to head to the Libbu for those.”
My heart sank and Dagan frowned. Half of the reason we were here was for medicinal tinctures. Now we’d not only have to sneak into the Palace to deliver the poison, but we’d have to sneak into the Libbu to buy the herbs to make one!
A man around the fire spoke. “And we got gobs of lepers who followed us up from Nur, and ol’ Yashub couldn’t turn them away even though one of them stinks halfway to the gates of the Netherworld. All that ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ business don’t keep ’em far enough away. The kids still run over there. They need healing or to get out, if you ask me.”
“Nobody asked you,” Yashub wheezed.
Behind me, Iltani cackled loudly, and I resisted the urge to whack her with something hard and squarish. “Indeed, sir. I am an A-zu and can help. I’ve been trained by the best healer in Alu, Shalim, Healer’s Son. And in the north, I was trained by Mudi, who is—was—skilled in the ancient arts, too. A guardsman friend of ours said you might have heard of me—I’m the healer who saved the warrior maidens in Manzazu.”
Yashub’s eyes grew round. “That’s you? But you’re nothing but a young girl!”
I shrugged. “Ahh, yes. I am young—and a girl—but somehow, I managed. And I would have continued to heal in Manzazu, but we have something more pressing to attend to at the moment.” I pointed at Alu. “And we need to stay here so we can…do that.”
He looked sidelong at me, using his tongue to get a bit of food from a back tooth, finally resorting to using his finger.
“Any friend of Manzazu is a friend of Laraak. And that lugal in there”—he jerked his chin toward Alu—“doesn’t deal squarely with my traders. If you’re a good healer, I can give you a tent, but you’ll have to get your own supplies. And if you fix me and mine here and our wives”—he gestured to the group around the fire and out to the tents—“you’d be welcome to stay as long as you’d need, although we have plans to pack up and move on soon. We’ve stayed here longer than we should’ve already, but my third wife is with child and doesn’t want to move until
it comes.”
He squinted at me, and raised an appreciative eyebrow at Iltani and Nanaea. I’d told both of them to keep their lovely eyes on their feet, but Iltani had flat refused, and Nanaea’s beauty was hard to mask.
“Those your servants or other wives?” he asked Dagan.
Dagan blushed from his chest up to his hairline. “Ahh, no. My sisters. Ones I would be remiss to have harmed.” His eyes hardened as he looked around the fire at the men ogling both of them.
Yashub placed a meaty hand over his heart. “On my honor, the girls will remain as chaste as they are this night.” He wheezed a laugh, which rapidly turned into a cough, but Iltani met his eyes over the burning fire and, because she didn’t have one dram of sense in her head, winked.
* * *
After we were shown to our tents and purchased food and drink for us and our donkey, we slept through the night to the sounds of snores from the traders around us.
Early in the morning, Dagan trekked back to his farm with the cart to gather some produce and grain to distribute to the camp, while I tended to Yashub’s health. He was infested with lice, as were his wives and children. I saw to his immediate inner circle, too, but rapidly ran out of the melaleuca-and-vinegar mixture that could keep the vermin away. My tent in the center of the encampment was almost useless because it was empty save for what I’d carried with me in my healing satchel and a few extras in my healing chest.
If I were going to keep acting as a healer to keep our place in Laraak, I’d need fresh herbs for grinding into tinctures. Large swaths of linens for wrapping and bandaging the people in the leper colony on the edge of the encampment. Needles, sterilizing bowls, mortars and pestles, drying racks, knives, suctioning reeds, and more. The lack of supplies was worrying, though not as worrying as procuring a poison. We determined that this very day, we would sneak into the city in disguise to do just that.
While I worked to heal, Nanaea, an apt pupil of the Koru warriors, went around to give the men in the camp a close beard trimming with Dagan’s dagger. She left them freshly shorn, if puzzled, but returned to me and Iltani with their hair trimmings in a sack and a look of firm determination on her face. We spent the next two hours stitching beards together with sticky bitumen and remnants of cloth, and shrugged into borrowed tradesman clothing to help us become the traders we were supposed to be.