It was exhausting traveling in such conditions and it seemed like the foul weather would never relent, but then it did. Late in the afternoon, as the wind finally died, allowing the quiet of winter to settle back in, they came across a woman struggling along one of the roads. As they rode up behind her, Jennsen saw that the woman was carrying something heavy.
Even though the weather had begun to break, fat snowflakes still drifted in the air. Sun shone through an orange slash in the clouds, lending the gray day a peculiar gilding.
The woman heard them coming and stepped aside. As they reached her, she held one arm up.
"Help me, please?"
It looked to Jennsen like the woman was carrying a small child all bundled up in blankets.
By the look on Sebastian's face, Jermsen feared that he intended to pass on by. He would say that they couldn't stop when they had killers and maybe even Wizard Rahl at their heels. Jennsen felt confident that, for the time being at least, they had succeeded in slipping away from their hunters.
When Sebastian cast her a sidelong glance, she spoke softly before he had a chance to say anything. "Looks like the Creator has provided for this needy woman by sending us to help her."
Whether Sebastian was convinced by her words, or dared not challenge the Creator's intentions, Jennsen didn't know, but he drew his horse around to a halt. As he dismounted and took the reins to both horses, Jennsen slid down off Rusty. She struggled through heavy knee-deep snow to reach the woman.
She held out her bundle, apparently hoping it would explain everything. She looked as if she were ready to accept help from the Keeper himself. Jennsen drew back the flap of bleached wool blanket and saw a boy, maybe three or four, with a blotchy red face. He was still. His eyes were closed. He was burning up with fever.
Jennsen lifted the burden from the woman's arms. The woman, about Jermsen's age, looked exhausted. She hovered close, worry creasing her face.
"I don't know what's taken him," the woman said, on the verge of tears. "He just came down sick."
"Why are you out here in the weather?" Sebastian asked.
"My husband went off hunting two days ago. I don't expect him back for several days more. I couldn't just wait there with no help."
"But what are you doing out here?" Jennsen asked. "Where are you going?"
"To the Raug'Moss."
"The what?" Sebastian asked at Jennsen's back.
"Healers," Jennsen whispered to him.
The woman's fingers traced their way along her boy's cheek. Her eyes rarely left his little face, but she finally looked up.
"Can you help me get him there? I fear he's getting worse."
"I don't know if we-"
"How far are they?" Jennsen asked, cutting Sebastian off.
The woman pointed down the road. "That way, the way you're going. Not far."
"How far?" Sebastian asked.
The woman, for the first time, began to weep. "I don't know. I had hoped to make it by tonight, but it will be dark before long. I fear it's farther than I can manage. Please, help me?"
Jennsen rocked the sleeping boy in her arms as she smiled at the woman. "Of course we'll help you."
The woman's fingers clutched Jennsen's ann. "I'm sorry to trouble you. "
"Hush, now. A ride is no trouble."
"We can't leave you out here with a sick child," Sebastian agreed. "We'll take you to the healers."
"Let me get up on my horse, and then hand your boy up to me," Jennsen said as she returned the child to his mother's arms.
Once mounted, Jennsen stretched her arms down. The woman hesitated, fearing to part with her child, but then quickly handed him up. Jennsen settled the sleeping boy in her lap, making sure he was well balanced and secure, as Sebastian clasped arms with the woman and helped lift her up behind him. As they started out, the woman held Sebastian tight around the waist, but her eyes were on Jennsen and the boy.
Jennsen took the lead to give the woman the assurance of being able to see the stranger who now held her baby, and her hopes. She urged Rusty ahead through the deep snow, worried that the child was not really sleeping, but unconscious with fever.
The wind billowed snow around them as they raced along the road in the fading light. Concern for the boy, wanting to get him to help, made the road seemed endless. Each rise revealed only more forest ahead, each curve in the road yet another sweep of empty woods. Jennsen was concerned, too, that their horses couldn't be pushed so hard through deep snow without a rest or they would drop. Sooner or later, despite the fading light, they would have to slow to give the struggling horses a rest.
Jennsen looked back over her shoulder when Sebastian whistled.
"That way," the woman called, gesturing toward a cutoff to a smaller trail.
Jennsen urged Rusty to the right, up the trail. It rose abruptly, switching back and forth to ascend the sharp rise. The trees on the mountainside were huge, with trunks as big around as her horse, rising to a great height before branches spread overhead to close off the leaden sky. The snow was unbroken by anyone before them, but the lay of the trail, the dish in the surface of the snow, the undulating but smooth line it took up through the forest, among rocks and snow-crusted brush, and the way it followed beneath steep overhangs of rock wall and along ledges made it easy enough to follow.
Jennsen checked the boy asleep at her lap and found him the same. She watched the forest around them for any sign of people, but saw none. After being at the palace, in Althea's swamp, and out on the Azrith Plains, it was comforting to again be in the forest. Sebastian didn't especially like the woods. He didn't like the snow, either, but she found it peaceful the way the snow lent the woods a sacred silence.
The smell of woodsmoke hanging in the air told her that they were close. A look over her shoulder at the mother's face told her the same. Breaking over the top of a ridge revealed several small wooden buildings along a gently rising wooded slope. In a clearing behind was a small barn with a fenced paddock. A horse at the fence rail, its ears alert, watched them approaching. The horse lifted its head, tossing a whinny their way. Rusty and Pete both snorted a brief greeting in return.
Jennsen put two fingers between her teeth and whistled as Rusty plowed through the drifts toward the small cabin at the upper end, the only one with smoke rising from the chimney.
The door opened as she reached the building. A man threw on a flaxen cloak on his way out to greet them. He wasn't old. He could be the right age. He pulled up the cloak's broad hood against the cold before she could get a good look at his face.
"We have a sick boy," Jennsen said as the man took hold of Rusty's reins. "Are you one of the healers known as the Raug'Moss?"
The man nodded. "Bring him inside."
The mother had already slid down off Sebastian's horse and was standing beside Jennsen to receive her boy into her waiting arms. "Thank the Creator you're here, today."
The healer, laying a reassuring hand on the woman's back, urging her
toward the door, tilted his head in gesture to Sebastian. "You're welcome to put your horses in the back with mine and then come inside."
Sebastian thanked him and led the horses away while Jennsen followed the other two toward the door. In the failing light, she still hadn't been able to get a good look at the man's face.
It was too much to hope, she knew, but at the very least, this man was a Raug'Moss and could answer her question.
CHAPTER 33
Inside the cabin, a large hearth made of rounded rocks took up most of the wall to the right. Crude burlap curtains hung to the sides of the two doorways to rear rooms. A rough-hewn mantel held a lamp, as did the plank tabletop, neither lamp lit. Oak logs crackled and popped in the hearth, lending the room a smoky but inviting aroma, as well as the soft flicker of firelight. An iron arm, black with soot, held a lidded kettle off to the side of the fire. After so long out in the weather, Jennsen felt it was almost too hot inside.
The healer laid the boy on one o
f several pallets along the wall opposite the hearth. The mother knelt on one knee, watching as he drew back the folds of the blanket. Jennsen left them to examine the child as she casually checked the place, making sure there were no surprises lurking. There hadn't been any chimney smoke coming from the other cabins, and she hadn't seen any tracks through the fresh snow, but that didn't mean there couldn't be people in those other cabins.
Jennsen moved across the room, past the trestle table in the center, to warm her hands at the hearth. It gave her the chance to cast a glance into the two rooms at the rear. Each was tiny, with a sleeping pallet and a few items of clothing hanging on pegs. There was no one else in the place. Between the doorways stood simple pine cabinets.
As Jennsen held her hands up before the heat of the fire and the boy's
mother sang him soft songs, the healer hurried to the cabinet and pulled out a number of clay jars.
"Bring a flame for the lamp, please?" he asked as he set his armload of items on the table.
Jennsen pried a long splinter from one of the logs stacked to the side, then held it in the wavering flames until it caught. While she lit the lamp and then replaced the tall glass chimney, he took pinches of fine powders from several of the jars and added them to a white cup.
"How is the boy?" she asked in a whisper.
He glanced across the room. "Not good."
"What can I do to help?" Jennsen asked after she had adjusted the wick.
He wiggled the stopper from ajar. "Well, if you wouldn't mind, bring over the mortar and pestle from the center cupboard."
Jennsen retrieved the heavy gray stone mortar and pestle for him and set it on the table beside the lamp. He was adding a mustard-colored powder to the cup. So intent was he on his task that he hadn't removed his cloak, but when he pushed the hood back out of his way she could finally get a good took at him.
His face didn't rivet her, the way Wizard Rahl's so unexpectedly had. She saw nothing in this man's round eyes, straight brow, or the pleasant enough line of his mouth that looked at all familiar to her. He gestured to a bottle made of wavy green glass.
"If you would, could you please grind one of those for me?"
While he hurried to the corner to lift a brown crockery pot down from a high shelf, Jennsen unfastened the wire hold-down and removed the glass lid from the jar. She was astonished to see the strangest little things inside. It was the shape that so surprised her. She turned one over with a finger. It was dark, flat, and round. She could see by the light of the lamp that it was something that had been dried. She jiggled the jar. They all looked the same-like ajar full of little Graces.
Just like the magical symbol, these things had an outer circle, parts that suggested a square inside that, and a smaller circle inside the square. Overlaying it all, tying it together, was another structure rather like a fat star. While not exactly a Grace, the way she had always seen it drawn, it bore a remarkable resemblance.
"What is this?" she asked.
The healer cast off his cloak and pushed up the sleeves of his simple robes. "Part of a flower-the dried base of the filament from a mountain
fever rose. Pretty little things, they are. I'm sure you must have seen them before. They come in a variety of colors, depending on where they grow, but they're best known for the common blush color. Hasn't your husband ever brought you a nosegay of mountain fever roses?"
Jennsen felt her face flush. "He's not-we're just traveling together. We're friends, is all."
"Oh," he said, sounding neither surprised nor curious. He pointed. "See there? The petals are attached to it here, and here. When the petals and stamen are removed and this selected part of the head is dried, they end up looking like this."
Jennsen smiled. "It looks like a little Grace."
He nodded, returning her smile. "And like the Grace, it can be beneficial, but it can also be deadly."
"How is it possible to be both beneficial and deadly?"
"One of those dried flower heads, ground up and added to this drink, will help the boy sleep deeply so he can fight off the fever, help drive it from him. More than one, though, actually causes fever."
"Really?"
Looking as if he had anticipated her question, he held up a finger as he leaned closer. "If you were to take two dozen, thirty for certain, there would be no cure. Such a fever is swiftly fatal. It's for this effect that the plant is named." He showed her a sly smile. "In many ways an apt name for a flower so associated with love."
"I suppose," she said, thinking it over. "But if you ate more than one, but less than a couple dozen, would you still die?"
"If you were foolish enough to crush up ten or twelve and add them to your tea, you would come down with a fever."
"And then you would eventually die, just as if you ate more?" -
He smiled at the earnest concern on her face. "No. If you ate that many, it would cause a mild fever. In a day or two you would be over it."
Jennsen peered carefully in at the whole collection of the deadly little Grace-like things and then set down the jar.
"It's not going to harm you to touch one," he said, seeing her reaction to the jarful. "You'd have to eat them to be affected. Even then, as I said, one in conjunction with other things will help the boy's fever."
Jennsen smiled her embarrassment and reached in with two fingers to retrieve one. She dropped it in the bottom of the mortar, where it looked like nothing so much as a Grace.
"If it was for an adult who was awake, I'd just crush it between my
thumb and finger," the healer said as he drizzled honey into the cup, "but he's little and asleep besides. I need to get him to drink it down easily, so grind it to a dust."
When he was finished, he added the dark dust of the little fever rose flower head Jermsen had crushed for him. Like the Grace it resembled, it could be lifesaving, or lethal.
She wondered what Sebastian would think of such a thing. She wondered if Brother Narev would want such mountain fever roses eradicated because they could potentially be lethal.
Jennsen put away the jars for the healer while he took the honeyed drink to the boy. Along with the mother's help, they put the cup to his little lips and gently worked at getting him to drink. Drop by precious drop, they coaxed the sleeping boy to suckle and swallow each little bit they dribbled into his mouth. They weren't able to rouse him, so they had to drip it into his mouth a little at a time, waiting until he swallowed as he slept, then urge him to drink a little more.
While they worked, Sebastian returned from the barn. Before he closed the door, she saw stars outside. A wave of cold air rolled past her legs, sending a shiver through her shoulders. When the wind died like this as the sky cleared, it often meant a bone-chilling cold night.
Sebastian made for the fire, eager to warm himself. Jennsen put another log on, using the poker to position it askew so it would catch well. The healer, his hand lying gently on the woman's shoulder, nodded his assurance to her as she slowly gave the drink to her sick child. He left her to do the work, and, after hanging his cloak on a hook just inside the door closest to the hearth, joined Jennsen and Sebastian at the fire.
:,Are this woman and child kin?" he said.
'No," Jermsen said. With the warmth of the fire, she removed her cloak, too, and laid it over the bench at the table. "We saw her on the road, and she needed help. We just gave her a ride here."
"Ah," he said. "She will be welcome to sleep here with her boy. I need to keep my eye on him through the night." She had forgotten about the singular nature of the knife she wore at her belt until he noticed it. "Please," he said, "help yourself to the stew I have cooking; we always have plenty at hand for those who may come here. It's late to be traveling. You both are welcome to use the cabins for the night. They're all empty at present, so you may each have your own for the night."
"That would be a kindness," Sebastian said. "Thank you."
Jermsen was about to say that they could share one cabin, when she
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realized that he had said that because she had told him that Sebastian wasn't her husband. She realized how it would look if she said anything to change the plan, so she didn't.
Besides, the idea of sleeping with Sebastian outdoors was only natural and innocent enough. Together in a cabin seemed somehow different. She recalled that several times on their long journey north to the People's Palace they had taken shelter at inns. But that was before he had kissed her.
Jermsen gestured to include the general area. "Is this the place of the Raug'Moss?"
He smiled at her question, as if he found it amusing but didn't want to mock her ignorance. "By no means. This is just one of several small outposts we use when we travel-shelter-and a place where people who need our services can come to us."
"The boy is lucky you were here, then," Sebastian said.
The Raug'Moss studied Sebastian's eyes for a moment. "If he lives, I will be pleased that I was here to help him. We frequently have a brother at this station."
"Why is that?" Jermsen asked.
"Outposts such as this help provide the Raug'Moss with income from serving the needs of people with no other access to healers."
"Income?" Jennsen asked. "I thought that the Raug'Moss helped people out of charity, not for profit."
"The stew, the hearth, the roof we offer, they do not appear magically because there is a need. People who come to us for the knowledge we've spent a lifetime acquiring are expected to contribute something in exchange for that help. After all, if we starve to death, how can we then help anyone else? Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery."
The healer hadn't been speaking about her, of course, but Jermsen still felt stung by his words. Had she always expected others to help her, feeling entitled to their help simply because she wanted it? As if her wish for their assistance took precedence over the best interest of their own lives?
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