“Worse for him. A brave lad. I thought perhaps since he’s Girdish—”
“Marshals, alas, do not have the healing powers of paladins. And even paladins … I never heard of one being able to replace thumbs. You helped heal Duke Marrakai, I heard.”
“With the Marshal-General,” Dorrin said. “I assumed it was mostly her.”
“Possibly. But did you try a healing with your own magery?”
“No,” Dorrin said. “I have no idea how thumbs grow … no … no mental image to work from. Of course I prayed for his life, but then I was more concerned to get him warm; he was perishing with cold. His heel-strings pulled up, didn’t they?”
“Yes. Master Llasstin said that to find the upper end he would have to cut the boy’s leg more, and he advised against it. Said wound-fever was already a possibility and that would make it worse.”
“Our military surgeons said opening a wound made it safer, if it was cleaned and packed properly. One of them, if he found a clean cut, would sew the string back together. Sometimes it failed, but a few times it healed sound.”
“Well, Llasstin won’t touch it. If you can’t heal it, there’s no one else.”
“I can try, but I don’t have the training or the knowledge of herb-lore to prevent wound-fever. Is there anyone …?”
Marshal Berris scowled. “Hedge-witches claim to. Or Kuakkgani, but we don’t have a Kuakgan nearby. Your predecessor hated them even more than Girdish. There’s a wizard in town, claims to have healing potions, but I’m sure that’s nonsense.”
“We had one with the Company—he and the surgeons were always arguing, but his potions did work. He saved Paks’s life when she was a novice.”
Berris blinked. “Saved a paladin?”
“She wasn’t a paladin yet—she was a green soldier in her first battle, wounded. The wizard gave her his healing potion.”
“It was Gird, I’m sure, who healed her,” Berris said a bit stiffly. “But if you want to try the wizard—”
“I’d try anything to give that lad back his thumbs,” Dorrin said. She turned to Gwennothlin. “Find the wizard and ask him to come to the grange.” She looked at Berris, who nodded, but with his lower lip tucked in. “I’ll come now and do what I can.”
“And I’m off to bring the Captain of Falk’s Field to the grange,” Berris said. Dorrin nodded.
Daryan lay limp and pale in a bed in the spare room of the grange; Dorrin knew the look of someone drugged with numbwine and the smell of surgeons’ poultices. The surgeon, bald and stooped, glanced up as she came in. “Ah. Duke Verrakai?”
“Yes,” Dorrin said. “And you’re Master Llasstin?”
He nodded. “There was nothing I could do but poultice the wounds. Made with a sharp blade and no indication of poison on it. He’ll live, no doubt of that, but crippled.” He shook his head. “Pity, in one so young.”
“We had a surgeon in Phelan’s Company who had some success with heel-strings,” Dorrin said.
“Never seen it. Don’t know it.” The surgeon shook his head. “Lad’s a cripple. Nothing to be done. Family won’t thank you.” He turned away.
“Excuse me.” That voice from the door brought her around, hand on sword-hilt, but the man at the door was no threat. Tall, dark-faced, in a hooded robe patterned in the colors of a summer forest, greens and browns, this was clearly a Kuakgan. The same one she had met? She could not be sure but thought this one was younger.
“Don’t bring any forest filth in here!” the surgeon said sharply.
Peaked eyebrows rose. “Forest filth? Do you not yourself use plants from the forest to brew your healing potions?”
“I know you hedge-witches,” the surgeon said. “And I’ve seen wounds go bad from having dirt packed into them.”
“Ah, but I’m not a hedge-witch,” the Kuakgan said. He looked at Dorrin. “You are Duke Verrakai?”
“Yes,” Dorrin said. “And you?”
“I am Master Ashwind, a traveling Kuakgan who has no settled Grove. I know Master Oakhallow, whom you met.”
“All the same,” muttered the surgeon.
“No,” said Master Ashwind, not looking at the surgeon. “Though I respect the hedge-witches for their knowledge of herb-lore, the lore of Kuakkgani is different and comes from a different source. I came to tell the Duke of dangers in Verrakai domain and what I have done about them.”
“I will return to change his bandages in the morning,” the surgeon said, nodding at Daryan. “When he wakes, he can have a bowl of meat broth and then a dose of numbwine. Unless this … Kuakgan … persuades you to some other treatment.” He stalked out, taking the door into the grange itself instead of going past the Kuakgan to the outer door.
Master Ashwind smiled at Dorrin. “I would not have stayed but that you need to know the word I bring. What is wrong with the boy?”
“We were attacked on the way from Verrakai Steading to Harway,” Dorrin said. “Last night, it would have been.” It felt like days ago. “He was captured by renegade Verrakai. They cut off his thumbs and cut his heel-strings.”
Ashwind hummed, a sound like a hive of bees; the room warmed. “What did the surgeon say?” he asked after a moment.
“That he could do nothing but bandage the wounds,” Dorrin said. “I sent for a wizard—there’s one in town, they tell me. In the Duke’s Company we had a surgeon who once or twice sewed up heel-strings and a wizard whose potions could restore blood, but neither could restore a missing limb. I have none but herbal healers in my domain. I should have—”
“You have been busy enough,” Ashwind said. “May I approach the boy?”
“Certainly,” Dorrin said. She watched as Ashwind put back his hood and crouched beside the bed where Daryan lay. He put his hand on the boy’s forehead, then lightly on his chest.
“You are Falkian, and they say you have the old magelord powers. Have you yourself tried to heal the boy?”
“No,” Dorrin said. Was everyone going to ask her that? “I prayed for his life last night, but I do not know enough. Our surgeon said that it was easy to go wrong and make things worse.”
“True, if a healer comes with arrogance and does not listen … but I think that is not true of you. Your land tells me it is not.” He looked up at her, his eyes glinting green in the lamplight. “I would like to see his wounds.”
“Can you heal him?” Dorrin asked.
“I don’t know until I have seen the wounds,” Ashwind said. Dorrin nodded; Ashwind folded the blankets down and lifted one of Daryan’s bandaged hands. He held it between his as if it were a fragile, precious ornament.
Someone banged on the grange-side door. “Lord Duke!”
“I must answer,” Dorrin said.
“Of course,” Ashwind murmured.
“Lord Duke, Marshal Berris and the Captain said to tell you they’re ready.” An excited voice.
“Just a moment,” Dorrin said through the door, and then turned to Ashwind. “I’m needed,” she said. “I must speak to the Captain of the Field and Marshal Berris.”
“Before you go,” Ashwind said, “you need to know what I came to tell: Oakhallow told me of Verrakai to the north of him—sensed through the trees of his Grove. I came north, following their trail from deep in Konhalt lands into yours. I did not go as fast as I might, having slowed to give aid to wounded trees. As I went, I raised the forest against them so they could not get past me to the south. I came upon them—it must have been but a few hours after you had passed. They were indeed heading southwest. They thought to attack me with their magery, believing me to be a mere wanderer at first.”
“How many?”
“Three, one of them injured. When they realized my nature, it was too late for them; they were trapped. They are penned there in your forest, and to my knowledge no magery will free them.”
“You didn’t kill them?”
“My powers are not for death,” Ashwind said. “I intended to ask you to come and render your judgment, as you are the l
ord there.”
“I cannot,” Dorrin said. “My duty to the king holds me here. If you can help this lad—Daryan, his name is—please do so and I will return here when I can.”
“You are tired,” Ashwind said. He laid Daryan’s hand down carefully and came to her. A breath of the summer forest seemed to surround her. “Permit me.” Without waiting for an answer, he cupped her face in his hands and blew gently onto it. All the scents of a healthy summer woodland filled her nostrils, and she felt at once awake, alert, and rested. He stepped back and turned to the bed once more.
“Thank you,” Dorrin said, and went out to face a grange full of men and women, some in Girdish blue and some in Falkian red. She put Daryan out of mind for the time being and explained to them what they must do.
“What if the Pargunese break through?” asked a Girdish woman. “Who will come to help us?”
“Couriers have already ridden for the vills and domains west,” Dorrin said. “Some will already be preparing to march here.”
“But that fire we saw—”
“If fire comes, we will move aside and let it pass—we cannot stop it,” Dorrin said. “That is why I said all must prepare their households to leave in an instant. But what I heard from a King’s Squire from Lyonya is that the Pargunese had a quarrel with the new king of Lyonya, and the attack would fall heaviest there. I daresay the Pargunese hope we will stay out of it—they will not want to fight here again, having been defeated so recently.”
“Will you be at the border yourself?” the woman asked. Marshal Berris shot her a furious glance; she ignored him.
“Not all the time,” Dorrin said. “I must meet with the commanders of any new forces that arrive and organize supplies for all of you. If the Pargunese do come, I will be there. Otherwise I will be at the meet-house, here at the grange, or at the field.”
The Marshal and the Captain dismissed their people, then asked, “How is the boy?”
“Did you know a Kuakgan had come?” Dorrin asked. Marshal Berris shook his head. “A Master Ashwind, he says, a wandering Kuakgan without a settled Grove. I thought they all had Groves.”
“I’ve heard of wandering Kuakkgani,” the Captain said. “I’m Selyan, by the way, Captain of the local field.” He and Dorrin exchanged the Falkian greetings, then he went on. “Marshal Berris tells me it’s Duke Serrostin’s son.”
“My lord Duke.” That was Gwenno, at the grange door.
“Yes?”
“The wizard says he has no healing skills that would help. He works with the judicar, he says, with truth spells and suchlike.”
“Thank you, Gwenno.”
“How is he?”
“We’re still working, Gwenno. Go back to the meet-house and be ready to bring me any messages.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I’d like to meet this Kuakgan,” Captain Selyan said.
“Come, then,” Dorrin said. “I suppose there are more Kuakkgani in Lyonya.” She led them back to the room where Daryan lay.
“Not in Lyonya, no,” Ashwind said, turning from the bed. “The Great Lady of the Ladysforest likes us not, for the old quarrel with the Tree. We travel through, avoiding the Ladysforest.”
“Can you heal him?” Dorrin asked again.
“I am not sure,” the Kuakgan said. “My skills work best outside, in the trees, but that would be too cold for this lad right now. And I am a guest in this house—this grange. It is your rules, Marshal, that must be honored here. Duke Verrakai invited me in; I must have your leave to stay.”
“If you can heal that boy, you have my leave to do whatever you must and stay as long as you like,” Marshal Berris said.
“Time is against us,” Master Ashwind said. “The sooner it’s done, the better for all these injuries, and already it is almost a full day-span. But the lad is young and not yet full-grown—his own body wants to go on making and knitting up sinews.” He looked at Marshal Berris. “Do you have a lad who could gather branches for me?”
Marshal Berris and Captain Selyan rolled Daryan onto his stomach and unwrapped the surgeon’s bandages. On Daryan’s marble-white legs the gashes looked like red mouths with the surgeon’s horsehair stitches black across them.
“We must open the wound,” Master Ashwind said. “I must find both ends of the heel-strings, and you must hold one while I hunt the other.”
Dorrin had watched the Company surgeon reattach a heel-string; she thought she knew what to expect. The spruce twigs steeping in water by the hearth gave off a sharp aromatic steam that cut through the meat-smell of the wound. Her task was simple: hold the slippery lower piece of heel-string firmly in the tongs while the Kuakgan found and pulled down the piece connected to the calf muscles. She expected him to do what the surgeon had done: make an incision up to the bunched muscle, then find and pull down the heel-string. Instead, he leaned close and began to hum. Slowly the muscle relaxed, the hard bulge softening, lengthening, until the tip of the heel-string showed in the wound. Without ceasing his hum, he gestured to Dorrin to pull the piece she held in tongs up to touch the other. With slight moves of his fingers, he directed her to move it a little more—and sideways—and hold. Then, looking up at the Marshal and the Captain, he nodded.
Dorrin felt her own power itching in her fingers but dared not do anything without direction. Master Ashwind waved to the yeoman-marshal by the hearth, and he brought the can of spruce twigs. Master Ashwind’s hum changed to a singing murmur Dorrin could not understand. He took three needles of the spruce and laid them across the cut ends, as if they were stitches, then carefully positioned more, all aligned the same. He ran his hand down her arm, and she understood he wanted her to use her magery as well. She released her power, as she had for Duke Marrakai, for the Kuakgan to direct. Though she felt no real connection to the wound, the spruce needles sank into the heel-string. For a moment she could see the green lines of them beneath the glistening white, and then they disappeared. Still singing, Master Ashwind touched her arm again, pointed to the tongs, and mimed opening them. Dorrin did so, and the heel-string now showed unbroken beneath the cut skin. Ashwind sprinkled water from the can of twigs into the wound, then held the edges of skin together, and slowly, from one side to the other, the skin rejoined. Then he sat back on his heels and shook out his arms.
“It’s—it’s healed!” Marshal Berris said. “Will it—is it strong enough for him to walk on?”
“Yes. But there are three more wounds, and I may not have strength for all of them in the time remaining. I am thinking, a lad with one lame leg and one thumbless hand is better off than a lad with two sound legs and no thumbs. I must try for a thumb next, but it is a longer and harder healing, though I need no assistance but the Tree’s for that. I must go outside now and draw strength from the taig.”
Dorrin looked at the Marshal and the Captain, and they stared back. “Well. That was … I don’t know what.”
“Was your magery involved, Duke Verrakai?” Marshal Berris asked.
“I’m not sure. I willed it so, but whether it actually took part in the healing, I don’t know.”
“One of us, at least, needs to be at the meet-house and ensuring that the militia understand their role,” Captain Selyan said.
“I must go,” Dorrin said. “Marshal Berris, will you stay in case Daryan wakes?”
“Certainly.”
“And if Master Ashwind thinks my magery of assistance for the other heel-string, if he can manage that, I will return at once. Captain Selyan, if you’ll accompany me, I can explain what should be done if I must return to the grange.”
Dorrin returned to the meet-house after her last visit to the grange that night in a state of confusion, exhaustion, and amazement. She offered prayers of thanks for the kindness of the gods, that Daryan had now two whole heel-strings and one thumb.
“It will not be strong yet, nor the size of what it was,” Master Ashwind had said. “I could not expend the power to grow it out to full size and still mend his other
leg. And the other thumb … it is too late for the graft.”
“I thank you, Master Ashwind,” she said.
“Will you now come with me to judge the Verrakaien I have the trees holding?”
“I cannot,” Dorrin said. “I told you: I must stay here.”
“The boy will do well,” Master Ashwind said.
“It is not that,” Dorrin said. She thought he had understood. “I am here at the king’s command, because of the Pargunese. I cannot leave.”
“Then I must go,” Master Ashwind said. “I must return to the trees … and you should know that I cannot herd the men closer to a town.”
“Does that mean they will go free?”
“I am not sure I can overpower them, and I would have no way to move them,” Master Ashwind said. “So they will go free if they have survived so far.” He paused. “You could send some of your soldiers with me to take charge of them.”
Dorrin shook her head. “I cannot. None of them could withstand the magery. I’m the only one, and I cannot go.” As he stood looking at her, she tried to think what argument would convince him to do something different, but she was so tired … “Will you return here after you’ve eased the trees? Since you have no settled Grove?”
“I could, if you wish, but I would rather go where the trees need me.” He bowed to her, and then he was out the door and gone, into the darkness.
Gwenno was already asleep on a pallet when Dorrin came into the small room set aside for sleep; she did not wake as Dorrin took off her sword and boots and lay down, still dressed, on the simple bed the mayor had provided.
When she woke, it was to find the mayor and his Council stirring about the meet-house, waiting for her with fires lit and food ready. Gwenno, already awake and dressed, was halfway through a bowl of porridge, but jumped up when she saw Dorrin and went to fetch another from the hearth.
“The news is good, my lord,” the mayor said. “No troops have attacked our borders, and no more of that strange fire has been seen. The Captain asks that you meet him at the border post when you can.”
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