SNOWFALL

by Mitchell Smith

  "What might be?"

  "This." The scarred woman leaned over the baby and pointed to the scattered rash along his plump thighs. She gently turned him over. "And here." Same slight rash on the child's bottom.

  "Apparently, Doctor," said Serrano, "—you have never seen heat rash on a child."

  "A rash from being warm?"

  "Too warm, yes. He needs to be out of his blanket and get some sun the next week or so, before the cold comes down."

  The scarred woman struck her forehead quite hard. "And it was in my books! But I'd never seen it, actually." Serrano saw tears of distress come into her eyes.

  "Well... I didn't mean to be rude. It occurs here in the south—not, to be sure, a problem for long. But in the eight summer weeks, we do see it sometimes."

  "Entirely not serious?"

  "Oh, entirely not serious, and certainly isn't the pox."

  "Pops?"

  "Pox."

  "Pox...."

  Serrano went down the hall, found maid-Peggy's sack of corn-starch in the pantry, then came back. The scarred woman was bent over the baby, murmuring to it.

  "Excuse me." Serrano took a palmful of cornstarch, and lightly powdered the baby with it. "Keeps him a little dryer.... Do you know what commences this sort of irritation?"

  "The books said something the skin dislikes—a plant juice, perhaps. Or a food his gut dislikes—eggs, or kinds of fish. Or a place where so-tiny bacteria like to grow."

  "Yes.... Well, Doctor, this is a so-tiny bacteria problem, but

  not a serious one. Dryness, cleanliness, and fresh air are the medicines for it. You can have some of this cornstarch to take with you."

  "He has no other warm-country sickness?"

  "None," Serrano said. "There is nothing wrong with this baby, except an apparent diet solely of goat's milk. He's almost ready to begin solid food—but soft solid food, mashes and so forth. Vegetables, and very finely ground meat. And not too much, at first."

  "I knew that; I knew it was nearing the time to do that."

  "In another few weeks."

  "You have given me such fine information," the scarred woman said, and wiped her eyes on the wide sleeve of a flowered shirt, once white, now sweat-stained and grimy. "What can I trade you in return?"

  "I suppose," Serrano said, "—that payment of money is out of the question? Any small gold piece or silver piece, even a small piece of copper?"

  "I had many little gold pieces," the woman said. "Dancing Old-Gerald gave me a small bag of them as Newton's friend, and all the food I could carry. ... Some of the little pieces I paid to a person with a two-horse wagon, to bring me south for several whiles. And I gave the rest to another man who told me he would get a fine warm-country doctor to come look at Small-Sam. But he never came back, though I waited. I was afraid it was the beginning of pops—pox."

  "Well... never mind. What's your name?"

  "Catania Olsen."

  "Never mind, Catania Olsen. We doctors often go unpaid."

  "True," the woman said. "Often I haven't been paid for service." She picked up the baby, cradled him, and made kissing sounds against his cheek. "But I can do something for you in trade. Is there someone, a bad person, that I could fight for you, since you're old? I'm a woman, and not a great fighter, but I am competent."

  "I'm sure you are. I'm sure you're a very competent fighter, Doctor... Olsen, but I don't need one. What I need is my breakfast, which, I suppose, you and your child can share with me, as Christians after all. And then, you can go on your way."

  "But what can I do for you, in trade?"

  "Nothing. Not necessary."

  "It is necessary. Don't you have work to be done?"

  "Doctor, I have only breakfast to be eaten, and perhaps a nap to be enjoyed."

  "Work," the woman said, and seemed ready to stand in the back room for a week or two, waiting.

  "Oh, God.... Let's see. Well, if you want to, you can clean out my garden shed. You could do that. I have men coming to tear it down, and it has to be cleaned out first."

  "Agreed."

  "Agreed? Good. Just put the tools and so forth, put everything aside neatly. I'll show you, after breakfast."

  Maid-Peggy, serving in the dining room, strongly disapproved; Serrano supposed she had fleas in mind, though she dallied with the child a little. The baby behaved quite well, took some of last evening's broth, burped soundly, and shit.

  "Tell me, Doctor Olsen, where you studied your medicine."

  "With Doctor Monroe," the woman said, and took her last bite of ham. She had eaten fastidiously enough, though with her long knife, and her fingers. "I was his apprentice."

  "I see. And what did that doctor suggest, if, for example, a patient's skin and the whites of his eyes became yellow?"

  "He suggested crab-cancer or lump cancer, but more likely troubled liver, gallbladder, or the duct." The eggs seemed to have gone down well, and the ham. The coffee, however, appeared to puzzle her, as well it might, since it was cheapest Empire-grown and nearly undrinkable.

  "And if it proved to be the gallbladder? Sensitivity, occasional lancinating pain?"

  The woman set down her coffee mug—a decisive downing. "Then, no fat meat at all, not even a little. No trade-salt or trade-pepper. Rest, boiled water, spruce tea."

  "And if the condition worsened?"

  "Wash hands, blade, and site with vodka, then cut through skin, and eighth and ninth rib, under the right arm. Twist hand through a smallest possible incision into the upper abdominal. Feel under hepar-liver for swollen hot goose-egg-to-fist-sized vesica-gallbladder, and cut it free quickly as possible. Sew the severing by touch alone, then clean and close up and clean again. Bind ribs firmly, but allow free breathing."

  "Bind ribs ... yes. And have you done such surgery, Doctor Olsen?"

  "No, thank Lady Weather."

  "I have done it three times, though a little differently than you describe—but fundamentally the same. I saved one patient out of the three. I think the other two died from the pain I caused them."

  "Doctor Monroe did one of those, when I was little. Bertram Sorbane lived, but he stayed a little yellow."

  "My one that lived, stayed a little yellow, too."

  * * *

  Doctor Serrano was wakened from his siesta. He'd been dreaming of his son—Miguel smiling, saying something droll—when he woke to sunny afternoon, loud hammering, and the sounds of splintering wood.

  He groaned, got up, put on his robe and went to see what was happening. The noise was coming from the back of the house.

  Standing out on the steps in brilliant sunshine, he saw his guest in violent action amid the wreckage of the garden shed.

  The baby, naked on his blanket, was watching as Doctor Catania Olsen—having emptied the shed and stacked that material in good order by the back fence—was proceeding with the dismantling of the structure.

  She was a formidable sight. Naked to the waist, her small breasts seemed the only soft things about her. The rest of the torso was long, very lean, and muscled nearly like a man's. Scarred, as well, by what must have been fighting wounds, though none of those was as grim as the puckered scar down her right cheek.

  Hers was a body capable of great sustained effort—that effort now being directed against the garden shed, or what remained of it.... She was using the ax with ferociously directed swift swinging blows, so the shed's structure was broken and smashed apart.

  Doctor Serrano considered for a moment what the males of her tribe must have been capable of. "I have... I have men coming to do that."

  She apparently didn't hear him amid the thuds and crashes. "Doctor Olsen—I have men coming to do that!"

  She paused—the ax paused at least—and she stood restless with interrupted motion. "I trade for treatment," she said.

  Serrano saw that her light-brown hair, fallen loose from the thick braid she'd kept it in, was slightly streaked with gray, though she was still a young woman. A sign of the hard lives led


  in the north—with two-week summers, not eight…. He noticed she'd brought her weapons to the backyard with her.

  "You've done enough."

  "No." She stood with the ax in her hands, looking south, out over the meadows behind the house. "Mountains," she said.

  "Yes, the Sierra." Serrano glanced with her at that distant great cordillera, southern peaks gleaming with forever-snow. "Yes," he said, "—mountains."

  "Are there people there?"

  "I believe so," Serrano said. "Shepherds, bandits, tribal savages. ... Now, you've done enough work for me."

  "Not enough."

  "If you do more, I will have to pay you." Ah.... Serrano saw the notion strike her.

  "Pay me what?" That spare, iron torso was running sweat, but she'd not been breathing hard at all.

  "You're a doctor with, it seems, no medicines, no instruments," Serrano said. "For completing this destruction, and stacking the ruins neatly, I will make up a medical-carry, also with some instruments I can spare, and give it to you."

  And as soon as he'd said it, thought himself an old fool. Then thought again, as he saw her face.

  ... The doctor gone back into his house, Catania set to finishing her work. Soon, there were only blocks of some gray made-rock left. The shed-house had been built on them. These seemed too weighty to knock loose with the butt of the ax, so she searched the small yard for its largest stone ... and found one, almost black and a little smaller than a person's head.

  She straddled a row of the made-rock, and swinging the heavy stone down hard with both hands, beat at the gray blocks until they began to crack, then break. Working slowly down the rows, hammering, she broke all the blocks into small jagged pieces, then dug out what remained with her hands.... When she was finished, there was only a square of four shallow ditches where the shed-house had been—and nothing left to do but gather the wood and broken rubble, and set it carefully along the stick fence.

  Catania was stacking things neatly, when she heard a large bird's wings, like an eagle's wings, flapping almost above her. But when she looked up, the late-day sun almost in her eyes—she saw it was a man.

  It was a small round-faced man dressed in a long dark-blue cloth coat that flapped and flapped as he flew. He wore a wide-brimmed blue hat—the same as the thing-riders had worn at Market—and sailed slowly through the air above her, just within bow-shot. He was making the same straining face Garden Mary had made, but was sitting up straight, with his legs crossed... and flying higher, flying faster.

  "Jack," Catania said, as if Jack might come to her, and her breath left with his name.... The flying man glanced down, saw her, and gave her a bad look.

  Catania turned and ran across the yard for her bow. She strung it fast, then set an arrow to the string for her shot. The flying-man was already past the roof-corner of another house, out over the meadows.

  Catania bent her bow, wishing so much it was Jack or Torrey shooting as she let the arrow go. It was a good shaft and streaked straight out. If the flying-man had paused only a little in the air, it would have reached him. But he was sailing away, and though the arrow tried, and Catania prayed it on, he was going too high and too quickly, so the shaft fell hungry.

  "Holy Mother!" the old doctor said, and Catania turned and saw him standing at his back door. "What did you do?"

  "I missed him," Catania said. "I'm sorry."

  "Never, never, never," the old man said, his face pale. "Never attempt against one of those people! They are the Empire's friends, for one thing!"

  "If it was rude, I'm sorry."

  "Much worse than rude," the old man said. "If you'd hit him— forbid it, Saints—much worse than rudeness would have happened!"

  "I apologize...."

  "Why did you do it—shoot at him?"

  "I know that bad-wisdom flying," Catania said. "They helped kill tribesmen, north on the ice... and two of them wanted to burn me and Joan Richardson alive. Doctor, they twist babies in their mothers and make monsters of them—I've seen it!"

  "I know," Serrano said. "I know...." He put his finger to his mouth so she wouldn't say more.

  Catania spoke more quietly. "He gave me an enemy look, so my bow called me to come get it and kill him."

  "Please Mother Mercy no one saw you." The old man looked so troubled that Catania said, "The shed-house is gone," to comfort him.

  "... Yes, I see that it is. Now come inside, please. You'll have the evening meal, but then you should be on your way in case someone saw what you did."

  "I have to go find my arrow," Catania said.

  "Dear God," the old man said. "No good deed goes unpunished." Certainly a Warm-time phrase.

  Catania went out into the meadow to find her arrow—picked its yellow-edged fletching out of green summer grass—then came back to the house. She led the nanny to Small-Sam for suckling. He took the milk . .. was patted to burp and burp, then fell asleep.

  The evening meal that maid-Peggy brought them was made of vegetables and flat baked grain-dough, and a sauce so hot that Catania drank two mugs of southern wine, her first wine—though she'd read of it many times—and found it much milder than vodka, and cool in her mouth.

  After dinner, there was a treat. Crystal powder was sprinkled on it, sweet as honey, but with no taste but sweetness. Catania thought it was probably copybook sugar, made from cane grown down where summers were even longer.

  The treat under the powder was much stranger and more valuable. It was the color of shit, but each bite had more tastes than one bite should have.... Then all the tastes gathered together to become a single wonderful one that stayed in her mouth for a while.

  "Chocolate," the old doctor said, and smiled at her, so Catania supposed he'd forgiven her worse-than-rudeness in shooting at the flying-man.

  While she finished her powdered piece of chocolate, Doctor Serrano advised the best way for her and Small-Sam to travel from his house. "... Down across the meadows, and away from the village to the path west, a narrow path. Then west on that path for many days to the Royal Road." He called, "Peggy... I think another piece of the chocolate.—So, west to the Royal Road, then along that to towns and cities, all offering reasonably safe and comfortable living for a woman and child, since the Empire's soldiers police them."

  ... When she'd finished her second piece of chocolate, and said a thank-you to this country's Jesus for creating it, Catania followed Doctor Serrano down the passage to his examining room, carrying Small-Sam asleep in his blanket.

  The old man showed what he'd put in a big strong-cloth carry for her.

  There was dried mutton, and dried apple—and little cloth sacks of medicine, each with advice written on a small piece of fine paper, and tied to its closure with twisted string. There were many of these little sacks, and also curved needles, gut-thread, and fourteen instruments.

  There were three lancet-knives—large to small; six wonderful little vessel clips; a scoop spoon; fine bone-saw and coarse bone-saw; a long probe and a short probe. Best of all, a long-handled very slender pliers, for taking out small things that were deep.... All made of fine steel.

  "Can you spare these?"

  "I can spare them, Doctor," the old man said. "They're old-fashioned, but of good quality. Remember, use any harsh-liquor rinse, and scrub. Clean medicine is best medicine."

  He sounded just as Doctor Monroe had sounded so long ago. Catania, considering that southern people might not kiss faces, took his hand, kissed that, and thanked him for kindness.

  "No, no," the old man said, taking his hand away. Then he said, "Here ..." took a thick copybook off a shelf against the wall, and gave it to her. "I can spare this, too.... Know it by heart."

  The copybook was titled Elements of Medical Practice, and had been written by Jacob Stein, MD. There were drawings in it.

  "This is an endless-gratitude gift," Catania said, leafing through it.

  "Nonsense. Only a professional courtesy."

  Catania lifted her backpack, shrug
ged it on, then put the copybook with her medicals in the carry, and set its wide strap on her left shoulder. She stooped to pick the baby up in his poozy, and slung it on her hip.

  So weighted, she went out the door and carefully down the back steps. She took her lance from where it leaned against the house, then fitted her bow and quiver over her right shoulder.

  "Goodbye," Catania said, untied the nanny at the fence, and led her through the garden gate.

  "Farewell, Doctor," the old man said. It was the second time Catania had heard that Warm-time word for parting.

  There was only a while to the last of light. She walked down into the meadow, the goat capering on its lead so its shadow— and hers, with her burdens and slim shaft of lance—were printed out on the field beside them.

  It was a relief to be under the sky again—sweeter, after accustomed long traveling, than the kindest stranger's roof. Even finer than chocolate.

  Catania settled the pack and carry, settled her bow and quiver on her shoulder, settled the baby on her hip... and accepting heaviness that held her hard to the ground, walked through tall grasses, green in slanting sunlight. She swung her lance as a staff.

  Doctor Serrano's way had been the path beyond the village meadows, that ran west and west to the Royal Road, then to crowded places where Small-Sam might grow to be a man in heat-rash warmth and safety.

  But staying south was to go as Jack had wanted, as he'd called out at Long Ledge when they fled away. 'South ... south....'

  The mountains—the Sierra—rose in a distant wall before her, peaks glittering with ice, their snows shining in sunset colors. Shepherds, bandits, savages lived there, breeding hard sons in cold country ... and perhaps in need of a doctor.

  More than twenty years later, Middle Kingdom thrives.

  A new enemy sweeps east from the Map-Pacific Coast.

  And Sam Monroe has grown to be a man.

  Kingdom River

  Available from Forge Books in May 2003

  Clean, her hair done, seventeen-year-old Martha was scrubbing homespun small-clothes—just discovered dirty beneath her father's bed—in the tub on the dog-trot, when she glimpsed metal shining through the trees. She took her hands off the rippled board, shook hot water and lye suds from her fingers, and watched that shining become soldiers marching up along the river road.