Certain passages interested him more than others, and he tried to fix those in his mind as he read on.
… the first words of wisdom I heard from Nylan were that it was unwise to force others to make choices, because forcing a choice creates anger and resentment …
… he said that because rulers can move people with words, they can come to believe that words, rather than actions, can change the world … and that while Ryba’s visions were true, the meaning she ascribed to them was often different from the truth of the vision, for we can too often see what we wish that is not there in the truest of visions …
… The greatest magery is in a man’s mind … and a man must be in harmony with what he does. So must a woman, but from what I have observed, most men have greater difficulty being in harmony with both themselves and with the world, while women struggle more for harmony within themselves and less with the world …
No one can teach another anything unless the listener wants to learn. A teacher can speak, but the listener cannot learn if he will not find the order within himself …
At that point Beltur started leafing through the book quickly, just to discover what seemed to be in it. The first part appeared to be a summary of Relyn’s sayings and the second a history of at least a portion of his life. He didn’t get to leaf through the third part, because he heard the front door opening and closing, followed by the sound of Johlana’s voice.
“We’re back! How has your morning been? Is anyone here?”
Beltur closed the book, stood and replaced it in the bookcase, and called back, “I’m here in the family parlor!”
Within moments, both Johlana and Jessyla appeared.
“You’re the only one here?” asked Johlana.
“Barrynt said he had to see someone and that he’d be back soon. Jorhan is either sleeping or out in the stable.”
Johlana laughed. “Sleeping, I’d wager. All he’s ever done is either work or sleep.”
“He might be tired. It was a long trip,” said Jessyla, adding quickly, “At least, it seemed that way to me.”
“I’m glad you were with him. Without you two … the brigands…” Johlana shook her head.
“That was Beltur’s doing,” said Jessyla.
“I imagine you were doing your share, Healer.” Johlana smiled. “Just sit down. The two of you need a rest, and I’ve more than a few chores to tend to.”
Once Johlana had left the parlor, Jessyla settled onto the settee.
Beltur took the chair closest to it. “What did the head healer have to say?”
“Herrara? She escorted me around the healing house and had me look at several injuries. Then she had me assist her, and she finally said that I was a qualified healer. She even said that I could start tomorrow.” Jessyla offered a wry expression.
“You don’t sound too happy.”
“I think they don’t have many healers who want to work there, but if I want to practice as a healer anywhere else in Axalt, I’ll have to work there for a season four days out of every eightday, for a half silver an eightday. That means I have no real choice, because it’s the only place I can be a healer here.”
“After that, what happens?”
“If I stay at the healing house, they’ll pay me a silver an eightday. I don’t know how much I could make working for a merchant.”
“Isn’t a silver an eightday about what you made in Elparta?”
“But I won’t get that for a season.”
“I have enough silvers for several seasons.”
“I don’t like coming to you for coins.”
“We’re in this together,” Beltur said gently. “I wouldn’t be alive at all without you, and you know that.”
“You would have done something.”
“What? How? I didn’t know enough to survive in Gallos. Until I got to Elparta and worked with Athaal, I wouldn’t have been able to learn what I did, and Athaal wouldn’t have agreed to let me come with him, if I hadn’t learned from your suggestions and if you hadn’t convinced him to help me.”
Jessyla smiled faintly. “It took two of us. I had to convince Mother, and we convinced Athaal.”
“You see?”
“I see that you’re working very hard to persuade me.”
“It’s in good faith and in a good cause.” Beltur grinned.
“I’ll think about it. In the meantime, I think we should put on our coats and scarves and take a walk around Axalt … or this part of it, until we get too cold,” said Jessyla. “I saw a tiny part of it this morning. You haven’t seen any of it.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“Probably?” Jessyla arched her eyebrows.
“It’s a very good idea.”
“Beltur.” The single word was icier than the snow outside.
He understood immediately. The only question he had was how he could extricate himself from the verbal trap he’d created. He just shrugged helplessly.
“Well?” That word wasn’t any warmer than her last.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be … condescending.”
“I know healers don’t make the coins mages do. I can accept that. I can also accept I’ll likely always need some help from you in that fashion. You know I don’t like being beholden to anyone. And you should know that I hate being talked down to or condescended to … even in little things. I may have to accept condescension from others, but that shouldn’t be the way it is between us.”
“You’re right … and I am sorry.” He managed a rueful grin.
“Sorry because you shouldn’t have or sorry because I got angry?”
“How about both?”
“I’ll accept that, especially since you mean it. Shall we go?”
“We should. You lead the way, since I was trying to follow Jorhan last night, rather than look much at the city.”
Before long, the two were walking east on the street holding Barrynt’s capacious dwelling, but only to the next lane, where Jessyla turned north.
“This is the way to the healing house. I thought I’d show you that first so that you’d know how to get there from where we’re staying.” Jessyla paused. “I know we just got here, but how long can we stay with Barrynt and Johlana before we smell like spoiled fish?”
“I don’t know. Right now, they’re happy to host us. At some point, we should talk to Barrynt about how we get our own place, but doing it right now might seem like we’re not grateful and trying to get away from them.”
“You’re probably right about that.”
Beltur winced quietly at the slight emphasis on “probably,” but only nodded and said, “All of these houses seem large.” At least, they seemed large to him, since the stone three-story and multi-chimneyed mansion that they were walking past made Barrynt’s dwelling seem small. “This must be where merchants and traders live.”
“In another block, they start to get smaller. They’re much smaller—narrower, anyway, more like where Auntie lives—near the healing house.”
As they continued walking through the snow that Beltur thought was beginning to taper off, he studied each of the dwellings. He also noted a small stone structure, almost like a small house two yards on a side, with only a door, and set back from the corner of a street and a lane.
After three long blocks, his boots were squeaking with each step he took, and his feet were beginning to get cold. After five blocks, he’d seen several of the little stone houses, and he decided that, except for the snow, most of Axalt seemed largely brown and gray, the houses and buildings almost all seemingly built of oil-stained brown wood and gray stone, with the only color that of doors and shutters painted in brighter hues.
“You have that thoughtful look,” said Jessyla.
“How can you tell?” he asked wryly, aware that very little of his face showed.
“You feel thoughtful.”
“I am thinking.”
“About what?”
“I know I don’t know nearly all that
you do, but could I pass what the head healer asked of you?”
“You’d work as a healer?”
“It’s better than not working. Besides, I could learn more about healing while Jorhan and Barrynt do whatever’s necessary to set up a smithy. I can’t help much with finding a place.”
“I don’t know … Do you really want to do that?”
“More than I want to do nothing.”
Jessyla shook her head, then asked, “What would I tell Healer Herrara?”
“Tell her the truth—that I’d been working with you and your mother when I could at the Council Healing House in Elparta, and that while there are likely some gaps in my knowledge, there are also things I can do that are useful, like using shields to help a healer set bones.”
“I told you how little they pay, and they might not want to pay you at all. Klarisia didn’t.”
“You told me that she couldn’t. For now, it doesn’t matter. I’d rather learn than not learn.”
“I think you have other ideas, as well. What are they?”
“I just wonder … I seem to get pulled into healing, even when I’m not trying. Maybe … order, fate … whatever … is trying to send me a message.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in the Rational Stars.”
“I don’t, and I don’t believe in some god, like the one-god worshippers or the Kaordists do, but what if order itself…”
“That sounds suspiciously like you’re considering order as a deity.”
“No … just a force. I could be wrong, but, if I am, it still won’t hurt for me to know more about healing, will it?”
“No. It’s bound to come in useful.”
“Especially if anything happens to you,” he said. “One thing your mother was very clear about was that healers can’t heal themselves, not if they’re seriously ill or hurt.”
“She was very clear about more than one thing,” replied Jessyla dryly.
“Just like you,” replied Beltur.
Jessyla scooped a handful of snow from the top of the low stone wall in front of a more modest dwelling and threw it at Beltur, but the snow arrived more as an additional wind-aided clump of snow than as a snowball.
They both laughed.
XXXV
By twoday morning, the snow had stopped, and the sky was a coldly brilliant green-blue, as Beltur walked with Jessyla toward the healing house of Axalt. Although the air was still, it was bitter, colder than anything Beltur had yet experienced.
“There’s something else I need to do,” said Jessyla.
“And what might that be?”
“Find a way to send a letter to Mother to let her know we’re safe here.”
“Barrynt might know about any traders traveling to Elparta. I’m sure that, for an extra silver or two, they might be willing to deliver a letter.” He paused. “It might cost more than that, but we should let her know. She could also tell Meldryn.”
“That’s a good idea.”
Because of the cold, the two walked quickly across already packed snow that crunched and squeaked with each step that took them the seven long blocks to the two-story healing house, a structure that was far more modest than the one in Elparta, some twenty yards long and ten wide, with solid gray stone walls and the same steeply pitched roof that all structures in Axalt seemed to have. The main door was single, if slightly wider than most doors, with polished but old brass hinges and fittings. Beltur opened it for Jessyla and followed her inside. Once in the small entry hall, she immediately turned to the left into a small room with wall pegs, where she hung her coat and scarf. Beltur followed her example, and the two went back to the entry, through a square arch into a corridor perhaps a yard and a half wide, their steps echoing on the gray stone floor, as they walked into the first chamber on the right.
An older woman with jet-black hair, pale brown eyes, and a narrow pinched face looked up from the table desk where she sat, her eyes taking in Jessyla. “You’re here when you should be. I’ll say that.”
Jessyla nodded. “Healer Herrara, this is my consort, Beltur. As you can see, he’s a mage.”
“He looks a bit young for a mage.” Herrara’s expression was one of disinterest, almost as if to ask why Beltur was at the healing house.
“He was strong enough to hold off the mages of Gallos,” said Jessyla.
Herrara shifted her glance to Beltur. “I presume you wish me to ask why you are here?”
“I would have told you. It’s very simple. Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve been pressed into service as a healer, because I do have some healing skills. For that reason, I asked the head of the Council Healing House in Elparta to allow me to work there, as I could when I was not working or serving as a City Patrol mage, so that I would know more.”
“You seem to be telling the truth, but why are you here? In Axalt, that is?”
“The newly formed Mages’ Council of Elparta wished me to become an indentured slave, partly to keep me from earning silvers and partly to force Jessyla to consort with the favorite of the chief mage of the Council.”
“That’s not the whole truth, I think.”
“No, it’s not. I worked with Jorhan, a coppersmith, to make items out of cupridium, everything from blades to mirrors and candelabra. The Council issued an edict that we could only sell them through a trader. Then the Council claimed that we had violated the edict even before the date it became effective. I had to flee because both the Traders’ Council and the Mages’ Council were after me.”
“I insisted he consort me and that I accompany him,” added Jessyla.
“You are either very brave or very foolish. Perhaps both.” Her eyes went back to Beltur. “You wish me to pay you while I teach you?”
“No. I would suggest that you allow me to accompany you so that you can question me, test me, and determine where I might be of assistance. If and when you decide that I might be, then you could consider whether I should be paid as other healers are.”
“Begging your pardon, Mage, but what if I don’t find your abilities satisfactory?”
“Then you can either instruct me or dismiss me, as you see fit.”
Herrara frowned, then shook her head. “It is most irregular.”
“I’m a black mage. It’s painful for me to physically injure anyone. We’ve had to leave Spidlar because the Council’s rules destroyed my ability to make a living. The last thing I’d want to do is something that would cause trouble.”
“I can sense that much truth.” Herrara frowned again. “Are you thinking to become a healer?”
“I’ve been where I’ve had to be too many times, where someone would have died. I’ve been fortunate enough to have kept that from happening in most cases. The ones where I could not were on the battlefield. Since life seems to thrust the need for healing at me, I would prefer to know more.”
“Interesting. Those are the most ordered words you’ve spoken, although I’ve sensed no outright chaos.” She turned back to Jessyla. “What have you seen him do?”
“He can clean wounds, both with spirits and cloth, a knife, and with order. He helped the healers in Elparta set bones in a way that was less painful and more effective than anything else…”
Before Jessyla could finish, Herrara gestured for her to stop. “If you, Mage, can do even that, then it seems I must accept your suggestion. Are you here for today?”
“I had hoped to be.”
“Then let us see whether there is any hope for you as a healer. If you would, wait here while I take Healer Jessyla to the welcoming ward and inform her about her immediate duties.” The chief healer stood and walked to what looked like a bookcase set against the wall, except that the shelves were separated into rectangles, and within most of the rectangles were what appeared to be various supplies. One held small folded cloths, another small corked bottles, another large tweezers, as well as other devices Beltur did not immediately recognize. Herrara took an oblong basket and handed it to Jessyla, then turned toward the open d
oor.
Jessyla gave Beltur a warm smile before she followed Herrara from the small room.
He stood there, his eyes taking in the table desk on which were several books similar to ledgers, one of which was open. Without stepping toward the desk, he could only see that there were blocks of handwriting separated by small intervals of white space. He looked back to the wooden supply case, studying the contents.
He was still studying it and trying to determine what certain objects might be used for when Herrara returned.
“We will go to the upper level. There I would like you to examine several people. Do not say a word about what you think you may have learned about each until we have returned to the main corridor and closed the door.”
Once on the second level, Herrara led Beltur into a room containing four narrow beds. Two were empty. Herrara walked over to the first bed. A thin-faced older man with an unkempt mostly white beard lay there, his eyes closed. He seemed to be asleep. The healer shook him by the shoulder, firmly but not roughly. Then she pinched his cheek. “He was found in the front hall of his daughter’s house. He’s only been here a day, but he can’t swallow anything.”
Following Herrara’s instructions, Beltur let his senses range over the older man, noting immediately that the levels of both his natural order and chaos were low. That might have been because the man hadn’t eaten for some time, something Beltur had noticed on a less pronounced scale with himself. The second thing was the dull redness inside the man’s skull on the right side, not exactly wound chaos, although it might have been “brighter” earlier. He bent over the man, looking at that side of his head, but there was no sign of a wound, no bruising or cuts. Nor did he find any other signs of concentrated wound or free chaos or the kind of excessive order binding that he’d sensed in Taelya.
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