“Here now, what are you doing out here? Trying to run away? You ungrateful whelp! You wouldn’t get far; the guard would catch you up on two shakes,” Letta stood behind him at the top of the stairs.
Theus felt his pain and weariness and sadness overwhelm him as he turned towards her and looked up. He felt the tears starting to stream down his face. He was ashamed, but unconcerned too. He had no pride left to lose, he consoled himself.
“No my lady, not running away,” he told her. He would tell her the truth and let it be. She didn’t seem as bad a person as the white-haired woman had been, or as bad as the whole dark and dreary city seemed to imply it was.
“My wounds are badly infected; they’re suppurating,” he found himself using the word that the memory stone had implanted in his mind. “I wanted to cut them open and drain out some of the pus,” he held his knife to show her his instrument.
“You give me that!” she said shrilly. “You’re not going to use my best knife for deboning chickens to cut your nasty arm open!” she told him indignantly, holding her open-palmed hand down towards him in a demanding fashion.
Theus exhaled, then held the knife up to her, handle first.
“I didn’t think you’d want me to open them in the kitchen,” he said in a low voice.
Letta had already disappeared with the knife, he realized, but she returned within ten seconds, holding a smaller knife.
“Here,” she told him. “You can do it here, and we’ll throw a couple of buckets of water to wash away your mess. You can take your clothes off so they don’t get stained.
“Or on second thought, you can just take them off so that we can burn them! They’re pitiful. I’ll order new things in a minute,” she added, the disappeared inside the door.
Theus considered her command. He was willing to remove his shirt, but less willing to forego his pants in such a public place. His wounded limbs were too sore to allow him to easily remove his shirt, until he decided to use the knife and simply cut the shirt along the seams, removing it in pieces.
When that was done, he pressed the point of his knife against the warm skin of his arm, and hesitated, then applied pressure. As soon as the knife point sank into the skin, a bloody mix began to ooze forward, carrying a terrible stench that made him turn his head away, his face screwed up in a frown.
The drainage began to drip off his arm, and fell down to the pavement below, next to the side of the staircase. Theus left his arm droop, then tried to gently run his good hand down the arm to press more of the infection out. It hurt, but it felt like a relief too; the arm no longer felt tight and stretched.
His leg was next. He cut away the shredded material from his pants on the leg that was injured, then he swung his legs to the side and let them hang towards the pavement, before he pressed the point of his knife against the red skin of his thigh, and repeated the experience from his arm, releasing an even greater flow of pus.
“What? You’ve plunged right into it without even waiting for me to help?” Letta came back out of the kitchen. She nimbly stepped around him, down to the pavement, then circled around to take a closer look at the wounded leg.
Do you really think your medicine can save this?” she asked doubtfully, after several seconds of study.
“I’m sure it can,” Theus told her earnestly.
“I found your list on the counter. I’ve sent for the things we can get easily; finding pumice and quicksilver will require trips out of the kitchen confines, so that’ll take time,” she told him. “If you’re ready, come back inside and wait in the corner while we carry on with our work.” She took another look at the drainage that had ceased to seep from his wounds, then closed her eyes, before she opened them again and came around to climb back up the steps and re-enter the kitchen.
Theus groaned, then lumbered up the steps and re-entered the kitchen as well. He felt less pain in his limbs thanks to the removal of the pressure and infection as he walked over to the counter where his unfinished remedies sat in their bowls. He pulled a stool over to where he wanted it, then sat and leaned forward on the counter and rested his head on his arms, as his eyelids closed.
A rustling noise next to his face startled him, and he opened his eyes. An elderly woman with graying red hair had placed a burlap sack on the counter.
“That’s from her layship Letta,” the woman told him with a smile that revealed several missing teeth. Theus thought of the healing stone he had left at Falstaff’s office. He could have restored the woman’s smile – and her bite – in a matter of minutes or hours with the use of the stone, he mused regretfully.
“Thank you,” he told her out loud.
She nodded her head. “I’m sorry to awaken you from your nap,” the woman told him, then walked away.
He sat up, and saw that the kitchen was much busier. A number of people were working in multiple portions of the kitchen where there had been no one earlier, and the sunlight slanted into the room at a lower angle than before. He had fallen asleep for some time. He was thankful he hadn’t fallen off the stool, he told himself wryly, then he pulled the burlap sack over and looked inside. It was full of a number of jars.
He pulled the containers out of the sack and inspected them one by one. He discovered that Letta’s efforts had acquired everything he had asked for except quicksilver. He had what he needed to complete one of his remedies, he excitedly realized, and he set to work placing the things he needed on one side of his mixing bowls, then he put the other ingredients back in the burlap sack and set it aside.
Theus began to measure and prepare the items he had collected on his left side, still without tools to measure precisely, but using care, motivated by the thought that he was truly on the verge of having a treatment for his painful injuries.
When he mixed in the sour milk as the final ingredient, he turned his head away from the unpleasant smell, until it dissipated in the mixture. He looked into the bowl at the paste-like substance he had created; it looked like it should, according to his ancient memories. All that remained to do was to slather it onto his wounds.
With the fingers of his good hand, he gently traced lines up and down the length of the slice on his arm, and atop the red streaks of infection. When his arm was finished, he paused and felt compelled
to say a quick prayer.
"Great Limber, thank you for this cure. Please, please let it heal my wounds and restore my health, I pray to you," he murmured his invocation.
There was an immediate loud clap of thunder overhead, one that rattled the dishes on the counters and made all conversations and activities cease for three full seconds.
Was it a reaction to his prayer, Theus wondered, or just a coincidence?
“Voice?” he whispered cautiously, prompted by the thought of Limber, and by the strangely coincidental prayer and thunderclap. “Are you listening voice?” He’d heard a whisper from the voice, or perhaps he had merely imagined it in his illness, he wondered. But he’d only had the one whisper, through all the trials and tests of the past several days.
“Voice?” he repeated, then listened fruitlessly to the silence around him.
Finally, with a sigh, he returned to the matter of healing his wounds. He smoothed his ointment on the deep wound in his leg, hoping that its effects would be able to penetrate deeply into his flesh and treat all the infection that was far below the surface there.
And then he was done. His bowl still held a portion of the remedy, which he didn’t need to use. Next to the bowl sat the unfinished preparation of the other remedy, and next to that sat the bag of ingredients that were yet unmixed.
He looked around the kitchen, and saw that servants were carrying dirty dishes in through a pair of doors, and piling them next to a sink. He felt re-energized, not by the ointment itself, but more so by the feeling of satisfaction he’d received from creating and applying the ointment. It had been his first positive action in many days, and it helped lift him slightly out of the state of depression he had sunk
to.
The dirty dishes offered an opportunity to do something more, and to do something to show Letta that he appreciated her support.
He limped over to where the piles of dishes were growing. Was the challenging work a typical day’s labor, he wondered, or was there some special event taking place that called for so much to be served?
Regardless, he found the barrel that scraps were thrown into, and he began to clear off the dishes that kept entering the kitchen. As he did, another worker, an older man, came over and started taking the dishes that Theus had scrapped, and placed them in a large sink full of water.
“Are you new here?” the man asked Theus after a minute. Theus had built up a pile of scrapped dishes ahead of the man by starting first, but Theus’s limited use of one arm slowed his efforts, and the other dishwasher soon caught up to him, and seemed to wait patiently for Theus to hand over additional dishes one by one.
“I just got here today,” Theus volunteered.
“Brand new? We’re glad to have you; we need extra help; Letta’s feud with Colandra means we haven’t been getting the workers we need to keep up with everything. Even if you are halfway crippled, you’re a help,” the man told him. “And if we could heal some of the ones who were burned in the fire, we’d be back at full strength.
“But if wishes came true, none of us would be here, would we?” the man asked philosophically.
Theus nodded his head in agreement.
“So where are you from?” the other man asked. “My name’s Creighton, by the way.”
“My name’s Theus,” the boy responded. “I’m from the Jewel Hills originally. I was living in Great Forks until my sailing ship was captured by pirates.”
“I never heard of the Jewel Hills, or Great Forks,” Creighton answered as he scratched his chin. “I’m sorry to hear about your ship being captured.”
“Where are you from?” Theus asked in return.
“My parents were both slaves. I was born on the estate of Lord Graisse, but my mother was sold to the palace when I was a little boy, so I’ve lived here my whole life, really,” Creighton replied.
“You’ve been a slave your entire life?” Theus asked in amazement.
“Sure. I have, Gretta has, Rousey has, Allo has – lots of slaves are born as slaves. I feel sorry for someone like you who wasn’t a slave and is one now. But you’ll get used to it; you might even find it has its advantages,” Creighton said.
“I doubt that,” Theus muttered. “Once I get healed, I want to figure out how to get free again.”
“Sshhh!” Creighton said, looking around fearfully. “Don’t ever talk that way. Don’t ever let anyone hear you talk about running away. You’ll be in chains in a minute if they do!”
“What are you doing here?” Letta interrupted their conversation. “Shouldn’t you be working on your medicine, or resting someplace?”
“I wanted to help, my lady,” Theus said quickly. “You were kind to help me heal, and I wanted to return the favor.”
She stared at him hard, then her expression seemed to soften.
“Have we assigned quarters to you yet?” she asked.
“No, my lady,” he told her.
“When you’re finished here, come find me, or send for me, and I’ll have a spot for you,” she told him. She left then to go check on other workers in the kitchen who were sending dessert plates on their way.
“You are that new, if they don’t have quarters for you. Take the north hall if you get a choice,” Creighton advised. “The south side gets too hot from all the sunshine.”
The pair proceeded to wash and make progress on the pile of dishes they faced. More kitchen workers came to join them, as the cooking pots and pans and utensils also arrived to be cleaned, and Theus found himself having to explain himself to four more people.
“I’ve heard of Great Forks, it’s away far away,” one man said following Theus’s introduction. “I used to live in Steep Rise; I used to be a free man,” he told Theus.
“Were you captured by the pirates too?” Theus asked.
“No, I gambled too much, and went to debtor’s prison, then was sold as a slave to pay my debts,” Taylor answered evenly.
Theus shook his head, as he thought about the con men he had seen with the shady games they had played in Waterspot. He had been angry at the con men, but he had never considered that the gambling they were practicing could have led someone to gamble their way into prison, or slavery.
Theus was the slowest-working of the people who labored through the cleaning duties, but when they all were finished two hours later, each of the others thanked him for his help, as they went their ways from the kitchen, their chores finished.
Theus watched them all go, and realized that many of the lanterns had been doused. He was alone in the kitchen, in the near darkness. He didn’t know where Letta was to ask her for a place to sleep. He walked to a doorway and peered down a hallway that led to parts unknown in the palace, then walked to another doorway and opened it to see that it led into the formal parts of the palace, where grand tapestries and paintings hung on the walls and the furniture appeared refined.
He heard a noise behind him, and whirled to see a man entering with a pack of four dogs.
“What light is that over there?” the man asked from the puddle of light he brought in with his own lantern.
The dogs all barked twice, then raced over to see Theus, with one dog limping badly behind the others in the race to investigate.
Theus braced for the animals’ arrival and attack, but when they reached him they started leaping at him and licking him, treating him as if he were a returning family member.
“They aren’t real ferocious, but they’re good trackers,” their handler said as he walked over to join Theus. “Down boys, down,” he commanded curtly, and the dogs ceased their affectionate assault on Theus.
“I’m going to be sorry to see Larsey leave us,” the man said, as he knelt and began to stroke the head of one of the dogs.
“Where’s he going?” Theus asked politely.
“He’s not healing from an injury. They tracked a boar for Lord Glous last week, and Larsey got gored. He can’t keep up with the others now. I’m afraid his lordship is going to put him down.”
“What’s the injury?” Theus asked instantly. “Where is it?” He felt a certain hunch, and felt confident that circumstances were going to turn out as his instincts predicted.
“It’s his hind leg,” the handler touched the rear left leg of the dog he was petting, and the animal whimpered.
Theus leaned down slowly, his own injuries hindering his movements, and he held his lantern close to the wound to examine it. The wound was festering. It was infected, just as his own wounds had been infected. There might be other damage to the muscles or bone within – Theus didn’t know and couldn’t tell – but at least part of the health problem was something he recognized and could offer to help.
“I have an ointment that might help him,” Theus offered. He hadn’t known dogs very well during his life. His own family had never had one, but some of the nearby farms had, and Theus had always enjoyed the company of the friendly animals.
“Where is this ointment?” the dogkeeper asked.
“It’s on a counter down at the end of the kitchen,” Theus said as he slowly pushed himself up from the floor. He rose more easily than he expected, an improvement that he hoped was credited to his own use of the just-mentioned ointment.
He limped down towards the end of the kitchen, the dogs and their handler in tow.
“This is handy; it’s where the animals sleep anyway,” the man commented as they stopped by Theus’s bowl of medicine.
“In the kitchen?” Theus asked in surprise. He thought back to the kitchen in the mansion of Lord Warrell. He couldn’t imagine dogs being allowed into the space, let alone spending the night there.
The man opened a lower set of cabinets, and pulled out a large roll of rugs. He spread them in the
nearby corner, and two of the dogs immediately went over to lay down.
“This is their spot. Colandra approved it just two nights ago, so that they didn’t have to be put in the stables overnight,” the dogkeeper said as he turned back to Theus. “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he added in a lower voice.
Theus lifted the bowl of ointment, and carried it over to the heap of dog blankets, then beckoned for the injured dog to come to him.
“I’ve got more blankets down here, if you think he needs more,” the handler offered.
“Get them all out, please,” Theus answered, as he began to gently slather his ointment upon the injured dog. The animal whimpered with each stroke, despite the lightness of Theus’s touch.
When he was finished, Theus sat himself up on the stack of still-folded blankets the other man had offered.
“I’ll stay here with them for the night,” Theus offered. “I can keep an eye on them, and keep them from making a mess in the kitchen.” And he would be able to wrap himself in some of the blankets, giving himself some semblance of an opportunity to rest. He needed a place, since Letta had never returned to give him one.
“Are you sure? If you’re sure, then I’ll be on my way so I can crawl into my own sack,” the dog keeper answered gladly, happy to feel free of his obligation to watch over the animals any longer.
“Mally will be here in the morning to pick them up,” the man added. He gave Theus a wave, and then was on his way out of the kitchen, and on his way home.
Theus unfolded several of the blankets to create a padding for himself, then he checked the leg of the wounded animal one more time, before he extinguished the lantern and let darkness take over the kitchen. The dogs were all settled into their places in the corner, pleased to have Theus join them. He felt them snuggle up against him as he lay down. He placed his hand on the head of the injured member of the pack, and then he remembered no more for a long time, as he fell quickly asleep.
Theus awoke in the middle of the morning darkness, surrounded by the bodies of the dogs, pressed around him on all sides. He heard noises, and saw a light on the other side of the kitchen, a light that was slowly meandering through the kitchen work areas without any obvious pattern. Theus's movements as he raised up jostled the dogs, and they began to awaken as well.
The Deadly Magician (The Memory Stones Series Book 2) Page 4