“I see. And... my partner, you said? I don’t have a partner. There were a couple of priests coming to the west from the Academy this year, but they’re going on to Warma. And there were two other healers that were going to a new hospital in – Wildern, is it?”
“Yes, Wildern. But I’m afraid we have a greater need for healers on this assignment, if you’re amenable.”
Agna sighed. “Go on, then. Partners.”
“Yes, well. The Benevolent Union’s procedure is to work in pairs or teams. One doctor can’t cover the whole caravan route alone. There are some areas where you’d have them queued out the door.” He drew another logbook from the stack on his desk and opened it. “We’ve had an agent from the Yanweian National Army sign up already. You’ll need to be ready to meet the caravan before they leave town. They arrived last night, so they should be moving on by this time next week.”
“A Yanweian?” she blurted.
“Yes. The Yanweian National Army sends agents to work with the Benevolent Union, much as your Academy does. They’ve sent an agent who is fluent in Kaveran and has trained as a medic. ”
“I see.” Agna racked her brain for everything she knew about Yanweians. Yanweian artists had been in and out of fashion in some of the galleries in Murio; she could recognize their style of brushed ink on vellum and their idiosyncratic color combinations. She had read Yanweian poetry in some of her classes, and had once heard it read in their strange, lilting language. There were a few Yanweian students in the Academy, but no one that Agna knew closely. The Yanweian immigrants in Murio didn’t mix with outsiders. Agna realized that she knew nothing else about them. They were... foreign.
“Do you have any problems with this arrangement, Healer? Do you accept?”
“I...” She tore her eyes from the map in her hands. She would have to spend a year riding around the country like an itinerant trader, on a horse? In a wagon? – and ply her healing in the Kaveran hinterland, accompanied by an incomprehensible stranger from a foreign military. This was not why she’d become a healer, to tread dirt in the back of beyond. And then the noticeboard caught her gaze again, and she remembered Rone’s voice, just before he went away. He hadn’t spoken a word of Kaveran. He had asked the Church and the Union to make the best use of his talents, to serve the greatest need. He had trusted his life to them.
And somewhere out there, he was still serving, humble and devout, lending his sword and his soul to the cause. Agna couldn’t hope to reach his level. The thought made her mouth go dry. Rone would tell her to go, to give her abilities to the people who needed them, no matter how hard it would be for her. That was what the Church and the Academy meant to him: defending the weak and saving the lost. To Agna it had been a refuge where knowledge was paramount, where she could prove herself through hard work and intelligence. They’d had so many long discussions in the coffee shops in Murio about the nature of the greater good and the best uses of Church resources. Agna cherished those memories of her peer mentor; they meant infinitely more to her than his advice about finding her way around the Academy.
She had come across the ocean in his footsteps, trying to follow his example. And in this assignment, Agna might be able to pursue both knowledge and selflessness. She had trained as a healer since she was twelve, and now she had an opportunity to find people who truly needed her expertise. Agna hoped that she could set aside her pride. She hoped that she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.
She took a deep breath. “I accept.”
The agent nodded, smiling as he drew a form from a drawer in his desk. “For the Benevolent Union and for Kavera, thank you for your service, Agent Despana.”
She bowed her head and hoped she wouldn’t cry as he filled in some blanks on the form. This was a terrible mistake. “Thank you.”
He waited as she read the contract, explaining the terms. She was to work for the Benevolent Union, by the good graces of the Church and Academy of the Divine Balance. Her pay would be minimal, her living conditions the best that could be managed under the circumstances – at least that was encouraging – and after this term and that condition were met, her contract would be fulfilled. Agna let the dry, formal words cool her mind back down. She signed and dated it and turned it over to the agent, who signed it again. And so it was done. She was an agent of the Benevolent Union for two whole years.
“Now. Get some rest, see the city if you like. Meet the other medic back here five days from now, at eight in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.” She sat dazed, then shook it off. The task lay before her. She would do whatever she could.
***
The morning of her departure, Agna woke up too early. She got dressed, descended to the lobby, and asked one more time whether any mail had arrived for her. One more time, the desk clerk said no. Sighing, Agna called for a carriage and her trunk, and settled her bill. The porters loaded her trunk onto the carriage, and Agna gave the driver the address of the Benevolent Union base for the third time.
She was alone in the small carriage they’d sent, and so Agna rested her head against the window frame. The doors and windows and signs and pedestrians flowed by outside. On the first day Agna had sent all of her clothes out to be laundered, which had been a great relief. She had stopped by a library to copy out a map of Kavera onto some of her drawing paper, and learn what she could about the trade routes. She had spent one full day in an art museum, wandering delightedly from one room to the next. On that day, she had managed not to worry about Rone until she checked for mail.
Rone had never come. Every day Agna set out to see the city and to try to prepare for her trip, and every day she resolutely set her feet away from the neighborhood where Tenken Grim lived. Rone must have his reasons. Was he disappointed that she’d come, that she’d followed him? She waited for his next letter like a child awaiting a festival.
At the Benevolent Union base, Agna had the footman carry her trunk into the lobby, and gave the receptionist a few coins to watch it until her meeting with the Yanweian agent. She would have to pull it along herself soon enough. She could move it, just barely, thanks to the wheels bolted to the bottom, but it was tiring and undignified work.
There was enough change in her purse to pay for breakfast, and there was plenty more where that came from, anyway. Agna shrugged to herself and headed across the street to a cafe. The morning was cool and clear, so she decided to claim one of the outdoor tables. Since they did not offer Furoni coffee on the menu like a proper cafe in Murio would, she ordered tea and toast and a newspaper. Were it not for the dark, bitter tea, the Kaveran chatter of the occasional passerby, the news about Vertal in the paper, and the block-long edifice of the Benevolent Union headquarters dominating the landscape, she might almost be home in Murio.
Agna had had so few opportunities to travel, being busy with her Academy training. That was the only thing she’d looked forward to, among all of the duties she’d have to undertake in her father’s agency. Currying favor with patrons was dull, buying new art was intriguing, but her interest was truly captured by the thought of traveling to museums and galleries and studios to collect new acquisitions. Agna had read countless books about the sorts of places that she would be able to see in person once she was an art dealer.
She suspected that museums, galleries, and studios would be in short supply on this trip, once she left the capital. But travel was good for one’s horizons. Even if the people she met in the countryside were not the best-educated or most refined people in the world, she could make do. There would always be something to learn.
Agna paid for breakfast, leaving a handful of coins on top of the discarded newspaper for their trouble. She had read in her cultural briefings that such things weren’t customary here, but it felt wrong not to do it.
The clock in the lounge area of the headquarters read five minutes to eight. An agent appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Agna addressed him. “You. Will you help me with something? I’ll pay you. I’m in a hurry.”
/> The newcomer frowned vaguely and rubbed his temples with one hand. “I’m running late, too. I’m sorry.” Between his soft voice and his lilting accent, the words were hard to make out.
“It won’t take a minute. I just need to have my trunk loaded onto a carriage outside. I’ll pull it out there,” she offered.
The agent sighed. “All right.” He shrugged the strap of a long, angular case higher on one shoulder. Agna grabbed the handle of her trunk and bore against it, leaning hard to get it rolling. The other agent darted around her to hold the door open, and Agna hauled the trunk through the door, feeling clumsy and ridiculous, trudging through the door bottom-first.
“Now. When the Yanweian agent gets here...” She looked at him again as he closed the door. Just a bit taller than herself. About her own age or a bit older, on the young side of adulthood. Clearly in a physical trade, though not as graceful as the Academy’s swordmasters. He wore a light cloak of gray material with a sigil pin – a quartered shield – holding it together at the shoulder. On the opposite hip from his money bag, he wore a sheathed knife half as long as her arm. The valise in his hand was marked with the international symbol for medical aid. On his back, along with the long case, he carried a large hiking backpack. The stranger had dark hair cut short, and dark, guarded eyes. Dark eyes, amber skin, and... a Yanweian accent.
“...Oh.”
“You’re the Nessinian healer, aren’t you.”
“...Um.”
“Do you know the way to the caravan?”
“Uh.”
“Follow me, then.” He turned and set off along the street.
Agna froze. “Walking?”
He turned. “It isn’t far.”
Agna scrambled to follow. It was a long walk to the caravan’s campsite, beyond the open-air market and the warehouses behind it, and through a gate in the city wall. Agna gritted her teeth and hauled the trunk. The wheels made a terrible clatter on the cobblestones. At long last, the street emerged into a field full of wagons and tents, people and horses, flags and banners. She caught a glimpse of a herd of goats. People were dismantling tents, hitching horses to wagons, fitting them with saddles and bridles for riders. The Yanweian scanned the crowd and gave a small wave to a stranger at the edge of the field. The stranger jogged over to meet them. The Benevolent Union seal was embroidered on his jacket – another agent.
“Good, good.” The agent opened a satchel slung over his shoulder and extracted two cardboard-bound books with the Benevolent Union seal embossed on their covers. He passed one to each of them. “These are for your records. You’ll need to keep logs of your patients, their conditions, any treatments that you perform, and what you’ve charged for them. The Benevolent Union will need this information when you return.” He reached into the satchel for another book, if it could be called that; it was not much more than a packet of bound paper. “This is a summary from the last team of spring healers.” The Yanweian reached for it first, and slung his backpack to one side to slide it inside.
The agent turned toward the campground. “Follow me, please. I’ll introduce you to the caravan master and the passenger wagon’s driver.” He led them to one of the larger wagons, a proper enclosed traveling coach with a rectangular sigil painted on the side in gold. A guard in a short brown cloak waited in the driver’s seat, yawning; another loaded boxes into a storage compartment over the wagon’s rear wheels. The agent waved to both and knocked on the wagon’s door. “Agent Chesler, Captain. I have the new healers.”
The door swung open, and the caravan master dismounted. Once on solid ground, she was barely taller than Agna, a fact which hardly dampened her commanding presence. The Benevolent Union agent bowed his head. The caravan master nodded her acknowledgement and scanned Agna and the Yanweian. Agna felt her nerve withering, as though she’d blundered into the wrong practice room and was about to be mocked in front of a class full of swordmasters. It might have been the caravan master’s close-cropped silver hair, leather riding clothes and compact build that gave her that impression. More likely, it was the unspoken, yet non-negotiable, air that the caravan master was very much in control of the situation.
“Another Nessinian – another Balance healer, are you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Agna replied, faintly irritated by the shortcut through the Academy’s name, but not at all inclined to raise her voice in protest.
“And a Yanweian?” the Captain went on.
“Yes, ma’am. Keifon the Medic, from the Yanweian National Army.”
“Interesting. Talina Tego,” she added. “I run the spring caravan. Welcome aboard.”
Agna bowed in proper Kaveran fashion, and from the corner of her eye she saw the Yanweian make some kind of salute.
“Agna Despana, second-order healer, Academy of the Divine Balance,” Agna added belatedly.
“Thank you, Captain,” Agent Chesler concluded, and craned his neck to peer through the mob. The caravan master rounded the wagon to speak with one of her guards. Chesler pointed ahead, and their sad little Benevolent Union contingent soldiered on.
“Captain?” the Yanweian asked the agent, once they’d left the caravan master’s wagon behind. “Is the caravan associated with the military?”
“It’s an honorary title. A nickname, if you will. Because of the comparison to running a ship along the trade routes.”
“I see.”
“And here we are.” Chesler turned to face them beside a long, open-sided wagon with a canvas roof. Some workers loaded rucksacks and trunks through the open gate in the back of the wagon. Agna aligned her trunk with the waiting luggage as Chesler hailed the driver.
“If you will, please.” Chesler waved Agna and the Yanweian closer. The Yanweian stroked the nose of a nearby draft horse as the driver looked them over. “The Benevolent Union will pay for your passage. The rest of your equipment is already loaded. It’s labeled with the Benevolent Union seal, so just look for that. There should be two tents as well as some tables and chairs for the clinic. Anything else you might need can be bought in the caravan. The mail riders stop by the caravan whenever their paths cross, so send word back to headquarters any time you like. Good luck. The Benevolent Union thanks you.”
He shook hands with each of them, as Kaverans did, and left.
The Yanweian heaved his backpack into the wagon and jumped up with his valise and the case across his back. Agna turned. Her trunk sat behind the wagon, neglected. “What – you forgot mine. Excuse me?” A few faces turned inside the wagon and stared. The Yanweian turned to look back at her.
“Do you have some issue with carrying your luggage?” he asked, a cold tone underlying his polite words.
Agna crossed her arms. “The porters forgot mine. It’s very unprofessional of them.”
“Porters?” He folded his hands together, breathing deliberately. When he spoke again, he had reined in his voice to the point of monotone. “Agent. Everyone here is a passenger. There are no porters.”
Hot tears spiked behind her eyes. How was she supposed to do this? Why had she agreed to any of this? Why did it have to be so scrabbling and awful? She set her jaw and, propping the trunk against her foot, tipped it on its end. Nothing inside was that fragile, she reminded herself. Things might get shuffled out of place, but that was worth proving to this arrogant stranger that she didn’t need anyone’s help.
The Yanweian bent over the edge of the wagon to grab the trunk’s handle, and Agna bit back her impulse to snap at him. Her humiliation may as well reach its peak. Why hadn’t any of the swordmasters been sent to Kavera this year? Curse everyone in this backward country.
The Yanweian pulled as Agna hauled upward with every muscle in her body. Her arms ached, but the trunk tipped up until the wheels made contact with the deck. The Yanweian stepped back along the narrow aisle between the benches.
“I’ll get it from here.” Her voice wavered, and Agna’s cheeks burned. She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and scrambled up the ladder on wobbl
y legs to the deck of the wagon. She felt the wagon shift under her weight, and felt thick and clumsy as well as weak and conspicuous. She pushed the trunk in front of her through the rows of benches.
“You’re welcome,” a soft, sarcastic voice said as she passed. Agna grabbed a few coins from the pouch on her belt – she didn’t see what they were, and it didn’t matter – and shoved them at him. She ignored the disgusted sound he made and straightened her posture.
The passengers of the wagon sat in the ranks of wooden benches with their luggage piled around them. The Yanweian settled into a seat in the back, propping his feet up on his backpack and cradling the angular case on the bench next to him. Agna pushed her trunk four rows past him and sat on the opposite side, where a pile of luggage branded with the Benevolent Union seal was stacked near an empty bench. She slapped her blank logbook on the bench and took her seat.
The activity in the campsite intensified. Good-natured shouting mixed with laughter, creaking leather, banging wood and a thousand other things that Agna was too drained to care about. She tried to reason through the situation. The Benevolent Union had supplied her with some equipment. She’d read adventure stories before. They could make anything out of sticks and cunning in that sort of story.
She had agreed to this, in the most foolish decision of her entire life, and now she had to rise above it. She had come here to this stupid country to do the right thing. And Rone’s stupid friend must not have even told him that she’d visited. She would have to prove that she had made the right decision. She would have to prove that these backward, small-minded people could not best her. She was a graduate of the Academy. She was capable of more than they could ever imagine.
Keifon: Traveler
Keifon watched the last preparations through the open side of the wagon, between the supports that anchored the canvas roof. The tents were being packed up, the horses were being hitched to wagons, and men and women in matching reinforced leather and short brown cloaks roved through the grounds. Most of them were armed with short blades, though a few of the mounted guards carried muskets on their backs – modern, expensive pieces, the kind that the Yanweian National Army would only hand out to officers. Keifon wondered whether the caravan guard carried them mostly for show.
The Healers' Road Page 2
