“The headaches are gone now?” asked Maera.
“Yes. No twinges anymore.”
Maera stood on their veranda, watching him walk toward Abersford. Her eyes narrowed at his obviously jaunty gait.
He sounded a little too relieved. Almost like he was afraid she’d notice something. He was right. Saoul did seem to think it wasn’t serious, but he was also perplexed at the amount of blood on the bandage with so minor a wound, even considering that head wounds bled more than others. And eight stitches?
Then why all of the excuses so that she didn’t get to change the bandages? Yozef always did it himself or didn’t have time or something else.
Carnigan Puvey and Wyfor Kales had been at the scene of Yozef’s injury when it happened and were the first to go to him, with Carnigan tying a cloth around Yozef’s head until they could get to the medicants. Carnigan had also been there for the stitches and saw how Yozef reacted to it all. On the men’s return to Abersford, Maera quizzed Carnigan and found out that Yozef had under-reported to his wife details of his role in the fighting.
Maera considered Carnigan a friend, although what he thought on any subject was seldom clear. Yet she did know that when Carnigan and Yozef returned from Moreland City, it took little effort for her to get Carnigan to blab about Yozef’s role in the fighting, details Yozef had conveniently glossed over. She now chastised herself that she hadn’t probed for more details about the wound. She intended to rectify that oversight.
When no opportunity occurred after three days, she insisted that Yozef needed a relaxing evening at a pub—with Carnigan, of course. She accompanied him, and although she ostensibly watched Go games, she kept a covert eye on Yozef’s table. As soon as he left to relieve himself, she hustled over to Carnigan. She had only a few minutes.
“Having a good time, Carnigan?” she asked, though before he could answer, she rushed on. “Don’t you think it’s wonderful Yozef recovered so fast from his injury at Moreland City? I was worried, but it turned out to be a minor injury.”
If there was more to the wound than Yozef led her or Medicant Dyllis to believe, she gave Carnigan the opportunity to contradict or confirm.
“Yeah,” said Carnigan, taking another of his prodigious quaffs from a stein, “bled like a river, and I feared the worst. I slapped a cloth on to hold him together until we got to the medicants, and they sewed him up. Kales and I pretty much carried him off the battlefield, and he was barely sensible the rest of the day, then he seemed better by the next morning.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve seen worse,” Maera said, as innocently as she could manage.
“Well, unless you get to heads missing pieces, not really. Short of those cases, I thought he looked pretty bad, but what do I know?”
Maera spotted Yozef returning, and she patted Carnigan on the hand. “Have a good rest of the evening.” She gave Yozef a peck as they passed, he back to his own stein and she to her second hoped-for informant, Wyfor Kales.
The wiry, scarred man sat with two other men as disreputable-looking as himself. Those two men excused themselves when the hetman’s daughter and wife of Yozef Kolsko arrived, while Kales simply eyed her as he would any unimpressive phenomenon.
“Hello, Wyfor . . . actually, I don’t think I ever asked if I could use your first name,” Maera said as cheerily as she could, though she suspected he wasn’t fooled.
“Why not, Maera?”
She stumbled for a moment, as accustomed as she had become to Yozef’s lack of deference based on family or position and the degree to which his attitude rubbed off onto those interacting with him the most. Kales’s tone bespoke indifference. There was no reason to dissemble. She decided Kales would appreciate bluntness.
“Wyfor, you were there with Yozef when he got hurt at Moreland City. Can you tell me how it happened?”
Kales didn’t hesitate. “Happened as we withdrew. We’d done all the damage we could without trying to fight the Narthani face-to-face. Must have been one of the last cannonball shots. It hit a Narthani 12-pounder our men were pulling off. Yozef was only about eight feet away, still giving directions the men, as if they didn’t already know to hurry. Anyway, the cannon’s carriage shattered, and a piece several feet long and with blade ends took him in the head. I thought he was done for, but it just glanced along his skull.”
His skull! Maera’s pulse shot up.
Kales continued. “Since he’s here in the Snarling Graeko I assume he’s recovered, although it wouldn’t have surprised me if it had taken several months.”
“Oh, he recovered quite quickly,” Maera said distractedly, as she digested Kales’s account. “Well, thank you, Wyfor. I won’t bother you anymore, and I think my turn at Go is coming up.”
Later that evening, Yozef went straight to bed with a beer-fuzzed brain. Maera sat on the veranda, thinking.
I know I promised him I wouldn’t pry. He’s already told me there are things he can’t explain to me, and I believe him when he says if there’s anyone he can someday tell, it will be me. Still . . . it’s almost certain his wound healed so fast that he was afraid it would be noticed and raise suspicions about who, or what, he is.
Diera also warned me not to press too hard and have him shut down in other ways. None of that means I can’t stay curious and try to figure it out on my own.
She decided she would write down everything out of place she’d noticed previously, even if at the time it didn’t rise to her consciousness. She’d add everything Yozef had ever said about himself and his homeland. What he hadn’t told her, she could glean from others, such as Diera and Sistian.
Then I’ll be alert for anything else that happens. I wonder if someday I end up writing a book on The Life and Times of Yozef Kolsko.
With a chuckle, she rose and entered the house, nestled next to her husband, and soon fell asleep.
It was years before she remembered that foresight could come when least expected, even in the guise of humor.
* * *
Revelation to Maera
As time passed, Yozef’s worry about people finding out that he healed too fast faded under the press of responsibilities, not the least of which was Aeneas’s birth. One evening after work, months after the events following the battle of Moreland City, Yozef was rocking Aeneas when a cry came from the kitchen.
“Ahrg!!”
It was Maera’s voice. He jumped to his feet, held the baby tight, and ran toward to the kitchen. He heard women’s voices: alarm from Anarynd, directions from Gwyned, and curses and cries of pain from Maera. He burst through the door from the hall to see Maera clamping a hand over her forearm, dripping blood on the floor.
“Let me see it!” demanded Gwyned, trying to pry Maera’s hand away. Anarynd held towels, waiting for something to do with them.
“What happened?!” exclaimed Yozef.
All that came from Maera was, “Damn, damn, damn!”
“Knife slipped,” Gwyned said, as calmly as if commenting on a casual observation.
“Knife?” was all Yozef got out.
“We were slicing the harlon gourds into halves.”
For the first time, Yozef noticed several oval-shaped vegetables on the table, three cut lengthwise in half. Blood had smeared on the table near one of the three chairs.
“Here, Anarynd, hold Aeneas,” said Yozef, handing her the baby, who by now had picked up the tenor of the adults and wailed, adding to the clamor.
Maera appeared pale, her mouth set and her eyes smoldering. He felt relieved. He was sure it hurt like hell, though he thought she was mainly angry at herself.
“Let me see,” he said, gently guiding her to the kitchen washing basin and a waiting ewer of well water. He held her arm over the basin, and when she took away her hand holding the wound, blood oozed up, lots of blood. She winced and sucked in air, as Gwyned rinsed the forearm with water.
I need to get running water into the house, rose unbidden in Yozef’s mind. He’d noticed such seemingly inappropriate t
houghts coming to him in stressful moments.
The water washed away the blood on the forearm, as fresh blood continually welled out of a two-inch straight gash running midway between elbow and wrist.
“Good grief, Maera! How did you do this while cutting a gourd?”
It was the wrong thing to say.
“Obviously, it was the easiest way to cut myself, you idiot!” Maera shot back, then drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, it was just so stupid. I was having a hard time cutting through a tough section of skin, probably where the gourd wasn’t quite ripe, and I held the damn thing in the crook of my arm. It slipped, and next thing I knew—”
“Gonna need stitches,” said Gwyned in an unperturbed voice.
“Well, no shit, Tonto,” Yozef said in English. No one noticed.
Yozef held the gash closed with his fingers. The blood flow slowed to a stop.
No pulsing, he observed, so no arteries cut. I think it’s into the muscle, but no tendons either. Should heal okay. Gwyned’s right, it should probably get . . . The line of thought trailed off, as another took its place.
Yozef had heard of flashes of insight in science, moments when a set of facts, observations, and questions came together.
He had a flash of insight.
His own fast healing; Aragorn having never been sick; Bronwyn, Dellia, and Cynwin not getting sick since Bronwyn joined the marriage, although Dellia’s and Cynwin’s three children had minor illnesses; Maera not having colds since their marriage; Maera suffering minimal morning sickness; Maera surprising other women by how fast she recovered from childbirth.
Holy crap! he thought. I passed the nanoelements to her! Sex! That’s the connection. There must be nanoelements in my semen, and I passed them to Maera!
Had Harlie said the elements were meant only for Yozef’s physiology, or did he just assume it? He couldn’t remember. If he passed them on, and they functioned in another body, then somehow they adjusted to new bodies. How the hell did they do that? That shouldn’t be possible.
He took several breaths and a few seconds to calm himself.
Think. Just because I don’t know how it’s done doesn’t mean the Watchers can’t do it. Hell, they can fly spaceships around and design the nanoelements in the first place, so who knows what they’re capable of?
Mere seconds had passed since his insight. He still held Maera’s arm, she still cursed, and the other women still stood anxiously.
If he took her to the medicants for stitches, they would check her arm to see how the healing was going. For that matter, after any bleeding stopped, the wound would be left open to the air. Everyone would see it.
“No,” said Yozef,” I don’t think it needs stitches. We just need to wrap it closed, and it’ll be fine.”
“What?” exclaimed Gwyned, her usual equanimity shaken by Yozef’s idiotic statement. “That needs stitches. I’ve seen cuts like this, and sewing it closed will be safer from corruption and let it heal faster.”
Yozef wanted to blurt, “I don’t think infection or slow healing is going to be a problem.” Instead, he said, “Trust me, I’m sure it’ll be okay. It’s not as bad as it looks, and by tomorrow it’ll be better. If not, we can always go to the medicants then.”
“I don’t care if you’re Yozef Kolsko or not, this needs stitches,” asserted Gwyned.
“I don’t know, Yozef,” Maera said, “it does look bad. Maybe Gwyned is right.”
Yozef hesitated, then did what he hated to do.
“I know what I’m talking about, Maera. It comes to me that we should wrap it and wait until tomorrow.”
The “it comes to me” phrase had become Yozef’s “go to” words when he didn’t want to explain something. The phrase also fed rumors that he was being told something by unseen powers. He had never used the stratagem with Maera or anyone close to him and regretted he couldn’t think quickly enough of another ploy to hide Maera’s wound and the anticipated quick healing.
Yozef squeezed the sides of the wound shut again. Gwyned kept pouring water on it, which still mixed with blood seeping from the cut.
Maera looked at the wound, at her husband, back at the wound, and was about say something when he narrowed his eyes, looked hard at her, and imperceptibly shook his head. She focused hard back.
“Okay,” Maera said, her voice shaky, “go ahead and bind it up.”
“Aw!” complained Gwyned. “You’re both wrong. If it’s not better in the morning, we’re going to the medicants if I have to go get Breda Keelan. Let’s see if you can ignore her like you do me.”
“Are you sure, Maera?” asked Anarynd, rocking the now quiescent Aeneas. “It does look bad.”
“Don’t worry, Ana, Yozef knows what he’s doing.”
Although Yozef wasn’t sure Maera’s voice conveyed complete conviction, he tightly wrapped the forearm with clean cloth strips the outraged Gwyned had procured, tight enough that Maera complained.
“I know it’s tight, dear, that’s what’s best.”
Later, when Maera and Yozef retired to their room, she had questions, as he knew she would.
She sat on the bed, cradling her injured arm in her lap, not saying anything, looking at him.
“What is it, Yozef? Why didn’t you want me to go to the medicants? And why tell Gwyned and Anarynd it wasn’t serious? I’ve seen injuries like this.”
For the last two hours, he had interacted with the others only outwardly. Within, his mind turned over what to say and how much to say. He knew it was a time he couldn’t get away with saying nothing.
“You couldn’t go to the medicants right away because they might see the wound again in a few days,” he said softly, yet firmly. “Either of your parents, maybe both, would insist on it. If that happened, the medicants would not understand why the wound healed so fast.”
Maera’s response was also soft, almost reluctant, as if unsure she wanted the answer. “How do you know this, Yozef? And this is one time your claiming you ‘just know’ is not going to work.”
“I’m afraid part of the answer is exactly that—that I do know what will happen, but I can’t tell you exactly why.”
“You can’t tell me or won’t?”
“I heal faster than most people. So fast that many might wonder things we don’t want them to. I don’t know exactly why I heal fast, I only know it’s true.”
He wasn’t lying too much. He really didn’t know exactly how the Watchers’ elements worked.
“While I can’t be sure,” he said, “I believe the same will be true for you. If others notice this, there’ll be questions we don’t need people asking or thinking about.”
“Yozef, if anyone but you told me this, I’d judge them delusional, insane, or lying for some unknown reason. What am I to think of this? If what you say is true, this is like God intervening in the world, something the Word tells us he doesn’t do, except on rare occasions, leaving most of life to our free will. Is this an act of God? Are you really a Septarsh or something else?”
“I’m a man who has no knowledge of God, except what I wonder about or what others say and teach. I can’t say if I even believe in God, though I believe in much of what the Word teaches. I suspect this healing is connected to my coming to Caedellium. A devout person might believe it’s a gift from God. Maybe a kind of compensation for my being cast here, never to see my homeland and family again. I just don’t know, Maera. What I now believe is that somehow I’ve passed this healing ability on to you, probably through our intimate contact. But however it happened, Maera, isn’t it a gift? How can it be evil?”
Maera’s face expressed troubling emotions. “Good or evil, understood or not, this is hard to take in.” She rose and walked to a window, not seeing anything in the darkness but using the time and the act to gather her thoughts. She spun back, facing Yozef, concern on her face. “Aeneas! What does this mean for him?”
“I believe it will be the same with him. He’s only a few months old, so it’s too early to know
. He still has immunities from you that haven’t worn off yet.”
“Damnation, Yozef, this is not the time I want to hear your riddles.”
Oh, shit. Watch out for blabbering without thinking. “Immunities” is a word they don’t know, and I’m not about to go off explaining about immune reactions or how newborns are protected with antibodies from their mother’s blood before their own immune systems are up and running.
“Sorry, Maera. I only meant we won’t be sure about Aeneas for perhaps years. Let’s assume that what I passed to you, you in turn passed to him. Isn’t that a good thing? Our son will heal from injuries faster than otherwise. Would you take it away from him if you could? From yourself?”
Maera sat on the edge of their bed and looked down at her wrapped arm, blood showing through the cloth. “If I took off this cloth, would the cut be gone?”
“No, I doubt it’s had time to close. The bleeding might be much less. The healing will still happen, and you’ll have a scar.”
Yozef unconsciously touched his own head scar. Maera noticed.
“Your wound at Moreland City, it was far more serious than you let me believe, wasn’t it?”
“I think so. Of course, I’m not a doct . . . a medicant.”
“I felt worried and annoyed when I never saw the wound,” said Maera, “except when we visited St. Sidryn’s hospital and the medicant said it looked minor. You were worried, weren’t you, that he would be suspicious? As I was, after Carnigan and Kales both told me what the wound looked like after it happened.”
“Think of it, Maera. Both of us have so much to do. The Narthani, the innovations I still might introduce, the university. What would happen if people saw us as different? While some might think of us as protected by God, others might see us as demons or agents of the Evil One. It’s a risk or at least a complication we don’t need. Things might change in the future. Can we just accept it as a gift from God and move on with our lives?”
“I’d like to think of it that way,” said Maera. “Part of me doesn’t see how this can be anything but a blessing, but another part of me still needs to think about it.”
Heavier Than a Mountain (Destiny's Crucible Book 3) Page 34
