Valdemar Books

by Lackey, Mercedes

  She was replacing her depleted stocks of already-prepared medicines when he tapped on the doorframe and walked on in. She knew both the tap and the step, and even if she hadn’t, she’d have known it was him by the feeling of steadiness and patience that he always brought with him. He might be a cranky curmudgeon on the outside, but inside he was the steady rock on which all hysteria drove itself in vain.

  At that moment, however, she needed both hands and her eyes to get her comfrey and lobelia concentrate into its jug. “Welcome, Gil,” she greeted him without turning. “Give me a moment, will you? I have both hands full.”

  Gil helped himself to one of the two chairs and she heard him sit down. “Am I?” he asked. “Am I welcome, that is?”

  Hmm. Is he expecting a fight out of me? If so, why? She put the jug up, then measured her herbs and put the finished mixture into a steeping bag, tying the drawstrings tight. No point in starting a new batch now, but she’d have it ready to go when Gil left. “I haven’t killed anyone this month, directly or indirectly, and I don’t have any plans to do so today, so of course you’re welcome,” she retorted, turning to greet him properly. “Mind you, I was tempted once or twice during the rain, but I managed to contain my feelings.”

  Gil was a withered little raisin of a man, whose normal movements were so deliberate that it shocked people when, in an emergency, he moved with the speed of a hummingbird. His hair was an iron-gray, his legs bowed, his eyes small and black and seemingly able to see whatever it was you most wanted to keep secret. He didn’t look like a Healer; he looked like a weatherbeaten old horse tamer, and, in fact, he did tame horses using a Shin’a’in method he’d learned on Lord Ashkevron’s estate of Forst Reach where he’d grown up (where horse tamers were honored and very, truly needed). Children and animals trusted him immediately, and he had the no-nonsense aura of competence and authority to make even Lord Breon’s most battle-hardened fighters listen to and obey him. There couldn’t have been a better Healer for that particular position in the entire Kingdom, even if his Gift was so weak it was negligible.

  “I see you’re wearing Greens now - so to speak,” he continued, raising his eyebrows. “Not exactly orthodox color, though.”

  She brushed her hand down the front of her tunic selfconsciously. “I thought I’d use some old clothing of my own for a dye experiment before I ruined those nice uniforms the Collegium sent.” She shrugged. “Why use those new uniforms for work when I have plenty of old things that can take a beating?”

  “You know, a uniform isn’t there to make you conform, it’s to reassure your patients as a symbol. Heralds know that; that’s why they wear Whites; people wouldn’t take them half so seriously if they didn’t show up in uniforms. I take it that with the rains you had the usual crop?” he asked, looking her up and down, still with that penetrating expression on his face.

  “And one young idiot,” she replied with a laugh, and sat down and told him about Piel. He grunted with disgust when she described how Piel had gotten sick and soaked in the first place, and broke into a cackle of unexpected laughter when she told him the lecture she’d read the romantic fool.

  “Bright Havens, I wish I’d been here!” he chortled, slapping the arm of the chair with his hand. “Sounds to me as if you’re getting your proper attitude, young lady. If people won’t give you the authority and respect you need to make them listen, then by the gods, take it! You can apologize after they’re better. What good’s a Healer that no one listens to? That was where poor old Justyn got into trouble; he was too soft on people.”

  “Well, all I can say is I’m grateful that Piel hasn’t decided he’s lifebonded to Shandi. He’s quite enough of a wet mess as it is, and I swear to you, even if he was shaved bald he’d have more hair than wits. Why Shandi ever encouraged him in the first place, I’ll never know.” She sighed, and ran both hands through the hair at her temples in exasperation. “Maybe it’s just that she was too kind, and afraid to break his heart. Other than young Piel’s crisis, the Fellowship’s sheep got that dry cough I told you about, and the preparation you recommended cleared it up in them as fast as it did my folk’s flock.”

  “Just watch that particular medicine in the early stages of pregnancy, it tends to make cattle miscarry, and it might do the same in sheep,” he cautioned. “Late stages, no problem, but the first month - ”

  “If it’s a choice between possibly losing the sheep or losing the lamb, I think most people would prefer the latter, but I’ll be sure and give them that option if the situation comes up,” she promised. “But that might be the reason why so many of the pregnant ones decided to drop lambs in the barn - which was a fine thing as far as their keepers were concerned.”

  “Heard anything from your sister yet?” he asked, changing the subject so quickly that she immediately suspected an ulterior motive.

  She shook her head. “It’s a little too soon, I’d think,” she replied, watching him with care. “I should think they’d have her so busy at first that she’d be going from the moment she got up to the moment her head hit the pillow.”

  I wonder why he’s asking ? Is it curiosity or something more?

  “And I should think she’d want her sister with her so much that she’d be sending you letters three times a day,” he began. She held up her hand, stopping him at that point.

  “Don’t start.” she said shortly. “I won’t listen, and we’ve been through this a hundred times. How would you cope with me gone? You couldn’t, and you know it.”

  “But you have the Gift, and I can’t teach you to use it,” he countered stubbornly. “We’ve tried, and I can’t tell you what you need to know, and so far you haven’t made any progress with the texts either.”

  “Then we’ll wait until someone with the Gift can come here to teach me for a couple of months,” she retorted, just as stubbornly. “Right now I’m doing as well or better than Justyn did for all of his training at the Collegium, and right now, that’s what this village needs and can’t afford to do without. Whatever happens here, I can at least buy time for a fully trained, fully Gifted Healer to get here. And you have to admit that in some cases that’s all you could do!”

  Gil shook his head, but he gave up the argument as a lost cause yet again. He was silent for a space, then scratched his head uneasily. “I’m just afraid that if you keep on like this, your Gift is going to get you into trouble,” he said at last, sounding far more worried than she was used to hearing from him.

  “How - how could I get into trouble?” she asked, uncomfortably certain that she already knew the answer.

  “I’m not sure - since my own Gift is so trifling, they never went into details,” he said, frowning with concentration, probably as he tried to recall his long-ago training at the Collegium. “I just remember that they told me an untrained Gift has the potential to cause the owner problems.”

  She wondered guiltily if she ought to tell him about her strange new sensitivity, and how her nerves always seemed to be raw and open to other people. But if I do, he‘ll probably find a way to pack me off to Haven and then what would happen? No, I can get through this. It can’t be too long now before someone is sent here to show me what to do. Half the Healers in Valdemar aren’t trained at the Collegium, and they do all right! I can manage. I have to.

  To keep him from somehow getting the information out of her, she took him around to see those few of her patients who were still abed, and the now-healthy flock of Fellowship sheep. The Fellowship had put them in a pasture along the edge of the river, an easy walk from the village, and quite an enjoyable stroll in the warm spring sunshine. A feeling of laziness crept over her as they came up to the fence and propped their arms up on the top rail, the wood rough and warm under her hand. He leaned over the fence looking as relaxed as she had ever seen him, watching the silly beasts graze and wearing a small but contented smile.

  “I have to admit something to you, young Keisha,” he said at last, after they’d both listened to a woodlark sin
g until it flew off. “I envy you this part of your practice, and I am very glad that you aren’t one of those who thinks herself too valuable to waste time tending animals.”

  “If one of those ever gets around me, they’ll get an earful,” she chuckled, totally relaxed now that the only human anywhere around was her mentor. “If our job is to see to our people’s well-being, how can we ignore the well-being of their animals? If their beasties fail, they’ll starve, and how’ve we done our duty then?”

  “Good point, and one I’ll remember the next time I need it.” One of the sheep looked up at them, and for some reason known only to it, decided to come over to the fence to see what they were doing there. Gil reached over the fence to the animal, let it sniff his fingers, then buried his hand in its woolly head, scratching around its ears. The sheep went cross-eyed with bliss, and Keisha giggled at its expression.

  “The shepherds tell me they’ve always been marvelously tame, but it’s been really pronounced since the rain,” she told the Healer. “I think they were reminded that many of them grew up in boxes next to warm stoves, so now they’re almost like pets - which makes me glad they’re wool-sheep and not mutton-sheep.”

  “There is something to that,” he agreed. “Seems like a betrayal to raise a creature as a pet, then eat it. Most chickens being an exception, of course.”

  Keisha laughed; she’d been pecked by too many hens and chased by too many mean roosters to disagree with him. “Most chickens can’t be pets; they’ve got less brains than Piel, if that’s possible,” she pointed out. “Since you’ve got your fingers in it, what do you think of the wool in its natural state?”

  “Why do you think I’m scratching her? It’s as much for my pleasure as hers; I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything so soft.” He finally stopped his ministrations with a gentle pat on the top of the sheep’s head; just as well, for the ewe looked ready to fall over at any moment. He looked her over with a measuring gaze as she shook her head until her ears flapped, then went back to grazing. “Just about shearing time, isn’t it?”

  “Just about. The Fellowship always waits until they’re sure the cold weather is over before they take that protection away. I’ve told you how delicate this lot is.”

  “Yes, but obviously worth it. The shawls wouldn’t be half so desirable made out of ordinary fleece. That reminds me; Lord Breon’s son Val plans to pick out a shawl this Midsummer Faire, or so Lord Breon tells me,” Gil offered. He caught Keisha’s interest immediately. If the son and heir of their liege lord was getting married, the whole village would want to know all about it, and as soon as might be.

  “For whom?” she asked. “Anyone we know?”

  “Some sweet young thing at the keep where he fostered until this spring.” Gil chuckled. “I’ve got the notion that Lord Breon had that in mind when he fostered Val there in the first place. With eight daughters to choose from, there was bound to be something that would take.”

  “I’ll tell the Fellowship about the shawl first,” Keisha replied, already deciding who she’d tell first, and in what order, so as not to upset the delicate ranking order in the village. “They’ll probably want to do something special for Val, and they’ll want every moment of time to plan it.”

  “Yes, do that - but I won’t tell him they’re making a special shawl for him. He’s got it set in his mind that he has to pick the thing out - as if there’s a special magic to what he’d pick only he and she would appreciate properly or some other romantic nonsense.” Gil shook his head. “He’s been listening to a lot of love ballads lately - he and that lovelorn lad of yours have that much in common. Sometimes I think Bards do more harm than good.”

  “Well, they give us all something to dream about, I suppose,” she said doubtfully, then returned to the practical aspects of the courtship. “Meanwhile, I think we can all arrange that he gets his special shawl without knowing it’s his special shawl, if that makes any sense.”

  “Complete sense.” He looked up at the sun, and pushed away from the fence. “And if I’m to get back before sundown, I’d best collect my horse and be on my way.”

  They parted amiably enough at the pasture, and Keisha returned to the haven of her workshop. She still had plenty more to do while there was a relative lack of illness and injury, and just now nothing would tempt her back into the proximity of people. She felt relaxed, and she wanted to hold onto the feeling as long as she could.

  She truly dreaded having to go back home; lately at least one of the boys would have some sort of unpleasant dream each night, and although the dreamer never woke up and never remembered the dream, she did and it woke her up. The workshop was far enough away from the rest of the houses that nothing ever reached her here, and it would be so good to go to sleep knowing that the only thing disturbing her would be her own nightmares, if any.

  It would be so nice to have a good night’s sleep again, the way I did during the rains, she thought fretfully. I wish I could just live here and be done with it.

  Then - I wonder why I couldn’t just do that ?

  She abruptly sat down in the chair Gil had used. All right, I’ll be methodical. The reasons why it would be difficult are -

  Mum would object, firstly.

  True enough, but she could point out that now no one else would get roused in the middle of the night just because someone needed her. Besides, it wasn’t as if she were going to be living out at the farm, or somewhere else out of sight and alone. She’d still be near at hand, quite near enough to keep an eye on.

  I’d have to start doing my own meals.

  Yes, but she did that sometimes anyway. The memory of the Fellowship’s communal meals popped into her head, and she realized that she could easily trade some of the routine health care of their flocks for the right to eat with them. Other than that - she could start taking a little more of her fees in food-barter. It could all be worked out.

  I’d be by myself. Mum will say that people might talk.

  Now, if it had been Shandi who’d wanted to live in the workshop, that would have caused a scandal. Shandi was pretty and had suitors, and people would certainly start to gossip. For this purpose, Keisha’s prickly personality gave her all the protection she needed, for there wasn’t a young man in the entire village who had ever showed any interest in courting her, and they surely wouldn’t start just because she was living alone.

  And what’s more, Rafe can move into the cubby Shandi and I shared, and that will break up the quarreling with Torey. For that reason alone, Papa will back me up on this.

  But it was easiest to get something done if you didn’t stop to ask permission first - so before anyone came home from the farm, she decided to get all her things and move them over to the workshop. Move now, and argue about it later.

  She went straight home, and working quickly, had everything she could truly call hers piled on both beds. Clothing, of course, that was the largest pile; the carved wooden box Papa had made to hold her jewelry was on top of the pile of underthings. She ran her fingers over the smooth wood of the top, following the familiar course of the curls and whorls he’d incised there.

  Beside that were her two dolls; all the rest of her toys had been handed down to her brothers as she outgrew them. One was a faceless, battered, and much beloved rag-doll; worn out with loving and much play, but too much adored to be discarded. Beth had been the subject of many an adventure, many a peril, and so much hugging that the stuffing was permanently squeezed out of her middle. She had been rescued by Heralds and Hawkbrothers from every hazard imaginable, from forest fires to slavers- - then, as Keisha’s interest in Healing strengthened and grew, had not only been rescued, but had been cured of every illness and injury possible, and some that would have been the death of any lesser creature. Her embroidered mouth was stained with all the potions that had been pressed to it; her goat-hair braids a little matted from the compresses tied to her head, and every limb had been stitched and restitched with sutures for imagined wounds. Keisha gave
her a self-conscious little kiss, and put her down again.

  The other doll, an immaculate and beautiful porcelain-headed lady-doll that she and Shandi used to practice on when they were first learning sewing skills, was in near-new condition, for Anestesi had been a gift to a much older Keisha than Beth. In fact, Shandi and Keisha still used this doll to work out a new cut for a gown or the like.

  She picked it up and smoothed down the folds of the last gown they’d sewn for it, a dainty creation for Shandi on the occasion of her being chosen Harvest Queen last fall. Of course, the doll’s gown was a patchwork of scraps with a network of chalk lines and other marks on it, which gave the gown a rather odd look - but Shandi had looked like real royalty. . . .

  Yes, both dolls would definitely have to come. They could share the loft with her bed; that way no one would see them and tease her about them, and Beth could reassure hurt little ones.

  Next, basketful of toiletries. Scent, lotions, the cosmetics she and Shandi had created that Mum would have had a fit over, had she known about them - no doubt there; these had better come too. At least now she’d have some privacy to experiment with those cosmetics without anybody finding out. And if Mum discovered them, I hate to think what a scene it would cause.

  All of the extra sheets and blankets came next, but there was really no need to take them.

  I’ll leave the bedding, I’ve enough at the workshop, and if I need more, I can barter for it. She stowed it all under the bed where it had been kept before.

  Embroidery basket, knitting basket, plain-sewing basket - all of her handicrafts stored in baskets, making them portable enough to take along anywhere. Shandi had come up with that idea, and now Shandi’s baskets were somewhere between here and Haven in a peddler’s wagon.