The guard gestured with his pike. "You want the dark sector."
Lithras covered her head again and stepped into the fairgrounds. Here all trades mingled; life and commerce brawled about her. An acrobat made a blue-furred beast leap through a hoop of living serpents. Something that looked like a sekh cringed between wagon shafts, its wings clipped. A woolseller walked past, his wares bulky bundles on his back. A slim, quick youth jostled a gemseller, who yelled; the thief was immediately seized by two huge fair-wards. After the silence of the open spaces, the din, movement, and color were dizzying.
Lithras drew her cloak closer. Near night it was, and she with nowhere to sleep. Here she dared not curl up in the open as one did in the woods. She had an idea of what the dark sector might be and had no wish to go there. She decided to wander. Fate had protected her thus far.
Krimar's heralds cried the news, and for the few literate fairgoers, servants posted notices. Lithras saw a sign and puzzled out the writing. Two of the languages she knew from her mother's books, but this spelling was odd. A "bodykeeper"? She might qualify. Here at Ithkar Fair, where magic was controlled, she could show as well in a contest as any anointed healer. It would be pleasant to live in a noble's house, fed and warm. She'd had her fill of cold and hunger. She stroked her sekh amulet. Unless she took to the streets again, she had nowhere else to go.
This early in the fair, the Bibulous Bullock still had drinkable beer. Its wine could use another week to age. Mim's customers were not fastidious folk: the smell of greasy cooking scarcely masked that of unwashed bodies and dung-covered boots. However, the Bibulous Bullock was cheap, warm, lively, and relatively safe: Mim had years of experience in spotting trouble.
The tavern was a huge tent, set up on semipermanent wooden foundations. Mim had run it every fair for many years, first with her husband and now alone. Support poles and trestle tables marked it into areas, and each area had its own denizens. A party of trappers, skin clad and wild from the woods, worked at getting drunk. They made no sound until one tall fellow surged to his feet and swore to kill any man in the house. A wench embraced the would-be warrior, loosed his money pouch, and tossed it to Mim. The leather smelled of woodsmoke.
“I’ll give it back tomorrow,” Mim promised, "if you live." The fellow quieted.
Near the door, where the rushes were cleaner, Elki the pony trainer beckoned a serving wench, who set down her pitcher and sidled close. Elki was young and well formed. His red leather suit concealed little of this fact. He drew the girl onto his knee, then noticed Mim's disapproving gaze. The tavern-keeper folded her brawny arms. Elki grinned, cocked his head toward the door, and swaggered out. Mim had rules: any private business the wenches did was on their own time, off premises.
In the cleanest section, where lanterns clustered and a brick oven fought the chill, Anvadlim leaned on the counter. His hands thawed around a mug of mulled beer. "So there I am, no roof but sky, a few coppers to my name and winter's coming early. But Synkalos must love me after all. I see this notice: some noble's hiring a physician for the south, where it's warm." He sipped his beer and shivered. "Fruit on the trees. Sunshine. Flowers. I'd forgotten how I missed it."
"You're from Tsobbet yourself, aren't you?" Mim wiped the counter with a rag.
"They are all dead. Plague." Anvadlim sat silent. He'd seen enough plague to last him. Then he cheered. "Anyhow, this was a hiring contest, for what they call a bodykeeper. Started today. All sorts turned out: barbers, horseleeches, wortcunners. Well, how many real physicians can there be in Ithkar?" He drained his tankard and waved aside a refill. "Got to be fresh for the morning. Today was ordinary stuff: boils, sprains, head colds. See 'em all the time."
"As does every barber or wortcunner."
Anvadlim turned to face the speaker, who had slipped onto a nearby stool. She could be no more than a girl, surely, so short and slight. Though there was something in the darkness round her eyes—well, hunger and hardship might do that even to the young. She was northern dark, clad in a rough brown dress. Probably one of the war refugees, come to Ithkar to seek employment. She was so plain-featured as to fade into the background. Something about her, though, stuck in his memory. "Didn't I see you hanging about the hiring?"
"As well you might have done, I being entered in the contest myself". The girl fingered something on a thong about her neck.
Anvadlim began, then stifled, a laugh. Any practitioner of northern herbal arts must be older than this child—old enough to be her mother, at least. Since the conquest, the old ways were no longer taught.
Her smile showed teeth. "It's considered sporting to wish luck, I'm told. Even in civilized lands, among gentles. Or was I misinformed?"
"Oh, no, of course not . . . er, milady. Naturally I wish you all good fortune, you and your . . . er, skills."
"Whatever those poor skills may be, you mean?" She motioned for a tankard, tasted its contents, and winced. “The name is Lithras. Tell me, in the test today, did you lance that boil or apply fomentation?"
"What boil?" Then Anvadlim realized that all contestants must see similar cases, or it would be no test at all. "I lanced it, of course."
Lithras curled her lip. "Oh, you're a cutter. Well enough, it will probably fester. By rights the knife holds little place in healing." Her hand strayed to her belt. Then, as if burned, it jerked back into sight. "A hot herbal poultice, however—"
"Indeed? Of which herbs?"
She smiled. "Which herbs? That would be telling. And it wasn't the dung and marble dust I saw one idiot use. Might as well kill the patient and have done, spells or no spells." She set down her almost untouched tankard and stood to leave. "Well, see you in the morrow. If you're called back, that is."
"I might say the same, my lady." Anvadlim watched her thread toward the door. No, he had nothing to fear from such a child, come though she might from northern witch stock. The stories were old and exaggerated. Wortcunning indeed! Time to turn in. He must be fresh for the morning.
On the contest's second day, the number of aspirants had dwindled to three, and Krimar's household set up individual booths. Lithras and Anvadlim eyed each other with suspicion. From the third tent emerged an imposing figure, tall, broad, and glittering
"Ah, my distinguished colleagues!" There was something about his speech, not so much an accent as a slurring. Under the black-furred hood his face was pallid. Vague eyes struggled to focus. "I am Doctor Peldras, from the medical school at Sossini."
"Sossini, eh? That old place still in business?" Anvadlim was deliberately rude.
Lithras tried to show better manners. "Ah, yes, Sossini. Ancient, and full of knowledge." Her mother's library had kept one of its books as a lesson in ludicrous anatomical error, but she forbore to mention that.
"Good to meet you both," Peldras said, unaware that he had not been given names. "May the greatest skill prevail." He muffled his hands in furred sleeves, beamed, and weaved toward his tent.
Lithras found the facilities reasonably complete: a raised cot, a worktable, jars of fresh water, and a lantern. A servant stood by for orders. Lithras gestured toward quill, ink, and parchment.
"Those, milady, should serve for your records. If you cannot write, a scribe will be provided. Within reason, we shall also supply any other materials you request."
She pondered. "Clean soft rags, a beeswax candle, and a sharp knife." The one in its sheath concealed by her belt was unclean for healing. When the candle was brought she untied the thong from her neck and set out her amulet: a blackstone carving of a winged cat. She touched its broken left wing. Not much of an altar, she told the sekh, but the best I can provide. Only after she lit the taper did she take out her packets of herbs.
Anvadlim set down his bundles of instruments. He could hear his first patient wheezing before the man shuffled in and stood, clutching the tent's center pole. Anvadlim bade him sit.
His garments hung here, strained there, as if his frame had changed. His hands were aged and scarred from w
ork, but the honest calluses had split on fingers swollen at the tips. The old man sucked in breath with a wet sound, like sea caves.
Anvadlim waited until the soughing eased. "Is your problem mostly in breathing?"
"Naw, in the livin' mostly, these days." The patient tapped his chest, then pointed at his swollen ankles.
Anvadlim switched to dialect. "How makes it, then, thy living?"
The man's breath bubbled. "I lives on the sea. Islanders, my peopling, always. Took out the small boats ownself, when younger; now me sons brings back the fish, I salts them and we takes silvers to the fair." He paused to cough. "It's the alltimes way, me kin. Me da went samelike, sea got him at last. She creeps in our lungs, she do, an' drownded we is ashore."
Anvadlim pressed one finger to the man's swollen ankle. A mark remained, white and deep. He sighed. I've seen this before. Indeed ', the sea does call the old ones back at last. She owns some families. There was nothing he could do to cure, and little that might even help. He rummaged among his medicine bottles. "A pinch of this thrice daily may dilute the curse. Best not to anger the sea further; eat no more salt fish."
The patient peered at him and chuckled. "An' what else be island-born eatin', three-fourths of the year? Well for you to say, mainland man. Sea gave me a livin', has her rights to give me dyin'. I'll no fling yer herbs to her face, youngster." He shuffled from the tent.
Anvadlim rested his head on his hands, closed his eyes a moment, then picked up a pen. What, really, could medicine do for a life held in thrall by the sea?
Into Lithras's tent a woman led her child. It was short and sickly pale, its eyes dull under swollen lids. The slack mouth drooled, and coarse hair tufted from its scalp. Lithras could not even determine the creature's age or sex: it waddled on stubby legs, swathed in a toddler's gown.
The woman herself looked tired and ill. Her skin was gray, and despite the cold the neck of her dress gaped open—probably to accommodate the swelling at her throat. She slumped at the edge of the cot. Her bright wool garments marked her as a dweller of the heights. Lithras's people, in the Kelcann uplands, rarely encountered snowfolk. Rumors went they were dwarves, and unchancy.
This woman, though, might have been of Lithras's own tribe. When she did not speak, Lithras hazarded a query in her own language: "What would be the aging on your child?"
That called forth a tear. "Man old, but never man tall. A stunted weedling."
Indeed, the child barely reached the middle of Lithras's breast, and she was a short woman. He sat lumpish on the floor, uninterested in his surroundings. Perhaps he was a dwarf's changeling child. But how? She asked his mother, "Whence came you to the fair?"
Again the woman sighed. "I am myself Kelcannish of birth. I was a grown maiden at the time of the Great Scattering. The soldier band which took me pursued nobles to the. high country. There was much killing. I stole away from camp and made my way deep into the hills, in hope to find some of my own people, but those I found lay dead. At last the mountain folk took me in, and I have lived these years in the valley behind White Peak." She began to cry. "Always I was told ill luck followed those who went with the mountain men. So it is. My child is a changeling, and I am ill. I fled home to Kelcann when my husband died, but all had changed. Conquerors have razed my village and built new." She held out work-reddened hands. "I wash their rags, and for that they took me with them to the fair."
The woman's fingers were icy, as were the face and whole body of the child: chill as snow on the mountain peaks. The skin of both was dry and thick, but whether from a curse or only cold and wind, Lithras did not know. She shivered and touched her sekh, but it held no warmth. The broken wing scratched her finger. Her mother would have known the proper ritual to appease the peak gods and the outraged spirits of both tribes, but her mother was dead. Lithras had no magic. All she had was her scant knowledge of herbs, and nothing that grew was effective against such curses.
At least she might ease sorrow. Among her herb packets she kept merry wort. She handed over her whole supply.
When the mother and child left, she sat long with a piece of parchment blank before her.
After the day's testing, the Bibulous Bullock glowed with warmth and cheer. Lithras and Anvadlim sat at Mim's counter. Lithras sipped beer and made a face. The brew had begun to sour.
Anvadlim shrugged. "Happens every year. Won't keep without spells." He set down his tankard and called for wine. "After such a day, I prescribe drink. In great quantity."
Lithras held out her goblet. "My cases were depressing. There was no help for most of them."
"Well I know." Anvadlim swallowed. "At least things grew more lively after midday. I treated a truly hideous burn. I know the woman; she owns that fryshop one street hence. She'd spattered hot grease over her breast, half her right arm, and part of her face."
"You as well? That's odd. The man I treated," Lithras said, "was a scribe, and mute. He, too, had been burned on arm, breast, and face. Binding it was difficult. I know not how it may go. But with the virtue of egg white—" She stopped. Best not to reveal trade secrets. "With the usual treatment, I trust he may not take fever. He must have overset his oil lamp. I made offerings for him to the god of the clumsy. I hope he may not be punished; I think he was slave to a noble."
A wench, red-eyed, came sniffling to stand before Lithras. "Pardon, my lady, but how fares Elki?"
"Elki?" Lithras turned to Anvadlim. "Should I know him?"
"The pony trainer," he told her. Then, to the wench, "What ails him?"
The wench sniffled again and wiped her nose on her apron. ''During his midday show, it was. One of the ponies trod his foot. Oh, the blood and hurt!"
"Ah, so that's who the fellow was,” Lithras said. "He should recover. He'll be limping for some months, but a pony trainer must expect hooves." With a watery smile, the wench thanked her and went about her work. "Crushed foot," Lithras explained. "An accident; it can't have been part of the contest."
"That's odd," Anvadlim said. "Late this afternoon I myself dressed a crushed foot."
"Another hapless pony trainer?"
Anvadlim shook his head. "My patient was a young woman. She never spoke, but I can guess her trade. She was beautiful, her hands had never worked, and she wore flimsy silks. Come to think of it, she may not have plied a trade at all; she may have been property. On her thigh I saw a skin tattoo: a triangle and a crescent moon."
"A what?" Lithras spilled her drink. Before she could speak further, cold wind made her turn her head. The tent door stood open, and torchlight shone on two men, warmly cloaked. Lithras and Anvadlim held silent as the newcomers sought the darkest, most disreputable corner.
Those who drank there bought mixed wine—cheaply— from the slop bowls. If they were quiet, Mim tolerated them. The Bibulous Bullock had few pretensions. Odd, to see a prosperous pair choose such company. When they removed their cloaks, light shone off pink and silver.
Shortly, one of the shabby drinkers slumped over, and the two carried him out. Lithras set down her goblet, unfinished. "I shall turn in early," she said. "Goddess alone knows what the morrow will bring." Outside, she kept to the shadows. Ahead, on the darkened street, she saw a flash of silver. She followed it.
Even a plain woman as soberly dressed as Lithras entered this part of the fair at her own peril. In the dark sector it was assumed that a lone female would be selling the use of her person. Here strolled no glamorous courtesans. Few fair-wards walked these streets. The selling of flesh, drink, and drugs was merely another commercial activity. Those who entered the dark sector knew what they sought. Here sprawled the cheaper drinking places and foodshops, along with other unmarked establishments. Strange scents wafted from some, and those who emerged wandered dazed.
Lithras caught a flash of silver by the lone torch near a dreamhouse. She waited a moment, pulled the leather curtain aside, and peered into the blue haze. A customer, stumbling out, grabbed her by the waist.
"Jus* what I wanned. How
much?"
She shook her head. "Not selling." No anger; she knew the customs of this place. At times, in her cold and lonely past—with luck she would never have to sink that low again.
He grabbed higher and held on. "What mean, not selling? Giving?" His spittle sprayed her cheek.
She pressed one finger to his throat, in the way she'd learned. He stepped back, unable to speak. Again she shook her head. "Not selling." He shrugged, coughed, and vanished into the night.
She peered back inside, into dimness, and saw the noble's servants hand the landlord a clinking purse. Soon they dragged a limp redheaded figure out the door.
She made as if to follow, then hesitated and fingered the amulet around her neck. Its broken wing felt sharp. She was hungry and cold, but even worse, she was afraid. / am no healer. I took no sacred vows. I can work no spells. She was not convinced. She crept toward the lean-to where she spent her nights.
Dreams scratched at Lithras's sleep. A small sekh followed her, dragging its crippled wing. As it crawled it whimpered.
When sunlight struck the canvas of her shelter she relaxed into true sleep, only waking when the food vendors' cries grew too strident to ignore. She groaned, pulled on her coarse brown dress, and stumbled forth. Late! She hurried to the contest area. On its cord, the sekh amulet scraped her breast and drew blood.
She saw her first case and shivered. He lay on a pallet, unconscious. His breath reeked sweet. Drugged, of course. She knew the stink of dreamweed, had known it last night. But since she'd seen this man carried from the dreamhouse he had been assaulted. A huge lump bulged beneath his red hair. After a brief examination she stepped out in search of the nearest fair-ward.
The guard looked at the patient and frowned. "No, milady, he warn't thrashed in no brawl last night, nor any time yestiddy, either. I'd of heard. We tells each other, an' the chief writes it all down an' reads it forth to everyone." He paused. "So's we know the trouble places, that is. Or the troublemakers. No matter where we's posted, we hears of the nasties." He straightened, proud. "An' never mind the dreamweed, it ain't unlawful in the dark sector." Lithras stood, defeated. "If that's all, milady, unless you'd be wanting to make a complaint? I has me duties." The guard shuffled out of the tent.
Norton, Andre - Anthology Page 3
