The Master's Chair (The Chronicles of Terah)

by Morgan, Mackenzie

  “Well, I suppose I could, but I’d need to talk to my friends before I said yes,” Theresa said. “Where would we hold it?”

  “We could set it up in here if that would be all right with you. We’ll pay you, of course. Would provisions for all of you for a week be enough?”

  Theresa had no idea how much a sister was usually paid for holding a clinic, but it sounded like a generous offer to her, so she nodded. “Give me a minute to talk to my friends and see what they have to say.”

  The innkeeper nodded and then quickly added, “By the way, the next town is only about twenty miles away. If you leave here by lunch you should have plenty of time to get there before dark.”

  Again Theresa nodded, and then she turned towards Darrell and said, “I need to talk to everyone about this. Would you ask the others to step in here for a minute?”

  As soon as Darrell came back with the rest of the Tellurians, she explained that she had been asked to hold a healing clinic the next morning. “I know it’ll give us a late start, but I really should do it. Would you mind?”

  No one said anything at first, but most of them shook their heads no.

  “I don’t see any problems with it,” Karl said. “What can we do to help?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never done anything like this before,” Theresa answered quietly. “I know I’ll need help getting set up, and Joan, I’ll need you to help me with the herbs.”

  Joan nodded.

  “If we have much of a crowd, I may need some of you to sort of direct traffic.” Then Theresa added as an afterthought, “Oh, and the town is going to pay us in groceries. He said they’d give us about a week’s supply.”

  “That’s fine,” Karl said. “We’ll load the groceries into your wagon after you finish with the clinic.”

  While the others returned to the stage area, Theresa found the innkeeper and told him that she would be happy to hold the clinic after breakfast the next morning.

  During the performance, the innkeeper circulated among the crowd, quietly telling them about the clinic and asking them to spread the word. After the show, he asked Theresa how she wanted him to arrange the tavern.

  Theresa glanced around and said, “I need a couple of different work areas. Is there any way we could string up a curtain so that the patients would have a little privacy?”

  The innkeeper nodded. “We can mange that. Would those two corners be all right?” He pointed to the ones closest to the kitchen.

  “That would be fine. I’ll also need a couple of tables set up in the kitchen for my herbs.”

  The innkeeper nodded again and told her that he would have things set up before he went to bed.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  The next morning, Theresa woke up a little earlier than usual. She was a bit nervous as well as excited about holding her first clinic. She made her way downstairs quietly, expecting to find that everyone else was still asleep, but people were already standing in line outside the tavern door, waiting to see her. It was drizzling rain and they were huddling under the eaves of the buildings trying to stay dry.

  Theresa made her way to the kitchen, grabbed a cloak hanging by the back door, and ran over to the stable. Although she was trying to be quiet, Karl woke up as soon as she opened the door. He climbed down out of the hayloft and said, “Do you realize that it’s not even 6:00 yet? You should still be in bed.”

  Theresa led him over to the stable door and pointed to the line forming outside the front door of the inn. “There’s no telling how long they’ve been lined up out there. I need to get started.”

  Karl nodded and said, “Okay. You go on back to the tavern. I’ll drive your wagon over as soon as I get the horses hitched up.”

  When she returned to the kitchen, the innkeeper’s wife was stoking the fire under a big pot of coffee. Joan walked into the kitchen about the same time that Karl pulled the wagon up to the door, so she helped Theresa unload the herbs and get them sorted. By the time they finished with the herbs, the innkeeper’s wife had finished cooking breakfast and the rest of the Tellurians had gathered in the tavern.

  As soon as everyone had eaten, the innkeeper opened the doors to let the crowd in. Kevin and Chris kept the line moving, sorting the problems as the people came in. Theresa had set Karl and Steve up with a good supply of woundwort, hops, and bandages, so anyone who needed to have wounds cleaned and dressed was siphoned off to them. Theresa saw the patients who were complaining of illnesses, chronic problems, or who had open wounds. Joan stayed in the kitchen, mixing the various poultices, teas and powders that Theresa prescribed. Darrell entertained the children as they either waited for their turn to see Theresa or waited for their parents to be finished.

  By mid-morning, the last of the patients had been seen and the only sound in the tavern was the sound of rain on the roof. Joan carried a large tray with cups and a fresh pot of coffee in from the kitchen and set it down on one of the tables. Then she started pouring coffee, handing a cup to each of the Tellurians.

  “When you two get done, pack up the herbs and get the wagon ready to go,” Karl said, looking at Joan and Theresa. “Steve, you and I are going to find out about the provisions that they offered us in exchange for the clinic. Darrell, Chris, could you two take care of getting our horses ready? And Kevin, when you get your team hitched, how about pulling your wagon in front of the inn?”

  They all nodded and continued drinking their coffee. When the pot was empty, Joan loaded the tray with the cups and returned to the kitchen.

  Theresa followed her into the kitchen where she bagged up some apple cinnamon tea. When she was done, she said, “I’m going to take a couple of minutes to go check on the man I treated last night. I’ll feel better about leaving if I look in on him first.”

  “Sure, go ahead. I’ll start packing up,” Joan answered.

  Theresa walked down the road to Derek’s house. She knocked on the door, and opened it slowly. The house was warm and smelled of food and the mustard poultices that she had told the woman to put on her husband’s chest every couple of hours.

  The woman walked into the front room wiping her hands on her apron. She was smiling and looked a bit younger that morning than she had the night before. “I was hoping to see you before you left. I wanted to thank you. Derek is resting so much better today. I think he’ll recover now. And thank you for the food. I know that Caryn sent it over from the tavern, but you must have said something to her. I didn’t realize just how tired I was until she came over later and took the kids home with her. I just collapsed. I wish I knew of some way to repay your kindness.”

  “I’m just glad I could help out, and I wanted to remind you not to forget about the tea I fixed for you. Be sure you drink it just like I told you,” Theresa said as she handed her the bag. “Now, could I just check on my patient before we leave?”

  “Of course. Derek, you have some company,” the woman called to her husband.

  When Theresa entered the room, Derek was sitting up in bed. He was still quite sick, but his face was no longer deathly pale. “You do look quite a bit better, but you’re still very sick. I know you’re feeling better, but you absolutely must keep the poultices on for at least three more days, and stay in bed for at least a week.” Theresa turned to his wife and said, “If the fever starts up again, start the poultices again. He’s not to get out of that bed for more than a couple of hours a day until he’s been clear of fever for three full days. Understood?”

  The woman nodded and looked over at her husband. “See, I told you that you weren’t ready to go back to work yet!”

  “No, you aren’t,” Theresa said to Derek. “Unless you want your wife to become a widow, you don’t need to even think about going back to work for at least three weeks. Is that clear?”

  “But how are we going to survive if I don’t get the shop opened back up?” Derek asked, looking at his wife.

  “Don’t you worry about that. We’ll be fine. You’ll see,” the woman said as she patted her husba
nd on the shoulder. Then she turned to Theresa, “Thank you for stopping by this morning. I know you’ve been busy with the clinic. Are you planning to leave town today or are you staying over?”

  “No, we’re leaving in about an hour. In fact, I need to get back and load my wagon. Take care,” Theresa said. The woman walked her to the front door and waved as Theresa headed back towards town.

  By the time she got back to the inn, Joan had the herbs packed and ready to load. Theresa climbed into the back of the wagon and stored the herbs as Joan handed them to her. Karl walked into the kitchen just as they were finishing, and asked them to pull Theresa’s wagon over to the dry goods store to load the provisions, but before Theresa could climb up on the wagon seat, the innkeeper’s wife called her back into the kitchen.

  “I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done here. You didn’t have to take the time to see Derek or to hold the clinic, and I know it put you behind schedule. I thought it might save you a little time on the road today if I packed a lunch for you. Here,” she said as she handed Theresa a large sack.

  Theresa thanked her and carefully set the sack of food inside the back of the wagon.

  Joan had already climbed up on the wagon seat and had the reins in her hands. As soon as Theresa joined her, they drove over to the dry goods store.

  The food that was stacked in front of the dry goods store was quite a bit more than Theresa had expected. She looked at Steve questioningly.

  “I know,” he said quietly as he helped them both down. “We would never have taken this much. They already had it stacked up out here.”

  “Where are we going to put it all? We don’t have that much room,” Joan said in a whisper.

  “We’ll just have to try. I think it’s a point of honor with them. They seemed a bit insulted when I tried to get them to take some of it back. Apparently they feel that this is a fair exchange for Theresa’s services,” Karl answered softly.

  “We may be able to exchange some of it for other things we need in the next town,” Steve said quietly, “but I think we need to find a way to take it with us.”

  “We’re going to need Kevin’s wagon, too. I’ll go get him,” Joan said as she headed over to the inn.

  The spare team was tethered behind Kevin’s wagon and his wagon was facing away from the dry goods store, ready to head out of town. When Joan told Kevin that his wagon was needed at the store, he had to drive it back into the stable yard to get it turned around. After they loaded the food into the two wagons, Karl shook the dry goods store owner’s hand and wished him well. Then they mounted up, got the two wagons turned back around, and finally headed out of town.

  They had traveled about five miles when Theresa remembered the lunch that the innkeeper’s wife had packed for them. It had stopped raining for the moment, so she called to Karl to stop, jumped down, walked to the rear of the wagon, and took out the lunch bag. There was cheese, bread, meat sandwiches, and about a dozen small tarts.

  While they were eating lunch, Karl asked them what they wanted to do that night, whether they wanted to go on to the next town or find a campsite. Joan said that she really wanted a night off, but she didn’t know if trying to set up camp in the rain would qualify as a night off.

  “Maybe we should stay in town tonight and plan to find a spot for a couple of nights tomorrow,” Steve said. “You wanted to give the horses a day off about every week, right? Well, we left Kalen’s house a week ago today.”

  “Can everyone take one more night in town before we have a night off?” Karl looked around at everyone, but especially at Joan, as he asked that question.

  “Yes, one more performance,” Joan sighed. “But I want to have camp set up by lunch tomorrow, hopefully near a stream. We need to wash some clothes.”

  “And I’ve got to gather some herbs. We used a lot today, especially woundwort,” Theresa said.

  “Okay. Mount up then. From what the innkeeper said, we’ve got about fifteen miles to go before we get to the next town, and it’s already a little past noon,” Karl said as he headed for his horse.

  ~ ~ ~ ~

  The town must have been a little farther than twenty miles because it was dinnertime by the time they got there. The innkeeper grunted that he guessed he could let them have two rooms and dinner for a performance, but said that they were on their own for breakfast and stable fees. Karl was too tired to argue, so he agreed.

  After they settled the horses for the evening, they went back to the tavern for dinner, but the innkeeper already had the tavern set up for the show. When Karl asked him about their dinner, the innkeeper snorted that they took too long with the horses. Dinner was over. He added with a sneer that if their performance warranted it, he would have his wife prepare some sandwiches after the show.

  Since they had eaten a late lunch, none of them were very hungry, but the man’s attitude was insufferable, so Karl said that they would not perform until they had had something to eat, and all of the Tellurians sat down. After a bit, the innkeeper went off in a huff and slammed his way into the kitchen.

  A few minutes later, an older woman came out with a platter of bread and cheese and a jug of water. She whispered to the Tellurians, “Please perform. You don’t know what he’s like when he gets crossed. I promise I’ll have some food ready for you after the show.”

  Joan looked at Karl and nodded. When Karl looked around at the rest of the Tellurians, they all either nodded or shrugged.

  Finally Darrell said, “I figure we either have to perform, or we’ll end up having to kill him, and I’d rather not have to do that.”

  “All right. Let’s eat a bite and then we’ll go get the instruments. I don’t think we’ll have much fun with this show though,” Karl conceded.

  They didn’t do several of the usual numbers and ended the show after about an hour, but the crowd seemed pleased anyway. After the audience cleared out and they had packed up their instruments, the innkeeper’s wife brought them a large platter of food and a couple of pitchers of scog. When they thanked her, she shook her head and said that it was she who should be thanking them, that her husband had enjoyed the show so much that he was in a much better mood.

  “Well, maybe we did a public service by putting the town jerk in a better mood,” Chris said quietly after the innkeeper’s wife had gone back into the kitchen.

  “I’d hate to have to live in the same house as that man,” Theresa said, shaking her head. “That poor woman!”

  “We don’t know what’s going on,” Steve said. “You can’t judge someone based on only one evening. He may have just had a really bad day.”

  “And he took it out on us,” Kevin said. “At least we’re leaving here tomorrow, never to see him again.”

  After they finished eating, everyone headed off to bed. About 3:00 in the morning there was a knock on Joan and Theresa’s door. Joan grabbed her cloak and quickly opened the door. The innkeeper’s wife was standing in the hall ringing her hands. She asked quietly if the other woman was really a Sister of Healing. When Joan said yes, the woman asked if she could please speak to her.

  Theresa had awakened at the knock, but she didn’t get out of bed until she heard the woman ask for her.

  “Yes?” Theresa asked as she shrugged into her cloak.

  “I hate to bother your sleep, Sister, but could you please come? It’s my husband. He’s in terrible pain and I don’t know what to do for him.”

  “Of course I’ll come,” Theresa said as she put on her boots.

  “I’m coming with you,” Joan whispered to Theresa. “Wait until I get my boots on.” And grab my dagger, Joan added to herself.

  The innkeeper’s wife led them to a small house out behind the inn. Her husband was white as a sheet, soaked with sweat, and his face was contorted with pain. When Theresa approached, he waved her away.

  His wife said, “He didn’t want me to disturb you. He thinks it’ll just go away, but he’s been like this for the past week, especially at night.”

&
nbsp; “Can you describe when it starts, where the pain is, how it feels? I need something to go on,” Theresa said to her.

  As the woman explained about her husband’s illness, Theresa figured out what the problem probably was – kidney stones. She had some herbs that would alleviate the pain and help him to pass the stones, but they were in her wagon. She explained that she would have to leave for a few minutes to go get some medicine, but that she would be back shortly. In the meantime, she asked his wife to put on some water for tea.

  “Tea?! I’m dying here and you want a cup of tea?!” the innkeeper yelled.

  “Yes, tea. But not for me, for you. Now stop acting like a spoiled child or I won’t bother to give you anything at all. And you’re not dying, but I don’t doubt that you feel like you are. Leave your wife alone and let her get the water ready,” Theresa said in a stern tone. “Joan, why don’t you come with me?”

  When they returned, Theresa made a cup of tea and handed it to the man. “Drink this, and yes, I know it tastes terrible. That’s life. If you want the pain to go away, you have to drink every drop of that tea.”

  The man turned the mug up. He nearly gagged on the taste, but he drank it all. About ten minutes later his face started relaxing, and he slowly sank back into his chair. After a few more minutes, he was asleep.

  “He’ll sleep like that until morning, but this isn’t over,” Theresa said. “He might be in pain for four or five more days, but it will pass. Just be sure that he drinks four mugs of tea everyday until the pain’s completely gone. And the fourth mug needs to be right before he goes to bed unless he wants to hurt all night.”

  “Thanks, Sister. You don’t know how much I appreciate this. And he does, too. He just forgot to say so before he fell asleep.” His wife gently stroked the man’s forehead. “Please don’t tell anyone about this. He would hate for anyone to know.”