Healers (10 page)

Tarc wandered around, hoping to unobtrusively encounter Lizeth. As he did so, he tried to think of what he might say when he did run into her. He had a feeling that just walking up and saying, “I think you’re pretty,” wouldn’t go over all that well.

Lizeth didn’t seem to be anywhere inside the circle of wagons. Wondering where she might be, Tarc considered walking outside the circle, but then realized he could walk around the inside while extending his ghost outward. He could see if she might be out there without being obvious about it. He started another circuit.

On the opposite side of the circle from the little village, his ghost found two people leaning up against a wagon. He stopped and focused on them. After a bit he realized he could hear them speaking quietly. It seemed his ghost could pick up the vibrations in the air from their speech so he could hear them! One was male, and the other female. A sick feeling came over him as he realized they weren’t just leaning companionably, but were touching one another. He focused on the sounds—the woman was Lizeth! The man put an arm around her.

Tarc heard her giggle, but then she pulled away a little. Relief poured through Tarc.

The man turned toward her and pulled her back to him. He leaned his head towards hers. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned her face up towards his.

They kissed.

Tarc’s world crumbled.

Tarc closed down his ghost and stumbled away toward the other side of the circle. He kept far from the people listening to the music, not wanting them to see his face. He found his family’s wagon, checked the bread that was baking, and climbed in under the wagon where he’d placed his bed roll.

Lying there, staring up at the wagon over his head, he didn’t see Lizeth step back between the wagons and into the circle. She looked around for a moment, then went over to listen to the music.

As the caravan pulled out the next morning, Norton, who’d stood near the front watching the wagons start their trek, fell in beside Daum and Eva. “You know how you had Daussie dressed like a boy for a while there?”

They nodded, looking curious.

“You might want to do some of that again when we get to this next city.” He paused for a second, “For Kazy too.”

“Why?!” Eva said, looking alarmed.

“Well, Realth’s going to be the biggest city you’ve seen. In fact, it’s the biggest we ever visit with any frequency. We usually stay there for several weeks, because the market’s huge and business is good. However, there’re some… unpleasant… things about Realth…” he trailed off.

“Such as?” Daum asked, a grim look on his face.

Norton shrugged, “It’s a kingdom, and the king’s word is law. He rules with an iron grip and the people are pretty cowed.”

Eva gave him a narrowed glance. “Why does
that
mean the girls should dress like boys?!”

Norton sighed. With a disgusted tone, he said, “Realth keeps slaves. Supposedly, you become a slave for lawbreaking or indebtedness.” He looked them in the eye, “Which would suggest you should be very careful of their laws. One of their laws is against ‘false healers,’ so I’d suggest you not do
any
of your healing in Realth. But, the reason I bring up the girls is that there are rumors that the guards
seek
reasons to arrest good-looking girls for lawbreaking. There’re worse rumors about what happens to them once they’re enslaved.”

Norton chewed a lip, “As you know, Daussie is… truly beautiful. I’d tone that down if I were you.”

Eva and Daum looked at each other in some horror. Eva looked back at Norton, “Do we
have
to stop in this horrible town?”

Norton looked uncomfortable and said nothing for a little while. Finally, he shrugged again and said, “We’re merchants. We go where we can do business. Business is good in Realth, so you’ll find your fellow caravaners
want
to go there.” He walked beside them a few more steps, then said, “You need to be careful… It’ll probably be fine,” he shook his head, “but you should
still
be careful on both counts.” He turned and walked back along the caravan toward his own wagon.

Eva and Daum looked at one another again, then called Tarc, Daussie, and Kazy over so that they could talk.

Aghast, Daussie asked, “How do we know
what’s
against the law in this awful place?”

Daum said, “We were so stunned by what Norton told us, we didn’t ask. I’ll talk to him again the next time I see him.”

“The next time the caravan takes a break,” Eva said, looking at Daussie and Kazy, “we’ll climb into the wagon and work on the way you guys look.”

With a horrified look, Kazy grabbed at her long braid and asked, “Are you gonna cut my hair?!”

Solemnly, Eva nodded and Kazy gasped.

Daussie snorted, “That’ll teach you to giggle at
my
hair!”

Kazy turned wide eyes on Daussie, “I’m
so
sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that I was surprised to see someone as pretty as you… with short, hacked off, boy-hair.”

Daussie put an arm around Kazy’s shoulders. “It’s all right, now I’ll have a friend with the same bad haircut.”

Kazy wiped at her eyes, bereft at the impending loss of her long dark hair, but buoyed by the fact Daussie had called her “friend.”

As the caravan pulled out onto the road again, Lizeth rode along it checking for problems. When she passed the Hyllises’ wagon, she was startled to see the new girl, Kazy, sporting short, hacked-off hair like Daussie’s. She looked for her friend, Tarc, and saw him walking at the rear of their wagon. His eyes were facing straight ahead, and though Lizeth gave him a little wave, he appeared not to see her. She wondered if he was actually oblivious, or, might be angry at her for some reason.

Deciding she’d have to talk to Tarc later, she urged her horse to a trot past the rest of the caravan.

The caravan crested a slight rise and Tarc looked out in awe over the city of Realth.

A river ran through the city, and the massive wall surrounding Realth went right
over
the river. Tarc could see large poles from the wall sticking down into the water, presumably to block the passage of war boats. Some of the poles looked like they could be lifted to let commercial boats through at need.

A large plain beside the city had several clusters of wagons on it already. Presumably it served as the market for traveling caravans, so the Norton caravan wouldn’t be the only one present during their visit.

It looked to Tarc like
most
of the buildings inside the walls were at least two stories tall and some were three or four! The streets looked wider than other towns and some kind of tall monument could be seen near the city center.

Arriving at the marketing area, Tarc felt astonished to realize that, despite the presence of several other caravans, there was plenty of room for the Nortons. Once they had circled their wagons, Norton called the caravaners together to remind them of the situation in Realth. “I’m not telling you to be on your ‘best behavior,’ but you had better follow the laws here in Realth. Their laws are not as strictly enforced out here in the marketing area, but you should still be careful. The laws are posted by the gate and change from time to time. Remember, violations of their laws are punished by enslavement. Periods of enslavement can range from a few hours for minor infractions to the
rest of your life
! If you get enslaved for a few months, the caravan can’t stay here waiting for you.

“Now, this means you need to know what their laws are,
especially
when you go into town. They’re posted beside the main gate, so I’ll be going over there to check them now. I’ll read them aloud, so those of you who can’t read, please come and listen.”

Tarc hadn’t considered the possibility that some of the people in the caravan might not be able to read. He turned to Kazy with a sudden worry, “Can you read?”

She rolled her eyes, “Of
course
. My mom and dad were really big on the importance of reading, writing, and arithmetic. My grandma taught my brothers and me in the evenings.”

Tarc turned to watch as a lot of the caravaners followed Norton over to the main gate. He hoped most of them actually could read for themselves, but were just going along to be companionable. Eva said, “Come on kids. We need to get started on cooking dinner for those folks. Let’s do beans and roast pork. If a lot of them decide to eat in town we’ll be able to simmer it overnight and serve it tomorrow.”

The Hyllises sold out of their spiced beans and roast pork that evening. It seemed most of the caravaners had decided not to go into Realth in the evening, opting to go in groups during the day instead. That evening, as the Hyllises baked rounds for pizza the next day and started another large pot of beans to cook overnight, they discussed their plans for the next day.

“Tarc,” Eva began, “I’m not comfortable with you going to the market alone in this place.”

Tarc shrugged, “I’m not happy about it either. But we
have
to have supplies. It doesn’t seem to me like having someone with me would protect me from breaking their laws.”

“Maybe not,” Daum said, “but at least we’d all know what had happened. Presumably they have some kind of legal system and we could hire someone to represent you if we knew about it.”

“What if we
both
get arrested?! Then the problem would be even worse!” He shrugged, “It seems to me the most important part of avoiding arrest is carefully reading this list of laws they have.”

“Still,” Eva said, “I’m going to go with you this first time.”

Daussie said, “You! Why not dad?”

“He needs to stay with you and Kazy.”

Daussie blinked, “Why couldn’t
you
stay with us?”

“When we split up…” Eva said slowly, “One of the men needs to be with each group… to protect…” She trailed off, never quite specifying what would be protected.

Kazy’s eyes flicked back and forth amongst the people of her new family.
She considers Tarc to be a man? Surely he’s not ready to fight off attackers?
Then she remembered Daussie’s strange assurance that Tarc
could
protect them from the highwaymen. He hadn’t had to because the wasp stung the man’s horse, but Daussie had seemed to think he
could
. She looked at Tarc with an appraising eye.
His arms are muscular, probably from hauling all those straps of wood, slabs of bacon, buckets of water, and so on. But strong isn’t all there is to a fight. He doesn’t even carry a sword!

***

In the morning, the Hyllises cooked a breakfast heavy in bacon, using the leftover bacon to flavor beans again. Once they had served the caravan, the family went to the gate to read Realth’s laws for themselves.

They were somewhat reassured to realize most of the laws were common sense rules that were obeyed by good people everywhere. You shouldn’t steal, drink to excess, get in fights or otherwise injure others. You must obey the guards when they commanded you and you
must
use the outhouses. There was to be
no
urinating or defecating in the street. The most frightening rule for the Hyllises had to do with healers. It specified brief enslavement periods for charging someone for a cure that didn’t work. There was a longer enslavement for a cure which did harm but the harm later resolved. A cure which resulted in permanent harm carried a much longer sentence. A cure which killed someone resulted in lifelong enslavement.

“What if someone comes to you who’s dying and you merely fail to keep them alive?!” Eva asked rhetorically.

Daussie said, “Look down at the bottom. It says such things are to be decided by the king’s judge.”

“And how’s
he
supposed to know?!” Eva said.

Nervously, Kazy said, “I don’t think you should try to do any healing while we’re here.” Since Kazy didn’t believe healers could do any good, it looked to her like
attempting
to heal someone was a surefire way into enslavement.

“Yeah, we won’t,” Eva said disgustedly. “But, I find it really hard, not helping people who’re suffering.”

The others went back to the market area while Eva and Tarc headed on into town with the bay horse to buy supplies. Realth seemed much like other cities, though larger. People thronged the streets, but seemed subdued. Few jostled for position, they waited turns patiently instead.

The lack of jostling seemed nice, but unnatural.

Eva didn’t see any unaccompanied women and, when she stopped to ask directions to the grocers, she realized the man she addressed seemed uncomfortable to have been spoken to by a woman. When he gave his reply, he spoke mostly to Tarc.

Eva knew women were second-class citizens in many places, but she hadn’t encountered it before. She took meager comfort in the fact that the “laws” posted at the gate didn’t codify such a bias. It seemed ingrained in the people and Eva knew habit could be worse than law.

She supposed it had started in all innocence when men began accompanying women to protect them from lawbreaking and subsequent enslavement if they could. An inability to go about by themselves would then have seeped into attitudes as an expectation that women could do little else by themselves either.

The grocers, when they found it, was large and had some unusual foodstuffs, so Eva and Tarc enjoyed looking around and trying to think what they might add to their menus. Tarc finally stopped Eva from buying any more, telling her with a laugh, “If you add one more item we’re going to have to go back for another horse!”

They arrived back on the merchants’ plain outside Realth just before lunch time. Tarc headed for the wagon to put away their supplies while Eva went to the stall to see how the food was coming. As they had been running low, she took a round of cheese in case pizza sales went well.

Approaching their stall, Eva saw with some sadness Daum had covered the part of their sign that referred to healing. She realized it would be easier to not have any patients ask for help than to turn them away, but still she felt like a traitor to her true nature.

She stopped, wondering whether she could give away free treatment to those truly in need. After all, it would be hard for a patient to complain about a
free
treatment even if it didn’t work. On the other hand, there were those severe penalties for treatments that caused harm. Eva was well aware that almost any treatment could cause harm. Some of the things Daussie or Tarc could do, removing pieces of someone or heating tissue to kill it; those probably had the potential to do substantial harm even if the Hyllises hadn’t had a patient suffer an injury yet.

Joe Lee wandered out of the market stalls belonging to the Simpson caravan and into the stalls belonging to the Nortons. He stopped at every stall, looking for goods he might be able to sell at his own store once the caravans moved on. Joe specialized in antiquities, but was happy to sell
anything
people would buy. He looked forward to talking to his old friend Henry Roper who sold antiquities in the Norton caravan. Joe had stopped to look at clothing and other sewn goods being sold at a booth. Bags, shirts, pants, skirts, jackets—they all looked to be of good quality.