Healers (12 page)

His mother grunted a small laugh. “So you think this boy
prayed
a stone out of your body?!”

“
I
don’t know! What do you think?”

His mother looked sharply at him, “I think I’d like to meet this ‘healer.’”

After helping serve breakfast in the morning, Tarc started into town with an order from Eva to get more cheese, sausage and to look for any vegetables that might be good. As he led his horse toward the gate, Lizeth fell in beside him, “Hey Tarc,” she said cheerfully.

“Hey,” he replied, feeling tongue-tied.
Am I just supposed to say, “You look pretty,” straight out? Or should I be trying to work it into a conversation?
After another moment of panicked thought, the best he could come up with was,
“Um, where’re you going?”

Lizeth quirked a wry smile. “Duncan James didn’t come back to his wagon last night. Last seen, ‘drunk out of his mind in a tavern.’ So, Arco’s sent me in to find him.” She shrugged, “He’s probably been picked up by the guardia for ‘drunk and disorderly.’ He does this every so often.”

Wide-eyed, Tarc asked, “Is he going to be enslaved?!”

Lizeth gave a little laugh, “Probably. The usual penalty for drunk and disorderly is a day as a slave.” She lifted an eyebrow, “Which is pretty rough, considering they’re hung over when they’re working it off.”

“Will you be able to get him out of it?”

“Oh,” she said seeming surprised by the possibility that she might. “
Hell
no!
I
think it’s
just
what he deserves, getting drunk and causing trouble. I wish more towns had a rule like that, there wouldn’t be so many obnoxious drunks to deal with.”

“Really? You don’t think it’s a little harsh?”

“Your family ran a tavern. Didn’t you have to deal with loathsome drunks?”

“Well,” Tarc thought back to a few, “yeah. They really
can
be a problem.” He thought for a moment, “If you’re not going to try to get him off, why’re you even going to check on him?”

Lizeth grinned at him, “It’s all just part of the service we guards provide to you caravaners. Making sure you’re really a slave, not rotting in an alley somewhere.”

Tarc turned at the street for the grocers, but Lizeth continued down the main avenue. She waved at him, “See you back at camp.”

Tarc’s head kept swiveling back to admire her until she’d vanished behind the corner building.
She really
is
pretty; will I ever have the courage to tell her so?
he wondered in frustration.

***

Francis Lee stopped a guard wearing black leathers, “Is this the Norton’s section of the market plain?”

The guard nodded, pointing, “All down this row.”

Francis said, “Thank you. My son, Joe Lee, was treated here yesterday by a woman named Eva. Do you know where I would find her?”

The guard pursed his lips and looked reluctant. “I… don’t think she treated anyone. A man had a back spasm, but it got better without her doing anything.”

“Yes, yes, everyone knows you don’t want to be accused of being a healer here in Realth. Unless, of course, you’re infallible. Still, I’d like to talk to this woman. Can you point me in the right direction?”

The guard pointed again, “The booth with the long line in front of it.”

Francis’ eyes widened as she looked at the unpretentious booth with a line of 10 to 15 people in front of it. “Are those all patients waiting to be treated?”

The guard laughed, “No, she’s an amazing cook. You should try one of her pizzas, though they’re a little pricey. If you don’t feel like you can afford one of them, at least have the beans, they’re really good too.”

“Thank you young man,” Francis said as, filled with curiosity, she started towards the booth.

As she waited in line, Francis looked at the sign over the booth. A thin slab of wood had been tacked over part of the sign and Francis suspected it covered something about healing. Eventually she reached the front where a dark-haired girl was managing the sales. The girl looked like she could be pretty, but she had ragged hair, smudges on her face, and was thick in the middle, with a slightly bulging waist at odds with her otherwise slender appearance. The girl looked at Francis and brightly asked, “Pizza or beans?”

Francis had seen the prices on their sign and thought the pizza overpriced. Then when she’d gotten farther up in the line, she’d seen people walking away with small rounds of bread dripping with white cheese. They looked so good, Francis had decided she would have to try one. “Pizza,” she said, then narrowed her eyes. “You’re not Eva are you?”

The girl laughed, “Oh, no. She’s back there, making the pizzas. She’ll have some more in just a minute, if you’ll just wait over here?”

Francis fished out coin for the pizza as she studied the pretty young woman making the pizzas. The effeminate pretty-boy Joe had mentioned was putting tomato sauce on rounds of bread, then the woman was deftly slicing sausage onto it. One or the other of them would cover the round with slices of cheese and put it into what looked like a portable oven over their fire.

A man and a strong looking youth were working at a barrel behind their little stall. Francis suspected they were fermenting something, though she doubted it would be wine. Eva called something, and the young man stepped over to take a tray of pizzas out of the oven and carry them to the front of the little booth. He put the pizzas on big broad leaves for the dark-haired girl who started handing them out to the customers who had already paid.

Francis stepped forward to get her pizza, but took the opportunity to say, “May I talk to Eva?”

The young man studied her for a moment, “What about?”

“Um, she treated my son yesterday.” When the boy simply stared at her, Francis continued, “For a kidney stone.”

The boy shook his head, “We do healing in other towns, but not here. It’s too dangerous. You must be mistaken.”

“No! Really! She made him better.”

The young man shook his head emphatically, “She didn’t. She was going to give him some poppy for the pain, but then he got better by himself.”

“Nonetheless, I’d like to talk to her.”

The boy studied her another moment, then said, “Maybe if you come back after the rush.” He turned and took the tray back over to Eva.

Francis turned and looked back at the line. It appeared to be even longer than it had when she first joined it. She supposed she wouldn’t want to be interrupted either, if she had a crush of customers like that.
I’d just as well shop the market while I’m waiting. Maybe I’ll find something else interesting.

To Francis’ dismay, several hours passed before the line at Eva’s booth shortened to an occasional customer in mid-afternoon. When she returned, they’d taken down their sign for pizza. Presumably they’d sold out, though the dark-haired girl still had beans, bread and some kind of tea for sale.

Francis had expected to see them resting. Instead, they all seemed to be working away. Eva looked like she was making bread dough. The man was cutting up chickens and the girl was dredging the pieces in flour. Francis thought the young man was gone, but then he appeared with two bundles of wood for the fire.

The boy gave Francis a resigned look, “You came back.”

Francis nodded, “I’d really like to talk to her.”

He rolled his eyes, then said, “I’ll see what she says.”

The boy went over to Eva and spoke to her. She turned and looked at Francis for a moment then spoke to him. He washed his hands in a bowl and started kneading the dough Eva had been working on. She turned and walked to Francis. “May I help you?”

Francis took Eva’s hand in her own. “I’d like to thank you for caring for my son yesterday.”

Eva said, “The man with the kidney stone.” She looked down at Francis’ abdomen, as if considering what conditions Francis might have. Francis couldn’t know Eva had sent her ghost in to check Francis’ kidneys.

“Yes,” Francis said. “I have the same attacks. But the pains Joe had yesterday, though they sound much the same as mine, ended much more quickly. Do you think he will have more attacks in the future?”

Eva chewed her lip, then said, “Yes, people who have kidney stones, especially if they run in the family, tend to have problems on and off. Has anyone advised you to drink more water?”

Francis drew her head back, startled by the suggestion. “Is that supposed to help?”

Eva said, “So they say.” She didn’t mention that the “they” she referred to were the authors of her ancient medical textbooks. “Think of it this way. If you have a bowl of salty water and you let it dry up, the salt will crystallize into lumps. If you keep plenty of water in the bowl, there isn’t any crystallization. Kidney stones are much the same.” She paused for a second, then said with a grin, “Not that I’m telling you what to do, or suggesting a treatment. Not here in Realth.” She winked, “I’m just telling you what ‘they’ say.”

Francis studied her for a moment. “And you think I have these ‘kidney stones’ as well?”

The woman’s eyes darted down to Francis’ abdomen, then back up to her eyes. “Oh yes. Both kidneys.” She shrugged, “The pain begins when they start trying to pass down and out of your body. It stops once they’re gone.”

Francis narrowed her eyes, “Do ‘they’ say anything about how to make them go away once they’ve formed?”

Eva said, “The ancients had ways to make them go away. They used very complex machines to do it, or sometimes they even cut people open to get them out.”

“I can see why someone would be willing to be cut open. When a stone’s passing, I swear it feels like someone’s ripping me apart from the inside!”

Eva nodded, “They say passing a kidney stone hurts worse than practically anything else. Worse than childbirth.”

Francis snorted, “Yes, I’ve done both and I’d rather birth a child.” Speculatively, she lifted her chin, “Let me ask you this. Is Joe’s kidney stone gone?”

Eva said nothing, just staring into Francis’ eyes for a moment, then smiled, “Yes.”

Giving Eva a calculating look, Francis said, “And did it pass down and out of his body?”

Eva’s eyes darted side to side, then she whispered, “No.”

Francis considered for a moment the stones sitting like unlit fires in her kidneys. Quietly, she asked, “Could mine be gone as well?”

“You’ll probably just form more.”

Noticing Eva hadn’t said “no,” Francis said, “I’ll drink more water.”

Eva looked into Francis’ eyes for a moment. Apparently she was reassured by the look Francis gave her because she said, “Step back here with me,” and led the way back into the tiny stall. She picked up a small glass jar

Francis saw the other members of Eva’s family glancing furtively and uncomfortably at her. The man looked a little frustrated. She raised her hands in a placating gesture, “I mean no harm.”

“Doesn’t mean you won’t cause some,” the man grumbled.

Handing the jar to the effeminate looking boy, Eva said, “No harm here. Dauss, you sit on the little stool.” The boy sat on a small stool. Francis looked at him intently, wondering if he could be a girl dressed as a boy, but then Eva took Francis by the arms and turned her so she was standing with her back to the boy and could no longer see him. Eva leaned down close to the boy and spoke quietly enough Francis could barely hear it. Francis thought she said, “Big ones, both kidneys.” She stood back up, smiled at Francis and spoke to her, “And now, we’re just going to stand here for a while, thinking good thoughts.”

Francis, despite having been told differently by Joe, had still expected Eva to
do
something. Massage her back, sing a song, shake a rattle, invoke some deity. Francis didn’t know what it would be, but certainly expected it to be something more than just standing there with the boy sitting behind her and Eva standing in front of her. As near as Francis could tell, neither Eva nor the boy even touched her. Instead, after standing there for a while, Eva said, “Okay, that was a nice little pause in our day, wasn’t it? I hope drinking water helps you a great deal Mrs. Lee.”

Startled at this apparent dismissal, Francis turned and looked at the boy. The boy was rubbing his temples as if he had a headache. To Francis’ astonishment, he still held the small glass jar, but now it had a mound of little wet pebbles in the bottom of it. Rather than displaying it to her and claiming that the pebbles had been removed from Francis’ kidneys as Francis expected, Eva immediately covered the jar and put it out of sight. As if eager to have done with the entire episode, Eva quickly ushered Francis out of the stall.

Francis walked slowly towards her home, deep in thought. As she got to the city gate, she realized that the chronic mild aching in her flanks—a pain she had always thought to be a residual from her attacks, a pain she’d thought she’d live with for the rest of her life—was gone! Francis turned to look thoughtfully back out over the merchants’ plain.

Walking the rest of the way through the city back to her home, Francis barely registered the appalled looks men gave her as an unaccompanied woman.

***

As the caravan’s dinner line died down, Tarc took his fried chicken and bowl of soup and wandered off looking for a place to sit. With some disbelief he saw Lizeth sitting by herself. She was leaning against the wheel of the guard wagon near the Hyllises’ wagon. He glanced around for Sam, then continued that direction. Sitting down near her, but not close enough Sam would think Tarc was intruding, Tarc said, “What’d you find out about Mr. James this morning?”