The Spirit Stone. Katharine Kerr
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the lad began to sob, Nevyn caught him and pulled him into his lap. After a brief struggle, Nevyn took the lad’s jaws the way you’d take a horse’s and pried them open. Anno moaned and pissed all over himself and the old man. Nevyn barely seemed to notice.
‘Thank the gods, it’s just a bad tooth. I was afraid you had the clotted fever in your throat, lad, but it’s just this nasty tooth. You’ll be all better once we have it out.’
‘Don’t!’ Anno screamed. ‘Mam!’
‘You’ve got to!’ Ligga said. ‘You listen to your elders! Forgive us, Nevyn, I –’
‘Hush, hush! It’s not his fault. The gum’s gone so pussy that he’s fevered and half out of his mind. The tooth’s loose, anyway, so it won’t be a hard thing to do. Then we’ll work on the fever. All of his humours are out of balance, you see, with a superfluity of the hot and moist.’
This sonorous explanation seemed to comfort Ligga, even though Gwairyc doubted if she knew what it meant. When Nevyn started to let Anno go, the lad tried to slither off the bed. Nevyn caught him and hauled him back.
‘Gwarro, come sit down. Take him and hold him still while I get the things I need.’
Choking on revulsion, Gwairyc took the skinny little lad in his arms. He sat down on the edge of the bed and wondered if it had bugs. Anno squirmed, tried to bite his wrist, then began to cry. The urine and the pus both reeked. I promised the king, Gwairyc reminded himself. I swore a vow to the king — he made himself repeat the thought over and over. It seemed to take Nevyn forever to get out a pair of forceps, a bottle of spicy-scented oil, and some scraps of cloth. For the operation itself, Gwairyc pressed the lad’s shoulders down on the bed; he was forced to watch while Nevyn deftly pulled a broken stump of tooth from his jaw. An ooze of green pus came with it.
‘You see the green material, oh apprentice of mine?’ Nevyn said. ‘It’s the perturbed hot humour combined with an excess of the moist. Teeth are of course ruled by the cold earth humour in crystalline form, and their natural enemy is the moist.’
Gwairyc tried to speak, but he could only swallow – hard, and several times.
‘You look pale, lad,’ Nevyn said to Gwairyc.
Gwairyc bit his lip and looked away. In the doorway, Ligga was quietly sobbing to herself. She must love the stinking little brat, he thought. Well, cows watch over their calves, too.
‘We’ll stay here tonight, Ligga,’ Nevyn said. ‘I’ll tend that fever with herbs.’
‘My thanks.’ She pulled up the hem of her skirt and blew her nose on the frayed and stained brown cloth. ‘Ah ye gods, my thanks.’
Gwairyc silently cursed him. He’d been hoping they’d get free of the farm straightaway and camp somewhere clean.
After several doses of herbs, Nevyn finally got Anno to fall asleep. The old man changed into a fresh pair of brigga, handed the soaked ones to Gwairyc, and told him wash them out.
‘And you’d best do yours while you’re at it,’ Nevyn said. ‘You’ve got a spare pair, haven’t you?’
‘I have.’
‘There’s a stream out back,’ Ligga said. ‘Here, I’ll get you some soap.’
A scrap of soap in one hand, the dirty clothes in the other, Gwairyc strode out of the house into the relatively clean air of the farmyard. Ligga followed him out and pointed. ‘Go straight out the back gate. You’ll see my pounding rocks on the stream bank.’
‘Pounding rocks?’
‘Now, here, haven’t you washed clothes before?’ She gave him her half-toothless grin. ‘Get them wet first. You work the soap in good, then put them on the flat rock and beat the soiled bits with the round rock.’
Cursing under his breath, Gwairyc took the brigga down to a tiny streamlet, meandering through wild grass. He found the rocks, knelt down, and tried to follow her instructions. His rage built and flamed until he could barely see what he was doing. How could he be here, him, the hero of the Cerrgonney wars, washing some farm-brat’s piss out of a pair of old brigga? He considered waiting till dark and running away, but a bitter truth stopped him. If he broke his vow, he’d have nowhere to go, unless of course he wanted to sink to the level of a silver dagger. Even being a herbman’s servant would be better than that.
All at once, he realized that he was weeping, a final blow of shame. He threw the wet brigga onto the grass and sobbed aloud until he heard footsteps rustling through the grass. He wiped his face on his sleeve and looked up to see Nevyn, standing there with his hands on his hips.
‘Oh here, lad. This is a good bit harder on you than I thought it’d be.’
The old man’s sympathy delivered the worst cut of all. Gwairyc wanted to kill him. I’m doing this for the king, he reminded himself. With a sigh, Nevyn sat down next to him in the grass.
‘The lad’s going to live. Do you care one jot?’
‘I don’t. Ye gods, how can you do things like this? With your skill, you could be the king’s own physician or suchlike.’
‘There’s many a man who wants to physic the king. How many want to help folk like these?’
‘Well, and why should they? This lot is hardly better than bondfolk.’
‘I treat bondfolk who need me, too.’
Gwairyc stared at him. Daft and twice daft!
‘I’ll admit to being surprised when you looked so ill,’ Nevyn continued. ‘After all, you’ve ridden to many a battle. You must have seen the dead and dying, the wounds and suchlike.’
‘I don’t understand it, either. You’re right enough about the things I’ve seen.’ Gwairyc thought for a moment. ‘But you expect that, in a battle. You’re used to it. And you don’t let yourself dwell on it, like. This –’ He paused and suddenly saw the answer. ‘In battle, you’re fighting for your clan or your king. So much hangs on the outcome of a war. So all the death and the cuts and suchlike – they’re in a good cause, like. They matter.’
‘And this lad doesn’t matter?’
‘Why would he? Folk like these – one dies, there’s always more. They breed like rabbits.’
Nevyn cocked his head to one side and considered him for a long moment. Although the old man’s face displayed no particular feeling, Gwairyc began to wonder if he’d somehow shamed himself.
‘Well, um, mayhap, they’re more like horses.’ Gwairyc tried again. ‘You appreciate a good one, but if you lose him, you can get another.’
Nevyn blinked a few times, quickly.
‘It’s shameful!’ Gwairyc burst out. ‘I’m noble-born, but now I might as well be a farrier or a stablehand.’
‘Ah. Treating the sick is shameful.’
‘Well, not for you.’
‘But for you it is.’
‘Of course. You’re not a noble-born man.’
‘You’re quite sure of that?’
Gwairyc suddenly remembered the king, pouring the old man ale with his own hands. In a kind of panic he tried to speak but found he could only stammer.
‘It appears you see the flaw in your argument.’ Nevyn smiled in a twisted sort of way, then stood up. ‘You might think about all this a bit. Now, wring the water out of those brigga. Then spread them out flat on the grass to dry. I’m going back to the house.’
Once the brigga were drying, Gwairyc returned to the cow-barn. He unsaddled the pair of riding horses and unloaded the mule. He found a reasonably clean spot in a corner to pile up the gear, then looked over the various stalls.