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“Do you think that will really help?” Richard whispered when Nadine returned to Richard’s side, near the boy. “Drefan said he doesn’t know if it will.”
“I was taught that it was said to help serious sickness, like the plague,” she said in a low voice, “but I’ve never seen anyone with the plague before, so I can’t say for sure. Richard, it’s all I know to do. I have to try.”
Even though he was dead tired, and had a headache, Richard had no trouble sensing the helplessness in her voice. She wanted to help. As Drefan had said, maybe it would do some good.
Richard watched as Drefan pulled a knife from his belt. He gestured for Cara and Raina, who had both caught up with them after taking care of Richard’s instructions, to hold down the sick boy. Raina gripped Bert’s chin with one hand, and held his forehead with the other. Cara pressed his shoulders into the blankets.
With a steady hand, Drefan lanced the swelling at the side of the boy’s throat. Bert’s screams seared Richard’s nerves. He could almost feel the knife slicing his own throat. The mother wrung her hands as she stood off a ways, watching with unblinking eyes.
Richard remembered Drefan saying that if the person lived, they would complain the rest of their life about the torture of the treatment. Bert would have cause.
“What did you give Kip’s mother?” Kahlan asked Nadine.
“I gave her some herbs to smoke the house, the same as I gave this woman,” Nadine said. “And I made her a pouch of hop cone, lavender, yarrow, and lemon balm leaves to put in her pillow so that she might sleep. Even so, I don’t know that she will be able to sleep, after…” Her eyes turned away. “I know that I wouldn’t be able to,” she whispered, almost to herself.
“Do you have any herbs that you think might prevent the plague?” Richard asked. “Things that would keep people from catching it?”
Nadine watched Drefan mopping blood and pus from the boy’s throat. “I’m sorry, Richard, but I don’t know enough about it. Drefan might be right; he seems to know a lot. There may be no cure, or preventative.”
Richard went to the boy and squatted down beside Drefan, watching his brother work. “Why are you doing that?”
Drefan glanced over as he folded the rag to a clean place. “As I said before, sometimes, if the sickness can be brought to a head and drained, they will recover. I have to try.”
Drefan gestured to the two Mord-Sith. They gripped the boy again. Richard winced as he watched Drefan slide the sharp knife deeper into the swelling, bringing forth more blood and yellowish-white fluid. Mercifully, Bert passed out.
Richard wiped sweat from his own brow. He felt helpless. He had his sword to defend against attack, but it could do no good against this. He wished it was something he could fight.
Behind him, Nadine spoke to Kahlan in a soft voice, but loud enough for Richard to hear.
“Kahlan, I sorry about what I said before. I’ve devoted my life to helping sick people. It makes me so upset to see people suffer. That’s what I was angry about. Not you. I was frustrated at Yonick’s grief, and I lashed out at you. It wasn’t your fault. Nothing could have been done. I’m sorry.”
Richard didn’t turn. Kahlan said nothing, but she might have offered Nadine a smile to accept the apology.
Somehow, Richard doubted it.
He knew Kahlan, and he knew that she expected as much from others as she expected from herself. Forgiveness was not forthcoming simply because someone asked for it. The transgression was weighed into the equation, and there were transgressions that outweighed absolution.
The apology hadn’t been for Kahlan, anyway; it had been for Richard’s benefit. Like a child who had been upbraided, Nadine was on her best behavior, trying to impress him with how good she could be.
Sometimes, even though she had once brought him pain, a part of him was comforted to have Nadine around; she reminded him of home, and his happy childhood. She was a familiar face from a carefree time. Another part of him was troubled over what her real purpose was in coming. Despite what she might believe, she hadn’t decided it on her own. Someone, or something, had precipitated her actions. Another part of him wanted to skin her alive.
After they left Bert’s home, Yonick led them down a cobbled alley to a yard behind where Darby Anderson’s family lived. The small yard of mud churned with wood shavings was cluttered with cutoffs and scraps, several stickered stacks of lumber protected by tarps, some old, rusty two-man rip saws, two carving benches, and warped, split, or twisted boards leaning up against the buildings to the side.
Darby recognized Richard and Kahlan from the Ja’La game. He was astonished that they had come to his home. To have them come to see a Ja’La game was a cause of great pride, but to have them come to his home was beyond belief. He frantically brushed sawdust from his short brown hair and dirty work clothes.
Yonick had told Richard that the whole Anderson family—Darby, his two sisters, his parents, father’s parents, and an aunt—lived over their small workshop. Clive Anderson, Darby’s father, and Erling, his grandfather, made chairs. Both men, having heard the commotion, had come to the wide, double doors and were bowing.
“Forgive us, Mother Confessor, Lord Rahl,” Clive said after Darby had introduced his father, “but we didn’t know you were coming, or we would have made preparations—I’d have had my wife make tea, or something. I’m afraid that we’re just simple folk.”
“Please don’t be concerned about any of that, master Anderson,” Richard said. “We came because we were concerned about your son.”
Erling, the grandfather, took a stern step toward Darby. “What’s the boy done?”
“It’s nothing like that,” Richard said. “You have a fine grandson. We watched him play Ja’La the other day. One of the other boys is sick. Worse, two others of them have died.”
Darby’s eyes widened. “Died? Who?”
“Kip,” Yonick said, his voice choking off.
“And Sidney,” Richard added. “Bert is very ill, too.”
Darby stood in shock. His grandfather put a comforting hand to the boy’s shoulder.
“My brother, Drefan”—Richard lifted a hand to the side—“is a healer. We’re checking on all the boys on the Ja’La team. We don’t know if Drefan can help, but he would like to try.”
“I’m fine,” Darby said in a shaky voice.
Erling, an unshaven, scrawny man, had teeth so crooked Richard wondered how he managed to chew his food. He noticed Kahlan’s white dress and Richard’s gold cloak billowing in the cold wind, and gestured toward the shop.
“Please, won’t you all step inside? The wind is biting today. It’s warmer inside, out of the weather. I think we’ll have snow tonight, the way it looks.”
Ulic and Egan took up posts near the back gate. Soldiers milled about in the alley. Richard, Kahlan, Nadine, and Drefan went into the shop. Cara and Raina shadowed them inside, but remained on guard near the doors.
Old chairs and templates hung from pegs on the dusty walls. Cobwebs in all the corners, that in a forest would have netted dew, here netted loads of sawdust. The workbench held chair pieces being glued up, a fine-toothed saw, a variety of smaller finishing and beading planes, and a number of chisels. Several jack and long joiner planes hung on the wall behind the bench along with hammers and other tools.
Partially finished chairs, cinched tightly together in twisted ropes as they were being finished, or drying in peg-and-wedge clamps, sat about the floor. A carving horse where the grandfather had been when they came into the yard held a split billet of ash he had been working with a drawknife.
Clive, a broad-shouldered young man, seemed content to let his father do the talking.
“What’s ailing these children?” Erling asked Drefan.
Drefan cleared his throat but let Richard answer.
Richard was so tired he could hardly stand anymore. He almost felt as if he were asleep, and this was just a bad dream.
“The plague. I’m relieved to see that Darby, here, i
s well.”
Erling’s scruffy jaw dropped. “Dear spirits spare us!”
Clive turned white. “My daughters are sick.”
He turned suddenly and ran for the stairs, but stopped abruptly. “Please, master Drefan, will you see them?”
“Of course. Show the way.”
Upstairs, Darby’s mother, grandmother, and aunt had been making meat pies. Turnips were boiling in a pot hung in the hearth, and the boiling water had steamed the windows over.
The three women, alarmed by Clive’s calls, were waiting wide-eyed in the center of the upstairs common room. They were shocked by the sight of the strangers, but bowed the instant they saw Kahlan’s white dress. Kahlan, in the dress of the Mother Confessor, needed no introduction to anyone in Aydindril, or most of the Midlands, for that matter.
“Hattie, this man here, master Drefan, is a healer, and has come to see the girls.”
Hattie, her short, sandy-colored hair tied back with a head wrap, wiped her hands on her apron. Her gaze darted among all the people standing in her home. “Thank you. This way, please.”
“How do they fare?” Drefan asked Hattie on their way back to the bedroom.
“Beth has complained since yesterday of her head hurting,” Hattie said. “She was sick at her stomach, earlier. Common children ailments, that’s all.” It sounded to Richard more like a plea than a statement of fact. “I gave her some black horehound tea to settle her.”
“That’s good,” Nadine assured her. “An infusion made of pennyroyal might help, too. I have some with me I’ll leave in case she needs it.”
“Thank you for the kindness,” Hattie said, her concern growing with each step she took.
“What of the other girl?” Drefan asked.
Hattie had almost reached the doorway. “Lily’s not so sick, but just feeling out of sorts. I suspect she’s just looking for sympathy because her older sister is getting attention and honey tea. That’s the way of children. She has some little, round sores on her legs.”
