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Jennsen smiled. “It looks like a little Grace.”
He nodded, returning her smile. “And like the Grace, it can be beneficial, but it can also be deadly.”
“How is it possible to be both beneficial and deadly?”
“One of those dried flower heads, ground up and added to this drink, will help the boy sleep deeply so he can fight off the fever, help drive it from him. More than one, though, actually causes fever.”
“Really?”
Looking as if he had anticipated her question, he held up a finger as he leaned closer. “If you were to take two dozen, thirty for certain, there would be no cure. Such a fever is swiftly fatal. It’s for this effect that the plant is named.” He showed her a sly smile. “In many ways an apt name for a flower so associated with love.”
“I suppose,” she said, thinking it over. “But if you ate more than one, but less than a couple dozen, would you still die?”
“If you were foolish enough to crush up ten or twelve and add them to your tea, you would come down with a fever.”
“And then you would eventually die, just as if you ate more?”
He smiled at the earnest concern on her face. “No. If you ate that many, it would cause a mild fever. In a day or two you would be over it.”
Jennsen peered carefully in at the whole collection of the deadly little Grace-like things and then set down the jar.
“It’s not going to harm you to touch one,” he said, seeing her reaction to the jarful. “You’d have to eat them to be affected. Even then, as I said, one in conjunction with other things will help the boy’s fever.”
Jennsen smiled her embarrassment and reached in with two fingers to retrieve one. She dropped it in the bottom of the mortar, where it looked like nothing so much as a Grace.
“If it was for an adult who was awake, I’d just crush it between my thumb and finger,” the healer said as he drizzled honey into the cup, “but he’s little and asleep besides. I need to get him to drink it down easily, so grind it to a dust.”
When he was finished, he added the dark dust of the little fever rose flower head Jennsen had crushed for him. Like the Grace it resembled, it could be lifesaving, or lethal.
She wondered what Sebastian would think of such a thing. She wondered if Brother Narev would want such mountain fever roses eradicated because they could potentially be lethal.
Jennsen put away the jars for the healer while he took the honeyed drink to the boy. Along with the mother’s help, they put the cup to his little lips and gently worked at getting him to drink. Drop by precious drop, they coaxed the sleeping boy to suckle and swallow each little bit they dribbled into his mouth. They weren’t able to rouse him, so they had to drip it into his mouth a little at a time, waiting until he swallowed as he slept, then urge him to drink a little more.
While they worked, Sebastian returned from the barn. Before he closed the door, she saw stars outside. A wave of cold air rolled past her legs, sending a shiver through her shoulders. When the wind died like this as the sky cleared, it often meant a bone-chilling cold night.
Sebastian made for the fire, eager to warm himself. Jennsen put another log on, using the poker to position it askew so it would catch well. The healer, his hand lying gently on the woman’s shoulder, nodded his assurance to her as she slowly gave the drink to her sick child. He left her to do the work, and, after hanging his cloak on a hook just inside the door closest to the hearth, joined Jennsen and Sebastian at the fire.
“Are this woman and child kin?” he said.
“No,” Jennsen said. With the warmth of the fire, she removed her cloak, too, and laid it over the bench at the table. “We saw her on the road, and she needed help. We just gave her a ride here.”
“Ah,” he said. “She will be welcome to sleep here with her boy. I need to keep my eye on him through the night.” She had forgotten about the singular nature of the knife she wore at her belt until he noticed it. “Please,” he said, “help yourself to the stew I have cooking; we always have plenty at hand for those who may come here. It’s late to be traveling. You both are welcome to use the cabins for the night. They’re all empty at present, so you may each have your own for the night.”
“That would be a kindness,” Sebastian said. “Thank you.”
Jennsen was about to say that they could share one cabin, when she realized that he had said that because she had told him that Sebastian wasn’t her husband. She realized how it would look if she said anything to change the plan, so she didn’t.
Besides, the idea of sleeping with Sebastian outdoors was only natural and innocent enough. Together in a cabin seemed somehow different. She recalled that several times on their long journey north to the People’s Palace they had taken shelter at inns. But that was before he had kissed her.
Jennsen gestured to include the general area. “Is this the place of the Raug’Moss?”
He smiled at her question, as if he found it amusing but didn’t want to mock her ignorance. “By no means. This is just one of several small outposts we use when we travel—shelter—and a place where people who need our services can come to us.”
“The boy is lucky you were here, then,” Sebastian said.
The Raug’Moss studied Sebastian’s eyes for a moment. “If he lives, I will be pleased that I was here to help him. We frequently have a brother at this station.”
“Why is that?” Jennsen asked.
“Outposts such as this help provide the Raug’Moss with income from serving the needs of people with no other access to healers.”
“Income?” Jennsen asked. “I thought that the Raug’Moss helped people out of charity, not for profit.”
“The stew, the hearth, the roof we offer, they do not appear magically because there is a need. People who come to us for the knowledge we’ve spent a lifetime acquiring are expected to contribute something in exchange for that help. After all, if we starve to death, how can we then help anyone else? Charity, if you have the means, is a personal choice, but charity which is expected or compelled is simply a polite word for slavery.”
The healer hadn’t been speaking about her, of course, but Jennsen still felt stung by his words. Had she always expected others to help her, feeling entitled to their help simply because she wanted it? As if her wish for their assistance took precedence over the best interest of their own lives?
Sebastian fished around in a pocket, coming up with a silver mark. He held it out to the man. “We would like to share what we have in return for your sharing what you have.”
After the briefest of glances at Jennsen’s knife, he said, “In your case, that isn’t necessary.”
“We insist,” Jennsen said, feeling uncomfortable knowing that this money wasn’t even really hers, something she had earned in exchange for the food, shelter, and care of their horses, but was taken from dead men.
With a bow of his head, he accepted the payment. “There are bowls in the cupboard on the right. Please help yourselves. I must tend to the boy.”
Jennsen and Sebastian sat on a bench at the trestle table and ate two bowls each of the hearty lamb stew from the big kettle. It was the best meal they had had since—since the meat pies Tom had left for them.
“This turned out to our advantage,” Sebastian said in a low voice.
Jennsen glanced to the side of the room to see the healer and the mother bent over the boy. She leaned closer as he stirred a spoon through his stew.
“How so?”
His blue eyes turned up to her. “Gives the horses good feed and a good rest. Us too. That gives us an advantage over anyone chasing us.”
“Do you really think they could have any idea where we are? Or even be close?”
Sebastian shrugged as he ate more of his stew. He checked across the room before he spoke. “I can’t see how they could, but they’ve surprised us before, haven’t they?”
Jennsen admitted the truth of it with a nod and went back to eating her own meal in silence.
/> “Anyway,” he said, “this gives us and the horses needed food and rest. It can only help us put more distance on them. I’m glad that you reminded me of how the Creator helps those in need.”
Jennsen was warmed by his smile. “I hope it helps that poor boy.”
“Me too,” he said.
“I’m going to clean up and see if they need any help.”
He nodded as he scooped up the last piece of lamb into his spoon. “You take the next to last cabin. I’ll take the one after, on the end. I’ll go start you a fire first while you finish up, here.”
After he put his spoon in his empty bowl, Jennsen put a hand over his. “Sleep well.”
She basked in his private smile for her and then watched as he whispered to the healer. By the man’s nod, she guessed that Sebastian had thanked him and wished him a good night. The mother, sitting beside her boy, stroking his brow, also thanked Sebastian for the help, and hardly noticed the icy air that rushed in as he went out the door.
Jennsen carried a steaming bowl of stew over to the woman. She accepted it politely, but absently, her attention on her small worry asleep at her hip. At Jennsen’s urging, the healer sighed in agreement and sat at the table while she served him a bowl of his stew.
