Page 8 of Tea and Empathy

She didn’t know if Lucina had told others, but several other customers began asking for teas particular to certain ailments. She offered teas to treat coughs, congestion, and digestive upsets, and her insomnia treatments were popular. Then the greengrocer showed her a rash on his hands. That required a salve rather than a tea, so she moved beyond merely selling tea. Still, this work wasn’t too far removed from what she did when finding just the right tea for a person, so she didn’t consider herself to be acting as a healer, and she didn’t use her magical gift for recommending treatments, just her expertise and training. None of the ailments she treated were life-or-death, so she couldn’t do much harm if she failed.

Some of Elwyn’s customers bartered with whatever goods they produced, but several paid in coin.That meant that when the peddler came to the market, Elwyn had money to spend. She was able to restock on real tea, as well as a few spices, though she was careful not to buy enough that it would be obvious an herbalist was in business, in case the peddler had seen any wanted posters, and she bought cloth to make some new clothes that weren’t as worn as what she’d had on the road. The helper turned out to be as skilled with a needle as it was in the kitchen because she woke the next morning with a new dress hanging on the hook in her room. It had more flounces on it than she would have liked, but it was nice having fresh clothing.

Everything was going so well that she was starting to worry that something was sure to go wrong. This was when the baron’s men would find her and drag her away, after one of her new friends betrayed her. Or her friends would find out what had happened and run her out of town. It was too good to last. She started to think she should plan her departure and leave before her past caught up with her. She had new clothing and money, and she’d stayed longer in this place than she had at any other place since she’d fled the duke’s court. It was time to move on, but she kept delaying, telling herself she’d stay one more day. All the while, she couldn’t escape the sense that something was bound to happen.

It turned out she was right, though not in any way she’d expected.

One morning, she went out to the garden to pick some berries for breakfast. She saw a glint of metal from near the berry vines and went over to see what it was. She fought back a yelp when she saw a man lying there.

“I knew I should have left yesterday,” she muttered.

Chapter 5

The man wore armor on his upper body and had a sword on his belt. Elwyn didn’t see any insignia on his armor, but an armored man in her garden was a bad sign. Had the baron found her? Was this one of his men? She wasn’t even sure he was alive. If he was dead, would she be accused of his murder? She wanted to rush inside, pack her belongings and as much food as she could, and flee. On the other hand, although she had abandoned her calling, she had sworn an oath to provide aid where it was needed. There was no other healer nearby. If she abandoned him, then she truly would have failed as a healer, regardless of what had happened in the past.

She knelt beside him and picked up his hand, placing her fingers against his wrist. He had a pulse, a little weaker and more rapid than it should have been, but he was alive. She clasped his hand in hers and opened her senses, going deeper than she’d allowed herself to go when reading her friends to select tea for them. She immediately felt a sharp pain in her upper side, just under her armpit, and an ache on the side of her cheek. A more detailed scan showed that the cheek was merely bruised. The wound on the side had slashed across his ribs but had hit nothing vital. She felt the clammy, shaky sense of shock, probably from loss of blood. She didn’t find any injury in his head, so the unconsciousness must have been either from pain or shock, or possibly both of them in combination with exhaustion.

She doubted he’d been wounded in her garden. Surely she or the helper would have heard something if a fight had happened just outside, and the plants around him weren’t disturbed. He must have reached the cottage and collapsed after being wounded elsewhere.

At the moment, though, it didn’t matter who he was or why he’d come. She was obligated to treat him. Unfortunately, the helper couldn’t leave the house to help her bring him inside, and it wouldn’t be able to lift the man. If it was like the one she’d known growing up, the magic that created it kept it from being able to directly affect humans. Otherwise, the one in this cottage would probably carry her to bed when she stayed up late and force any potential couples into each other’s arms.

Dragging him wouldn’t be good for his wound, but he didn’t have any injuries that would be complicated by moving him, so she got the wheelbarrow out of the shed. She rolled him into it and adjusted him so that his head rested at the top and his legs dangled over the end. Trying to move as smoothly as possible, she wheeled him to the back door. It was a good thing this part of the garden wasn’t visible from the road and no one could see past the trees on either side of the garden. Otherwise, the neighbors were sure to wonder about her hauling a man to her house in a wheelbarrow. Then again, her closest neighbor was Mair, and she’d find it amusing and intriguing. She’d want to know if the man was handsome.

Elwyn looked down at his face. She supposed he might be considered handsome, though it was hard to tell while he was unconscious and sprawled over the wheelbarrow. He had brown hair that fell across his forehead and a long, straight nose. He certainly wasn’t ugly, but she’d always felt that it was what was inside that made someone attractive, and that didn’t show now.

The helper opened the door for her, and she eased the man out of the wheelbarrow onto the floor of the hall at the foot of the stairs. “I’ll need medical supplies,” she said. “Bandages, hot water, witch hazel, silk and a needle for sutures, and the comfrey cream. Or arnica, whichever we have. Is there any tincture of calendula? And a blanket.” While the helper rounded up the supplies, she gingerly removed the wounded man’s sword belt and armor. She’d done that far too often at tournaments while she was employed at the duke’s court and sometimes in the duke’s chambers after the tournament. The duke had liked to set an example by going full-tilt, even against younger knights, then expected her to set things to rights afterward, away from the eyes of the court.

The last time she’d removed a man’s armor, though, it hadn’t been the duke’s. It had been another wounded knight, and that was when she’d failed as a healer. She’d spent so much time dealing with the consequences of that particular knight’s actions among the serving girls that she hadn’t been as careful as she should have been. She must have missed something because he died in spite of her treatment, even though she hadn’t thought his wounds were that severe. Since she hadn’t been allowed to examine his body, she’d never know what she’d missed, and she couldn’t even console herself with the thought that it had been unintentional. She hadn’t wanted him to die, but she hadn’t been all that worried about whether he would live.

Shaking herself out of the memory, she set the armor aside and saw that she’d been right about the wound, a slash between the breastplate and pauldron. He should have had a padded arming doublet, if not mail, beneath the armor to protect against wounds like this. All he had under the armor was a shirt that was soaked in blood. She peeled the fabric away from his skin and pushed it up to reveal the wound. His ribs had deflected the blow so that the wound didn’t go deep enough to hit anything vital, but he wouldn’t be raising his right arm or moving his torso much anytime soon. Whoever had attacked him had either known exactly where to strike him where he wasn’t protected or had been very lucky.

A bowl of warm water and a cloth settled on the floor beside her. She soaked the cloth in the water and sponged the blood away from the wound so she could get a better look. What she saw matched what she’d read. She placed her hand gently on the wound itself and extended her senses once more. She didn’t detect anything amiss. He’d be sore, but he should live.

She cut his shirt off so it wouldn’t get in the way, poured water over the wound to wash it more thoroughly, then poured a witch hazel solution to clean the wound and slow the bleeding. He didn’t so much as stir, though that should have stung. The wound was still bleeding, but slowly. It would need to be closed. She poured witch hazel over the needle and thread, then closed the wound with a row of stitches. The helper stood by with scissors to snip off the thread. A little blood oozed between the stitches, and she dabbed it away with more witch hazel. A vial of calendula tincture landed in her hand, and she dripped a few drops over the wound before she pressed her hand against it and sent healing energy into it. She then placed a pad of folded linen along the wound and secured it in place with a long bandage wrapped across his body and shoulder.

As she worked, she noted that he was lean and not particularly muscular. In her experience, knights were well-muscled from all the training with weapons. A man had to be strong to fight in armor and swing a sword, often for hours at a time. He looked to be about her age, so he was beyond being a page or squire. A knight that age should have had more muscles, and probably a few scars.

The armor was wrong, as well. Of course, he wouldn’t have been riding around the countryside dressed in full tournament armor, but this armor was hardly functional, as though he’d dressed to look like a knight or soldier rather than to truly protect himself from attack. It was ill-fitting, incomplete, and put on badly. Which explained how he’d been wounded in spite of the armor. The gaps between pieces had been too big.

The more serious wound dealt with, she checked the bruise on his cheek. He’d taken a blow to the face, but recently, as the bruise was only just beginning to form. The spot was mostly red, but was starting to show bits of blue. She dabbed his cheek with arnica oil to speed healing. That done, she checked him over from head to foot, looking for any blood she hadn’t noticed before. His limbs were whole, and she saw no sign of broken ribs. There was some mild bruising in places, but nothing that would cause much pain or impairment. It didn’t appear that her empathic scan had missed anything, unless it was hidden deep within and causing no pain.

She pulled a blanket over him and sat back on her heels, studying her patient. The hallway floor couldn’t be very comfortable, but he wouldn’t be feeling that now. He needed to be warm, though. She knew she couldn’t get him up the stairs to a bed, but she might be able to get him to the sitting room. “Can you please bring me the rug from in front of the sitting room fire?” she said to the helper. When the rug didn’t come, she said, “He’s not bleeding anymore, so he won’t ruin it. You can bring a towel to put under him, and I’m sure you have the skill to get out any blood stains. Your rug won’t be damaged.”

Soon, the rug came slithering down the hall, as though it was crawling on its own. A towel landed on top of it. After thanking the helper, she lifted one side of the man and let the helper shove the rug under him. She then edged him over until he was lying on the rug, the towel under his wounded side, and she dragged the rug down the hall to the sitting room and then over to the fire, which flared up as the helper stoked it.

Just then, the bell she’d rigged so that she could hear from the living quarters when someone was at the door rang. That meant she likely had someone else in need of aid. A friendly visitor would have gone around to the back door. “I’d better go deal with that,” she said. “Keep an eye on him and let me know discreetly if something seems to be wrong. I suspect he’ll sleep right through it, but you never know.”

She rinsed her hands and dried them, checking for any signs of blood on her knuckles or under her nails, before she stood and headed to the front door, where she found the miller, half crumpled in agony.

Remembering Mair’s warning, she hurried to put the counter between herself and him after she let him inside. “What seems to be the trouble?” she asked, forcing a friendly smile.

“Well, you see, I get this grumbling in my gut . . .” he began, then launched into a list of symptoms so personal and, quite frankly, disgusting that she had to believe he really was in distress and wasn’t merely using this as an excuse to be alone with her. He’d have to be delusional to think that a woman who’d heard such details about his bowels would have amorous feelings about him anytime soon. Just when she thought he’d listed everything that could possibly happen to a person’s digestive system, he told her about even more symptoms. She fought the urge to glance over her shoulder as she wondered how her other patient was doing.

Finally, she had to ask, “What have you eaten? It sounds like your body is trying to purge something.”

“I can’t think of anything,” he said with a shrug, not meeting her eyes. “Not unless Nesta is trying to poison me.”

Elwyn was afraid she couldn’t entirely rule that out, given what Nesta had recently learned about her husband. “And what about Nesta? Is she ill, as well?”

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