No True Way (27 page)

The hamlet they were heading for hardly justified having a name, but it did; Kettleford. She was well known there, and it was one of her favored stops on this circuit, even when there was no one there who needed her services.

It wasn't likely anyone from her old village of Hartrise would come that far and recognize her, so she always felt reasonably safe from detection there. Hartrise had its own Healer and wouldn't send anyone looking for the Healer on Circuit, no matter who was hurt or ill. As for people from Hartrise coming to Kettleford, the
people of Kettleford shrewdly took their trade and sale goods to the larger village, rather than let anyone sharp them by offering less than the market value.

And no one ever questioned why she left Hartrise out of her Circuit.

The pure fact was, she never wanted to see it again.

Once again, her thoughts reverted to the past. It seemed even when she was determined
not
to think of it, the mere sight of Digby had triggered memories she'd hoped were long buried.

It had been a fine spring day, and she had been fifteen, when it finally got too much to bear. No matter how much she objected, her parents would not give over the charade. Not one, but two Companions had passed through in the same week, and twice more of being dragged out—and the taunting afterward by boys who, by now, should have been old enough to know better and should have by rights been too busy with work to take the time to find her and tease her—had been the straw that broke the cow's back.

By that point, she was an easy target for taunting; for years she'd been stuffing herself with anything she could get her hands on whenever the hurt got too bad. Food had turned into a source of comfort, and if it was salted with her tears, well, it was still consolation. But all that food had taken its own sort of toll. Now it was “Herald Fatty,” not “Herald Rosie,” with taunts about how she must have broken her Companion's back.

So that night, before she could lose her nerve, she packed up what she could carry and a big basket of food, and she ran away. By dawn, she was far enough away from Hartrise that she figured she'd outpaced her pursuit—she could walk for leagues when she put her mind to it, and she'd been determined to escape. She did have some skills she
could use to make her way, thanks to all those lessons her parents had forced down her throat. She'd reckoned that if she could find some religious place or a House of Healing, she could go to work making copies of books or writing letters for those who couldn't. There was always room for a good scrivener. The one thing her parents' constant nagging had done was ensure she had excelled past just about anyone in the village except the local priest when it came to reading and writing and figures. Certainly far past the bullying boys who reckoned they didn't need to learn anything, since their strong shoulders and handsome faces were all they'd need. Marry a rich farmer's daughter, and live in clover, was their idea of how they would prosper.

That didn't work out so well for you, did it, Digby?
she thought maliciously.

She'd come to a House of Healing first, but when she'd rung the bell and got no answer, then decided to go ahead and come in anyway, she discovered a scene out of a nightmare. There'd been an avalanche down onto the mining village of Stonetree, where a pile of tailings that had built up for generations had given way, and the place was full of smashed-up men, women, and children. She'd stood in the doorway of the main ward, transfixed with horror. There was blood everywhere, and the moans of the injured were somehow worse than screams. The Healers and their helpers had seen nothing in her but another pair of healthy hands; they'd snatched her things out of her hands and off her back, given her some rudimentary instruction, and shoved her at the least-injured, figuring anyone could bandage cuts and staunch the bleeding.

And then came the miracle she had never expected.

The moment her hands had touched the first child, she felt something flowing out of her, and before her own
astonished eyes, the bleeding gashes down his arm and face stopped bleeding, closed, and sealed . . .

One of the Healers felt it happening, felt the flow of Healing energy suddenly surging out of her, and rushed to her. He was on his last legs, but she was fresh. He could muster enough energy to coach her in what she needed to do, though he was so spent he was just barely able to stay coherent.

Then came the second miracle, as she used up that store of fat she had built up, burning it off in a frenzy of Healing. By the end of the day, she was a full two stone lighter—and at the weight she should have been, if she hadn't been cramming food in her mouth all these years. That was when she learned that the energy to Heal generally came from the Healer herself, and that the store of fat she had built up over the years was the source of the fuel that had driven her to do more that day than any but the most experienced. She had an instinctive talent for Healing that more than made up for her lack of training. And that put her out of reach of any other demand. Even if her parents had shown up at the door and demanded her back, the Healers would never have let her go.

Rosie, calling herself “Ruby,” had done her best to cover her trail so there was never a chance they'd find her in the first place. She'd spun a tale of being orphaned and looking for work, and the Healers didn't question her, not once in all the time of her being there.

They'd asked once if she wanted to go to Healers' Collegium in Haven. “And what can I learn there that you can't teach me?” she'd asked. Since the answer was “Nothing,” she was spared having to face a horde of Companions, and Heralds, too, and be reminded how she had managed to fail over and over.

I'm not a failure,
she told herself fiercely, as the wind stung her eyes and made them water.
I'm not. I was never meant to be a Herald in the first place. And I am a damn good Healer, so there.

And just as she thought that . . . she heard the sound of bells and bell-like hooves racing toward her.

Brownie reacted to her start by stopping dead in his tracks, and before she could collect herself, the Companion whose hooves and bells she had heard rounded a bend of the road just ahead and skidded to a halt in front of her.

:Oh, thank goodness,:
she heard, clearly, in her mind.
:I didn't think you were so close!:

Vixen held back the half-dozen things she might have said, most of them angry retorts that would have upset the poor thing, and throttled back on all the emotions pouring through her. After all, absolutely
nothing
she had gone through as a child was the fault of any Companion, or Herald either. “I take it your Herald is injured? Ill?” She did let out a slight sigh of exasperation. After all, it would make a Healer's job a great deal easier if Heralds didn't persist in flinging themselves enthusiastically into danger at the drop of a hat.

:Injured. He broke his ankle this morning; a plank on a footbridge gave way under him.:

It was such a
prosaic
injury that it startled a laugh out of her. The Companion's head came up indignantly, but a moment later, she dropped her nose and shook her head ruefully.

:I know. It's terribly . . . ordinary. Isn't it?:

“Entirely. I assume he's in Kettleford?”

:Matya has him put up on a featherbed by the fire and she's warming the spare bed in the loft for you.:
Well, that
was a most satisfactory answer.
:She said you were due today or tomorrow, but I didn't want to chance his ankle setting wrong and came to look for you.:

“Then let's not dilly-dally around here any longer,” she said firmly. “You're right; we don't want his ankle to set without proper tending, and I don't want to be caught out on the road anywhere near dark.”

The Companion nodded in agreement, reared and pivoted gracefully on her hind hooves, and was off like a shot arrow. Brownie didn't need any urging to follow, and increased his pace to a trot. His feet thudded heavily on the turf-and-dirt of the road, and she pulled her cloak tight around her as the wind picked up again.

There was still light in the sky as they came out from under the trees and into the cleared land around the hamlet of Kettleford. There were only nine houses, five on one side of the road and four on the other. There was a watering trough and a well in a widened spot in the middle of the road. There was no inn, though the sign of a shock of wheat above the door of Old Taffy's house, and the presence of a couple of benches on either side of the door, would inform anyone passing through that he could get beer and something like a meal there. Locals would all gather in Taffy's parlor of a night for a drink and a chat and perhaps a game or two. Each of the houses had a little cottage garden where folks grew their vegetables, but for the most part, people here hunted or trapped, with a couple of those who knew what to look for supplementing their income by gathering rare herbs and dye plants. There were hides and furs staked out in various stages of curing in every yard and on every bit of wall. Some of the hides were of odd shapes or very peculiar patterns or colors. This was the edge of the Pelagiris
Forest, after all, and odd things prowled the paths, creatures whose furs were highly desirable just on the basis of their rarity or oddity. Matya was the sole holdout among the hunters, although her husband had been one of them when he was alive. She raised chickens and rabbits and had three cows. The entire hamlet got their butter, eggs, and cheese from her, as well as their potherbs. She was no kind of Healer though; herbs for the kitchen, herbs for tanning, and herbs for dyeing were her specialty. In season, she'd get at least a visitor a week from all over this area to trade for what she produced.

Matya's cowshed was spacious—big enough for a half-dozen cows, though she only had three now. There was more than enough room for Brownie and the Companion. And like every building here, the word “shed” was something of a misnomer; it was built like a fortress, all of stone, with tiny windows that had heavy shutters, and a stout slate roof. Even the chicken coop and the rabbit hutch were built the same. It wasn't safe, otherwise. Matya herself came out, wiping her hands on her apron, her shawl wrapped firmly about her shoulders, at the sound of the Companion's bells.

“Nah, I told this one you'd be coming along shortly, Vixen,” was Matya's greeting, as she opened the gate and let them into the yard with the shed in it. “But nothing would have it but that she go out looking for you.”

“She told you that?” Vixen raised an eyebrow.

Matya bellowed a laugh, tossing her weathered head back. “Don't be daft! She mimed it, belike. Let's get these creatures both comfortable, then ye can see to the lad.”

Together they untacked both Brownie and the Companion and let them find places for themselves among the cows, who amiably made way for them. Dividing the
saddlebags and panniers equally, they closed a door built of planks a thumb-length thick, latched it up, and went in to the cottage.

Matya's cottage consisted of two rooms with a loft. One room—just big enough for her bed—was where she slept. The other served every other purpose. The loft was over the bedroom. The floor was wood, for warmth; half-logs laid in sand and pegged together, gaps filled with a combination of sawdust and glue. Matya had once told Vixen proudly that her husband had laid it himself, not wanting his bride to have to cope with a pounded-earth floor.

There was a little table, three half-log benches, one corner was a kitchen with a pantry, a cupboard, and a stone sink, and that was all the furnishing. Right now the most prominent thing in the room was the bed made up of furs and blankets beside the fire, and the far-too-handsome, pale-faced, black-haired young man in Herald's Whites lying in it. He raised himself up on his elbow and tried to smile, but it was obvious to Vixen he was in a lot of pain.

“You are a welcome sight, Healer Vixen,” he said.

He didn't know her, of course; they'd never met, but they knew each other's names, since they shared the Circuit. “I imagine I am, Herald Vanyel,” she said dryly. “Let's see what kind of mess you've made of yourself.”

She laid her burdens down next to one of the benches, while Matya did the same, and pulled off her cloak and draped it over one of the panniers. She knelt at the foot of his improvised bed and pulled back the blankets. “Well, at least you got your boot off,” she remarked, cupping her hands around the misshapen ankle.

“I got it off as soon as I realized I'd broken
something,” he replied. “I couldn't see how I would make it worse, and I didn't want to have to have it cut off.”

She just grunted. He
could
have made it worse, but, fortunately, either by skill or accident, he hadn't. She closed her eyes, and . . . well, it was hard to describe what she did in words. She . . .
sensed
what was going on in there. It wasn't like seeing, and it wasn't like feeling; it was more like
knowing.

Well, he had gotten lucky. The bone wasn't broken entirely, it was cracked. If he'd tried to walk on it, he certainly
would
have turned those cracks into breaks, but he'd had the wit not to try. “Not so bad,” she said, opening her eyes. Then she went to her panniers for the plaster-powder and bandages. Only after she had the foot and ankle protected and immobilized did she cup her hands around the joint a second time and give the bones their first round of Healing.

And only after
that
did she make up a dose of painkilling tea, which the Herald drank down without a face and without a complaint.

Meanwhile, Matya had taken her bags and stored them out of the way, extracted the cold pocket pies, and warmed them next to the fire. Vixen was ravenous after the Healing session, of course, and she ate three to Matya and the Herald's one each.