The Pillars of Creation (33 page)

Inside the cabin, a large hearth made of rounded rocks took up most of the wall to the right. Crude burlap curtains hung to the sides of the two doorways to rear rooms. A rough-hewn mantel held a lamp, as did the plank tabletop, neither lamp lit. Oak logs crackled and popped in the hearth, lending the room a smoky but inviting aroma, as well as the soft flicker of firelight. An iron arm, black with soot, held a lidded kettle off to the side of the fire. After so long out in the weather, Jennsen felt it was almost too hot inside.

The healer laid the boy on one of several pallets along the wall opposite the hearth. The mother knelt on one knee, watching as he drew back the folds of the blanket. Jennsen left them to examine the child as she casually checked the place, making sure there were no surprises lurking. There hadn’t been any chimney smoke coming from the other cabins, and she hadn’t seen any tracks through the fresh snow, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t be people in those other cabins.

Jennsen moved across the room, past the trestle table in the center, to warm her hands at the hearth. It gave her the chance to cast a glance into the two rooms at the rear. Each was tiny, with a sleeping pallet and a few items of clothing hanging on pegs. There was no one else in the place. Between the doorways stood simple pine cabinets.

As Jennsen held her hands up before the heat of the fire and the boy’s mother sang him soft songs, the healer hurried to the cabinet and pulled out a number of clay jars.

“Bring a flame for the lamp, please?” he asked as he set his armload of items on the table.

Jennsen pried a long splinter from one of the logs stacked to the side, then held it in the wavering flames until it caught. While she lit the lamp and then replaced the tall glass chimney, he took pinches of fine powders from several of the jars and added them to a white cup.

“How is the boy?” she asked in a whisper.

He glanced across the room. “Not good.”

“What can I do to help?” Jennsen asked after she had adjusted the wick.

He wiggled the stopper from a jar. “Well, if you wouldn’t mind, bring over the mortar and pestle from the center cupboard.”

Jennsen retrieved the heavy gray stone mortar and pestle for him and set it on the table beside the lamp. He was adding a mustard-colored powder to the cup. So intent was he on his task that he hadn’t removed his cloak, but when he pushed the hood back out of his way she could finally get a good look at him.

His face didn’t rivet her, the way Wizard Rahl’s so unexpectedly had. She saw nothing in this man’s round eyes, straight brow, or the pleasant enough line of his mouth that looked at all familiar to her. He gestured to a bottle made of wavy green glass.

“If you would, could you please grind one of those for me?”

While he hurried to the corner to lift a brown crockery pot down from a high shelf, Jennsen unfastened the wire hold-down and removed the glass lid from the jar. She was astonished to see the strangest little things inside. It was the shape that so surprised her. She turned one over with a finger. It was dark, flat, and round. She could see by the light of the lamp that it was something that had been dried. She jiggled the jar. They all looked the same—like a jar full of little Graces.

Just like the magical symbol, these things had an outer circle, parts that suggested a square inside that, and a smaller circle inside the square. Overlaying it all, tying it together, was another structure rather like a fat star. While not exactly a Grace, the way she had always seen it drawn, it bore a remarkable resemblance.

“What is this?” she asked.

The healer cast off his cloak and pushed up the sleeves of his simple robes. “Part of a flower—the dried base of the filament from a mountain fever rose. Pretty little things, they are. I’m sure you must have seen them before. They come in a variety of colors, depending on where they grow, but they’re best known for the common blush color. Hasn’t your husband ever brought you a nosegay of mountain fever roses?”

Jennsen felt her face flush. “He’s not—we’re just traveling together. We’re friends, is all.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding neither surprised nor curious. He pointed. “See there? The petals are attached to it here, and here. When the petals and stamen are removed and this selected part of the head is dried, they end up looking like this.”

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.

“Quite good, even if I made it,” he said with good humor as she brought him a mug of water.

Jennsen chuckled, assuring him that she shared his conviction. She let him eat, occupying herself with cleaning the dirty bowls in a wooden wash bucket and then adding several logs to the fire. The burning logs shot showers of sparks. Oak made a good fire, but it was messy without a screen. As she arranged the logs, sparks anew swirled up the chimney amid billowing smoke. With a broom from the corner, she swept the dead ashes back into the hearth.

When she saw that the healer was nearly finished with his meal, she sat on the bench, close to him, so that she could speak privately. “We must be leaving early, so in case I miss you in the morning, I wanted to thank you for all your help this evening, not only for the boy, but for us as well.”