The ten students were much more relaxed at dinner, and Ilika let the innkeeper serve small cups of ale for their beverage. The healer arrived just as they were finishing, two large bags over her shoulders. She shared hugs with Kibi, Kodi, and several others before they all returned to the sleeping room.
“This evening is about taking care of yourselves . . . and each other,” Doti began as they settled onto their beds. “I brought a number of remedies, some of which I will leave with you.”
She scanned the room. “I believe you had the worst rope burns,” she said, looking at Miko and going to his bed with a jar of ointment. “That’s probably because you fight against whatever is wrong in your world.”
“Yep! That’s me!” Miko said with pride and a hint of defiance.
“That’s a good thing if you fight what you can change, and a bad thing if you only hurt yourself.”
“Usually he knows the difference,” Neti revealed. “Not always.”
Miko looked thoughtful. The others gathered around to listen, while Ilika sat on the hearth building a fire.
“You two are committed to each other, are you not?” Doti asked.
They nodded proudly and happily.
“I think I see . . .” the healer began, but then a slight shadow passed over her face. “I see that you are going to comfort and strengthen each other for your entire lives together.”
They both smiled.
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“Come, Neti. This is a very soft ointment made from the herbs goldenseal, comfrey, and calendula. It will help his wrists to heal. Take some and warm it up in your hands, then very gently, without rubbing or pressure, coat his wrists.”
Miko closed his eyes and smiled as the love of his life cared for him.
The healer looked around. “Let me see. Your name is Buna, is it not?”
“Yes,
Madame.”
“Let me see your wrists. Yes, you also have some rope burns, but these other sores are a little different.” She gently pulled up Buna’s tunic sleeves.
“They’re from something poisonous.”
“I was weeding a garden a few days ago, and they appeared that night.”
“I bet they itch.”
Buna
nodded.
“I have something a little different, made from comfrey, white willow, and cloves. This ointment is a little firmer.” Then she looked around. “Toli is your name?”
“Me?” he questioned nervously.
“Please come and care for your new sister.”
Red-faced and stumbling over his own feet, Toli managed to come forward.
“Use small amounts on a fingertip, gently covering each irritation. But when you’re ready to do her wrists, use the soft ointment in the green jar.”
Buna had a smirk on her face, clearly enjoying herself.
The healer looked at the two of them intently for a moment, then glanced at Miko and Neti. She frowned, but concealed it by turning her head and speaking. “Oh, yes, Mati!” she said, going to the girl’s bed. “You know, Mati, I’m sure you’re going to walk someday.”
“Really? How?” Mati asked with wide eyes.
“I don’t know. I cannot see everything.”
Ilika, observing from the hearth while tending the fire, became very interested and wandered close to listen.
“And because of that,” Doti continued, “you need to keep this knee of yours as healthy as you can. I have a special oil here, made with the herbs cayenne and elecampane, that will make it warm and happy.”
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“I’ll put it on,” Sata offered.
The healer looked at her for a moment. “No, Sata, I have a more important job for you.” Then she looked around, and quickly spotted the right person. “Rini is your name?” she asked the very quiet freckled boy.
He
nodded.
“Will you care for Mati?”
He
nodded
again.
“About a spoonful in your hands, then rub them together to warm it. Now here’s the tricky part that will require good communication. Start massaging very gently, and slowly become firmer and firmer until Mati says it’s starting to hurt. Back off a little, and massage it for a few minutes.”
With a thoughtful expression, Ilika returned to the hearth.
“Sata, I need your help with something very important,” the healer said.
“Sure,
anything.”
“Boro?”
“Oh, no . . . not my back,” he mumbled under his breath.
“Yes, Boro, your back. You may remember, Sata, that Boro was taking great pains at the bath house to keep people from seeing his back. He has a wound there that isn’t healing well because it has some dirt trapped inside.
How did it happen, Boro?”
The silence stretched for nearly a minute and a dark shadow came over Boro. His eyes looked far away as he began to tell his story.
“My earliest memory is living on a cattle ranch, maybe four years old, but I can’t see it clearly. I think I was happy. Then I remember a day when someone said there was a stampede, and I never saw my mother and father again.
“After that I lived with aunts and uncles, but they were always saying I was too gentle for man’s work, too clumsy for woman’s work. They would make me take a cow on a lead rope from one ranch to another, which was way too dangerous for a little kid. Twice I lost the cow and got whipped for it.
“One day I was walking a cow and a soldier came by. He didn’t believe me when I told him where I lived, said that if someone cared about me, they’d come to the guard house to pay my fine and get me out. No one showed, so I became a slave.
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“I guess I’m still too gentle and too clumsy. The last master I had made me wash dishes. I broke one and he jabbed me with the broken piece.”
After a moment of silence, Doti nodded and said, “Thank you, Boro. Wrap this blanket around your middle, then take off your tunic, please. Sata is your sister now, you are members of a team and have to take care of each other.
Am I not right, Ilika?”
“Completely right. We will be traveling together, even just in the learning period, and travel is dangerous without others to look after you. That’s why few people travel alone.”
“Boro is a very sweet boy,” the healer continued, coaxing him to lie down on his stomach, “and he sees and feels many things, but has trouble sharing them with others. Now he will have to let someone help him, or this wound will get worse and possibly kill him.”
Sata
swallowed.
“What we’re going to do, Sata, is put a few drops of this cleansing potion on the wound. Now we work it in, and in a moment Boro will start screaming.”
“I will?” he questioned, his voice muffled by the mattress.
“Yes, and when you do, you will stay right where you are and let Sata do what needs to be done.”
All the others held their breath. It wasn’t long before Boro started moaning and shaking from the pain.
“See how it’s opening up the wound where the dirt is trapped? Now we wipe it with a clean cloth . . . you still with me, Sata?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I had to help my brother when he stabbed his hand with a kitchen knife. It took weeks to heal.”
Boro’s moans became louder.
“Okay, we’ve got out all we can, so now we use a bit of this healing oil and rub it in.”
The patient quickly relaxed and fell silent.
“Can you trust Sata to do that once a day for the next week?” she asked the boy, still lying face-down.
“It’s
embarrassing.”
“Dying is worse,” Doti pointed out.
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 126
“Yeah, okay, I get the message.”
“Sata, you have strong hands, and I bet a little shoulder massage would feel good to Boro right now, and help him to trust you.”
Sata had a slight smile on her face as Boro began to make contented sounds.
Doti looked around the room, and was happy to see Kibi treating Kodi’s wrists. The healer brought out a few more ointments and oils and explained their uses to everyone. Then she remembered what else needed to be done, and who needed to do it.
“Ilika, I have a task for you that will require extreme gentleness.”
“What can I do?”
The healer spread out a cloth on the floor. “Kibi?”
“Yes,
Madame?”
“You had one of the worst cases of lice I’ve ever seen.”
The sixteen-year-old grinned sheepishly.
“Sit here, please. You trust Ilika already, don’t you?”
Kibi nodded vigorously.
The healer brought out a fine-toothed comb and handed it to Ilika. “I had to have this specially made.”
For the next hour, Ilika carefully worked through Kibi’s tangles. She drifted into a sleepy trance, swaying slightly as he worked on her thick, shaggy black hair. Thousands of tiny dead bugs collected on the cloth below.
Ilika had no idea how the healer could sense which students would become most closely bonded. But, he admitted to himself, as far as he could tell . . . as far as he could guess from their personalities . . . and, in his own case, as far as his heart was making its wishes known . . . she was right.
Deep Learning Notes
Some people might condemn Ilika for letting the students drink small cups of ale with dinner. The real cultural situation is that there is no refrigeration, so very few beverages we are used to would be safe. In the city, even water could be dangerous. Fruit juice must be freshly squeezed, and so is rare and
NEBADOR Book One: The Test 127
expensive. Tea is common and safe, so Ilika usually prefers it. The only reliable way to preserve a beverage at that time was through fermentation.
The herbal ingredients of Doti’s ointments and oils were selected for their actual pharmaceutical properties. For example, goldenseal is antiseptic (neutralizes toxins from infection and kills germs), comfrey is emollient (soothing to the skin), and calendula (marigold) has both of those properties.
Whether Doti’s “sight” about future relationships was correct or not, is unimportant. Travel around a medieval kingdom, and any voyage by ship, will result in injuries and illnesses. Both Doti and Ilika knew the students had to be willing to care for each other.
Did Doti “see” all the same relationships that the students would have seen or guessed?
Boro’s dirty cut was very serious, and could easily lead to death, because no effective antibiotics were known. The situation is most similar to having a first aid kit, but no doctors or hospitals. If the kit is not enough, permanent disability (Mati) or death (Boro) are lurking nearby.