As they climbed up onto the seat, Keron galloped past them back towards the village. Her father took up the reins and flicked them. The mare snorted and shook her head, then started forward.
Tessia glanced at her father. “Do you think...?” she began, then stopped as she realised the pointlessness of her question.
Do you think it might have something to do with the Sachakan? she had wanted to ask, but such questions were a waste of breath. They would find out when they got there.
It was hard not to imagine the worst. The villagers hadn’t stopped muttering about the foreign magician visiting Lord Dakon’s house since he had arrived, and it was hard not to be infected by their fear and awe. Though Lord Dakon was a magician, he was familiar, respected and Kyralian. If he was feared it was only because of the magic he could wield and the control over their lives he held; he was not the sort of landowner who misused either power. Sachakan magicians on the other hand had, scant centuries ago, ruled and enslaved Kyralia and by all reports liked to remind people, whenever the chance came, what things had been like before Kyralia was granted its independence.
Think like a healer, she told herself as the cart bounced down the road. Consider the information you have. Trust reason over emotion.
Neither the Sachakan nor Lord Dakon could be ill. Both were magicians and resistant to all but a few rare maladies. They weren’t immune to plagues, but rarely succumbed to them. Lord Dakon would have called on her father for help long before any disease needed urgent attention, though it was possible the Sachakan wouldn’t have mentioned being ill if he didn’t want to be tended by a Kyralian healer.
Magicians could die of wounds, she knew. Lord Dakon could have injured himself. Then an even more frightening possibility occurred to her. Had Lord Dakon and the Sachakan fought each other?
If they had, the lord’s house – and perhaps the village, too – would be ruined and smoking, she told herself, if the tales of what magical battles are like are true. The road descending from the farmer’s home gave a clear view of the houses below, lining either side of the main road this side of the river. All was as peaceful and undisturbed as it had been when they had left.
Perhaps the patient or patients they were hurrying to treat were servants in the lord’s house. Aside from Keron, six other house and stable servants kept Lord Dakon’s home in order. She and her father had treated them many times before. Landworkers living outside the village sometimes travelled to the Residence when they were sick or injured, though usually they went directly to her father.
Who else is there? Ah, of course. There’s Jayan, Lord Dakon’s apprentice, she remembered. But as far as I know he has all the same physical protections against illness as a higher magician. Perhaps he picked a fight with the Sachakan. To the Sachakan, Jayan would be the closest thing to a slave, and—.
“Tessia.”
She looked at her father expectantly. Had he anticipated who needed his services?
“I...Your mother wants you to stop assisting me.” Anticipation shrivelled into exasperation. “I know.” She grimaced. “She wants me to find a nice husband and start having babies.”
He didn’t smile, as he had in the past when the subject came up. “Is that so bad? You can’t become a healer, Tessia.”
Hearing the serious tone in his voice, she stared at him in surprise and disappointment. While her mother had expressed this opinion many times before, her father had never agreed with it. She felt something inside her turn to stone and fall down into her gut, where it lay cold and hard and uncomfortable. Which was impossible, of course. Human organs did not turn to stone and certainly could not shift into the stomach.
“The villagers won’t accept you,” he continued.
“You can’t know that,” she protested. “Not until I’ve tried and failed. What reason could they have to distrust me?”
“None. They like you well enough, but it is as hard for them to believe that a woman can heal as that a reber could sprout wings and fly. It’s not in a woman’s nature to have a steady head, they think.”
“But the birthmothers... they trust them. Why is there any difference between that and healing?”
“Because what we... what the birthmothers do is specialised and limited. Remember, they call for my help when their knowledge is insufficient. A healer has learning and experience behind him that no birthmother has access to. Most birthmothers can’t even read.”
“And yet the villagers trust them. Sometimes they trust them more than you.”
“Birthing is an entirely female activity,” he said wryly. “Healing isn’t.”
Tessia could not speak. Annoyance and frustration rose inside her but she knew angry outbursts would not help her cause. She had to be persuasive, and her father was no simple peasant who might be easily swayed. He was probably the smartest man in the village.
As the cart reached the main road she cursed silently. She had not realised how firmly he’d come to agree with her mother. I need to change his mind back again, and I need to do it carefully, she realised. He doesn’t like to go against Mother’s wishes. So I need to weaken her confidence in her arguments as much as reduce Father’s doubts about continuing to teach me. She needed to consider all the arguments for and against her becoming a healer, and how to use them to her benefit. And she needed to know every detail of her parents’ plans.
“What will you do without me assisting you?” she asked. “I’ll take on a boy from the village,” her father said.
“Which one?”
“Perhaps Miller’s youngest. He is a bright child.”
So he’d already been considering the matter. She felt a stab of hurt.
The well-maintained main road was less rutted than the farmer’s track, so her father flicked the reins and urged the mare to quicken her pace. The increased vibration of the cart robbed Tessia of the ability to think. She saw faces appear in windows as they reached the village. The few people walking about stopped, acknowledging her father with nods and smiles.
She gripped the rail as her father tugged on the reins to slow the mare and turn her through the gates at one side of the lord’s Residence. In the dim light of the building’s shadows she made out stable workers coming forward to take the reins as the cart stopped. Her father jumped down from the seat. Keron stepped forward to take her father’s bag. She leapt down to the ground and hurried after as they disappeared into the house.
Tessia caught glimpses of the kitchen, storeroom, washroom and other practical spaces through the doorways of the corridor they strode down. Their rapid footsteps echoed in the narrow stairwell as they climbed up to the floor above. A few turns later and she found herself in a part of the building she had never seen before. Tastefully decorated walls and fine furniture suggested a living area, but these were not the rooms she had seen a few years before, when her father had been summoned to tend a rather vapid young woman suffering from a fainting fit. There were a few bedrooms, and a seating room, and she guessed these were rooms for guests.
She was surprised, then, when Keron opened a door and ushered them into a small room furnished with only a plain bed and a narrow table. No windows let in light, so a tiny lamp burned in the room. It felt mean and dingy. She looked at the bed and suddenly all thought of the décor left her mind.
A man lay there, his face bruised and swollen so badly one eye was a bloodied, compressed slit. The white of the other eye was dark. She suspected it would appear red in better light. His lips did not line up properly, possibly indicating a broken jaw. His face seemed broad and strangely shaped, though that might have been an effect of the injuries.
He also cradled his right hand to his chest, and she saw instantly that the forearm bent in a way it shouldn’t. His chest, too, was dark with bruises. All he wore was a pair of short, tattered trousers that had been roughly mended in many places. His skin was deeply tanned and his build was slight. His feet were bare, and black with dirt. One ankle was badly swollen. The calf of the other leg looked slightly crooked, as if it had healed badly after a break.
The room was silent but for the man’s rapid, laboured breathing. Tessia recognised the sound and felt her stomach sink. Her father had once treated a man whose ribs had been broken, puncturing his lungs. That man had died.
Her father hadn’t moved since entering the room. He stood still, back slightly bent, gazing at the beaten, broken figure on the bed.
“Father,” she ventured.
With a jerk, he straightened and turned to look at her. As he met her eyes she felt understanding pass between them. She found herself shaking her head slightly, and realised he was doing the same. Then she smiled. Surely at moments like these, when they did not even need to speak to understand each other, he could see that she was meant to follow in his footsteps?
He frowned and looked down, then turned back to the bed. She felt a sudden, painful loss. What he should have done was smile, or nod, or give her some sign of reassurance that they would continue working together.
I must regain his confidence, she thought. She took her father’s bag from Keron, placed it on the narrow table and opened it. Taking out the burner, she lit it and adjusted the flame. Footsteps sounded outside the room.
“We need more light,” her father muttered.
Abruptly the room was filled with a dazzling white light. Tessia ducked as a ball of brightness moved past her head. She stared at it and immediately regretted doing so. It was too bright. When she looked away a circular shadow obscured her sight.
“Is that enough?” a strangely accented voice asked.
“I thank you, master,” she heard her father say respectfully.
Master? Tessia felt her stomach spasm. Only one person currently staying in the Residence would be addressed so by her father. Yet with the realisation came a feeling of rebellion. I will not show this Sachakan any fear, she decided. Though I guess there’s no risk of trembling at the sight of anyone when I can’t actually see properly. She rubbed at her eyes. The dark patch was receding as her eyes recovered. Squinting at the doorway, she realised there were two figures standing there.
“How do you rate his chances, Healer Veran?” a more familiar voice asked.
Her father hesitated before answering. “Low, my lord,” he admitted. “His lungs are pierced. Such an injury is usually fatal.”
“Do what you can,” Lord Dakon instructed.
Tessia could just make out the two magicians’ faces now. Lord Dakon’s expression was grim. His companion was smiling. She could see enough to make out his broad Sachakan features, the elaborately decorated jacket and pants he wore, and the jewelled knife in its sheath on his belt that Sachakans wore to indicate they were magicians. Lord Dakon said something quietly, and the pair moved out of sight. She heard their footsteps receding down the corridor beyond.