Chapter Thirty-Two
~
“More patients?” Gladys asked.
“Need a kind of nursin’ I think ya’re best at,” I said.
I watched, distracted, as Delia walked to the edge of the dragons’ sunnin’ platform. Her hair, reddish under the glarin’-bright sun, fluttered in the breeze. She never acknowledged Gladys, or the children for that matter. She needs her own special nursin’. I turned back. Gladys’ eyes peered through me as though studyin’ me under a doctor’s lookin’ glass. I swallowed.
“How are Aedwin and Asr?” I asked, to break the spell.
“Complainin’ about my brutality. They miss dragon thoughts minglin’ with their own. Otherwise better.”
Her smile made her wrinkled face glow in the bright sun. The thought made me recognize the heat for the first time. I unbuttoned my coat and let the breeze embrace me. It was a relief from the cold this mornin’. The goblins had been livin’ that cold for weeks. No wonder they’re antsy, chose to move to the lower valleys.
I motioned the four children to go below. “Be just a moment. Down those stairs,” I told the eldest. “Introduce yarself to Gladys’ patients.”
The boy’s reluctant expression drew smiles from both me and Gladys.
“No one downstairs will bite,” Gladys said, motionin’ to the steps.
When the younglings were out of earshot, I explained their situation. Gladys nodded, and looked over at Delia, still standin’ off in her own world.
“And her?” Gladys asked softly.
I shrugged, shook my head. “I struggle to know my own mind. Don’t ask me to explain her.”
“But ya’ve been around her the most.”
I struggled with givin’ away the woman’s secret. “Ya know she first had the illness. Suppose she feels responsible.” Though the stinkin’ goblins could have passed their ghoul to the Valley through any of us.
Gladys tilted her head. “That all?”
“Anythin’ more, she should tell ya.”
“These cliffs,” Gladys said, changin’ the subject, “aren’t the most natural place to raise a brood of active ones. Little to keep them busy. No cows to milk, pigs to slop, grass to cut for silage.”
“I think—no responsibility would be good for a while. They’ve had a hard time. Is the larder full? They need to pack on some meat, a lot of meat, on their bones.”
“I noticed. We’ll do well. Ya look tired.”
I studied Bacchus’ carved ram head. Another conversation for another day. “We should get back. Two new cases.”
“Wish that husband of mine was up here with me, safe. He’ll be working himself too hard, I imagine. That’s his way. Takes the world on his shoulders. But the Hamlet’s better for his fussing. Tomorrow, Aedwin will be well enough to be on her own. She’s strong stock, even if a slight one for an ogre.”
“Asr strugglin’?”
“He has a cough that won’t be sated. Doesn’t have his brother’s strength. Well—no other ogre on the planet has Ike’s strength. Brute of a troll, sneaky mind of an elf, that one.” She chuckled and slapped her hip. “Ya have a moment to look in on the lad?”
The thought of experiencin’ the draw on my energy so soon was distasteful, but by her expression, Gladys’ concern deserved my effort. I peered toward Delia, who stared out over the plain far below. What was she thinkin’? I decided to leave her be.
“I’ll see if I can help.”
Gladys smiled her thanks and led me down the two race of granite steps.
The elder lad explored the miscellany scattered about the odd warehouse made out of the lair’s first chamber. He looked up guiltily, but Gladys grinned and told him there was nothin’ he could harm.
In the main chamber, the two younger children stood on the padded bench in front of the broad windows. They pointed out far-off landmarks to each other.
Gladys and I found the older girl chattin’ with Aedwin, who sat up in bed leanin’ against the wall, window over her shoulder so she could read. The curiosity of humans for dragons and their riders, gave the two an immediate bond it seemed. Watchin’ the two talk satisfied me I made the right decision, bringin’ the four to stay with Gladys and the ogre hen, in her lair. I left the three females gabbin’, and visited Asr. He was in a coughin’ fit when I entered the room, a bit stiflin’-warm with a fire actually lit in the chamber’s small hearth. He stopped coughin’ after a near-gaggin’, abrupt endin’.
“Ya’re supposed to be well. Ya’re makin’ me and Delia look bad. Get up. Don’t ya have work to do?”
Asr smiled, but it faded quickly. “I think I’m all caught up. Though feelin’ better, think I’ll milk this a while. The room service is dandy.”
We chatted as Bacchus slowly accumulated the energy I would need to form the trance the healin’ required. I sat on the edge of the smallish bull’s cot and focused. The energy flowed easily, without the urgency I always felt from Delia. I pulled from the ethereal, relieved at the comfort of the exchange—not a battle, this time.
I dropped into a lighter trance than my usual. When I blinked to reorient, I had no clue how long later, Asr looked up at me and smiled.
“How do ya feel?” I asked.
“Rested. Thank ya.”
I patted his leg and rose from the edge of the cot. “Ya met yar bunk mates?”
Asr nodded. “Is it so bad, ya have to bring the well into a home with the ghoul?”
“I’m afraid it will get worse.”
~
Gladys walked with me up to the sunnin’ deck, though she didn’t say anythin’. She pulled me down to give me a hug before I climbed atop Iza. The woman forced the same embrace with Delia, who froze like a pillar.
“Ya’re doing a good job,” Gladys told her. “We all appreciate what ya do.”
Delia climbed Iza’s shoulder silently, but I thought I caught the glint of tears in the woman’s eyes. Likely my imagination. She seems to be gettin’ more aloof by the hour, and less tolerable. With it, she becomes less attractive. The mood isn’t proper for one so young. And I would soon reach my fill.
“You two spoke of me,” she said, as Iza crossed the high peak on the way to Black Lake. “That what it means to be known in the Hamlet, to lose my privacy?”
“When folk care for others, they worry about them, talk about them.”
“No one,” she snapped, “needs to be worrying about me.”
“Says ya.”
“You can mind your own business as well.”
“It’s not like I have so many friends I can ignore those I have who are in pain,” I said.
There was a long pause, before she clubbed me in the back. Right between the shoulder blades.
“Ow.” Not that her tiny fist hurt. More the unexpected nature of it.
“What am I supposed to say to that? Strangers who claim to be friends can be nosy, is that your claim?”
I didn’t say anythin’. Her words sounded cross, but there was a hint of humor, acceptance in them. It was the least angry or cynical thin’ she’d said in two days.
“Two more children sick at the Inn,” Iza told me in that smoky manner dragons use when they communicate with me without their rider between us. “Four more mountain settlers.”
Pray the settlers aren’t younglings, haven’t already been ill for days. “Good thin’ we have the children together,” I shouted.
The dragon’s mental grunt made me smile. Iza grumbled again loudly, as expected, about lowerin’ herself to such duty—cartin’ children about the valley.
“More?” Delia asked.
I nodded. Don’t let this depress the hen more, I pleaded—I suppose to the Gods. Though that isn’t somethin’ I frequently do. I searched to discover a topic to engage her in conversation, but failed miserably. We continued to the Inn in silence.
As Bick escorted us to the room the children had been isolated in, I convinced Delia to try workin’ alone. Her eyes betrayed her lack of confidence, but the rack of her shoulders shouted that she’s stubborn enough, independent enough, to go it alone.
I finished workin’ with the first child, relieved by how little it took out of me physically. There was somethin’ about our combined auras that pounded me—what, I had no clue. But the child seemed to respond just as well as if I’d worked with Delia.
Girl’s fever had lessened. Felt less exhausted, more comfortable. I was finishin’ with the second child when Delia finished with her first patient. I peered at her for feedback. Her chin rose proudly, and she nodded, acknowledgin’ her own success. Maybe. Considerin’ her, she might have been tellin’ me to jump in the Lake.
Midday already. Bick hustled us to the dinin’ room. It would be my and Delia’s first meal in two days, I realized—other than a quick slurp of porridge or a sandwich on the back of a dragon.
The two of us dove into the bounty the servers delivered to our table, but Inn patrons, held hostage in the valley because of the epidemic, made their way to visit two-by-two. They were as curious about news of the conflict as they were the health prognosis, and considerin’ the hard glares back and forth between me and Delia, the nature of the mysterious healer-conjurers bein’ rumored about.
“There’s a medical doctor in the valley,” I whispered to Delia after the last two left us be. “Why are they askin’ us about the ghoul like that?”
“You’re in front of them,” she said, without lookin’ up from her plate. “Ask them yourself. This ham is really good.”
“Get yar fill. May be the last meal we get today. Taiz’lin’s outside hurryin’ us to finish.”
“I like Iza,” she said.
Of course she did. Shared a common emotional drama. “She can’t land in the smaller clearin’s.”
Her eyes flared. “I know that. All I said was, I like Iza.”
I swallowed an overly large mouthful of biscuit and gravy, and washed it down with cranberry juice that burned all the way down. Made me shiver.
“If you don’t like it, why do you drink it?”
“It’s in front of me,” I said—only half makin’ fun of her.
She gave me one of her ya’re-stupid glares. “Doesn’t mean you—” She didn’t finish, just shook her head and forked another slice of ham onto her plate. “News of the militia?”
“Been spotted all over the place. They’re idiots, breakin’ into small groups. Each can be overwhelmed, if the entire goblin clan falls upon them. Pick ’em apart one contingent at a time.”
“You’re such an expert. Should volunteer to show them how to do it.”
I stopped chewin’ and gave her the dirtiest look I could manage—best I could do, other than slappin’ her into next week. She laughed, spittin’ half-chewed ham out of her mouth. When she recovered, she said, “You really need to work on that poor excuse for a glare.”
“Shouldn’t take long. I’m led about by the expert.”
“You calling me a grump?”
I attempted the expression again. “Yeah, I am.”
She giggled. “With that face, you’ll never frighten anyone. Such a lightweight for an ogre.”
~
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