Dominic went back to the house and slept in the roof once more, wrapped in several blankets to fight the cold. The next day, he only meant to pass the healer's hut, to pay his respects to his father in the place he'd died. They were carrying a middle-aged woman into the hut; she was unconscious, her lips and fingers blue.
He followed.
He didn't know the woman. And the friends who had carried her in didn't know him; they glared, and held tightly to their purses.
The healer tipped her head up and looked into her eyes for a moment. He wrapped a heavily gloved hand around her bare, pale one. "Everyone out," he commanded after a moment. "I need space." Dominic was following the woman's loved ones out when he spoke up again. "You. Child. Go to the squat plant with small blue flowers behind the hut. Cut me a root from it a little longer than your finger. And hurry."
Dominic didn't even think not to obey. He went around the back, to the tangle of plants that to him looked like disorganised weeds, and waded between thornbushes and through piles of trash until he found such a plant. He dug until her found roots, and used his knife to cut one. Then he dashed back inside.
The healer was busy rubbing some kind of red clay into the woman's hands. He didn't acknowledge Dominic except by is next instruction. "Chew the end of it into a brush, then hand it to me."
Dominic brushed the dirt of the end, stuck it into his mouth, and began to chew. Almost immediately, shocking, icy cold juice spurted onto his tongue.
"Argh!" He grimaced. "How is it cold?!"
"It isn't," the healer said, holding his hand out. Dominic handed him the root. "It just makes your body think it is." He levered down the woman's jaw and pressed chewed end of the root against the very back of the roof of her mouth.
"What... what are you doing?" Dominic asked shakily.
"This woman is suffering from hypothermia," the healer replied, his attention still on his patient. "Her body has given up fighting the cold. There is a temperature-sensitive point in the back of the mouth, and if we can make the body think that it has rapidly cooled, it may help her regulate her temperature once more."
Dominic blinked. He'd only understood about half of the healer's words. But he thought he understood. "Why not just heat up the room?"
"If this does not work, we may have to do exactly that," the healer conceded. "But it is dangerous. To both this patient, and any others we get in the night. Winter is always busy." His head turned so that his hidden eyes were on Dominic. "Well, don't just stand there, Child. Bring in some firewood in case we need it."
Dominic's day was a series of sharp commands from the healer, with the occasional short explanation. "Child, fetch a pail of water." "Child, grind a few cloves from the green jar into powder." "Child, stoke the fire." Around noon, the healer pushed a small loaf of bread and hunk of cheese into his hands. "Rest, Child, and eat this."
Dominic stared at the bread. He and his father had never had much to eat. But they weren't beggars; his father had always made that abundantly clear. They didn't need charity. Dominic tried to hand the food back. "Thank you, sir, but -- "
"But what? You want to get sick? Underfed people pick up ill spirits and carry them from person to person, Child. This is a place of healing. You want to make all the patients sick with whatever the last patient had? You want to be laid up on a pallet for a week?" He shook his head. "And my name is Craun."
"I'm Dominic."
"Of course you are, Child." Craun hobbled off. Dominic ate his lunch. |
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