"By the bodies, I saw you'd dealt with the ones you found," the captain said. "Far as we know, that's the lot of mem. I'd say they were just out for a little thievery. There's no general invasion, or anything like that."
A small band operating on its own, Krispos thought. The day he first picked up a sword, that was what Varades had told him the peasants might be able to handle. The veteran had known what he was talking about.
The Videssian captain turned to a priest beside him. "Looks like we won't need you today, Gelasios, except maybe for a prayer of thanksgiving."
"Nor am I sorry," Gelasios answered. "I can heal wounded men, aye, but I also think on the suffering they endure before I come to them, so I am just as well pleased not to ply my trade.'
"Sir!" Krispos said. He had to repeat himself before the priest looked his way. "You're a healer, holy sir?"
"What of it, young man?" Gelasios said. "Phos be praised, you seem hale enough."
"Not me," Krispos said impatiently. "My father. This way."
Without looking to see whether Gelasios followed, he hurried toward his house. When he threw open the door, a new smell came out with the usual odors of stale smoke and food, a sweetish, sickly smell that made his stomach want to turn over.
"Yes, I see," Gelasios murmured at Krispos' elbow. The priest's nostrils flared wide, as if to gauge from the scent of corruption how great a challenge he faced. He went inside, stooping a little to get through the doorway. Now it was Krispos' turn to follow him.
Gelasios stooped beside Phostis, who lay near the edge of the straw bedding. Bright with fever, Phostis' eyes stared through the priest. Krispos bit his lip. In those sunken eyes, in the way his father's skin clung tight to bones beneath it, he saw the outline of coming death.
If Gelasios saw it, too, he gave no sign. He pulled Phostis' tunic aside, peeled off the latest worthless poultice to examine the wound. With the poultice came a thick wave of that rotting smell. Krispos took an involuntary step backward, then checked, hating himself—what was he doing, retreating from his father?
"It's all right, lad," Gelasios said absently, the first sign since he'd come into the house that he remembered Krispos was with him. He forgot him again, an instant later, and seemed to forget Phostis, too. His eyes went upward, as if to see the sun through the thatched roof of the cottage. "We bless thee, Phos, Lord with the great and good mind," he intoned, "by thy grace our protector, watchful beforehand that the great test of life may be decided in our favor."
Krispos echoed his prayer. It was the only one he knew all the way through; everyone in the whole Empire, he supposed, had Phos' creed by heart.
Gelasios said the prayer again, and again, and again. The priest's breathing grew slow and deep and steady. His eyes slid shut, but Krispos was somehow sure he remained very much aware of self and surroundings. Then, without warning, Gelasios reached out and seized Phostis' wounded shoulder.
The priest's hands were not gentle. Krispos expected his father to shriek at that rough treatment, but Phostis lay still, locked in his fever dream. Though Gelasios no longer prayed aloud, his breathing kept the same rhythm he had established.
Krispos looked from the priest's set face to his hands, and to the wound beneath them. The hair on his arms and at the nape of his neck suddenly prickled with awe—as he watched, that gaping, pus-filled gash began to close.
When only a thin, pale scar remained, Gelasios lifted his hands away from Phostis' shoulder. The flow of healing that had passed from him to Krispos' father stopped with almost audible abruptness. Gelasios tried to rise; he staggered, as if he felt the force of that separation.
"Wine," he muttered hoarsely. "I am fordone."
Only then did Krispos realize how much energy the healing had drained from Gelasios. He knew he should rush to fulfill the priest's request, but he could not, not at once. He was looking at his father. Phostis' eyes met his, and there was reason in them. "Get him his wine, son," Phostis said, "and while you're at it, you might bring some for me."
"Yes, Father, of course. And I pray your pardon, holy sir." Krispos was glad for an excuse to rummage for clean cups and the best skin of wine in the house: it meant no one would have to see the tears on his face.
"Phos' blessings on you, lad," Gelasios said. Though the wine put some color back in his face, he still moved stiffly, as if he had aged twenty years in the few minutes he'd needed to heal Phostis. Seeing the concern on Krispos' face, he managed a wry chuckle. "I'm not quite so feeble as I appear—a meal and good night's sleep, and I'll be well enough. Even without, at need I could heal another man now, likely two, and take no lasting harm."
Too abashed to speak, Krispos only nodded. His father said, "I just praise Phos you were here to heal me, holy sir. I do thank you for it." He twisted his head so he could peer down at his shoulder and at the wound there that, by the look of it, could have been five years old. "Isn't that fine?" he said to no one in particular.
He stood, more smoothly than Gelasios had. They walked out into the sunlight together. The men of the village raised a cheer to see Phostis returned to health. Somebody called, "And Tatze would have been such a tempting widow, too!" They all laughed, Phostis louder than anyone.
Krispos came out behind the two older men. While most of the villagers were still making much of his father, Idalkos beckoned to him. The veteran had been talking with the commander of the Videssian cavalry force. "I've told this gentleman—his name is Manganes—something about you," he said to Krispos. "He says—"
"Let me put it to him myself," Manganes said crisply. "From what your fellow villager here says, Krispos—do I have your name right?—you sound like a soldier the imperial army could use. I'd even offer you, hmm, a five goldpiece enlistment bonus if you rode back to Imbros with us now."
Without hesitating, Krispos shook his head. "Here I stay, sir, all the more so since, by your kindness and Gelasios' healing magic, my father has been restored to me."
"As you wish, young man," Manganes said. He and Idalkos both sighed.
III
Krispos came back from the fields one hot, sticky summer afternoon to find his mother, his sisters, and most of the other village women gathered round a peddler who was showing off a fine collection of copper pots. "Aye, these'll last you a lifetime, ladies, may the ice take me if I lie," the fellow said. He whacked one with his walking stick. Several women jumped at the clatter. The peddler held up the pot. "See? Not a dent in it! Made to last, like I said. None of this cheap tinker's work you see too often these days. And they're not too dear, either. I ask only three in silver, the eighth part of a goldpiece—"
Krispos waved to Evdokia, but she did not notice him. She was as caught up as any of the others by the peddler's mesmerizing pitch. Krispos walked on, a trifle miffed. He still wasn't used to her being out of the house, though she'd married Domokos nearly a year ago. She was eighteen now, but unless he made a conscious effort not to, he still thought of her as a little girl.
Of course, he was twenty-one himself, and the older men in the village still called him "lad" a lot of the time. No one paid any attention to change until it hit him in the head, he thought, chuckling wryly.
"Dear ladies, these pots—" The peddler broke off with a squeak that was no part of his regular sales pitch. Beneath his tan, blood mounted to his cheeks. "Do excuse me, ladies, I pray." His walk toward the woods quickly turned into an undignified dash. The women clucked sympathetically. Krispos had all he could do not to guffaw.
The peddler emerged a few minutes later. He paused at the well to draw up the bucket and take a long drink. "Your pardon," he said as he came back to his pots. "I seem to have picked up a touch of the flux. Where was I, now?"