Maybe they were cursed.
“A stretcher,” Conna was saying. Illya looked up, still not daring to move his hand from Charlie’s sticky forehead. Conna was directing the Patrollers to tie together some branches from the woodpile into a travois. The rest of the people stood in a mute circle, watching.
Illya remembered then that he was supposed to be the Leader. He straightened up as much as he could while leaving his hand fixed to Charlie’s forehead.
“Yes. He needs Samuel,” he said with as much authority as he could muster.
Once they had built the travois, they carefully lifted Charlie onto it. It was an awkward procession that made its way down from the field and through the village to Samuel’s hut. Conna, thankfully, thought to direct everyone back to the digging before they set out. At least there was no gawking as they shuffled along.
Illya was bent over, walking sideways to keep his hand on Charlie’s forehead, as two Patrollers dragged the travois. Conna walked alongside. Belatedly, it occurred to Illya that holding pressure like this was a job a real Leader would have delegated to someone else.
He pushed the thought out of his mind. Right now, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was keeping the blood from spilling out. He would just have to worry about figuring out how to be a real Leader later.
Samuel answered the door at the first knock and surveyed them with mild surprise.
“So, the new Leader has come back to be my apprentice after all,” he said. Illya blushed and explained what had happened.
Samuel pried Charlie’s eyes open with his fingers and felt the shape of his skull and the pulse at his neck, lifting Illya’s hand to look at the gash beneath.
“No danger there, as long as it’s kept clean,” he said, indicating the cut. He regarded Illya appraisingly for a moment before shoving a cloth into his hand and indicating for him to continue holding pressure.
“Bind that on; then start cleaning around it,” he said. Illya followed his instructions while Samuel continued his examination.
“What if he doesn’t wake?” Illya asked.
“He’s just knocked out,” Samuel said. He reached up onto a shelf and began fumbling among the pots.
“Heartbeat is strong, no break in his skull,” he continued, opening one of them carefully and giving it a tentative sniff. He drew his face back abruptly, looking like he was going to sneeze. He rubbed his nose.
“Not quite what it’s for, but this will do,” he said. He came closer and opened the pot under Charlie’s nose.
Charlie snorted and thrashed, nearly knocking the pot out of Samuel’s hand. The movement reopened the cut on his forehead, and blood seeped through the bandage.
“What…” he mumbled, his eyes fluttering open. Samuel stood back, closing the pot with a smile and stashing it back on the shelf. Illya dove forward to stop the bleeding again.
Conna stood in the doorway and studied Illya with his lips pressed together before turning to leave, taking the Patrollers with him.
“Lie still,” Samuel said to Charlie. “You’re going to need rest before you are right again.” They finished cleaning and bandaging the cut. Samuel explained to him that he could not fall asleep for a few hours. “But you can have willow bark tea for the pain.”
Illya stayed in the hut with Samuel while the Healer finished cleaning and re-bandaging Charlie’s head. After Samuel was satisfied, and he had sent Charlie home to rest, Illya lingered, not wanting to face everything outside yet. It felt strange not to be quizzed about the plants Samuel was crushing.
“Are you intending to remain the Leader of the village after you have succeeded in this plan?” Samuel asked him after a while.
“I don’t know,” Illya said, hesitating. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen at all.”
“It is a rare thing to have the power to change things,” Samuel said.
They were quiet for a while as Samuel continued to work on grinding and mixing.
“I suppose there would be no purpose in asking you about the properties of willow bark,” he said. Illya looked down at the floor.
“Dried and brewed into tea, use it for pain or to bring down fever,” he mumbled.
Samuel looked up at him with something of a challenge in his eyes.
“You would have made a good Healer,” he said. “You have a quick mind, and you can still ask the kinds of questions that need to be asked.” Illya was not sure what to think of this. He didn’t answer.
“Try to be as good a Leader as you would have been a Healer,” Samuel said. He frowned. “It’s a noble cause. Many a young man has lost himself when he was swept away by a noble cause.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Illya said and hoped with all his might that it was true.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“A DEER, CONNA got a deer!” Molly ran through the open door, panting and out of breath, covered in mud.
“Really?” Illya asked, looking up from the book.
“Yes, yes, yes!” she squealed.
Conna had gone out with the Patrollers to hunt that morning, after setting everyone else to digging the field.
Illya closed the book and wondered if there had been flooding in the plains with all the rain. If there had, animals living there would have been pushed to the higher ground near the village. His people couldn’t hunt in the lowlands because the area was too far out of their territory. There would be no way to return to the village before nightfall, and legends held that violent gangs of Rovers ranged out there, killing whoever they found.
A deer. A truly lucky turn. With the timing of it, Illya couldn’t help but feel it had something to do with the book. He ran his fingers across the cover. It had letters on it too, big letters that had taken a long time to read because they had extra curls and lines. Almanac.
The book that would save them all. If Charlie’s injury had been a bad omen, then this was the very best.
“Come on. They’re already tying it up for roasting.” Molly grabbed his hand, pulling him up from his furs.
The central fire was roaring. People streamed in from the field, caked in mud. The sight gave Illya a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had spent a day or so hovering at the edge of the field trying to look Leader-like but only succeeding in scowling with his discomfort. When Conna had suggested that he go work on reading the book and look at it for guidance, he had readily agreed.
He was still sure that it was only a matter of time before they all turned on him.
Molly scampered away to sit with her friends as soon as they entered the circle. The girls hovered in a little flock, watching as the women prepared the deer and set it on a spit to turn over the fire.
Since he was the hunter who had made the kill, Conna was responsible for carving it. He stood near the fire, sharpening a metal knife on a stone. It was one of the new ones that Ban Johnsted had figured out how to make the year before. The other Patrollers clustered around, slapping him on the back, making observations about the deer’s size and the spread of its antlers.
“We should make a headdress out of these,” said Nico Myr, holding the rack up on Conna’s head.
Julian Reyes whispered something into Conna’s ear and was rewarded with a roar of laughter. Illya, who was just far enough away that he hadn’t joined them yet, halted, fighting the urge to flee. He may be the Leader now, but it didn’t change the feeling that they must be laughing at him somehow. None of them had ever had anything to do with him before all of this had happened.
The deer was a scrawny one, affected by the hard winter as harshly as the village had been. As juices dropped into the flames below the spit, delicious smells wafted through the air and reached his nose.