This was also a well-practised part of their routine. Her father hated being trapped while patients poured out their gratitude. It embarrassed him. After all, he was not offering his services for free. Lord Dakon provided him and his family with a house and income in exchange for looking after the people of his ley.
But her father knew that accepting thanks with humility and patience kept him well placed in the local people’s opinions. He never accepted gifts, however. Everyone under Lord Dakon’s rule paid a tithe to their master, and so in effect had already paid Tessia’s father for his services.
Her role was to wait for the right moment to interrupt and remind her father that they had other work to do. The family would apologise. Her father would apologise. Then they would be ushered out.
But as the right moment neared the sound of hoofbeats drummed outside the house. All paused to listen. The hoofbeats stopped and were replaced by footsteps, then a pounding at the door.
“Healer Veran? Is Healer Veran there?”
The farmer and Tessia’s father started forward at the same time, then her father stopped, allowing the man to answer his own door. A well-dressed middle-aged man stood outside, his brow slick with sweat. Tessia recognised him as Lord Dakon’s house master, Keron.
“He’s here,” the farmer told him.
Keron squinted into the dimness of the farmer’s house. “Your services are required at the Residence, Healer Veran. With some urgency.”
Tessia’s father frowned, then turned to beckon to her. Grabbing his bag and the burner, she hurried after him into the daylight. One of the farmer’s older sons was waiting by the horse and cart provided by Lord Dakon for her father to use when visiting patients outside the village, and he quickly rose and removed a feedbag from the old mare’s head. Tessia’s father nodded his thanks then took his bag from Tessia and stowed it in the back of the cart.
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.