“Very well. I’ll get you a list of what I need and the points in the training when I’ll need it and we’ll schedule the training around anticipated availability. How does that sound?”
“Eminently reasonable,” Lisbet replied with another laugh. “Now, Jerry, why don’t you go look around and see what Daneh needs in the way of facilities and I can get back to making bricks without straw.”
“Hey!” Jerry complained. “That’s my job!”
Edmund looked up and frowned as Daneh came in the kitchen. “Where have you been?” he asked.
“Out,” she replied, sharply, then sighed. “I’m sorry, Edmund, that was unkind. I was out looking at facilities with Jerry Merchant and Gunny, looking for somewhere to set up a hospital.”
“Oh,” Talbot said, shaking his head. “Now I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped. But… I just thought you should take some time off… Get your bearings again. I’m the one that’s supposed to be working all hours.”
“I’ve got my bearings,” she replied, her jaw clenched. “I’m fine. I wish that people would quit trying to wrap me up in a cocoon or something!”
Edmund started to say something and then stopped, shaking his head.
“What?”
“I was going to say that however you feel, you need to talk about it,” Talbot replied. “But not to me. And, frankly, I don’t know anyone who would be a good person to talk to about it. There’s nobody around who has dealt with this sort of… trauma. I know some things about it, but I’m no expert.” He frowned and shook his head in exasperation. “The problem is, you’re not the only one in town who… had a bad time on their trip here. And there’s nobody who is trained to handle that sort of thing. And it’s just going to get worse; this isn’t going to be the last time by a long shot.”
“So what do we do?” Daneh asked. “I guess as the local doctor, and a female no less, it’s my job to organize this?”
“It would be, but you can’t do it,” Edmund sighed. “And the one thing that I know about… rape trauma is that handling it wrong just makes the person worse.”
“Which just annoys the crap out of me!” she practically shouted. “Edmund, I’m fine! Fine, fine, FINE! How much more pointed do I have to make it!”
He worked his jaw for a moment and looked at her evenly until she looked away. “And shouting at me when I’m discussing something that’s obviously a problem for the whole town is normal?” he asked evenly.
Edmund wasn’t sure what he had said to cause her to go as white as a sheet, but he paused and let her regain her equilibrium.
“What?” he asked, finally.
“Just… tone…” she whispered. “I’m going to go take a bath, now.”
“Okay,” he said with a sigh as she left the room. There had to be someone for her to talk to. But who?
Herzer watched in reverent awe as Bast came up out of the stream. Her body was just as perfect naked as it had appeared to be half naked. She had light pink aureoles and nipples which, when she was excited or cold, as she was now, crinkled up and poked out like daggers, and a tiny tuft of jet black pubic hair that had turned out to be as soft as silk. For just a moment the queasy thought crossed his mind that she looked far too young to be sexually active, more like a fourteen-year-old than an adult female. But then he told himself he was stupid; she wasn’t just older than he was, she was older than the trees.
They had started off with swimming, naked as he’d been warned and he had been a tad… apprehensive. But the swimming had changed to washing and then mutual washing and things had proceeded from there. And the proceeding had been quite an education for all its brevity. He still didn’t know why she had chosen him, but he realized that he was the one luckiest guy in the world.
That caused him to flash for a moment on all the reasons he shouldn’t be the luckiest man in the world and he swallowed hard. For a moment he was caught in an emotional vice between fear that she would no longer care for him if she knew both his internal struggles and of his cowardice and shame that he should be here, with her, after both.
She had brought along a fur blanket, a patchwork quilt of many small skins, and she now lowered herself gracefully onto it in a cross-legged seat then started pulling the tangles out of her hair with a twig. Looking off into the woods.
She was within easy arm’s reach so despite his qualms he carefully ran one finger up her thigh.
“The wonder of young humans,” she said with a smile, looking downward. “Give them five minutes and they’re ready to go again!”
“Is that why you picked me?” he asked. He hadn’t wanted to ask but it had been nagging at him.
“Only in part,” she replied, rubbing his hand in welcome. “You seemed to be… wise for your age. That is important. I’m old, Herzer. Many of my kind think that I’m… perverse to take human lovers. Even if you live through the wars that will come, I will see you age and mature, as I have watched Talbot age and mature. And then some day you will die, as I have seen countless lovers age and die. But you live your lives, fully in the now in a way that elves do not. And that I love. But in time I will take other lovers, as you will take other lovers. And you seemed wise enough to understand that, as other humans might not.”
“I’m not wise,” Herzer said bitterly. The compliment had just made his internal turmoil more vigorous and he felt as if bile from self-loathing was going to rise in his throat.
“I said ‘for your age,’ ” she replied, touching him on the top of his lowered head. “Look at me, Herzer.”
He looked up into her cat-pupiled green eyes and cringed at the depth of knowledge behind them. It felt for a moment as if she was looking into his very soul. But at the same time, it felt as if even when she saw what was there, she felt no loathing. There was a depth of understanding in those ancient eyes.
“It is said that everyone has one secret. This is not true,” she said quietly. “Everyone has many secrets, many faces, many masks. All humans, and dwarves and elves, are the sum of their masks, young Herzer. You are young, yet, and your masks have many rough edges. And you do not see that this is the case of everyone. It is what you do in life, not what torments you in your soul, that matters. And who you are in life, not who you fear you might become.”
“And what if you have done something wrong?” Herzer asked, looking down.
“Did you cause others harm?” she asked, gently.
“No. But through my inaction, harm occurred,” he said, carefully.
She sighed and shook her head. “Herzer, I’m your lover, not your priest. I’m not here to take your confession and I’m the wrong sex, the wrong species and the wrong religion to give you absolution!” she chuckled.
“What’s a priest?” Herzer asked.
“Oh, my, sometimes I realize just how old I am!” she cried, laughing. “My fair knight, unshorn, unvigiled and unshriven. My, how times have changed. Say that priests were an early form of psychological therapy. You could talk to them and nothing that you said, supposedly, could be passed on to others. So you could unburden your soul. Then, under the laws of their religion, they could tell you to do some prayers and chores, maybe pay money, and their God would forgive you.”
“Sounds like a racket,” Herzer said, interested in spite of himself.