A Gift of Dragons - Anne McCaffrey [39]
“Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary,” Tenna said, because you had to pay healers and she then wouldn’t have enough for good leathers.
“Being as how it was the Lord Holder’s runnerbeast knocked you in, he’ll pay for it,” Torlo said, sensing her reluctance and winking at her.
“One of these days he’ll have to pay out blood money iffen he doesn’t bring that Haligon up short and make him quit our traces. Did those shod hooves leave many holes?” another man asked her.
“No,” she had to admit. “Surface sprang right back up.”
“Hmmm, that’s what it’s supposed to do.”
“But we don’t need Haligon galloping up and down like traces was put there for his benefit.”
Misler departed on his errand and then, after each runner spoke his or her name and home station, a glass of wine was poured for her. She started to demur but Torlo eyed her sternly.
“You’re not on the run list this day, girl.”
“I need to finish my first Cross,” she said wistfully as she took the glass and found an empty seat.
“You will, lass, you will,” the first man—Grolly—said so assuredly as he held his glass up that she was heartened. The others all seconded his words.
A few scratches and maybe the three-four punctures were not going to keep her from reaching the western seashore. She sipped her wine.
The runners who’d been bathing descended now and were served their wine by the time Misler came trotting back, a man in healer colors following behind, with a hop and a skip to keep up with his long-legged escort.
Beveny introduced himself and asked for Penda to join him—a nicety that pleased Tenna and gave her a very good opinion of the journeyman. The consultation was conducted right there in the main hall since the injuries were to visible portions of her body. And the other runners were genuinely interested in knowing the worst of her condition and offered suggestions, most of them knowledgeable as to which herbs should be used and how efficacious they had been on such and such an occasion. Beveny kept a grin on his face as if he was well used to runner chaffering. As he probably was.
“I think this one, and the two on your leg, may still have slivers in them,” Beveny said at length. “Nothing a poultice won’t draw out overnight, I’m sure.”
There were approving nods and wise smiles from the audience. Poultices were then discussed again and at length and the appropriate one decided on. During this part of the consultation, Tenna was installed in a comfortable padded chair, a long stool affair attached to the front of it so her legs could stretch out. She’d never been fussed over so much in her life, but it was a runner thing: she’d seen her mother and father take the same personal care of anyone arriving at their station with an injury. But to be the center of so much attention—and at Fort Station—was embarrassing in the extreme for Tenna and she kept trying to discount the urgency of such minor wounds. She did offer her packet of her mother’s poultice, and three of the runners remarked favorably on Cesila’s famous poultice, but hers was clearly for bruises, not infections, so the healer told her to keep it for emergencies.
“Which I hope you won’t have, of course,” he said, smiling at her as he mixed—with the hot water Penda fetched—an aromatic concoction that everyone now in the room had to approve.
Keenly aware that she must be properly modest and forbearing, as well as brave, Tenna braced herself for the treatment. Hot poultices, however therapeutic, could be somewhat uncomfortable. Then the mixture was ready. With deft fingers, Healer Beveny deposited neat blobs, no larger than his thumbnail, on the sore spots. He must have judged the heat just right, because none was too hot. He made sure to position the patches right over each blob before securing them with bandage strips that Penda had produced. Tenna felt each of the ten hot spots, but the sensation was not all that unpleasant.
“I’ll check tomorrow, Tenna, but I don’t think we have to worry about any of them,” Beveny said with such conviction