The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [89]
Neb grabbed a clean strip of linen and began to wipe the pus away from the wound. This new bandage also gleamed with the sign of something alive. As the air touched it, however, the glow faded, though it never completely vanished.
“So!” Neb said. “I don’t know what’s inhabiting you, Hound, but we’re going to get rid of it.”
“Fleas.” Hound attempted to smile. “They be that what lives on hounds.”
Neb patted him on the shoulder, then turned back to her. “Branni, the herbwoman in our town had us boil things that the sick had used. She thought we were balancing humors, but by all the gods, I’ll wager we were killing whatever an infection is.”
“Here now!” Hound tried to sit up, but Neb pushed him back down. “You’ll not be boiling my arm, will you?”
“Of course not!” Neb said. “I’ll be putting on herbs that’ll kill whatever these things are.”
If he can find the right herbs, Branna thought. The idea that some live thing too small to be visible was feeding on wounds seemed incredible to her, too grotesque to be believed. She had to remind herself that when it came to healing, Neb’s lore was far greater than her own. Aloud, she said, “I’ll fetch water, and then start that fire.”
“My thanks. If you could find a skin of mead, too? And maybe fetch a couple of the men.”
“Here!” Once again their reluctant patient tried to sit up. “What have you in mind to do to me?”
Neb shoved him back down. “Do you want to lose that arm, or do you want me to heal it?”
Hound moaned and lay still, a gesture Branna took as capitulation to the healer’s superior knowledge. The two gnomes materialized, one on each side of Hound, not that he saw either, and shook their heads in a mimicry of sad pity.
A small pile of twigs and scraps of firewood stood ready beside the hearthstones in the middle of the tent. Branna grabbed an iron kettle and hurried out with her gray gnome skipping ahead of her in the warm sunshine. She went upstream from the camp to fill it where the water would be clean. Not far from the tents she found Mic, sitting on the bank. He had a handful of pulled grass which he was throwing, one stalk at a time, into the water.
“What are you doing?” Branna said.
Mic yelped and let the remaining grass fall onto the ground. “My apologies,” he said. “I was just thinking how life snatches our friends away from us, just like the water takes that grass.”
“Ah. You’re thinking about Kov.”
“I am, truly, and Dougie as well. Perhaps Dougie even more, because we’d ridden together back in Alban.”
“Well, they both had a harsh wyrd.” Branna knelt and tipped the kettle into the water. “It’s very sad.”
“I’ll carry that back for you when it’s full. It’ll do Kov’s soul no good to have me sitting about like a fool or laggard.”
“More to the point, it’ll do you no good.”
“True enough, true enough.” Mic sighed and stood up. “Let’s see what I can do to keep myself busy and useful. That’s the dwarven way, not all this sitting about.”
Branna handed him the kettle, then found mead and a pair of burly Cerr Cawnen men to hold Hound down when Neb poured the liquor on the wound. Fortunately, the patient fainted early in the procedure, allowing Neb to clean and stitch with only minimal help. The Cerr Cawnen men had left, and Hound had settled into a more normal sleep, when Dallandra entered the tent.
“Richt told me that you’d found infection in the lad’s wound.” Dalla paused to sniff the air. “Ah, mead! That should wash out the corrupted humors.”
“More than corrupted humors were at work.” Neb turned and gave her a brilliant grin. “I think I’ve solved it, Dalla. I think I know what causes these infections, and I’ll just wager it’s true for illnesses as well. Here, let me explain what I saw.”
Master and apprentice left the tent, talking together in low voices. Branna and Mic cleaned up the filthy bandages, then put them in the kettle of water to boil. She slopped in some mead from the leather skin for good measure. As she watched, the last traces of the reddish aura glow disappeared, leaving only the dead matter of the bandages themselves.