Elara started to answer, but a small voice interrupted.
“Mum, my arm hurts.”
A child, her sleeve stained dark with dried blood, stood beside a plump woman.
The woman gave an embarrassed laugh. “She’s clumsy, fell this morning and got a wound beyond my care, though I’ve done what I can, but…” Her words faltered, hope flickering behind them. “There’s no healer left here. The king’s men took the two we had.”
Elara’s heart twisted, and she offered, “I’m an herb-scribe. Let me see if I can help.”
A look of admiration from the two women made her proud of her chosen field. The studies to achieve her knowledge were arduous and ever continuous, though they had come far more easily to her than others.
“Let the kind lady see your arm,” the woman said to her daughter and the young lass held it out to her.
The child’s arm was swollen and warm, the cut angry and red. Elara looked around. “You mentioned the healers being gone. Could I make use of their cottage and their medicinal herbs?”
“Aye,” the woman said, nodding, her eyes wide with relief. “Follow me. It’s down the lane by the stream. Our healers would be only too glad for you to make use of it to help us.”
Elara followed the woman through narrow lanes to the cottage. It was small and tidy, a thin layer of dust having gathered along the stocked shelves. Herbs still hung from the rafters, their scent faint but comforting.
The hearth was cold, and Elara quickly set a fire so she could boil water. She found the herbs she needed, betony to help the infection and lady’s mantle to keep it from getting inflamed. She crushed the leaves in the large mortar and pestle on the table, then mixed them with honey. After washing the lass’s wound clean, she spread the mixture over the wound and bandaged it with a clean cloth.
“She’ll mend fine,” Elara said, smiling at the lass. “Keep the bandage clean and change it come morning and add more salve.” She scooped the remaining mixture into a small crock and handed it to the woman.
Tears welled in the mother’s eyes. “Bless you, mistress. You’ve a healer’s heart.”
Elara spoke a bit more with the woman, hoping the word herb-scribe or healer would not be heard and whispered through the village. Or there could very well be consequences.
But word travels faster than silence. An old man with a cough was waiting outside when the woman opened the door to leave. A woman was limping toward the cottage, ankle swollen, and a mother with a crying bairn in her arms hurried from the distance. Elara couldn’t turn them away. She had the knowledge and skill they needed, and it wouldn’t be right to deny them. She worked until signs of dusk approached her, hands steady, her spirit light.
When the last of them left, they thanked her with small offerings; apples, a loaf of coarse bread, oatcakes, and cheese. She hurried and cleaned up the cottage and gave a last glance around, wishing things were different, wishing the healers weren’t in danger, wishing she could simply continue her work as an herb-scribe.
She stepped outside to find not only the woman from the herb stall there, but Dar approaching with the two horses they had ridden.
“I’m here to tell you that everyone in the village agreed. You and your husband are welcome to stay the night, longer if you wish, here in the cottage. You deserve it for tending to our ill.”
Elara saw how Dar’s eyes narrowed and his jaw grew taut. He was angry with her.
“That is kind and generous of all of you and I thank you for a place to shelter for the night,” she said, making it clear they would be leaving tomorrow.
“Then I will leave you to rest,” the woman said. “But know you are welcome to stay longer if you wish and you have a home here any time you wish to return.”
Elara thanked her again and the woman walked off, though made a point of stopping by Dar to say, “You are a lucky man to have such a generous wife and skilled herb-scribe.”
Dar approached the cottage, stopping to tie the horses’ reins to a tree branch before reaching her, grabbing hold of her arm, and hurrying her inside. His eyes swept the cottage. There was no mistake, it belonged to a healer.
“What in the blazes were you thinking?” he snapped sharply.
“They needed a healer. But I am an herb-scribe the closest thing to a healer, so I did what was needed.”
“How did they learn you had more than a healer’s knowledge?” he demanded, his jaw still tight with annoyance.
“I was drawn to the herb stall,” she admitted as if that explained it.
He stepped closer to her. “And what happens when the wrong sort finds out?”
Their gazes locked, the tension between them taut.
“I couldn’t turn them away,” she said, with a resigned sigh. “Would you have me watch a child suffer?”