Sixteen Feet of Steel Chapter 6

Chapter 6

*Before…

Palfrey Corner is six leagues past Dewbridge and it’s gotten dark and I’m actually walking ahead of everyone…I’m holding my hand up and I’m arcing lighting between my thumb and baby finger casting off blue white light. Hawk’s behind me where she’s keeping watch as we make our way to this place where the trail breaks into a clearing and there’s a small lake and a hamlet with a stacked stone wall and a decent defensive ditch in front of it.
There’s a horn sounded from a watch tower made of simple wood and I look at Nicole who runs up a colors flag. “Watch we come with the post!”
It takes a little longer but we get a response. “Be welcome Wisdom and Squire but be warned we’re under a yellow flag!”
I look at the others. “Yellow flag?”
Taylor’s frowning. “Sickness, they’ve sickness in the village.”

*And Now…

I’m looking at the three of them and then to the village.

They’ve sealed the walls at least and they’re giving warnings.

I look to Nicole. “What do we do?”

She’s looking and she chews at her lip a little. “We get closer and we talk.”

“Talk? I was hoping for what to do like help or go for help.”

Taylor looks at me. “You’d go in knowing there’s sickness.”

I nod. “Titles are not the things or the words that makes one noble.”

He looks at me again and then he nods. “Something said by your father?”

I nod. “But given that he knows…knew Lady Blackhand and things here I might think she rubbed off on him some.”

He grins. “Given you look like her Chrissy I’d say that there’d be some rubbing.”

I frown.

“My mother was Deidre Lyonnes, I was born from her…I’d have been told if I was not!”

Wouldn’t I?

I frown. “I mean of course I look like her I was transformed, I’m carrying her powers.”

They’re all looking at me.

Taylor says. “I’m sorry, that very well could be true.”

I huff… “I just lost her Taylor…the wound’s still bleeding.”

My heart is in my throat and it hurts to swallow from the feelings and tears are blurring and burning at my eyes and it takes so much to swallow it back…women weep…and dammit that’s effecting me too…yes I should be crying and in mourning and I am but it was anger first that I was feeling and with that came this whole other thing. I pinch the bridge of my nose to stem it off…this is so not the time.

He looks at me with this…? Tender look? “I’m sorry Christiana, I truly am.”

I nod and turn to look at Nicole. “So closer?”

“Aye, we need to talk to them and see what’s really going on before we decide on anything.”

We all look to each other again and we head over with the wagon until we’re close to the gates and the watchman is looking at us the whole time. Once we’re in the light of the watch lanterns I douse my lightning arc out.

Nicole stands up on the knee of her rig and asks. “What’s the sickness do you know it?”

He looks at us and he shakes his head. “No squire, we doan.”

“What are the ills?”

Taylor takes out the post book and flips to a blank page and takes out his glass pen to take notes.

“It be fever with wet lungs fillin up, it makes ye break out in a rash as well.”

“What’s the charm to it?”

“We doan know squire, but it’s bad…ye fill up an ye be cooking in ye own juices.”

Nicole looks at us. “Any ideas?”

“The rash sounds bad.” Hawk offers.

I nod. “We won’t know unless we see. It could be a lot of things.”

I reach inside again… I was able to see the books and stuff but can I see things that have happened to me?

I try and to think on old Tedric and taking care of his patients.

It’s right there I’m seeing him looking patients over the few times that I was there with him. Usually I wasn’t because of my station but five years ago when I was just a young boy we had a sickness hit us called influenza and there was no one else to do things, to help so station was dropped as well as trying to keep us royals from having caught it.

We could’ve left…but father wouldn’t risk us not carrying it to someplace else even if we were not sick ourselves nor would he leave the castle to leave our people in such a way.

I think on all of it that time and watch it all over again with my older eyes and see things that might help…but I’m no apothecary and I really didn’t stay that long doing those things even helping out under Tedric’s orders.

“Chris…Chrissy…” Nicole’s looking at me actually they all are.

I blink. “Sorry, yes I was thinking.”

Taylor says. “Ye were more than thinking yer eyes were lit.”

“Lit?”

Hawk… “Aye…like you had some of the light you make behind your eyes.” She’s looking at me nervously. Taylor and Nicole are more interested looking but Jessa I think is from a place where magic has a very bad name.

“It’s a new spell…or something…I discovered it back at that first steading and I’ve been testing it out…trying to see if I can control it and if it’s reliable.”

Hawk… “And that power be?”

“Magic memories?” I shrug…oh that feels vastly different when you have breasts even ones as small as mine.

Nicole looks at me. “How are they magic?”

“I can remember…anything, anything that I’ve seen or read.”

Taylor’s nodding. “That makes a pile of sense with wizards being so smart and all, I mean if ye never forget things then you’d be pretty smart.”

Hawk looks at me. “So what good does that do us?”

I look at her. “Remember when I said I’d done some clerking for the castle stores, well parts of that was working with our apothecary and I’ve been around him a few times during sicknesses home too.”

Nicole looks at me. “Right so you know what this is?”

“No, not at all but I might be able to help better for it and stem the tides of it until a real healer can do so.”

She stares at me and so do the others and I fidget.

Then Nicole nods. “Right…Taylor take one of the horses and the note when we’re ready to Dewbridge they have pigeons and see if there are any willing midwives or hedge witches nearby that can help. Jessa you’re out here to guard our wagon and to forage for things that we might need. Chrissy you’re going to have to be our wisdom right now and I’ll go in with you.”

I look at her. “You’re a squire of this land and you have a Squire’sknight do you think it wise to go in someplace that is infected?”

“I have to…people get unreasonable when they’re like this, people get very angry and scared and there will need to be some sort of law.”

Hawk adds. “Plus if they decide that you’re trouble instead of help Chrissy Nic will be there to protect you.”

“Oh…well alright then.” I look to Taylor. “I’m raiding the supplies I have no idea what they have in there.”

He nods. “I’ll take off the camp gear instead and ye two can take the whole thing inside with ye.”

It’s a process after that of unpacking and stuff and Nicole getting in her rig and her pulling the wagon into the village with the gates opening and I’m leading the way.

I look over my shoulder to Nicole. “I feel like I should have a staff and be wearing robes or some such.”

She chuckles. “Well maybe they’ll have both Wisdom Christiana.”

“I suppose that I’ll have to use that won’t I?”

“Sometimes authority is a good thing.”

I nod. It’s true sometimes you need the authority or the power of it to have people take you seriously there will be some that will always look for a reason to balk at orders no matter how much good sense is behind them.

Palfrey’s Corner is small but it’s still a village and it’s dimly lit because it’s so small but still large enough that this is going to be difficult I think. I can hear crying here and there and coughing from houses and homes. There might be a hundred buildings or so and I look around a little and there’s a few people coming to meet us and they’re a mix of younger people and a couple of older ones but no elders.

A man steps up with stubble and a shaved head and a burly look to him. “Be welcome Wisdom and Squire we are honored that you’ve come to help us and that you put yourselves at risk.”

The others sort of look nervous to speak. Like new court speakers, or peasants that came to speak to father over something on freeman’s day. They’ve recently have had this pushed on them I think.

I try a smile. “Decency and duty master…?”

“Oh…Cedric, I’m the town’s butcher.”

I nod. “I’m Christiana and this is Squire McKinnon.”

There’s some quick introductions and then a lull.

I look at Cedric. “Perhaps show us to the sick first, I would like to tell our horseman as much as possible and get more help here.”

He looks at me and he looks me up and down and there’s a knowing nod. He knows I’m not trying to say that I’m nowhere near as skilled nor as old as a healer of any kind really should be.

I get a bottle of brandy from the wagon as Nicole gets out of her rig and locks it but she’s wearing a jacket of plates and leathers and braces and she’s wearing her blade. I get some of the cloths too and then lock the rest of things up and I make some motions over our things with my index finger and make the tip spark.

Yes, it might not be called for at all but there are a lot of valuables here and such and I am smart enough to know that people do sometimes take advantage of people in times like this.

The first place they lead us is to the town meeting hall which is now where many have been taken to. That was smart it is easier to care for people when you’re not running all over the place.

It smells in here…sweat, lots of sweat and sickness…and too many people close together.

I look at Timothy? He’s one of the representatives. “Do the windows open?”

“Aye but the sickness?”

“We all have it by now…even us, or we will some people are able to fight it off others not. It’ll be a comfort for all to get the air fresher in here.”

He looks at me then to Cedric who nods.

“I’ll need to see people.”

He nods and he leads me around and I use the brandy to wash my hands with after I look them over. I don’t know rashes but these are in hot spot areas…under the arms, breasts, other like places…they look like heat rashes…the fevers though are very high and some of the people are very full in the lungs. I brandy wash with each one and even take some of the coughed up stuff and look at it.

No, I don’t have a clue but I seen or rather saw Tedric ask of that with people that were sick and I know it’s something that a healer should know.

I look around and there’s some able bodies still helping but a lot of them look tired.

I look around the hall and they have inside jakes and a store room that’s mostly empty and a kitchen.

I come out of the kitchen and I take a deep breath. “I’ll go and speak with our horseman and ranger, but do you have wash tubs?”

Cedric nods. “Aye?”

“We’ll need bathing tubs in the store room, and we’ll need cooking pots for here and I’ll need to know some of the stores that you have.”

“Aye…as for the store I’m not sure we have a lot to spare.”

“We have our ranger master butcher, we need to know what we’ll need but the very first thing is to get people bathed and to get things washed.”

“Washed like what?”

“Everything that can be washed…sickness can be carried on things as well as people and it can live for a time outside of the body so we need to wash and keep washed all that we can…”

“That’s a lot of work…a lot of…”

“I can heat as much water as we can need hauled from the lake.”

He blinks. “Oh…then…”

Nicole nods. “Aye…oh indeed but it still will be a lot of work sir.”

He nods. “But this is much more doable though.”

I nod. “We’ll leave you to it then and we’ll go and send our horseman for help.”

Nicole and I walk to the gates and she looks at me. “I’m going to take a look around in my own way. I’ll be back shortly.”

I nod and then climb a ladder on the wall and that…it just feels very different with some parts being very different and my ladder rise-stride is different and I start telling him what I’ve seen and heard and the rashes and the cough-spew and everything that I can.

He looks up at me and sighs. “You two be careful, even if everyone’s reasonable the sickness can still get you both.”

I nod. “We’ll see you when you get back.”

He get on one of the horses and while not meant for riding it’s still faster than on foot especially if he’s bringing help back.

I look at Hawk. “We’re getting a list of things we’ll have but if you can I’d start looking for more forage and herbs.”

“Anything specific?’

“Onion and garlic if you can find them in the wild and lavender and as much willow and cherry barks as you can get us.”

She nods. “I’ll set traps too when I can’t catch things as I’m doing.”

We look at each other. There’s just a nod between us and I head down the ladder and Nicole is back and I look at her questioningly.

She joins me walking back to our things and says as we’re going. “I looked at the wastes and they’ve good house pits stone and mortar and the lake looked good it’s about three hundred yards from the houses here.”

I nod. “Good even without my powers I was wondering about that.”

She nods. “It still doesn’t mean that something else isn’t spilled into it, we’ll have to ask Hawk to scout around the lake.”

“Makes good sense but all it still might take is someone just brining this in.”

Nicole sighs. “I know, and if that’s the case we’ll have to weather this as best we can and help as many as we can until we get help.”

I start to get other things from the wagon like food and herbs and the forage that we have and I look at her. “You can cook right?”

She nods. “I’m not one by trade but what are you thinking?”

I chuckle. “That we need to recruit a cook from the village.”

We both laugh at that and we head to the hall with our spoils and there’s things there in the kitchen and I start to fill pots and boil that water first and I start to take the herbs that I already have and start brewing a tea with them will the willow bark and feverfew and kingsfoil and I get the washtub that they have there full of water and soap and get some clothes and Nicole and I wash down the whole kitchen and the dishes and bowls and mugs and we’re getting looks and after we’re at it awhile we have some young ones…mostly girls there watching us and looking at us.

I look at the eldest. “Can I help you little mistress?”

That sets them to giggling. She though gives me a serious look and nods. “We came t’help wit things.”

“Well then first things are first ladies, clean up, go get washed and get the freshest clothes you have.”

We get them to go into the store room that we’re going to use for baths and to wash things up with and get then to get undressed and ready and such and I take out my tool and I heat the water for then as much as I can stand it.

“It’s very hot ladies so be careful but wash everything and don’t spare the soap.”

I look at Nicole and we set them to it and we head back to the kitchen and the things being brought in. The first thing is getting some mops made and then getting water with some of their lavender in it and vinegar to boil. I know vinegar and illness don’t mix and the lavender will cut the smells plus bugs and such don’t like that and I’m not sure what we’re working with so it’s just good to add it I think.

Cedric’s got the lists and it’s hard to read his scratch but we get through it and I make no comments as he’s already red-faced over knowing his pen is pretty bad.

I do ask for herbs and spices and that they have and more vinegar and salts and paper and…and I have no quill so I think while they’re looking for one and I picture my handwriting and my arc inside being the quill. I test it with a few letters on the other sheet but yes…actually yes!

I’m burning or branding my letters into the paper at my touch and not going through the paper either it’s black but it looks exactly like I am seeing things in my head.

Okay a very minor spell if you can even call it that but I’m writing by thinking about the words and using my fingertip to do them.

Cedric is giving me the same look as Hawk does when I’m actually doing magic up close. I get a list made of what we have and what we might need and what I need right away.

My first order is for her to get fir tree sap…it’s the sticky clear balsam liquid in the blisters on a fir tree and then spruce balsam bits that are found on the trees called gum and juniper berries.

I take it out and look for her and she’s back with some of the things that we need since I’ve been gone and we drop a sack over the side and I drop the letter and she washes her hands with brandy before picking it up and she looks at me.

“I can get the evergreen stuff in half a glass it’s all easy to find.”

“Good, I need it to brew a medicine.”

“You can do that?”

“This one I can it’s pretty simple.”

“If ye say, I’ll get on these then.”

I head back and I’m in a bit better spirits this is a medicine I’ve made during the influenza once I have the ingredients. But now I have some of what I need and it reeks of what’s hopefully a good thing.

Wild onion, leek, chives, wild garlic, and we have garlic in the village stores. I get back to the kitchen place and the young girls are cooking and some are doing washing and the stove/ovens are getting hot now and Nicole is out in the main part of the hall with a mop and bucket scrubbing the floors.

I look at one of the girls and pass her the oniony things. “Soup just with these and as much garlic as we have.”

“That’s…onion soup Wisdom?”

“Yes, there’s the heat in the juices that will help fight this sickness.” Well that’s sort of true, I was told by Tedric that there’s safe sulfurs in them and that those would help fight off illness.

I hang the willow Hawk has gathered and some of the other herbs and I take some of the dried here and I find a spot to sit and I start to break the dried things here up and I grind kingsfoil and feverfew with the willow bark they have into a powder.

Three equal parts and mix it well together. Kingsfoil is an old herb that is supposed to be a curative. I'm not sure how that works or why but feverfew is used to bring down a fever…it brings on a cleansing sweat in the same way that hot spices do. Willow bark is good for fever too but it’s also good for pain.

It’s been awhile since I’ve beaten and ground things or done anything like this. It’s hard work and it’s getting really warm in here but that’s a good thing. We’ll need the heat for all that we’re doing. We’re going to need it to cook soups and brews for teas and such.

I can smell chicken…one of the things I asked Cedric for was a few birds. It doesn’t take a wisdom to know that chicken broth is good for what ails people.

Hopefully alternating the soups with the medicines will help…they should at least give some of them some strength to fight with.

We get some others in to help volunteer and I make the willow bark tea in a large kettle measuring out the water and then the grind because you can only have a certain ratio or you’ll make people sicker and I dose all of the people working and helping no matter the faces and then have them at the broths too.

Then we take it all into the main sick room and we dose them with tea…it’s…it’s hard because they’re so sick and we have to help them drink or sip and then the onion soup if they’ll take that too just a half mug. Anything we get down into them the better for them all.

By the time we’re done we wash off with hot water and vinegar again and get ready for washing people. Nicole and two girls are helping the ones that can walk and I’m with two girls that are helping me wash the ones that can’t…we take their clothes and send them to be washed…actually I’ll help there too…that wash water really should be brought to a boil.

Cedric comes with more things from Hawk and I instruct Ellery? The oldest girl that came to help from the young ones.

“Get some water boiling and I want the fir sap placed into it with the juniper berries and keep it at a boil. Use the mortar to grind up the balsam gum from the spruce into powder and cook it down until it thickens; you want it to be like a gravy in thickness.”

I keep washing and getting people clean until we’re done…I’m vomited on twice and I’m holding people up so they can cough the vileness out and the beds with people out of them bathing I have a clean set of blankets put on them and lavender flowers sprinkled under those…for the bedroll they’re using…I can’t clean those, we just can’t we don’t have the resources but hopefully this will help as much as it can.

I’m aching and tired like an old woman…my hips ache from being on my knees helping so much and taking acre of people.

It’s taken hours and hours to get this much done…but everyone is clean… or as clean as they can get right now and the other girls as passing me with more willow bark tea and more soup. The chicken broth this time and Nicole brings me a mug of what smells like chicken stew.

“You look tired.”

I look at her and she’s looked better right out from fighting better.

“You too.” I reach up and feel her forehead and she smiles. I smile back her brow feels fine. “Well that’s a relief.”

Nicole nods. “It’s been too long a day.”

I start eating my stew. “Gods I’m starved, and yes we’re both exhausted we really did too much before coming here and getting involved in all of this.”

“Worried?”

“Yes, if we’re too tired we’ll likely get sick too no matter how much we try and not.”

“Well then we should get shifts started and then we can get some sleep.”

I roll my eyes in that this food tastes amazing way and the thought of sleep…of just laying down. “Mmmph… that would be so good but I have some medicine to finish.”

“Can it wait?”

“No, I need to get it brewed then they can spoon it out.”

Nicole nods and we eat pretty quickly and I could go for seconds but there’s other mouths to feed and we help each other up from where we were sitting and head into the kitchen and I check on my medicine it smells right and Nicole recoils. “Oh gods what are you brewing it smells like roofing pitch!”

I smile. “Close enough it’s something Old Tedric used to make for colds and coughs and sicknesses.” I take the jar of homemade gin and start pouring it into the thick balsamy soup and add the right amount of willow bark to it as well.

“Gods and they’re supposed to drink that?”

“The potion tastes foul but it works.”

I take a spoonful myself to taste and make myself swallow it and there’s the burn and the camphor and then the foul taste shivers.

Yes it made me shiver, it will make the dead retch a little bit I think.

Nicole’s laughing at me. “Oh gods your face! I thought that all healers were immune to their concoctions?”

“I’m hardly a healer of any kind. Gah I want to scrub my tongue.”

Which makes her chuckle some which sort of feels good in a way since I’ve never really been the witty type or the funny type of person that got all that attention.

I look around and it’s nearing the morning soon I think it feels like it…but then again I’m who knows how many glasses of sun further west of home.

“What watch is it?”

Nicole reaches into her pocket and she takes out a large medallion and she opens it. “It’s the third glass of tomorrow.”

“What?” I look over at what she has and it’s? “What is that?”

“It’s a handclock.”

“But…” I look it over and I’ve seen a clock before we had two in my castle and both were large things with gears and in a huge wooden cabinet. I can hear ticking coming from inside of it.

“Gears?”

Nicole nods. “Yes and you wind it here.”

“A dwarven thing?”

“No, human my grandfather gave it to me when I was chosen from being a page into a squire.”

“That must have cost a fortune.”

She looks at me and she nods. “Yes it was very costly, but my family is well off.”

I nod. “Nobility?”

“No, I’m the first one to have title.”

“Then what does your family do?”

“We make battleknights.”

“Oh…very well off then.”

She shrugs. “Yes and no, from the cost of building one and the costs of paying for all the work there’s money but there are years where it’s tight.”

“Tight?”

“Not everyone can afford the costs involved in building a battleknight it’s a lot like ship building really.”

I nod that makes sense. “So a lot of the family coffers must make do until the next contract?”

She nods. “Right now my lands are helping the family.”

“So you were awarded land with your title?”

“No, I won my parcel in tournament.”

Oh…that would be…it would take some skill to do that but then again with the fact her family does make these she must have grown up rig-running and I’ve seen her fight.

We head to the back porch area where they have the wood and that’s where she’s laid out our tent on the outside and some of our camping things and we slip inside together and the fleeces are all laid out and the blankets and such and I get comfortable.

Nicole just unhooks her jackets buckles for her coat of plates and she takes her sword off but lays it between us.

I look at her.

“Just in case Chris.”

I nod…it’s a little surreal having to think about these things so much when up until my home was attacked things were pretty secure. I yawn and settle. “How much land do you have?”

She yawns back. “Four acres….but it’s good land with most of the rocks out of it an such so it’s being used right now by the entire family.”

“For… (Yawn)…what?”

“Gardening, we just use it all for food between all of the family it’s been a boon for us last year.”

“I nod, food is money.”

She nods. “Someday I’ll add to it and I’ll have a house and things.”

“Not a castle?”

“Pfft…what would I do with a castle? No, just some land and gardens and some bit to farm and such and some horses and a place of my own.”

“Not content with living with family?”

“Not at all, we’re too many and between my siblings and my cousins I’m already an Aunt fourteen times over. The McKinnon compound is filled to the rafters with family and extended family.”

“Because of the trade?”

She nods and shifts to get comfortable. “Just like ship builders we have family that does all sorts of things for the battleknights, so we’ve all been in the same place. Even if some of us do other jobs the bulk of us are doing work in the family shops.”

“What’d you do before becoming a page?”

“Nothing, I was taken into being a page in my eighth year.”

“How’d that happen?”

She yawns… “I took my dad’s twenty ounce hammer to the castle gates and beat on the door every morning for close to a year yelling I want to page to the lady.”

“And you never got into trouble for it?”

“Lots but I kept coming back…she walked into the compound on that years longnight and drank mead with my grandfather and father and fasted with us.”

“Your lady?”

She rolls onto her side. “Aye…”

I sort of want to ask more, sort of not want to sleep but I’m falling away regardless.

……………….. My dreams thankfully aren’t storms or the attack but they’re me trying I imagine Nicole’s home, the throngs of relatives, the battleknight building shops…but also there’s the sick here…tending them, and laundry…and images…dream like things of me home but in a simple dress? But I’m reading books in Tedric’s collection…unfortunately it’s just dreaming.

But it wasn’t nightmares.

But I feel them still there lingering at my edges.

I wake up needing to go to the jakes and I slip out shivering in the dawn…it’s cooler here…still close to the mountains really but close to the sea too somewhat and the lake has that mist of the morning on it.

It’s a pretty village really.

I head off to use the jakes and still having this I can’t…is this real feelings going on. But sitting and letting go and peeing sitting down and wiping has a certain reality.

My heart hammers a little just standing there after wiping and the thoughts of what I’ve become…what I’ve lost…but what’s ahead…what I have to deal with and survive…it’s threatening to swamp me.

I move out from the jakes and head for the lake and I don’t know why but I pull off my boots and wade barefoot into the chilly water…just breathe and stare out into the grey the water starting to creep up my skirt and I just stand there getting a hold of myself.

I wade back and I take off my top and my shirt and then wade back into the water with just my panties on.

Cold not cool cold water and it’s actually just what I want though my breasts and my nipples ache at first and the tips harden…that makes me stop and look at them…cup them…barely a cupped hand, a sup of water.

But massaging them feels… “Stop that…gods, that’s the last thing you need to be dealing with right now.” But aside from the erotic it just feels good in soothing the aches they have.

“Swim…definitely swim.”

I sort of fall into a swimming stroke and there’s a raft out a bit of a ways and I swim out to it. It’s close to the middle and it’s a good place for it too it looks like it’s used for fishing from…well by the smell more than the look. There’s a laddered chair in the center too and a bell…it’s foggy right now but this would give a good look for the other side of the lake.

So a look out post on the water…good idea.

I push off and swim back but heading towards the town’s dock and when I get there I dive and flip and do another lap.

I know how to swim we have…had a reservoir home and my mother and her folk are all Eastlanders.

The Eastlands are like these parts only older and more settled. The eastern mountains are nowhere as huge as the western ones are and are filled with valleys and big passes and lead down to gentle hills and hundreds of lakes and rivers all leading down to the sea.

See they’re still not The Middle Kingdoms…but they were easy to settle. When The Great Fall happened and the fleets of the ancients had to land here on Titan the great ships of the stars had to land where they could and the Middleland plains was where they could do so most.

The Middlelands had been home to the ancestor colonists and they had farms and food and were already established while the other places of this world were not as much.

The War of The Fall saw the death of the ancient powers and the arrival of The Others through the “Gates” and the war between the others and those of The Dark Races had begun and waged for hundreds of years before the gates were destroyed one by one by The Great Alliance and the world was left in the early stages of what it is now.

But The Middle Kingdoms was and has been the most powerful and the oldest kingdoms of mankind event after the civil wars that caused mankind to leave and split and head it’s separate ways.

The Eastlands is one of those that left seeking their own power and fortunes long ago but they were not and still are not The Middle Kingdoms.

So…yes…father sort of married down.

I know it was an arranged marriage though but not why and not what Lyonnes got from it.

Those would have been secrets of the heir.

Mother’s house is the Noble House of Petrel, and they’re merchant nobles with power in the form of properties and wealth and trade more than anything that would be considered military.

Orchards and vineyards and cotton I think…And shipping, it’s been close to seven years since I was last there and I didn’t get all the reasons why my mother didn’t like going home but it was there.

I do remember there was a lot of ass kissing to us by our relatives there and they rarely came to visit us.

So perhaps bad blood there.

And very unlikely to help me get justice for home, aside from maybe funding but I have the feeling with such loans there’d be a steep price.

But the thoughts help, the cold helps…the swimming helps.

I knew warriors home, soldiers that would run, not march but run in the mornings my mother would do this ride out to the reservoir and swim whenever she could.

I know it’s a strange lake but practically being a lightning fish I’m none too worried.

But I do stop at the raft and grab the rope they have used to anchor it and pull myself down in the water after talking a deep breath.

It takes a moment but I touch the bottom here and there’s a chill over my feet and halfway to my knees as I’m in a light current but colder water and I arc one hand making a tendril of lightning between my pinky and my thumb.

Oh…

Okay it’s another world down here…sand a gravel bottom but big greenish boulders and from them lake weed sort of like tall forestly trees and then there’s fish…I don’t really know fish that much but I see spotted trouts and others and there’s a lot of then here doing fishy things and such but they’re schooling around me curious but wary of my light.

They break and dart in a panic as two otters break through their ranks and they swim around me looking and looking and checking me out just like a pair of curious dogs.

I even get nosed a little at my navel which makes me fight laughing under water but smile a lot.

I needed the smile and honestly it’s amazing…I’ve never seen anything like this before but I’m here in their world so they’re a whole lot less shy.

They stay only for a short time and I have to go up for air.

Dawn is just coming and I can see it outlining the mountains…the lake is steaming with the change in temperature and I’m right here in the water and it’s…it’s a freezing but nice scene.

Actually it’s an amazing scene.

I’m getting the shivers…I’m so much smaller now.

I take a breath again and I slip back down making more light but I dim it…not as bright and the circling fish are less scared and more curious and I reach out and focus…and I let loose some power.

It comes out like a wild thing like lightning does but still where I want it to go more or less and when it hits the schooling wall of fish it bursts? Well it’s what it looks like sort of like a ripple of energy in the water like the waves when you drop a copper in a wishing well.

Oh...okay…water and lightning have different reactions…and me making light didn’t do that…because it was still channeled back to me?

The ones in that ripple though go floating to the surface and I follow them. I break the water and start to toss them onto the raft and there’s some plenty large ones too since I was sort of able to aim for that.

I take a swim when I’m done to the wharf and grab a basket and swim back with it and the two otters are up on the rafts eating two of the fish and the whisker smile at me as I pull myself up.

“Yes, yes Master and Mistress Otter consider that a tax on me poaching in your domains.”

They don’t answer except to go back to eating only long enough to pause and watch me while they’re chewing a mouthful of fish.

I’m not used to this still and it’s very enjoyable really, it feels good to just smile for something simple.

And get even more of a grasp on myself and the powers granted to me.

I leave the raft and float-swim the basket back and carry it out of the water and there are people up and some are headed this way to do they’re chores or whatever and I’m getting looks.

I carry the basket over my breasts all the way to my clothes and I keep my back to them trying to not look embarrassed but I put on my slip and then my shirt and wring out the bottom of my skirt and then put my socks and boots back on.

My panties I’ll change at the tents.

Dammit that air is chilly.

And my hair seems to weigh more than I remember as a man…boy.

I can only imagine what’ll be said me coming out from the water naked no doubt or close enough to it with a forty pound basket of fish.

Oddly enough it seems almost “Sorceress” enough it makes me smile.

I head to the tent and Nicole is…well was sleeping and she cracks an eye.

“You’re up early.”

“I’ve been up an hour I think.”

“Why? We…that’s not enough sleep.”

“I feel fine actually.”

“Chrissy it’s not enough sleep.”

I look outside the tent at the sun. “I’ll nap later, seriously I don’t feel tired.”

She looks at me and grumbles. “Three hours is not enough for me but I’m too tired to argue with you…just be careful.”

“I will…you rest.”

She gives me a dubious look the she nods and I get changed into some of the other things the steading women had given me and I head in through the porch with my catch.

“Oh Blessed it’s lovely and toasty in here.” I just kind of smile as the heats starts to sink in.

The women there are looking at me surprised. “Wisdom? Is all well you just left?”

“It’s well enough how are the sick?”

“Still ill but the foul brew seems to have abated the coughs and the herbal tea some of the pain and such.”

“It’ll take time to take an effect. Does anyone here know how to cook fish?”

They look at me like I’m stupid.

I smile and blush. “I’m from the Middle Kingdoms the closest river with decent fish was a half days ride from where I lived. It wasn’t exactly standard fare.”

Actually it was costly when you took in the fact we sent riders for it whenever mother became homesick for something fishy. The locals it wasn’t costly but still we had to send for it.

I get several volunteers to cook it and I smile. “Can you give me a few minutes with the sick so I can see and make notes and then if you ladies would be so kind I would love to learn how to do all of this?”

I mean it too. One I don’t know how and two there are going to be social expectations of me as a woman now and I can’t avoid them…not without raising eyebrows. And it’s a common thing. I seen the Lady Blackhand do things like this…I mean she seemed to just do everything else that the common folk did.

And I don’t know why exactly but that’s important to me.

Alright I know why.

It’s that whole thing from yesterday.

What if I always have been her child?

I mean My Father and Mother will always be…

But if she was…and she died for me?

(Sigh.)

I really wish that I knew the truth.

Perhaps Nicole’s Lady Knight-Marshal will have answers for me, she knew Lady Blackhand apparently.

I get cloths and cleaning water and a jar of the potion-gin-medicine and have one of the girls follow me with a mug and some more of the willow-herb tea and I go and make my rounds and check on people.

It’s still more of the same but they smell cleaner and they take the spoonfuls when they can and everyone has that same reaction to it and then some tea even if sips of it and I wash some of the ones off that need it.

Sitting in sick sweat isn’t good and a gentle wash off keeps them cooler and even if they’re too sick to say it lifts their moods.

But I’m learning that there can be a thank you in a look of the eyes.

I pull some sheets from the worst and get the girl to get clean linens while I wash them off and put them back to bed.

Two children are dryer and seem less fevered, two children have messed themselves, and an old woman cough drools green goop up from her lungs and all over my arm.

I…

~It is what a man does for the least of his fellows that tells his worth more than his glories…~

Father said that to me and my brothers every time we balked at doing something we didn’t want to do because others did not.

By other’s I mean others of our stations and such.

It’s only been two? Three days and I’m seeing things that I’ve never seen about my life before.

Can loss change you that much that fast?

Once I’m done and I quickly jot down my notes about this care session I join the ladies back in the kitchens and we start cleaning and scaling and cooking fish.

I did need to learn, I had no idea that you had to scale fish before eating some of them or how to cut the bones free from this fish the call perch. I had no idea that in some fish you kept things…fish have livers, this I did not know, and that the egg sacks and the essence sacks are kept as well and you very lightly and delicately fry them in butter or bacon fat and when you’re done you get to eat them smeared on toasted bread.

We fill every frying pan with fish and we put some in the ovens to bake smeared with bacon fat lightly then salted and peppered and dusted with flour.

We cook all of it and we feed the littles first that are helping and we send them to call in people to feed as well and some of the fish flaked off carefully and a bit of onion and some milk to boil becomes a bit of a fish broth for our sick ones that can have it.

I bring a whole crispy roasted fish and some buttered bread and two large mugs of tea in to the tent for Nicole who is again awake as soon as I entered the tent.

Warriors and soldiers I guess it’s true they learn to sleep still awake it seems.

She sits up and I pass her the wooden plate and she smiles at me. “Thank you this looks good.”

“It has been I’m stuffed.”

“Well you’re thin as a bird Chrissy it wouldn’t take much.”

“When you’re working magic it does, I ate two of those and had some fried roe on bread besides that.”

“What on what?”

“Eggs and fish seed butter fried and smeared on bread.”

She makes a face. “That sounds disgusting.”

I shrug. “Actually it surprised me too but it was good, but I was starving.”

“They’re generous.”

“Actually I caught them.”

“You fish?”

“I…I shock them…” I shrug. “It works.”

She nods. “With half the town ill it’s needed too.”

I nod and sit and sip my tea. “I’m going to go house to house soon and see what’s what I heard coughing and such when we came here.”

She looks at me around mouthfuls. “You should rest.”

“I’m not tired…I’m serious Nicole those few hours, they seemed to have been enough. I don’t know if this is something with the magic or not. Honestly it’s a little strange since I really should be much more tired than this.”

“Was that something the sorceress done?”

“Honestly I don’t know, I didn’t have a whole lot of contact with her most of the time. I wasn’t exactly important enough.”

She nods and she passes me back her plate and chugs down her tea. It makes me smile a little crookedly.

“What?”

“You eat like a boy.”

“No…I eat like a soldier when I have need to.”

“We’re not exactly rushed.”

“I am I have to pee.”

I actually laugh as she gets up and we head out from the tent and she heads to the jakes and I take the fish head off her plate and eat it…well gnaw on it and such.

Mother ate the fish heads, the women here did too…I never even tried one until today but it just feels. Maybe a little closer to her? And they’re right they’re actually not that bad.

After that we gather things we need and get two of the girls to come with us and Nicole has the pots and jars and such we may need in a wheelbarrow and we start going from house to house. Some people seem fine, others are sick but not fevered and I’m getting that people don’t argue with a Wisdom when she tells them to take a spoonful of this.

The homes with the sick people that are in bed those we help as much as we’re needed but don’t push in on family helping family. But I do make sure there’s a certain level of clean and hygiene and that the family members aren’t running themselves down.

But some places we do little things, sweep a floor or scrub, get firewood and clean out ashes and several times I send the girls for more tea and more onion soup and I take and make notes of those that need help and things that should be done and seen too.

The…respect? The little offers of shared things like fine things they have stashed for a special occasion is humbling. I’ve learned shortbread is king here as biscuits go and all the older women have a tin and a jam they’ve mastered.

I’ve never had carrot jam or beetroot jam.

Or pumpkin pate? I’m not even sure what a pumpkin is but it was very buttery, and creamy yet it had southern spices.

And each house has a tea they make. I have never had so many cups in my life…or had to pee so much…smaller bladders and…such. Thankfully I’m not alone in this Nicole and Ellery and Lucy are all beset by this.

But there’s such pride in these little shows, this sharing and to have a Squire in one’s house and a Wisdom.

Better manners than a good half the people of “Good Breeding.” I’ve been to see with my parents.

And Nicole get manned by default?

It’s little things but the few men taking care, the old fellows laid up, they all offer her things beyond the tea and sweets. A puff of tabbac, or a hand-roll…spirits or beer….cheese.

That used to be me, my brothers and it’s very odd seeing that sort of thing being done with her.

I’ll say this she’s polite and she takes what’s given, talks like my brothers would. But she’d also speak to the women and compliment the recipes, the teas…talk about them and she’s apparently knowledgeable in knitting and patterns, rug hooking? And other womanly things.

Half the time I’m just listening because some of that’s like another language.

Then we’re off to the wall to talk to Hawk. Maybe I might not feel quite so lost and confused talking to her.

I climb the ladder and whistle getting her attention she’s talking with Taylor who’s back and there’s a handful of people with him. I look at the sun and it’s close to midday already.

They see me then Nicole who has another ladder up and they head over our way and there’s several older people with them and another woman with pants…well young woman like Jessa and Nicole in age and she’s carrying a oil-skin bag over her shoulder and she’s wearing a light canvas jacket and a corset.

From here I’m getting quite the look at a fine set of breasts.

I can’t help but look, I wasn’t changed that long ago.

And she’s pretty too, it that scary way…red headed…so many things said about a red headed person…especially a woman.

Blue eyes too…stunning blue even from here, long tumbly hair unbound.

Nicole cries out happily. “Megan! Is that you!”

“T’is y’clanker y’didn’t have enough on yer plate you sought this out did ye?”

“Aye’s well duty and honor!”

“Aye the honor of havin duty!”

They both laugh and I look at Nicole. “Friend of yours?”

“Yes, that’s Megan Patriquinn a friend from my page days.”

“Another Squire then?”

“Aye but she took service with Sir Alaan.”

I give her a black look. “And he’s…?”

She points as a man with a proper warhorse comes into view with a horse and a team following behind him and it looks very much like ours except there’s no Squire’s rig but mounted behind the driver is a large flag with a sword crossed with a scarlet cross.

You are only able to use a scarlet cross if you’re a sworn healer of some kind and that’s pretty much standard as far as I’ve ever seen or read about. I answer my own question. “A knight healer then.”

Nicole nods. “Knight Surgeon is his actual title and a good man.”

“I nod…it takes a special person to do that work.”

He rides closer and everything says he’s been doing what we have travel and patrol and helping. I can see the baskets and bundles of firewood. But the look of them says they came right from where ever to here and it was a long ride for people and horses.

And he keeps riding all the way to just shy of the gate and looks up at us.

He’s a very handsome man, and younger than I’d guess for a healer. Mid twenties, blonde hair blue eyes and in need of a shave for a few days. Armed he has a sword and several odd daggers and a belt axe….a coat of brigandine like Nicole wears and he looks at us and nods to her and he’s staring at me…?

“Wisdom Christiana, an honor and a privilege.”

“Privilege?”

“I knew your mother.”

I’m fighting the urge to be mad…I… “Do I look like her that much?”

“In most ways, though your age and mine were reversed when I knew her.”

“I thank you Sir for the compliment but I’m far from the same woman as she was.”

“Was..!?…I think I best come inside.”

“The sickness Sir?”

“I’ve guesses given what I’ve been treating.”

Oh…well I never considered we weren’t the only place. “And what are we facing Sir?”

“Scarlet Fever.”

I have heard of this and it is not the influenza…

He looks to the watchman. “Please open the gate.”

The watchman looks to me like I’m in charge. I nod to him. “Do it, we’ll need help.”

Sir Alaan’s wagon stops only as long as it took Taylor and the people with him to load up things they had and what Jessa had gotten and soon they’re rumbling through the gate and it slams shut as they lock us all in once more.

I get down from the ladder and that Megan helps me down those last rungs. She gives me a smile but shy and unsteady, that same look Jessa gives me sometimes, that sorceress look.

“Thank you Squire.”

So odd…female squires, having something done in knightly deference for being a woman…I wonder if it’s her, if she’s a sapphire like Hawk or the fact that I’m a wisdom?

I look to Sir Alaan and he slips off the horse with long ages of body memory and stretches and straightens then offers me his hand.

I shake and he looks like her was expecting?

Oh…I should have offered my hand like a lady.

But he’s shaking my hand like this pleases him and there’s a nice, very nice smile there….and I feel pretty small compared to him suddenly and my mouth is dry.

I look at him…. “I took notes until a real healer could get here.”

“Notes are good…you’ve done this before?”

“Only as extra hands with a little education Sir.”

“Alaan Lady Please, it’s not court or the battlefield.”

“Then Chrissy please.”

“Alright then but a shame.”

“A Shame?”

“I like Christiana, it’s not a name I have heard before.”

He’s smiling and I’m blushing…I’ve never had this kind of close attention like this before…never like this…ever.

I swallow hard and get the book from our wheelbarrow.

“Here are my notes.”

My blush fades as he takes the book suddenly serious and starts reading while pacing and walking the saddle off.

He finishes and looks at me. “This is very good, it’ll save us a lot of time since you’ve organized things so well.”

I blush again but it’s that…It’s that getting recognition blush when you’ve never been getting it…as the youngest son, a lot of my tasks were things needed doing. Nothing this big, not often.

And that Sir Alaan looks serious and that he’s not being charming or flattering means a lot.

But Scarlet Fever….I look at the village.

He says it before me. “We’re just getting started with this.”