The Fuller's Apprentice (The Chronicles of Tevenar Book 1) (17 page)

Josiah heard a muffled gasp from within, and the clatter of a wooden bowl being dropped. A moment later, a woman who closely resembled the girl appeared in the doorway.

“Thank the Mother,” she exclaimed, her voice choked with emotion. “Please, come in. I knew a wizard would have to come through soon. But I thought I’d have to go down to Tathorlith to find you, if—But you all must be weary and soaked. Come dry yourselves.”

Elkan stood aside to allow Meira and Josiah to enter. He exchanged glances with Sar, and the donkey, trailed by Thistle, plodded over to take shelter under the shed with the goats. Elkan came into the warm farmhouse and shrugged off his cloak. “You have need of the Mother’s aid?”

“Yes.” The woman glanced anxiously at a cradle beside the fire. “It’s the baby. But she’s sleeping now. It can wait until she wakes. Sit down, make yourselves comfortable.” She shooed aside a boy of about three who clung to her legs, peering fearfully at the strangers, and moved to draw chairs close to the fire.

The girl joined her mother, looking anxiously toward the door. “Father will be back from the field any time. Do you think…?”

The woman shushed her. “Of course he’ll welcome the wizard and his companions. Go, bring in a few onions and a scoop of barley from the storeroom.” The woman turned back to her guests. “I’m Sathea Farmerkin Knitter, and that’s my daughter Nirel. This is Yarin.” She indicated the boy still clinging stubbornly to her legs. “My husband, Kabos, will be here soon.”

Elkan nodded acknowledgment and introduced Josiah, Meira, and Ravid. “And also, my familiar, Sardonyx, a donkey, is outside, along with Meira’s donkey. If you don’t mind them sharing your goats’ hay, your shed should be sufficient shelter. But do be aware, Sar will have to come in when you’re ready for us to see to your need.”

“Of course.” Sathea turned distractedly to Nirel, who had returned from the pantry. “Give me those, and go break open another sheaf of hay for the wizard’s animals.”

“Josiah, would you help her, please?” Elkan murmured, and Josiah, reluctant as he felt to leave the warmth of the house, nodded and pulled his wet cloak back around his shoulders.

He followed Nirel through the rapidly fading twilight to the goat shed. It was warm and steamy inside from the animals’ body heat. The goats had bunched to one side, making room for Sar and Thistle, who lipped up the last few strands of hay from the floor.

Nirel nodded to the back of the shed, where sheaves of hay were neatly stacked. Josiah helped her lift one down. She pulled a knife from her belt to cut its binding, and they scattered the sweet-smelling yellow stalks.

Nirel helped Josiah unload the donkeys, piling the camping gear and anything else they wouldn’t need that night into a heap in a back corner. Josiah dug through the pile and found the donkeys’ brushes. He tossed one to Nirel. Together they stripped the harnesses off the animals and set about brushing them, Josiah working on Thistle while Nirel groomed Sar.

They were almost finished when a cold voice spoke. “Nirel.”

The girl jumped and swung around to face the speaker. “Father!” Her voice was respectful, even happy, but there was tension in it that struck Josiah as strange. He looked back and forth between the two curiously.

Before her father could say anything else, Nirel continued. “Father, this is Josiah. He’s apprentice to a wizard. A wizard, Father, just like we’ve been waiting for. This donkey is the wizard’s familiar; I was just helping brush him.”

The man walked into the shed and laid a hand on Nirel’s shoulder. He wasn’t that large, perhaps an inch or two shy of Elkan’s height, though broader in the chest. But there was a presence about him that made him seem much larger and more intimidating. His dark eyes studied Josiah for a moment. He turned to Nirel. “Where’s this wizard now?”

“In the house with Mother.”

Her father nodded curtly. “Come with me.” His fingers tightened on Nirel’s shoulder as he steered her around. “You’re not to be alone with this boy. You know better. Don’t let it happen again.”

“Yes, Father.” Nirel looked at the floor.

He released her, and strode purposefully from the shed, herding her before him.

Josiah watched them go, taken aback. He shook his head and tried to return to the task at hand, but couldn’t concentrate. After giving Thistle a last perfunctory swipe, he ran through the rain back to the house. He slipped through the door and froze, struck by the tense atmosphere.

Nirel’s father stood in the middle of the room. He stared hard at Elkan, who had risen and extended a courteous hand to the man. Behind him, Sathea watched, eyes round with apprehension. Meira, seated nursing Ravid by the fire, studied Sathea with a frown.

“—Farmerkin Wizard,” Elkan finished, voice calm and pleasant. “In the Mother’s name I greet you, and thank you for the hospitality of your house.”

The man’s eyes shifted around the room. Finally he extended his hand and clasped Elkan’s. “Master Kabos Farmerkin Farmer. Welcome.”

Turning away abruptly, he stripped off his heavy cloak and hung it on a hook by the fire. He stared into the flames, holding his hands out for warmth.

Josiah pulled a chair into a corner of the room and sat. Sathea and Nirel bustled about, preparing food. Elkan seated himself near Meira and quietly conversed with her. Superficially everything seemed cozy and normal, but a strain underlay the peaceful domestic scene.

Sathea came and stood beside her husband. “The stew will be ready soon. Come, sit down and I’ll fetch you some beer—”

A thin wail sounded from the cradle by the fire. Sathea jumped. She moved hastily but with an odd reluctance to gather the baby into her arms.

Biting her lip, she turned to Elkan and drew the blanket away from the baby’s face. Elkan’s expression remained calm, but Meira’s eyes widened in horror and pity, quickly suppressed.

Far too curious to remain where he was any longer, Josiah slipped quietly around behind them to see.

The child’s face was a distorted parody of a normal infant’s. Where her upper lip should have been, a wide gap extended up towards her misshapen nose, rising to peaks that merged into each nostril. A blob of flesh dangled in the middle. She opened her mouth to cry, and Josiah could see an opening in her gums and the roof of her mouth.

Elkan reached out to take the child and explored her face with gentle fingers.

Sathea studied the two of them, twisting her hands. “She can’t nurse right. When she tries, she just sucks air. I’ve been expressing milk by hand and giving it to her in a cup, but I know she’s not getting enough. It was all right at first, but lately I get less and less milk. I give her goat’s milk, but she spits most of it up. She’s not growing like she should. She’s only three months old, not nearly old enough to give solid food, though I was thinking I’d have to try…

The baby quieted in Elkan’s arms. She reached out to grab a dangling lock of his hair. Elkan winced and untangled her fingers. He wrinkled his nose and grinned at her. She returned his smile with an impossibly wide grin of her own, the broadness of her mouth giving her expression a look of infectious merriment. Josiah found himself smiling as his initial shock at the girl’s appearance wore off, but he could tell her face and arms were too thin.

“She does seem to be lagging a bit in her growth. No.” He raised a hand to silence Sathea’s anguished apology. “You’ve done nothing wrong. In fact, you’ve done amazingly well, to keep her alive and thriving all this time with such a severe cleft. While it’s not the worst I’ve seen, it’s certainly among the more pronounced. You must have shown deep devotion to her.”

Sathea nodded, tears bright in her eyes. “When she was born she was so lively and healthy, but now she’s fussy and listless, and I know it’s my fault because I can’t get enough milk into her…”

Elkan met her gaze sternly. “No mother could have done more than you have.” He looked at the stewpot over the fire and the table, set and ready. “Go ahead and feed her. We should eat first, too. This will be a long, hard healing, and I’ll need my strength.” He stroked the girl’s hair and handed her back to her mother. “What’s her name?”

“We never formally named her, since we weren’t sure she’d make it…” Elkan raised one eyebrow at her. Sathea glanced over at her husband and lowered her voice. “But I call her Ilana.”

Elkan nodded gravely. “We’ll do our best for you, little Ilana.”

Elkan, Meira and Sathea tried to keep up a pleasant conversation over supper, but the brooding presence of Kabos cast a pall over the table, and the talk frequently lapsed into uncomfortable silence. The second or third time this happened, Josiah eyed Nirel questioningly, but she shook her head at him and focused her attention on her bowl.

Finally the meal was over. Josiah jumped up to help Nirel clear the dishes from the table. She accepted his help scrubbing them at the washbasin.

A gust of rain blew in as Elkan held the door open for Sar to enter. Elkan arranged himself in a chair by the fire, the donkey at his side, and called Sathea to bring Ilana.

Unbidden, Josiah went to dig Elkan’s logbook out of his pack. He sat where he had a good view and carefully wrote the date on the next blank page. Sathea hugged Ilana close for a moment then surrendered her. As Elkan settled the baby into his lap, Josiah studied her face again, so he could describe it.

Elkan spoke quietly to Josiah and Sathea, who took up a station in a chair on Elkan’s other side. “This kind of defect originates while the child grows in the womb. At some point, the process goes awry, and development can’t proceed normally. The Mother’s power can reverse her growth to a certain extent, just in the affected areas. But we won’t be able to take her all the way back to the original flaw without harming her. So for most of it, we’ll have to reshape the bones and flesh into their proper form by direct application of the Mother’s power. Much of the time you won’t see anything, because we’ll be working deep below the surface. The repair won’t be perfect, but she should look more normal. And most important, she should have nearly normal function, so she can nurse, and in due time be able to speak clearly.”

Sathea nodded, trembling. Elkan hovered his hand over Ilana’s face and leaned against Sar’s side. The golden glow of the Mother’s power spread to encompass Ilana’s head.

For several minutes nothing happened. Then, deep within the light, Josiah saw Ilana’s mouth open. The cleft portion of her mouth shrank back into her face, the gap opening wider and deeper. It stabilized, and nothing appeared to be happening.

Kabos sat on a stool on the far side of the hearth. He’d watched the interaction between Elkan and his wife and daughter with dark eyes and expressionless face. Now he pulled a whetstone from a pocket, chose an axe from the assortment of farm and kitchen tools beside his chair, and began to sharpen the blade. The rhythmic rasp of stone on metal rang through the room.

Josiah bent to his writing, entering a complete description of Ilana’s condition prior to the healing. When he finished, he set the book down. Nothing had changed, so he rose and walked around.

On the far side of the room Nirel was trying to entertain Yarin by stacking a set of wooden blocks for him to knock down, but he was fretful, attending to the game for only a few moments at a time before looking toward his mother and whimpering.

Josiah flopped on the cold floor next to them. Yarin stared at him distrustfully and scooted closer to his sister. Josiah ignored him, picked up one of the blocks and balanced it on top of his head. Still not looking at Yarin, Josiah picked up another block and set it atop the first with exaggerated care. Swaying back and forth with mock caution, he picked up another and placed on the other two. Yarin watched with wide eyes. He gasped as the blocks almost toppled and smiled shyly as Josiah steadied them again. Josiah grinned conspiratorially at him and plopped another block onto the stack on his head. As they all tumbled into his lap, Yarin laughed out loud.

Josiah played blocks with Yarin for several more minutes. Eventually he got the boy occupied with stacking them into a tower and scooted over next to Nirel.

“You’re good with him,” she observed.

“I’ve got a little brother and two little sisters. I’ve had lots of practice.”

She glanced toward the fire. “Is Ilana going to be all right?”

“I think so. Elkan said he could heal her, and he wouldn’t say that if it weren’t true. He’s going to be worn out, though. Sar, too.” Josiah could already see sweat darkening the donkey’s flanks.

“It’s a good thing you came. Mother was about to make up her mind to take Ilana and go to Tathorlith to wait for the wizard to come through. But Father would never have let her. And she would have either had to take Yarin and me with her, or leave us here with him. So she hadn’t quite decided.”

Josiah bent close to her and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Nirel, what’s wrong? Is it your father? You almost act like you’re afraid of him.”

She darted nervous eyes in her father’s direction, but scowled at Josiah. Her voice was hushed but passionate. “There’s nothing wrong. And I’m not afraid of him.”

“Then why are you so jumpy around him? And your mother…”

Nirel turned away. “Mother doesn’t understand him. She thinks he hates her, but he doesn’t. It’s just that he got so angry when Ilana was born. He couldn’t help yelling. He told her it was her fault Ilana was born that way. That it must be punishment for something horrible she’d done. That she’d brought shame on him and our house. She’s lucky he didn’t throw them both out, even though it was winter and there was snow on the ground and everything. She begged him not to. I think he thought Ilana would die anyway.”

Josiah stared at her, mouth open. “Nirel, that’s—”

She bristled at him. “He works hard to take care of us. Where would we be without him?” She watched Yarin for a moment. “Mother just needs to learn to be more respectful so he won’t have to punish her.”

“Punish her?” Inadvertently, Josiah’s voice rose. Nirel motioned frantically for him to shush. They both looked around, but apparently no one had heard. All the adults remained absorbed in their tasks. Josiah turned back to her, a terrible suspicion seizing him. He had heard of such things, but… His voice sank to a whisper. “Does he hit her?”