Sythyry's Journal

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Mucking

“Cory! You’ll be mucking from the Orren ponds today!” proclaimed Gorsen. The job required taking a wagon to the Orren village by the riverside, wading hip-deep in their fish ponds with a hoe, filling many baskets with stinking but very fertile pond-bottom mud, and sploshing them over the fallow fields of Dren Mafferhame. It was one of the most unpleasant chores in Dren Mafferhame. The farmers had a mucking-list, so that each one took a turn at that chore or another that was equally unpleasant.

“I did that last month,” said Coriander Rounse. “Shouldn’t be my turn again for two years. Did your mucking-list get mucked up?”

“Nothing of the sort. You’re a hired farmer now, remember, not a regular villager anymore. We’ll be setting you whatever tasks we regular villagers like.”

“Now that is unfair! I’ve lived in Dren Mafferhame half my life now, ever since I married Allam and Periwinkle!”

“It don’t matter how long you’ve lived here. It just matter whether you’re a regular villager or a hired farmer. You sold your shares of the village, that makes you not a regular villager any-the-more. You’re a hired farmer now. That means you do what we tell you, and I’m telling you to go muck from the Orren ponds today. You or Gathern will be doing it every time from now on.”

“Damson? Cherrybush?” Coriander asked the two villagers who were standing by the mayor awaiting their assignments for the day. “Will you let Gorsen put on such airs, like she’s a baron or something?”

Cherrybush shrugged. “Seems to me she’s got the right of it.”

“Seems to me like you want to get off the mucking-list altogether!” snapped Coriander.

“Seems to me the hired farm-girl ought to go do what she’s hired for, not stand around giving herself airs and complaining about what her betters say,” said Damson.

“Betters! A month ago we had just as much land as you did!” said Coriander.

“And now you don’t, and your kid burnt down the barn and your husband wrecked my carriage and all of that,” said Gorsen. “So we’re your betters now, and anyone would agree. Go do your work, Cory, or I’ll be docking the day’s pay from you. And you don’t have much more to sell to make up for it, do you?”

“And no stealing from us all any more to enrich yourselves, like you was!” said Damson.

Contempt

“We’re playing villagers,” said Nithia Caragaborse, age twelve. “Go away.”

“I can play villagers!” wailed Ellie. “You know I can! We were playing villagers together all year!”

“We’re not playing villagers with you now,” said Nithia. “You’re not one! Go away! Play by yourself!”

Ellie didn’t wind up playing by herself. Zie wound up crying in Tansy’s arms.

Fees

“You’ve been drinking ale and cider of late,” said Gorsen.

“None of us have been drunk and troublesome, have we?” said Allam. “I’m pretty sure we’ve all been sober enough in public.”

“The concern is not sobriety,” said Gorsen. “Though that would be a concern as well if you were being disorderly. The concern is, simply speaking, that you have been drinking ale and cider of late.”

“Everyone drinks ale and cider at dinner,” said Allam.

“Every villager drinks ale and cider at dinner. We don’t begrudge you the food — why on wood would we, you work alongside us every day! — but the ale and cider is for villagers,” said Gorsen.

“What, you’re telling us not to have any?” cried Allam.

“Hardly that! We’re more than happy to sell ale and cider to you or to anyone,” said Gorsen. “And cheaply, too. A lozen a day for all five of you, for as much as you like. That’s twenty-seven lozens for the last month.”

“That’s dear not cheap, since it was free for all our lives before this! For the next month, we’ll be drinking water, so don’t be charging us such a fee!”

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Loss

Actually, there was only one possible arrangement. The Noritts and Rounses had, ultimately, only two assets: their tiny sliver of the village’s lands and profits, and their labor. Only the mayor herself, of all the people in the village, had the money to pay what the Noritts and Rounses owed; and even for her it would not be easy.

So the Noritts and Rounses gave Gorsen everything they owned, save their house. Three strips of land in the rollward fields, four squares in the roll’gainst; eleven spots in the inward. Seven nut-trees, and four fruit trees. An annual share of hay: this year, badly diminished. A plow-cow; fifteen chickens. This and that else.

Not that the village of Dren Mafferhame would let anyone starve. As long as the Noritts and Rounses worked as best they could, they would have their shares of grain and salad and vegetables, and no one would begrudge them filling their plates and their bellies at the communal dinners that happened eight nights a week. But they’d get none of the village’s money, except whatever they could earn by extra work in their spare time, or gifts from sympathetic neighbors — the neighbors who had lost a barn. No money for rum and cinnamon oil for Ellie’s next birthday cake, nor for new clothes when zie outgrew the ones she wore. Nothing for a new knife when Allam’s knife broke. Nothing for medicine if anyone got injured — and that worry was quite fresh.

Poverty

“I could sell myself into indenture,” said Tansy. “I deserve it, for all the ill I’ve brought us.”

“We’ll have no talk like that, my mari!’ said Allam. “It was ill luck, is all, and a bit of poor steering. Unfortunate it is. A crime worthy of indenturing it is not.”

Periwinkle took Tansy’s mid-hand. “And you work hard every day, taking care of every child that our Allam has sired, whether he got them on you or on us. If you went off and sold yourself, we’d be miserable and we’d be extra-busy.”

“We stand together, Rounses and Noritts, in the bad season as well as in the good one,” said Coriander.

“You’re a bunch of fond fools,” said Tansy, but zir eyes filled with tears and zie wrapped the arms of her family and her half-family around her.

(Anthropological note: The stereotype is that when one Herethroy man weds two pairs, the two pairs hate each other and compete for the man’s attention. This stereotype is as true as any: in more cisaffectionate Herethory families than not, there is at least some tension and discord between the two. It is also as false as any: in some substantial minority of families, the five people are as close as kinsfolk. In poorer circumstances — and the Rounses and Noritts were poor even before their troubles — it is often most practical to live as a single five-adult family rather than two 2.5-adult ones. So the Rounses and Noritts do not fit the stereotype at all, but they are hardly unusual in how they defy it.)

(And it is technically improper for the spouses from one side to have any sort of romantic liaison with those from the other, except of course for the husband, who is required by both. I have no idea if the Rounses and Noritts obey this propriety or defy it or what. In the absence of information, let us assume the best of them, and, if we wish, debate what “the best” may be.)

"In the end, we saved nearly half of the cardamom crop from the fire," said Gorsen at the monthly Official Moot of Dren Mafferhame. "Some of that is a bit smoke-bitten, but we've found a buyer in Ulmarn who isn't too particular about that so long as the price is low enough. That leaves nearly a third of the total crop that we can sell at the usual price. Which is better than we might have hoped when we saw the barn ablaze."

The farmers of Dren Mafferhame drooped their antennae in unison. The cardamom crop was the village's biggest source of income. To be sure, they didn't need to fear going hungry: they grew a hundred kinds of vegetables for their own use, and to sell, and they could feed themselves gluttonously even if every cash crop and half their food-crops failed. But Dren Mafferhame depended on the cash from the cardamom for spades and blades and brocades and the hundreds of material things that made village life pleasant. They would get few luxuries this year. And even necessities could be troublesome. Probably they would have to choose between, say, whether to buy a much-needed replacement plow, or a much-needed collection of textbooks for their children.

"Then we come to the hay. I hardly can complain that Vanilla and Greeper chose to salvage cardamom rather than hay," said Gorsen. "Still, all the hay that was in the new barn is burnt up, or so sooted and smoked that only a very hungry beast will eat it." Perhaps the village would get neither plow nor books; perhaps it would need to pay for fodder instead. "We've sent the children out to the swamps to gather reeds, and to the forest for ferns, and we'll save the hosh-stalks." Neither one would be the best of fodder: reeds dry badly and are very coarse, and ferns are none too nutritious, and too many hosh-stalks give horses ulcers.

"Finally, the new barn itself. It is not completely useless. But the bemas are burnt badly, the walls are warped weirdly, and I am none too confident that the building will hold up to blizzard or winds." There was a low murmur of grumbling, especially from the farmers who had worked to build the barn in the first place, chopping trees and sawing planks and raising the roof and all.

"Who was it, again, that had agreed to see to the fireproofing of the new barn?" asked Gorsen, who knew the answer perfectly well.

"It is I," said Tansy.

"It is Tansy Noritt," said Gorsen. "And why was the fireproofing not accomplished?"

"Well, we were all very busy you see, and the fire-mage had written to us and asked us to send a rider with a spare horse to Vheshrame to pick him up and bring him out. And all the horses were busy with the cardamom harvest and things, you see, so we couldn't until after the harvest. He was going to come out, let me see, a week and a day from to-day," said Tansy. "Anyhow, who ever heard of a barn burning down less than two weeks after it was finished?"

"It has been a bit of bad luck," agreed Gorsen. "And what of the funds for the fire-mage, which are now futile?"

"We'll have most of them back to the village in a few days," said Tansy.

Gorsen frowned, for she hated surprises, especially bad ones. "You don't have the money that we had set aside for fireproofing the barn?"

"We needed some money in Vheshrame, when we went there to take care of Ellie," said Tansy. "We'll be selling some of our things, and we'll pay the village back when they're sold."

"That is not acceptable! We don't begrudge you the funds, Tansy, not when little Ellie is hurt. But you know that you must ask for them! You can't simply embezzle them off of us without mentioning it."

"It was an emergency," said Tansy. Which was an underestimate: it was, at least, two emergencies at the same time.

"Why'd you do it, Tansy?" said Gorsen sadly.

"We'd just burned down the new barn and spoilt the crops," said Tansy. "We didn't feel good about asking the village for money just then. We were sure we could pay everyone back before anyone asked about it."

"Oh, Tansy," said Gorsen.

Tansy fell to zir knees and elbows, and wept.

"We'll be paying for everything: the money we used, the barn, the hay if we need to buy some, the cardamom even," said Allam, putting a hand on his mari's back.

The villagers gasped. The Noritts and Rounses were among the poorest families in the village: together they had only half a percent or less of the village's land, a small house that the two families shared, and not much past the necessities.

(But they had love and they had courage, at least.)

(Neither of these were immediately marketable. (Actually love, or a tolerable approximation thereof, is marketable in Kismirth, but never mind that.))

Gorsen thought a moment. Ordinarily, she would reject Allam's offer. A good Herethroy village shares risks as evenly as possible, so that nobody and no family is devastated by bad luck, and so that everyone is taken care of. But the Noritts and Rounses had had more than simply bad luck. They had been wicked, embezzling from the village. They had been careless, driving along the bluffs at night. They had been greedy, striving to heal their cosi of a minor non-incapacitating injury. And they had wrecked her beloved carrage and hurt her beautiful mares.

She gave an alarmingly harsh judgment. "You shall pay back the money for the fireproofing, but we will not require of you to pay any more than half of the other monies that you have offered." All the villagers gasped and murmured. "You have until the end of winter to make arrangements."

Mirrored from Sythyry.

“I beg your pardon,” said Mayor Gorsen the next day. “Precisely what has become of my carriage?”

“It’s tumbled over in the stream at the bottom of Burrbumber Bluff,” said Allam sadly. “One side has been stove in, and I don’t think the wheels are in the best of condition anymore.”

“By the spanglio!” exclaimed Gorsen. “My new carriage, with the lacquered panels and elliptical leaf springs! And what of my horses, my matched pair of six-year-old roan mares that I fed on apples every day by hand?”

“Profferty got dragged down the bluff with the carriage. She’s all scraped up on the flank, and has her wounds and injuries. Dillesc fetched up on some bramble bushes on the edge of the bluff, so she’s scratched up but not so bad as that,” said Allam. “She lost her foal, I fear, though.”

“Ach! Accanax shit on the situation!” cried Gorsen. “What hideous angel or insanulous idea propelled you to drive home in the middle of the night? Could you not wait until morning?”

“We hadn’t got a place to stay in Vheshrame,” said Allam. “We’d been too busy at the guild to go find lodging. The only hotels we found were rather dear. We thought to come home to sleep, rather than spending on the city.”

“Ach! Sleep on the streets, by the spanglio! Or prevail on the Cantoozies, or whatever your eighth-cousins-thrice-removed are called, to take you in for the time! Or any other Herethroy family: at that hour they will be too tired to work out the geneological details. Or sleep under the Pillar of Incangiophor, for Mircannis’ sake! It is not yet too cold for that! Just, do not drive your borrowed carriage, with the pregnant mares, across the twisty roads atop the Burrbumber Bluff in the dark of night!”

Allam had no great basis for disputing the mayor’s cry. “I’ve assembled a dozen farmers; we’ll have horse and carriage out first thing after dawn,” he said.

“I suppose that is the best that can be hoped for, under the circumstances,” said the mayor.

And, by dint of the great strength of many stout farmers, both horse and carriage were hoisted to the top of the bluffs. Neither one was in shape to travel by its normal means, so the horse was coaxed onto a cart, and the carriage onto a hay-wain. And so they finally came back to Dren Mafferhame, though more like the first thing after noon than the first thing after dawn.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

The Rassimel I was trying to meet hadn’t gotten back yet. However, I did run into the Rounses and Noritts, who had just been told some predictable bad news by Moika Hastralan. (Moika is one of the nicest healers in the guild, and I’m sure she she offered them a substantially cheaper healing which they still couldn’t afford, and I’m sure she was very sincerely sad to turn them away.)

They recognized me at once, perhaps because I am the only Zi Ri in the Healer’s Guild, or, perhaps because I am the only blue Zi Ri in Vheshrame. “Dr. Sythyry! Dr. Sythyry! A moment of your time, if you please?”

“What — a moment of my precious time, which I could otherwise spend by waiting, fussing, writhing, and fidgeting, for the person I wish to speak with has not yet returned? An unimaginable intrusion!” They looked a bit distressed and started to plead, but I silenced them with, “I meant ‘Certainly, what can I help you with?’ Sorry to talk like a Zi Ri just now; it’s a bit of a congenital problem with me.”

They didn’t even grin. Unimaginable, that a day full to midnight of disasters and disappointments should leave them unwilling to appreciate oblique lizardly humor! Instead they started to tell me about the accident and how unhappy their poor child was.

“Zie doesn’t look unhappy now,” I pointed out.

“This is because zie is asleep on the couch, zir head pillowed on Tansy’s lap, exhausted after a truly terrible day,” they noted, and told me more of the woeful story.

“Hold a moment — you must be the family of farmers that Estertherio told us about,” I said after a while.

“Yes, yes, Estertherio offered us only tiny advice and not so much healing, … how much does it cost for you to cast a spell for someone?” asked the farmers.

“The standard market rate is approximately an arm and a leg. I don’t charge a mid-limb extra for Herethroy. Even an arm and a leg is a poor trade for an antenna,” I said.

“Can you see your way to helping us for a price that we can afford?” they asked.

“Well, it’s really not the sort of emergency that requires instant attention,” I said. “You could save up for a few years. Chances are, I suppose, zie’d have zir antenna back before zie was really looking to get married.”

They looked rather sad. It was a well-practiced look.

“Besides, I’m down to a very few cley tonight, and I ought to save those for emergencies,” I said. This is true. Emergencies love to happen at the hour before dawn, when nearly everyone’s cley is the scantiest. Someday I will figure out how to turn off emergencies’ alarm clocks, and then everyone will be much happier.

They looked rather sad. They were in superb form with their sad looks, really. Masterful, absolutely masterful.

But I remembered something, and, more importantly, where something had come from. “On second thought … or actually about eleventh thought … I will do it. It will make someone happy, in a possibly important way.”

Allam waved his antennae. “It will make Elecampagne most gloriously happy! Zie has been bearing up bravely, so bravely, but zie is truly miserable.”

I dipped my head. “I imagine it will make zir happy as well.”

“Then who?” wondered Tansy.

“And how much will you charge us?” asked Allam.

I brought out a gaudy red thimble-chalice from nowhere in particular; it certainly hadn’t been in this universe per se. (Which is only appropriate; it was not made in this universe, so there’s no reason at all for it to stay here all the time.) “There is no possible way you could afford my usual fee for this, nor the nineteenth part of it even, so I will charge you … let us say … three terch.”

The farmers gasped and boggled in delighted amazement. “Three terch? That is all?” You can buy a bun and a mug of kathia for three terch, if you are not overly fussy about how good they are.

I had to add, “Oh, and you mustn’t tell the other healers about it; I am not taking the guild’s pay scale seriously. My actual payment, or reward, will be something entirely different.”

The farmers gasped and boggled again, not the least bit delighted. “We know that you lust after Herethroy…” It never was a secret that Mynthë and I were married in all but name for many decades. It was a bit more of a secret that, although Mynthë was a Herethory born and bred, she [*] wasn’t actually a Herethroy when she could avoid it. I’m sure this gave the farmers a bad impression — which is to say, a good but incorrect one.

[* -- Sythyry uses an distinctive and rather archaic-sounding unspecified-prime pronoun, making it very clear that you know zie's not referring to Mynthë in the ordinary way. This is translated, a bit feebly, into using 'she' for a co-lover who should be called 'zie' -bb]

Tansy curled her antennae. “I am the one who broke off Ellie’s antenna. I shall do whatever is needful to get it set right. My husband, my wife, I trust you will not mind overmuch…”

At which point I blushed until my wings all but caught fire. “No, not that! I have definitely got to stop speaking Zi Ri style to upset parents! What I mean is, I have a Glory of Mircannis that was stolen from a temple that the healer-goddess built to herself. I will use it on your cosi, because Mircannis will probably approve of it, and, I hope, be somewhat less pissed off at me for stealing it. I am, of course, always glad to assuage the misery of a twelve-year-old peasant cosi, but — with all due respect — the good will of Mircannis matters more to me than that of Elecampagne Rounse.” (I didn’t personally cause it to be stolen, or I’m sure it would be too dangerous for me to keep, but it was stolen and staying on the better side of a Verb Goddess is generally a good idea.)

By which time I had remembered which spell to use — I doubt I have used it thrice since I grafted it, a century ago — and fed it the day’s power of the Glory. Ellie stirred in zir sleep, roused just a touch by the immense force the goddess brushed across her, and stretched both antennae. As often happens, using a Glory to cast a spell did more than the spell should have done by itself; in this case, it took care of both spells. Zir parents and … however one describes the Noritts with respect to zir … burbled something along the lines of, “We owe you more than immeasurely much! We submit to you the greatest of thanks!”

“Well, technically, you owe me three lozens,” I admonished. “Terch, I mean.” I can’t remember ever being paid in terch, and certainly not for spellwork. “But you can pay in produce, if that’s more convenient for you.” Unwise of me! They might well have pulled a chicken out of a bag and handed it to me, and where would I be then? (Answer: trying to carry a ferocious and vicious bird nearly as big as myself back to somewhere I could deal with it, without using any cley.)

“Well … yes! Of course!” cried the farmers, and gave me my fee — in three little amber-kissed shells, thankfully, and not a watermelon twice my size or some such horror.

“Then we are even,” I said, “And I thank you for your business, and hope that the rest of your stay in the big city is as you wish it. But hark! I think that is the gentleman I came here to see. Good night, good farmers, and may battalions of blue beetles bounce you to your beds.” (The next time I make a silly benediction like that, I really ought to back it up with something concrete.)

I made a proper courtly bow, as from a superior to a generic inferior, and flapped into the corridor. Whereupon three master-healers set upon me and demanded, in no uncertain terms, to know what I had been up to with a spell of that pandulceous character and traumatic force. I did my best to fail to explain, but I they figured it out — when they saw the biantenna’ed Miss Elecampagne Rounse, if not before.

I got rather more than three terch worth of scolding about wasting such a resource as that, let me tell you! More than three lozens’ worth, even. I wound up promising to send the Guild chapter in Vheshrame a few exotic healing spells, bound, for free, by way of apology.

And that was the end of the matter of the farmers, as far as I was concerned. They, of course, had a different opinion.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

Some time afterwards, and not long before midnight, Estertherio’s day as Summoner was over. She headed off to the Count of Muskrat’s Head, a pleasant sort of tavern half a block from the Healer’s Guild headquarters in Vheshrame, and where the guildmasters gather to confer, discuss, complain, relax, recline, incline, decline, confine, undermine, determine, sine, countersign, cosine, and, of course, go off on tangents.

“You would not believe the day,” she conferred, discussed, complained, relaxed, and etc.ed to the other guildmasters. “This and that happened which was all very serious, so that I did not get my morning meal until after sunout! This plate of roast meat and raisins I am devouring is my luncheon, and it is not long before midnight! And after that — a pile of minor cases! Imagine, a poor farmer’s cosi who lost an antenna — just one — and wants to get it put back on! I hate wasting my own time on impossibilities like that when there are so many serious patients that need attention. Or so much roast meat and raisins who need it at least as much!”

Spurffle, the eldest waiter of the Count of Muskrat’s Head, said, “Your pardon, master-healer, but if you plan to heal that roast, the cook will be sure to break a bottle of fine old Marque Datal over your head. She worked harder on that roast than you worked on any three patients today, and she won’t have her roast unroasted by the likes of a child like you.” He is older than everyone else but me, and feel obliged to be as rude as possible about it.

I poked my head out of the fireplace. I am not often found in Vheshrame anymore, and, even when I lived there, I didn’t spend that much time with the Healers’ Guild. But I was back, trying and failing to arrange for Kismirth’s guild chapter to get a teacher for a year or so. “The solution is obvious to all! The Healer’s Guild of Vheshrame should procure, by honest means involving a great outpouring of lozens to a convenient enchanter, a talisman which reattaches severed limbs!”

Estertherio frowned. “That’s not really the problem: nearly any master-healer could merely reattach the curst thing. Making it useful, now, that’s the slobbering fish of sorrow.” (Yes, she really said ‘slobbering fish of sorrow.’) “And it’s not so much the reattaching of an antenna alone, but the reattaching of a lost finger, ear, toe, hand, foot, tail, penis, tentacle, or what have you.”

“I, personally, have most of those, and wings as well,” I noted.

“Right, wings. And each of those requires a different spell, does it not, master-healer?” She said that “master-healer” in a rather disparaging way, as one does to a fellow guildsman whom one is annoyed with but does not wish to directly spew disrespectful invective upon. The Vheshrame guild isn’t entirely happy with me: perhaps because I devote more time to my other guilds than to them, perhaps because my healerly activities are mostly enchantments which the guild has trouble charging for. (Consider a device which can heal wounds as often as you like. How do you charge for a single use of it? Once you have the device, it costs no extra to use it. But the device is hideously expensive to make, even if I had foregone my profit, which I did not in that instance — so they have to charge for the use of it, somehow. And that’s a spell which nobody else in the Vheshrame chapter can cast at all, making it particularly embarrassing to have around.) Or perhaps because I am a joyous and blatant pervert, of course.

“I’m sure there’s some way to do it all with a single device,” I said. This opinion is based on sound theoretical principles of advanced magic.

“If you can make a device that does it all, you’re a better enchanter than I had imagined, master-healer!”

“I am a better enchanter than you had imagined, master-healer,” I said, musing that with my fairly-newly-acquired Glory of Mircannis, I could probably manage it.

“Well, don’t go making that particular toy until you’ve made us a full set of all the actually life-saving devices we could possibly want,” said Estertherio. “We have enough serious and hard work to do without wasting our time on cosmetics.”

“They’re only cosmetics until your boyfriend’s penis needs reattaching,” said someone who may remain nameless. “Then they’re essential.”

“You are certainly a cruder enchanter than I could imagine, master-healer,” said Estertherio.

Which seemed like a good time to get out of the fireplace, pay my tab, and see if the Rassimel I was trying to meet with had gotten back to the guildhall yet. None of the healers, including me, spared a thought for Elecampagne. That sort of injury happens — not often, but too often. And one cannot go about healing it every time, much as one would actually like to, so one must become callous about it.

Mirrored from Sythyry.

[I'm going to be at Midwest FurFest this weekend! With wings on, and a blue dragon mask. If you'll be there and feel like it, reply to this message and I'll give you more useful contact info. -bard]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

On the ride into Vheshrame, Ellie herself was putting as brave a face on it as a 12-year-old could be expected to. (And yes, they did ride. It would have been a ridiculous walk for an injured child, and zir parents didn’t think zie could stay on a horse. The mayor, Gorsen, did lend them her own carriage, and no questions asked. Remember that, at least, when you judge Gorsen.)

“We’ll get a healer to make it better,” promised Periwinkle.

“It’s all right, sather. It doesn’t hurt so very much,” said Ellie, and burst into tears.

And, again:

“You mustn’t blame Cayenne,” said a very ashamed Tansy. “He’s far too young to know better. I am the responsible one — I let him slip away from me, and of course I grabbed badly when you fell.”

“I don’t blame you, either, caunt Tansy,” said Ellie. “You were trying to save me. But I do wish you had let go. I don’t want to go around all lopsided and missing an antenna.” She knew what the quintet’s finances were like.

“Oh, poor child,” said Tansy, and burst into tears. This of course set Ellie off again, and that got Cayenne crying as well.

In all ways, it was probably the Worst Carriage Ride Ever, or at least the worst one in which nothing actually went wrong, as well as the Worst Birthday Party Ever.

In the Guild Hall

Estertherio oa Estropomp, the Summoner of the Healer’s Guild and herself a master-healer of the lowest rank, finally deigned to see Ellie as a patient. By “finally” we must admit that Ellie had been waiting for five hours, since mid-afternoon, and that a dozen patients had been seen before her. In Estertherio’s favor we must admit that Estertherio had chosen to see to the eight people injured in a flour explosion, most of whom were actively bleeding — if not actively showing off their private parts. In a way that titillated nobody, since those private parts were intestines, spleens, stomachs, and the like. We must also admit that Estertherio chose to dine before seeing Ellie rather than after, which may seem callous. And arguably she could tell at a glance that Ellie was in no immediate danger. Or arguably it was an act of selfishness, as Ellie and another half-dozen much-belated patients complained.

Estertherio granted Ellie a mere nine minutes of her time. “Well. You got a nasty knock on the head, but someone dumped enough crude healing spells on you so that you don’t really need any further magic for that. Then there’s that missing antenna. Do you have the severed antenna with you?”

“I do,” said Allam.

Estertherio picked it up out of Allam’s basket, and looked at it. “You would have been well-advised to preserve it. A simple meat preservation spell would have sufficed.”

“We’re village Herethroy, doctor,” said Allam. Meaning, of course, that they cannot and do not eat meat, and so unlikely to have meat preservation spells.

“Well. Should this ever happen again, be sure to look up a Cani, or an Orren, or even a Rassimel or Gormoror or Sleeth. If you had put a preservation spell on it even two hours after it was severed, it would be a great bit easier to reattach. As it is, it is a spell of complexity thirty to reattach it, and a second and stronger one to actually get it to work,” said the doctor.

“Can you do it?” asked Allam.

“What, I? Even if I had any cley left after that explosion, I don’t have the spell. It’s not that common. Can you pay for it? You must expect a hundred lozens to reattach it, and, if you are lucky, a thousand or two to restore function.”

“That’s a great deal of money for me,” said Allam. “Are there charities who might help us?”

“There are charities, to be sure, and there are healers who may be sympathetic and undercharge you. In all honesty, I doubt that they will help you,” said Estertherio. “This is little more than a cosmetic injury. Your cosi, having one antenna left, has lost some sensory acuity, and some attractiveness, and some expressiveness, but zie has not lost all. Zir life is hardly in danger, nor is zir ability to take care of herself. Charities and sympathies are largely reserved for more serious cases.”

“My poor cosi! … I suppose we must ask those healers who are capable, and see if any of them will help us,” said Allam.

“I wish you would not. They are our strongest healers, and, in full truth, they have better things to do than cosmetic surgery,” said Estertherio. She did not need to finish the phrase: on a poor and low-class farmer’s cosi. “Still: the healers who can do this are Moika Hastralan, who is on duty in this very hall; Dr. Tarnamme, and Dr. Vesputine, whose whereabouts I do not know but they might still be in their offices around town, and, on the odd chance that zie is around and you are transaffectionate, Dr. Sythyry.”

“We’ll go see Dr. Hastralan, then. Thank you for your time and your candor,” said Allam, rather devastated.

“Well, you certainly have my sympathies,” said Estertherio. “Be grateful that the situation is not too dreadful, and unlikely to get any worse.”