Angel-Seeker

  “Can I talk to Doris?” she asked. “And see what she thinks?”

  “By all means.”

  Doris, perennially philosophical, shrugged and nodded. “We always need extra hands here, so if you don’t like nursing, come on back,” the small woman said. “It might do you good to get a change of scenery.”

  “If anybody comes looking for me—” Elizabeth began, and then blushed and fell silent.

  Doris gave her that small smile. “I know where Mary can be found. I’ll send anyone who inquires after you down to her address.”

  So Elizabeth took off her limp apron and gathered up her possessions and followed Mary out into the bright day.

  “I have rooms in the main hall, there,” Mary said, pointing to the central building of the Cedar Hills complex, where Nathan and Magdalena lived. She didn’t pause, though, and Elizabeth walked on beside her. “People come looking for me there, but most of the day I’m out checking on patients. I try to leave behind a list of where I might be found in case an emergency comes up.”

  “Are you the only healer in Cedar Hills?”

  “Feels like it sometimes. But no. There are two others, both good. But the city grows a little every day. We could use five healers, or eight.” Mary glanced over at her. “Maybe if you’re any good at it, you could become a healer someday. You’ve got a cool head and a sharp eye.”

  No one had ever given Elizabeth such a compliment before, and she contemplated it as they kept on walking. She herself rarely strayed past the main four blocks that made up the heart of Cedar Hills: the dorms and halls and shops whose construction had been completed before Elizabeth ever arrived in the city. Now they were traveling down streets that were mostly mud and debris, past framed-in structures that were starting to resemble houses, cafes, and stables. Wagonloads of brick and hay were everywhere; the sounds of hammering and sawing and shouting added weight and color to the breeze.

  A cool head and a sharp eye. It was true that she didn’t panic at the first sign of trouble, but that was usually because she was so frustrated at the thought of the extra work that was going to be caused by this fresh problem that she didn’t have time to have hysterics. She tended to act fast if a crisis erupted, since that generally meant she’d have less to do later to fix things up. Like the time there’d been the fire in James’s kitchen. She hadn’t particularly wanted to be rushing for the cistern while she called for help, but she had figured the sooner she doused the flames, the less soot she’d have to clean from the kitchen walls the next day.

  “I’m practical, I guess,” Elizabeth said at last. “Not by nature, though. By necessity.”

  Mary snorted. “No, by nature all of us are lazy little brats who whine for attention and cry when we don’t get what we want,” she said. “It’s the ones who stop whining and start working that appeal to me.”

  “I don’t know anything about medicine,” Elizabeth said.

  “No. But I’ll bet you learn fast.”

  In a few minutes they arrived at a massive construction site on the very edge of town. Dirt was piled all around a deep hole in the ground, and loads of lumber and brick had been dumped randomly on either side of the excavation. Part of the structure was already standing, though it looked like the central portion had collapsed. Half a dozen men stood in a cluster, arguing over a long scroll of paper, and a few others stood in isolated groups, watching or taking a pull on a waterskin. Another small group knelt around a tarp spread on the ground, and one of the men in this group waved them over.

  “What happened?” Elizabeth asked, more curious than apprehensive.

  “Beam fell on his head and could have killed him. There’s probably not a lot I can do for him if he’s alive, and nothing if he’s dead, but if he’s awake, I can give him something for the pain.”

  The group stepped back to allow them access, and both women knelt on the edges of the tarp. The man was indeed alive, grunting from pain, and twitching aside when Mary put her hand to his skull.

  “Hold still if you can,” she said. “I need to see how deep this goes.”

  Elizabeth was a little shocked at how much blood was smeared all over the man’s face and shirt, and how much blood had soaked through the tarp near the back of his head. Good thing she wouldn’t be doing this man’s laundry. She listened as Mary asked him a litany of questions about whether he’d lost consciousness and whether he’d thrown up, and she opened Mary’s satchel when the healer told her to.

  “Get out that big needle—see it?—that’s it. And the black thread. We’re going to have to sew this man up.”

  “Sew up my head?” he exclaimed, writhing on his blanket. “Jovah’s bones, Jovah’s balls—”

  “Jovah will thank you to speak of him with a little more courtesy,” Mary said crisply. “Elizabeth, first we’ll need to clean the wound. And then numb it, before we try to sew it. I’m afraid he’s not going to lie still, though, so I may need you to hold him down. Though you might not be big enough—”

  “I’ll hold him down,” said one of the men who had stood guard over the injured fellow.

  Elizabeth glanced up at him—and then held the glance a moment when he smiled down at her. He was fairly tall, rangy, and spare, a man who looked like he’d been built to be bigger but had suffered too many years of privation. His brown eyes were huge, and his broad facial bones seemed set over hollow cheeks, but his smile was still easy and friendly. It took her a moment to absorb the significance of his mahogany-colored skin and silky black hair, cut somewhat carelessly around his face. He was an Edori.

  “I’m pretty strong,” the Edori added. “He won’t be able to shake me off.”

  “Good. I’m sure we’ll need you. But first can you bring me some water? This looks nasty.”

  “Sure.”

  The Edori departed, and Mary motioned Elizabeth to come closer. “Can you put his head on your lap? I need a better angle. Can somebody get me a towel to put over her dress? You’re going to be covered in blood.”

  Normally she was covered in grease and soap and starch. It wasn’t like she wore her best clothes to work. “I don’t mind,” Elizabeth said with a shrug.

  But someone brought her a scrap of canvas, none too clean itself, and she laid that across her knees before she lifted the hurt man’s head. In a few moments, the Edori returned with a bucket of water, and they went to work on their patient. Elizabeth watched in detached fascination as Mary carefully picked out splinters and bits of dirt from the deep cut that drew a bloody line diagonally through the man’s matted hair. He continued to grunt and jerk as Mary’s hands touched tender areas, but the healer worked on without paying him much attention.

  “Now, can you mix a little of this water with the fluid in that bottle—yes—just stir them together with your finger in that little bowl. All right. I’m going to hold his head pretty tight and you just pour that over the wound. He’s not going to like it—”

  Indeed, the hurt man yowled and tried to twist away from his torturers, but by then, the liquid was splashed all over his open cut and working its painful magic. After a moment, he lay still, panting and scowling.

  “Now. We’ll put some manna root on it—but first, I think, some numbing salve. You see that blue jar? Yes. That’s dera leaf. It doesn’t have any restorative powers, but it shuts pain down for a little while. Always use that if someone has a burn or a deep wound—or a cut like this, that you’re going to suture, or any time you’re about to do something else that might cause additional pain.”

  “Jovah and all the angels bless me,” the man muttered.

  Mary patted him rather absently on the shoulder. “You’ll be just fine. You don’t have any alarming symptoms, and you haven’t lost nearly enough blood to put you in danger.”

  “It looks like a lot of blood to me,” Elizabeth said doubtfully.

  “Head wounds are always gushers. That’s usually not your biggest concern in a case like this. It’s concussion.”

  So Mary explained
the symptoms of a concussion while she gently layered a sticky gray ointment over the cut. The injured man seemed pleased with her ministrations for the first time, giving a loud sigh of contentment and slightly unclenching his body. They spread manna root cream over the gray ointment and let it soak in a moment before Mary began to thread the needle.

  “I need you to push together the edges of the wound for me so it’s easier to sew—yes, like that—you’re very good at this,” Mary praised.

  “What are you doing?” the man asked apprehensively, lunging away from the healer’s hands.

  “We’re attempting to repair your scalp,” Mary said. “Lie still.”

  The Edori man dropped to a crouch beside them. “Would you like me to hold him now?”

  “Yes,” said Mary. “I think he’s going to be troublesome.”

  The Edori straddled the patient, using his knees to clamp the man’s arms to his sides. The hurt man yodeled with indignation, but all three of them ignored him.

  “And his head?” the Edori asked.

  “Yes,” said Mary. “If you can keep it still.”

  So the Edori placed his broad hands on either side of the patient’s head and essentially rendered it immobile.

  “Very good,” Mary said with satisfaction, and began to sew. Elizabeth kept her hands just ahead of the healer’s, closing the open gash with her fingers until the needle could do its work. Even so, the wound still looked pretty raw once the black thread was crisscrossed over it to hold it shut, and Elizabeth was predicting their patient would have the god’s own headache by the time the numbing ointment wore off. The same thought had occurred to Mary, because she was rifling through her satchel to put together a little medical kit to send home with the hurt man: a small vial of the salve and a handful of white lozenges.

  “What are those?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Drugs. Sent by the god. They’ll ward off infection.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” Elizabeth said, and Mary handed her one of the small, perfectly shaped pellets. It appeared to be constructed of a white powder that had been mixed with some kind of adhesive and set in an exceptionally fine mold, for it had no rough edges or irregularities. Elizabeth marveled at the god’s workmanship.

  “Where did you get it?” she asked.

  Mary gave her a quick look. “The angels pray for medicines when there’s a need. They have different prayers that result in different pills of all sorts of colors. They bring me the extras, because the god always sends more than the job requires—and now and then, if I’m running low, I ask Nathan or Calah to make a special request. It’s very handy.”

  Elizabeth handed back the pellet. “I’d like to know those prayers.”

  “Oh, only the angels can make such requests. Jovah can’t hear anyone else’s voice.”

  The Edori stood up, but looked down at Mary with a smile. He was still poised with one foot on either side of the patient’s chest, as if ready to drop down again at any moment and subdue him. “That’s not true,” he said.

  Mary glanced up at him. “What’s not true?”

  “That the god can only hear angels’ voices. Yovah hears the voices of all of his people.”

  “Yovah?” Elizabeth repeated.

  Mary shrugged impatiently and began repacking her satchel. “The Edori have their special name for the god.”

  “But he is the same god, and he is the same to all people.”

  “Yes, well, we can discuss religion some other time,” Mary said, and then turned her attention to the patient. “Listen. You. Can you sit up? Good. How do you feel? Now, I’m going to tell you what you must do for the next few days. . . .”

  As soon as the man’s head was lifted cautiously from her lap, Elizabeth came to her feet and shook out the folds of her dress. Between the dirt, the starch, the soap, and the blood, this poor garment had suffered a rather grueling day. Elizabeth had a feeling the rest of her days as Mary’s assistant might be just as messy.

  “Let me see your hands,” she said to the Edori.

  He gave her an easy smile that was impossible to resist. “Nothing wrong with my hands,” he said.

  She held her own out imperatively. “Let me see.”

  He acquiesced, extending them palm down, so she took hold of them and flipped them over. Scraped raw and filled with splinters. She thought she had glimpsed those abused palms as he lay them against the hurt man’s face. “What exactly did you do?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Pulled the beam off him. Didn’t take the time to put my gloves on.”

  Mary was still giving instructions to the man with the head wound. “Mary,” Elizabeth said. “I need the needle to get these slivers out, and then I need to spread his hands with something. What should I use?”

  “Get a fresh needle, for one thing, and then—oh, the manna root’s as good as anything. And two of the white pills. Five, if any of the splinters go too deep.”

  “Well, let’s go someplace where we can be comfortable,” the Edori said, and led her to an empty wagon that still smelled of pine and cedar. They seated themselves, and then Elizabeth grasped the man’s right hand. “I can’t believe this doesn’t hurt,” she said, examining the dozens of chips of all sizes that had embedded themselves in his skin.

  “It does,” he said, smiling again. “But not so much as a log falling on my head.”

  “I’ll try to be careful.”

  Indeed, she was fairly good at this particular chore, since field hands at James’s farm had always come home with splinters when they had spent the day repairing the fences. The Edori never flinched or protested, though she knew that more than once the point of the needle probed painfully deep.

  “What’s your name?” he asked after she had been working on him for about five minutes.

  “Elizabeth.”

  He waited a beat, then supplied his own. “I’m Rufus.”

  “Hello, Rufus,” she said, not even lifting her head.

  A moment of silence, and then he tried again. “So how long have you been living in Cedar Hills?”

  She answered as briefly as she could. “About two months.”

  “And you like it?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Where did you live before?”

  “On my cousin’s farm.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “I wanted to learn how to sew up the heads of careless men.”

  He laughed. “Why don’t you want to talk to me?” he asked next.

  That was so unexpected that she actually looked up at him. “What?”

  His eyes were so dark that she thought he must be able to see even in pitch black. “Why don’t you want to talk to me?” he repeated gently.

  She flushed and returned her attention to his hand. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “You don’t like Edori,” he hypothesized.

  “I don’t even know any Edori.”

  “You don’t like men?”

  She dropped his right hand and picked up the left one. “I don’t like some of them,” she said dryly.

  “Well, there’s no reason not to like me,” he said cheerfully. “Could we have dinner tonight? Or some night?”

  This caught her completely by surprise, and she transferred her gaze to his face. She couldn’t remember the last time her social interaction with a man had been preceded by something so innocent and friendly as a dinner conversation. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Won’t Mary allow you any free evenings?” he said, giving her that easy smile again. This was ridiculous; she was not the kind of woman who melted at a friendly grin. “Maybe if I talk to her.”

  “No, that’s not it—it’s just that I—why do you want to have dinner with me?” she floundered.

  “Because I got paid yesterday, and I haven’t had dinner with a pretty girl since I left Semorrah, and I thought it might be nice,” he said. “And look! Yovah sent me you.”

  “Why do you do that?” she said, her voice
almost petulant. “Call the god by a different name?”

  He laughed. “Oh, there are many things the Edori do that are different from your ways. We don’t live in houses, we don’t rely on the angels to care for us, we don’t ask the priests to set Kisses in our arms—”

  She almost stared at that. “You don’t have a Kiss? But how can you—how does the god know who you are and where you are?”

  Rufus shrugged. “He knows. He watches over all of us.”

  “But how do you—how can you tell when you’re in love?”

  Now he looked amused. “And the Kiss can tell you this?”

  She was furious with herself for betraying such girlishness. “They say,” she said stiffly. “The legends. That when you meet your true love, your Kiss will glow with fire. But if you have no Kiss—”

  He was laughing. “I think I will be able to tell, all on my own, when I’ve fallen in love. I won’t need the god’s guidance for that.”

  She shook her head and went back to work on the maltreated hand. “Well. Whatever you say.”

  “No, whatever you say,” he said gaily. “Will you have dinner with me? If not tonight or tomorrow, sometime next week? I can wait till you’re free.”

  She shrugged. “Actually—tonight or tomorrow—either would be fine. You might just want to stay home and wrap your hands tonight, though.”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “I never choose solitude and brooding when there’s any other option.”

  She shrugged again, but she felt a tiny, almost unnoticeable curl of pleasure unroll beneath her ribs. He wasn’t an angel, of course, and he didn’t even have the social status of one of James’s field hands, so naturally she intended nothing more than some light conversation and, she hoped, a meal better than the one she might expect at Tola’s. But it was still no bad thing to have a man call you pretty and to ask to spend time in your company. “Where would you like me to meet you?” she asked.

  “In the square? Does that suit you? When are you done working?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask Mary.”

  He seemed jubilant at the thought of the outing. She thought he might be the kind of man whose standards were not particularly high, who was pleased by everything, so it meant very little that he was pleased by her. “I know just where we can go,” he said. “I’ll walk back with you and point it out. I can’t remember the name.”