The dye itself simmered in a big pot over the fireplace; she’d left it there all night to strengthen. Now she built up the fire a bit and dumped the first tunic in, stirring it with a peeled stick until it reached the color she wanted. Shortly after that, a line of gray-green tunics flapped beside the line of white underthings, and Keisha had replaced the pot of dye with one of soup fixings.
That was when she got her first patient of the day.
A knock on the doorframe made her look up, as Ferla Dawkin came in with her five-year-old in her arms, blood splattered liberally all over both of them.
By now, Keisha was a shrewd and instant judge of situations. Ferla wasn’t hysterical, wasn’t running, wasn’t even out of breath. Therefore, the situation wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it looked.
Ferla’s words confirmed that. “If you’re not busy, Keisha, Dib’s gotten into a fight - ”
“Bring him over to the fire and lay him down on the rug,” she said, and his mother put the boy down while Keisha got clean rags and a fresh bucket of water. The boy had been quiet right up until the moment that Keisha sat down on the floor beside him; then he set up a howl like a Pelagir monster before she’d so much as touched him. He was a sorry sight, face red, blood in his hair and oozing from his nose and mouth, angry tears running down his fat cheeks. Keisha ignored the tears and the howling, she was used to them; she went straight to work, gently washing off the blood until she could make an accurate assessment of the damages.
“Well, Ferla, he’s lost a tooth, he’s got a nosebleed, and he’ll have a fine black eye in a bit, so I’d say he was the loser in this battle,” she finally told the anxious mama. “Here, Dib - ” She made him lie down on the floor and pinched a rag over his nose. “You lie there and we’ll see if we can’t get your nose to stop bleeding. Who’d you take on?”
“Maffie Olan,” came the muffled reply. “He called me a dumbhead.”
“Well, that’ll teach you to ignore people who are bigger than you are when they call you names, won’t it?” she asked matter-of-factly as one big brown eye gazed at her around the rag held to his nose. “Do you know what I used to say when my brothers called me a dumbhead?”
“Huh-uh,” the child replied.
“I’d say, ‘It takes one to know one, so what are you, then?’ Try that instead of tearing into a bigger boy next time.” She winked at him. “Maffie’s not so dim that he can’t work that one out for himself, and it’ll make him madder than you. Remember, if he comes after you and hits you first, then he’s a bully picking on you littles, and you can tattle to his mum, for she won’t put up with Maffie turning into a bully. And you know his mum will tan his hide for him.”
“Keisha!” the mother said, half laughing and half aghast. “Is that anything to tell him?”
She cocked an eye at Ferla. “All I know is it worked for me. My brothers stopped calling me names because they got tired of getting a licking from Mum that was worse than anything they dealt out to me. They couldn’t complain either, because they’d started it by name calling.”
Her bit of advice had certainly silenced the child anyway; he seemed to be pondering it as they waited for his nose to stop bleeding. When Keisha judged that it had been long enough, she had him sit up and cautiously took the rag away from his nose. There was no further leakage, so she got up and mixed him a quick potion; chamomile for the ache in his eye and nose, marsh-mallow and mint to counter any tummy upset from swallowing blood, and honey and allspice to make it into a treat.
“Now,” she said, handing him the mug. “Here’s a sweetie for being brave and doing what I told you.” His face lit up, for every child in the village knew that when Keisha told them something was a “sweetie,” it was worth eating or drinking. She never lied to them about the taste of a medicine; if it was bad, she told them, and advised them to get it down fast so they could have a sweet to take away the bad taste.
He seized the mug and happily drank down the contents. She made up a poultice of cress and plantain, and gave it to his mother.
“Have him lie down a bit more with this on his eye, and when he can’t keep still any longer, let him go play. It’s a pity about the tooth, but at least it’s a baby one.” She looked down at Dib, who stared solemnly up at her. “And mind what I said about fighting.”
“Yes, Keisha,” the boy said, with a look as if he was already contemplating mischief, as his mother helped him to his feet. The two left with Dib trotting sturdily along beside his mother, battered but unrepentant.
Keisha went out to check her drying laundry and found it ready to bring in; a distant growl from above made her glance quickly up at the sky to the west, and she frowned when she saw how quickly clouds were building in that direction. Thunder-towers, for certain sure. No telling how long it would last, either; a spring rain could be over before sunset, or linger for days.
She gathered in her clothing without folding it as she usually did; she just unpinned it from the line and dumped everything in the basket, anxious to beat the rain and get her things inside the workshop. She made it inside before anything came down, but the first drops started plopping into the dust just as she closed the door. It was as she was doing the folding inside the workshop that she heard thunder rumble again, much nearer, then heard the rain suddenly strengthen, rattling the thatch and pelting the path outside.
A moment more, and it wasn’t just a few drops, it was a downpour - a downpour without much thunder, just more growling now and again. There wasn’t much wind, which didn’t augur well for the storm blowing past in a hurry. She shut all the windows as some rain splashed inside, then lit her lanterns to ward off growing darkness; when she cracked the door open and peeked out, what she saw confirmed that this was not going to be a simple cloudburst, over quickly.
Not with the amount coming down, the slate-gray of the clouds overhead, and the relative lack of lightning and thunder.
I’m glad the seedlings are up and they’re in drained beds, she thought with a sigh. And I’m glad I put those gauze cones over them to protect them. This is likely to last for the next three days. If she hadn’t put the cones over them, her precious new plants would be flattened before sunset.
With that in mind, she considered going out now and collecting some foodstuffs; she might be spending a lot of time in the workshop or tending flus and colds. I’d better; I can’t just live on vegetable soup.
Getting out her waterproof rain cape, she put the hood up, slipped on a pair of wooden clogs, bowed her head to the storm and plodded out into it. Beneath the hood of the cape, she watched her footing; already the rain had pooled into some deepish puddles - deep enough that her clogs wouldn’t keep her feet dry if she blundered into one. As she came to the hedge around her house, she looked up, wondering if her brothers had the sense to bring the clothing in. The line at her house was empty, so her brothers had saved their laundry from a drenching, but the righthand neighbor hadn’t been so lucky. Tansy Gelcress struggled with wet clothing, flapping rain cape, and a basket she didn’t want to put down - Keisha couldn’t simply go into the house with that going on next door. She stopped long enough to help Tansy gather in her things, then went on up the path to her own house.
Everybody will be coming home - they can’t work in the wet. I’ll get the fire going, so they have a warm house to come back to. She built up the fire in the kitchen, then surveyed the kitchen stocks, deciding what her mother wouldn’t mind her taking. Ham, cheese, eggs, butter, a jug of cider - that‘ll do. I have beans, flour, basic staples at the shop. I have a quarter of a loaf of bread, and I’ll be out enough that I can get more bread from the baker. We’ve plenty more of what I’m taking at the farm; she can send Da after more if she needs to. People will start bringing barter stuff like eggs and milk around here as soon as I start handing out cough potions. That was part of the arrangement with the village, after all; since Keisha wasn’t a single male who needed to be cooked for and looked after, the family got foodstuffs on an irregular basis. Things usually started appearing when Keisha had done a lot of work in a short period of time.