He made a little choking sound.
"—my stomach rebels. And my courage flees at the sight of all those little knives at work."
"Boitan is very good," Teo ventured. "He—the only thing that has ever defeated him is when—uh—rot comes back after he has cleaned wounds, or when it comes into the cuts he made."
Jegrai's head jerked around, his face registering a look of surprise. "What, you do not have the powder-of-mould?"
"The what?"
"The powder-of-mould, that we put on wounds—do so and they do not rot."
Teo kept himself from jumping up only by a powerful -exertion of will. If he startled Boitan—but this was something the physician needed to know, and now.
He raised his voice and forced himself to speak calmly. "Boitan, the Khene tells me these people have something that prevents infection."
There was a long moment of silence behind him. Then Boitan spoke, though not in Trade-tongue; he was too preoccupied. "Teo, it is a very good thing that I am not Vider, or this boy would have a new wound, and I would have a deal of explaining to do. They have something that prevents infection. Do they also have the elixir of immortality? No, forget I said that; I believe you. The crippled men you described couldn't have survived without something like that. Would the woman happen to have any of this gods-given stuff here in the tent?"
Teo translated, but Jegrai did not even have to ask. "Of course!" he said in astonishment. "How not?"
"Then I trust when I am finished here, this good lady will instruct me, please?" said Boitan, an edge of pleading in his voice. Behind them, the woman actually chuckled.
After that, Teo and Jegrai watched the stars, and the silent camp, for what seemed to be an eternity, trying to ignore the sounds behind them when Boitan did scrape at bone. It was one of the longest nights Teo had ever spent and he was amazed when light showed in the east, and it proved to be the moon, not the sun.
At last Boitan gave a grunt of satisfaction, and the woman spoke Jegrai's name. Jegrai let out a sigh of relief as she chattered at him, and his shoulders slumped. "Never, never will I regret pledging to you, my friend," he murmured, almost to himself. "Shenshu says that Yuchai will undoubtedly live, that he looks better already. And—"
There was more than a hint of rueful self-mockery in his voice.
"—that it is 'safe to look now.'"
Teo craned his head over his shoulder as Jegrai inched back into the tent. The boy did look better; there was color in his face that hadn't been there before. Even as he watched, the boy's eyes opened and he spoke, dazedly. The healer Shenshu grinned and said something in a voice too soft for Teo to hear anything but a murmur. The boy didn't much seem to notice the presence of the two strangers, but Shenshu and Jegrai he recognized, and seemed comforted.
"Hah!" Boitan snatched at the bowl of stewing herbs and decanted some into a wooden cup, handing it to the woman. She took it, as he mimed drinking, and propped the boy up enough to help him sip at it. She managed to get more of it in him than on him before his eyes closed again.
"That was for fever and pain," Boitan told her as Jegrai translated. "Willow bark and poppy gum. You saw me make it up; I'll leave some with you. Give it to him whenever he wakes for the first three days, after that, be careful—the poppy gum calls up a craving for it." The woman nodded at that, and mimed frantic scrambling after the bowl. Boitan smiled, a bit grimly. "Exactly. We don't want that to happen. Be very careful with it. Now, tell me why it is that wounds rot."
The woman listened to Jegrai, frowning slightly, then began speaking—but this time slowly. "It is—she says—poison. Poison in the dirt, on hands that might have touched something rotten, on knives, on arrow-points. On the teeth of animals. It makes raw flesh rot. Powder-of-mould is the antidote."
"Mould?" Boitan's eyebrows shot up. "You mean, like bread-mould? Forgive me, lady, but that's an old wives' tale."
Jegrai translated, and Shenshu laughed. "She says, is she not an old wife? But she says also, look to our fighters, all the scars they bear. That speaks for the truth of the tale."
"Then why did this boy—"
"Ah, that I can tell you," Jegrai interrupted. "Yuchai was hurt when we had very little of the powder left, enough to keep the rot from killing him, but not enough to prevent it from coming. We did not know what to do then—boils I have seen lanced and drained, but never deep wounds. Never have I heard of this—to open a wound again and cut and cleanse—and then to sew it like a garment! It is a great wonder to me. To Shenshu, also. And the lifting of the bit of bone from the brain—I would not have had the courage."
The woman spoke.
Jegrai laughed, and reached over to stroke his cousin's forehead. The boy was sleeping peacefully, and Teo felt his heart lift to see it. "That is an even greater wonder to Shenshu also, and she begs that you will teach her—even if you are not a woman, you are wise, she says. So she will forgive you not being a woman!"
The tent filled with the wondrous sound of soft, but heartfelt, laughter.
CHAPTER SIX
Yuchai finally woke—really woke up, and not simply moved from a fevered dream into a dreaming fever. His dreams had been full of pain and terrible ghosts: Vampire Heads, Cat Women, Snow Demons, and Blood Stones. They had taken turns tormenting him—and even the bravest warrior could be forgiven his fear of facing such an appalling array of supernatural torturers. Once or twice he shook free of them, and opened dry and burning eyes to see familiar faces full of dismay and concern about him. It was then that he would realize, dimly, that his pain was due not to the claws of the Cat Women, or even the Blood Stones sucking his soul out of his head—it was from all the hurts he had taken when his poor horse shied into that pit.
But always he had dropped back into his fever dreams, and each time he did it was to fall into the hands of his torturers a little weaker than the last time. A little less able to break free.
Then a dream of great strangeness: it had felt like those times of almost-awakening, except that there had been only one familiar face—Shenshu's. And two strangers: a man with the pale face of a spirit, and a giant. Then a bitter-tasting drink, and finally peace, and sleep with no dreams.
He opened his eyes carefully, to find he was in his cousin Jegrai's tent. Sunlight that filtered through the walls made white felt glow warmly, but the air was cool, and smelled of grass and fresh water. And the camp-sounds were peaceful, as they had not been for more than a year.
This could not be their previous campsite, which had smelled only of horses and dust, always. And he could hear the cheerful gurgle of a spring or brook nearby, and that was not the sound of the great river they had crossed, either.
He hurt—but it wasn't like before. His head hurt, but he could think again, and the pain was localized and not nearly as bad as it had been.
He didn't want to move, much, especially not his head; but he could see what he really wanted to see without moving. His cousin, the great Khene of the Vredai, dozed beside Yuchai's bed, propped up by his saddle, and within touching distance.
Jegrai had taken charge of him. The thought startled a little croak out of his throat.
Jegrai came awake immediately, as any warrior would—but he smiled when he saw Yuchai's amazed eyes on him, a smile with no hint that the Khene considered his injured cousin to be any kind of burden on him.
Yuchai nearly wept with relief, and was immediately ashamed of such a maidenly reaction.