“This is Rumex,” she said touching another small, spreading plant. She tore off a small leaf and handed it to him. “It’s best when cooked, especially with some pork as seasoning, but it can be eaten raw.”
He nibbled at it and found it at tad bitter but overall quite tasty. He tore off a couple of more leaves and followed after her, feeling very much like a foraging horse.
“Lindera,” she said, touching a small tree. “It can be used for spices or teas. The bark is the best but buds can be dried as well. Betula,” another tree, this one tall and spreading at the top. “It’s found along creek bottoms where you find willows and poplar. Its buds and twigs are pleasant to chew with a spicy taste and the under bark can be used as a sort of chewing gum.”
They wandered on the through darkening woods as Bast pointed out plant after plant. She knew its growing habits, environment, medical and food uses as well as what animals fed upon it. Occasionally they saw small animals that crossed their paths, and she named each and gave its season of growing with barely a glance.
“Bast,” he said finally, well stuffed with the various plants she had shown him were edible. “Is there anything you don’t know?”
“I don’t why humans cannot leave these woods to their own life,” she answered sadly.
He paused beside one of the small creeks that were everywhere along the mountains and looked at her. The sun was down but the moon had yet to crest the mountains across the valley to the east. The light from it was dimly visible over their shoulder but the valley was still in blackness. She was a barely visible shape in the tenebrous black under the spreading trees.
“Bast, have I hurt you by cutting down the trees?” he asked gently.
“Oh, no, I’m not upset with you, Herzer,” she said, coming up to him and stroking his cheek. “Come, it is time to wash.”
She led him to a spring-filled crack in the rocks, just big enough for two. They ended up washing not only themselves but Herzer’s dirt encrusted clothes and spending half the time having water fights as the moon rose in the east. Finally they were both cleaned and Bast extracted the fur roll from the depths of the packbasket. There by the stream she lit a small fire and prepared a light salad of spring greens. By the light of the fire, with the water of the branch to wash it down, they ate the salad and then enjoyed each other until the moon was high in the sky.
Herzer awoke in the early dawn of the morning to a smell of woodsmoke from the embers of the fire and reached to feel for Bast, who was gone. Opening his eyes he looked around but she was nowhere in sight. Only her basket and blanket remained.
By the fire was a note, written on bark with one of the coals.
“Lover I have watched the trees of this valley grow since before the cities were removed. I watched as the valley returned to its natural state and have walked these woods since time immemorial. I have known these trees, nut and branch, since they were born. I can name them and tell you of their life, each and every one.
I can watch them die no longer.
I shall walk far from the homes of men and visit the forests and fields of my life. Perhaps I shall return some day and perhaps not. I never say good bye, only “Esol.” This means “Tomorrow Again.” Remember us as we were.
Bast L’sol Tamel d’San.”
Herzer set the note down after rubbing at the writing idly, then looked around and sighed.
“Great, Bast. Very touching. But I don’t know where I am.”
For a change, Edmund and Daneh had an evening off at the same time and could eat a simple but, and this was significant, peaceful dinner. Not a snack snatched up between critical operations or a meal supped with arguing council members.
And it was clear to Edmund that they had no idea what to talk about.
“So, how was your day, dear?” Edmund asked, realizing that it was both prosaic and insufficient.
“The usual round of emergency surgeries without anesthetic. I swear, I’m going to have to get all male nurses to hold down the screamers.”
Edmund wasn’t sure if he should laugh or cringe so he stayed silent.
“Jody Dorsett’s going to have to relearn to use an axe,” she added after a moment. “He managed to cut off his left thumb.”
“Ouch!”
“Even in the old days of medicine they would have been able to reattach it. I’ve seen references to something called a ‘nerve graft’ but I have no idea how you’d actually do it. And practicing on someone who is twice your size and writhing in pain is a trifle difficult.” Everything was said in a light tone but he could feel the bitterness going bone deep. And she had barely touched her food.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe when we have some poppies you can start working on anesthetics.”
“What I really need is some decent medical reference works. I’ve been all through your library and everything else everyone had. But the only medical references are either first aid, very oblique and opaque statements or suited to a Middle Ages surgery. And I personally refuse to bring back bloodletting for common colds.”
“Perhaps when Sheida…”
“Yes, ‘when Sheida this,’ ‘when Sheida that.’ I need this stuff now, Edmund! All I need is a smidgen of power, some nannites and the authority. Even a damned elementary textbook! But it has to wait doesn’t it?”
Edmund finally realized that what she was saying was not what she was thinking. “Where are you at?” he asked after a moment. “And don’t tell me about surgery.”
“I’m in a very strange place, Edmund,” she said after a long pause. “I’m thinking that it’s time to go to bed with you. And part of me is saying ‘Yes!’ and part of me is screaming ‘NO!’ And I don’t know which side is courage and which is cowardice. Or even which is right and which is wrong. And I’m tired of nightmares.”
Edmund thought about that for a long time then sighed. “There is a part of me that says ‘Say the yes is right!’ And it’s not even the part that’s south of my expanding waistline.” If I can even remember how, he added mentally. “It’s the part of me that has missed my Daneh for many years. The Daneh that I fell madly in love with at first sight. The part that has missed you, all of you. That wants to hold you in the night and cuddle you and make you all better. But I also know that it’s not going to be that easy. So I’m willing to wait. Be it until you find another or if you can’t decide for the rest of your life. Because I love you, I always have loved you and I always will love you, no matter what road that takes us down.”
On the afternoon of the sixth day in the woods, Herzer and the rest headed back to Raven’s Mill. It took about two hours to walk to the Via Apallia, passing clearings being opened on both sides of the dirt track, and as they crossed the massive bridge over the Shenan, Herzer was surprised to see that Raven’s Mill had changed even more.
Some of the original log shelters had been torn down, apparently to create an open area near town, and different structures had been put in. At the base of the hill to the east of the town a long, low building had been built and more work was taking place stretching up the hill. In addition, a wooden stockade was under construction. Based on the foundation that was being built it would eventually surround the entire “old town” and stretch up the hill near Talbot’s house. Herzer, looking at it, realized that Edmund’s house was precisely where a citadel or keep would be built and wondered how much of that was coincidence. He doubted that Edmund had designed the stockade to make his house the citadel but it would be very much like the old smith to choose the most defensible position to put in a house.