Wizard of Jatte by Rowan Erlking (librera reader txt) 📕

The week of hard labor in silence was not an easy stretch of time. Besides being taken to the skirts of the village to break and stack rocks along the new roads that cut up the hills, every time they uttered even one word the sheriff on guard would slap their wrists with a switch. Of course that meant that neither boy dared speak by the end of the week, though Lonse tried to get Theissen to shout out a number of times by dropping rocks on his feet. He succeeded only once. After that, Theissen used a little air cushion to protect his feet when he worked. However, he did not retaliate. That lesson had been learned.

By the next week both boys returned to school. Their classmates greeted them both with a distant ‘hi’, one Theissen was used to since his thieving trial but Lonse had not known. Every eye turned to look at the scars around their wrists, but it took many weeks later before anyone dared to ask how it felt to lose a hand. Then weeks turned into months, and months, years. Both boys got older, though by that time the events in Lumen village changed with the circumstances and neither boy spoke of the incident again though Lonse’s animosity never was forgotten.

“Congratulations!” Auntie Bakerswife said, bowing to Alania.

Her new husband, a silversmith, bowed back as tradition. “Thank you for coming.”

Alania gave her aunt a customary peck on her cheek then greeted another of her aunts.

“Congratulations!”

The line through the front garden seemed quite endless, and Theissen was glad he didn’t have to stand in it. Watching his father and mother greet and accept good wishes for their daughter, he and his younger brother sat at the serving tables and watched the line with smirks on their faces. Doreen had already taken the part of the eldest daughter at home, serving food to the guests after the line. Tolbetan was with them giving commentary, now the eldest son since Kinnerlin went on his journey that autumn.

“And here comes Uncle Weaver. I guess that means Auntie Weaverswife is going to be here to talk marriage with Mom again.”

Theissen cringed. Even though Milrina was his closest friend, life had become completely uncomfortable when his mother and his aunt talked about him and his cousin getting married. It happened at nearly every family event since the trial two years previous.

“And look. There is the village doctor. I think he is here to declare the purity of the groom,” Tolbetan said.

Theissen and Kolbran looked over at him dryly. Not that again. Ever since Tolbetan’s budding ceremony he had gone on and on about the secrets of manhood—not really telling them any details, but bragging that he knew them. Declarations of purity had something to do with it, but neither boy knew exactly what that meant.

“And there is the midwife. She’ll be here to tell us that Alania is still pure also. Not like anybody doubts that. She is so boring.” Tolbetan leaned on the table with a smug grin. The truth was, their brother had become somewhat of a player among the girls. He teased and joked with them most of his time, no longer caring for the attentions of the other boys unless it was a chance to posture himself. The fact that his voice had deepened just that last year and his height shot up accounted for some of it. But mostly, when he discovered a hair on his chin for the first time, he had become unbearable.

“Now the old men are coming,” Tolbetan said.

Theissen straightened up. The village elders attended every wedding, each to give their blessing to the bride and groom. They would then visit with the groom’s parents to pass along their advice in dealing with a young married couple. Watching the procession, Theissen noticed that two of the elders that had attended his trial were no longer there. He remembered that one had died just that spring. The other had been very ill, so ill in fact that the doctor even dragged Theissen to the man’s bedside to see if the boy could heal him. Besides finding it hard to breathe with the smell of disease in the swirling flow magical of energy, Theissen could also tell that there was nothing he could do to reverse the damage. He knew that elder would die within the month.

“Oh, and the doctor is coming over here,” Tolbetan said, glancing at Theissen with a sorry look. “Prepare for the worst.”

Closing his eyes, Theissen wished he could run away. However, it was considered rude to deny an adult of such status in the village any respect or attention, and he just waited until the doctor would greet him most likely with the intent to take him along on an appointment right after the wedding ceremony was complete.

“Hello, young Carpentersons. May I have a word with your brother here?” The doctor made a polite bow.

Tolbetan slapped Theissen on the back. “Good luck, old pal.”

Kolbran copied him, smirking as he skipped off. Tolbetan and his brother sought Doreen out, taking up their food with too happy grins.

“Thanks,” Theissen muttered, glancing at the doctor out of the corner of his eye.

As soon as both boys were quite gone, the doctor gave him a nod. “So, I have a few errands after this. I spoke with your father, and he says that you have no plans for this afternoon. That means you can help me with a few patients I have.”

Already feeling sick imagining the sour and often murky smell sickness gave off in the flow he saw, Theissen barely nodded. He wished he had a good excuse to get out of it. But since the villagers had seen that he knew how to heal wounds with a touch, nearly every one demanded that he be present when the doctor came to visit. If only they knew how much it turned his stomach to have to deal with oozing lesions and broken bones then perhaps they would not request him so often. It was breaking his mind trying to think of a way to get out of it. So far his constant declarations that he was training to be carpenter and not a doctor didn’t faze anyone.

“I guess so.” Theissen looked the other way.

The doctor sat next to him with a disapproving look. “You know, some people would do anything to have a gift like yours. I would love to be able to heal with a touch.”

“Yes, but you don’t have to smell it,” Theissen said. He had said it before, but somehow the doctor was only amused by that fact.

 “I would love to be able to sniff out the source of a sickness like you can, Carpenterson.”

“Not if you knew what it smelled like, you wouldn’t.”

The doctor patted him on the shoulder. “I will see you after the ceremony. Meet me at the gate.”

Theissen frowned. He wished he could say ‘no’ but that would be disrespectful. Not until his budding ceremony would he be able to declare his career of choice, and then he could tell the doctor ‘no’ simply because it was not his job. Unfortunately, the doctor seemed to be spending a lot of time with his father lately trying to convince him that Theissen was meant to be a physician. So far, his only efforts in warding off the man’s labors were childish games of misplacing things on purpose in the patients’ houses and changing the color of his clothes at whim. Unfortunately that only proved to amuse the physician rather than upset him. Even now when the doctor walked away Theissen had left color-changed swirls on his coattails that also crawled up his back. The man didn’t even notice.

The ceremony lasted until the sun set. After that, the couple secreted themselves in the village inn. In the morning they were to return to Pepersin Town where her parents were to attend a welcome home feast for the newlyweds hosted by the groom’s family. Theissen met the doctor as promised.

Walking with a happy stride, the doctor chatted while carrying his bag. “You know, you can always wear a face mask to deal with the smell if you really are bothered by it.”

“A mask doesn’t help. It isn’t that kind of smell,” Theissen said, kicking the stones as he followed him.

“Then what kind is it?”

Theissen cast him a tired glance. “One that stinks through everything.”

The doctor shrugged. “It was only a suggestion.”

They turned down a road Theissen recognized. He stopped at the corner, not following. “Are we going down there?”

Nodding, the doctor gestured toward a house. “That is the place.”

“Radina’s?” Theissen’s voice squeaked. He pulled back. “Mom says I should never go down this road. She says Radina Spinner is a seductress.”

A smirk crossed the doctor’s lips. “That is gossip. Besides, shouldn’t a boy your age be unaware what a seductress is?”

Giving him a terse frown, Theissen refused to walk any further. “I don’t need to know exactly what she does to know that my mother warned me from her.”

Walking back, the doctor reached out to him and took a hold of Theissen’s arm. “Well, seductress or not (though really I think such gossip is a terrible lie) she is sick and I need you to help me treat her.”

Theissen dragged his feet, but he went with the doctor towards her gate anyway.

“Now I figure she has caught some sickness in the neighboring fishing village, so I think it is a stomach flu or parasite. She complains of abdominal pain and severe burning around her bowels. I need you to sniff out or see where the real cause of her pain is from. Then we will come up with a cure.”

It was true that since Theissen had been dragged along on the doctor’s visits his patients have had remarkable rates of recovery. Theissen’s ability to see festering in the flow of nature had taken the guesswork out of his visits. This, of course, allowed the doctor to charge more for his services. Theissen barely saw a coin from it.

The doctor knocked on the door.

Almost immediately it opened. The woman who lived there leaned right against the doorjamb with one arm raised, the rest of her body lounging against it as if her energy was just enough to rest in that pose. Her dress front was somewhat open, the top button apart so that Theissen could see into her bosom instead of closed modest blouse front his mother always maintained. Almost immediately Theissen spun on his heel to leave.

Seizing Theissen by the shoulder in a controlling grip, the doctor steered him back towards the door as he said, “Miss Spinner. We have arrived.”

“How pleasant. I see you brought a young guest. Am I delighted to have him in my home.” She reached out one of her long hands, gently stroking Theissen’s cheek with an alluring smile. The woman leaned closer as if to give the boy ample opportunity to gaze into her cleavage.

Theissen shuddered. “I…I think there has been some mistake. My mother—”

“Is not here,” she said, rubbing her hand over the back of his head, drawing him in through the door.

“Please, Miss Spinner, he is here to examine you, not visit,” the doctor said. Yet he was smiling as if he was enjoying the chance to return the favor of a joke being played.

“Well, examine away!” the woman said, and she proceeded to pull Theissen closer.

Stamping his foot, Theissen shoved her back. “That is enough!”

The woman tumbled back inside, clutching the doorjamb to keep from falling.

Turning his glare at the doctor, Theissen snapped, “Do you want to know what is wrong with her?”

The doctor’s smile fell slightly.

Theissen kicked the railing to the stair fence. “First off, she needs to learn to keep her hands to herself. My mother has already arranged my marriage. Secondly, that woman has no