Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle (16 page)

“Not everyone dreams of our people rising up. Most of us are happy as we are.”

“And safer that way. Let’s not start that argument again.”

“I didn’t come here for that. Some of you, one of you, at least, is in that hospital.”

“Do not speak of it.”

“But if I could only—”

“Silence. Safety lies only in silence.”

“Why else call ourselves by herbs? So that we cannot betray each other.”

“It may be him, it may be the other. Even if one of us knew them, he might not know which.”

Dropping his hands from his ears, Elisha hugged himself. These voices were not in the air, that much was clear. They must be either in his head, or—he glanced down at the dark, lapping water. Carefully, while the one called Marigold urged a meeting, he lifted his feet from the water. Silence. Amazed, he placed them back in.

“—did think he questioned me, but for what purpose? If he suspects what I am, would he not reveal me? Yet he has not, so—”

“Suspects,” “one or the other,” “the hospital”—it sounded as if they were speaking of himself, these spirits in the water. Propping his chin on his knees, Elisha dug his feet into the mud as if he might hear them better.

“—I must assume he doesn’t mean to. In truth, I would not even have thought of him, if he hadn’t stopped me.”

“Gave you a fright when you walked up, though, didn’t you say?”

Elisha gasped. “Brigit,” he breathed. It had to be. The one called Marigold.

The voices fell silent.

“
Who’s there?”
someone said.

As if this were a command of some kind, other voices chimed in, “
Marigold,” “Sage,” “Briarrose,” “Willowbark,” “Live Oak,” “Fennel Seed.”

Again, they fell silent.

“
To the air,
” cried one.

“
To the air
—” the others echoed, and they were gone.

Elisha jumped up, half expecting to see witches in the sky above him. He splashed in the water, scanning for any sign of them. Then, beyond the bridge, something moved. A man stood on the riverbank, his shadowed face turned toward Elisha and the moon. Stumbling, Elisha lost his footing and fell into the water as his witness ran, vanishing into the night.

V
oices haunted Elisha’s dreams,
voices of witches or of demons, he could not be sure. Still and all, he managed to get some sleep before he dragged himself back to work in the morning, strange voices still echoing inside his head. He chewed on his bread as he circulated the room, indicating to Maeve which men should get new bandages. Of the gunshot victims, they had lost only one, a man Matthew had cauterized a little too deeply. The men who had suffered Lucius’s boiling oil cure lay feverish, and Maeve set about cooling them down after Lisbet fetched some fresh water. Two of the amputees lay cold upon the floor, and Elisha forced himself to focus, to forget the voices and deal with matters at hand. Both men had been cut by Ruari, who came to peer over Elisha’s shoulder.

“Dead, are they? I told you, I’m not the man you need.”

“Ruari, no, here—” He pulled the soldier down beside him. “Look, this man has a headwound as well, not bleeding, so we missed it in the night. I checked them all, Ruari, and you did fine work.”

Still, the soldier sighed and shook his head, his bandage gone now, leaving a line of stitches and bruising across his temple. “I dunno, Eli, mayhap this is beyond me.”

Elisha met his deep brown eyes. “I need you.” He thought to say more but instead left the bare words in the air between them.

Ruari ducked his head, raking one hand through his hair in a gesture already familiar. “I dunno.” Then he looked up with that mischievous smile and said, “I’ll have
another go, I will. I’ve cut the dead heart from an apple tree and had it live, what’s pruning a limb or two?”

“That’s the spirit.” Elisha slapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll be about my project then. Once we take care of them.” He indicated the two bodies with a tilt of the head.

Crestfallen, Ruari said, “Aye,” and lifted the first man onto his shoulders to take to the yard while Elisha managed the other.

Elisha gave thanks that the pick was where he had left it. Inside, Arthur Mason finished up his task with the block, leaving a hole just about the level of the ground, and lining up nicely with the trench Elisha had made. A few hours work would see the ditch done. After a while, when he’d begun to sing again, Lisbet quietly emerged and settled on one of the benches, taking careful stitches in a bit of cloth.

Taking a break, Elisha wandered over to her and admired the entwining pattern of knotwork she had created. “Have you ever thought of barbering?” he asked lightly.

Lisbet snorted. “Course not, I’m a woman.”

“I know that,” he replied, earning a blush. She fidgeted with the fabric between her hands. “They’re asking my help more with the lords, so the foot soldiers have to wait longer every night. If I had someone to handle some of the minor stitching, the men who can go back to their own camps, that’d be a big help to me.”

Cocking her head, she shook back her light brown curls and regarded him with a frown. “Not that my mum would approve.”

Shrugging, Elisha took up his pick for the final assault. “Consider it, will you? And ask Maeve, or I can ask for you, if you’d like.”

“Don’t do that!” she cried, looking stricken. “I’ll think on it, I promise.”

“Thanks,” he said, a little ill-at-ease with the glow that came to her face when she went back to her embroidery. Flirting with whores, he found, did not prepare him to handle a girl so smitten. And with himself, of all people. Yet there was no sense letting her attention go to waste, not if she could stitch men’s flesh as handily as she stitched that cloth.

At last the ditch snaked across the courtyard from the tiled bank of the stream to the opening in the hospital wall. Underneath, on the inside, sat the repaired barrel. Elisha lined his ditch with some of the loose tiles and paving stones,
and considered what he needed to finish the task. He descended into the basement where Lisbet had discovered the barrel and found two broad, broken shovels. One of these was bent, but a good fit for the hole in the wall, making a spout over the barrel. The other he shoved into the ground against the wall of the existing stream.

He swung the pick two-handed, breaking through the tiles, and fished them out of the way in the water. Carefully, he re-traced the route, to find himself face to face with the surgeon Mordecai and his lesser assistant, a chubby lad by the name of Henry.

Beneath the furrowed brow, Mordecai aimed a suspicious look at him. “What are you about, Barber?”

“Plumbing, my lord.” With a theatrical gesture, he lifted the shovel head, allowing some of the stream water to be diverted into his new canal. It bubbled and splashed along the channel, losing some to the gaps between tiles. Inside, the soldiers whooped, and someone stuck a pitcher of water out the window.

Glancing back to the surgeon, Elisha nodded to it. “My assistants waste too much time going to the well and back.”

“Wasted time yourself in the digging,” Mordecai pointed out.

“Aye, sir, a few hours. But think what we’ll save over a few days.”

“You weren’t brought here to dig ditches,” the assistant scoffed.

Ignoring him, Elisha watched the surgeon’s reaction. “I was brought here to tend the foot soldiers as best I can, sir, I can do that better with a steady supply of water. I’ve been here when I’m needed.”

“Speaking of—” The surgeon gave him a tight smile. “What was that soldier doing with your saw? Last night.”

Something in the tone sent a little chill down Elisha’s back. “Learning to amputate, sir. He is a carpenter.”

“He is a soldier. Should be back at the front, if he’s as recovered as to be of use.”

“Please, sir, I get fifty soldiers a night at my door, some of whom can’t go back to camp, plus assisting with the lords, and the gunshot wounds. I sleep two hours, and I’m back again with a dozen or more of them dying during the night. You three have enough to do with the lords, I know, but if I don’t get any help—”

“You’re blaming us?” the assistant, Henry, said. “What does it matter if a few more foot soldiers die if the captains and knights can ride out again?”

Mordecai shifted back on his heels, the books dangling from his waist swaying like a flock of disturbed birds. He held up a firm hand to stop his apprentice. “King needs soldiers just as he needs captains to lead them. Keep your man, Barber, if I see he does more good than harm.”

Elisha bowed. “Thank you, sir. I’ll see that he does.”

From the hospital, someone called out, “Full up, Elisha!”

Elisha pushed the shovel back into place, handily stopping the flood, and allowed himself a smile.

Noticing the expression, the surgeon stared at him a moment, then turned away, his assistant following in his wake, looking chastened. As ever, the books and papers fluttered, and Elisha’s smile became a grin. Hurrying to the window, he leaned in to see a group gathered around their new water barrel, filling pitchers and passing them out.

“Maeve? Get me a pot from the kitchen, can you?”

Rolling her eyes, this time Maeve didn’t question him. She shuffled over and handed a large pot up through the window. “’Nother idea, eh, Barber?” She chuckled. “Should’ve been a scholar, you!”

“Oh, be off with you. I’m just mixing ointment.” Taking the pot, Elisha sprinted back to his tower. This time, he didn’t stop on the second floor, but climbed all the way up where the collapsed roof blocked off the upper floor. Carefully, he crept in among the rotting timbers and found what he wanted: rows of sloppy nests. Disturbing the inhabitants, he gathered as many of the tiny eggs as he could. They were the size of the end of his thumb, but he thought they might do for a start. Frustrated doves pecked at his hands, but he shooed them away, all the while urging them to get busy laying more.

Scooting back out, he brushed straw and feathers from his head. With this precious cargo, he found his way to the vestry, a small room off the side of the church where priests would have kept their garments and holy necessities. As the surgeon had said, the room was stocked with all manner of dried and powdered herbs as well as rolls of bandages and suture, a collection of cauterizing irons and miscellaneous surgical tools all much finer than his own small assortment. Catching sight of these, he longed to examine them all, to consider their uses and test their fit against his hand. That, surely, had not
been the surgeon’s intent. Indeed, Elisha was not convinced the man wanted to give him access to any of these supplies.

That in mind, he chose sparingly. When they saw that his ointment helped, he might just convince the surgeon to give him a freer hand. Back in the kitchen behind the hospital, he broke open the eggs, added only the yolks to a mixture of oil of roses, a bit of vinegar and turpentine—a formula similar to one he learned from his Master Barber; a formula Elisha had long worked on in the quiet of his own study. As he mixed, he considered the hospital as the ideal place to perfect the ointment, and gave himself a grim smile. The physician, with all of his learning, hoped to do the same thing regarding his hot oil cure. At least Elisha’s mixture caused no additional pain and might soothe the burns and infections afflicting so many.

With Ruari’s help, he spread the stuff on as many of the men as he could. Even used sparingly, it did not go far. All that could be done was to wait and see—and try to find another source of eggs, larger ones, if possible. After a supper of cold pottage, since Maclean had been sent back to camp, they enlisted a new screamer to convince the surgeons that cauterizations were in progress. Then began another round of dressing the wounds and trying to abate fever and infection.

Just as the horn sounded for the night’s hold, Ruari shook out his weary arms. “How d’ye do this, Eli? Already it’s too much for me, and I know we’ve worse yet to come.”

Arching his back to relieve the taut muscles, Elisha pondered the question. He came here to work off the ruin of his brother’s family; long hours and hard labor were part of that penance. But, in fact, he had been training for this for years. Since that day of the angel, he had not questioned what he must do, that he must learn the healing arts and be of service at all times. How else could he be sure he would be ready? But how could he explain without being accused of witchcraft? “It’s what God expects of me, Ruari. And what I can do.”

“I did not take ye for a devout man, Eli, but it’s glad I am to hear it.”

Together, they went up to stand before the doors as the first of the wounded straggled in. After a little while, Lisbet came to stand by them, her cheeks flushed red and an angry defiance in her stance. Elisha showed her how to anchor stitches and how to draw them firmly, making sure they would
not tear. The men she stitched were somewhat dismayed to see her there, but, as Elisha had supposed, she took to the work easily enough. Supervising his two assistants with the easier injuries, handling the difficult ones, and running across to provide whatever service the surgeons felt was beneath them kept Elisha busy until they cleared the court and went below to make room for the wounded among the recovering patients. There, Elisha met the now-expected sight of gravediggers, moving among the bodies. Moans and protests rose up to the sky, and more than one man slapped away a foot about to prod him. As they walked, the cullers glanced back to where Elisha stood, and he could see the bewilderment on their faces. They cleared away a few, and then their leader joined him by the barrel.