The Fickle Winds of Autumn

Aldwyn spread his wrinkled hands and warmed them; he observed the flask of green liquid bubble above the flame on the desk; its pungent odour filled the small cottage with deep and powerful memories. He allowed himself the pleasure of breathing it in while his mind drifted cosily into reminisces of all the times long past he had needed to prepare the root-bane potion.

The cottage door rattled opened behind the alcove to his side.

He was not expecting any visitors.

His young votary must have returned from the market.

“You’re back early!” he said, without bothering to look up from his work.

“Aldwyn quickly! She needs your help!”

Ellis’s voice gasped with urgency - clearly something was amiss.

The boy carried a bedraggled, unconscious girl across his arms.

Lack of sentience was always a bad sign.

And even from this distance, her breathing sounded laboured and irregular - but at least the patient was still self-ventilating.

He cleared a space on the low side-table; several clay pots crashed to the stone floor.

“Get her up here quickly,” he instructed, “then fetch fresh water from the tarn.”

The boy laid her down but did not leave.

“It’s her legs!” Ellis said - his flustered face unusually red and breathless, clearly indicating his exertions in carrying the young girl.

“I can see that!” Aldwyn replied.

After all these years, did the boy really think that he was so incompetent not to notice her obvious wounds?

And why was he still fussing around the prostrate invalid instead of bringing the water?

“Don’t stand there dithering, Ellis, get going!” he said.

He stooped over the fragile patient; the lesions looked bad.

The boy grabbed the buckets and dashed back out through the door.

The deep bruising around her wrists and the open sores weeping from her ankles told their own story - and coupled with the patient’s pallid malnourished frame, spoke only of leg irons and enforced marching - fierce work that the girl’s soft young skin was obviously not used to suffering.

The wounds had never been given the chance to heal properly and had festered and putrefied.

She had lost a good deal of blood, and the toxic infections which coursed through her veins threatened to ravage and overwhelm her delirious, enfeebled body.

A virulent fever had almost overcome her; she was clearly in a bad way.

He reached for a pale purple bottle and poured its contents over the girl’s calves; the matted blood and dirt which had congealed there washed away and gave him a clearer view of the problem.

This would not be easy.

First he must staunch the flow, then do what he could to remove the toxins.

And he must work quickly.

He closed his watery grey eyes to calm and focus his mind more clearly.

Beneath the rise and fall of his breath, he spoke the ancient words of healing; he felt the weight of his short, stubby beard wagging in rhythm to his gentle murmurings; its roots prickled and tingled.

He wandered down, deep into the realms of his concentration; he lifted his hands out before him and allowed the sleeves of his robe to fall back and expose his fore-arms. He continued the chanting, profound and fervent; his voice grew in volume and authority.

Beneath the skin of his arms, the familiar wriggling desire of the intricate swirling marks and symbols began to glow with a faint iridescent blue; their brightness and intensity increased, until the light from the living, pulsing tattoos illuminated the dim interior of the cottage.

The glimmering shapes swirled and eddied, shimmying brightly along the length of his forearms toward his hands; they broke free of his palms and melded together into a single lustrous ball of burnished living colour.

He persisted with the steady muttering accompaniment of the arcane incantation, his mind deeply anchored in realms between the seeing worlds.

His aged, watery eyes cleared as he re-opened them; he sensed the intimate glow of their pale blue luminescence.

He placed both hands confidently on the girl’s shins, close to her injuries; the swirling ball of light glided and hovered over them, encompassing the venomous wounds with its dancing, glistening pulse.

The patient’s skin began to twitch and move and live, coiling itself together, stretching and knitting across the open traumas; it flowed and fused and purged under its own animated volition, blending into one smooth closed surface; the blood had been staunched and the open wounds were sealed.

Aldwyn continued to stare down at the girl, lost deep in his focus, never ceasing the intensity of the primeval utterances. The stern concentration distorted his features into a grimace, and the exertion and strain of his work formed a fine sweat across his furrowed brow.

His skilful craft searched for the toxins surging through the girl’s infected body and blood; the writhing azure orb throbbed and whirled and convulsed.

For a brief dazzling instant, the pale glowing flickerings of a series of symbols flared up, stark and bright, and seemed to call out to him from the depths of his absorbed meditation - a puzzling, disturbing image which threatened to rupture the rhythm of his thoughts.

Perhaps the powerful poisons in her veins had caused some new, unforeseen reaction?

He pushed the radiant patterns back, deep down into the folded recesses of his mind, and felt for the dark haunting signature of the corrupting toxins in the girl’s blood.

The intricate ball of blue light glistened and vibrated across the girl’s body; searching, exploring; the urgent potency of his incantation increased and deepened; the sinister brooding shadow of her infections lessened and cleared, drained and emptied from her besieged body.

He could do no more for the patient; rest was what she needed now.

He released the girl’s legs from his grip and ceased the ancient words with a deep sighing breath.

The blue incandescent ball faded and died back into nothingness, hidden once more beneath the skin of his forearms and the focus of his thoughts.

His eyes misted and swam and returned to their old watery grey.

He wiped his brow and looked down at the patient; yes, a nasty business - but a job well done.

He blinked around the room - the weak autumn sun had already retired for the evening - only the dim glow of the rush-lights and the orange of the fire now illuminated it.

His tired frame lurched heavily across the worn stone floor; a contented ripple of relief crept along his limbs as he sank into the rough wooden armchair by the hearth.

The door clattered open; Ellis returned, burdened with two large buckets. As usual, the boy had over-filled them; some of their contents slopped over onto the floor as he set them down.

“Well?” his votary asked anxiously.

“Her blood was badly infected from her wounds, but I have purged the toxins now and her flesh has healed.”

“So she’ll be fine?” the boy said.

Hadn’t he just said as much?

Did the boy want him to write it down?

“Did we ever yet encounter a patient that I could not cure if they were brought to me in time?”

The lethargy of his exertions still cloaked his weary body.

His eyes blinked; he fought them open; the tiredness was so limiting these days, the cost so dear.

The old wooden chair felt harder with the years of its usage - and lately the boy seemed to be questioning his authority far more than he would have liked.

Did he suspect?

Ellis hovered over the patient.

“Have you so little faith in me - even after all these years together?” he asked.

But his votary was too busy staring over at the girl and seemed not to heed to his words.

He foraged through the dusty fissures of his memory - he had seen young men look like that before.

“Fill the cauldron with that water and boil it,” he said. “My old bones must rest now. We’ll have soup later.”

His young votary continued to glance anxiously across at the patient from time to time; the boy’s feet shuffled as he went about his chores.

More disturbance, when tranquillity was all he desired.

“Gawping at her won’t help the girl!” he said, more brusquely than he had intended.

His own voice and temper seemed so unnatural to him these days.

And this sudden irritability was sometimes beyond his control.

Perhaps it was too late?

Perhaps his worst fears were already being realised?

Perhaps the boy was right to question him?

The drowsy warmth of the hearth threw out its consoling sympathy.

The tiredness; the sapping, intriguing fatigue called to him.

His eyes closed; the shallow rhythm of his chest sang him its lullaby.

His puzzled worries and concerns drifted and ceased.