Fennel Thistledown's Arc

Chapter 7 of 21

The families came before Fennel was ready. By midmorning a crowd stood in her yard, mothers and children bent double with coughing. Fennel counted them and counted her jars. Twelve families. Six jars of feverbloom, half a bundle of dried leaf, no more. She set her students to brewing, but the smell of the pot told her the truth. The stores would run dry before noon. Half these people would go home with nothing. "Save the strong doses for the worst," Fennel told Lily. "Thin the rest." But thinned remedy barely worked. A child coughed blood into her sleeve. Fennel's hands shook over the empty jars. Fifty years of skill meant nothing without herbs to use it on. A cart rolled up the path. A woman in a worn leather apron climbed down, dark braid over one shoulder. Fennel knew the face. Marisol Greenleaf, who sold herbs town to town and never wasted a word. Marisol looked at the coughing crowd, then at Fennel. "You're out," Marisol said. Not a question. "Near enough," Fennel said. Marisol pulled back the cloth on her cart. Rows of jars and bundles lay packed tight. She lifted out a soft green plant, small white blooms among the leaves. "Calmleaf. Eases a cough and the chest with it. I have more than you'll need today." Fennel reached for her purse. It held little. "I can't pay for all of it." Marisol studied the yard. A child slept on a mother's shoulder. On the cart's edge sat a tiny dormouse with wings like a dragonfly's, curled and dreaming, undisturbed by the noise. "Pay what you have," Marisol said. "The rest, teach." She nodded at Lily and the traveling girl, sleeves rolled, working the pots. "Two hands aren't enough for a crowd like this. Show me your book. I'll dose alongside them. Split the load four ways." Fennel hesitated. Trusting a stranger with her remedies went against every year of caution. But the child in the yard could not wait for caution. She fetched the book and opened it on the cart. They worked through the afternoon. Fennel read the doses aloud. Lily measured, the traveling girl brewed, Marisol ground the calmleaf fine. Four sets of hands moved faster than two. Family by family, the crowd thinned. Children stopped coughing and drank clear water instead. By dusk the last family walked home. Every patient had a remedy. The cart stood half empty. Fennel counted her coins into Marisol's palm, a poor sum. "Your girls know their work," Marisol said, climbing to her seat. "The young one caught your wrong dose twice. I watched." She flicked the reins. "You won't have enough for the next crowd either. Word travels. So does sickness." The cart rolled off. Fennel stood in the empty yard. She had saved them all today. But Marisol was right. More would come, and her stores were gone again.