Life at Master Tho-Noshó’s house became routine after that. On Kneelday of every week, he and Eja and Auntie Hurga all walked down the streets together to the old house, listened to the boring and stupid words of Counselor Dursus or Counselor Yubrin and the sounds of the people dying. A few more people had joined the temple who had the same disease Eja had, it seemed.
But that was only for an hour or two at sunset.
Eja did get better. At least, the coughing wasn’t as bad, but she always complained after eating her breakfast that her stomach hurt. She put a hand below her naval and acted like she would vomit, but Auntie Hurga never stopped giving her the medicine. Every morning, Jallin watched the blue swirl, and listened to Eja and Auntie Hurga arguing about whether she would eat it.
He was happy to get to work.
Jallin helped Kir-Tuko with his chores. He moved boxes of clinking jars to the front gate, picked bad leaves from herbs, killed insects between his fingers or collected them into a jar. Mostly, he kept Kir-Tuko company while trying to watch him work.
The old sho reminded Jallin of fish cleaners down on the docks (I don’t recall if I’ve said this part before). Some of them, the good ones who had done it most of their lives, particularly the dexterous kinto-shah slaves bred into it, could go through hundreds, maybe thousands of fish in one day. The gut piles kept gulls and clebbits fat and happy.
Kir-Tuko must have had a back made of pure iron. He could stand in that one place near the greenhouse wall and make a potion from start to finish without stopping. For many of the things he put together, he didn’t even need the written instructions. He used the tools, but didn’t know any of their names, or really what they were doing for him. Why he used one stirring rod made of a particular metal over another made of glass, nor why he scooped powders from jars with one sort of spoon over another, nor which herb was which and why he couldn’t use one of the same plants, Jallin understood none of it. Kir-Tuko either couldn’t or didn’t explain.
“What are you making?” Jallin asked him on Marktday a month after the drellorin attack. Several jars were lined up, and one of them was half full of some kind of milk-white liquid.
“Medicine,” Kir-Tuko said.
“What kind of medicine?” Jallin asked him.
Kir-Tuko stopped for a moment and thought about something. Jallin wondered if this stuff were a secret like some of the other things he’d asked about. Usually Kir-Tuko would tell him if it were, but maybe Jallin had asked too many times.
“It for fain. Fain medicine. Make ju no feel in head.”
“What’s that white stuff in that bottle? Is that milk?”
Kir-Tuko squeaked out a laugh.
“No, that stuff ju vring to me.”
“I bring? What are you talking about?”
“That…drelloreen foison.” (NOTE TO SELF: Go back and check Kir-Tuko and Noshó’s words. Kinto-Shah probably cannot manage the ‘p’ or other plosives like that)
“Drellorin poison?”
“It good for fain. Make you numb een head. Use for healing, use for…hmmm…use for catching bad ones, like thieves.”
Jallin took another look at the bottle of milky-white substance, and then he didn’t want to look at it again. He hadn’t stolen since coming to this place, and he didn’t want to do it again, but he wondered if Kir-Tuko knew about him stealing before. Maybe he’d seen Jallin in the markets. Maybe he’d witnessed the Mercelian chasing him. Sometimes, Kir-Tuko went to buy things in the markets. Jallin wondered if he’d ever stolen from him. He didn’t think so.
But sometimes, Kir-Tuko gave him funny looks. Very often, even when he was mixing things, he looked over his shoulder and watched Jallin, as though he expected Jallin to be someone else when he looked again.
Then, out of nowhere, he said it: “Ju believe in that Trochaya god, yes?” He wasn’t giving Jallin a dirty look then. Now, he was arranging some powders in various piles to his left side of the table. Meanwhile, he carefully chopped some leafy, brown herb into tiny little bits, and seemed to make sure each piece was the same size and shape. He might as well have said something about a rainstorm. Jallin was not entirely sure he’d heard right.
“What?”
“Ju vorship Trochayabub. Ju and Hurga and seester, yes?”
He still wasn’t looking at Jallin. It was like imagining him saying the words. Now, Jallin’s blood ran cold. What had he told his master? What did he want? Probably, he wanted something, now that he mentioned it. Jallin hoped this was not happening. He hoped it would be one of his dreams about being caught. But the knife clicked along the dented wood and Jallin didn’t wake up.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “I mean, we don’t. No. We worship the Protector.”
“The…Frotector? Vhat she tell ju to say, Hurga? Frotector for Kunjels, not ju. I am old, but not stufid. I know Dursus.”
“How do you know?”
“He vork vith Tho-Shiko. I take to them, and he give us drellorin foison, some of eet’s bones and guts. Good for using. He vant fain medicine from it. You vorship Trochaya?”
“No, I don’t. Auntie Hurga and my mother did, though. Auntie Hurga believes he’ll heal Eja. He didn’t heal my mother, though.”
Kir-Tuko moved some things around on the table, put a few things in a bowl, and put his tool down. He put his hands on the table and looked like he was going to be sick.
“What’s wrong?” Jallin asked.
He looked up and met Jallin’s eyes with his own.
“I…I just thinking.” He tugged at the wisp of fur under his chin. He reached up to a shelf of ingredients to his left, sitting just above the table where he worked. First, he selected one small bottle of red liquid, then a brown bottle Jallin couldn’t see into, and then a jar of dried worms. Without opening any of these, he put them in a row on the table before him, away from the other ingredients he left out.
Then, without saying anything, he went back to work. With a little metal spatula, he mixed two of the powders together in front of him, swirling them together. He scooped them up and into the bowl. He finished the mixture, chopping, grinding, and pouring, until the bowl surely must have been full. He put the bowl to the corner of the table and covered it over with a piece of metal. He never used the ingredients off the shelf.
“I’m hungry,” he said. “Ju vant food too?”
Jallin’s stomach did not need reminding. He was always hungry, and always waited for Kir-Tuko to say something about food.
Kir-Tuko didn’t lead him out of the greenhouse, though. Instead, he went to the back somewhere and started plucking some leaves off some of the plants. Jallin didn’t know all the names.
“Ju ever hear of Frosomia?” Kir-Tuko asked him. Jallin thought this was a strange question. Why’d he ask this?
“Where the kunjels and…well, your people come from, right?”
“Yes,” Kir-Tuko said. “Ju hear of Foolfood?”
“Foolfood?” Jallin asked. “No.”
“It bad grass. It grow out in Sea of Grass. Very dangerous. Ju eat it, and ju not hungry anymore. You starve to death, fall down somewhere, rot avay. Ju hear about that?”
“No,” Jallin said. Kir-Tuko had some sprigs of grass between his fingers. As though knowing where Jallin had just glanced, he held the grass between them. As though confronted with a knife, Jallin backed away from the bright green blades of grass.
“Ju think after ju eat, ‘I don’t need food anymore,’ and ju don’t eat nothing, and ju die. It doesn’t take much, maybe thees much.” He dropped the grass to the ground and stepped on it like he might have been killing a dangerous insect. “Vhen ju hungry, ju should eat food, not that bad grass. Vhen ju thirsty, ju should drink vater, not strong drink. Vhen ju sick, ju should take medicine.”
He shook his head.
“Ju ever have good feesh?” Kir-Tuko asked him after a moment of silence.
Jallin could remember stealing a bait fish. He cooked it outside on a tiny little fire. Such a pathetic memory, that little fish frying, sticking to the pan, and Eja waiting greedily for it. She probably bit down on more slime and blackened metal than fish.
“Come, ve go down to inn, and I feed ju good feesh.”
Kir-Tuko started to leave the greenhouse, but Jallin looked at the table. The old sho had cleaned up everything…everything but the three bottles he’d taken down. Jallin looked up to where they had been sitting, and he saw it. A bottle of blue liquid, the bottle containing Eja’s medicine.
Sarkoshian Days of the Week (There are 8 in the Sarkoshian Calendar, according to Sarkelosh to honor the 8 Aethren):
Portday
Goldday
Fishday
Emperday
Clarkday
Marktday
Kneelday
Eighthday
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