The Blood of Alchemy

Chapter 16: Daarsin Society

"Fetch that pail of water in the corner, would you?" Arris said, and Boros went across the peasant woman's named Arris' small home and got the basin.

The unknown man that Boros had saved from the mob woke on the second day. He had gotten worse before he had gotten better. He had grown feverish, and both Boros and Arris had not thought him likely to make the night.

The woman had known more about healing than Boros had ever expected of a peasant woman. She had dabbed his wounds with strong alcohol and witch hazel to keep them from festering, she had sewn some of the deeper gashes with a very meagre needle kit, and she had .

Boros had stayed by his side the night through, while the woman slept in her flea riddled bed of straw. Boros still had not gotten used to such poverty, even though it had been all around him ever since he had left the comfort of the castle keep in Oros. The castle dungeons had not even felt as bad as the slums of the cities did, knowing that at least you were safe behind bars in prison.

Boros watched the woman sleep in the dirty hole of a room that she likely called a house, and felt worse than he ever had before about the way he had spent his life so far. He had lived his whole life in luxury, and this woman had surely never known an ounce of it. He had left meals untouched, and here he could see no trace of food at all. He wondered when the last time Arris had eaten was. He wondered about her life; had she had grown up alone, or if she had parents in the city somewhere? Did she have brothers or sisters? Where had she had come from? He wondered if she had always lived in Vineas, or perhaps she might have even come from Oros. He wondered what she had been doing on the nights that he had fallen onto his feather bed, with a belly full of meat and ale.

How can some one like her be stuck in a place like this? He knew it was all about birth. He had been born the son of a knight. His father had fought in the Great War and many others. When Boros was born, it was only logical for him to train to squire for knights, and then become one himself in time. But what was this woman's purpose? What had she worked to become? Whatever it was, even in the little piss scented hole, she was better than he had been, he thought.

He wondered the same things about the dying man, and the more he speculated, the worse he felt, and he almost left the little hole, but he would not leave the mans side. He felt obligated, or perhaps just curious, but he wanted the man to live. He wondered if this man had a wife or a family somewhere in the city that was wondering about him too. What had the man done to these people that God would have them kill him mercilessly? He could only think that he himself might have been the one who deserved this.

The man turned and muttered a few incoherent words in the worst bit of the fever, but Boros kept his temperature down with water from the basin.

Morning came, and Arris woke, though the man had still not, and Boros was still in the same place she had last saw him. Her hair was all over, and she looked oddly beautiful in a way. She kept her face clean, and her skin was soft. If she had been dressed in castle gowns, she would stun any knight.

"Did you sleep?" She asked.

Boros shook his head.

"How is he?"

Boros looked down at the man, "The fever has stopped. He was moving a bit, and muttering. It seemed like he was dreaming."

"Well, that is a good sign, I hope. Means something is still going on in his skull."

"Where did you learn these things?"

"My father, he was a healing man for the small folk."

"Here, in Vineas?"