Everyone set about their assigned tasks. Roland headed up the stairs and knocked on the door which blocked off the doctor's study from the rest of the house.
"Come in." Came the gruff reply.
"Hello, sir." Roland opened the door, giving his mentor and master a lopsided grin in greeting.
"Roland my boy!!" The stoic doctor rose to throw his arms around the now-taller young man's neck. "Have you grown while you were gone, or have I shrunk? Tell me everything."
"I will, but first, we have a patient downstairs. Also, I was given this pouch for you, from Jimmy." Roland was still perplexed about the doctor doing business with such a questionable and mysterious person.
"Ah, Jimmy. Bless and curse the man." Doctor Sherman replied, taking the bundle. "And yes, my wife mentioned you had a young lady??"
Roland colored. "I don't 'have' a young lady in the sense your tone seems to be implying, but I did bring you a patient with an infected bite wound from a wolf."
"A wolf?? Goodness me. I've treated other bites recently but nothing like that. Well, there was that soldier in training two weeks ago who was caught off guard by a mountain lion-- in broad daylight!!-- but that was such a rare thing. Let's go see your young woman."
"She's--" Roland was caught off guard as the doctor swept past him and out of the room. "She's not MY young woman, and making comments like that is going to make a man downstairs very angry if you keep it up."
The doctor paused. "Got some competition for her, eh? It'll be good for you. Keep you on your toes, make you appreciate her. I should know, I fought off 20 better men for the prize of my bride's hand."
Roland blinked, having not ever stopped to consider what Mrs. Sherman was like as a young woman. Just as quickly, he shook it off. "Can we focus on getting Serafina better before you get sidetracked on your romantic speculations, please??"
"Serafina," The doctor tried out the name. "Angelic. Wonderful name for a doctor's wife. People near death need an angel around."
"I'm begging you now. Stop."
"All right," The doctor waved his hand dismissively as they reached the bottom of the stairs, "I just missed you. I've gotten it all out now. I think." He winked.
As soon as he entered the treatment room it was like another man had taken over his body. Stern and professional, wearing a serious-faced frown, he examined his patient with a stoic air.
"You're right, it is fairly badly infected. Please go fetch the herbs from upstairs. The ones you arrived with."
"Can you make her better?" Mayra asked earnestly, staying out of the way in the corner.
"It'll be a battle, but not an impossible one." The doctor would not commit to an outcome before he was sure of it. "Much depends on how much medicine she needs to get on the other side of the fever. The faster she can do it, the better off she'll be."
"Hear that, Finn?" Mayra said, "You've got to get better quickly. Fight off the fever so we can have some grand adventures... I mean, go home and live normal, happy lives." She glanced at Riley waiting just outside the door and grinned, not knowing which of those things Finn actually wanted. What kind of life the girl desired might depend on which of the two men she liked better. Or maybe, if love was a choice after all, she would choose the man who would give her the life she desired.
The woman on the bed was silent, whether asleep or unconscious from pain, Mayra couldn't tell. Roland, being an apprentice, had re-entered with the doctor and observed gravely. Riley had been relegated to outside a doorway by Mrs. Sherman so he couldn't see Finn at all.
Dr. Sherman finished his ministrations, rewrapped the wound, and gave his wife the ingredients to make a hot medicinal drink.
"Mrs. Sherman," He addressed his wife formally in the presence of company, "I imagine these young people are all half-starved. Do we have any food to provide to them?"
"Yes indeed," She replied. "I'll get something on the stove now. Everyone should be welcomed with hot food after a long journey." She gave Roland's hand a squeeze on her way out of the room. "Welcome home."
Roland sighed and squeezed her hand back. It was nice to be in the home he knew, but he knew it wouldn't last. Though his recent absence had been many weeks, soon a year would stand between him and the comfort of his found family... as well as the one he was coming to hope would be his new family.
He mentally squashed that hope as hard as he could. She was sick, she wasn't thinking well, he was a bad match for her, there were many reasons he shouldn't think that way. Hope preceded disaster and made it harder to bear. But then, Doctor Sherman said that patients without hope always died. Hope was the essence of survival, in his studied opinion. Without hope, and without love, why should the human soul try to endure? Of course it would give in to illness and death.
Some of the Doctor's philosophizing sounded far wiser than it was, in Roland's humble judgment.
Dr. Sherman looked directly into Roland's eyes as if sensing the critical thoughts. "Now, my boy, tell me your story while we wait for the food to be ready."
_________
"And that's why I sent him the letter back about Jimmy." Mrs. Sherman filled in towards the end of Roland's story, which had lengthened and lasted well into the late evening meal they were now sharing together. "I wouldn't have involved that... person otherwise."
Mayra looked at the older woman sideways, wondering what descriptor she had desired to use for Jimmy that she had skipped for the sake of polite conversation.
"Well thought out, My Dear," The doctor mumbled, pondering the tale he'd heard. "We should let the council know what you have learned on your journey. I have no doubt they will believe you if I stand behind you as a character witness. We should, as my wife is about to interrupt me to say, leave out the parts about smuggling a sick person into the city with the help of a slippery character who appears and disappears at will. No need to give them any distractions from the important information."
Mrs. Sherman's mouth snapped shut and she smiled at her husband's very accurate summary of what she was about to say. They had been married so long it was almost impossible for one to offend the other.
For the sake of keeping an eye on Finn, they ate downstairs in a room next to where she was resting. The food was delicious, but mostly hot and filling. After a stressful day of arguing with soldiers, not knowing if they could get into the city, and then being smuggled in by some strange magical disappearing man, all were hungry and sleepy.
"We'll take turns staying up with the patient." The doctor decided. "Since my lovely wife and I have likely had more sleep than the lot of you, we will take the first two watches. Young lady, since I gather you have a medical head on your shoulders, you can take the final watch."
Roland and Riley began to protest. "No, I'll have none of that. Young sir, as you are no relation to the lady and not a doctor, it would be improper to leave you alone with her in a bedroom, especially at night. And Roland, you must have all your rest to speak succinctly and thoroughly before the council Going before them is no small thing and you must have your wits about you."
The doctor turned to confide in the visitors, "Although our City has had peace from war for 200 years, we've barely had a minute's peace from politics. I'm not sure which is the more treacherous battlefield." Although he said this with a wink, Mayra and Riley both felt that his words might be truer than they seemed. Their village gossip and politics must be nothing compared to what happened in a grand city such as this.
Turning back to Roland, the doctor gave his advice unsolicited. "The General will react most strongly to your news since it involves his area of control. Either he will be strongly interested or highly dismissive. You must be firm but not overbearing as you explain what you heard. State the facts exactly without your own interpretation of them."
Roland nodded, mentally picturing the General. Each Councilor's portrait hung in the city center so that the citizens would know and respect their leaders.
"Be wary of the Peacekeeper's questions, as he is always wanting to make sure the law was followed to the letter, which obviously it was not in this case. Be respectful while giving as little information as possible in response. The Judge will listen fairly, but will defer to his colleagues if they are strongly opinionated, as will the Treasurer, I believe. The Provider--" Here the good doctor paused.
"I do not know how the Provider will react. As you know, when the city began experiencing the herb shortage, I wanted to go myself with a sampling of other experts and spread across the lands to search and gather as much as quickly as possible. The Provider, being in charge of trade, convinced me that my medical services are in dire need in the city and begged me not to leave. I was forced to send you by yourself, as I could not convince any other doctors to send their apprentices as well." he sighed.
"I admit the practice has been increasingly busy since your departure. Without the herbs, people take longer to heal, if they do at all. The workload is more and more. The Provider wants what is best for Klain, but he and I do not always see things the same way. I think he can't see the bigger picture sometimes." Doctor Sherman looked down at his hands with furrowed brow, as if trying to work out a puzzle.
"I don't think you should mention the mystery of the herb shortage across the land. Since I brought that matter before the council before and disagreed with the Provider, it might offend him to think I am taking up the matter anew via my apprentice to embarrass or undermine him. If asked directly, you can honestly say you found some on your journey and purchased the rest from surrounding towns."
"But," Roland protested, "Isn't it a worsening problem? How are people to get better without the medicines they need? Surely the council must deal with that immediately!"
The Doctor eyed his apprentice and carefully continued, "I have re-established my personal supply, and give to those doctors I trust when they need it. I will not see someone suffer, but rushing headlong into the political arena like a bull will not better the situation."
He sighed, not sure if he had said too much or too little. "Now, to bed with you all. Rest is direly needed for the times ahead, both for facing the Council to warn them of war and helping the young patient in the next room in her personal war against this fever."