Path of Honor by Diana Pharaoh Francis Page B

shifted and she caught the stench full in her face. She gagged and pressed her hand to her mouth. The teamster smiled a black-gapped smile and snickered.
    “Never mind,” said a thick, scratchy voice beside her. “Happens that way sometimes. Remember to hold your breath is all. Makes a body grateful to have a head full of cotton.”
    Reisil smiled at the snub-nosed, squinty-eyed man who crossed the road beside her. His nose was dripping. He swiped at it with his sleeve, shaking his head.
    “Sure wish the Lady would invite spring to Her table,” he said. “Been passing this cold back and forth among the whole family. Third time I’ve had it. Can’t get any sleep for all the snoring. And my wife—” He shook his head and coughed, spitting a gob of greenish phlegm onto the rutted road. “She got a nursling. Poor itty-bitty is so stuffed up she can hardly suckle. Wife’s pulling out her hair.”
    Reisil didn’t hesitate. “I’ve some things here that might help. If you’d like,” she said, showing him her pack.
    He stopped, examining her shadowed features within her hood. “Can’t pay,” he said, his fleshy face flushing.
    Reisil gave a faint, emphatic shake of her head. “There’s no need.”
    Finally he nodded. “All right. Anything to get some sleep. Name’s Tillen,” he offered over his shoulder as they walked. “Right there.” He directed her between two sagging tents. Better than many, his home had two wooden sides. A patchwork blanket of wool was supported by the walls and a framework of gnarled branches, creating a space high enough to stand inside. Tillen waved at Reisil to follow after as he ducked through the low opening.
    Inside was gloomy and thick with smoke. Three children huddled under blankets close to the low flames of the fire, arms and feet wrapped in strips of cloth. Their mother sat opposite on a square of wool, cradling a wailing baby. She raised red, swollen eyes at their entrance. Seeing Reisil, she hastily jerked up on the shoulder of her lowered tunic to cover her pale, milk-heavy breast.
    A dog barked in the corner where he was tied. The younger of the two boys, eight years old, Reisil guessed, scurried from beneath the blanket and went to crouch beside the thin, flop-eared animal. The boy stroked the dog’s bristly black head to quiet him, watching Reisil, his nose and upper lip red and chapped.
    Tillen went to his wife, grasping her shoulder with a gentle hand. “Suli, I brought some help.”
    He glanced meaningfully at Reisil, who unslung her pack as she circled the fire and knelt beside the exhausted woman, noting her hair, dry as straw, her concave cheeks, thick breathing and dry, rasping cough.
    “I’ll need some water—boiled,” Reisil said to Tillen.
    “Kes and Mara aren’t back yet,” piped a hoarse young voice from the folds of the blanket. Then before her father could respond, the girl, all angles and bones, unfolded herself. She was about twelve, with a wide forehead and pointed chin and lank hair. Like her brother and father, her nose was running, her upper lip chapped red. “All we have left is for washing. I’ll see if Mer Wilka has any.”
    She snatched up a pot from a makeshift sideboard and ducked out of the tent.
    “May I?” Reisil asked, stretching her hands out to take the baby. Suli cast a fearful glance at her husband and then reluctantly passed the infant to Reisil.
    Reisil bent and pressed her ear to the tiny boy’s chest, and then turned him over and did the same on his back. Though his breathing was stertorous, his lungs did not have the liquid, bubbling sound Reisil feared. As she examined him further, Reisil was pleased to discover that the patchwork swaddling was free of fleas and dirt.
    The girl returned, setting a pot of water over the fire. Reisil set about ministering to the family, providing lozenges for sore throats, an unguent for congestion, a thick infusion of meadowsweet, wormseed, and willow bark to ease pain and