Wizard of Jatte by Rowan Erlking (ereader ebook .TXT) 📖

Chapter Eight: I Can’t Change the Nature of a Thing

 

 

 

 

                                                               

 

 

 

 

 

“Dad!” Theissen dashed into the carpenter shop between the lord baron and his father, clutching his father’s work apron and pulling on it like a little kid. “That woman! She just collapsed!”

“What?”

His father ran out the shop to the bench. There as his son had said, the woman was lying down on the ground in front of it, shaking convulsively.

“Well now, that has come too soon.”

The carpenter glanced back at the lord baron who had spoken with too dry of a voice. The man had strolled to the doorway with a mild gaze, looking inconvenienced but no concern at on his face otherwise. Kolbran went deathly pale as he ran up with the water, crouching down for the woman rather than the still green-faced Theissen.

“I’ll get the doctor!” Theissen dashed to the gate, hurdled over it rather than opening it. His feet landed on the ground with a puff of dust, and he darted down the road before his father could even react. The carpenter was too shocked that his son would even go to see the doctor whom he knew his son disliked, especially when he knew his son had the ability to forestall any true infection.

“I’ll get Doreen!” Kolbran ran back to the house. “Doreen! Get out here! It’s urgent!”

She stomped through the front doorway, glaring at him first. “I don’t care if Theissen is sick! The creep can heal himself!”

“No, you idiot! Look!” Kolbran yanked on her arm and pointed into the yard.

She looked, her eyes growing wide with true surprise. Then she ran to her father’s side, staring down at the woman.

The steward stepped to his master’s side, saying nothing but acting as if waiting for orders. None came yet. Lord Baron Kirsch seemed more inclined to watch the carpenter and family with mounting amusement.

“You there! Help us!” the carpenter said to the steward.

The man nodded to him then bent down to the ground.

“Take her legs. Help me get her off the ground.”

Nodding again, the steward complied with a slight grunt as he heaved. The carpenter lifted the rest of the woman off the ground and set her on the bench. Feeling her pulse first and then her lips as soon as they set her down, he frowned. She was already cold.

He turned toward the lord baron. “What disease does she have?”

The lord baron immediately drew back, his expression looking affronted. “Disease? I never mentioned—”

“My son smelled it. That is what made him sick. Not the paint fumes. Now what does she have?” The carpenter glared with worry.

Tossing back his head, the lord baron stood silent for a moment. Then he said, “I am not inclined to say. And I don’t believe that your son could possibly smell a disease on her. He was elbow deep in that brown ooze. It was obvious that it was getting to him.”

Kolbran made a face. “Theissen? Are you kidding? Nothing gets to him except sick people. He smells a really bad one, and he throws up.”

The steward stared more widely, almost as a warning not to speak further if they wanted to keep Theissen’s already poorly veiled secret.

Doreen saw his look and snorted. “Are you kidding? Theissen is a weakling. He has a weak stomach.”

Kolbran glared at her. However, the carpenter masked a smile. Neither were complete lies, actually. It was strange that Doreen was protecting Theissen though.

“Pardon me, but we have not concluded our business, and this frivolous nonsense with her is too distracting. Let us retire inside,” Lord Baron Kirsch said.

The carpenter’s mouth dropped open from shock again. “What? She—”

“I brought him!” Theissen and the doctor rushed to the gate. This time Theissen opened it for the doctor, nodding for him to go through with unusual deference.

There was a knowing look in the doctor’s eye that the carpenter saw briefly. The doctor wiped it off as he went straight to work on the woman, pushing all the others aside as he crouched down next to the bench.

“There. See. She is being handled,” the lord baron said, turning to go back indoors.

The carpenter looked more likely to bite the lord baron’s head off rather than continue business discussions, but exchanging one look from the steward, another from the doctor and yet another from Theissen urging him to humor the city man, he went indoors with a grudging step, his shoulders showing he still was more inclined to fight than negotiate.

Kolbran hissed to his brother. “What is wrong with her?”

“She’s stuck with that idiot,” Theissen whispered back. “That’s what’s wrong.”

His brother blinked at him, unable to speak.

“She is worse than you described,” the doctor said aloud. He nodded to the steward. “She is dying. There is nothing I can do except prepare her for burial.”

The woman reached up, whispering faintly. Both the steward and the doctor bent down to listen, though Theissen was listening in also with an impassive face. “Letter. I…need to write…my mother.”

The steward lifted open a flap to one of his front pockets and drew out a pad of paper and a pen. He set the pen to the paper and nodded. “I will write it for you.”

She managed a nod as she trembled. “Tell her…I want to be buried here in the south. In Lumen. You people are so…” She coughed convulsively trying hard to breathe. “…nice.”

Tears welled up in Theissen’s eyes. However, he just turned, clamping his hand over his mouth again before vomiting into the bushes.

The steward stared at him though the doctor brushed it off as irritatingly mundane.

“We’ll send her the message,” the steward said, still struggling to keep his composure.

“Is she dead yet?” Lord Baron Kirsch asked as he peered out the door again. The carpenter looked like he wanted to strangle him from behind, his glare mostly on the lord baron’s back.

Casting him his own dirty look, the doctor replied, “Have you no heart? Wasn’t she your lover?”

Kolbran’s mouth dropped open, and Doreen blinked with wonder, neither child yet clued in on exactly what that meant. Theissen turned to vomit again.

“Lover, mistress. What does it matter? She is my fourth one.” The lord baron yawned with boredom, glancing over the yard as if to sneer at their chickens feeding beyond the house. The carpenter’s wife was now standing in the house doorway looking at them puzzled, though her eyes fell on Theissen. She turned into the house to get some water for him. The lord baron smirked. “When she is dead, put her body into a casket and I’ll have my men ship it back to Skarbrone.”

“But she requested to be buried here!” Theissen jumped up in a shout, his lips ash gray. His eyes were bloodshot.

The lord baron stared at him then shook his handkerchief to shoo him away with one step backward. “Rabid boy, she is my woman. Not yours. I will do with her as I like.”

“Your woman?” Doreen stomped forward.

Her father shoved her back with his large hand, moving between them before his daughter could strike. “Please consider the sensibilities of my children, Lord Baron. You talk about that woman as if she were a mere piece of furniture.”

The dry look from the lord baron made it clear that he thought of her as just that. He turned from the group, gesturing for his steward to follow him. “I will send a man for her body within the hour.”

Glancing at Theissen, the doctor rose and called after the lord baron. “Then you will be fetching her from my shop. I insist on preparing the body in proper burial clothes.”

Lord Baron Kirsch merely snorted and walked through the open gate his steward was holding open for him. The footman then opened his coach door. “It’s your money. Personally, I think it is a waste. She is worm food after all.”

No one could speak. The steward kept his head bowed. The footmen and the coachman were the same, cowed by the intense stares of the locals of Lumen Village that filled them with shame on behalf of their master. However, none dared to speak against him. Within seconds of settling inside, the carriage road off and was soon gone from sight down the lane.

“Dad, why did you stop me? That nasty man!” Doreen kicked the bench leg and then stomped on the ground.

“Act your age,” Theissen hissed back at her.

She kicked the back of his leg. “Why didn’t you do something? Are you a wizard or not?”

“He did do something,” the doctor said.

He bent down to look at the woman again.

“Quite a performance,” he whispered.

The woman opened an eye and smiled.

Doreen gaped. “She’s—!”

But Theissen clamped his hand over Doreen’s mouth.

His father and Kolbran stared also at the woman, but they remained silent, first looking over at their neighbors’ homes and then around the bend in the road at the trees.

The carpenter whispered. “So, what exactly are we up to? You know lying is illegal.”

Theissen sighed aloud and nodded. “Of course I know that. But I think it is ten times worse leaving her with that man. He’d just let her die, you know.”

The doctor smirked. “You should have seen your son when he ran into my office. He practically begged me to come, telling me everything. But I require a favor of him, which he has agreed to.”

Giving a disgusted nod, Theissen turned to look at the woman. “I promised. I won’t break it.”

“What is the promise?” the carpenter asked his son.

Theissen cringed. “I’ll tell you later. We have time to work on the lord baron’s order before I have to fulfil it. That was part of the bargain. Right?”

The doctor gave his own disdainful nod. “Of course. A deal is a deal.”

“Fine.” The carpenter turned to Kolbran. “You go get the hand cart. We’ll take her to the doctor’s office.”

“And we’ll load up as much sawdust as we can,” Theissen added, getting up and turning towards the carpentry shop.

His father and the doctor blinked at him. “What for?”

With a shrug, Theissen said, “Well, we have to produce a body, right?”

They could see how his mind was already starting to work. Theissen was glancing at one of his sawdust dolls in the workshop. “And shaving curls too, I think.”

“Anything else?” his father asked, gesturing for Kolbran to hurry. His youngest child ran off towards the stables, kicking the side of the house before rounding the corner.

His mother cast him a chiding look as she passed by, carrying out a cup of water. She handed it to Theissen.

“Thank you.” He took it with a smile and then bent over to the woman, helping her drink.

“I meant that one for you,” his mother said, nudging his back.

“Oh.” Theissen barely glanced up. “Well, she needs it more.”

His mother turned around. “I’ll go get another one. You are absolutely green.”

But the smell had subsided. Theissen had already been easing her illness, repairing things here and there with a touch. However, he had told her earlier to lie still no matter what he did so that she would look sick rather than well.

“There are a few other things I’ll need. We can send for them later when we are at the doctor’s office,” said Theissen and he turned to get the sawdust once more. As he was gone, Kolbran rumbled around the corner with the small handcart, pushing the bar as best as he could with a measured pace. He rested it then set wood blocks from the shop to keep it from rolling. By that time Theissen had returned with a sack of sawdust, a trail of it blowing out from the shop like