Chapter 9

Having persuaded the imitable wife of the captain, the broadfaced Hiljanda of the famous House of Ossomus, to bathe her husband’s feet with a pungent soap, Aden settled down on a low stool to make his examination. Hiljanda made a strong impression from the moment she opened the door, giving him a onceover in a slow deliberate manner. She had only to wiggle her one finger and Aden started to remove his boots before entering.

She was as tall as the captain and easily matched her husband at the shoulders. There was a sturdiness in her stance with her hands on her hips as she watched him unlace his boots that brightened his mood. Hiljanda appeared solid, well-balanced in presentation and probably an absolute rock when it came to disagreement. She may not have been sort of woman for Aden’s taste, yet he could easily see the attraction of a man wanting to rise through the military ranks. More than a woman of a named house, she was a woman of a working house, not a female ornament put out for presentation. With her dyed hair hiding some of her age, he guessed she was twenty years older than himself.

The captain sat in a stuffed chair done in a dark, heavy fabric. The arm rests looked worn where limbs must have rested night after night for years. His feet were propped on a small ottoman. The captain rolled his feet at the ankles and wiggled his toes as if trying to work out the kinks of a long day on his feet.

Aden knew from the ever more talkative, ailing Kepel that the captain spent most of his day at his desk in the regimental office or on the bench outside, holding court with the town elders. Walking around the keep was not one of the captain’s regular habits.

When Aden looked at the captain’s feet, he saw why.

“Angels, demons, and devils!” Aden said with some astonishment. “What have you done to your feet? You have hammer toes, calluses on both sides and you have rubbed all the hair off the top of your feet. I count at least half a dozen of these cone-like corns; do you see them, madam? They are yellowish, almost white and crystalline in appearance.”

“I’ve seen them plenty,” she said. “I’ve even excavated them a time or two with my sewing needle and they still come back.”

“I’m cursed,” the captain said from behind his mustache.

Aden sat back up and rubbed his chin for a moment. “Are your regimental boots the only shoes you wear?”

“Don’t you go on about my boots,” the captain said with conviction. “They were a gift from the governor himself when I got my promotion. Those boots are genuine buckhorn skin, double stitched cavalry boots.”

Hiljanda tossing her head and rolling her eyes caught Aden’s eye, as he did his best not to look up. He took a moment to frame his response.

“I have good news and bad news,” Aden said, trying to look the captain in the eye instead of staring at the mustache. “The good news is first, there is no permanent damage and second, everything can heal. The bad news is that those cavalry boots were made for someone else’s feet and are the source of all your pain. If you want to be out of pain, you need to put away that pair of boots.”

“The governor, God bless his cheap bastard ways, probably gave you an unused pair right out of his closet, dearest,” Hiljanda said. “I never did entirely trust the weak-chinned puff or his pinched face wife. I told you he might not have your best interests at heart.”

“You told me, you told me,” the captain said, waving her off with his left arm. She took one look at his waving limb and smacked his hand.

His eyes went wide as she pointed her finger at him. “I am not going to listen to another moment of your whining. I’ve told you. Now, this wizard has told you. We’ve all told you to get rid of the damned boots and get something that fits.”

“But the men need to see me with the governor’s authority on my feet,” the captain said.

“No one gives two chits about the boots on your feet, dearie,” Hiljanda said. “You are deluding yourself. Just like when you told your drinking buddies that I married you for your good looks, you are deluding yourself.” She turned to Aden, “He is blessed in other areas like his great, big ... mustache.”

She had a smirk on her face but when the captain’s cheeks went red, she laughed loudly. His cheeks got redder. Aden dropped his head, hoping to hide his own bracing laugh that he was barely holding in.

“If you don’t laugh, you cry,” Hiljanda said to Aden as she patted her husband on the head. “Fix up his feet if you can, dear sir, while I run quick to the shoemaker to make arrangements. We must not let this moment pass with inaction, especially when the captain is stuck in his chair and incapacitated.”

“It’s coming out of your household budget,” the captain said, yelling as his wife took her shawl off the hook and draped it over her shoulders.

“No, dear, it is coming out of your hide,” she said, with another little laugh. “I don’t want to be here for the next part; he is like a little boy when it comes to needles.”

“Did I not warn you about her, wizard?” the captain said as he reseated himself in the chair with a further harrumph. “Is this going to hurt?”

Aden noted that everyone was asking the same question today. Better an annoying question than being alone with his bleak thoughts, he decided. He released a mirthless chuckle. Whoever this medic was who served the keep, he was not doing a worthwhile job. He was probably some further-backwater bumpkin who diagnosed disease by the position of the stars and the planets. How many cases had he seen of astronomy falling back and being eclipsed by astrology?

“The pain will be excruciating,” Aden said, baldly lying. “I will do my best to dampen the pain even though the discomfort will be immense. No man in his right mind would want to have this procedure twice in his lifetime. Show me where your most potent liquor is stored, and I will pour you a shot before we start.”

“Next room, upper left-hand cabinet,” the captain said. “Dark brown, glass bottle.”

Aden found the bottle and brought out two glasses. The captain raised an eyebrow but held his tongue. Aden pour the man two fingers and told him to drink up, which he did without hesitation. Aden poured himself a finger and drank a good swallow, wanting to taste the amber whiskey first, although he told the captain it was for courage.

Summoning his phyzeec, he scraped off the hardened, calcified skin one layer at a time. He had not wanted to touch the man’s feet but a few of the corns left him no choice. With another swallow of liquor, he used the lady’s sewing needle to guide his precise scraping. He was rather proud of himself for only raising six or seven drops of blood.

“You need another drink,” Aden said, deciding that he needed an excuse for another drink. He poured them both two fingers and enjoyed several fine swallows of smoky spice.

“It didn’t hurt that much,” the captain said, smacking his lips.

“Spoken like a true soldier,” Aden said, smiling at his own guile. One of his early revelations as a practitioner was people thought that a wizard’s power was the use of phyzeec, but the truest and most reliable of powers was human imagination. People want to believe that phyzeec can perform an ever-escalating list of fantastical desires. Yet, no wizard’s phyzeec could have produced a fine whiskey or companionable silence or even aligning both in combination. Thinking to himself, he dipped his phyzeec into the bottle, hoping to record the exact chemical makeup of the fine taste. Sometimes recording worked and sometimes the recording did not. Failure only proved that art cannot be duplicated, only imitated.