Chapter 3

Esala was a puzzle that Stefan couldn't quite figure out. The city was far too clean, lacking the smell of shit, piss, and rotting garbage; the cesspools were missing. There were no animals in the buildings except for cats and a few dogs. Even the people looked clean and had little odor about themselves, which was totally odd. May Day was the annual festival of the bath and that was months in the past. These people had bathed much more recently, even the children.

Gregor had gone to the Captain of the garrison to determine when they would get their clothes and possessions back. They had heard talk that everything coming from outside had to be fumigated, whatever that meant. Gregor, being the senior member of the two, had the obligation of figuring out "whatever that meant."

As Stefan made his way back to the garrison in hopes of snatching a midday meal, he felt a pinch on his bicep. He turned into the face of the old maid who had scrubbed him down yesterday. She looked up at him with a gaped tooth grin and motioned him to follow her with a little wiggle of her index finger. He followed down and around until they came abreast of the Herbalist Shop with its "Leaf and Thistle" sign that universally signaled all who cared that a practitioner of herbs had a shop.

"The Healer would like a word with you," the old maid cackled. She grasped an edge of his sleeve and pulled him into the shop. Stefan had to duck to avoid colliding with a plant hanging from a suspended pot.

"Ah, you found him, Esmie," a familiar female voice called from the back of the long room.

Stefan followed the voice until he saw Mirela sitting at a high table cluttered with vessels. Oil lamps focused with mirrors lit her face and the tabletop, causing Stefan to blink rapidly to adjust his eyes. He cautiously tiptoed around the sacks, pots and crates that created a nearly indiscernible path to the back where she sat. As he drew near the light, he took in the mortars and pestles, along with the stone and glass jars. To his right were shelves secured to the wall holding mysterious looking containers whose contents he could not decipher. A slightly cloying scent of wildflowers filled the air.

"Grab the stool against the wall and come sit across from me, guardsman," the woman softly commanded. She spooned a mixture of some sort into a tan cream base and began stirring.

"What's that?" Stefan pointed at her concoction, unaware that the abruptness of his question might be considered rude.

"The base is oil of the borgata plant, filtered and partially evaporated. The active ingredients are mostly petals of the white star, and venescent flowers, which promote healing of the skin."

"Oh," Stefan answered realizing that he had just stepped into a deep lecture on the study of botanicals. He had a quick flashback to the classrooms of his school and the droning lectures of the priests. At least Mirela was soft on the eyes compared to those flinty stone heads. With that thought, a chuckle escaped from his throat.

Mirela raised an eyebrow, "Something in my description strikes you as funny, guardsman?"

"No my lady," Stefan straightened his spine, "your words sent me back to my masters' classrooms for a moment."

"Esmie told me that you were uttering a priest's chant while she disinfected you."

"Your soap was rather brutal," Stefan replied, "and I am still smarting from its effects today."

Mirela pursued her point, "What was the chant?"

"The Rune of Enduring Pain — it focuses the mind to free itself, and ignore the pain of the outside world."

Mirela forced him to look into her eyes with her gaze, "So, you are a priest."

"I disappointed my masters, and they placed me in the King's Guard before I took my final vows," Stefan freely admitted to an outsider for the first time.

"Not a priest but a priestly vassal," Mirela clipped.

"They raised and educated me," Stefan protested until he saw the distain cross her face, "but I fear there is an unwanted collar about my neck."

For some reason he didn't want to admit or explore, he wanted to please this woman.

"You may get lucky, guardsman," Mirela pointed at him with her mixing spoon, "the pestilence doesn't discriminate between priest and peasant. Your chain may have already evaporated and you don't realize it yet."

"Perhaps," Stefan responded without much enthusiasm. A moment of silence passed between them before Stefan asked, "Why did you send for me?"

"You can read, true?" Mirela asked and Stefan nodded in the affirmative.

Mirela put down her spoon and walked to one of the dark shelves, retrieving a small codex with a blackened, cracked leather cover. She handled the book gently, opening to a certain page without straining the sewn binding that looked fragile.

"Read this passage aloud," Mirela insisted with a pointing of her finger.

Stefan had to squint to read the faded ink, "The Shaman Ingik-No-Shurukan shared his greatest secret of his forest goddess with me in exchange for the borgata root and its oil. The animals of the forest were the emissaries of the goddess, bringing messages for the people to heed. A doe with two fawns meant many births in the spring. An overabundance of frogs warned of a sustained drought whose inevitability could not be thwarted. The appearance of marmots in the fields signaled the goddess's great anger that the people should abandon her domain, or die the great mortality."

Mirela turned the page and pointed to another paragraph. Stefan cleared his throat and continued, "We walked to a large field that was piled with stones and weeds; no honest grass grew on the land. He pointed to the boundaries and told me that this was grave of the great mortality after the last marmots appeared. I measured the length and breadth of the field with my eyes and calculated the numbers in my thoughts. The grandfather of Shaman Ingik-No-Shurukan buried thousands of his people, over half of his tribe, because of the displeasure of his goddess. I thank my gods that we do not pray to such a vile deity."