She nodded hesitantly, but she did not drop her gaze. “I . . . understand . . . but I do not believe they would become sick.”
“Why?”
“Because the sickness is not in the air.”
He waited, his hands on his hips, wanting to mount his horse and ride away, but his guilt compelled him to listen.
“I believe the disease is in the water that comes into the village from the east. If your men will fill their carafes here, wash themselves here, and stay away from the water from the eastern stream, they should be fine. Some people seem resistant to it. The strong and those in their middle years are less affected. Or maybe it is just slower to grow in them. But many people are sick.”
“So if I heal them . . . they will grow sick again,” he surmised. “Because they have to drink to live, and this littl
