My Crown for Your Heart

Chapter One

SAROYA

 I weave my way through the busy road, my mind whirring with the most mundane thoughts. A reminder to go searching for herbs for Cautelia's stiff bowels, a rough sum of everything that I have made today, my two appointments, a mental note to around Madame Hilba's cottage to avoid her detaining me to ask for her poison again. She is a most insistent woman though I have told her time and again that I will not provide her with poison to dehydrate and wrinkle her husband's mistress' skin. I wipe sweat from my brow, the hot sun beating down on me mercilessly. The crush of bodies is beginning to thin, everyone hurrying to round up their activities and return back to their homes. It does not affect their good humour and as she strides down the path, greetings are tossed, jokes are called out and there is more than one bawdy laughter echoing in abandon. It is a small village where everyone knows everyone and there is never any crime and I fit right in. I feel a sense of satisfaction, if not complete contentment and hope I will be able to stay longer in this village before unavoidably moving on.

The front of Waroch's cottage comes into view and I stride towards it, eager to see my favorite constant patient. Theirs is a large cottage for all that it is still only a very small house. I rap twice on the door, adjusting my basket of tinctures, potions and herbs against my hip and hear rapid footsteps coming toward the door. It soon flies open and Madame Willow's face fills the gap. She reaches out and pulls me in, eyes wide, her cloth wrinkled. Alarm punches into my heart and I match her frenzied steps as we rush towards Amie's room.

"She got worse so suddenly. I don't know since when, she was doing so well last night before we all went to sleep and up till this morning when I went out. I came back and met her like this and I was going to send for you but thank the Saints you are here early." She says in a rush. We are at Amie's door and I push it open and rush in, fearing the worst.

Amie is on the bed, curled in on herself, an occasional shiver rattling her delicate frame and the room smells of piss. I hurry forward until I reach her bed. Her forehead is damp with sweat and her teeth chatter a disjuncted rhythm. When her eyes which have gone glassy with pain focus on me, they sharpen and she beams a smile, relaxing somewhat and reaching a bony, trembling hand out to clutch my dress. She tries to speak.

"I-I d-did-dnt w-w-want t-to..."

"Shh," I shush her, smoothing her damp hair away from her forehead "you brave little fighter. I am going to take care of you now. You are going to feel better in no time."

Amie's mother looks relived, and she flutters around, tidying up the room and trying to be useful. I reach into my basket for the potion I prepared to ease her trembling which will also put her into a deep sleep. Grabbing a small cup of water, I put three drops into it, swirl it around and raise her head up before gently putting the cup to her lips and making sure that she drinks every last drop. Since I began treating her, Amie has always been a complacent patient, never complaining about her treatments and doing exactly what I tell her to do which is why I am surprised at how she had ended up turning out this bad. Lately, her illness has been unpredictable and I will have to run a full test on her soon to learn what has changed.

The medicine is already working and her shivering slowly subsides and so, I take the potion that I have painstakingly made for her and uncork the vial. I put it to her lips and she takes a sip before I close it and drop it back into the basket. Amie's mother is there and she helps to plump the pillow and lay her back down on it. She is already looking better, her color returning but I frown as she settles down and winces before relaxing back. She is still clutching a piece of my gown and she looks up at me with large, earnest blue eyes.

"Don't go." She whispers.

"I am not going anywhere." I tell her and settle on the old chair beside her bed. She relaxes fully into her pillow and is soon asleep. I take her hand into one of my own and look at her exhausted mother.

"You should go and rest, I will stay with her awhile. Catch some sleep while you are at it too."

She sighs gratefully, leaning her back against the wall. "Thank you so much. You do not know how much your coming into our life has helped her. We are forever in your debt." She says.

I am uncomfortable with her heartfelt gratitude but my face shows none of it. I smile at her, a little tilt of my lips before I look down at Amie in her sleep. "The pleasure is all mine. Here," I pull out the latest vial I made and extend it to Madame Willow who collects it. "The most recent one I made. It is possible that the last one is the one that brought about this reaction so we need to change it immediately." I say.

"It has not been so long since we changed that one though." She says.

"I know." I say with a frown. I do not know why her body is rejecting the medicine now but it is not a good sign. I however, keep my lips sealed.

"Thank you, Saroya." She says before moving to a bed and placing a soft kiss on Amie's forehead.

"You are welcome. Go, take some rest." I tell her. She comes around to give me a hug, her eyes a little wet and I automatically stiffen before I make my body relax. Then, she turns around with a swish of her skirts and leaves the room.

I rub Amie's hand between mine, warming their cold length and interlace her fingers with mine, wondering how this girl has slipped zo completely behind my barriers and firmly into my heart. She is ten, small for her age, all bones and angles really. Her little round face is the only semblance of her that retains any remnants of childhood fat.

My mind trails back to the first time I met her. I had just moved into this village and had been watching a group of children playing in the sand. She had been there too, watching them hungrily, seated alone under the shade of a tree. Her eyes had followed every move of the children and even with all the longing in her eyes to join them, there was no bitterness. She had grinned widely from her seat as they played and cackled loudly, clapping her bony hands in glee whenever something amused her. The children in the sand forgotten, I had watched her and those huge blue eyes that seemed to take up half of her face, and then suddenly she had fallen, her entire body seizing violently.

I had rushed there along with all the children, my heart in my throat as I had held her face between my hands and then her eyes snapped open to catch mine and her seizing had stopped just as abruptly as it had started.

"Do continue, please." She had said in her little voice. The children and I had glanced at each other in confusion and I was more than a little surprised to find that she was not making a big deal of the serious situation like most children her age would have.

After the children had obliged her and gone back, I sat down and talked with her for a long time before her mother came to collect her. But even after I left the playground and entered the sanctity of my new home, her illness had troubled my mind so much that I found myself boiling and mixing all of the herbs that I knew could help, making a tincture that I hoped would ease her suffering. Finding her had been easy but convincing her mother to try my potion had been another ordeal on its own but she had finally agreed and I have been their family healer ever since then.

I watch her even breathing, noting that the restlessness that had plagued my mind since morning has finally receded. I allow her deep rhythmic breaths lull me to sleep and even though I am jerked awake every time she moves, I feel more rested than I have all week.

By mid-evening, I am late for my last appointment and I leave Madame Willow instructions on her medicine and food. As I shut their door and make my way into the streets, there are very few people milling about, concluding their business for the day. I adjust my basket, my ponytail swishing behind me as I move to wrap up mine.

...

I sink into the steaming hot tub, flexing my toes gratefully, sighing as I feel all of the tension leaving my body. It is a small tub and I have to leave my feet and the lower third of my legs hanging out of the tub but I don't mind. Indeed, the tub is a luxury that very few can afford, myself included, and I have learnt to take my comfort wherever I can find it. My growing reputation as a gifted healer that will go far and wide to get my patients back on their feet helps to fill up my savings about as much as I indulge in my impulses. Which means that most of the time, I have no money on ground other than the one I am determinedly saving for emergencies.

Sighing back into the water, I attempt to empty my mind of all distractions but it immediately circles back to Amie. I am concerned about her. Really, of all of my patients in this little village, she is the one I have accomplished the least with, and the one I most fervently wish to heal.

I think back to six years ago when I had been living as a maid in a rigid household. That is when I had snuck off to apprentice with the household healer and had made a friend of his crow, Walder. Many in the household spat or crossed themselves whenever they saw Walder but the crow was completely undeterred and equally disdainful of their pomp. I had loved talking to Walder, his black crow eyes never judged or belittled me.

The memories of the crow automatically brings other memories, sadder ones. Like when a guest had seen Walder flying over the house and had taken it upon himself to rid us all of the bad omen. My warning cry had come too late, he had already fashioned his bow and arrow and shot it down. While half of the people present had cheered and yelled good riddance and the other half just did not give a fig, I had pushed through the throngs of people and rushed to where Walder had dropped, twitching with pain in his death throes.

I had cried hysterically, soothing his feathers with my hands and wishing I had paid doubly better attention to the healer for then, maybe I would be able to fix the wound which had obviously damaged his bird heart. I had looked down at its twitching body and wished it to be healed so fervently that my fingers had tingled and a faint blue light had left my hand in a sharp painful burst and entered the bird's body. My gasp was echoed by another as his body seemed to move and push the arrow out all by itself, and in front of my eyes, the bird's body had mended itself wholly and rapidly. I looked up with dread into Old Martella's eyes and hers were pinched with shock and fear. Fear that I would later learn, was not of me but for me if anyone had seen what I had just done.

She had reacted fast, grabbing the healed bird before it could fly off, cursing wholeheartedly at all of the girls before grabbing me and dragging me off shortly after.

Alone with her, she had made me swear never to reveal what I had done to anyone in the household and after that day, she had taken my apprenticeship more seriously and so had I. She had taught me all of the basics that I would later need to further my own education at my own convenience and snuck me out of the household and the village to her old friend who had turned out to be dead. My heart aches for that little bit of acceptance and fondness, if not love, that old Martella had for me.

In the course of the two years that I have been in this village, I have tried several times to resurrect that power to try to save Amie the same way that I did Walder, but she is either beyond my healing powers or I have no idea at all on how to tap into it. It is most likely the latter.

Frustrated and disgusted at myself, and totally successful in ruining what was supposed to be a quiet, relaxing bath, I climb out of the tub, some of the water sloshing out the sides to pool on the floor. I wipe myself dry with a cloth and pull the drapes over my bathing chamber which is just a corner of the room I have sectioned off with the drape. My home consists of only this one room and it is big enough for me. The room lacks a personal or homey feeling to it because I have very few belongings and they are always packed in anticipation of a hasty getaway. The room has only one chair which I sink into as I brush my hair down my back, mentally rallying all of the tasks that are set for me tomorrow.

I will rise early to replenish my milk of the poppy and pick herbs from my modest garden at the back of my house. I stare at my reflection in the mirror on the other side of the room, scarcely recognizing the hard, capable woman that looks back at me. My hair is darker than night. My eyes are a deep forest green, the exact shade of green as my mother but while hers were wide and alluring, made to beguile and seduce, one cannot mistake my eyes for such frivolities. A high, straight nose and firm lips rest on my oval-shaped face which is lined neither with lines of sadness or happiness. I have learned from very early, the indispensability of masks and the advantage of hiding my true feelings. I make sure to meet my eyes in the reflection, to truly see and recognise myself because I fear that even I have forgotten what exactly it feels like to be me. But as long as I can still meet my own eyes in the mirror, I know that I will get through this.

My hair is as smooth as falling silk when I put down the brush and turn away from the mirror, rising naked and walking to my bag where my two sleeping wear are neatly folded inside. I shimmy into it, grabbing my robe and placing it close at hand where I can easily grab it if I need to get up in a rush. Remembering the used tub, I drain the tub and collapse into my bed and feel my thin covers, making a mental reminder to buy thicker ones soon.

It will however, be the last time that I sleep on the bed, but I do not know that yet.