Many Roads Home by Ann Somerville Read Free Book Online Page B

to get through the winter. The transfer of Mathias’s practice to him had been successful even beyond anything his former master could have wished for him. Not only had old clients and patients accepted him in Mathias’s place without a blink—hardly surprising since they were well used to seeing him, and Mathias had passed on much of the patient treatment to Paole’s hands over the past few years—but new ones had come also. Some poor, unable to pay, but others too, easily capable of doing so.
    The reason escaped him until he asked one of the willing young men who’d come to his camp and his bed for a night’s companionship, why so many more people wanted his help.
    “Master Mathias didn’t have your touch,” the boy told him, his breath warm across Paole’s chest, his fingers teasing the line between his navel and his pubic hair. “My mother says she believes you when you say she’ll be well. He was nice, but sometimes he said what wasn’t true, if he thought the patient wouldn’t want to hear it.”
    “Healers have to lie sometimes,” Paole protested, defending Mathias’s reputation.
    “Yes, but you lie more honestly.” The boy had laughed and kissed him then, so there was no more talking. But it gave Paole something to think about.
    Mathias hadn’t had the Healing Sight, but he’d had a gentle way about him Paole admired. Perhaps he’d been too gentle for some. Paole didn’t know. He’d missed the old man this past year. Mathias had trained him as well as he’d been capable of, but Paole knew he’d been a bad student in many ways, and now had to stuff a good deal of reading into the gaps in his knowledge. He couldn’t always rely on the healers and herbalists on his route to help him either, since he competed with them to a certain extent. Twice he’d been tricked over a prescription, and only his vigilance had saved a patient from being given the wrong medicine entirely. So as he headed back to the cabin for the deep winter, the wagon was loaded with new books and notes for study during the silent season.
    He arrived late at the cabin, and had only a week or two to lay in firewood and supplies, and ready the place for the snow. He’d left orders in Dadel for his stores—and something else.
    When he called in at the smithy to collect it, he had the bad fortune to encounter Sheriff Rolf talking to the blacksmith, Jurgen. The sheriff turned and snarled. “Thought I told you to stay out of my village, boy.”
    “Produce the magistrate’s order for that, Sheriff, and I’ll comply.”
    “Learned to talk back to your betters while you’ve been away, have you?”
    Jurgen slowly edged away, not wanting any part of this argument. Paole didn’t blame him. “No, just to you. Excuse me, I have business here.”
    “Then you’ll have to wait your turn.”
    Jurgen put his hand up. “Master Paole, the stone’s out back if you’d like to collect it.”
    Paole looked past Rolf as if he didn’t exist. “Thank you, sir.”
    Rolf yanked him around by his arm. Paole stood up to his full height, making sure the man appreciated the thirty-centimetre difference between them, and the twenty kilograms or more he had on the sheriff—all muscle too. Uemiriens didn’t run to fat the way Karvi tended to. “Excuse me, Sheriff, but I’m busy.”
    Rolf didn’t flinch. “What stone are you talking about?”
    “A stone for Master Mathias’s grave.”
    “Think that gets you off the hook?”
    Paole very deliberately detached Rolf’s hand from his arm. “I’m not on a hook. But you’re wasting my time when I don’t have it to spare. Good day.”
    He walked behind the smithy and found the dark, neatly dressed stone where Jurgen said it would be. He crouched to read it. Strange to see Mathias’s full name and the date of death. It didn’t seem like anything to do with the man he’d known for so long.
    “Are you happy with it, Master Paole?”
    He stood and smiled at Jurgen. “Yes, sir. Very fine