Ch. 275 Soren

Chapter 275: Soren

Soren returned to Greykeep carrying a broken medicine chest.

He held it closed with one arm while leading a tired horse through the eastern gate.

Two leather bags hung from the saddle.

A rolled blanket sat behind them.

Nothing about him suggested he intended to stay longer than a night.

Then the bottom of the chest gave way.

Bandages, wooden splints, small jars, and three metal instruments fell onto the road.

Soren looked down.

The gate guards looked down.

A jar continued rolling until it struck my boot.

I picked it up.

“Soren.”

He raised his head.

His hair had grown longer.

A narrow scar crossed his left cheek.

Otherwise, he looked much as I remembered.

Tired.

Watchful.

And mildly offended by anything that failed at an inconvenient moment.

“Uriah?” he said.

The bottom of the chest detached completely.

He closed his eyes.

“You've changed quite a bit. Also, I had hoped to arrive with greater dignity.”

I helped him gather the supplies.

One of the gate guards took the horse.

The other found a basket for the smaller jars.

Soren inspected each container before allowing it inside.

“What are these?” I asked, holding up a brown glass bottle.

“Willow bark tincture.”

“And this?”

“Something you should not open.”

I put it into the basket.

“What does it do?”

“Removes damaged flesh.”

I moved my hand away.

Soren noticed.

“You’ve become more cautious.”

“I have children.”

“I heard.”

He looked past me toward Greykeep.

Then toward Havenreach beyond the inner wall.

The city had grown enough that returning travelers often stopped there.

Old workshops stood beside new houses.

The chapel walls had risen above their foundations.

Smoke climbed from chimneys where open fields had been the last time some of them passed through.

Soren stared for several breaths.

“You built a city.”

“Mary built plans. Eleanor built walls. Everyone else refused to stop arriving.”

“That sounds more believable.”

We had known Soren before the preserved district.

Before the new pantheon.

Before the gods came to Greykeep in numbers large enough that Mary required separate housing records for them.

He had joined Evelyn, Ilyen, and Aurelia during our early conversations about expanding the infirmary.

Then he had spent more time beyond Greykeep than within it.

He went where trained healers were scarce.

A village with a difficult birth.

A farmstead after a winter accident.

A roadside settlement where fever moved faster than messengers.

He returned occasionally.

Stayed long enough to replace supplies.

Then disappeared along another road.

“What brought you back?” I asked.

“I heard Ilyen had opened an infirmary inside a district that requires gods to ask permission before entering.”

“That reached you?”

“It was an unusual sentence.”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to see whether it was true.”

“It is.”

“And whether she needed help.”

“She does.”

Soren lifted one eyebrow.

“Did she say that?”

“No.”

“Then she definitely does.”

Ilyen was treating a carpenter when we entered the infirmary.

The man had struck his thumb with a mallet.

The injury was not severe.

His reaction to it had been.

Ilyen looked up from the swollen hand.

Her expression did not change.

“Soren.”

“Ilyen.”

“You’re late.”

“I was not given a time.”

“You left almost two years ago.”

“I sent letters.”

“You sent three.”

“Four.”

“One contained only a list of medicine you needed.”

“That was useful.”

Ilyen wrapped the carpenter’s thumb.

“You may wait.”

Soren looked around the room.

Every treatment table was occupied.

Two apprentices sorted herbs near the wall.

Liora worked beside a woman with a bandaged leg.

A Concordian healer examined a coughing boy near the window.

“I can work while waiting.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Your hands are dirty.”

Soren looked at them.

Dust from the road covered his fingers.

“That is fair.”

He washed.

Ilyen made him wash again.

Then she inspected his arms, eyes, throat, and the scar on his cheek.

“Knife?” she asked.

“Broken wagon brace.”

“That is less interesting.”

“It was more painful than interesting.”

“Any fever?”

“No.”

“Dizziness?”

“No.”

“Missing time?”

“No.”

“Hearing prayers?”

Soren looked at her.

“What happened while I was gone?”

“Answer.”

“No.”

“Feeling compelled to heal strangers?”

“That has described my profession for years.”

“Compelled.”

“No.”

Ilyen nodded toward an empty apron.

“You can begin with the coughing boy.”

Soren put it on.

Apparently his employment had been settled.

Evelyn arrived from the chapel an hour later.

Carol walked beside her.

Our daughter carried one of Mary’s rolled plans.

Mary had given it to her after removing every document she actually needed.

Carol still held it as if Havenreach depended upon her.

Evelyn saw Soren.

She stopped.

“Soren?”

He turned from the child he was examining.

“Evelyn.”

She crossed the room and embraced him.

Soren froze for half a breath.

Then returned it.

“You came back.”

“I did.”

“For how long?”

He looked at the white walls.

At the treatment tables.

At Ilyen giving instructions to three people at once.

“I haven’t decided.”

Ilyen passed behind him.

“He has.”

Soren watched her go.

“That appears possible.”

Carol stood before him.

Soren crouched.

“You must be Carol.”

She studied the scar on his cheek.

“Hurt?”

“Not anymore.”

She touched her own cheek.

Then raised one hand toward his.

Soren did not move closer.

“You need to ask,” Evelyn said gently.

Carol looked at him.

“Help?”

Soren understood immediately.

“No, thank you.”

She frowned.

“Healed?”

“Yes.”

Our daughter examined the scar again.

Then nodded.

Soren looked at Evelyn.

“She stopped.”

“We’ve been practicing.”

“That should not sound as significant as it does.”

“No,” Evelyn said. “But it is.”

Garrick arrived shortly afterward with Rysa.

He was carrying the wooden dog.

He saw Soren’s medical bags beside the wall.

The space between them folded.

One bag moved three inches.

“Soren,” I said, “that one should be placed higher.”

Our son attempted another fold.

Rysa spoke his name.

The working stopped.

Garrick sighed.

Soren lifted both bags onto a shelf.

“What was in them?” I asked.

“Needles. Surgical blades. Medicine. A small bone saw.”

I looked at Garrick.

He looked at the shelf.

“No,” I said.

“No saw,” he replied.

“Correct.”

“Later?”

“No.”

He leaned against Rysa with the exhaustion of someone living beneath unreasonable restrictions.

Soren spent the rest of the morning with the coughing boy.

He asked about the family’s home.

The hearth.

The bedding.

The animals.

Where the child slept.

What he ate.

Whether anyone else coughed.

The questions took longer than the examination.

One of the younger apprentices became impatient.

“He has the same blessing of aurelia as you, right? Can't you both just feel what is wrong?” she asked Liora.

Liora looked toward Soren.

“We can feel the irritation in his chest.”

“Then why are we asking about his house?”

Soren finished listening to the boy’s breathing.

“Because healing him and returning him to the cause would be expensive foolishness.”

The apprentice flushed.

“What do you think the cause is?”

“I don’t know yet.”

He turned to the boy’s mother.

“Does the roof leak?”

“Near the back wall.”

“Can you smell damp wool when the room is closed?”

She nodded.

Soren looked at the apprentice.

“Now we know where to look.”

The boy’s family lived in one of the temporary eastern houses.

Mary sent two workers with the mother.

They found mold beneath the sleeping platform.

The wood had been stored poorly before construction.

Within an hour, the Castellan had identified six other houses built from the same load.

By midday, Eleanor had crews opening walls.

Mary had a list of affected families.

The infirmary had become part of city planning again.

Soren watched the messengers enter and leave.

“You truly built a city,” he said.

“I told you.”

“I believed the buildings. I had not believed the consequences.”

“What consequences?”

He pointed toward Mary.

She had three open books on one table.

“The paperwork.”

Mary did not look up.

“I heard that.”

“I assumed you would.”

Ilyen tested Soren through the afternoon.

She gave him a farmer with an infected cut.

A guard whose shoulder had healed poorly.

A child who insisted a button had entered his nose without assistance.

Soren treated each patiently.

He removed the button with a narrow instrument.

The child stared at it in betrayal.

“How did it get there?” Soren asked.

The boy considered.

“Magic.”

Soren looked toward Carol and Garrick.

Both stood near the doorway with Rysa.

“No,” the boy said quickly. “My magic.”

“You placed it there.”

“I was testing.”

“What?”

The child had no answer.

Soren handed the button to his mother.

“Testing is complete.”

The guard’s shoulder was more difficult.

Aurelia could have repaired it in moments.

Liora could have eased the pain and guided the joint.

Soren asked neither of them.

He examined the old injury.

Had the guard raise his arm.

Turn it.

Press against his hand.

Then he showed the man exercises with a weighted cloth bag.

“Will that heal it?” the guard asked.

“It will strengthen what healed badly and show us whether anything remains trapped beneath the scar.”

“Would divine healing be faster?”

“Yes.”

“Better?”

“Not necessarily.”

Aurelia had entered behind him.

She heard the answer.

“So you object to divine healing?” she asked.

Soren turned.

“No, I still use the blessing you have bestwoed upon me, but I do object to speed being mistaken for completion.”

Aurelia smiled.

“You may remain.”

Ilyen called from across the room.

“I already hired him.”

“You did not ask me,” Soren said.

“You accepted the apron.”

He looked down at it.

“That is not a binding contract.”

Mary appeared at the door.

“It can be.”

We ate in the courtyard after the evening bell.

Soren sat with Ilyen, Liora, Evelyn, and Io.

Io had crossed from Concordia for the night.

She had brought medical texts.

She had also brought cakes.

Ilyen approved of the books.

The children approved of the cakes.

Shadow approved of Soren’s lap.

He did not appear to have been consulted.

“She chooses people,” Io said.

Soren remained completely still while the cat circled twice before settling.

“What happens if I move?”

“She will forgive you eventually.”

“How long?”

“No one knows.”

Soren looked at me.

“You have unusual allies.”

“You have not met Aurethar.”

“The dragon?”

“He sometimes looks human now.”

“That sentence should have surprised me more.”

Ilyen opened one of Io’s books.

“Concordia tracks divine influence during treatment separately from physical changes.”

Soren leaned closer.

“Why?”

“To determine which improvements remain after the power is withdrawn.”

“That is sensible.”

Io looked pleased.

“We also record whether the patient requested the divine treatment, accepted it after being offered, or asked for it to stop.”

Soren looked toward the infirmary entrance.

The rules remained beside the door.

Mallow had eaten part of the board containing the restriction against goats.

“What happens if a god refuses to stop?” he asked.

“The district removes them,” Evelyn said.

Soren studied her.

“You tested that?”

“Yes.”

“Intentionally?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“Good.”