CHAPTER 21: HEALER MEREK

Joe waited several days before speaking to Mike.

He was not hesitating.

He was preparing.

Every Hard Work Pays Off continued behaving consistently during martial training. Each proper cycle of the six static stances produced small improvements that accumulated instead of disappearing, and Joe quickly became more careful about how much of that improvement he displayed in front of other people.

Fishing was easier to use openly.

The talent could not control whether fish happened to swim near one of his traps, but it steadily improved everything Joe himself controlled. He became better at choosing locations, better at positioning the funnel openings and better at recognizing when a trap had been placed where changing current would make it useless.

The improvement became visible at home within several days.

One afternoon, Joe returned carrying four usable fish on a cord.

Lily was working near the hearth, where winter had turned the rear half of the main room into a mixture of kitchen and storage space. A clay pot simmered above the fire. Dried beans filled a jar against the wall, onions hung from a beam overhead and bundles of winter vegetables occupied the shelves beside the large water container.

Mary sat cross-legged near the low household table with Simon's old writing board across her knees. The characters covering it were large and uneven, with one badly drawn chicken squeezed between two of them.

Pam was correcting neither the characters nor the chicken.

She encouraged both.

Lily looked at the fish as soon as Joe entered.

"Four today? If you're going farther downriver to get these, I want to know now instead of after somebody has to pull you out."

"I'm still using the inlet and the safe shallows. The traps are simply working better."

Lily took the largest fish from him and examined it before nodding. "We'll cook two and dry the others. If you keep bringing more than we can eat fresh, there is no point wasting them."

Pam looked over from Mary's board. "Smoke them instead. Properly smoked fish lasts longer and tastes better."

"You say that because everything tasted like smoke when you were young."

"It was good smoke."

Lily glanced toward her mother-in-law, clearly deciding the argument was not worth having. "I'm drying them."

Pam returned to helping Mary produce what now appeared to be a six-legged goat.

Joe took the fish outside to clean them before either woman included him.

Two days later he returned with five.

Mike noticed.

"If this keeps up, we could preserve enough to send some toward Blackwood with the grain next year. Fish won't bring grain money, but coin is coin."

Joe shook his head. "I wouldn't count on the current catch staying this good. Some traps still come up empty, and the river changes too much between seasons."

Mike considered the warning but remained optimistic. "Then we'll sell them while they're biting."

That was close enough to what Joe expected.

Simon cared less about selling them than eating them.

At dinner he looked at the amount of fish in his bowl and said, "Whatever you changed, keep doing it. If this becomes normal, Mother might finally admit that one egg doesn't rebuild a person after a full day of martial training."

Lily did not even turn toward him. "If the egg is causing you so much suffering, I can stop giving it to you."

Simon immediately clarified that he had been discussing general nutrition rather than his personal breakfast.

Pam laughed.

Joe said nothing.

Several of the larger fish were dried over the next few days, giving him something tangible to contribute when he finally approached the healer.

The second part of his preparation was harder.

He needed to know whether the family still had enough coin for Mike to offer some if Merek demanded an apprenticeship fee.

Joe tried asking indirectly while helping his father repair a section of the chicken enclosure.

"Did the grain money all get used after Starlight?"

Mike pulled a cord tight around the fence post and looked at him. "No. Why?"

"How much is left?"

That earned a longer look.

Joe realized the problem immediately. Children did not casually audit household savings, and Joe had already developed a reputation for rarely asking a question without another one behind it.

Mike rested his hands on his knees. "If you've decided you need something, it would probably be easier to tell me what it is instead of trying to count the silver first."

Joe accepted the failure of subtlety.

"I want to learn medicine."

Mike's expression shifted from suspicion to surprise. "From Merek?"

"Yes, but I want to go after the Hall rather than becoming a full-time apprentice."

Mike looked at him for several seconds before returning to the fence. "We'll talk about that inside. Your mother will have opinions."

Joe had expected nothing less.

That evening, he raised the subject after dinner while everyone was still gathered near the hearth.

The children's bedding had not yet been spread, leaving most of the main floor open. Joseph and Mike sat near the low table repairing a basket, while Mary had abandoned the writing board nearby after deciding that drawing animals was more interesting than practicing characters.

Simon had returned tired from the Hall and was stretching one leg near the fire.

Joe sat beside Mike.

"I want to apprentice with Healer Merek after training."

Lily stopped stacking the bowls.

Pam looked up immediately.

Simon did too.

Mike, who had already heard the beginning of the idea outside, let Joe explain it properly.

Joe kept the argument simple. Martial training required resources, medicine had already proven useful and learning another trade would remain valuable even if his martial path eventually stalled. Since the Hall occupied most of the day, Joe wanted to work at Merek's shop afterward rather than abandon martial training.

Lily listened until he finished.

Then she said, "You already come home tired. Now you want to spend the rest of the afternoon carrying things around a medicine shop. If you start falling asleep during training because you think being busy is the same as being useful, I'm ending it myself."

"I wouldn't let the Hall training suffer. I only want to try the arrangement and see how much work I can handle."

"Trying is how you end up limping home and telling me you only hurt a little."

Joe remembered that conversation from years earlier.

Lily apparently did too.

Mike intervened before it became an argument. "Learning medicine isn't a foolish idea. Even if he never becomes a proper healer, knowing herbs could help with training, and a second trade isn't a bad thing for a boy who already spends half his life asking why things work."

Lily gave him a look. "You like every plan until someone tells you what it costs."

"That's why we're asking first."

Pam had been listening with increasing interest. "Merek knows more plants than anyone around here. He knew which bark to use when your father had that fever before you were born, and people from the western farms still come to him for medicines they can't make themselves."

Joe looked toward her. "Does he teach apprentices easily?"

Pam's expression suggested the answer should have been obvious. "If he taught everybody easily, everyone would be selling his medicine."

Joseph, who had remained focused on the basket through most of the discussion, spoke without looking up.

"Don't take silver first."

Mike turned toward him. "Why not?"

Joseph tightened one of the basket strips before answering. "If you go to a craftsman with money in your hand and immediately ask him to teach you, he'll wonder whether you're trying to buy the part of his trade he doesn't sell. Herbs are one thing. Recipes are another."

Joe became more attentive.

That was precisely the problem he had been considering privately.

The village shop sold medicinal packets, including preparations used by martial trainees. If those medicines worked reliably, then someone knew the recipes that produced them.

Joe wanted that knowledge eventually.

He had no intention of opening a competing medicine shop or selling Merek's preparations under another name. His purpose was personal: training, recovery and his family's needs.

Merek would not necessarily care about that distinction.

A profitable recipe remained valuable because other people did not possess it.

Joe kept that part of his plan to himself.

Mike considered Joseph's advice. "So we shouldn't offer to pay him?"

"I didn't say that. I said don't walk in waving money before he knows why you're there."

Joseph returned to the basket as though he had exhausted his interest in the subject.

Pam pointed toward the fish drying near the rear wall. "Take some of those instead. A gift says you're asking respectfully without making it look like you're trying to buy his secrets."

Lily immediately said, "Not all of them."

"No one said all of them."

"I know Mother."

The restraint in Lily's voice prevented the sentence from becoming an argument.

Mike nodded. "Fish first. If he asks for a fee, we'll talk about money."

That solved the practical problem.

Simon, who had been quiet longer than usual, finally joined in.

"If you're going because of martial medicine, Merek's shop does sell some useful things. Victor used one of his powders after hurting his shoulder and said it helped, although he also said the paid canteen medicine was noticeably better. Some of the body-tempering students buy things there because Hall food isn't enough once training gets harder. Thomas claims there is a stronger recovery mixture Merek only sells to certain people, but Thomas usually adds three details for every one he actually knows."

Joe looked at his brother.

That was useful information.

Simon noticed the attention and continued, pleased to finally be the person who knew more.

"The shop also sells soaking packets for bruises and muscle pain. They're cheaper than proper recovery paste. I don't know whether they actually increase blood energy or just make your body feel better afterward, but the older students buy them often enough that they probably do something."

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Pam nodded solemnly. "There. Simon talked long enough and eventually became useful."

Simon stared at her.

Lily's mouth tightened, but she did not challenge her mother-in-law.

Instead, she turned back toward Joe.

"If Merek agrees, you can try it. If your Hall training suffers or you start coming home too tired to eat properly, it ends. You still have responsibilities here when we need you, especially when planting starts again."

Joe agreed.

He had expected more resistance.

Then again, the idea appealed to nearly everyone for different reasons.

Mike saw another opportunity.

Lily saw a potentially useful trade.

Pam respected Merek's herb knowledge.

Joseph understood the value of guarded craft knowledge.

Simon understood medicine's connection to martial progress.

Joe understood all those things.

He simply understood one more.

Every Hard Work Pays Off could make the apprenticeship far more valuable to him than anyone else realized.

---------

The next afternoon, Mike returned from the fields earlier than usual.

Joe had prepared the gift beforehand.

Twelve dried fish lay wrapped in clean cloth and tied with cord. They were not large, but they represented several days of successful traps and enough food that the household would have noticed their absence.

Mike lifted the bundle.

"You're sure about twelve?"

"I caught most of them because I wanted something useful to bring. Taking three would look like we're getting rid of leftovers."

Mike smiled slightly. "You think about strange things for an eight-year-old."

Joe did not answer.

They left together.

Merek's medicine shop stood near the northern side of Green Hollow, close to the road used by travellers heading toward Blackwood.

Joe had passed the building many times.

He had rarely gone near the entrance.

The shop was larger than an ordinary household dwelling but far smaller than the Talent Hall. Dark timber framed walls of packed clay, while a deep roof extended over the front far enough to protect several racks of hanging plants from rain and snow.

A narrow wooden sign hung above the doorway, painted with the image of a mortar, pestle and broad medicinal leaf.

The smell reached Joe before he stepped inside.

Dried roots.

Bitter leaves.

Woodsmoke.

Something sharp enough to clear his nose.

Another scent reminded him faintly of medicinal balms from his previous life.

His pace slowed.

Mike noticed.

"You've been planning this for days and now you're nervous?"

Joe looked toward the doorway. "Planning to enter a place doesn't make me enjoy the parts of it I don't trust."

Mike followed his gaze and seemed to understand.

Merek's bloodletting practices were no secret.

"You aren't sick. He's not treating you."

"I know."

"Then if he pulls out a knife, run."

Joe looked at him.

Mike smiled.

Joe did not find the joke particularly helpful, but it loosened some of the tension.

They entered.

A small cluster of thin metal pieces above the door chimed softly.

Warm air and the smell of medicine surrounded them.

Joe stopped just inside.

The shop was far more organized than he had expected.

Wooden shelves covered most of the walls from waist height almost to the rafters. Clay jars stood in neat rows, each labeled with black characters. Bundles of dried roots hung from overhead beams, while broad woven trays held leaves, bark and thin slices of plants at different stages of drying.

A long counter divided the public room from the work area behind it.

Several stone mortars occupied one end. The other held a balance scale, neatly stacked paper packets, cord and narrow wooden medicine boxes.

The floor had been swept.

The preparation surfaces looked scrubbed.

Dry ingredients were kept well away from the wet boots and snow tracked in near the entrance.

This was not clean by the standards of a modern clinic or pharmacy.

It was much cleaner than the average house in Green Hollow.

Joe revised part of his opinion immediately.

Someone here cared about contamination, even if they might not describe the reason using the same terms he would.

Behind the counter stood a young man of about seventeen with dark hair tied behind his head. His clothing was clean, and his fingertips carried faint green stains from handling herbs or powders.

He recognized Mike.

"Uncle Mike. If you're here for medicine, tell me what happened before you unwrap whatever you've brought."

"Nothing happened. We're here to speak with Healer Merek."

The young man's attention moved to Joe and then to the fish bundle.

Mike explained that Joe wanted to ask about apprenticeship.

The clerk looked surprised. "He's eight, and I thought both your boys were in the Talent Hall now."

"They are. That's why we're asking rather than announcing that he starts tomorrow."

The young man smiled. "Wait here. I'll call one of Master's apprentices."

He disappeared behind a hanging cloth.

A moment later another young man emerged.

He also looked around seventeen, but unlike the clerk, his sleeves were rolled back and a short working apron covered the front of his clothing. Fine brown dust clung to the fabric, and the smell of crushed roots followed him.

"Master will see you. Come with me."

As they passed behind the counter, Mike glanced toward the clerk. "Does he apprentice here too?"

The young man shook his head. "He's Master's sister's grandson. He handles customers, money and records. I'm an apprentice. Five years now."

Mike looked at him more carefully. "Five years and you're still an apprentice?"

The young man smiled as if he had heard the question many times. "Five years isn't long enough to know medicine."

Joe remembered that.

The corridor behind the front shop was narrow but surprisingly deep.

Each doorway seemed to carry a different smell.

One room contained long racks of drying plants, filling the air with a warm grassy scent. Another held rows of sealed jars and bundles of roots sorted by size and color. In a third room, steam escaped from beneath the lid of a dark ceramic pot resting above a low stove.

Another apprentice was working there.

That made two apprentices, in addition to the young relative handling the front shop.

This was not merely an old village healer keeping several jars of herbs beside his home.

It was a small business.

The apprentice noticed Joe looking around.

"Don't touch anything unless Master tells you."

"I won't."

"Good. The last child who said that knocked over half a tray of dried bitterleaf before finishing the sentence."

Joe kept his hands to himself.

At the end of the corridor, the apprentice stopped before a wooden door and knocked.

"Master, Mike is here with his son. They want to discuss apprenticeship."

A calm voice answered from inside.

"Bring them."

The room beyond was smaller and quieter than the rest of the shop.

A shuttered window faced south, allowing pale winter sunlight across a low table. Shelves covered one wall, but instead of ordinary jars they held books, rolled notes and several carefully sealed wooden boxes.

A charcoal brazier provided heat without filling the room with smoke.

An old man sat behind the table drinking tea.

Joe had seen Healer Merek at a distance before.

Never this close.

According to the apprentice, Merek was seventy-five.

That made him around fifteen years older than Joseph and Pam, yet the difference was not obvious at first glance.

His hair and short beard were almost completely white, and age had drawn fine lines across his narrow face, but his back remained straight and the hand holding his cup showed almost no tremor. He was thin without looking frail, dressed in a clean charcoal-colored robe whose sleeves were tied away from his wrists.

Long fingers rested around the tea cup.

Their tips were faintly stained brown and green.

His eyes were the most noticeable feature.

Dark.

Clear.

Alert.

They moved first to Mike, then to Joe, and finally to the bundle of fish.

Joe felt his stomach tighten slightly.

He disliked the reaction.

Merek had done nothing to him.

Still, Joe could not forget the stories of bloodletting or the basin he had once seen carried from the shop when he was younger.

At the same time, another observation competed with that memory.

Merek looked remarkably healthy for seventy-five.

Joe had spent his childhood surrounded by older farmers whose bodies showed decades of field work, untreated injuries and inconsistent nutrition. Joseph and Pam were both around sixty and already carried obvious signs of age.

Merek was fifteen years older.

He looked younger than that difference should have allowed.

That did not prove anything extraordinary.

A man who understood herbs, ate better than most farmers and avoided hard agricultural labor could simply age well.

Still, Joe added the observation to everything else he had come here to investigate.

Merek set down the tea.

"What are the fish for?"

Mike placed the wrapped bundle on the edge of the table. "Courtesy. Joe caught most of them himself, and we didn't want to arrive asking for something with empty hands."

Merek looked at Mike for a moment, then at Joe.

"Courtesy offered before a request is payment wearing polite clothing, but fish are useful enough that I won't complain. Tell me what you want."

Mike explained.

He kept it simple. Joe had recently entered Talent Hall, already knew basic reading and wanted to learn medicine as another useful skill. Because Hall training occupied most of the day, they were asking whether Merek would consider taking him part-time afterward.

Merek listened without interrupting.

When Mike finished, the healer looked directly at Joe.

"Do you want to become a physician?"

Joe considered the wording before answering. "I want to learn medicine. Whether I eventually become a physician depends on how much I learn and whether I'm suited for it."

Merek's expression changed slightly.

"Better than saying yes because you think it sounds impressive. Why do you take medicine?"

"Because I've already seen it make a difference. Father bought recovery paste after Starlight, and Simon and I both recovered better while we were taking it. The Hall uses medicinal food too, and older trainees spend money on additional medicine. If something matters that much to martial training, I will rather understand it than spend my whole life paying other people without knowing what I'm buying."

The answer was more direct than Mike had expected.

Joe saw it in his father's face.

Merek only asked, "Which recovery paste?"

Mike supplied the name.

The old healer nodded. "Common preparation. Reliable if made correctly, overpriced if you bought it from a travelling merchant."

Mike's expression tightened.

"Four silverlings."

Merek almost smiled. "Then very overpriced."

Joe wisely did not look at his father.

Merek turned his attention back to him.

"Medicine isn't cooking. You don't take three things’ people call healthy, boil them together and expect the result to become more useful. The part of the plant matters, the season matters, drying matters and amount matters. Something that helps a healthy adult can harm a child. Two roots that look almost identical can have very different effects."

Joe listened closely.

That sounded like the language of long practical experience rather than superstition.

Merek gestured vaguely toward the corridor outside.

"Those packets in the front shop look simple because someone has already spent years learning what can safely go inside them. An apprentice starts with names and identification. Then harvesting. Drying. Storage. Preparation. Effects. Interactions. Only after that do I let him prepare something another person will swallow without someone watching his hands."

"How long does that take?"

"Years, if the apprentice is good. Longer if he thinks remembering names makes him clever."

Joe accepted the answer.

Merek leaned back.

"You're in the Talent Hall. That means you don't actually have time to become my apprentice."

"I want to come after training."

"Part-time."

"Yes."

Merek's expression hardened slightly.

"Medicine isn't something you fit between martial practice and dinner because you want another skill."

Joe did not answer immediately.

Merek continued.

"My apprentices carry water, clean worktables, scrub pots, turn drying herbs, grind roots until their hands ache and memorize enough plants that they can identify dangerous mistakes without asking me. A poorly cleaned container spoils medicine. A damp herb ruins an entire storage jar. A careless apprentice doesn't simply waste his own time. Someone else becomes sick because of him."

Joe's fear of the healer did not disappear.

His respect increased.

Merek clearly understood sanitation at least through practical experience, even if the explanation behind it might differ from germ theory.

"I'll do the same work."

Merek looked at him from head to toe.

"You're eight."

"I'm stronger than most eight-year-olds because I've prepared for the Hall, but I know that doesn't make me an adult. If there's work I can't do safely, give me work I can."

Mike slowly turned toward Joe.

Merek watched him for several seconds.

Then the faintest trace of amusement appeared near his mouth.

"Your mother finds you tiring, doesn't she?"

Mike laughed before Joe could answer.

"Frequently."

Joe decided silence was the safest response.

Merek lifted his tea again.

"I don't need another formal apprentice. Two already create enough mistakes for me to correct."

Joe's disappointment lasted only until the healer continued.

"But I can use another pair of hands, particularly one that can already read."

He pointed one finger toward Joe.

"You come after the Hall when your training finishes early enough. At first, you'll clean, carry water, sort simple materials and learn whatever names I assign. If the Hall keeps you until you're exhausted, you stay home rather than becoming another problem inside my shop. If your family needs you during planting or harvest, you work for your family."

Mike nodded immediately.

Merek ignored him.

His attention remained on Joe.

"If I give you five plants, you learn five before asking for fifty. You touch nothing you have not been told to touch, and you do not decide that being a Talent Hall student makes ordinary work beneath you."

"It doesn't."

"We'll find out."

Mike finally asked, "So you'll take him?"

Merek looked mildly annoyed by the wording. "I'll let him work here and see whether he's worth teaching. Call it whatever you like after he lasts longer than a month."

That was enough for Joe.

Mike hesitated before asking the question Joe had expected from the beginning.

"What does it cost?"

"His work."

Mike glanced at the fish.

"And those?"

Merek pulled the bundle closer. "Those are courtesy. Apparently."

Mike smiled.

Merek did not.

There was no written agreement.

No glowing contract.

No mark appearing beneath Joe's skin.

That absence interested him.

Theodere's inheritance contract had felt almost ordinary to everyone involved, yet Merek apparently had no equivalent despite operating a valuable trade built around guarded knowledge.

That suggested magical contracts were either expensive, specialized or connected to institutions and martial inheritances in ways Joe did not yet understand.

Whatever the reason, he was relieved.

He had enough mysterious marks on his body.

The apprentice escorted them back through the corridor.

Joe looked more carefully this time.

In the preparation room, the second apprentice was transferring thick dark paste from a ceramic pot into several smaller containers. The color and consistency reminded Joe immediately of the recovery medicine Mike had bought.

Joe kept walking.

No staring.

No questions yet.

The front shop now holds two customers.

An elderly woman was buying something for a cough, while a boy Joe recognized from one of the outside Hall groups stood near the counter as the clerk arranged three paper packets in front of him.

"One after hard training," the clerk explained. "Don't take two because you think being twice as sore means you need twice as much. You'll upset your stomach and waste the medicine."

The boy nodded and paid.

Joe watched only long enough to confirm what he already suspected.

Merek's shop regularly served martial trainees.

The preparations might be weaker than the Hall's best medicinal meals or expensive products from Blackwood, but they had two important advantages.

They were available.

And they were local.

Green Hollow sat half a day's adult walk from Blackwood. Travelling there every time someone needed a recovery packet made little sense, especially when some prepared medicines stored poorly or lost quality if transported carelessly.

Joe stepped outside with Mike.

Cold winter air replaced the dense medicinal smell immediately.

He looked back at the building.

Green Hollow contained a little more than seventy households.

Yet within that small village stood a proper Talent Hall, a smithy, a communal grain store and a medicine shop with a healer, clerk and apprentices.

Poor did not mean primitive.

Small did not mean incomplete.

Green Hollow reminded Joe of a sparrow: tiny compared with what must exist beyond the valley yet still possessing every part it needed to survive.

Mike adjusted the collar of his coat.

"You were scared of him."

Joe did not bother denying it. "I still am, a little."

"Even after he agreed?"

"Agreeing to teach me doesn't make bloodletting a good idea."

Mike laughed.

Joe continued before his father misunderstood him.

"But he knows things I don't, and the shop is better organized than I expected. I can learn the useful parts without assuming every explanation he gives me is correct."

Mike looked at him strangely.

"Sometimes I forget you're eight until you say something that makes me wonder whether you're eight at all."

Joe's expression remained neutral.

Mike laughed again and started walking.

Joe followed.

His father believed this was a second path in case martial arts failed.

That was reasonable.

It simply was not the entire plan.

Martial training had already taught Joe that resources determined how much talent could be converted into progress. His eighth-birthday talent had made those resources even more valuable.

More recovery meant more useful training.

More training meant more progress.

Medical knowledge could eventually provide medicine, income and another field where his talents could accumulate advantages over time.

Merek believed he had accepted an eight-year-old who would carry water, clean floors, wash equipment and sort herbs.

Joe had no objection.

Those tasks would give him access to the shop, its people and its knowledge.

He would learn openly first.

Plant names.

Identification.

Drying.

Storage.

Preparation.

Whatever medicinal theory Merek was willing to teach.

The guarded recipes could remain a later problem.

Joe knew perfectly well that secretly copying one would still be theft, even if he intended to use it only for himself. Being poor did not automatically make taking another person's work morally clean.

He was not going to manufacture a justification before the situation even existed.

For now, he had what he needed.

A place inside the medicine shop.

A teacher who underestimated how quickly he could learn.

And more work than before.

Joe found himself smiling slightly as he followed Mike home.

That last part no longer sounded like a disadvantage.