Chapter 188 - 133 : Year 31 - 36 Right The World For...

Chapter 188: Chapter 133 : Year 31 - 36 Right The World For...

Those visits showed Elisa more of the fief than she had known from the castle or the streets of Veymont. Some families were recovering as the weather improved, while others still struggled to make ends meet. Injured workers sometimes returned to their jobs before they had healed because their families could not manage without their wages.

The physician could treat their wounds and illnesses, but recovery was often slower when patients lacked proper food or could not afford the medicine they needed.

Elisa helped in whatever ways she could. She carried supplies, fetched water, prepared clean cloths, and comforted frightened children while the physician worked. When people spoke about their troubles, she tried to listen rather than offer promises she could not keep.

At first, she had thought that helping meant finding a way to make someone feel better. Now she was beginning to see how often a person’s suffering continued long after the physician had done all he could. She might watch a patient relax as pain eased, only to hear the family quietly discuss how soon they would have to return to work, or how little food remained in the house.

Those moments stayed with her. She wanted to do more, but wanting it did not show her what more she could do. For the first time, she began to feel the distance between caring deeply about someone’s troubles and having the power to change them.

One visit had stayed with Elisa more than the others. The physician had been treating an injured man whose condition had left him unable to earn his usual wages. His family had little food remaining, and his wife was trying to make what was left last for the adults and their children.

After examining the injury, the physician explained that the man needed time to recover and enough food to regain his strength. The man listened before asking how soon he might return to work. The physician could offer no definite answer. Returning too early might delay his recovery, but there was no way to make him fit for work by the following morning. His wife listened quietly, with the family’s remaining food and the days ahead still to consider.

Elisa helped prepare the dressing and handed the physician what he needed. She understood his instructions, but the longer she thought about them, the harder they became to accept. The man needed rest, yet every day he could not work meant less money for his family. He needed nourishing food to regain his strength, yet buying enough would take money they were already struggling to spare. The physician had told them what would help him recover. He could not tell them how to manage until that happened.

Before they left, Elisa took out the money she had brought for her own small expenses and offered it to the man’s wife. The woman accepted it with quiet gratitude, and Elisa felt relieved that she could help them buy food. It was a small thing, but it was something she could do.

The relief did not last as they travelled back. Elisa began thinking about what would happen when the money was gone. The family would still need to eat, and the man would still need time to recover before he could earn his usual wages again. She was glad she had helped, and she did not regret giving the money away. What troubled her was knowing that even after doing what she could, she had changed very little about what the family would face in the days ahead.

As soon as they returned to the castle, Elisa went to her father and asked whether House Veymont could send more grain to the settlement. She told him about the injured man and his family, explaining how difficult it would be for him to recover when his wife had so little food left to feed their children.

Lucian put aside the report he had been reading and listened without interrupting. He had heard similar accounts from his officials throughout the drought, but hearing this one from Elisa affected him differently. She had seen the family’s situation for herself, and now she had come to him believing there must be something more they could do.

For a moment, he wished he could simply promise to send the grain. He wanted his daughter to feel that when she brought a problem to him, he would find a way to help. That was part of being a father, at least as he had always understood it. He wanted to give his children a world in which they could grow, learn, and follow their chosen paths without having to worry about whether another family had enough to eat.

Yet Elisa was growing old enough to see the troubles beyond their walls, and he could not keep all of them from reaching her. He was proud that she cared so deeply about people she barely knew, but there was sadness in knowing that she had already begun to understand how little good intentions alone could accomplish. He wished he could spare her that disappointment, even as he knew that shielding her from every hardship would not make the hardships disappear.

He drew a breath before answering. The treasury was already strained, and other villages were asking for help. House Veymont was purchasing grain and distributing what it could, but its supplies and money were not unlimited. Sending more to this settlement might ease its immediate needs, yet it would leave less available for families elsewhere who were struggling just as badly.

’I understand why you want us to help them,’ he told her. ’And I would send more if I could do so without leaving others with less than they need.’

He paused, looking at her. He did not want her to mistake his answer for indifference, nor did he want to hide the truth merely because it was difficult to hear.

’There are other villages facing the same trouble, Elisa. If we send more grain to one place, we have to consider what that means for the others. I cannot promise every family everything they need, however much I might wish otherwise.’