Old Wounds
The bell over the door
jangled, and I looked up as the customer entered. He was a lean man
with a head of dark curls and a short beard and the sort of muscle
that suggests frequent, heavy, lifting. I eyed the clean but much
mended clothes and came down on the side of
poor-with-steady-employment rather than brawler. "What can I do
for you, Mr...?"
"Josephson." He filled in this year's name politely enough, though as ever I couldn't place his accent.
"I'm looking for a good wound salve, please."
"A new wound?"
"An old one, that
broke open again." He smiled ruefully and laid a hand on his
side. "I was pushing too hard to get a job finished in time, and
the scar didn't take the strain well."
I nodded. "Comfrey,
Octavia," I ordered, and the spider automaton activated with a
hiss of pistons and scuttled off along the shelves to retrieve the
correct jar. While I waited, I rolled round the end of the counter.
"May I see?"
He sighed, but seemed
unfazed by my wheelchair. He carefully untucked his clean but shabby
shirt and lifted it to reveal equally clean but shabby bandages
wrapping his lower ribs, then stood quietly as I unwound them and
inspected the wound.
It was a puncture
wound, small and round and deep, the sort that is, as he had said,
prone to split open when pulled the wrong way. Stabbed by a long, thin, knife,
perhaps. I took the jar Octavia brought and sent her off after a few
other things, while I measured out the herbs I wanted and ground them
in my mortar, before beating them into the base cream I used for
salves. The sharp clean scent filled the air of my apothecary.
I smoothed the first
dose on myself. "Was the job worth it?"
"It paid for a lot
of things," he said, shrugging the shoulder on his good side.
That was as good as it
got for a lot of people, I knew. I rebandaged the wound, smoothing
the folds down.
He smiled when I had
finished, and tucked his shirt in as carefully as he had pulled it
free. "How much?"
I named my price, and
he grimaced faintly. I shrugged. "You wanted a good salve. You
get what you pay for."
"True, true."
He pulled out a thin purse from hiding and began to dig out coppers
one by one, setting each down on the counter with a small precise
clink, like clockwork settling into place. He got the required price
laid out eventually and pushed the coins over to me with calloused
fingers. "Here. My thanks."
I checked it over and
handed him the little pot of salve, with instructions on how to use
it.
He listened solumnly,
nodded, and then vanished out of my door, leaving me to clean up the
remains and close up for Easter.
He'll come back next
year, I'm sure. He always does.
