Alandra finally decided to cut her hair. It was just too much bother to keep putting it up and down and up and down every day, and it was heavy on her head, and hard to stuff under the Healer's close cap. Leaving it loose was not an option; the only women who walked around with loose hair were professional women advertising their availability, and even a maiden's single braid would be prone to touching things around the cubicle and possibly introducing outside humors. She was astounded by how light her head felt, and that her hair, when not long, curled slightly, forming waves on top where the hair was a little longer. She remembered how her father's hair had curled, and felt a little sadness. She hoped he was all right. But he couldn't visit anyway while she was a Novice, so it didn't matter. Vanla and Namira both noticed and said she looked very good with her hair short, and that made her feel better. She noted that once she did it, the other girls learning healing cropped their heads as well.
She'd started her flow, finally. At least she knew what it was when it happened. And fortunately, another woman was walking out of the necessary, so she could be asked to please get Alanda the supplies she needed. Her first one was painful until she went to the Healers and got a potion to take twice a day while her flow lasted. It did not take the pain away, but it knocked it down to a grumble in the background that she could ignore while working. She could live with that. There were potions that would stop it entirely, and she would use those when she was adventuring, but it was as well to let it happen if she could. The thing she hated most about it was not being able to soak in the big hot tub with the other Healers. That was such a relief to feet and back after a day spent doing Healing work. But it only lasted five days, and she could tolerate that.
Sometimes the healing court had moments of humor, but there were also times of sadness.
“I thought it was just taking me a longer while to get over the Winter fever this year,” the widow said, her complexion sallow and her body wasted. “But something's not right, and I can't pass my waste.”
When Amara scanned her with healing, she felt tears come to her eyes. Oh, it was not right. Tumors grew all over her liver and her bowels: canken, named for how it grew and reached out like the legs of a crab. They could not heal all of it: her body wouldn't stand the demand of the healing.
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“In this case,” Janos, her senior Healer, told her, “We fix what we can. That would be freeing up her bowel so that waste can pass out smoothly. But otherwise, let her drowse her time away sitting in the garden with poppy wine. She will go to the Gods before the next festival.”
Alandra stealthily wiped her eyes, and went over to the woman.
“We can help with your inability to pass your waste,” she said. “But there is corruption all through your bowels, and that we cannot fix without killing you.”
The woman closed her eyes, and tears trickled down her face.
“It took my mother the same way, and one of my brothers,” she said. “I know what's coming.”
“Would you like to stay here, and sit in the garden? You will feel no pain, and you will have a girl with you to help you.”
“Aye, I'd like that well,” said the woman. “I've no one at home but my little cat, and I'll send my neighbor a note about him. He's a friendly gib, and he keeps my feet warm at night. He doesn't roam or get into fights, being cut, so my neighbor will take him in.”
Joram sent a man with a note, and the cat, named Alepot for his brown coloring and round belly as a kitten, came with him back to the cloister. He did not leave his lady, sleeping on her feet at night and taking his meals next to her as well. When she finally breathed her last, sitting in the summer sun, he was on her lap.
Alandra wept after they had led the woman to the Garden of Mercy, and Joram gave her a hug.
“It's hard, telling people they are dying,” he said. “But that's the thing with the canken growths: they sneak in, and people just feel a little unwell. Unless a Healer scans them, they often don't know until....it's too late.”
Alandra offered up prayers for her that night in her private devotions, and thanked the Gods that she could do what she could, where she could.
Alepot, the brown tabby gib, stayed at the Healing Court. They made him a green collar, for he was a Healer himself. He tended to stay in the Garden of Mercy, where the dying were given care and medicated against the end, and the Healers and servants working there learned that if Alepot refused to get down off someone's bed or lap, then the Lord of Death was drawing near. He always stayed with them through that last transition, and spent the rest of his time getting petted and praised for being a Very Good Cat when he caught mice.
