Page 9 of These Immortal Truths
The woman takes the medicine with a graceful hand. “Thank you. How can I repay your kindness?”
“Give what you can.” It’s the same line Eira often gives those who seem to have little. They’ve been paid in mismatched buttons of bone and wood, in a half a day’s labor splitting firewood. No amount is too little and no service too small.
The woman cradles the medicine to her chest and reaches into her pocket. When she holds out her hand, there is a ring nestled in the lines of her palm.
It’s unlike anything Anna has ever seen.
Pale and polished, it gleams against her skin—detailed carvings etched into its surface so delicately it almost looks like a trick of the light. When she picks it up, she realizes it’s some kind of bone or ivory.
“I can’t accept this.” Anna knows next to nothing of jewelry, but she’d have to be a fool not to see the value. “This is far too much for what you’ve been given.”
The woman’s hand closes over hers. “Please. This is what I have. I insist.”
It still feels like an uneven exchange, but there’s a serenity in her gaze that brings Anna some measure of peace. Wherever this ring came from, it isn’t treasured by her; no pain with its parting.
Anna accepts.
The next morning, Anna hands the ring to Eira. Her mentor looks at it, turning it over in the early light, before returning it. “It’s yours.”
Anna balks. “But—”
“Your patient, your payment,” she says, shooing away any argument Anna might have with a flippant wave of her hand. “Besides, such a tiny thing isn’t made for these old hands. I couldn’t wear it if I wanted to.”
Anna lets her fingers close around it, secretly pleased but still uncertain. They’ve never designated a payment before—everything they’ve earned, they’ve shared. “Are you sure?”
“Try it on,” she says, grabbing an empty basket. Anna remembers that they had planned to dig up the parsnips today.
She hesitates for half a breath, twirling the ring anxiously between her fingers, before she finally slips it on. Eira is right—it fits like it was made for her.
“Come on, then. Tubers won’t dig themselves.”
Anna nods numbly, but forces her feet to follow. When they go digging into the heavily mulched bed, the polished bone gleams up at her. Anna has never had anything so beautiful to call her own.
Spring comes and the snows melt.
Anna helps Eira treat everything from foot fungus to infection, influenza to dysentery. Some conditions don’t have cures, but the older woman shows her what to give to treat the symptoms. Anna learns that saving someone doesn’t always mean curing them.
There are women who come regularly, who only stay long enough for Eira to place a bag of blended herbs in their hands and pay her before ducking out the door. Eira calls it a treatment to ‘move the menses’.
Anna knows that’s not all it does.
The church adamantly condemns any interference of procreation—preaches that part of God’s plan is to “be fruitful, and multiply”. Anna thinks it’s an easy thing to preach when they’re not responsible for any hungry, hollow-cheeked children of their own. Easy when it’s not their bodies being tested, their lives being risked.
Some come to Eira for other womanly concerns: painful cramps, lumps in the breast, a confirmation of pregnancy. As with everything else, she has treatments for some, but not all. One thing Anna is surprised they haven’t seen is a delivery, but Eira explains that they’re far too remote for such patients to knock on their door, and Anna goes on to assume she’ll likely never see one.
Then, in the middle of November, Anna’s evening is interrupted by a pounding on the door and an anxious shout. Anna opens the door to a heavily pregnant woman being supported by a young man she assumes to be her husband. Her hand clutches her stomach, her face damp with sweat. The young man’s expression is pinched with fear. “Please,” he gasps. “Please, I don’t—”
Eira curses under her breath, ushering them in. “What are you doing, bringing her all the way out here?”
The husband wipes the sweat from his eyes, a manic fear blowing his pupils wide. “The midwife is so ill she can hardly stand. Please, I didn’t know where else to bring her!”
Eira shoves an empty bucket into his hands. “Go, fetch some water. Anna? Help me get her on the bed.”
Anna brings her arm around the pregnant woman’s back and offers her hand. “Come on, this way. What’s your name?”
The woman groans, her grip a vice and her name slipping out from between clenched teeth. “Emma.”
Anna helps her sit at the edge of the bed, glancing over her shoulder to see Eira behind her with blankets. Her voice is calm,despite the hurried way she flits across the room. “All right, Child. Lay back and let me have a look.”
