More of the girls crowded around, crying out with equal parts delight and sadness.
“Is that a dyrehund?”
“She can’t be more than a few weeks old.”
“Late in the year for a litter, wouldn’t you say?”
“Look at her tiny paws!”
Brynn let them fawn over the pup as they headed back into the house. The household workers were finishing their food and heading out to chase down Cenric. They probably wanted to be hard at work in the fields by the time he reached them.
The girls set to the tasks of cleaning trenchers and clearing scraps from the table for the dogs and the pigs.
Brynn sat by the fire, the small fur bundle in her lap. She examined the puppy carefully, feeling at the small creature’ska.She had a few scratches. Urine stained her paws, and she was still too young to be weaned.
Brynn set to work while the girls cleared the table. She washed the pup in a basin, close to the hearth so as not to get her too cold.
Several of the dogs including Ash came and sat beside Brynn as she bathed the small creature and folded her into her apron to dry. She poured some of the morning’s goat milk into a shallow dish and let the puppy lap it up.
Thorn, the one-eyed patriarch of the pack, sat back on his haunches, observing silently.
Once she was done, Brynn folded the puppy into the crook of her arm and went back to overseeing the girls. The kitchen maids were already working to ready the evening meal. A slab of cured pork roasted over the fire and the dough for the evening’s bread was kneaded beside the hearth.
“It’s alright, little girl.” Brynn caught herself kissing the top of the fuzzy head before she quite knew what she was doing. She hadn’t had a pet in a long time. In Paega’s keep, dogs had their place. Here, the dogs seemed to be allowed everywhere.
Brynn headed out to the longhouse gardens to see to the harvesting of the peas and carrots, the dyrehund pup still tuckedunder her arm. She wiggled at first, but settled after a few moments, falling asleep, her belly plump and mouth stained with milk.
The weight of holding something living in her arms made something wrench in Brynn’s chest. That hollow ache that was fast becoming familiar.
Brynn kept careful track of time as the day wore on. She headed into the village with Esa and Gaitha again that afternoon to see to injuries and ailments she hadn’t gotten to the day before.
Some villages had healers or priests who saw to their sicknesses, but Brynn quickly learned that there was nothing like that here. A few of the older women were skilled in midwifery, but their old healer had died a few years ago.
Brynn had Esa hold her puppy when she needed both hands and held the puppy herself when she didn’t.
Brynn learned from a fisherman’s wife that Rowan’s father had a cough, and so Brynn went back to their house. The man was old, perhaps in his sixties. His gnarled hands showed a lifetime of hard work, and his right leg ended just below the knee.
He eyed Brynn suspiciously as she put her hands on his chest and back. She suspected he didn’t want her touching him at all, but the way his young daughter, Fern, Rowan’s little sister, stared pointedly at him, she’d gotten him to agree to her ministrations.
Coughs and illnesses were always difficult. Brynn spent the better part of an hour channelingkainto the old man’s body while working to draw out the badkacausing the infection. Much damage had been done to his lungs and she could sense scarring.
Fern, Rowan’s sister, sat on the floor of their home and petted the puppy with Esa. They sat quietly, waiting while Brynn worked.
Apparently, Rowan was with their mother tending the goats. For that, Brynn was grateful.
While Brynn couldn’t fix the scarring without risking additional damage, Brynn was able to guide the elderly man’s body through mending as much as she could. By the time she finished, he breathed easier and no longer wheezed when he spoke.
After, Brynn looked up and saw the sun was sinking toward the mountains. Cenric should have returned to the longhouse by now.
“Esa.” Brynn gathered up her box of healing tools. “We need to be going.”
Fern leapt to her feet. “Lady, can you heal animals, too?”
Brynn hesitated. She needed to get back to Cenric, but he had lasted a whole day already and she was already here. “I might.”
“Our best milker hurt her leg a few days ago. We’ve been worried we’ll have to make her into stew, but maybe…” The girl glanced at her father. “If it’s not too much trouble?”
Brynn forced a smile. “I can’t make promises, but I can take a look.”
