There were, he considered, at least a dozen ways that the troublesome beggar could be made to hold his tongue. Some of these way were rather comic and involved the application of various gums and resins. Others were violent and bloody affairs and might have been better visited upon the hero of a tragedy than upon an ordinary man. Had Droon been a violent man he might have thought better of cutting out Frith's tongue or provoking the man into attacking him and thus securing his further exile and continued silence. Droon was not, however, technically violent. Vengeful certainly, merciless to be sure, but not, in actual point of fact, violent. He had never raised his hand in anger to any one since the long ago days of his youth, when it would have been expected for a boy to find himself in the odd fight. He'd often lost those fights and came home mildly bruised and with the occasional cuts and scrapes, but nothing beyond what was expected. Then, in two or three days time, the causes of those minor scraps would be forgotten and the various small boys of long ago would return to their mischievous pranks.

He remembered those early days when vengeance did not plague him so, when he might forgive even grievous slights. No longer. He often wondered where that ability to forgive had gone. He could no more recall its departure than he could remember being born. The bad business with Nuet Uita had not caused it, that much he knew. He'd felt the hard lack of forgiveness long before and never mourned its passing but he did wonder at it.

And now, he thought as he gathered up as many medicines as he thought he might reasonably carry, I go forth with equal parts false contrition and false good humor to try to save the life of one man, and end the life of another.

He stepped out of the spice-smelling gloom of his shop and into the light of a mild spring morning. A bee buzzed lazily past his head, its legs heavy with pollen. He gave it a small and fleeting smile and watched it for a moment. It buzzed on, taking no notice of the apothecary. Droon sighed, adjusted the boxes and bags he had slung about him and with the creaking of wood and the clinking of glass bottles, he walked slowly up the Slope. Death, slow and patient, is come calling Frith. Do you not know it?

He smiled.

Frith’s mother did her best to fill the home with more pleasant smells; meat boiling in pots and thick stews, dried flowers in bowls but it was all to no avail. Naita Rair was a house proud woman and it broke her heart, the dankness, the darkness because her husband could not tolerate the light. Frith’s heart ached for his mother, once a young thing with such promise now confined to an existence with a bed ridden husband and a shamed son. She would bend over a pot, he imagined, and wonder where it all went wrong.

Sitting cross legged on the floor on reed matting, tending to his bow- the scent of animal wax thickening the already dense air he felt hunters instincts stir. Something ominous perhaps.

A leftover from the days when the Rairs were not so maligned a family, Naita kept the door to her house opened, able to see the comings and goings through a small slant of light and Frith sensed rather than saw the apothecary.

“Who is it?” called Naita drawing her eyes from the cooking pot.

“I sent for a healer,” said Frith, touching his finger to the point of an arrow, steel tipped and sharp enough to pierce through bone.

“Well send him away,” said Naita shortly, “Your father is resting and we can’t afford to spare the meat or furs. Nor would it kill you to bring more in from time to time. ”

Frith chewed his lip to think of his offerings to Murron but reminded himself that it was for the best, that sometimes the wealth of one’s soul was more valuable than tangible things.

“He’s a friend, he offered to work for free,” Frith did not take his eyes from his arrows.

But Naita would be looking at him, Frith knew this, the way he sometimes just knew which way a deer would come to graze or where a boar would run to. That same look in her eyes that had been a permanent fixture since Frith’s return to the flats. Disappointed, filled with sadness yet narrowed with suspicion and something that seemed to cry ‘who are you?’. Naita did not know the silent man who sat on her floor fixing arrowheads, her son was alive inside, laughed richly and exploded into anger quickly, he did not stay so quiet and come back from trips with fingers missing. Her son was ten years gone and in his place, Frith could not say who it was.

Standing, Frith went to the door and surveyed the Kohore, arms folded and no part of his posture or expression betraying anything like welcome. Because the truth of it, after meeting Murron, Frith had thought less and less of the poisoner. Of the man who had condemned a kind and innocent woman to silence through no fault of her own.

If this were a world of justice, Frith would slot an arrow into that bow and pierce it through Droon’s neck swift and true. But it was not and instead Frith, jaw jumping and mouth set firm into a frown nodded to Tzul Droon.

“Welcome,” he said stiffly. Inviting the demon into his home. Gods have mercy on all of them.

The apothecary merely nodded his greetings, forgoing the usual ceremonies of the invited guest. Such pleasantries, he knew, would have no meaning in this place. He looked long at the beggar as he stood in the gloom of his own door. He looked, if that was possible, more wretched and haggard than before. They eyes of the apothecary traced over Frith, finally coming to a stop at the man's injured hand.

"I did not come for you, Frith," he said levelly looking at the wound. "I can be offering you something to ease whatever pain you may be having. But," he said more thoughtfully, "perhaps you doubt the, shall we be saying, the efficacy of my ministrations?" Droon smiled his finest and most winning smile, as though he was speaking of cheerful and indifferent matters, and the topic of poisonings was the furthest thing from his mind. With a quick dart into one of his many bags, he drew forth an even smaller bag. he inspected it and, tossing it to Frith, said: "Willow bark. Very good at taking away pain."

"I will not be asking you how you came by that injury," he said with a fragile cheerfulness, "for I care not a fig for your pain, as I am sure you are understanding." The smile melted away as quickly as thin ice in the hot sun and the more usual mask of the Droonish face returned. "Yet for all that, Frith, I have come. I come not merely to keep to the bargain, but to lend what aide I can to an old man whose only injury to me is his being your father. However great that evil, surely his illness is more than enough in atonement, yes?"

Droon readjusted the multitude of bags and boxes about his person as though to indicate their weight and cumbersomeness. "Tell me Frith, before I cross your door, what is it that ails your father? You did not tell me before and I did not think to ask. Yet I would know now whatever it is you can tell to me. It does neither me nor your father any good for me to go to him blind as a mole and ignorant as three-day's child."

“You are right, if I am in pain it is none of your concern,” said Frith stiffly surveying the Willow bark with some suspicion. Tzul Droon was not to be trusted, he knew that if nothing else. He was talented enough with his trade to cure men from death, but he was also skilled enough to kill men and turn innocent, kind hearted women into monsters. “My finger troubles me not. And will never trouble me again I do not doubt. Save your wares for someone who needs it,” Frith tossed the bag back to Droon.

"Murron Uita dressed it well enough for me," he said looking steadily at the apothecary, to see if there were any guilt in his eyes, if he were a man at all. Gods, Frith felt guilty enough and yet his innocence was far greater than Droon's. "I visited her in the flats."

And part of him, indeed, wished he hadn't. To put such a kind, lovely face to the woman he was helping to keep imprisoned ground at his conciousness the way a pestle and mortar could ground bones down to dust.

“My father grows very weak. He will not eat, has lost a lot of weight and has begun to waste around his muscles, his skin has taken on a yellow quality. He complains of abdominal pain, which must be very acute- my father was always a strong man.”

“I would say so,” said a sharp woman’s voice as Naita emerged from behind Frith. She was a firm woman, both in looks and mannerisms, her body stout and generous, long graying hair pulled into a sharp braid behind her head. Though tired around the eyes and the victim of many frown lines she was strong as an ox and in her eyes burned the source of all of Frith’s fire. “My husband was strong as an ox not four moons ago.”

She sniffed sharply at Frith and he knew the look she gave him. She was angry; a proud woman such as Naita did not like this idea of a free healer, too much like that’ dreaded word charity. It was alright for her beggar son and with the exception of Frith the Rairs were a fiercely independent sort of family. It was not a surprise to Frith then when she said sternly to Droon, “You will join us for dinner young man. If my son will not pay for your services, I suppose I will have to provide what I can,” shaking her head, she returned to the stove.

For a terse moment, Frith surveyed Droon before sighing heavily, the weight on his shoulders apparent. “I will take you to him. Let us hope for your sake there is something that can be done about the old man.”

Droon received the willow bark coolly and replaced it in his bag. "Just so. Do as you please."

Murron? he thought with some alarm when the name was spoken. Why would you go to pay your attentions to the murderous little brick-maker? Is it from her that your thrice-damned knowledge of secret things comes? What could she be knowing? What might the bloody-handed woman have told you? Droon tried to check his surprise at this news, though whether he was successful he had no way of knowing.

And then came the strangely soothing recounting of the sufferings of Frith's father. They were something to focus on, something to drive from Droon's mind all the half-formed fears and desperate plans that had, for days now, been pounding in his mind. What was vengeance compared to the making well of the sick? Yellowing skin, acute pain, lack of appetite. What did they signify? Any number of things, alas. The devouring sickness? Possibly. That would be the worst of ailments. It was painful, often slow, and for it Droon knew no cure. Yellowing skin? That often was a sign of ailments of the liver and for those there was some hope. Yet not much, Droon had to concede. And this was man with a disgraced son. Shame could bring about many ailments of its own perverse making. What might he do to ward off the guilt and the shame? Would he drink himself into a stupor every night and so, by his own slow poisoning, end his life? Droon had no way of knowing.

It was while wrapped in these thoughts that he entered the house. He did not at first notice the woman and had it not been for her commanding tone of voice and her general air of wounded pride and determination, he might have walked right into her and never been the wiser. The voice, however, was enough to snap Droon out of his dream of diseases, and he turned to face its owner.

"You are by way of being mistaken," he said not unkindly. "Frith and I have reached . . .an arrangement. Yes, an arrangement, concerning my services. I will say no more upon the matter. And as to your offering of the sharing of a meal, I must be declining that for I do not like to be eating when I have much work to do. I find it drives me to distraction. Thank you all the same."

He turned to Frith and with a brief nod said, " Leed on and I will see what can be done for him."

“Through here,” said Frith shortly, taking Droon across the length of the hut to his fathers bedside which was cut off from the rest of the home by a sheet draped from the ceiling. Frith pushed it to one side and went through, revealing a yellowing thin man, with sallow skin and hollow eyes writhing on the bed. All that was left of a man that had once been Onin Rair.

It was not too warm, a pleasant climate despite the rain, but Onin sat sticky with sweat dripping in fat droplets from his brown and temples just as the rain outside fell in torrents. Onin thrashed about with his obvious pain, groaning with a weak guttural voice.

“Hufsa!” barked Frith’s father, voice laced with agony, eyes open but glassy as though viewing the world through some distorted window. “Hufsa, that you boy?”

Hufsa was the name of the Rair’s second son. A man who had married Ethian and joined their tribe. Hufsa had always been Onin’s favorite, learning his father’s roofing trade while Frith was wilder, had only eyes for Inle, Elahra and his hunting bow. But Hufsa’s part was done, he had a trade and children with the Ethia.

“It’s Frith, Da,” he said sitting on a chair by the bedside, cupping his hands around on of his fathers which lay limp and weak at his side.

With his other arm, Onin, shaking reached out for his son and touched his cheek with one clammy hand. There was a tenderness to it, but those eyes were still glassy, still so unseeing. “You are good to me, my Hufsa. If only your brother could be the same.”

Frith felt a sigh in his heart but did not drop his father’s hand. Not even as a fleck of saliva dripped from Onin’s chapped lips as he tried to summon the energy to spit. His voice reduced to panting from the exertion and the pain.

“Tsuter… vreska …laoso. Shaming our family so! Where is he? Always doing only what he wants, running wild… Does not care for his Da or Daoa! They would have been kinder to us… if him put to death… I would do it myself… keep our family’s honor” Onin coughed savagely and moaned again. “Oh my pains! ”

“Hush, you must rest,” said Frith softly, tenderly stroking his father’s hand feeling a horrible twitching in his jaw. “He get’s confused easily” Frith said to Droon, “Thinks I am my brother mostly. He does not mean what he…”

Frith looked at the floor, jaw jutting and that fire burning in his eyes. Tzul Droon did not care, of course whether Onin meant what he said or not- but Tzul Droon could go jump off a mountain. Frith cared when he did nothing but sit at his father’s side. Sometimes when he spoke to him it was all that he could do not to take a pillow and cover his face with it. To smother those shaming words, and the pain in his chest they caused Frith, to smother out his last gasping breath. To end his pain, Frith would try to tell himself to qualify these dark thoughts. These thoughts passed quickly, when Frith remembered the pain he must have caused his people but they were still entertained nonetheless. Anhau was so full of monsters. The hatchers may have cleared but something still lurked in the hearts of men.

“What can be done?”

There, on the bed, lay the wreckage of a man. His skin was a sickly yellow and looked nearly translucent in the dim light. Through the cloying aromas of cooking food and a host of dry floral scents, Droon could make out the rank and unmistakable scent of sick man. It was a gamy scent, shot through with the acridness of sweat and other, less pleasant, substances.

The apothecary, with studied care and more gentleness that might be expected in such a man, wiped the spittle from the sick man's lips with a soft cloth and then nealt down by the bed. "Onin Rair?" he inquired softly, as one might to child who has overslept, "Can you hear me Onin Rair? I am Droon, the apothecary. Your son, Frith -- you are remembering him, yes? -- sent for me."

Droon waited for some response, but the man remained drifting in his private dreams of fever and despair. He heard the broken invectives against Frith and the praises of this other son, and shook his head sadly. And where is your good son now old man? Where is he while you lie in agony and may well lie dieing?. "He is in a fever Frith. He raves, yet I fear he means what he says." Droon raised his hand to stall any invective that might come from Frith. "Yet it is you, and not your brother, who are here now. To the wicked fall all the unpleasant tasks."

Gingerly did Droon begin his study of the old man. He wiped his brow, felt his skin, and pressed slightly upon the body at various places. He remained unenlighted as to what ill plagued him. Once, he took a small glass jar out of a box and carefully spread the waxy substance contained therein upon old Onan Rair's lips. "Beeswax," he said, though whether to Onan or Frith there was no telling. "Beeswax with lanolin and oil of peppermint and rosemary. It soothes the lips, that is all."

"Bring me water, Frith," he said after some little time. "Both hot and cold. I need to know what ails him, and this I cannot be doing that while he raves in fever. Hot and cold water Frith, and a clean soft cloth. Go."

Something made Frith wince as he saw Droon touch his da. Of course, it was necessary, it was not a shook- something that healers for the most part had to do. And yet Tzul Droon was still not a good man, not a man to be trusted and to see him so close to his father, where he should have felt relief Frith could only feel anxiety, were he a wild cat his fur would have stood on end, his back arched as senses moved to heightened levels.

The rasping of his father’s breath was louder, along with the sound of rain while the sickness smells heightened and the pores in his father’s face stood out even with the gloom that he lay under. That hunter inside Frith was always watching, always waiting, never sleeping.

He moved swiftly when Droon asked it of him, to the family’s water store. The Rair family home was a high standard one, Onan Rair having taken all the care he could, all of his experience to construct his wife and children comfortable living quarters. The walls were of neat sandstone with a wooden porch out in the front. Naita kept a garden out front that would bloom in the spring but now was just a dull green, so much earth on show.

The home was spacious enough, if only just for a family of six people, three bedrooms with rugs woven by Naita in warm colours scattered over the floor. What was notable however, was the low ceilings of the house. Onan Rair was not a tall man and his children were the same- Frith himself on the five foot six mark, having grown out in muscle mass where he lacked heights.

Frith kept his hunting equipment in a wooden box in the corner of the main living area and a few of the young man’s kills decorated the house; a stag head, a suba and deer hide lying on the floor. The water store was outside in what was like a tool shed, an empty room housing his father’s work tools and a water butt filled with water taken in from the river. He took a bucket with him and filled it up.

Droon watched Frith depart and was somewhat pleased to note the speed at which he went to carry out the request. He had asked no questions, given no searching glances, and seemed to harbor no fears as to the use to which the water would be put. A calm voice and a firm tone seemed to have some effect upon the beggar; it was something to remember. It might not ever amount to much, but now was not the time to let anything, not matter how trifling, slip his mind.

The old man continued muttering in his weak, parched voice, and though Droon listened he could make out little. Most of what he could understand was merely a repetition of the earlier rantings. There were names he did not know, allusions to events he could only guess at, and probably a great deal less nonsense than seemed to be the case.

With care and deliberation, Droon opened one of his wooden boxes and drew out another, smaller box. It too was wooden, but it seemed to have no obvious hinges or lid. For all the world it looked like a cube of inlaid wood and it took a careful eye to notice that the seams made by the inlay were deeper than they ought to be. Droon ran his fingers along a line of alternating dark and pale squares of wood and slowly slid a thin band of wood away from the box. It was a puzzle box, and a very elegantly made one too. It had been a gift from the despicable Orha Bos some years ago, and Droon now used it to carry about some of his more dangerous medications. On this day it held opium in various forms as well as mandrake and a tincture of Droon's own devising which did much to quiet an irregular heart beat. With a deft motion of his long spidery fingers, he at last opened the box and took out the three bottles. He held the liquid opium up to better inspect it. He was fairly sure he would have cause to use it before the day was out for the old man was obviously in great pain.

He watched him toss and turn on the bed in a cool and detached manner; assessing him for any little clues that might give the apothecary some clue as to what ailed him. After some time wherein nothing at all arose to his mind, Droon began to inspect the room as a means of diverting himself. Stone? he thought as he looked to the walls. Whoever built this house meant for it to last for years beyond the lives of even their great grand children. He though of his own dwelling -- a series of rooms behind and above his shop, all fashioned out of great wooden beams, brick, and plaster -- and shook his head. He looked again at the figure and said in a strangely offhand way, "Well, at least your house is by way of being strong, even if you are not. Did you build this house old man? Did you fit the stones together and hope to build a family to last as long? And now, the son who tends to you was once a beggar and nearly a murderer and the one you call for seems to care little enough to seek out aid and comfort for his father. Let us both hope your masonry is better made than your sons, else we shall be having the whole house falling in on us shortly."

“The house and the sons are strong enough, Tzul Droon,” said a cool voice from behind the apothecary, Frith had returned as softly and as swiftly as he had left, two gourds of water in his arms. “I would prove it to you. But I do not think you would want that.” His face was almost neutral, so close to being calm- but for the flaring of nostrils and the intense gaze of his eyes.

He had not heard much of Droon’s speech, but for the last taunt to his father and it angered him. Who was Tzul Droon to speak of fallen sons? Frith imagined father Tzul, tried not to disparage a man who raised a monster. It was often that Fathers should not be blamed for the crimes of their sons. He had learnt this himself of course.

“I would thank you to improve your bedside manner” sniffed Frith, handing the gourds to Droon, “since it seems solely to consist of murder and insults.”

Again his hand found his father’s, clasped firmly around the wrist as Onan jerked with a wave of pain. Through narrowed eyes he saw the glint of Tzul Droon’s bottle, suspicious eyes. “Is that for my father? Is it safe?”

(( grag sfsr ))

"Safe?" said the apothecary in an oddly abstracted voice, "yes, after a fashion." He picked up the bottle let it travel between his fingers, dancing slowly and flashing in the meager light. "It is opium; the extract of the sleeping poppy. It brings strange dreams and takes away great pain and for that it is rightly praised. Yet too much can bring about illness and even death, though I have never yet seen such a thing. I am careful of this medicine Frith and I do not use it lightly or with as free a hand as some might do. I am, perhaps, overcautious of it. Yet your father is very ill indeed, and in great pain and so I fear he will be needing this."

During the whole of this Droon had not taken his eyes off the bottle as it traveled across his fingers like a conjurer's coin, now he looked up. His expression was strangely altered from before; whatever devilment was once in his eyes was gone, replaced by something like worry and something like sorrow. "So," he said quietly, "you object to my feeling some pity towards your father? To my speaking to him with some humor so as to be allowing me to think of him as a man and not a mere assemblage of parts and pain? You will perhaps be forgiving me if I am somewhat ill at ease here." Droon deftly slid the bottle of opium to his other hand and began passing it between his fingers more rapidly than before. "I have no liking for you, Frith, this you know, but in your care and defense of a sick father who seems to bear to you no great love there is at least something I can be respecting." After a moment he said hoarsely, "I thank you for the water."

Droon rose and took the gourds. Into the cool he dipped the cloth and let it soak for a time and the hot he poured into an earthenware pot he brought with him. To this he added thin strips of dried bark and a fair quantity of honey before adding a pinch of some sulfurous powder that seemed to reek entirely out of proportion with it's quantity. "Asafoetida," he said. "It may reek, but the taste of that along with the sweetness of the honey will mask the bitterness of the willow bark. In time it will lower his fever and perhaps bring him to himself." After a moment he decanted the hot and pungent liquid back into the gourd and held it out for Frith to inspect.

"I know that you are not trusting of me, and for this I can not be blaming you. Think of me what you will Frith, believe what you want of who I am and what I might have done, for I shall say nothing, but grant me at least this one small courtesy; trust in my skill. Everything I am and all that I am worth is in my skill in my art. Do you think I would wound myself so far as to knowingly harm your father?" He shook his head in dismissive disgust and sighed. "If you cannot be trusting in my person, then trust at least in my pride."

This murderer appealing to Frith’s sensibilities left a sour taste in his mouth. Perhaps he had done much good in the years since his crime, and yet there was no remorse, only disgusted chidings. It stank worse than the concoction that Droon went about creating, Frith did his best not to pay the odor wafting through the room any mind instead focusing on what Droon had promised it would do for his father.

“Trust must be earned Tzul Droon, you will forgive me for thinking that you have not sufficiently done so,” said Frith curtly. He took the gourd and studied it, not sure what he was looking for- Frith was a hunter, he used bows and arrows, knives and shed blood, delivered swift and noble deaths to noble beasts, these strange poisons that worked slowly through a man’s system were alien to him.

“I have to be a careful man, you have the means to harm- your art and your skill is wrapped in poisons, Tzul Droon, and your record is tainted with blood. I would do all I could to protect my family- from anyone and not just yourself. But if you are able to aid my father then you will have proved your skill I will be in your debt. No matter how grudgingly.”

He handed the gourd back to Droon, “I am a hunter. We are a cautious sort, I have known men to wander into the claws of great bears and in to the paths of someone else’s arrows. I do not wander anywhere blindly anymore, Droon. Reassure me I am not doing so here, drink some of this.”

He drank from the gourd with no hesitation, the hot liquid bitter and sickly-sweet on his tongue. He swallowed. "Too hot," he said at last, "I shall have to be letting it cool a bit. I have no wish to be scalding your father's throat." Steam rose from the gourd, coiling slightly in the still air.

"And you are mistaken Frith, I have killed no one, there is no blood upon my hands. Unless you count as murder my wishing a man dead and then his being carved up like a fowl by his wife. I cannot deny my grim satisfaction in that, but I was not there. I touched neither knife nor man. And if thoughts of vengeance and retribution are enough a murderer to make, then all the valley must be guilty a score of times over. Desire is not action, Frith, and wishing a thing does not make it so." He looked searchingly at Frith and then let his eyes travel down to the man who lay upon the bed. "If it were, then he would be well and there would be no need of medicine."

Droon sat himself back on the floor amid his bags and boxes and contemplated the liquid in the gourd. After some time he said, "Do you think it safe to give it to your father? Do you trust now I mean him no harm? Is your caution satisfied? I am quite well Frith, as you see. So will he be when he drinks of it, or at any rate I think it can do him no harm. Will you hold his head so that I might make him drink?"

Frith obliged Droon without another word, holding his father’s head in his hand. How strange it should be this reversal of roles, the strong man from Frith’s childhood, rough hands from his stonework pulling Frith onto his shoulders as though he were nothing more than a bag of flour. How paper thin and feather light that same strong man seemed now

Droon could fool himself all he wished that he wasn’t being blackmailed and he had nothing to hide, but his very presence here suggested otherwise, Frith watched him with a skeptical harshness in his face, well it was the same expression he had worn from the moment Tzul Droon had stepped over the threshold and into his home.

What a great philanthropist you are Tzul Droon, thought Frith bitterly, saving my father out of the goodness of your heart feeling disgust for the man and also a strange envy- to shed his guilt like a snake would shed his skin, to be allowed to forget or warp his crime into the picture of innocence.

“And this will cure him?” wondered Frith not daring to let the hope in his heart creep into his voice. How wonderful it would be to have a few doses of an herb easily found in Anhau, to cure his father, to see Droon pay for his crome and go back to the beggar flats and return not return until Murron accompanied him out of that wretched place. She would thank him heartily for that, Frith didn’t doubt.

"Cure him? No Frith, that I fear will be taking much longer. This will only help to bring his fever down and ease his pain in some small way. I cannot work miracles with a little willow and honey, much as I might wish to. No Frith, this is only a start."

Did he truly believe I could cure his father with a draught of willow? Has he not even the smallest knowledge of medicine? Droon pondered this for some little time as he gave the medicine to Onan and took comfort from it. If he has no knowing of the art, then what I have I to fear from him and his words? Could he tell truly what it was he saw me do all those years ago? Would he know one poison for among hundreds? Would he even remember? A slow smile began to creep across his face at the thought. Droon you fool, the man's a beggar and a pariah and such men are not known for their telling of the truth. What could he say against you that any would believe? Would any want to believe such? And yet he still troubles you, does he not? Be wary Droon, be wary indeed.

The smile vanished from his face like dew from on a cobweb. He hoped nothing more than the satisfaction of seeing the old man take his medicine would be seen in that flashing of joy. It made him uneasy and now he longed for Frith to leave him. Could Droon send the beggar away on some invented errand? It would need to be a true errand, and not some sham. Frith may have known little enough of medicine, true, but he was no fool and such simple trickery would be seen through as though it were glass. No. Whatever errand Frith was to be sent on would need to be a true one.

He gently poured the last of still hot liquid down the old man's throat. When it had all been drunk, he drew the soft cloth from the other gourd, the one holding the cold water, wrung it out and laid the cool cloth on the old man's burning forehead. After a moment, Droon asked, "When was he last bathed?"

“Bathed I…” Frith frowned, not entirely sure of the relevance of such a question but searched his mind for the answer. Too weak to be moved from his bed, Frith’s daoa had taken charge of bathing her husband- she was stickler for cleanliness.

Frith remembered in his youth the inspections of the Rair children’s hands and faces before being allowed into the house, he had been so resentful of this as a child, where Elahra and Inle had been allowed to roam like the little wild children that they were.

But Naita had changed in this time, had let her sun wander into her home caked in mud, had moved out of her bed to sleep in the bed of her newly married daughter instead. She could not bear to look on her sick husband most days if she didn’t have to, not because she didn’t care but because it pained her so. My husband was strong as an ox not four moons ago. This illness had hurt Naita most of all.

“Perhaps four nights ago,” said Frith, “My mother washes him from his bed. We don’t move him if we can help it.”

Droon nodded abstractedly. "A cooling bath might do him some good. Though there is something to be said for keeping him comfortable as well." He looked again at the old man on the bed. He listened to the rasping of his breath and the thin and reedy tone of his quieted ramblings and he tried to imagine the man he must have been. And then it seemed there were two men upon the bed, as though the husk contained within it a vigorous and healthy man of advancing years but by no means frail or hobbled. Droon could see the calluses on the man's hands, the small scars that constant manual labor left behind, and a host of other signs. It was a strange image to be sure, for this second, and much sturdier man, was somehow existing within the thin and wizened form on the bed. It should not be possible to imagine such a sight, and yet it was just such an image that assailed the Droonish eyes. He blinked.

"He was once strong, was he not? And I see no broken bones or other such things. It might be possible for two to move him gently and bathe him. The water would help to stifle the fever, and there can be no harm I am thinking in his being clean."

Frith did not dispute this and stood, peeking his head from behind the curtain into the main sitting area where his mother was preparing dinner. “Daoa?” he said softly, voice piercing through the thick fumes of cooking meat.

“Mmm?” came Naita’s distracted reply.

“Tzul Droon things it best to bathe father, would you fetch the tub?”
“Fetch it yourself,” said Naita and Frith clenched a fist. How weak he must seem to Tzul Droon, a man who’s mother did not respect him, who’s father openly insulted him. That strength, that fear that had brought Droon to his home must have been waning. To those who did not know him, he was a mad man, a durg killer- but if they knew why, for a girl, for a boy they would not think him so scary. Frith could not afford to loose this power, not for his father’s sake even if Murron Uita would be better off.

He sighed and went out to fetch the tub, to get a bucket to fill it. All of these errands were beginning to tire him, sick father or none.

And so now it is that I have you Frith, do I not? I am seeing your mind, or some part of it at least. Are you trying to redeem yourself by such selfless tending to your father? Do you think it will work, that it will purge you of your shame and guilt? Perhaps it will; who am I to be saying?

When Frith had departed, and the sounds of his mother scolding him like a child had died away, Droon shook his head in a slightly amused fashion. It was all he could do to stop himself from laughing. There was something altogether amusing about hearing a grown man, with a beard no less, be scolded in an offhand manner by his mother. Had no one been around to hear him, Droon would have indeed laughed. Long and loud would that laugh have been and it would have carried with it all the anxiety and agitation surging about inside of him. It would have been cathartic and much good would have been done by letting out such a laugh. Alas for Droon that he seldom gave in to impulse and so was made to stew in his own discomfort for far too long.

He did manage a slight and stifled snicker, but even that felt like a betrayal of control and composure. Be calm Droon, be easy. You hold him in your hand though he does not know it. He thinks you are his plaything, his captive, and his debtor. And so you might be, but for this sick old man. With great deliberation did Droon once again approach the bed and lean over it, the pale light throwing his long and gangly shadow upon the far wall. Spider-like did Droon extend his fingers and with almost imperceptible slowness begin to gingerly prod the old man upon his neck, under his arms, his chest, and his stomach. "Forgive me the pain I may bring upon you Onan but I must try to learn what it is that ails you. Fear me not Onan, I mean you no harm." In the stillness of the room, with only the sound of ragged breathing and the creak of the old man's voice, Droon continued his inspection.

It was not for Frith to dispute the work of a medic, but in his heart of hearts he had hoped for something, more concrete to lable his father with by now. A true diagnosis would not have gone amiss, because any idiot would know his father's problem did not stem from a lack of cleanliness.

His mind could not help but jump to what Droon was thinking of, what was going through the man's mind. He had slipped, slick as an eel out of danger once before- Frith knew this- and what was to say he wouldn't try to do it again. Frith tried to clamp down on the man with his wide, brown, hunter's hands but he still felt slippery to the touch, this strange eel man.

"Have you found anything?" he said curtly, returning to the room with the family's tub, a wooden affair- as well constructed as everything else Onan had made and probably soon to be traded in for something of a lower value- it was clear that the Rair family might have once been prosperous, friends to Durgs once upon a time, popular among the Roek lifetimes ago were it's reputatuion not in tatters.

The tub was filled with tepid water which Naita made clear she was fed up of making room for on her stove and Frith, kneeling behind his father took the man by the middle. He was strong enough to lift the man by himself, and was keen to demonstrate this to Droon. Onan however had other ideas as he wailed in confusion, clawing at his son's face, struggling as much as the weak man could.

"Help. Look. Calm him," said Frith gruffly, voice muffled slightly by a hand digging into his beard.

"Be holding him as still as you can," came the words of the apothecary, oddly calm amid all the flailing of the old man. Frith was a smaller man than Droon by at least a head but it was clear to the apothecary that the beggar was possessed of considerable strength, even after so many years in exile. It gave Droon pause to see the dexterous manner in which Frith restrained his father; the quick and knowing motions of his hands, the interesting combination of force and gentleness. It was almost possible to forget that this was a man with a known and violent temper and, moreover, one who bore Droon no great liking.

When the old man had been subdued to the point where he was no long thrashing about like a fish drawn from the bottom of a deep and murky pond, Droon advanced. In his hand was the bottle of opium and with a single gesture he removed the stopper. There was a gritty, grinding sound as the roughened glass of the stopper's plug ground against the neck of the bottle. "You will be excusing me if I do not take a draught of this. There is little time for such things." So saying he gingerly gripped Onan's jaw and with the application of a little pressure, opened the old man's mouth enough to pour into it a small quantity of the opaque liquid. After what seemed an age, but had perhaps been little more than a few minutes, the old man's thrashing and writhing slowed and then stopped altogether.

Droon looked up from the now quiescent man and said, "He will sleep now, and will be doing so for some time. Perhaps it is for the best." He sat himself back again upon the floor and breathed out a long hiss of air through his teeth. "As to what I have found, that is little enough. I can learn only so much from a raving man. But," and he raised his hand to stave off any cry of impatience from Frith, "that does not mean I have learned nothing at all. He was by way of wincing in great pain with I prodded him upon his right side. And it seemed to me a sharp pain, and deep. Not the pain of long weeks in bed or of the straining of muscles, but something of the entrails. That and his unhealthy yellow skin and eyes are suggesting to me it might be his liver which gives him trouble." There was a pause as Droon considered where to cast his net. "Your father, does he drink over much perhaps?"

“His drinking habits over the last ten years are not known to me,” said Frith in a flat voice. Did his father drink excessively? Not now he didn’t, the man could barely keep water and plain rice down, but before- Frith wondered. In his childhood, that had not been the case for Onan, perhaps a drink or two with the stone workers after a job was finished but Frith had never seen his father drunk, not in the way young Frith could get with Elahra, Inle and stolen bottles of rice wine.

But perhaps the shame of his eldest son, his heir, being banished from the trip for attempting to commit the most heinous of crimes had driven Onan to drinking. It would not be a stretch, Frith thought and he could certainly understand the line of thought. But it wasn’t Onan. Frith knew, away from this sick bed his father was made of stronger, stoic stuff- even now as he had resisted his son’s grasp before falling weak as a flower petal under the sedative that Droon gave him Frith could feel a man as hard as stone, harder even, a man who had carved and broken stone, held it to his will as though it were nothing but mud. Frith shook his head, “It is unlikely.”

But a diagnosis, or at least a partial one was comforting- that his internal organs were probably afflicted provided slightly less comfort. “It isn’t lethal is it? He can be cured?”

"If he has been poisoning his liver for these ten years then there is little enough I can do for him. Yet you say this is not likely to be the case. You are in the way of knowing your father, so on this I will be believing you." Droon considered for a moment, considered the seemingly shooting pains and all the other signs and a narrow grin split his lips. "Bile," he said. "Yes, that it may be. Perhaps your father has the stone. I am no dab hand with a knife so I cannot be cutting him for it. I am no surgeon. Yet something perhaps may be done for him. Regular dosing of bile to help take the load off the liver and possibly eat away at the stone."

Droon feared to tell him more, he did not want to believe that it might be the devouring sickness that had attacked Onan. There was nothing he could do for such an illness , but stones in the bladder below liver, that was something that might be aided. "He will be needing as much rest, true rest mind you, not fevered dreams, as he can be getting. And a few drops of opium in rice wine or mead will be helping to ease his pain. Not too much mind you, Frith, it can be dangerous so we shall all be having to keep our wits about us."

He stood and stretched. It was a long and complex process, like watching the growing of a fern sped up many times or the uncoiling of a spring. "He is calmer now, there can be no harm in bathing him I am thinking. Then he will sleep long and with any hope will do so with no pain. For now, that is all I can be doing for him. Have patience Frith, I will hold my end of the bargain. He has been ill a long time, and such illnesses do not vanish in a single night. "