2.4

Aron took their empty bowls and spoons back to the people who had prepared dinner and were now cleaning up. Avoiding Brylin and others who tended to pull people into conversation in order to gossip, Aron hurried back.

He was concerned that maybe Nathley would be having a difficult time keeping to a whisper, but he returned to find the girl quietly helping Emri gather up ingredients. Not being one of Faver’s regular apprentices, she didn’t know where everything was, but Nathley had helped out enough now to at least know where to look.

“Can I help?” Aron asked in a whisper.

“Do you know how to use this?” Emri asked, indicating a small mortar and pestle for grinding up herbs.

Aron nodded. He wasn’t acquainted with all the things that Healers might use in preparation of medicines, but basically everyone from their part of the world tended to learn early in life how to grind up grains, seeds, herbs and other things that could be used in cooking. Usually if it was for food preparation, the tools were a larger size set so as to accommodate batches of grain and seeds for making biscuits, seed-cakes, and the like; but they were basically used in the same manner. It was a simple process of putting the ingredient to be ground up into the mortar, and then using the pestle to smash, grind, pulverize, and otherwise make increasingly smaller pieces out of things. It was good for mixing such ingredients together, too.

“Everyone knows that.” Nathley whispered, looking over from the herb cabinet, as if Emri had asked if he knew how to walk, or something else that one might expect any person in the world to be capable of no matter where they were from. Maybe where Emri came from, not everyone learned to help with the cooking? But he had seen her helping Faver earlier, and Emri clearly didn’t need anyone to teach her, so naturally he assumed what she meant was for him to help by grinding something up.

“What do you want me to start with?” Aron asked.

“This bunch of herbs here.” Emri replied, passing him some of the new herb that… wasn’t the one from around the marsh. That one was sort of like a fern with a bulbous bit above a long root, but this one had feathery roots all in a jumble, with leaves that were rounded, broad, and all in clusters.

“Just the leaves.” Emri added, still speaking quietly. “Please pull them off and set the rest aside. When the leaves are in a pulp, we’ll add the oil. If Nathley can find it.”

“It’s here.” Nathley spoke up, a little too loud. Aron shot her a look as she set the bottle on the work table next to a couple of others. It had a label on it that no doubt indicated which type of oil it was, but Aron couldn’t read it from where he stood. He started pulling the leaves off the herbs Emri had passed to him, putting them into the mortar as he did so.

Nathley spoke so quiet this time that Aron could barely hear her. She had difficulty keeping to a consistent volume of speech, but she did try. “I’ve been looking for that, um… the powdered camble pit. I am sure I saw some the other day. Is that the last thing?”

“There is one other herb, if there’s some here. I’m not sure what you’d call it, though. We can do without it, but it would really help a lot, and I think it should be fairly common where you’re from. I haven’t seen any yet around here, but there might be some variety of it that would be easier to find earlier in the year, in warmer weather…” Emri mumbled something else like she was thinking to herself, then said that the name she knew the herb by was… something completely unintelligible to Aron. It didn’t even sound like any word he knew.

“How about you describe it?” Aron suggested. “If it is common where we came from, then maybe we can figure out what it is anyway. I know Faver’s store of herbs has been running low on a lot of things, but maybe there might be some of whatever it is.”

Nathley quietly voiced agreement, and also held up the jar that she’d found. She shook it lightly, and the tan powder inside shifted back and forth. She set it next to the other things on the work table. “What sort of plant is it?”

“Hm…” Emri thought it over a moment. “It helps increase the cooling effect and absorption of the kind of balm we are making. It has a scent and taste similar to but not quite the same as… in some places they compare it to mint, in other places they say it is like menthol. Maybe you have a variety of mint, so you might know of a plant that smells similar? The flowers have no notable scent, different varieties have different sizes and colors, but the flowers always have five petals, full and pointed, with a fuzzy center. The leaves usually have some amount of fuzziness to them and tend to be dark green and pointed at either end – though they come in varieties with varying shades and sizes. The stalk is usually soft but kind of reedy, with a hollow center. The sap inside the stalk has a stronger scent than the leaves, but basically smells the same. It sort of grows in a branchy way... sometimes short, compact branches and sometimes longer more spindly ones. The leaves alternate sides along the branches, so the branches also grow… never across from each other, but it branches sort of erraticly and either more or less frequently depending on whether it’s growing more compactly or not. In some places it grows big enough to be like a bush, but sometimes it’s not much bigger than this one.” Emri indicated the plants that Aron had been pulling leaves off of; each whole plant could fit in one of his hands, open with the fingers extended.

“The only things I can think of similar to that,” Nathley said, “are varieties of mint… except they have their leaves and branches opposite each other, don’t they?”

Emri nodded. “In some places people think of them as related, though they really aren’t different varieties of the same thing.”

Aron voiced his thoughts. “It sounds like they could be mistaken for mint, though… maybe most people where we came from wouldn’t realize they’re different. Since they come in a lot of different varieties, and you don’t seem sure which variation we’d have seen, it might help if Faver has a picture of it. Nathley, do you know where Faver keeps the Herbal?”

“Oh, sure, we should look in there. I was thinking we should ask Faver, but since he’s not back yet maybe we can find it sooner in the Herbal.” Aron thought there’d probably be others in the camp who would have helped gather herbs at one time or another and might know of it, but considering how busy everyone in camp was right now, he preferred to see if they could figure it out themselves first.

Nathley started moving some things around to get at a box down under the work table. Emri had a curious tilt to her head, so Aron said: “Maybe you’ve studied from an Herbal Tome before? Each page has a detailed drawing of a plant, with notes of uses and additional details. I’ve heard that some people put their medicine formulas in the same book, but Faver has a different one for that. Most of the pictures in the Herbal were painstakingly copied by the previous Healer, who made many trips to a Healer’s association in a city over in the neighboring region. They’re considered valuable, and taken care of as well as can be under the circumstances.”

Emri nodded. “I mostly have studied from live plants, but I have seen different sorts of compilations like what you are describing, used as training manuals or reference in some places.”

Meanwhile, Nathley carefully lifted the box up and set it on the table. Unlatching the box, she flipped the lid over, which also opened up the side that joined the lid to the box. The interior of the box was lined, the lining connecting the side and lid so that when opened, it became a surface to open the tome on without needing to remove it from the box at all.

The pages were all fine parchment, artfully drawn and lettered, and most had been colored as well as having written descriptions of the colors in case the ink couldn’t match exactly, or might discolor over time, as some pigments did. The pages were held together by brass rings on one side, which could be pried open in order to add additional pages to the collection.

Nathley gingerly opened the Herbal, slowly turning the pages with a look of serious contemplation on her face. She had a reputation for being a little clumsy at times, but when she really tried hard, she was able to be careful with delicate things, or to work fine detail into items she was crafting.

Aron looked over the pages from one side of Nathley, with Emri being on the other side.

“This is beautiful,” Emri whispered, “and very detailed.”

Aron nodded in agreement. “Yes, I think so too. Is there anything else about the plant that might help us identify it?”

“Hm.” Emri pointed at the current page. “It looks like these drawings all include the roots, which I hadn’t thought to describe before since I was thinking about how it would look to someone finding it growing someplace. Most varieties have shallow, clingy roots and like places that drain well but either are humid or have frequent rain. It grows best in warm climates, or the warmest part of the year in temperate places. There are many varieties suited to different parts of the world, but they all like places where it’s warm, and full sun for part of the day with shade the rest of the time.”

Aron considered what Emri was describing while Nathley kept turning pages. “Even if Faver doesn’t have it, if it’s something known to be edible, then the people who go out gathering, and the people who mind the flocks, would probably be able to recognize it. We could ask them to look for some, especially if you think there’s likely to be a variety around here that would closely resemble a type we’d have back where we came from.”

Emri nodded slowly. “With the cooler weather here, it probably would have already seeded some time ago and much of the plant might be withered, but dry withered leaves could still be useable if in good condition. I didn’t notice any earlier, but I was focused on looking for the other plant and didn’t think of it. If there’s any around here, it’s most likely up in the hills, possibly higher up than where I was looking for the other one. Common places to find them are around rocky outcrops and cliffs… in some parts of the world, it’s only found up on cliffside ledges and nooks. I’d like to search for some the next time I go out looking for the other one.”

Aron muttered an agreement, and the three continued looking at pages. The tent was quiet for a minute except for what sounded to Aron like Remal turning over, but then suddenly there was a tap on his shoulder and Aron looked around quickly. Remal appeared on his other side, however, pushing Aron out of the way in order to stand next to Nathley.

“Haven’t found it yet?” Remal said, reaching over in front of Nathley to slide the Herbal tome in its box over so he could turn the pages himself. “it’s probably in the next-to-last section.”

“There are sections?” Aron looked over Remal’s shoulder. He had noticed that similar plants seemed to be near each other in the book, but so far had thought it looked like it all went from one sort to another similar sort, to another sort similar to the last but more different from the previous, without any sort of markers or other indications of the tome being organized into definite groupings of pages.

Remal ignored Aron and went on, turning the pages more than one at a time but carefully so as to not damage any. “Sounds like you’re looking for Piedmont Firesparks.”

“I might have seen something with a name like that.” Nathley moved over to the herb cabinet, motioning for Emri to take her place closer to where the tome was now located in front of Remal.

Closer to the back of the tome, Remal turned pages more slowly, examining each one. Aron watched as Emri slowly edged closer so she could have a better look. He saw her eyes flick back and forth between Remal and the Herbal, but otherwise he’d have sworn that there was no change anywhere on her face… well, maybe a slight tightening of the jaw muscles? Her posture, however, seemed to indicate caution. Remal looked tense, but he usually did anyway, these days. Aron was sure he’d noticed, regardless.

“This one. Is this it?” Remal queried. He pointed at a page, but then turned back to the previous one, saying: “This is really similar to what you were describing, too.”

Emri looked the page over, then turned it to look at the following page. That one, labeled ‘Piedmont Firesparks’, appeared to have long stalks and branches, dark leaves long and narrow, with clusters of small red-orange star-shaped flowers. The other page was labeled ‘Condor’s Breath’ and looked more compact and leafy with wider leaves that weren’t as dark, and the flowers appeared to be sort of pale yellow or cream-colored, more rounded but still coming to points around the outside. Otherwise, they looked to have all the same features as each other, fitting what Emri had described. She looked over the next few pages where a couple more plants had some similarities as well, then turned back.

“There’s a people,” she said slowly, “that have done extensive work in cataloging plants from all over the world. I believe their name for this one would translate into your language as something like ‘Fireburst Stars’, and this other one could be translated as ‘Condor’s Stars’ or sometimes ‘Condor’s Roost True Stars’. They both are varieties of the same plant, which those people call ‘True Stars’ or ‘Shlow Stars’.”

Remal pointed out the written notes on one side of a page. “These ‘Fire’ ones are found around the higher hills, rocky outcrops and gravelly areas of the Downs, mostly the West and South side, away from the areas with the denser forests. They’re used in quite a few common remedies, and I’m pretty sure Faver has run out of the distillation of the sap, but might still have some of the leaves since that is one that Mother used to always keep a lot of.”

“Oh! A large jar?” Nathley exclaimed from over by the herb cabinet. She turned her attention to a large drawer under the cabinet and rummaged around for a moment.

Remal nodded absently, though Nathley wasn’t looking. “I don’t remember this other one. Mother copied a lot of pages from the Healer’s association in Lynchberg. She said some of them were from the areas farther North and West, that we didn’t see in our area.”

Emri’s brows drew together a little, but Aron wasn’t sure what to make of it because neither her tone, nor anything else seemed to indicate any kind of sentiment. “Did you study with her?”

“No.” Remal replied curtly. “I was no good with formulas and mixing things, I only helped Mother hunt herbs. Sometimes I look for them for Faver, if he lets me know he needs something.” Remal then gently closed the tome and flipped the lid of the box back over it. He had it latched in an instant. “This is only used for looking up plants when necessary, and is never to be kept open while anything is being measured out and mixed, understand?”

“Certainly.” Emri said, stepping back away. She bumped into Nathley, who was standing behind holding the jar. Aron was worried for a moment, but Emri kept on her feet and Nathley kept hold of the jar. Remal shot them a disapproving look, then stowed the box down under the work table in its (relatively) safe spot.

Turning, Emri examined the jar that Nathley offered for inspection. It was a fairly large jar, but didn’t have much left in it. Aron joined them in smelling the remaining dried leaves once the stopper had been removed. It did have a somewhat vaguely minty scent. Aron looked in. Although the jar’s contents partially had the appearance of dried leaves, there didn’t seem to be any whole ones, only pieces that were mixed in with the minute remnants of countless other leaves, little bits and pieces that had long since broken down into what was almost a powder down in the bottom of the jar. He thought it must have originally contained whole leaves, though, because if it had all been powdered to begin with, then there wouldn’t have been those larger pieces mixed in.

Remal looked it over as well, then declared: “If there’s any in this area, we’ll find some.” He took the jar out of Nathley’s hands and transferred it to the work table. “Is that everything? How do we mix this up?”

Emri followed. “Since what’s left of this one is so faded, with a faint scent, I think we should mix it with the oil first, then let it sit while we mix the rest. Let’s use these two bowls.”

Aron motioned for Nathley to help, stepping out of the way. There really was only room for three at the work table. Still, he kept close by in case there might be anything he could help with, and so he could monitor the proceedings.