The winter list for the stalls
By Nessa, tutor at Vell, copied out for the notice board by the east well at Three Wells. Read it through before you need it. Nobody reads a list in the middle of a fall.

Cough: honey in warm milk, and a warm room with the draft shut out.

Chilblains: warm water, slowly. Then a dry wool sock. Not a hot bath, and never a hot stone.

Chapped lips: a thin wipe of honey every night, and no licking them in the wind.

Cuts from the ice: wash them clean, press them, and bind them with wool. Ice is never clean, however clean it looks.

Sprained ankle from the stair: rest it. Cold snow in a cloth for an hour. Then warm. Then bind it firm, and do not walk on it until the next day.

Fever: water, a cool cloth on the neck, and a bed away from the draft. Let the sick one sleep. Sleep is the cure, and the healer is only the reminder.

Bruise from a fall on the Long Road: cold snow the first day, warm after. The bruise will go the colors of a sunset, and then it will go away.

Burns from the oven: see Ida's note on the board.

Burn from a creeper: a creeper's blast is not like an oven. It throws you first, then it burns, then it rings in your ears for a day. Cool the skin, bind it loosely, and sit still. Do not go back for the bucket.

Arrow in the leg: do not pull it out. Cut the shaft short, bind round it so it does not move, and carry the person to the healer on a board.

Fall from a ladder or a tower stair: lie them still. Check the breath and the eyes. Ask them to count the fingers. If they cannot count, call for help and do not move them again.

Green potatoes: they make the belly ache, and the ache is worse by morning. Drink water, rest, and throw the rest of the batch on the compost.

Well water after a dry spell: boil it first. Somebody always gets sick from the well, and somebody always says it will never happen to them. Boil it.

The stall keeps a book. If you do not know, ask. A healer who guesses is a worse healer than one who asks.
%%
Remedy: for a sore throat
Rook, shepherd, in the hamlet near Saltreach, the day after the summer festival. Half the hamlet is hoarse.
A sore throat comes from too much singing, too much shouting and too much cold cider. This is what to do.
1. Warm a cup of water. Not hot.
2. Stir in a spoon of honey and a squeeze of apple juice.
3. Sip slowly. Do not gulp.
4. Rest the voice. Do not sing, shout or argue for a day.
5. If the throat is still sore after three days, go to the healer.
The sheep are not bothered by hoarse shepherds. They cannot tell the difference.
%%
Remedy: for a burn from the forge
Hesk, miner of Copperhold, writing for the hamlet down the road. Summer. The forge is hot, and young ones touch what they should not.
1. Put the burn under cold water at once. Cold, not icy. Hold it there for as long as it takes to say the miners' count, forty times.
2. Do not break any blister. It is a little skin, put there by the body to keep dirt out.
3. Dab a thin layer of honey on the place, and cover it with a clean cloth.
4. Change the cloth each day.
5. If the burn is wider than your palm, go to the healer. Do not argue.
My own burn was from a hot bar. I picked it up. I knew it was hot, and I did it anyway. Do not be me.
%%
Remedy: for a sunburnt shepherd
Rook, shepherd, in the hamlet near Saltreach. Summer. The fields are good and the festival is soon, so everyone is out in the sun.
Take the leaves of the aloe, if you have it, or cucumber if not. Cut them open and rub the juice on the red skin. Do it morning and night. Drink water, a great deal of it. Stay in the shade until the red is gone.
A wet cloth on the neck helps. So does a hat.
Do not rub honey on a sunburn. The bees will find you.
%%
Letter: Cass to his sister
Cass, written at the Halfway Inn.
Dear Nell,
I am sat by the hearth here and the cat has taken my good leg for a bed, so I will not be moving soon. The soup is barley and it is better than the soup at the wall, which you know was mostly water with ambitions.
My shoulder is mended. The healer at Lowmarsh wrapped it in wax and mint and told me to stop lifting barrels. I told her I am a soldier. She told me soldiers are the worst patients and wrapped it tighter.
There is talk on the road. The miners at Copperhold will not go down past a certain level, they say the stone is warm and it hums at night. One man says it is only the pumps. Another says there are no pumps that deep. I keep my own counsel. I have heard stone make noises before and it was only the wind in a crack.
Nell, do not fret. The cough has not come to the inn. I wash my hands and I sleep by the fire.
Your brother, Cass
%%
The inn cat and the sick child
Marta, kitchen at the Halfway Inn.
A family came in from Saltreach with a boy who had the grey cough. The father said they were for the ships and the ships would not take a sick boy, so they came inland instead. They had no money and the mother cried at the door.
Hobb gave them the small room and would not take a coin. I made broth and the boy slept with the cat on his feet, which the cat allowed, being a generous cat.
The boy is better. Not cured, mind, but better. He eats and he laughs at the cat. The father mends our fence and the mother helps me in the kitchen and we do not talk about the ships.
Some folk say the cough is in the water. Some say it is in the air off the sea. The healer Wren says wash your hands and keep the window open, and that is the most sense I have heard on it.
The father says the ships are three times as long as any boat now and they go out and do not come back. He says there is land across the water and nobody knows what it is like. He says it as a rumor and I take it as one.
%%
A sting at the market
Wren's book, copied by Moss at Lowmarsh.
If a bee stings you at the Ambrook market, first move away from the hives. A bee may have friends.
Wash the sting with clean water. Put a cool wet cloth on it. Leave the place alone. Do not scratch it, even if your hand has a strong wish to.
If your face swells, or your breath feels hard, call for help at once. Send someone to Wren's house. Do not send the person who was stung.
Last Swarm, a bee stung Pell on the nose while he praised the honey. He said the honey was still good. His nose did not agree for two days.
%%
Cold hands and feet in Deepsnow
By Wren, healer at Lowmarsh. The Lowmarsh road is shut by ice in Deepsnow, so my remedies go up to the Three Wells stalls on the carts. This one is for hands and feet gone white and stiff.

Know the signs first. Fingers that go white, then grey, then stop hurting are in trouble. Fingers that hurt as they warm are on their way back, and that hurt is a good sign.

1. Take the person indoors, out of the wind. If the toes are white, stop them walking on them.
2. Warm them slowly. Put the hands in lukewarm water, never hot. A hand warmed too fast goes red and then cries out, and so do you.
3. Wrap the hands and feet in dry wool. Keep the wrap loose, so the blood can move.
4. Give a warm drink: milk with a little honey, or beetroot soup with bread. Nothing cold.
5. Do not rub the skin. Rubbing breaks the small vessels, and then the damage goes deeper.
6. Keep them by the hearth, but not too close. Feeling comes back slowly, and it does not warn you before it burns.

Gloves and socks are cheaper than a bad winter. Sew two pairs for each child, one pair for the old, and one spare for the fox, who will steal one of yours anyway.
%%
Remedy book of the hamlet: summer
Rook, shepherd, in the hamlet near Saltreach. The healer of Saltreach asked me to write down what we use in the hamlet, so that it can be copied into the healers' book at the town. I am no healer. I keep sheep. But sheep teach you a great deal about aches.
A word first. We live in good times. The roads are new, and a healer can be reached in a day. The festival in summer is a gay one. The harvest was fine. Few of us are ill. The remedies below are for the small troubles that come with good weather.
For a bruise: wrap a cold cloth, wet from the well, around the place for an hour. Then rub on a little cream of comfrey leaf, crushed with a spoon of lard.
For a twisted ankle: bind it with linen, firmly, and rest it up on a stool. Soak it in cold water twice a day. Do not walk on it for three days. If you walk on it, it will take three weeks.
For a cough: boil a handful of thyme in a pot of water for a quarter of an hour. Breathe the steam under a cloth. Drink the water with honey.
For an upset child: put the child in a warm bed. Give a small cup of barley water, sweet with honey. Sit by the bed and sing. Singing is the best part of the cure.
For a burn: put it in cold water at once and hold it there until the pain stops. Do not use butter. Do not use oil. Cover it with a clean damp cloth. See the healer.
For a stye on the eye: bathe it with warm tea, three times a day. It will be gone in a week.
For a bad dream: leave a lamp burning. Say what the dream was, out loud, in the morning. It looks smaller by daylight.
For a lonely shepherd: a dog, a pipe and a neighbor who calls. All three are good. Two is enough. One is better than none.
These are not great remedies. They are small ones, and they keep us well enough. The healer says there are many more in her book. I am glad of it. Whoever reads this, copy what you like, and do not forget the singing.
%%
Burns from the oven, Ida's way
By Ida, baker at Three Wells. Every baker has burns. Mine are on both wrists, and I am proud of each one.

First, do not panic. Panic makes you grab the tray again.

1. Put the burn under cold water at once. Hold it there while you say the alphabet twice.
2. Take off rings and bracelets before the hand swells. A ring left on a burn is a tight hand by supper.
3. Dry the skin with a clean cloth. Pat it. Do not rub.
4. Spread a little honey on a clean cloth and lay it over the burn. The honey keeps the air off, and keeps the skin from weeping.
5. Bind it loosely with wool. A tight bind keeps the heat in.

Do not use butter. Butter is for the bread. Do not put ice on it either. The cold hurts twice, and the second time you will remember.

If the blister is as big as an egg, go to the healer's stall by the east well. Do not pop it yourself. Popping a blister is how a small burn becomes a long winter.
%%
The market book of small hurts
Marl, mapmaker, wrote this for the Ambrook market shelter in Longday of 203. Wren checked it. Moss added the last note, because Wren said a book should have more than one pair of eyes.

The market is busy in summer. People carry apples, honey, wool and clay pots. Children run between the stalls. Carts leave little stones on the road, and someone always steps on one.

For a small scrape, wash it with clean water. Pat it dry with a clean cloth. Cover it if it will rub against a sleeve or a boot. Change the cloth when it is dirty.

For a nosebleed, sit down and lean forward. Pinch the soft part of the nose for a while. Do not lean back. Blood belongs outside the mouth, not in it.

For a splinter, wash the skin and hands. If the end is easy to grasp, lift it out gently with clean fingers. Do not dig deep with a knife. If it will not come out, ask a healer.

For a bruise, rest the sore place. A cool damp cloth may ease it. Do not press hard to see if it still hurts. It does.

For a burn from a hot pot, hold the place under cool clean water. Do not put butter or ash on it. Cover it loosely with a clean cloth and ask for help if it is large or badly hurt.

At the market song contest, Tam sang a verse about a cart that lost a wheel. The cart was not in the song. The wheel was. Tam said this was fair, since the wheel had done more work.

After the contest, Tam gave me a small beeswax candle for my map table. It was wrapped in a strip of clean linen.
"For the dark corners," he said.
"The map table has no dark corners," I said.
"Then it is a gift for the corners that may come," he said.

A child fell while clapping for the last song and scraped a knee. Moss washed it, covered it, and sent the child to sit with a cup of water. The child asked if the knee could sing next year.
"It may," Moss said. "But it must learn the words first."
%%
Marl's blister note
Marl, mapmaker at Ambrook. For a blister from a long walk to market.
Wash the place with clean water. Dry it with a soft cloth. Do not pull the skin off. If the blister is whole, cover it with a clean strip of cloth.
Rest until the pain is less. If it breaks, wash it again and cover it. Keep the cloth clean.
I made three marks on the road map before I noticed my heel. The fourth mark was a very crooked one.
%%
Remedies for the healing house, summer
Wren, healer, at Lowmarsh. The healing house's summer book, copied out in a clean hand for the healers who come after. The old hand has begun to shake a little, and nobody needs to know why.

For cuts: wash them, boil the cloth, press the bleeding, wrap, and check each morning. Look for red lines spreading out from the cut. If a red line runs, call the healer. That is me.
For burns: cold water first. Honey after. Never fat.
For stings: scrape, do not squeeze. Cold cloth. Wait.
For fever: bog mint in boiled water, a cup at a time. A cool cloth on the forehead. Let them sleep.
For a sore throat: honey in warm milk, before bed. Do as I say. I am a healer.
For a sprain: rest, put it high, and wrap it firmly, but not so firmly that the fingers turn grey. Three days is the rule, and it has never once been four.
For sleeplessness: a cup of warm milk with a spoon of honey, the window open an inch, and a child to tell the story of the boat that went out and came back. Every child in Lowmarsh knows the story. Most of them are asleep before the boat gets home.
For a sad heart: a walk on the boardwalk, in the daylight, with someone who talks about nothing. Frogs are welcome. Sad hearts do not mind frogs.

The cough, as I have seen it this summer. Two houses by the boardwalk. Coughs that come at night and stay through the day, and a grey in the face of the sick that goes off in the morning and comes back at dusk. Honey, boiled water, clean cloth, a window open an inch. Keep them warm, keep them drinking, and do not let them out in the mist.

The talk about it. The people at the boardwalk say it is the water. The boat people say the boats. The men who come back from the mines say it is the mines, though none of them has seen the mines' side of the water. I have not seen the cause. I write what I see, and what I do.

Notes on the helper. The helper from Vell is a good carrier and a poor reader of orders. Give orders in as few words as you can, and make each one finish itself. Stay until does not exist for it. Count the orders you give, and count the ones it took the wrong way, and keep both counts on the same page.

Notes on bees. A swarm will settle on the healing house eaves in Melon. It will not hurt you if you do not hurt it. Put a basket under it, and wait, and do not bring the basket inside.

The jar on the shelf by the gate is still there. It was never meant to be empty. It is for whoever needs it most, and that is not always the one who asks. Look before you assume.

Wren, healer, Lowmarsh. Summer. It has been a long one, and it is not over.
%%
First snow, and the man from the north
Cass, written at the Halfway Inn.
The first snow came early this spring, which is wrong, and everyone said so. It came on the third of Blossom in the night and lay on the new lambs and the apple buds, and by noon it was gone. The children made one small snowman in the yard and it slumped by evening. Old Hobb said he had not seen snow in Blossom in twenty years by his hearth, and his hearth has not gone out in twenty years, so he would know.
A man came down from the north the day before the snow. He had walked from Northpoint, or near it, and he was thin. He said the lights in the sky were back and brighter. He said the keepers had gone and the tower stood empty with its green roof and its ninety rungs and nobody to climb them. He said he heard a fox in the lamp room. He said it as a rumor. He would not swear to it.
He would not say why he left. He ate three bowls of soup and slept two days by the fire and went south with the carters.
I sat up late and watched the snow melt off the yard. It is only weather, Nell. It is only weather that came wrong.
Your brother, Cass
%%
Remedy: for a burn in summer
Wren, healer, at Lowmarsh. Burns come with the summer, and always from the child who was told not to touch.

Cool it first. Hold the burn under cold spring water for the count of one hundred. Do not stop when it hurts. It hurts most at the start.
Then wrap it in a clean cloth, wet with cold water, and leave the cloth on.
Put honey on the burn, the thin kind from the top hive, and cover it with a dry cloth.
Never put fat on a burn. Never, not even if your mother did it, and she was right about many things.
%%
Remedies for the harvest feast
Rook, shepherd, the hamlet near Saltreach, in summer. The harvest was good this year, the best in ten, and the hamlet held a feast. Afterward, as always, there were stomachs. These are the cures I know. They are old. They work.
For a full stomach, from eating too much:
1. Walk slowly round the field. Do not run.
2. Drink a cup of mint tea. Mint is in the herb garden by the well.
3. Lie down on your left side and wait.
For a sour stomach, from eating too fast:
1. Chew a leaf of mint.
2. Sip warm water.
3. Eat nothing more until the evening.
For a headache, from too much cider:
1. Drink three cups of water before you sleep.
2. In the morning, drink another.
3. Eat bread, plain.
4. Do not do it again. You will.
For a stiff back, from carrying sacks:
1. Lie on a flat board.
2. Have a friend stand on your back, lightly, in socks.
3. Do not let the friend be the heavy one.
For a bee sting, from the hive:
1. Take out the sting with a fingernail. Scrape it, do not squeeze.
2. Rub a little wet clay on the place.
3. Say sorry to the bee. It will not help, but you will feel better.
The feast was a good one. The long tables were set in the field. We ate until the stars came out. A few of us fell asleep where we sat. A road has been cut from the hamlet to Saltreach, and the carts came all the way with the fish. Everyone said it was the best harvest feast they remembered.
%%
Remedy: a cut that will not stop
Wren, Lowmarsh. A cut on the hand that bleeds through the cloth, even when you press. Press harder, and hold the hand above the heart. If it still bleeds after the count of two hundred, send for the healer. That is me, and I am usually at home.

Then the lesson, which cost a patient an afternoon.

The helper from Vell was given an order this week: hold the cloth on the cut, and the order was taken as stay. It did as it was told. It held the cloth on the cut for three hours, without moving, through supper and into the dark. The cut had stopped bleeding after the first hour. The helper did not know that. It had been told to stay, and it stayed, and it did not know how to be told that it could stop.

The meanings are only eight. Stay means stay. It does not mean stay until the cut closes, or stay until someone comes back. A small mind cannot hold a word like until. So when you give an order, make the order finish itself. Hold the cloth for the count of one hundred, and then come, and then tell it to go home.

The patient is well. The helper is well. I am writing it down so that the next healer does not have to learn it with a hand bleeding and an apprentice standing very still in the corner, waiting.
%%
Remedy: when an apprentice
From Hesk, miner of Copperhold, for the hamlet nearby. It was written in summer, after an afternoon that Hesk would prefer to forget. Hesk's apprentice is Clank, and Clank is a good apprentice. But every apprentice sometimes takes the nearest of its eight meanings.
Today I told Clank to "hold the lamp." It held the lamp. Then I told it to "pick up that sack." It hauled the sack to the forge. I did not say haul. I said pick up. But a pick-up is a haul to a small mind, and it did the nearest thing.
The sack was my lunch. It was in the forge. It is gone.
This is what to do if your apprentice has misunderstood an order and someone is hurt.
1. Say "stay." The apprentice will stop where it is. That is the safest of the eight.
> stay there
= stay
2. Look at the one who is hurt. Do not look at the apprentice.
3. If the hurt is a bruise, put a cold cloth on it. If a cut, wash it and bind it. If it is deep, call the healer.
4. Only then look at the apprentice. It will be standing as you left it. It has done nothing wrong. It did what it was drilled to do.
5. Say the order again, in the plainest words you have. If the order was wrong, say the right one.
6. If the same mistake happens three times, take the apprentice back to the tutor. Something in the drill is not right.
A note to those who live with apprentices. Be kind. An apprentice cannot say it does not understand. It cannot ask you to say it again. It does the nearest thing, and waits for you to correct it.
Clank has not hurt anyone yet. It has hurt my lunch.
%%
Melon at the Halfway
Hobb, the Halfway Inn, on the Long Road.
A cart came up the road this spring with one melon on it, and the melon took up the whole cart. The carter said it grew by the mill pond at Ambrook and they could not lift it whole, so they rolled it on planks. It was as big as a pig. Bigger. Folk came out to look and the road was blocked an hour.
We cut it in the yard. The children got the first slices. Juice ran to the drain. We gave away all we could not eat and still had melon at every meal for four days. Melon soup. Melon with honey. I am done with melon until next spring.
The carter would not say what they fed it. He only laughed and said the pond is warm this year.
%%
Marl's cut finger
Marl, mapmaker. A small cut from the market board.
Wash the cut with clean water. Press a clean cloth on it until the bleeding stops. Cover it with a fresh strip of cloth.
Keep the strip dry. Change it if it gets dirty. If the cut grows red or hot, ask a healer to look at it.
I cut my finger while shaving a map board. The board is smooth now. My finger is still cross with me.
%%
Remedy: for a bee sting, and a swarm
Wren, Lowmarsh. The bees come to the healing house in Melon, and think they have been invited.

For a sting: scrape it, do not squeeze it. Squeezing pushes the poison in. Put a cold cloth on the sting, and hold it there until the swelling goes down.
For a swarm: do not wave your arms. Sit still. A swarm that is left alone will choose a tree, and go to it, in its own time.

Last Melon a swarm hung from the healing house eaves. I sent the helper from Vell to fetch the basket. The order was plain: fetch the bees. The helper came back with the basket. It had also fetched the bees, in the basket, and carried them very carefully through the back room, and set them down on the high shelf beside the honey jars.

We spent the rest of the day moving the jars, and the bees moved to a tree by the well. The shelf still has a faint hum to it. The order was right. The meaning was not what I meant. I am writing that down, so that I say it more clearly next time.
%%
For a turned ankle
From Wren's book of remedies. Copied for the Ambrook market shelter.
If you turn an ankle on the mill pond bridge, sit down before you try to walk again. Take off the boot and look for a cut or swelling.
Rest the ankle. Put a cool cloth on it for a short while. Do not rub it hard. Do not tie it so tight that your toes grow cold.
Ask someone to bring you home. A sore ankle needs rest, not a brave speech.
Pell gave a brave speech anyway. He reached the inn door by leaning on two baskets of apples. The apples arrived safely. Pell arrived very slowly.
%%
Hints for the road, spring
Cass, for travelers on the Long Road, left at the inn door.
1. Torch on a post every twelve blocks. If you count wrong, count again. The torches are for the dark things and for you.
2. Water at every stream. Fill your skin at the bridges, not the marsh.
3. If you hear the grey cough in a house, do not sleep in that house. Leave bread at the door and go on.
4. The relays are quiet in the north now. Mira at Northpoint used to send word of the weather and the ice, and we have had nothing since the frost. Some say the lamps are out. Some say the keepers have gone south. Send your letters by cart and do not wait on the lamps.
5. At night, keep to the road and keep your fire small.
6. If you see lights in the northern sky, do not follow them. They are not ours.
I marched the wall twenty years and I never wrote a list before. Now I write lists. It is the spring, I think.
%%
Remedy: the marsh fever, and the cough
Wren, Lowmarsh. For the fever that comes up off the water in Longday, and for the cough that has come to two houses by the boardwalk this summer.

The fever: bog mint, a good handful, steeped in boiled water for the time it takes to sing a song. Strain it. Give it warm, a cup at a time, through the day. Keep a cool cloth on the forehead, and change it when it warms. Sleep is the best of the cures. Do not wake the patient to give them the cup if they are sleeping well.

The cough: honey in warm milk, before bed, every night for a week. Keep the window open an inch, so the room does not go stale. Keep the children off the boardwalk after dusk, where the mist is thick and the planks are wet.

What the cough is, I do not know. I write what I see. The houses by the boardwalk have it. The houses by the reeds do not, and the houses on the ridge do not. Some people say it is the water. Some say it is the boats, which bring in strangers and their coughs. Some say it is the mines, which are a long way off and have never been near the boardwalk. I say nothing about the cause in my notes. A note should say what was done, and what happened after, and nothing more.
%%
Remedy: for a hand crushed by a stone
Hesk, miner, the hamlet near Copperhold. Summer. Write this on the tool store door.
Do not pull the hand free by force. Lift the stone first. Then hold the hand in cold water until the shaking stops.
Wrap it in clean cloth. Splint the fingers with two flat sticks. Take the hand to the healer. Do not use it to carry your lunch.
This is for my apprentice's mistake. I said "haul that stone." It hauled the one I was holding.
%%
Honey for a sore throat
By Nessa, tutor at Vell. From my grandmother's healing book, copied out for the singers at the Three Wells contest.

You need a spoon of honey, a cup of warm milk, and a pinch of salt.

1. Warm the milk. Do not boil it, or it sticks to the cup and sulks.
2. Stir in the honey until it melts.
3. Add the salt. My grandmother said salt keeps the honey honest. I do not know what she meant, but it works.
4. Drink it slowly, sitting by the hearth. Then do not shout the next morning.

On contest morning a fox got into the hen run. The singer's sister chased it out with a broom, shouting the whole way. The singer had no voice left. She sang her song in a whisper, and the judges gave her a prize for courage.
%%
A poultice for the grey cough
Wren, healer at Lowmarsh, copied out at the inn for the travelers.
1. Take a handful of dried mint and a spoon of honey. Pour on hot water. Let it steep while you count to two hundred.
2. Have the sick one breathe the steam under a cloth. It loosens the chest for a while.
3. Make a poultice: warm wax on a cloth, not too hot, laid on the chest.
4. Give honey and hot water through the night. Small sips.
5. Keep the room warm and the window open a crack. Bad air likes a shut room.
This does not cure the grey cough. Nothing we have cures it. It helps folk sleep and it helps them breathe. Some say the cough came off the ships at Saltreach. Some say it rose from the marsh water. Some say it came down from the north with the cold. I have my own thought and I keep it to myself.
Wash your hands after tending the sick. Wash them again.
%%
Remedy: for the cut hand
Rook, shepherd, in the hamlet near Saltreach, in summer, in the good year when the harvest was early. Shearing time is full of cuts, and the shears are sharp.
For a small cut:
1. Wash it at once with clean water. Cold water from the well is best.
2. Press a clean cloth against it until the blood slows.
3. Spread a little honey over the cut. Honey keeps the dirt out and helps it heal.
4. Bind it with a strip of linen, not too tight.
5. Change the cloth each morning. Look at the cut. If it is red and hot, see the healer.
For a deep cut, press hard, lift the hand above the heart and send someone running for help. Do not wait to see.
Rook says that the sheep do not mind a cut hand. The sheep mind a cut sheep. Be gentle with the shears.
The road to the healer at Saltreach is now good all the way, with a waymark at every turn. That was not so when I was young. In those days a cut hand meant a long walk and a longer wait.
%%
Remedy for a hot day
Wren's notes, copied by Moss for the Ambrook market.
On a hot day, rest in the shade. Drink clean water often. Loosen a tight collar and cool the face and hands with a wet cloth.
Do not leave a sick person alone in the sun. Bring them indoors or under the market awning. If they are confused, faint, or still very hot after cooling, send for a healer.
At the summer market, the stall keepers all brought water jars. Pell marked each jar on his tally board so nobody would forget to refill them.
He forgot his own jar. Moss found him sitting beside the apple baskets, red as a beetroot and counting bees.
"Those are not on your board," she said.
"They keep moving," Pell answered.
Moss gave him water. He drank it, then asked whether the bees had paid for their place.
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What to do after a wolf bite
By Sefa, who helps at the healer's stall in Three Wells. Last Deepsnow a wolf came out of the trees on the Long Road and bit a farmer's son on the calf. The boy lived. This is what we did, and what I would do again.

First, get away from the wolf. This sounds obvious. It was not obvious to the farmer, who wanted to fight it off with his shovel.

1. Get behind something solid, a cart or a wall or a tree. Keep the wolf out of sight of the blood, if you can.
2. Press a clean cloth on the bite, hard. Keep pressing for as long as a pot takes to boil. Do not keep looking at it. Looking will not stop the blood.
3. When the bleeding slows, wash the bite with clean water. Clean matters more than warm.
4. Bind the leg with a strip of wool, firm but not tight. Check the toes every quarter of an hour. They should stay warm and pink.
5. Carry them to the healer in a cart with straw. Keep them lying flat and keep them talking. A calm voice slows the heart. The boy talked all the way down the road about his dinner.
6. Tell the healer every detail: the time, the size of the teeth marks, and which way the wolf went.

Honey is for spider bites and sore throats. It is not for wolves. The farmer tried it anyway, and the healer had to be gentle with him, because he meant well.

Most wolves are only hungry. Some are not. The stall keeps a list of the ones that are. The list lives under a stone by the east well, where the children cannot find it.
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Remedy book of the hamlet: summer
Written by Hesk, miner of Copperhold, for the hamlet near the mine, in summer. The healer of the hamlet asked him to put down the remedies he knew, and Hesk did, but could not help adding stories. The healer says the stories are the best part.
For a bruise: a cold cloth. For a bump on the head: a cold cloth and a day in bed. For a bump on the head from an apprentice: a cold cloth, a day in bed and a long talk with the tutor.
This is a true story. In the hamlet there is a woman named Dara who keeps goats. She has an apprentice that carries the milk. One morning, in summer, she said to it, "Bring the pail to me."
It did not bring the pail. It brought her. It picked her up, with some care, and carried her to the pail, which was in the shed, and set her down beside it.
She said, "I meant, bring me the pail."
The apprentice did nothing. It had done what it understood. In its small mind the words were something like "fetch" and "come", and it picked the one that fit. It brought the person to the pail. It did not know the difference.
Dara was not hurt. She was surprised. She laughed for an hour. She told the hamlet, and the hamlet laughed too. Then she went to the healer for a sore shoulder, and the healer put a cold cloth on it.
The healer says there are two lessons.
First, for the sore shoulder. A cold cloth on the first day. A warm one on the second. Rest. Do not lift anything heavier than a cup for three days. Drink water.
Second, for the apprentice. When you give an order, say it plainly. Say it once. If you have a mind that can only understand eight meanings, choose the one you want.
> bring me the pail
= fetch pail
That is the right order. Dara has said it every day since. The apprentice has never carried her again.
There was a homecoming in the hamlet that same week. A son of the family by the well came back from a year at Saltreach, where he had learned to build boats. He walked in at the door in the evening, and his mother dropped a pot. Then she ran to him. Then they both wept. The apprentice at that house stood still and watched. It had been told to stay.
I think the apprentice understood. Or I think it did. A small mind cannot say. But it stayed the whole night, and did not go to its corner until the family had gone to bed.
A remedy for homecoming: a long hug, a bowl of soup and a candle in the window. It works every time.
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Remedy for the traveler coming home
From Hesk, miner, to the hamlet near Copperhold. Summer. He wrote it for his brother, who came home after a year on the Long Road and arrived at the door with blistered feet, a sunburnt nose and a very large appetite. It is now copied by the healer into her book.
For blisters on the feet:
1. Wash the feet in warm water with a spoon of salt. Dry them well.
2. Do not pop the blisters. Cover each with a clean cloth.
3. Rest with the feet up for a day.
4. Wear soft socks, wool if you can. A boot that rubs makes a blister again.
For sunburn:
1. Cool water on the skin, morning and night.
2. Honey on the worst places. The bees do not mind.
3. A hat, next time.
For hunger:
1. Soup, first. Something warm and thin, with a bone.
2. Bread, second. Fresh if there is any.
3. A pie, last. The best pie in the house.
4. Do not eat all of it at once. You will be ill.
For tiredness:
1. A bed. Not a bench. Not the floor. A bed.
2. Sleep until you wake. Do not set a bell.
3. When you wake, eat again.
My brother did all of these. He slept for fifteen hours. When he woke, he ate half a pie, and said it was the best sleep he ever had. He said the road is long, and home is longer.
I did not tell him that his old room was now full of ore. I took it out in the night.
