Part II. " Apothecary,"

Chapter 10. "Early in the morning..."

* * *

Grandpa had a book of memoirs by Thor Heyerdahl in his library. A long time ago, Lena had read there how once, in a state of medical anesthesia, the great traveler had a vision of several circles that connected without any gaps and kept their shape. The vision was vivid and logical, but after waking up, the dreamer could not remember how it happened. The same thing was happening to Lena. The girl was besieged by vivid, frightening images, from which only vague images remained when she awoke. The visions were like a frayed arrow - impossible to reach and forget.

Dreams imply complete involvement, otherwise, they are not dreams at all, but ordinary fantasies. And accordingly, when one realizes the virtuality of what is happening, the fairy tale ends. Well, or not a fairy tale at all, depending on your luck. Elena was unlucky. Another nightmare seized her, one of those that appeared almost every night for more than six months. She was unlucky twice - she literally "dreamed" in reality, but the understanding that the dream was unreal did not help at all. Vague but threatening visions stretched in an endless series, like an old yellowed film with "cigarette burns".

Church. Celebration. Most likely a wedding. Lots of people, it seems, are artisans with apprentices. Apparently, the daughter of not the last shop master is getting married. Her face is invisible, always in shadow, her image blurred as in a mirror of badly polished bronze. Pantocrator's blessing, white capes with a green border, symbolizes purity and the beginning of a new life. Groom. Yes, only the groom can have such a face, and it, unlike the bride, is reflected very well in the dream. A simple open face of a simple and very happy man.

But somewhere in the distance, beyond the horizon of awareness, a dark streak appeared, like a storm from the sea, still far away but rushing with the speed of an express train - in a world where no one knows what an "express train" is, and the horse is the measure of all travel. And no one feels any danger.

Serene happiness reigns here. People whose lives are not long and filled with hard work are more able than anyone else to enjoy every moment of true happiness and serenity. And the storm is getting closer... It is still invisible, but it already looms over the holiday. Like in a good movie, where the cameraman and the sound unobtrusively emphasize - something will happen.

A storm is coming...

The haunting horror gripped her like the web of the Gray Shadow, softly enveloping every thought, dragging her deeper and deeper into a personal hell of terrifying phantoms.

The groom's strong hand, with its fingernails nearly trimmed, covers the bride's palm. He has the calluses of a hammerhead and the many smudges that metal pickling acid leaves behind. A blacksmith? Yes, not a weapon maker. He makes armor. He would eventually become a great craftsman and buy a charter with the right to have his workshop and brand. His armor will become famous in the West and the East. Even the sailors of the Island will order it. The smith does not know such words and does not understand the physics of the process, but the dreamer knows that the future master has discovered a way to saturate steel with carbon, strengthening its structure. So much so the forged metal can withstand even the arrows of crossbow knights from the south.

The bride has thin fingers, which already have unstretched wrinkles from the constant care of the home. Women's lot is not easy, even in wealthy homes. Equality is equality, but everyone must do the work they can do. A girl nurses her younger sisters and brothers. She takes care of the fire, fetches water from the well, cooks, milk a cow, makes butter, gathers firewood, changes candles and lamps, sews, embroiders, and spins, keeps the house clean and tidy, and grazes and feeds cattle. The bride has the hands of a girl, a woman, and a mother, who holds the world, for so it is said in the scroll of the Primordial of the world.

They will live a long life. Not always happily, but tightly. And they will not die on the same day, but one will not make the other wait long until mortal time ends. And the big family will mourn the old ones...

It will be.

And that will never happen.

Because the storm is coming. The calamity is already here. There is no escape. And he will die, struck down in a single blow. She, on the other hand...

Elena woke up. As always, in the same place, at the climax of the nightmare, when the inner eye has seen the terrible ending, but the mind has not yet had time to comprehend the vision. And all that remained was a feeling of something extreme, utterly hopeless.

Horrible.

No wonder the night was so disgusting. Mr. Cat didn't seem to be home at all tonight. Sometimes Lena was glad that the dream ended the same way - she didn't want to know what was (or only would be?) next. Sometimes she was angry, hoping that maybe the exact knowledge would relieve her from the feeling of the forbidden creepiness, the uncleanness of the dream. But there was always the annoying feeling of someone who had peeked through the keyhole at a piece of someone else's life, even though one could have just opened the door. If one knew how.

However, let the dreams remain in the world of night dreams and the day - the cares of the day. Quickly rinse herself in the deep bowl she had prepared the night before. She usually shudders at the sad thought of what the skin of her face and hands will look like in a few years, when tar soap, baked grease, and a clean towel are the pinnacle of cosmetic tricks.

Clothing. A handkerchief around the neck - spring brought a light but treacherous breeze from the ocean, imperceptibly and easily leading to bronchitis. An obligatory cap with a hemmed scarf falling down the back to hide the color of her hair. Lena would have gladly cut or dyed her hair. It was too conspicuous, even if it had darkened over the year. But neither of these things suited her status in society. Dye could only be obtained at the Venerable's brothel, and a short haircut would have put her in the category of a fully self-sufficient and independent woman such as Shena. But to be like Shena, you had to be able to kill like Shena. So Lena braided her braid and tucked it under her headdress.

The town was waking up. There were never any alarm clocks here, but the inhabitants were accustomed to living by daylight since birth. Rising at dawn, going to bed at dusk. A huge moon gave much more light than the earth one, but the very concept of nightlife was completely incomprehensible to natives - why? People worked during the day and slept at night unless they were engaged in some reprehensible activity, drank themselves to death, or went underground for Profit. That was the way Pantocrator originally set it up, and rightly so.

Downstairs, on the first floor, Mouse, the housekeeper's all-around handy, was already rattling about. There was a distinctive smell of burning oil shale. Saphir was heating the hearth. Outside the window, a junkman was pushing a four-wheeled cart, making a muffled curse over the unworthy citizens of this part of the Gate who'd grown too lazy to slaughter each other. So the night was peaceful, and once again, no one was killed, leaving the junkman, with no bonus for the corpse. The town had been relatively peaceful of late, so the famous duel between Santelli and Augen was still the brightest bloodbath of the year. Some of the brigadiers were even beginning to grumble that it was getting boring.

She pulled on her socks, which looked like slippers made of thin felt, and pondered briefly, choosing between wraps and button-up leggings. She decided the leggings were better, and they were quicker to button, and she was late enough as it was. Pantocrator forbid Matrice to notice the apprentice was late going to the market.

Pantocrator... Pushing the round wooden buttons into the threaded slots, Lena smiled sadly. She looks like a local, works like a local, and is beginning to think like a local. It was already quite natural for her to think in local terms, like "Pantocrator," a local monotheistic deity common to the whole (or almost the whole) continent.

It remained to adjust the cap, tighten the straps under her chin, and check that not a single strand had escaped from under the unshrunk cloth. By the touch. A small mirror made of polished metal plate allowed only to make sure that parts of the face were in their former place.

In general, the first three and a half months of Elena's new life were marked by sheer amazement, which turned into horror. The fact that you can't just look in the mirror. First, you have to buy it, and for the gold. From the fact that for a normal wash, you must draw water by hand, melt the hearth, heat the water, wash before it cools, and then the most interesting thing - clean the soot from the cauldron. With sand, with her bare hands, and figuring how many centuries later they would be able to invent rubber, rubber vulcanization, and the pinnacle of human civilization, household gloves. It turns out that a man can die just by pricking his finger with a rusty nail. Or, after eating a pie, diarrhea because there are no refrigerators, of course, and glaciers are expensive. To light a candle, you first had to make a fire with real incense and chaff.

And so on.

In general, the life of an isekai in a certain "medieval" turned out to be similar to the attraction, only not of adventure but of domestic horror. However, after six months, the girl was more or less used to her new life, and now, more than a year later, we can say that she has adapted. Not completely, not without Mr. Cat's help, but so much so that at times she already catches herself automatically remembering Pantocrator.

The wooden stairs creaked. Descending, Lena habitually stepped over the penultimate step, which should have been replaced long ago. The wooden soles clattered against the wooden stairs like hooves. She felt like going out on a binge again and buying new shoes after all.

Mouse was scrubbing the kettle and mumbling something under her breath, rather unkindly. She was a typical maid in her thirties, who looked twice as old because she had been in the grueling, weekend-long job since she was five or six or so years old. She seemed to hate the world, but she didn't go beyond a general, unaddressed hatred.

On the contrary, Saphir, a native of the far south, greeted Lena rather warmly but did not turn away from the hearth. The miserly grandfather saved firewood, and the flammable slate itself, which looked like gray mica with black flecks, did not ignite properly. A pot of yesterday's porridge, sparingly seasoned with bits of rutabaga, was already waiting on the table to be heated. Or, rather, what Lena decided to think of as rutabaga because the vegetable did look like a turnip, but it was beet-red in color and bitter than a black radish, so it had been soaked for at least a day before it was cooked.

Matrice was still not back from the warehouse, where she had been disappearing since last night, taking another shipment of Profit. The sinister aunt's business, in general, was clearly divided into two parts, which hardly ever overlapped, at least obviously. Lena had already become skilled enough to handle the usual apothecary business, but she had no idea what was going on in the inconspicuous warehouses where the landlady dealt with the "tarry" brigades. Nor did she want to know.

The absence of the landlady meant that Elena would most likely have to open the Apothecary. When to open? Well, it's quite simple - take the approximate hour when the first vendors gather at the market, count ten "long" prayers on the Attributes of Pantocrator - that's the time. That is, we must hurry to go to the market. She had to give up breakfast in order to have everything in time for the opening, and she didn't want to gulp down a cold one.

Knock, knock, knock. The wooden pads pounded against the stone of the sidewalk, interwoven with the similar clatter of dozens of feet. Lena threw the empty basket carelessly over her shoulder. It was necessary to greet everyone who was supposed to greet, respond to counter greetings, and not miss anyone. At no time should you forget that you are not yourself but the face of the Apothecary and Matrice personally. This is very important in a world where everyone belongs to someone and something. By breaking the rules and by showing disrespect, you bring down the honor of the corporation. And the corporation has the right to punish you.

The gloomy spring sun crept lazily over the horizon as usual, hiding behind the clouds. Lena did not like bright sunshine, but this overcast gave her a feeling of late autumn and an unpleasant chill even on warm days.

Just to say hello and bow a little to the armorer's wife, the one who sells arrows and guts for crossbow strings. A big woman in a baggy cape over her dress only waggled her chin, and that was all right.

Knock, knock, knock.

After five minutes of walking and about fifty acts of respect and reverence, Elena arrived at the market, which traditionally occupied the central square. More accurately, the vacant lot, which was considered a square. It was not even paved with stone, unlike the two main streets, on one of which stood the Apothecary. At the main entrance, an old double gallows stood orphaned, empty for obvious reasons, and no one had been executed there for years. The children had long ago converted it into a swing to make sure it was not wasted. But it was a little early for games, so the ropes just hung there, giving off grim surrealism in the style of Herman Junior... Or was it Sr. Or should it even be called postmodernism? Lena couldn't remember and mechanically shivered as she walked past the structure.

Gate was called respectfully, and from the point of view of the inhabitants of the wasteland, it was a rather large population center, in fact, a regional center. In Elena's view, it was a large village, with six hundred permanent residents and an equal number of others in a state of Brownian motion, on their way there or thereabouts. And the village made an impression of a panopticon because it was built, you might say, at the junction of two differently oriented architectural concepts. Poor buildings were built frame way when the wooden boards were put between the columns on braces and between them with special beater rammed construction mixture based on clay, dung, finely chopped straw, and other debris, as they could find. Once dry, the mixture hardened and turned into a section of the wall. It was miserable and short-lived but cheap and warm, especially, if you do not save on straw. For the richer houses, they used to reconstruct buildings left over from some old, half-tale times of the Old Empire, about which no one could say anything.

Time... Lena came from a world of linear time, which was fixed by records of events. Into the world where all events were stored and transmitted through memory and stories. For a person, there existed only what their grandfather, father, grandmother, and mother could tell them about. Anything beyond the collective memory of two or three living generations was immediately relegated to the infinity of the forbidden antiquity. How long had the Old Empire existed, of which a part of the cyclopean fortress wall and some half-destroyed buildings remained? No one could tell.

At the same time, time also played the role of distance measures. Everything that went beyond simple measures was evaluated in foot and horse traverses of varying intensity. "How far" turned into "How long this journey would take". Going after Profit, Santelli's brigade knew precisely that with a normal load, it would be able to wander on the Wastelands for about a week, that is, walk about halfway to the coast and back again. There was no way to translate that into kilometers or miles for lack of a standard, Elena knew.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Meanwhile, the market was already bustling with the morning rush. Right at the entrance, a carpenter made a billet of a deep wooden bowl on a primitive but efficient lathe with a foot drive made of a board, rope, and counterweight. As usual, Lena lingered a little longer, admiring the work. She liked to watch how the experienced hands outlined the wooden logs step by step, from kegs to spoons and flasks. It was a demanding job since the heaths were mostly willow-like trees with thin, flexible trunks, convenient for weaving from branches and forming in a steam bath but providing too little material for construction and other work with chunks. Therefore, good wood was mostly imported and was already expensive, and the price of a mistake and wasted material was measured in full silver.

Things hit Lena's perception the hardest. From the world of assembly-line production and other "guaranteed wear and tear," she found herself in a world where absolutely everything was made by hand and only in one copy. No two items were exactly alike here. And everything was incredibly expensive relative to her weekly and monthly income. There were no such things as "to wear temporarily," "for the season," and so on. Things were bought for years and often for generations, with the original expectation of repeated mending and successive staggered recycling. The shirt was worn down to a hole-in-the-hole condition, then turned into a vest. The vest became patches and scarves and so on until the last thread wore out or burned in the wick of an oil lamp.

The craftsman worked with two sons of about ten or so years old. One was sharpening a semicircular chisel on an old bar, with which the master would then smooth out the blank for the future bowl, picking out the excess on the machine. The other was just beginning to carve the spoon blank from the wood, sticking out his tongue with eagerness and firmly gripping the knife backward.

"Done," said the foreman without taking his eyes off his work.

"White wood?" just in case, Elena clarified.

"It's as white as it gets. Give it there."

This last was no longer said to her. The apprentice, who was whittling a large chef's spoon, put aside his pole and took out a double wax tablet - a writing board made of two halves fastened with cords. [3] Lena examined the product meticulously. Everything was as it should be: the base was white oak, and the wax was darkened with resin, for if it were not dark on light, but vice versa, it would be impossible to write - no lines could be made out. The wax surface is smooth, poured in one pass from a ladle rather than dripped from a candle. Excellent work and yet another reminder that even the seemingly simplest things are actually made with great craftsmanship.

I had to pay, without haggling, a full-fledged coin, the daily wage of a good foot soldier with his servant. The cabinetmaker never haggled at all. He simply set the price. If you didn't want it, don't take it. Even though Lena paid from the purse Matrice had given her the day before for the Apothecary's property, her heart skipped a beat.

Minus one concern. Next was to buy some herbs to grind for the evening. Lena walked past the shoemaker, one of the three who shoe made all the Gates. She sadly admired her dream of leather boots. The apprentice, painstakingly weaving grass insoles, caught her sad look and, instead of cracking the usual ribald joke, sighed understandingly. He was only wearing stockings with hemmed soles, the usual thing for villagers and poor people.

In fact, leather shoes were not that complicated or expensive. A typical brògan was a boot as high as the ankle or mid-shin. The front part of the shoe.was cut lengthwise, and when put on, the foot was wrapped around with a flap of leather from inside to outside and secured with ties, hooks, or cleats, or, less frequently for women's shoes, with buttons. Often even boots had such a flap and wrapped long cords around the whole height of the cuff. It was comfortable and even a bit stylish.

The problem was the sole - it was treading and scuffing through the "limit," that is, the distance that a courier or a small detachment with good spare horses[1] would cover in a day. The hell knows how many kilometers it is. There was nothing to correlate it to. Bad weather and mud shortened the service life by at least a third. And properly treated double or triple sole with horseshoes or nails, as they would say in Elena's home world, "put the product in a completely different price category." Because it went on a solid goatskin, but there were no goats on the Westlands. Therefore, often even quite wealthy people rattled leather shoes on wooden soles. They made them, she must say, very skillfully, often making the sole of two halves on a hinge.

Thus, good shoes - not fancy clothes, not a luxury good, but just good shoes - cost a few pennies of silver and required strict budgeting over months. This was a luxury Lena could not yet afford. Matrice was well aware of her apprentice's complete dependence and paid the girl no more than three groschens a day for work that would otherwise have cost at least six.

Further on, further on.

She passed the chaser, who used a chisel and a tiny hammer to hammer "gliocas" out of a sheet of thin tin - Lena didn't know the Russian name for shoelace lugs.

Past the seamstress who was threading the lacing holes in the new sleeveless jacket so the threads wouldn't come loose. Loop rings for through holes were not new, but they were very rarely used in clothing.

Past the "drummer," who shouted for people, and the preacher, who preached about the benefits of washing, shaking the hem of his fairly clean cassock defiantly. Despite the early hour, he had already gathered a small audience who were listening. Not respectfully, but at least with curiosity.

"And so, in the purity of mind and body, you will leave this world to go to a better world!" ended the minister of the cult.

"And where can we get fire for washing?" someone from the crowd sneeringly voiced. "The water needs warming, and fire-rock is expensive these days!

The clergyman didn't hesitate to answer:

"And when you die, He will ask you - my son, did you keep your body clean? And you honestly say to Him - forgive me, Father and Comforter, I did not care about your commandments because I was sorry for a few extra pennies!"

To the general offended laughter, the critic hurriedly retreated. Elena walked on toward the herbalists.

A frowning, obviously sleep-deprived "tar man" brought the "drummer" an old chainmail with rips, yellowed from the raid, apparently picked up from a corpse. A few pennies were exchanged, and the cleaner slipped the armor into a "skinner," which looked like a small concrete mixer. He twisted the knob, and the armor spun in a barrel of sand, cleaning off the rust and dirt.

At the alchemist's shop, Lena bought a quarter cup of sulfur for an ointment for joint pains. All sorts of arthritis and nail problems were the bane of the "tar men," who plundered the dungeons off the coast, hunting "healing" creatures. It was about to be the season for these brigades, so there would be plenty of ointments, and it made sense to stock up on the ingredients ahead of time.

As usual, when dealing with yellowish combustible powder, Lena sadly recalled her attempts to make gunpowder. She didn't remember for long, though, because she had to make way for the cemetery keeper. The cemetery grandfather dropped his recent sadness and very cheerfully rolled his "hearse" with a freshly dead body. Very fresh, the blood was still dripping through the boards of his cart, leaving a dotted trail, trampled by passersby. Judging by the dead man's distinctive hair and mustache (who, incidentally, was not stripped naked for some reason), he was a visiting brether from the Kingdoms. Not a common bird, though, not exactly rare. For a moment, Lena thought her grandfather was carrying Ranyan's body and a warm wave of hope shot through her heart. But no, it seemed...

Too bad. She would have gladly taken the dark-haired routier to the creepy, terrifying Farm. Alive or dead, it didn't matter as long as it was a one-way trip. She was tired of flinching every time she saw the ominous figure, wondering if Ranyan recognized her or not... Tired of hiding her hair. She was tired of playing up her exaggerated Southern accent and reminding herself every minute that, according to legend, she was just another refugee from the continent. Tired of exhausting labor for a pittance, almost a handout. Tired of being afraid. And something told Lena that no matter who placed the order on her, the offer wasn't off the table.

And the dead man seemed to have been driven from the market stall, where there was a certain amount of excitement. It seemed that even the familiar beard of Santeli flashed. However, Lena did not want to communicate with the brigadier any more than she did with Ranyan. The servant, meanwhile, had brought out another load of dirty pewter bowls from the canteen to be washed. Lena shuddered again, like at a postmodern gallows.

She had learned long ago that a person could get used to almost anything, but only almost. And you can tell yourself all you want that letting the pigs lick the dishes and then rinse them clean is reasonable, given the lack of hot water and dogs, which could be used according to Strugatsky's recipes. Especially since the local pigs hardly looked like the fattened pigs of the era of compound feed and scientific selection. They were lean, athletic, and surprisingly intelligent creatures, weighing no more than twenty or thirty kilograms,[2] more like big bull terriers. Still, it was a shame.

The blacksmith was not to be seen today. The special set Lena had ordered on behalf of the Apothecary would not be made for another five days, maybe even later. It was easy to explain to the master what she needed by showing her diagrams on wax tablets. The smith could not understand why saws and knives should not have any bone or even wooden handles, leaving only bare polished metal, having decided the apothecaries mocking his skills. So he worked on the order like in a classic Soviet movie - "I can't do it in ten days. I need an assistant."

And here was the cart with the "hogweed". Of course, it was not hogweed but something very similar. On the one hand, the weed was harmful and deadly, but at the turn of spring and summer, it bloomed and turned out to be a worse allergen than ragweed. For two weeks or so, all traffic in the Wastelands came to a standstill because about a third of the lesions ended in death (apparently from anaphylactic shock), while the remaining victims were condemned for the rest of their lives to special masks with wet soaks of the local plantain analog - the pollen burned out the respiratory tract mucosa completely.

On the other hand, collected by special collectors in layered robes and those very masks, the grass was dried and sold for real silver. It was even "exported," mostly to the northwest, to the Baronies. When used in washing or bath, broth of hogweed did not harm health and skin at all, but destroyed all small parasites and bloodsuckers like lice and bedbugs. And "tar men" was used a dry bundles in hikes, against parasites and to repel the characteristic smell of unwashed body, to which all sorts of entertaining creatures would come from the darkness.

Lena was lucky in one respect: she was in some more "advanced" version of the Middle Ages. Here bodily cleanliness was not only encouraged but directly prescribed by religion. Every God-fearing person had to wash at least once a day and wash their clothes at least every week. It seems that this attitude to cleanliness (as well as the position of women in society) was one of the consequences of a little-understood but monstrous cataclysm that swept over the continent centuries ago. But Elena had not yet been able to find out more about it.

A row of herbalists began just beyond the cart. Lena prepared a basket, repeating her shopping list to herself.

Crying root - causes lacrimation, and "gives lightness to the eye". It is often used by novice brigades. Concentrated decoction sharply and permanently improves night vision, it is useful for going under the ground, and you can save on "eternal lamps". But there are nuances... Take. Here one can haggle, but without fanaticism, for the procedure.

And here is Triclin, good proper two-year-old shoots, when the plant is already in vigor but has not yet vaporized its power to seed. The juice of Triclin is good to treat chafes, as well as smears on burns. Summer is coming, the time of the "evil sun" is coming, and they need to stock up. Only the juice needs to be "clarified," that is, filtered, so it keeps for a long time. Let's take it. And to it necessarily Vesil, this strengthens the kidneys, which is very useful when the excretory system is overloaded, removing toxins and decay products from the body. And that's what happens with burns.

Paraclete herb, a local panacea. Dry, pour hot water in the evening, but not boiling water. Take "on a lean heart", that is, early in the morning, before a meal. Increases the tone and purifies the blood and intestines. If you add watermelon syrup, significantly relieves stomach pains. The only thing that helps drug addicts who are hooked on drinking ether dope (which actually should be inhaled) and puked up to an ulcer (judging by the symptoms). But it requires complete abstinence from alcohol a few days before and after the course, otherwise, it leads to terrible diarrhea turning into dysentery. It is said that for churchmen, the herbal shoot is a secret sign, roughly like the fish of the first Christians. A symbol of bodily health, requiring knowledge and austerity. There's a lot of chatter, though. We take it.

Balzevets or "hard root" - compresses for poisons, especially field hornets. No, this is last year's harvest; it will be time to stock up on fresh ones closer to fall.

And here is plantain, which looks like burdock and aloe simultaneously with very stiff fibers - "it creates great space to the breathing veins, pulls wrinkles and drives out warts". Indispensable for superficial skin lesions. It is sold directly in pots with imported soil because it does not take root in the local soil. But a fantastic thing is that the Wasteland water not only doesn't harm the plant but, on the contrary, multiplies its healing properties. The leaves are wrapped in wet rags, corked in jugs, and taken on raids for compresses on abrasions and shallow wounds. And fiber threads from the shoots should be carefully pulled, soaked in vinegar, and sewed wounds. It is not even necessary to extract them from the scars. Treads dissolve themselves. She needs to arrange the delivery so the cart with pots is brought to the Apothecary. And a deposit.

Sunner seeds are for chewing. They are very bitter, but they strengthen the gums and brighten the teeth. Lena suspected this crap also has anti-scurvy properties, but she hasn't been able to check it out yet. She bought some, purely for personal use, to bargain for a penny. The later she has to resort to the wonders of local dentistry, the better. Even sleepy leeches did not help with toothache, so by a good tradition, the suffering came to pull a tooth in the company of at least four friends to hold hands and feet. And five, if the operation plan was to put to death the diseased nerve by concentrated extracts of Balzevet. A gruesome procedure.

And here's the most valuable thing of all. Dukes' Rod is a very rare thing, it is reliable, but at the same time gentle in expelling kidney and bladder stones... but it's hardly ever used for that purpose. The herb is also lucky enough to be a powerful aphrodisiac, so Matrice buys it up outright, blends it into elixirs, and resells it to Gee at an entirely different price. It's a good idea to have a Water Navel as well as a Risnica for abscesses and sores, as the liver and kidneys are going to die from an overdose of stimulants. Perfect pharmaceuticals - the drug sells itself and pulls a few more in addition.

Again, no haggling. The prices of the ingredients for the aphrodisiacs are always negotiated by Matrice herself. And the money is measured in advance in a separate leather wallet with a seal.

Chernaba - grind dried berries and make compresses against "wild meat", that is tumors and scar tissue.

Beer Berries are completely neutral, but the powder from them adds flavor and a nice sourness to bitter-astringent elixirs.

Babon - to drink with hot wine for swelling.

That seems to be everything.

Lena imagined how, towards evening, she would begin to grind it all until the pungent smell of herbs made her dizzy, and she shuddered. And tomorrow. And the day after that. But there was not much choice. As Santelli had rightly remarked at the time, the girl's hands were her capital. Sensitive, not "crammed" by years of work to the point of losing fine motor skills, but at the same time, strong enough. And all this for three pennies a day, damn it. With the unspoken straightforward but distinctly felt threat of otherwise seeing the figure of Ranyan on her doorstep one day, who this time won't miss his victim for a few minutes.

Something else had to be done... And quickly because soon it would be time to open the Apothecary. Lena quickly went over her shopping list in her mind and then realized that it seemed that she would have to wrap it up right now.

There had never been any messengers in the town, for they were completely unnecessary. It was enough to call any child, and for a quarter of a penny, he would deliver any message within the city limits. Or even further, but for half a penny. And so, amidst the baskets, barrels, wheelbarrows, hats, hoods, and capes, there was a wispy head that was pointing very purposefully toward Elena.

The boy was quite typical, that is, ragged, barefoot despite the chilly morning, and pretty out of breath. He pressed his right fist to his skinny chest, with the other hand over it to be sure. This meant that the boy had been well paid, much more than usual, or the coin would have been in his mouth, behind his cheek. And that could only mean one thing...

"Hel?" exhaled the messenger and immediately corrected himself. "Master Hel?"

As he spoke, the boy exhaled all the air and gasped for air. The "Master" nodded silently, slipping the heavily weighted basket onto her other shoulder. She checked her fanny pack with the money. Pickpockets were rare in the Gate, for when a thief was caught, he was escorted back to the Farm, alive if possible, without further legal proceedings. Those who managed to get out of it were remarkably clever and inventive. They were capable of diverting the attention of their victims with a clever move.

"There ... that ..." exhaled the young messenger as he continued to clench his whitened fingers with the reward. "Well ... that ... that's..."

Elena waited until the boy finally managed to produce something articulate. And he didn't let her down, giving off a solid rattle:

"There Mr. Ian brought a wounded man with a leg that is just horrible and blood yellow and no Matrice and when she will be no one know, and Safir sent for you to tell that the vein under the wound barely beats, here!"

And immediately disappeared, only flashed black heels, keratinized to the state of hooves.

Elena translated the tirade into meaningful concepts and hurried to the Apothecary. If it was really that serious, then if she'd forgotten anything, it would have to wait. "Yellow blood" and "a vein barely beats..." Ceud mìle diemonis cursdadt an talamh agus an abyzes aif hal!

The day promised to be unboring from the start.

* * *