It was very typical for the village of Eagleton, and many other similar communities, to celebrate system day with a party or festival, but this year’s party had been more intense as they were celebrating a new young talent being taken to the duke, and also sending him off. The next day was a late start for most of the village, or at least a late start as far as mornings in remote farming villages get. Most people were up only a little after dawn, animals and crops still needed tending even if you had a hangover. Some woke in their beds, carried there by friends and family. Others woke in hay lofts or in the houses of friends. A few woke in ditches or at the side of a road when they tried to walk home and didn’t quite make it. Unaware of most of this, I woke up with my arms around Madeline in the front room of her shop.
After the mayor pulled her aside the night before and explained some of the situation she had forgiven him, and by extension me, slightly. What followed was a night of drinking, singing, storytelling, and rounds of dancing, after witch people started fading away to their beds. Both I and Madeline tried to help each other to her bed, but we hadn’t made it. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I was sure how I felt about her, but my mind was still reeling from everything that happened the previous day, and drastic life changes could lead to poor decision making.
I had a few minutes to ignore my headache as we laid propped against her counter inside the threshold to her shop and home before she started to wake up. Even now she was beautiful, early morning light beaming through the windows making her blond hair almost glow, she stirred against me and it made my head start throb again.
“Ugh.. My head.” Madeline croaked out, and she pushed of me to get to her feet, staggering over to her counter. She rummaged around before pulling out a pitcher of water and guzzling directly from it. After a few seconds she handed it to me. “Drink as much as you can, it will make the healing easier.” I took the half full pitcher and drank to the point of feeling painfully full. “This, should make it all better.” Madeline said raising one hand in the air, she clenched it into a fist and a bubble of gold energy pulsed out, as it washed over me, I immediately felt my hangover fade. “hmmm, that’s much easier and a lot more effective. I cant believe I’m giving you a discount.”
“Just a discount?” I ask, unable to keep an eyebrow from quirking up, I felt better than I had in weeks. Its not just the hangover that’s gone, my mind feels more clear than before the accident. The healing energy effects my body like drinking the perfect cup of coffee on a rainy morning, I feel refreshed, rested, and relaxed while full of energy. She hums a tune to herself as she picks up a sign board laying on the counter and using a piece of chalk writes, ‘hangover cure: 1 copper’ before hanging in in her shop window.
“Just a discount, you still owe me, Matiaus Millerson. Now get up and be useful in some way besides looking good.”
I stand up, testing out that none of my joints have any pain after having slept in an awkward position on a wood floor all night. “All I have is yours, Madeline of Eagleton.” On one hand it's an easy thing to give, I own nothing, all my family’s wealth and land is legally my father’s. As family head, anything anyone unclassed earns is his to do with as he sees fit, but I do mean she can have me.
“Maddie!” She says in an exaggerated scandalized tone and slaps at me like I reached out to her. “What book did you even read that in? We aren’t even officially betrothed and can't be till you have your class recorded. I can’t with you this morning, I have a village worth of hangovers to cure!”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She continued to arrange things around her shop we had knocked askew in our ill-fated attempt to find the stairs to her bedroom. I helped picking up fallen objects while I stole glances at her with appreciation for her form, for her part I’m sure she didn’t have to bend over nearly as far to pick up a fallen mortice and pestle, and I’m sure I caught at least one small smile from her. Reluctantly, I tore my eyes away and looked at the shop, really looked. Glass cases full of dried herbs, tinctures, and cures sat in a glass top counter than ran the width of the shop. Shelves lined the walls with vials and jars of different sizes filled with different colored liquids or dried goods, each one had a small slip of paper tied to it with a description and price. I knew that some potions and material were for trade and others had been bought from merchants for use in the village, but the majority had been made by Madeline and her mother. There were oil lamps mounted on some of the walls, but no soot stains around them, as the shop rarely needed to be open after night fall. Along the back wall were two doors, one to the storage area in the back cellar, the other lead to the second floor living area. A place that Madeline’s mother had defined as off limits to boys old enough to shave. At the front of the shop were two large single pane windows on either side of a solid wood door.
Even with our gawking and flirting, we quickly got the shop in order, and she went behind the counter to start dusting. Fortunately, I’ve said and done the wrong thing enough times that I can sometimes know the right thing to do. I looked deep into her bright blue eyes and said the three words that would win a woman’s heart, “I’ll get breakfast.”
“How?” was the only question she had.
We had maybe an hour before the first people would start wander through the village and looking for a healer, “why don’t I pop over to the baker’s and see if they have anything cooking?” I asked and that brought a smile to her face.
“Ugh, that would be just right! Don’t hurry, I need to freshen up.” Madeline said as she dropped a dust rag on the counter, leaned over it to give me a quick pec on the cheek then bounced up her stairs with a glance back at me to make sure I was watching.
This world was a curious mix of rustic aesthetic and modern convenience, skills and attributes allowed for the comforts of industrialization without the footprint or implications of factories. Cottage industry could output glass panes as well as any factory on earth. A village healer could make all the pharmaceuticals for a county this size and have the same impact as a fully staffed trauma unit, surgery, physical therapy, and ICU. From one perspective, she was a walking hospital, but from another perspective, her proportions were jaw dropping and part of me wanted to ignore everything else and chase her up the stairs.
My stomach growled and reminded me of my current mission.
I made my way a few buildings over, to the baker, they were selling fresh baked bread and smoked beef sausage. Even if the rest of the village was having a slow start, Mrs Baker was not one to let her family and employees sleep late. The woman herself was standing in front of her shop wearing a grey dress, flour dusted her apron as she sat out tray of fresh bread. I ask asked her to put a half dozen loaves of bread a dozen sausages on my family’s account, then strolled back to the healer’s shop and home with a tray stacked high. On the outside the shop was two story building built from uncut stone, I let myself in and leaned against the counter, letting the smell of breakfast tell Madeline I was back while I ate my portion. After a few minutes she came bounding down the stairs wearing a fresh brown dress, the same as most of the women in the village but none of them would fill it out quite the same way.
She scooped up a loaf of bread and took a bite “breafash!” she said around a mouth full. I chuckled, at that, but still felt choked up about what I had to say.
“They said I cant stay here, Madeline. I have to leave, but I wanted you to hear it from me.”
“Well, how long will you be gone?” she asked after swallowing her bread.
“We didn’t get that far, but I feel like it will be a long time before I can return.”
She wilted, her chipper morning demeanor crushed by my news.
“But why Mattie, so what if you have a rare class option? Even [Healer] training was only two years. What could they want with a rare miller class for so long?”
I took a breath, ready to lie, to keep a secret out of habit, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t be sure my judgment was right, but I knew I had to trust somebody without being forced. So I told her.