Free The Embers of Heaven by Alma Alexander Page A

bed.
     
    The convalescent’s father had initially vetoed the doctor’s being summoned to the house, because such visits cost a lot of money—he had suggested to his wife that they pack up Guan and take him to the doctor’s rooms in the village themselves.
     
    “He will not live through it,” Guan’s mother had said, and had begged, pleaded, for the doctor to be allowed to come. The patriarch finally succumbed, and sent his oldest son to fetch the doctor from the village. Iloh had gone, his mother’s desperate pleading voice echoing in his ears—but it had been a different voice, a sort of strange premonition, that made him pause beside the corner of his schoolhouse, three houses away from the doctor’s home, and stand with his hand on the dirty wall, palm flat against it, oddly convinced that he was somehow saying farewell to the place.
     
    It had seemed to be only an instant, a stolen moment in time, but it might have made a difference if Iloh had not stopped by the schoolhouse. By the time he arrived at the doctor’s, he was told that the healer had just gone out. Iloh asked his destination but was told that the doctor was not an errant goat to be fetched from pasture, and to sit outside the house and wait for his return.
     
    The doctor had taken an hour and a half to come back—from, as it turned out, a birthing in the aftermath of which the new father, a wealthy landlord who already had four daughters but whose first son this had been, had kept him aside for a small celebration. He was not drunk—precisely—but there was definitely a brightness in his eye and a looseness to his step that showed that he was not wholly sober, either. Iloh had jumped up from his seat on the bench outside the back door and had waylaid the doctor as he approached his house—and had been rewarded with a small, almost disinterested frown.
     
    “I don’t really have time to do a house call,” the doctor said.
     
    “But you just came from one,” Iloh said.
     
    “That’s different. They promised me a suckling pig to be delivered in time for the Festival days.”
     
    Iloh thought quickly. “My father has none to spare. But he could give a chicken…”
     
    The doctor shook his head imperceptibly, and made as if to pass.
     
    “Two chickens!” Iloh said desperately, heedless of promising such largesse in his father’s name. “Three, if you make him well!”
     
    “Chickens,” the doctor said with an edge of annoyance. “Everyone gives chickens. What am I to do with more chickens, boy? You can’t afford to pay my fee.”
     
    “Please, sir,” Iloh whispered, “it’s my brother.”
     
    “I’m sorry, lad, but I need to get some sleep…” the doctor began.
     
    Iloh drew himself up to his full height—which was still not much, at nine, but he was certainly tall for his age had promise of more height to come. In any event, the expression on his face made it seem as though he had several extra inches on him that his physical body had yet to provide him with.
     
    “My brother is dying!” he said. “And if I have to drag you all the way, you are coming to see him, tonight. My father sent me to fetch you, and I am not going back without you!”
     
    For a moment, the doctor—taller and wider than his diminutive opponent—actually seemed to shrink in Iloh’s presence, but then he reminded himself that this small person that threatened him was a nine-year-old child and had no real power over him.
     
    “Sorry, lad,” he said. “Bring coin, tomorrow. No chickens. Better still, bring the patient and we can see what can be done for him. But not tonight. Out of my way.”
     
    He left Iloh standing there in the path with a hot coal of frustrated fury in his belly and eyes burning with something that was almost loathing. The boy actually went back to the house and banged open-palmed on the door, calling for the doctor to come out, but he was ignored and after a while he made his way back home, empty-handed