Free Reluctant Concubine by Dana Marton Page B

and were favored by the spirits as they did not follow the ways of evil. Thus our people came to Dahru and vowed forever to live the one right way, and shun the ways of greed, and violence, and all immoral acts.”
    I did not mention that the Shahala had come to the island before the Kadar, for it was a matter of contention between our peoples. “They swore a solemn oath to help all living creatures and destroy none, and over the centuries, among them were born some legendary healers.”
    “Like you?” one of the boys asked. They seemed much impressed by my work with the wounded.
    “Not me, but my mother. She even healed the old High Lord, the one who ruled before Batumar.”
    “Barmorid,” said another boy. They could all name every High Lord back to the beginning of Kadar history.
    I stood, but they begged me for another tale. And looking at their eager faces, I could not deny them.
    “In the beginning, there was nothing.” I began the story, and they immediately quieted again. “And in this nothing, the Great Mother floated. To ease her loneliness, she gave birth to the planets and the stars. They floated from her body and scattered across the universe. Tired she was from her labors and slept for the first time. And when she slept, she dreamed. She dreamed of plants and animals and people, nations and races. And when she woke, she saw that all she dreamed came into being. But as time passed, all she created did not please her, for her creations lacked spirit. So like a mighty wind, she rose and swept through all there is. And all who breathed her gained spirit, until the last of her was gone into the last of her creation.”
    The boys thought that a strange tale and asked for more, but I ignored their pleading and sent them off to bed. Morning training came early.
    I spent most of the nights checking on my patients, sleeping little. I could always find something to be done. I sought to make up for the lack of my healing powers by doing everything else as well as I knew how.
    The days passed very much the same, and long before the last wound was closed, I picked the creek empty of ninga beetles. I wished I had some moonflower tears, but numaba trees did not grow in the colder land of the Kadar.
    I cleansed the wounds thoroughly with boiled then cooled water, made sure to open the windows every day for fresh air. I asked Talmir to cook the kind of food that strengthened the blood: kiltari liver, whuchu greens, shugone nuts baked into bread.
    In those cases where infection had already set in by the time the warrior reached home, I treated the wound with maggots. Talmir gifted me with strips of raw meat that I left in the sunniest corner of the courtyard for a few days. After a couple of winter flies found it, which did not take long, and the maggots grew to the right size, I picked them off with my fingernails and placed them in a small jar, then rinsed them, careful not to kill any.
    I placed them into the infected wounds and bandaged over them, but not so tightly that they couldn’t breathe. I looked at them daily and changed the bandage that soaked up the pink frothy fluids the maggots produced as they worked.
    They ate away the pus and rotting flesh, until after several days I could finally remove them, easier to handle by then as they had grown fatter. The wound, good living flesh, I cleansed once again and treated with an herbal poultice that warded off further infection.
    And all through this I talked to the sick, talked day and night, about fine feasts and fine battles they would have after they recovered, the beautiful young women who waited, and the strong sons they would have with them. I talked until my stories became so familiar it was as if they had already happened.
    The spirits stayed with us, and not one man died, although I cannot claim credit. The severely injured had not survived the long trip from the battlefield. But the warriors were grateful all the same and chose to think their recovery was a