Stasheff, Christopher - Rogue Wizard 10 - A Wizard in a Feud by Stasheff Christopher

Author:Stasheff, Christopher
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

10

The Gregors stopped in their tracks, laughter dying on their lips, rifles rising.

"Good thing you're under a peddler's truce," said the man in the middle of the line. "You Gregors track like bulls blundering through thickets. We heard you half a mile away."

"We must be really bad if a Campbell can hear us," Hazel said with an edge to her voice. "But if we hadn't been escorting a peddler, you may be sure you wouldn't even have guessed we were coming."

The leader's eyes sparked, but before he could dream up an insult, his gaze fell on Moira. He stared; then, affronted, he demanded, "What're you doing back so soon, Moira?"

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"Don't worry, Jethro, I'm not," Moira said, amused. "I've only joined this peddler for company on the road."

"And she's going to the Tossians," Hazel snapped, "not to you Campbells."

"Just like a Gregor-trying to tell everyone else what to do." Alea thought there was something a little weary about the exchange of insults, as though it were a necessary ritual that nobody really enjoyed any more.

"Just like a Campbell, waylaying a peddler who might bypass their clan!"

"Well, as to that, we'd like to ask differently." The clansman took off his hat as he turned to Alea. "We've one took bad sick, miz, and we've heard you're a healer."

Alea glanced left and right and was amazed that none of the Gregors even thought to ask how the Campbells had heard of her so soon. There was a chink in the armor of the clans, perhaps only one sentry calling out boasts to his enemy's watchman, bragging about the healer who had chosen to honor his clan with her presence, and that watchman had told the whole clan, and another sentry had gone out to the far boundary and boasted to a third clan-the Campbells, in this instance.

Which meant they were talking to each other. That talk might be nothing but insults and braggings, but it was communication nonetheless. Alea would have to find out how to use that communication to lighten the feuds, not increase them, that was all.

All! But how? She shelved the question for another day. "I'll heal whoever is ill,"

Alea said, then remembered something else from Herkimer's database. "The Oath of Hippocrates demands it."

"Hippocrates?"

"What clan was he from?"

Campbell and Gregor were both instantly suspicious.

"He was the founder of medicine in a land far away," Alea explained, "the first healer. He swore to heal anyone who was ill wherever he found them-stranger or neighbor, rich or poor, enemy or friend."

Clansfolk were nodding slowly; the idea seemed to make sense to them. Healers and Druids, after all, were neutral. "Well, it's your choice," Hazel said, scowling,

"but I hope you don't expect much of Campbell hospitality."

"Don't worry, it will be better than a Gregor could manage," Jethro said with a glare at Hazel, but it didn't have much spirit behind it.

"I don't heal for pay," Alea said, "neither in kind nor in kindness.

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