Disclaimer : I attribute this to a trip to the dentist and needing to wait till my pain
Authors Note: I have finally! Finally broken the hold this chapter and the previous one had on me. I've decided I am happy with 35, horrible old women and all. And the next chapter should be easier to write. It may even go up in a day or so. As always - please point out typos, huge discrepancies and suddenly cut off sentences. Sometimes I miss them.
~Chapter 36 –A degree of Faith is Forged~
Horses rushed by. Big glossy fat horses with brocaded saddle blankets and black lacquered tack, laden with silk tassels across their breast bands. They tossed their heads and fretted, stomping and dancing as their riders drew rein. From what could be seen of the men through her screen of leaves they wore rich arrangement, unarmored but serious of face. One carried a large bundled shape carefully before him. Kagome held her breath and shrank deeper under her bush.
"You there! Peasant! Stop groveling and tell us where the nearest healer is!" commanded the most elegantly dressed. Kagome crouched deeper into the vegetation hoping that there was someone else visible. And that no harm would come to them or her.
"Oi. Come out of there!" The tip of his stick of office jabbed her in the shoulder as the man leant down and poked her. "You're not fooling anyone in there. Not in that bright jacket."
Blushing Kagome crawled out from under the foliage and bowed meekly. "I am very sorry. You startled me."
"Enough. You will take us to the nearest healer," she was informed. "And with haste."
"I… um… I don't know this area… I am a traveller but I do know some healing myself. I am a miko you see." Kagome offered. The spokesman raked a glance down her battered red over jacket, somehow mercifully Japanese in style again, to her silk bound feet.
Kagome's ears glowed. "I have had some troubles recently trying to get back to my own shrine. What is the matter – I may be able to help."
The spokesman scowled at her and his horse danced nervously on the spot, rolling it's eyes, he reined it in brusquely. "I very much doubt…"
His words were cut out by the large bundle behind him whimpering and spasming. The horseman holding it cried out and struggled to prevent his charge from falling. Several of the other riders dismounted and flung their reins aside, rushing to help.
The cloth wrapped form turned out to be a boy of seven or eight, blotched and feverish. His teeth chattered and occasionally he jerked in violent convulsions. Kagome was instantly by his side, resting a hand over his forehead.
"I've not seen anything like this before," Kagome said biting her lip. "And you have no medicines with you? Nothing?!"
They shook their heads and Kagome's heart sank.
"Nothing but trail food. We'd no time to do more – we had to escape the plague," one of the horsemen offered.
"A Plague?! And this child has it?!" Kagome asked, her heart sinking further. Photographs of the diseases that had plagued depression period Japan danced frighteningly from her memory, barely watched history documentaries from school reared their terrifying heads.
"Not when we started out," was a defensive reply. "He's our Lords only son! We couldn't leave him once he took ill!"
Kagome bit her lip and then remembered the crone's rice bowl. "Have you water… better yet water and tea… Have you any tea?"
The spokesman looked at her as though she was deranged. "The child is dying of the plague. Tea won't do anything."
Kagome drew in a deep breath and straightened, calling on the arrogant theatrics she had used to fool the giant she drew herself up and fixedthe lead horseman with her most authoritive look. Almost unconsciously she drew on her reiki, drawing the glittering holy power around her to mask her shabby clothing and smudged face with a heat wave of purity. In her sleeve the bowl sang like a prayer bell and Tensaiga at her hip hummed enthusiastically.
"I carry with me the sacred item of my shrine, a Cup of Destiny. Only let me fill it with tea and, if the gods will it, I shall heal the boy."
The spokesman attempted to stare her down but behind her, awed by the sense of purity that had washed over them all like a spring breeze one of the horsemen scrabbled for his saddlebags while another freed a waterskin* from his saddlebow. Kagome kept the leaders gaze and she could see him bristle at this undermining of his authority. He did not stop them however.
"The water is already warm from being beside my horse's flesh… will it do holy one?" Asked the young man that bore it to her, awe and a faint degree of fear written on his face. Inventing shamanistic flim-flam even as she took the water, smiled at the man and turned to the man with a small bamboo canister of tea she reassured them.
"The strength of your horse will be in this water, and the swift growth to recovery will be in this tea, granted by the bamboo that has carried it." Kagome rinsed her hands carefully, drying them on a cloth proffered silently by the headman.
She held out the teacup for it to be filled by it's holder with one hand. With the other hand she gestured for a teaspoon's worth of tea to be tipped into her palm. Ceremony was half of the magic in religion. Kagome had been raised to these tasks and from her O-Jiji* knew how to embellish them. She closed her fingers tightly over the tealeaves.
"Shinjuku, Harajuku, Shibuya, Akihabara*!" Kagome changed softly, blowing on her closed fist and embuing the water in the teabowl and the dried tea with as much Reiki as she could. Hopefully that would deal with any bacteria. She fully intended to test her reiki with a microscope when she got home again.
Another idea occurred to Kagome as she shook the leaf from her palm into the cup. Transferring the still damp cloth to protect her hand as she directed her spiritual energy into the cup, heating it as she had her firewood in the past. The water simmered. The tea leaves would be scalded, bitter, but the water sterilized.
Looking at the reflection of the child in the teas surface proved harder than she had expected. Eventually she bade the strongest of the horsemen, all of whom had since dismounted and were watching her with a gamut of emotions that ranged from reverent to disbelief, to lift the child carefully. As the old woman had described – a small dark man knelt at the boy's feet.
Kagome let out a deep breath of relief. "The gods are merciful. Let him sip from this sacred vessel and all will be well." She glanced at the head horseman, expecting some opposition. He looked searchingly at her and she noted a glimpse of pathetic hope behind his rigid face.
Oh Gods be kind. Let this work. Please do! Kagome sent up a prayer as she rested the tea bowl on the lad's lip and tilted it. Weakly he began to shake his head, spluttered and swallowed. A second sip and Kagome withdrew the cup, watching in awe as his feverish blush faded and the gaunt face became healthy again. The boy opened his eyes and looked up at the large man cradling him in his arms. A slightly peevish voice piped from his mouth. "Akibi! Why are you carrying me?! I am a grown man now and no one should carry me!"
The child struggled to stand and his captor gently lowered him to the ground, helping him get free of the swaddling fabric that had held him. There were shouts and tears and then, as a man, all but the confused child in his under robes, they knelt reverently to Kagome and bowed their heads
~o0o~.
As the revived boy was lifted onto a horse the Spokesman, Hiruki-san, completely thawed by Kagome's success, having introduced himself, asked in a hushed voice, "Your sacred charge is truly a gift from the gods. How do you come to be travelling alone and in such a …"
"Untidy state?" Kagome finished smiling wryly and inventing furiously. "It was decided after the third bandit attack on the pilgrimage that a single humble petitioner would be more pleasing to the gods than a vermillion palanquin with attendants. Alas the gods saw fit to break my journey several times. Yet I hope to soon return to my shrine."
"It would seem the gods have favoured us, while halting your progression. A terrible illness has struck our town and our Lord's household. Will you come and set it right with you divine gifts Miko-sama?"
Kagome hesitated. She should hurry to find Sesshoumaru but how much of this crisis was real and how much Benten's invention? She had been given an amazing gift. To not use is would be a greater evil than she could allow. For all she knew this was where she was meant to be.
"Yes Hiruki-san. I will give what assistance I can."
~o0o~
*mon are family crests. These round designs are seen on formal kimono, as decorative features on precious objects and in architecture. The hollyhock crest, paulonia plant and chrysanthemum are all commonly seen designs.
*This is plot device that I felt I had to admit as very probably wrong. The Buddhist teachings that travelled to Japan earlier than the sengoku included not eating red meat or using animal flesh. Hence leather and animal bladders for storing water or wine is OUT. Ceramic vessels on horseback are a silly idea. A bamboo watercanister would have probably been used but bamboo is a bit insulative and wouldn't warm up. And damn it! If you're going to make tea the water needs a bit of temperature to it.
*Ojiji – Grandfather. Horribly anglified in Vis comics into "Gramps" from memory.
*Shinjuku 新宿, Harajuku 原宿, Shibuya 渋谷 and Akihabara 秋葉 are all stations on the Tokyo loop line. ^_^ Fine Juju-chant for a medieval period where the language will have changed distinctly since.