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“Indeed, just passing through.” Apollo approached the man. I followed. “What are you doing there? Gardening in the open woodland?”
“Seeking medicinal herbs,” the man said gravely. “Perhaps the most frustrating truth of medicine is that not every patient reacts the same way to every remedy. I have a friend with a recently broken leg. While it is healing, the redness and swelling, his fever, none of it is lessening, and I fear he is not long for this world if I cannot temper it.
“The right salve, the right tea, the right decision might save him, but it is like a riddle. I am moments from solving it, yet the final details elude me.”
“I am very sorry to hear that.” Apollo knelt beside the man. “I have some knowledge of herbology. May I ask what you have tried so far?”
The man told him of the various herbal concoctions he had attempted, some even I was familiar with. I had rarely been ill as a child, but I broke a bone after a tumble during a footrace once, a silly thing, where I pivoted my ankle, but my foot betrayed me and chose to stay in place. The bone snapped. I was lucky, I had been told, for less clean breaks caused more trouble, were rarer to heal right, and were far more painful. Once realigned, mine healed with little complication.
Another acolyte with a similar break died in the throes of a terrible fever only a year later. Bodies were fickle, and at the time, I believed so were the gods.
“Ah, difficult then that you have tried many trusted remedies, but your friend remains in peril,” Apollo said. “You have my sympathies. Perhaps it is the doctor now who needs to rest.”
“No, not until I solve this—” The man reached toward the herbs around them, sage I thought, but Apollo caught his wrist.
“Friend, trust me, a weary healer can do no healing at all. Your mind is overtaxed, sluggish. Your efforts are noble, but you would think clearer after a break and some thyme and honey tea.”
“No.” The man wrenched his hand away. I wondered if he would be so fierce if he knew he defied a god. His anger was not directed at Apollo though, but internally, and his expression immediately softened. “I appreciate your concerns, but I cannot rest. I cannot risk that his condition might worsen until I… I…” His eyes widened like the high-noon sun. “Thyme. Yes! I recall an instance of thyme aiding similar symptoms. I haven’t tried thyme!”
The man leapt to his feet. The glade was in some high elevation of the hills and not far from a small settlement, in the perfect conditions for a patch of thyme to be growing nearby.
“Please, will you help me gather some?” the man asked of us as he ran to it. “The more the better, so I might add it to both tea and a salve to speed the process. Please.”
“You needn’t ask twice, friend. Of course we will aid you,” Apollo said.
I didn’t hesitate to follow his lead as we gathered thyme alongside the healer. When he deemed it enough, he led us to his home in the settlement. The abode was modest but had two bedrooms, one he used as his own, and one as his healing room, where his friend lay on the bed in a fitful sleep.
The leg did look inflamed, especially around a sewn-shut wound where I assumed the bone must have protruded when he broke it.
We helped the healer prepare the herbs, mixed with others, along with honey, and oils. When all was done, the salve applied, and his friend fed the tea, though he barely roused to full consciousness even as he drank it, we sat with the man at his sitting room table.
“Please, stay for a meal and some of that tea, while I pray to Apollo that this time my efforts are enough.” He said the last almost under his breath, but I knew even if he’d prayed in thought alone, Apollo would have heard him.
Again, I had to wonder, what would this man think, what would he do, if he knew the very god he prayed to was in his home? I could still hardly believe I was in his company myself.
“You’re a courtesan?” the healer questioned when we had finally conversed enough to better know each other. Although as far as he knew, Apollo was the very shepherd he’d guised himself as.
“Former courtesan,” I corrected.
“It was not the life for you?” he asked.
“I loved it, but something was missing, and the gods had better plans for me.” I slid my eyes to Apollo, and he seemed content with that answer.
“Might there be any bread and olives left for me?” a tired, croaking voice drew our attention to the room’s entrance. The friend was up, standing with a walking stick that had been placed beside his bed. His forehead was sheened with sweat, but the red, swollen, and angry wound was less so now. “I’ll take wine too, if you have it.”
“Theo!” the healer raced to his friend, nearly toppling his own chair back in his haste to leave it. “More tea is what you’ll take. You shouldn’t be out of bed yet!”
“Ah, but with my fever broken, I feel like I could climb a mountain.” He hobbled closer, and his friend kept him steady with a tender and careful embrace. Theo wrapped his free arm around the healer’s back and sagged against him. Whether only friends or lovers, their reunion made my heart feel full.
“You really, really should still be in bed.” The healer sniffled. “I can bring you something—”
“Let me stay,” Theo insisted. “Just for a little while, so I might sit with you and eat something in good company. The conversation I woke to has been riveting.” His eyes turned to the table as their embrace ended, with the healer keeping an arm around him, lessening reliance on the crutch. “A courtesan of Aphrodite in our midst? We have never had anyone in this settlement more elevated in the gods' eyes. A pleasure, even if you were reduced to picking herbs.”
Apollo and I both laughed.
“I didn’t mind,” I said. “To see you roused, friend, it was an honest honor.”
He joined us for the remainder of the meal, but while the worst seemed to be over, he still had much recovery ahead and more of the medicine would be needed to keep his fever and the inflammation at bay.
