Excerpt from No Need for Words copyright Traci N. Castleberry
Count the bricks. One, two, three, four . . .
"It's about time Lord Maddren let you come," Rewenna said. Lerryn did his best to keep up with her in the crowded corridors
of the Infirmary. He wasn't used to so many people; he hugged the wall, and continued counting the bricks because he knew they
would always be in the same place, unlike the people. There were those like Rewenna, who wore blue, others in a pale green, and
more people dressed in a myriad of colors. They all looked alike to him, and he couldn't depend on them, because they wouldn't be
in the same place twice.
Five, six, seven, eight . . .
Rewenna kept talking, heedless of Lerryn's concentration. "I admit, I've been a little impatient waiting for you to get here. I
had two cases last week I could have used your help with. How are you doing since he went away on his trip?"
Lerryn counted up to twenty-eight before he ran out of bricks at an open doorway. He stopped walking and gazed inside at
half a dozen students, maybe a little older than himself, listening to another Healer give a lecture.
"Lerryn?" Rewenna touched his shoulder, and he could focus on her again. "That's one of the classes for the regular healing
apprentices, but you'll only be joining them for basic anatomy. Otherwise, I'll be arranging for tutors for you because your dennar
is so different. Come on, now." She tugged Lerryn's sleeve and guided him away from the brick wall and blindly down the
corridor until it emptied of all but a handful of Healers. They stopped when they got to a wooden door at the end, just before an
intersection. Rewenna pulled out a set of silver keys from her pocket and unlocked the door to reveal a closet full of uniforms in
various shades of blue, though none were the entrancing indigo of her uniform.
She gave him a quick, measuring look. "You're still a bit scrawny. Doesn't Jussi feed you?"
Lerryn blinked, confused. "Jussi doesn't need to feed me. I can feed myself."
"Well, then, feed yourself a little bit more. You're fifteen. You need to grow a bit." She rifled through a set of light blue
uniforms on the left and muttered to herself before she yanked out a pair of robes and thrust them into his arms. "Those are yours
to wear when you start your classes, so everyone will know you're an apprentice here."
Lerryn ran his fingers over the soft fabric. More new clothes. Something else he would have to get used to.
"That size should do for now," she said. "I've no doubt you'll grow out of them in a moonspan or two and we'll have to trade
them in for a larger size. Come on, I've got something else to show you." She locked the door and Lerryn followed her down yet
another hallway. This hallway was mercifully empty, with only the clop-clop of his new leather shoes echoing off of the stone
walls.
Rewenna pulled out the set of silver keys again, and smiled when she opened the door at the end of the corridor. "This is
yours, my future Master Herbalist. The Lady knows we don't use it nearly often enough."
"This is yours," Lerryn repeated quietly. This room was like Lord Maddren's arboretum, because he could feel the array of
Others similar to the ones there. But when Lerryn dropped his barriers enough to glimpse into the green world, the Others were no
longer the vibrant green, but faded. The color of dead and desiccated green things, which Lerryn could see all over the room.
Dried plants hung in bunches from the raftered ceiling, and the rest of the sizeable room was decorated with shelf after shelf of
jars, packets of herbs, ointments, books and a small distillery.
He turned to Rewenna. "This is yours."
"No, young one. This is yours. This is Lerryn's stillroom. Do with it what you like."
Lerryn felt a little knot of tension release in his chest. This was his room. The plants and jars and ointments were all his,
which meant he could move them around to where they needed to be. The jars were all neatly labeled, and it looked like they were
organized by name, but Lerryn never thought of them by name. They needed to be organized by what they did.
He hugged the uniform to his chest with one hand and used the other to touch the bundle of dangling herbs nearest him. The
touch brought with it a shock of recognition, and Lerryn fought to find the words that described what he knew about the plant.
"This fixes," he began. "This fixes—" Lerryn's hand flapped a little. He remembered Jussi's words. If you don't know the
words, say 'I don't know the words,' and someone will help find them for you. "I don't know the words."
"That's all right," Rewenna said. "You're here to learn, aren't you? Do you know their names?"
Lerryn buried his hands in his uniform so she couldn't see them twitch. "No." How would he know their names? No one
ever told him, and the book she'd given him hadn't mentioned any plants specifically. He knew what they did, and thought of them
that way. Not by name. Until Orossy had found him, and shown him that this world was more important than the green world,
nothing had a name.
She gave him a curious look. "That's all right. We'll go slow. The first is wormwood, the second, belladonna." She went on
to name a few more, and the sight of each plant brought back an avalanche of information about it. Some of them weren't in Lord
Maddren's arboretum, but he couldn't remember where he'd met them before. Rewenna paused and stared at him. "What's the
matter?"
"I know all this, how." His newfound voice was little more than a whisper. "I know these, what they do, but I don't have the
words. I know all this, how." He took a step back toward the door. "I came from where." The rush of knowledge without
learning it directly from the Others brought with it other images, and the memories of loud, angry voices. Now that he'd begun to
understand what words were for, and how people were supposed to act, the things he remembered frightened him. He wasn't
sure he wanted to remember any more.
"Oh, Lerryn." Rewenna's arms spread wide, and Lerryn accepted her proffered embrace more because it was something she
expected rather than something he wanted to do. Besides, if Rewenna held him, he wouldn't shake. "Sometimes," she said,
"sometimes people forget because it's the only way for them to survive. If you want, some of the Masters at the college are
trained to retrieve forgotten memories . . ." she trailed off. Lerryn knew that people didn't finish their sentences either because
they wanted the other person to finish for them, or because it was a question they were afraid to ask. From the way her voice
trembled, Lerryn decided it was the latter reason.
He didn't want to remember anything else right now, even if somebody wanted to help him. He used his hand to make the
little gesture that meant "not now" before he remembered that Rewenna couldn't understand him when he didn't speak. Lerryn had
to use words. His voice was muffled by her shoulder. "Not now."
"Good. Generally, it's better if they come back on their own, anyway." She held him out at arm's length. Lerryn could
breathe again. "And if they do come back, and they frighten you, you tell me or Lord Maddren. Got that? You're my apprentice.
It's my job to teach you and support you, no matter what."
He nodded, relieved. Rewenna smiled more with her eyes than with her mouth. "You're a good boy, Lerryn. I would have
taken you as apprentice even if you were mind-blind and as mute as everyone thought you were. You have a gift for helping
others."
She let him go, and Lerryn wandered over to one of the nearer shelves and began to take down the jars and line them up
neatly against the wall so he could arrange them back on the shelves in the order he needed to. He didn't have to use his dennar
much; extending it just enough to recognize the contents by its feel was all he needed to get an idea of where it should go.
He also looked at the labels as he went along and started to memorize the names that went with the sensations he felt. Rue
made his head feel like this. Chamomile made him relax and feel like this.
"Lerryn. There's time enough for that later. I have to take you over to meet Healer Deverrin. He's going to be your teacher
for the anatomy class. Lerryn," she repeated, and touched his shoulder for emphasis. "I promise you can come back later and
arrange this how you'd like, but there's other things we need to get done. All right?"
Later. He didn't know when that meant. Better to stay now and finish.
"Lerryn. Come on, now."
He didn't look at her, and continued to arrange the jars. "I come back when."
"Later. I told you." Her voice held an edginess that meant she was getting angry.
"Later means when."
"Tomorrow. After your class."
Satisfied, Lerryn left the remaining jars where they were and preceded her out the door.
#
Lerryn stood in front of the class, rocking back and forth on his feet, uncomfortable as the other seven apprentices, four boys
and three girls, stared at him. He kept his hands behind his back, so they wouldn't see them begin to twitch, and kept his eyes on
the ground, paved stones with shiny flecks of mica.
Rewenna stood behind him and kept her hands on his shoulders when she introduced him. "This is Lerryn. He's my new
apprentice, and in training as Master Herbalist. He'll be joining your class from now on." She crooked her head at the teacher,
Healer Deverrin. "If I could have a word with you outside, Dev?"
Though the words were true, Lerryn had the feeling they shouldn't have all been said. From the corner of his eye, he could
see the expressions of his classmates distort into looks he'd learned meant that they weren't happy as the two Healers left the
room. Master Herbalist meant being one of the senior Healers, a position he would get by default. None of these apprentices could
climb the ranks so easily or quickly.
"Master Herbalist?" one of the boys said as he stood up from his desk and walked toward Lerryn. He looked younger than
Lerryn, but was taller and already well-muscled. "I don't know why the director of the Infirmary is wasting her time with you. I
thought she knew that dennar like yours are outdated and useless. We don't need plants when we can use our dennar to heal
people!" He poked Lerryn in the shoulder, and Lerryn cringed at his unwanted closeness. "You don't even have enough to heal a
paper cut! I could feel it, if you did." He put his face uncomfortably close. "We all could."
"Hakkin, don't be cruel," one of the girls said. "Look, he's too shy to even say anything."
"What's the matter, plant-boy? Are you too shy, or are you mute?"
Lerryn wanted to step away from Hakkin, but that would show his fear. Rewenna had warned him that the Healers with the
pure healing dennar considered themselves an elite, untouchable group and looked down on those with "inferior" dennar, such as
plant-healing, even though the plant-healers could repair the same damage to a body but in a way that takes more time and was less
direct. She said it had been this way for years, except when Lord Maddren's son, the famed Healer Feisal, was present and
devoted much of his time to trying to change their perception.
But Feisal was dead, and Lerryn felt like too much of a weakling to struggle on with his cause. He couldn't even stand up to
Hakkin's barbs. Retreating into his usual silence did no good, and only enticed Hakkin to persist in his teasing.
Hakkin began to circle around him. "How old are you, anyway?"
"Fifteen," Lerryn said, his voice barely audible.
The apprentices all laughed when Hakkin continued. "Fifteen? You don't look a year older than me. You must have lied
about your age. You still look young enough to be hiding behind your mother's skirts for protection." His eyes narrowed in
displeasure when Lerryn didn't outwardly react. Evidently he was used to getting his own way. "Aren't you going to say anything,
Little Lerryn?"
The old rhyme echoed in Lerryn's skull, and he understood it now. He wanted to go curl up in a corner and scream to block
out the words.
Little Lerryn, mad as a heron,
Daft as a stranded crow . . .
Hakkin saw his slight shiver and pounced. "Little Lerryn." His grin was feral, like a coyote loose in the lambing pens. "My
father Roggar is one of the senior Healers here. I've heard about you. Do you want to know a secret?"
Lerryn didn't want to know anything Hakkin wanted to tell him, but it seemed Lerryn had no choice. He couldn't sense the
comfort of the green world near enough, not within these stone walls, and he didn't want to go there with the others watching
anyway.
"Rewenna only took you in because she felt sorry for you. We don't need you in the Infirmary, Little Lerryn. And even if
they do waste the title of Master Herbalist on you, I won't take orders from you and your worthless dennar. But then, maybe I
don't have to worry. You can't even talk!"
Nothing in Lord Maddren's home had prepared him for this, how to defend himself against cruel words like Hakkin's. The
only defense he had was to focus on the floor, on the polished stone with the flecks of mica that reflected in the sunlight. The
green world may not be near, but he could still lose himself in the fascination of a particular color.
"Apprentice Lerryn. You may sit down, now."
Sit down, Lerryn. Sit down, sit down, sit down.
"Lerryn?" His name brought him back to the room. Hakkin was already seated in the desk by the door. Healer Deverrin must
have finished his discussion with Rewenna, but Lerryn didn't remember him coming in.
"Lerryn. Sit down, please." Deverrin didn't specify where. Lerryn looked around confusedly, trying to figure out exactly
what Deverrin meant. The rest of the class laughed, and Lerryn fumbled his way over to the vacant desk nearest the board and the
Healer. "I'll take you to get copies of our texts after class, all right? Until then, just listen, and then I'll give you some homework
so you can catch up to the rest."
His voice was hard to follow, fast and ragged in the way it leaped from pitch to pitch. Lerryn watched him as much as he
could, trying to find ways to understand him with more than his words. Lerryn could read the things scrawled on the board, but
he couldn't tell from Deverrin's voice how important they were. Lerryn had learned a lot from Jussi, by simply going out in the
market and observing people, but here, in a setting where Jussi could not follow to interpret, Lerryn realized how much more he
still had to learn.
The other students didn't watch the Healer. They watched Lerryn, and despite Lord Maddren's admonitions about shying
away from people he slid down in the chair as far as he could and turned his head toward the side of the room. He didn't like their
eyes, but there was no place to hide here.