The steam rising from the clay pot mug smelled of dried garden mint, scorched well water, and the faint, bitter tang of willow bark.
Paxa Sel didn’t hand the mug across the table. Instead, she took Kezra firmly by the right elbow—giving two light, upward tugs that meant stand and step in the shorthand they had hammered out on the road—and led her out of the kitchen. They walked past the silent row of Davren’s old cobbling lasts in the narrow hall. Then they stepped out onto the broad limestone door-slab in the late-afternoon sunlight.
Behind them, through the south foundation wall, the steady, rhythmic thwack of Maud wedging sixty pounds of heavy clay continued without a pause. It wasn’t a wild beat. It was the deliberate, steady, unrushed pace of a woman working out her fury with her forearms. That turned the dense grey lump quarter by quarter. It drove every bubble of air out against the oak planks before it could turn to steam in a fire.
Paxa sat down on the right side of the threshold. There, the sun had warmed the stone, and handed Kezra the second mug. The healer arranged her rough wool skirts around her shins. It set her medicine pouch within arm’s reach against the door post. Then it took a slow, thoughtful sip of her infusion.
