NOBLEMAN ADVENTURER

Broken Leg

A rushed and panicked voice shouted, "Little John fell and broke his leg! Hurry up and come to help!"

Odin ran off in the direction of the ruckus. We found a young boy about nine years old bawling loudly as he held one leg.

I rushed to his side and asked him to remove his hand. I felt the leg bone, feeling for any broken bones. Fortunately, there were none. I helped Little John stand up, but he cried, and leaned his entire weight on me. I helped him to sit back down and said for everyone to hear, "It's a leg fracture. It'll heal in full once we put some splits on it."

Someone went to pull a sapling and began the task of fashioning a leg splint.

While Odin said to me, "Are you a doctor?"

I shook my head. "I know enough doctoring to get me by on the road."

He smiled grandly at me. "Well, that's more than most of us."

After I put the leg splint on Little John, word of my doctoring skills spread among the people. And shortly thereafter, villagers came to seek me out for medical advice. I became a barefoot doctor in this mountain village. A cough, a rheumatoid joint, lower back aches and skin sores were all looked at and medicine prescribed. For the remedies that needed Tradeshop medicine, I would tell them they would have to wait for me to purchase it. And if the medicine could not wait, I'd have to use my precious reserve coins to purchase them. In turn, the villagers would pay me with whatever they had.

For people who learned to live with pain due to their hard circumstances, they ended up worshipping me as a god when their pain could finally be controlled. Some people had their ailments go away completely, while others had to continuously take medicine to ease the pain and discomfort. I prescribed medicine and also left medicine for future possible ailments. Fever reducers and cough medicine were the ones I left in abundance.

The mountain villagers offered me a foraged banquet, one which every villager would eat on a daily basis. A salad of chickweed, broadleaf plantain and dandelion greens were served first. Then a piece of crusty rye bread, baked from a couple days prior accompanied by a bowl of hearty peas soup with small bits of bacon were the mainstay. Wheat bread was only for the rich. These villagers farmed wheat, barley and rye. The wheat was sold to pay for the yearly land tax. The barley was made into beer. And rye was used for baking bread.

The reason why it was a banquet was because they placed a whole roasted rabbit before me. Under expectant gazes, I was to finish the roasted rabbit in its entirety. Of course, I couldn't manage to do this. But I was able to get away with not finishing the roasted rabbit by giving some of the meat to the drooling children.

In the end, the hearty meal made my chest feel warm and I felt if I were to retire someday and settle down from life on the road, I would like to come here.

As they say, every banquet must come to an end. I stayed in the mountain for three weeks. During this time, I gifted the calves to the villagers, letting them know that the calves were shared village property. The villagers here farmed rabbits, but the rabbits were one's own property. The villagers came up with a schedule, rotating the feeding and cleanup duties for each family.

Perhaps, the next time I come, I should bring chickens and more calves. The villagers told me they hunted mountain goats, but these wild creatures could not be tamed as they easily escaped from their pens by jumping high. I wondered if I could bring them the domesticated goats from another village.

These ideas filled my head, until I found myself at the base of the mountain.