First Lessons (A Medieval Tale #1)

Chapter 4

Determination and Discovery

One word described the village: poverty.

There was a dirty 'street' down the middle of the village, where a crowd of skinny children stood around with frightened, hungry faces like stray dogs. Their eyes asked, Is this new person going to kick me? All of them wore gray shirts that came down to their knees more or less, and their dirty hair was cut short on both the boys and the girls. The dogs were as dirty as the children, and their ribs stuck out. The village was surrounded by the forest, and the houses were just huts.

Aliya started to get angry. People shouldn't be living like this! But here they were, and they'd been living this way a long time. They were surviving somehow, but their poverty was her fault. Well, it was actually the former Countess' fault, but the new countess was going to do something about it.

After looking around, Aliya got back in the carriage. Her eyes shone with such fire that Martha choked on her words mid-sentence.

"Who do I talk to here? Is there a village elder? Who's in charge of the village?"

"They're all out in the fields," Martha shrugged. "They won't be back until evening. If you want to talk to someone, there's just Old Mattie."

"Old Mattie?"

"I told you. Her husband was the Comptroller before this one. When Irk died, the master sent us Etor. Don't you remember? Your husband said—"

Aliya stopped her. "Of course, I remember all of that. I was just thinking of something else. Let's go." She wondered how old the woman was if everyone called her Old Mattie.

Martha stuck her head out the window and told the coachman to turn left while Aliya pondered the social rules that might govern paying of visits. She didn't think she could just walk in and say, "Hi, I live over that way in the castle. Have some flowers. I need your help." But if she didn't come up with anything better, that was exactly what she would do.

Her musings were interrupted by a child's cry. Aliya turned to see what had happened, and Martha called for the carriage to stop. Aliya threw open the door and managed to crawl out. Life is ten times harder when you weigh over two hundred and seventy pounds.

The children had been running around in the street, jostling each other and playing games. A carriage was something new, so they were excited. One of the children climbed up on a fence to get a better look and fell. He would have been fine, but his leg hit a sharp piece of wood that left a jagged wound. His friends saw the blood and started to scream and cry. All of this happened just a few feet away from Aliya.

Her reflexes kicked in, and she forgot about everything else—her new body, how she ended up in this new world. She knelt in the dirt by the wounded boy not as Countess Lilian Earton, brainless fool, but as Aliya Skorolenok, one of the best students at the Ryazan Medical School. Her ungainly body and the medieval conditions around her meant nothing. She was facing a person who needed help, and that was all that mattered.

Her voice was soft and calming as she spoke, "Don't worry, he's going to be fine. I can see that your friend is a brave boy, and he doesn't need to cry about a little scrape like this. It will heal over, and the scar will look good on him, won't it?"

She kept talking in a soft voice and carefully pulled the boy's hands away from the wound. At first glance, it was nothing serious. The bone wasn't broken, and no arteries had been touched. The skin was broken, and a muscle was hurt. She just needed to stitch it up and be sure to disinfect it.

"My Lady?" It was her faithful Martha. The coachman stood awkwardly nearby.

Aliya looked up at him. "You there. What's your name—Jacques?"