The Blackthorn Key

“Did someone attack you?” I said. “Was it Stubb?” I shrank back. “Was it the killers?”


“No.” He tried to turn away, but his movements were clumsy, twitching.

I took his arm. “Let me help you.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Please, Master. Let me take you to your room.”

After a moment, he nodded. I lifted his right arm to wrap around me. He cried out in pain. It was then that I saw his coat was torn at the shoulder.

I took him through the back and upstairs, the lantern lighting our way. His weight, resting on me, seemed to grow with every creaking step. At the top, I nudged the door open with my hip and brought him inside.

Master Benedict’s bedroom smelled faintly of Egyptian incense. Against one wall, next to the fireplace, was a narrow bed with plain brown cotton sheets and a single pillow. A simple table stood beside it, one short leg steadied underneath with folded sheepskin. A chamber pot rested on the rose-carved elm chair near the desk at the open window; the desk was covered with papers and ash dust from the incense holder, blown off by the night’s breeze. The rest of the space was piled with books, stacks and stacks and more stacks, each one at least a dozen high. Isaac the bookseller, I thought, must be swimming in gold.

I weaved my master through the books to the bed and laid him down as gently as I could. I looked at him for a moment, unsure of what to do.

Master Benedict trained you, I told myself. You are ready for this. It calmed me.

I lit the lantern on the table using my own, closed the window shutters, and poked at the coals dying in the fireplace to give him some warmth. Then I looked him over. Downstairs, I’d thought his coat was torn, but in better light, the charred, crumbling wool and blackened skin underneath gave the truth away. He’d been burned. My heart burned, too, toward whoever had hurt him.

“Rest a moment, Master,” I said.

I ran down to the workshop, trying to remember everything my master had taught me about treating burns. I hauled two buckets of water up to his room. Then I went back and searched the shelves for the remedies I needed. One of them, a cream of powdered silver, was already out, the one my master had pulled down when I was asleep. I balanced the jars in my arms, added a small tin pot full of water and a mug on top, then went upstairs.

Master Benedict lay on the pillow, breathing slowly. He watched me place the pot on the fire and line up the jars on the table beside him. I started to pull off his coat, but he flinched when I lifted his arms, so I used my knife to cut it away at the seams. It was ruined anyway, its future value only as rags.

I was relieved to see that while the skin of his shoulder was blistered, he wasn’t badly burned. I washed away the soot, and that from his face, too. I scooped dried poppies from one of the jars into the water boiling in the pot on the fire and, after a minute, poured it into the mug beside the bed. The poppy was the best pain reliever God had gifted the world with, and the infusion would relax him as well.

Master Benedict sipped at it as I worked. I smeared the silver cream on his burn, to prevent the flesh from rotting. Then I wrapped a cloth around it, tying it under his arm, and removed what was left of his filthy clothes.

He looked so frail. He’d never seemed old to me, but tonight I saw every year in him, all aged skin and bones. Still, otherwise, he appeared unharmed, except for his palms, which were cracked and raw. The wounds didn’t look like burns, so I slathered his hands with aloe sap and wrapped them as I did his shoulder.

“You’ve learned so much,” he said softly.

I flushed, embarrassed, but proud. “Thank you, Master.”

He began to speak again, but his voice choked. His eyes were wet, ringed with red. My heart ached. I’d never seen him cry before.

“Can I do anything more?” I said.

He reached out and touched my cheek with his fingertips.

“You’re a good boy,” he said.