Challenge #01899-E075: Foreign (First) Aid
What if Coffee was invented during beginning of Middle Ages (5th -6th century) and gave rise to a whole industry of potion makers? After all who says that it can't have much different effects based on how it is brewed? -- Anon Guest
Sometime in the mid-to-late 5th Century...
"This one is a powerful emetic. This one will purge the bowels," the potion-maker showed their apprentice differing vials that were near-identical shades of brown. "This one will strengthen the heartbeat, and this one will speed it up. They all come from the same plant. Where does it grow?"
The apprentice, an orphan named Cheese, stared dumbfounded at all of them. He was not, yet, allowed to use or make the things that Maester Nightsky created in his workroom. All Cheese was currently allowed to do was gather wood for the fires. Nevertheless, inspiration struck. "It comes from where your from. The blackamoor lands."
"Sudan," said Maester Nightsky. "I am from Sudan. And so are these plants. They are called Kafeha. And today, you will learn to tend them."
Cheese's eyes went wide. "I get to go into your special house?"
"The glass house. Yes. I have very many special plants there. They are from hotter places than here..." the lecture went on. Master Nightsky eager to teach, and Cheese listening with an open mouth and a hungry mind. Maester Nightsky showed Cheese how to put his furs up carefully, so they'd be ready for the trip back out into the Briton snows, and then how to water and talk to the plants, and how to know when the berries were ripe.
"You feed those to the goat," said Cheese.
"Yes. For a special blend the potent kind," he said. "The guts of a goat are better than any alchemy I can concoct. And the milk from the she-goat can make a person lively too. Good for peekid babies, but not those who have lost their mother. Those get the milk from goats who do not eat the berries. Very important." Maester Nightsky gave a berry to Cheese. "These are not good to eat for people. You try it, you get sick. Also, the flesh is not the important part." He split the flesh open with his nails, showing something like a bean within. "This is what is valuable from Kafeha. The seed. Green, it does one thing. Flash-fried in oil, another. Slow roasted, a third. It is very important. You must learn to be careful, my son."
Cheese, struck by how pale his hand was in Maester Nightsky's said, "I can't be your son. I'm not a--" he stopped short from saying 'blackamoor' since he got the impression that his master didn't like it. "I'm nothing like you."
"We are different, I grant. And you are not the son of my body. Family is more than the people who make you. Family is who you can come home to." Maester Nightsky ushered him on to another crop. "And in this case, you can always come home to me, so you are my son. This is hemp, but not the regular hemp. A special breed. You see it is short? It can also make pain vanish, and inspire hunger in those who otherwise refuse food..."
So much of it came from foreign lands. Maester Nightsky knew of corners beyond the edge of the Roman Empire, where people on the other side of Suliman's Lands had eyes shaped like almonds and grew bushes of plants for the leaves, which were so valued that they used them for money. They were packed and stamped into blocks with foreign writing on them to show how much they were worth.
Maester Nightsky paid gold for ounces of it, and used tinctures of it sparingly.
Maester Nightsky was the best alchemist in all the lands. He taught Cheese everything, and as Cheese matured[1] he became the Maester and cared for his tutor in his old age. By the time Maester Nightsky passed from this life, Cheese and his sons had branched out, owning a number of apothecaries in different villages. And Nightsky had become a name synonymous with good feeling and expert care.
And, to a certain extent, a welcome home for orphans willing to learn, because Cheese never forgot where he came from.
[1] You'd better believe I went there.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / vojtechvlk]
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