“Everyone fails,” he countered, firmly and unwavering. No hunter could claim to catch everything they chased, and he was certain this was true with her as well. “Your prey will escape most often. You learn of your mistakes from this.” Certainly, a child should know better than any what it was to fail. Enkiel dropped his hand and loosened the earth around the plant as he continued to speak, eyes focused on his task alone. “If you are in pain, yes. Some illness wracks the body; you may sleep naturally, but the sleep will not be what it needs to be.” Coughing, for one, was something that kept a man up. When Sa’adat had come with malaria, he had caught the disease and suffered through it with her. How lucky they had been that it had left; he would not have been able to treat the whole clan as he had the jackal woman and himself.
“I know because that is my duty. I studied them; I know their names, and their uses. There is no simple way to say if something can heal or harm. Plants are complicated. You could easier tell of danger from a snake then you could a plant.” For snakes, after all, showed universal signs for what they were—poison came with bright colors or Brahma’s markings on their hoods, pointed heads and rattling tails. Enkiel had watched snake charmers as a boy and once (and only once) seen a man struck by a cobra. He had been a thief, and mistaken the basket for one of worth, but the lesson had stayed with him.
