Sixth Son: Villager in Another World 6

Six.

My family crowded around the straw bed that I lay in.

“Do you know who I am?” Dad asked.

I nodded.

“Ma?”

Another nod. As Ma pointed to each of my brothers, I showed an appropriate number of fingers for each of them, then six for myself. They seemed relieved that I could recognized them all.

However, I did not recognized my surroundings. The house was a wood with daub walls, and a sloped, thatched roof similar to our own. Unlike ours, the smoke air carried the scent of the grass and herbs that hung from pegs on the walls and the rafters. I also caught a whiff of my sweaty body and made a face.

I struggled to rise, but Ma pushed stopped me with a hand.

“Primus, get a basin of water,” Ma said.

My eldest brother left. He excused himself from someone as my brothers and Dad parted. My matronly mother yielded her position to a lovely woman with an olive complexion and curly strands that escaped from her head scarf. She was the village herbalist and our neighbor Agnes. I had probably been carried her.

“How are you feeling?” Agnes asked.

I opened my mouth to answer, but no sound would not come out. I licked my dried lips. My mother gave me a cup of water. I drank, but the words were stuck.

“Are you feeling feverish?” she asked as she felt my brow with a calloused hand.

I shook my head to fever, nausea, and each of the symptoms that she named.

“Can you do something besides shake your head?”

I nodded.

“He can count,” Ma interjected.

“That’s a good idea. Let us test his wits with math. What is two and two?”

I answered with my fingers. A few questions in, a voice that was high for a girl, but deep for a boy interjected.

“What is five times five?”

“Helen!” Agnes scolded.

“You made me learn that by that age, Mother,” her sullen answered.

The girl was thin with smudged, knobby knees and pointed elbows. Leaves, grass, and even a sizeable twig stuck from her disheveled hair. Her shirt and pants were dirtied to match. Agnes turned and blocked Helen’s path.

“Don’t come a step closer,” Agnes challenge.

“I just want to see how the pint is doing,” Helen answered innocently.

“I forbid it, I won’t have his head shaved, because you gave him nits.”

“Nits? I don’t have nits,” after scratching her head, she amended her statement. “Well, not many.”

“Step outside and stay outside for the time being,” Agnes hissed.

My brothers noisily shuffled against the walls as Helen noisily stomped out of the house. Meantime, I had pulled out straw from my bed and arranged them into a pair of X’s and a V. Agnes saw the straw and patted my head with a smile. Primus returned with a basin of water and a piece of cloth.

My father stroked my head before heading for the fields. Except for Quintus, my other brothers clasped me on the shoulder before leaving me to my bath time.