As the healers waited for Edwin to get the letter of approval from Cardinal Leo, they decided to be proactive, for once. In Alfredo Lavern’s house there was a wine cellar, and so, the healers gathered there.
“If we get found out,” healer Edward Dalhart looked shiftily around.
“Then we will be known as the ones who acted, for once!” Snapped healer Ella Rose.
“Colleagues, don’t think about what could happen. We are here to get some work done. What do we want?” Asked healer Alfredo Lavern, the gathered crowd.
“For our hands to be untied!” Spoke healer Ella firmly. “To be able to do what Roberts can, without being necromancers.”
“It is a teasing dream,” said a healer to her right. Alfredo attempted to remember his name. Hugo's something. “But can he really back the entire world? He got famous, or rather, infamous, when he got kicked out of the Mitestone Academy for Healers.”
Murmurs of agreement spread among the gathered healers. Alfredo looked the naysayer in the eyes.
“But, should we continue to be inactive? To have to ask permission and health insurance for the smallest of hurts? I had to treat a child in secret in this very cellar just three weeks. One who was suffering from the coughing sickness. The treatment is simple, is it not? Then, why can’t we use it?” Healer Hugo lowered his gaze. He must have been treating people too, Alfredo was certain of it.
“The coughing sickness is conquered. The world has herd immunity of it now,” spoke Hugo, as if that excused their inaction or them having to hide while healing.
“But what of the next plague, healer Georg Higgs?” Alfredo blushed at getting the name of his colleague wrong and was glad he had not addressed the man with it. Ella was not done, though. “What of the next time you are faced with someone who doesn’t have insurance but is poisoned, has broken bones or is contagious? Law dictated we leave them be! Outrageous! No wonder, Roberts doesn’t care that he is a hedge healer. There is no honor in the healing profession anymore!”
Georg Higgs opened his mouth and then closed it. Alfredo was glad he agreed with Ella, and he was even gladder that the older woman was here and lending him support.
“Now that we all agree we are puppets who want their strings cut, let us get down to business. Write everything you disagree within the current way of doing things on the papers you were given when you entered the house. Come now, chop, chop,” Alfredo was glad Ella took the lead.
Looking at his paper, he placed it on a wine barrel and began to write. He saw that some other healers have written on both sides of their papers and were asking for another. Alfredo smiled.
When the clock chimed three times, announcing ten o’clock, all the papers were gathered. Alfredo took out his personal decoder and placed all the papers inside and closed the heavy tome.
“Search for repeating themes,” wrote Alfredo on the cover of the decoder.
We want to heal everyone despite health insurance, to be considered as a loan from the nation.
Alfredo wrote down the first theme and nodded at that. These healers were not pure altruists like Roberts, and neither was he. Footing the bill for all the sick sounded good on paper, but it just couldn’t be done. Even Roberts asked some of his patients to foot their bills, or so he had heard.
We want smaller shifts, no more than 12 hours and more healers to be approved according to their practical knowledge and not politics.
Just as Alfredo was writing that down, his wife came down, looking panicked.
“The guards are at the door!” Panic spread among the healers, and they began to push towards the exit. Alfredo was disgusted. Where had their revolutionary zeal had gone?
“Stop!” He shouted, and all the frightened healers around him did so. “We will go to jail, it is true, but we are healers. No one will torture us. Roberts will get us out.”
“So, we let ourselves be captured?” Asked Georg Higgs, now visibly shaken.
“We are law-abiding citizens,” spoke Ella with thinly vailed contempt. “And that means not running away from the guards like scared children.”
The healers got in line and made it to the front door, expecting shackles. Yet, the guards were smiling.
“We knew you will pull something like that,” Alfredo noticed that the guards were all in civil dress code. What was happening? “Thorold Hafnon sends us to make sure all of you can make it safely home. He listed your gathering as an approved birthday celebration. Happy birthday, healer Ella Rose.”
Ella barked a laugh and the healers began to exit the house, now relieved.
“He is working with the Hafnon family,” spoke a young graduate of the Mitestone Academy in wonder. “Can you believe it? The Hafnons!”
“Maybe he can pull it off,” Georg Higgs grudging admission sounded like hope to Alfredo. “And here I thought he was just an upstart that was going to get us all executed.”
The healers mumbled among themselves and filed out the door, two by two. The guards, each escorting the medics, walked with them. One stayed behind and walked inside Alfredo’s house.
“What you did was stupid, but admirable,” chastised the guard. Alfredo recognized him as the guard captain. “Next time, no one will bail you out. Hafnon won’t risk his standing a second time, you understand?”
Alfredo Lavern nodded, and the guard captain handed him a package.
“Seeing as you are the ring leader; you might benefit from these. Rune stones. Place them in the meeting place, so people won’t find you out so fast again,” rune stones were expensive. Alfredo couldn’t begin to imagine how the guard captain had gotten an entire back.
“There is something wrong with them,” Alfredo could feel the poisonous mana inside.
“Well, there should be. Two necromancers made them. No one will even know your house is here unless invited. Mister Lavern, Missus Lavern, I bid you good night,” with that, the guard captain left the house and Alfredo was left with what was the most expensive rune stones in the whole of Wandermere. He just hoped they did as advertised.
