The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is an attempt to write a complete (and very rough) draft of a novel by writing for fifteen minutes each day. I have taken a timed writing from one of the daily prompts done in 2021, cleaned it up a little and used it as my jumping off point into a story. Each day I will take the last line of the story written the day before and use it as my sentence starter and write for fifteen minutes, growing the story as the year progresses.
Day 222: None of the herbalists she knew were women, even if they often employed women to gather what they needed.
None of the herbalists she knew were women, even if they often employed women to gather what they needed. ‘And they need to have the papers stating they trained under another herbalist.’ She had seen the listings at the house of the healer when she brought him the herbs she knew he would buy. No matter how much she studied here, she would not have those when she left. Even if she moved to a place where they did accept a female herbalist, Anya wouldn’t have the papers to prove she knew what she was doing.
‘I suppose the information I am learning means I can gather more items that the herbalist would buy,’ Anya thought. She recalled the conversations with the herbalist about what he wanted. No matter how often Anya fetched items for him from the woods, the river, or the sea, he always felt the need to describe the same item in great detail whenever he sent her off. As much of his lectures involved what he actually planned to use it for or why it was so important for him to have a large supply at that time of year, Anya soon pieced together a bit of an annual schedule.
Much of it was intuitive. Around the time the crops were harvested from the fields herbs and other items that were useful in keeping cuts from becoming infected or to ease strained muscles would be in great demand. When the weather turned cold and damp items used in the creation of cures for chest ailments and the curing or easing of illnesses would be needed.
Because she found the repeated lectures of the herbalist somewhat bothersome, Anya usually went harvesting the items she knew he would want for the season ahead of his asking her and so brought bundles with her when he sent for her to begin his gathering. Her anticipating his request always made him somewhat annoyed. But in his annoyance, he often asked for other herbs. These weren’t the bulk ones he would pay little for but the rarer items that would bring in a greater amount of money to her family. These he only explained in enough detail so that she would be able to find them, but never explained what exactly he was doing with them.
While Anya was curious, it also meant that in his annoyance, he paid her for the bulk gathering as well as the specialty items so she was able to bring more back to her family. She was aware that when he had to explain the more common herbs to her he passed the rarer finds on to someone else. That someone was usually one of the boys who also foraged in the woods.
As Anya thought it over she realized that while she liked gathering the items, she didn’t really enjoy dealing with the herbalist. She also realized that it was only his annoyance that let her make a decent amount of money. While the regular finds were always helpful and any additions to the family coffers were appreciated, Anya couldn’t have survived on her own if all she sold to him were the more common herbs. If she sold the more specialty ones as well, she would be able to eke out a modest income and possibly survive on just that.
‘But I couldn’t count on another healer working like Kerson does in Tyrin.’ Anya thought. It might be better or it might be worse. ‘And Kerson always gave me a headache.’
Anya generally preferred a more straightforward way of dealing with people and hated the fact that she had to trick him into sending her for the more costly items on his list. His tone of condescension was also difficult to take for long.
Spending months in study, only to end up fetching the items she learned about for another version of Kerson was not something Anya especially wanted to do. ‘Except Kerson didn’t seem to know all of the uses.’
Ten til Midnight 