Godmother Death (Continued)
by Jane Yolen
Death followed the boy's progress one year closely, another not at all. She sent no gifts. She did not stand for him at the church font. Still, the boy's father and his half–blind mother did well for themselves; certainly better than peasants had any reason to expect. They were able to purchase their own farm, able to send their boy to a school. They assumed it was because of Death's patronage, when in fact she had all but forgotten them and her godson. You cannot expect Death to care so much about a single child, who had seen so many.
Yet on the day Haden became a man, on the day of his majority, his father called Death. He drew her sign in the sand, the same he had seen on the chain around her neck. He said her name and the boy's.
And Death came.
One minute the man was alone and the next he was not. Death was neither winded nor troubled by her travel, though she still wore the khakis of an army nurse. She had not bothered to change from her last posting.
"Is it time?" she asked, who was both in and out of time. "Is he a man, my godson?" She knew he was not dead. That she would have known.
"It is time, Lady," the man said, carefully looking down at his feet. He was not going to be blinded like his wife.
"Ah." She reached up and took off the nurse's cap and shook down her black hair. The trouble with bargains, she mused, was they had to be kept.
"He shall be a doctor," she said after a moment.
"A doctor?" The man had thought no farther than a great farm for his boy.
"A doctor," Death said. "For doctors and generals know me best. And I have recently seen too much of generals." She did not tell him of the Crimea, of the Dardanelles, of the riders from beyond the steppes. "A doctor would be nice."
Haden was brought to her. He was a smart lad, but not overly smart. He had strong hands and a quick smile.
Death dismissed the father and took the son by the hand, first warming her own hand. It was an effort she rarely made.
"Haden, you shall be a doctor of power," she said. "Listen carefully and treat this power well."
Haden nodded. He did not look at her, not right at her. His mother had warned him, and though he was not sure he believed, he believed.
"You will become the best–known doctor in the land, my godson," Death said. "For each time you are called to a patient, look for me at the bedside. If I stand at the head of the bed, the patient will live, no matter what you or any other doctor will do. But if I stand at the foot, the patient will die. And there is nought anyone can do — no dose and no diagnoses — to save him."
Haden nodded again. "I understand, godmother."
"I think you do," she said, and was gone.
