Cry for the Wolf : Prologue 2 by Richard Walker

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It was no wonder she had the touch for the healer's art. She was a sharp lass, to be sure. He shook his head with a grin as he thought about her doing all that reading over the years, the myriad times he had found her tucked away in an odd corner of the manor with yet another tome lent her by the kind Abbot Sagacious. There was another sharp one, a good example for the girl he had always been, especially after the death of the master. They had all missed Rhiarra on the farm when she had gone off to try the habit on at Fallominster, but it was the best that could have been arranged for her between Nell and Sagacious. Nell had never been able to get it accomplished so well or tidily on her own.
He made it to the postern gate of the compound, which hadn't been opened since the first snows flew, and rattled the chains extra hard when he seemed to catch a hint of snufflin, like some animal – Light forbid the wolves be outside! Normally he would have complete faith in the 15-foot high outer walls, but the drifting snow made him worry. If the drifts blew much higher, they might be able to leap to the crest and in ....
Wolf howls hanging long on the wind once again mingling with the merciless icy gales, too eerie by far to allow the hackles on the back of his neck to lie down.
They're sure to cure the dead of sleeping, he was convinced.
He trudged on around the last leg of the perimeter.
The thought of Rhiarra warmed him and made him proud as if she were of his own blood. She was the most knowledgeable in herb lore or barber's craft in all the southern kingdom, and she not even reached her majority. Small wonder that the men of the healing arts in this corner of the realm feared her competition. And this despite the fact she offered them no competition at all. Her skills were at the command of any tenant in her wide feof, or of the Church, whose call she would never deny, but generally for these only, or as a favor when specially requested elsewhere among the scattered family when the need was dire.
She was a good and dutiful daughter of the Light, not like some of those arrogant clarks coming out of the universities with their letters patent of degree certifying their knowledge – more like a license to command the most exorbitant fees for a service no man could live without, to his way of thinking. It was nothing short of shameful. But such was said to be the way of the world, according to the Church. We do what we can when we can to improve it, and trust in the Light that in the end it will help.
Never would she take coin for her knowledge or skills. She was savvy and canny and had no intention of losing claim to her noble inheritance, or so he assumed, as that was exactly what he'd have done in her shoes, well, slippers, anyway. And where others might trade the hard responsibilities of rank and feof for a simpler life following a craft, even a tainted craft as a healer, blood ever on her hands, for such lucrative coin as could be made by one as skilled as she, Rhiarra's first concern was those who lived on the lands under her care.