First Lessons (A Medieval Tale #1)

Chapter 3, part 3

For the first time ever, Aliya left the bounds of her castle and took in the sights of the surrounding countryside. There was plenty to see. If she had had a choice, she wouldn't take this earldom for free. She wouldn't take it even if they paid her. From the outside, Earton Castle looked worse than it did inside. Its stone walls were crooked and losing chunks of mortar. The moat was dry, and the bridge looked like it would fall apart if anyone tried to raise it.

What if there was a war? What if the castle was attacked by enemies or bandits? How exactly is this castle supposed to protect them? She doubted she now lived in a nation of pacifists. There was no army to speak of, no telephones, and the 911 dispatcher hadn't been invented yet. She was on her own. She would have to clean the inside of the castle and then reinforce its defenses outside.

But how? I have no idea, but I'll start somewhere and see where it takes me. Aliya smiled inwardly. There was no reason to upset Martha with her new plans yet.

Since shock absorbers hadn't been invented yet, Aliya felt every bump in the road, which was not much of a road to start with, even by Russian standards.

People say that Russia doesn't have roads, it just has trails. Earton doesn't have roads or trails. It has wheel ruts. Some of the wheel ruts are deeper than others, but none of them rise to the status of a trail.

Aliya stuck her head out the window for some fresh air and promised herself that she would invent some kind of open carriage. She saw fields, pastures, and forests, but best of all, she saw a river. According to Martha's stories, Earton Castle stood about a mile from a wide river with lots of fish in it. Aliya had her heart set on salting, drying and smoking lots of fish. She knew a million ways to do it. Even plain old carp can be a dish for a king if you know what to do with it!

It took them three hours to bounce, rattle and skid their way into the village, which gave her enough time to recall everything she ever knew about farming. She remembered something about three-field rotation, but she would need to find out what the local soil was like and what tools were available for working it.

Aliya wasn't afraid to get dirty. As a military brat, she had spent her whole life moving from one base to another. Wherever they ended up, her mother had always started a garden. Tatiana liked growing her own fresh produce, and the economic hardships of perestroika had convinced her that gardening was a wise use of time. She raised her daughter with the same beliefs. As a result, Aliya could study the lunar calendar in a garden almanac and not think she was reading Chinese. Where do I get a garden almanac around here? And what if their moon is different? What grains do they grow?

Aliya could have written a thick book on making dinner out of next to nothing, conserving fruits and vegetables for the winter, and producing your own spirits at home. Her mother had always made such aromatic liqueurs using herbs and berries that even the generals had looked forward to trying.

What else do I know? Chemistry. She knew plenty about chemistry, including its various applications. She wouldn't have made it in medical school without organic, inorganic and general chemistry. Aliya could draw Mendeleev's periodic table from memory. The problem was that she didn't have any real-life experience with chemistry. Her medical school's lab didn't have many samples, and as a result, she couldn't tell sulfur from old bird droppings. No big deal. I'll figure that out as I go along.

Aliya knew almost nothing about farm animals. She could ride a horse, milk a cow or a goat and even shear a sheep, but she had no idea how to actually take care of animals. She had "helped" her grandmother with farm chores during summer vacation, but medicine had always interested her more than agriculture.

Aliya had dreamed of becoming a doctor her whole life. She devoured the books her mother gave her on the topic, including books on folk healing using herbs. All of it was interesting. Aliya and her mother re-read those books on folk healing in later years, when pharmacy shelves were empty, and it was hard to obtain actual medications. In those years, her mother expressed a lot of anger at the government. She was a nurse and people were sick, but there were no drugs to treat them with. I'll treat people here with whatever I can find!

Raspberry could be used to reduce a fever, and coffee raised blood pressure, especially if it was strong. Aloe juice could clear up a runny nose and reduce inflammation in the throat, making it a great cold remedy instead of store-bought nasal spray. Aloe wouldn't dry the nasal passages or have any other side effects. Sage and Iceland moss were both good for a cough. Aliya's mother had known plenty about medicinal herbs. She could prepare cough syrups, mustard plasters and lots of other useful things. Aliya could, too. As a child, her favorite game was to go to work with her mother and watch her examine patients while paging through thick medical reference books and asking questions. It was a game she and her mother had never tired of.Studying pharmacology in medical school had expanded her knowledge, but Aliya never forgot those folk remedies. When she was at home, she and her mother always collected bark, herbs, and berries in the woods. And Aliya helped out in the family garden. She took stock of what she could do: she was a decent surgeon and knew pharmacology better than anyone in her class, and she had a good head on her shoulders and golden hands. What else?

When she was in her own body, Aliya was an excellent athlete. She could also shoot straight and drive anything with wheels. Neither of those skills would help her now. She'd never handled a bow and arrow, and the only vehicles in her new world were pulled by horses and oxen. There were two physical skills that might be useful. Like all children, Aliya had enjoyed playing with knives. She could throw them with decent accuracy and had other knife skills, as well. She was a surgeon, after all. It was a terrifying profession, cutting into living people every day.Her second advantage was her army training. Hand-to-hand combat was a dangerous skill if used properly by a person in peak physical fitness. But what if your body isn't in shape at all? She felt more like a sofa cushion at the moment.

Aliya could have screamed in frustration, but she had no choice. All she could do was up the intensity of her exercise routine, knowing it would take a while before her new body started to show any changes. She could hurt herself if she rushed things.On the seat next to her, Martha was still mumbling about something. Aliya leaned over to listen. The old woman was relieved that Earton was an out-of-the-way estate. It was a twenty-day trip to the nearest city, and over fifty days to the capital.

Aliya hoped that meant she wouldn't see much of her dear husband. The less he came nosing around, the better. She had no love for a man she'd never seen, and in fact, she would have been happy to arrange an "accident" for him—something along the lines of "I was minding my own business peeling potatoes with an antique dagger when my husband slipped and fell on it fifteen times." How else could I feel about him? He had married an unhappy, overweight girl just so he could get ahead in the world and then sent her away to live on an estate that was literally in the middle of nowhere.

If that wasn't enough, the "inseminator" just turned up once a year to spend three nights with his wife (when she was most likely to conceive) and then raced back to the capital. What a prick! But they're all like that in these times.

Aliya pricked up her ears as Martha griped quietly about the area. She hadn't found a map in the library, and she wanted to know where exactly she lived in this world. She knew Earton was in the sticks, bordered on the north by the Earta River, which was wide but not used much by boats. From what she could tell from Martha's grumblings, the Baron of Donter had his lands on the other side of the river, and the lands around Earton weren't very hospitable—cliffs and swamps to the south and east and, on the west, a pine forest that ran down to the sea. Even the sea had few boats—it was too shallow, and there were dangerous reefs. The family seat didn't have much going for it.

Aliya had no idea how she was supposed to live there. It was also a mystery to her why no one went down to the sea. They could at least have had a few fishing villages on the shore. She just didn't know enough about her new home yet.

She needed a business plan, and, for the first time ever, Aliya was sorry she hadn't studied economics. She could be sitting on a gold mine for all she knew. Okay, I can figure this all out.She suspected that she could do what she wanted in Earton as long as she didn't go too far; there was basically no one there to stop her. She was the wife of the Earl of Earton—or an extension of him. Women weren't supposed to have their own ideas, so her will was his will. She would just have to know when to stop, and she had learned that lesson well in medical school. A doctor who doesn't know when to stop can kill a patient.

Aliya decided that when she got back to the castle, she would write out what she knew, summarize it, and draft an action plan for the next few months. With those thoughts in mind, she saw that they had arrived.

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