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Show TwelveMonths," the King said, carefully arranging a bowl of stew and a spoon on his ironwood tray. Janni said nothing to this, though she knew full well that hoofworm could be got rid of promptly with the right amount of care and cleanliness. During that one rainy summer of her girlhood when almost all the horses in Needlesmith Commendium got hoofworm, she was drafted as a VetTech's helper for the crisis, along with several of her schoolmates. She had never believed herself capable of cleaning so many hooves nor of sponging so much hydrogen peroxide around their frogs. Nor-at the end of one particularly trying day when she'd held and treated fully one hundred hooves between her knees-did she believe herself capable of standing upright again ! But the Provincials, she reminded herself, knew nothing of treatment, knew nothing of hydrogen peroxide. Nor were they particularly keen on cleanliness, either, save for a few of the NursTechs in the Northern Kingdom. "Spared we no amount of trouble to cure that murrain," continued Jothra, "which left our brave steeds all limping and thin as rackwood. Pasture them we did, and called in the Seljuk priestesses to bless them, as well as the good Anglicans-may they be ever praised in Isaac's heaven." He lifted a hand and crossed himself. "And prayed we most fervently to the GreatMother, too-e'en to cover all prospects-and to Saint Geraldine-of-the- Beasts. And this we did most faithfully, every SevenDay." He took a spoonful of stew gloomily and chewed and swallowed it before going on. "The winter came, and then the spring, and despairing we were indeed of having e'en our workhorses for the FourthMonth planting, for it had spread like lightning among all our hoofed beasts." 303 |