“What?”
“Anoike Ley. She followed when I came with you.”
“I didn’t know.”
Serroi chuckled. “I’m not angry. It was a good sensible move, tactfully handled. She reminds me a lot of a shieldmate I had once.” She shook off the old pain that time and the hurry of events had reduced to a gentle melancholy. “Call her in.”
“You’re upsetting a lot of dearly held notions, little friend.” He began taking items from the satchel, putting them on a tray. “By the way, my name is Louis Grenier. Doctor Grenier to the general, but Lou to my colleagues, colleague.” He grinned at her, went round her to the door slit, thrust his head out. “Anoike, come in here, will you.”
She came into the tent, wary, ready for anything. “How’s Julia?”
“Hard to say. She’s sleeping. Sit down. I want to look at that shoulder wound.”
Anoike frowned. “Why? You saw it a couple hours ago when you changed the bandage.”
“Now, Anoike, a big girl like you shouldn’t be afraid of this friendly old doctor.”
“Yeah sure, friendly old butcher more like.” She kicked Lyri’s cushion around, folded down and unbuttoned her shirt, letting him ease it off her wounded side.
“You know, Anoike, you’ve got what my down-home grandfather used to call the luck of the devil.” He used a pair of blunt scissors to cut away the tape and gauze over the hole in her shoulder. “A fraction of an inch in any direction and there’d be a lot more damage.” His hands very gentle, he cleaned the wound with a liquid he poured onto a bit of white fluff. Anoike grimaced at the sting. “Anoike’s luck,” he said. “You’re making me a believer. Anyone else would have to spend the next weeks hurting and itching.” He sat back on his heels. “It’s a puncture wound, Serroi. That’s your name, isn’t it. I got it right? Good. A clean wound, very little laceration of the flesh. Except for what I did when I was looking for the bullet. Gone back three hundred years to the age of probe and forceps.”
Serroi shifted to kneel beside him. The wound was a little thing, not to be taken lightly, but nothing to incapacitate the tigress before her. She looked down at her hands, felt earth fire gathering in her again. Reaching out, she flattened her hands on either side of the hole. The woman started to pull back.
“Don’t move.” Grenier’s voice was calm but commanding. “Let Serroi work.”
Serroi watched the flesh of her hands go translucent again, shining with the earthfire that sank deep into the woman’s body and rebuilt the injured cells, layer by layer, until new skin closed over the wound and erased the last signs of it. She dropped her hands, moved back a little so the doctor could get a closer look.
“I see it and I still don’t believe it. How’s it feel, Anoike?”
The woman probed at the spot with shaking fingers; she wiggled her shoulder, moved her arm. “Me either, Lou. Shit, it’s like it didn’t happen. Julia too?”
“I begin to think so.” He reached out, touched Serroi’s arm. “Are you tired? How do you feel?”
“A little drunk. This world of yours is like strong wine.” She thrust her fingers through her hair, yawned again and didn’t bother covering it. “Bring ’em all, Lou colleague.” She giggled. “This doesn’t exactly tire me.”
“Ram,” Anoike said. She shoved her arm back into her sleeve, did up the buttons and pushed the tail back into her trousers.
“Tell Dom Hern where I am, Anoike Ley,” Serroi said quickly. “He worries and might decide to come looking for me.”
“He don’t look the worrying kind.”
“About me he is.”
“Come through whatever in his way?” She looked skeptical. “Little man, not so young anymore.”
“Through or over.”
“He don’t look it.”
“Lot of dead men thought that.”
“He got him a two-ended tongue.”
“He’s giving you the truth.”
“Truth he sees.” Anoike shrugged, a quick lift and fall of her shoulders. “Wasn’t talking ’bout truth. He a good politician.”
“Politician?”
“Guess you never had no election campaigns.” She grinned. “Hey Lou, I vote we go for sure. No politicians.”
The doctor’s chuckle was warm and filled with contentment. “Never be a world without politicians, Anoike. I suspect they just call them something else.”
“Glass half-empty, hey, Doc?” She grinned affectionately at him. “Right… uh… Serroi. Message to Dom Hern, then Ram for here. Then what? Connolly, I think. He some messed up inside. You want I should round up everything down to mosquito bites, or just bad-off?”
Grenier frowned thoughtfully at Serroi, then nodded. “Stick with the bad-off until we see how much time we’ve got. Anoike, tell the council what’s happening.”
“Uh-huh.” Anoike moved her shoulder again, grinned, then went through the slit with a quick energetic twist of her lean body.
“How long before Julia wakes?”
“I’m not sure.” Serroi strolled over to him. She clasped her hands behind her head and stretched, feeling a deep pleasure in the pull of her muscles. “Don’t worry, Lou. Her body’s worked hard. Takes time to recover from that.”
Anoike leaned through the door. “Want them in here?” She looked around. “Make it some crowded.”
Serroi pushed the hair off her face. “Better outside where we won’t disturb Julia’s sleep. What’s happening at the meeting?”
“Prior, he making a speech saying we wrong to run out on our country. Should stay and fight. Not many agreeing with him. Your man, he got him his army.”
7
Julia woke to well-being and thought for a moment she’d died, but the familiar smells chased that idea off. The blackness around her was thick and still. She was alone. It felt very late, how late she had no way of knowing or even guessing. She felt a stab of fear, a flash of illogical anger. Illogical because she’d meant to tell them to leave her. Anger because they hadn’t given her the chance to make the gesture. That anger like the death-illusion lasted only a few seconds. She sat up, clutched at the pallet as dizziness sent the dark wheeling. She took a deep breath, another. No pain. Weak as a wet noodle, but no pain. And she was hungry. Not just hungry, but ravenous. I could eat one of Angel’s horses. What happened? Did I snatch my shaman out of dream? Nonsense. More likely the visitors did something. Some kind of drug. Miracle drug. That’s the only kind of miracle that happens here. Where is everyone? She threw off the blanket, rolled onto her hands and knees and levered herself onto her feet. Lyn, she thought, I could use you now. After this new dizziness passed she pulled off the sweaty nightgown, dropped it on the blankets and stumbled to the end of the pallet, stopping when she kicked into the battered suitcase there. She lowered herself onto her knees, opened the case and began feeling around in it. Her fingers caught in a loop of leather, sandal strap, her old sandals, worn but more comfortable now than her boots would be. She lifted them out and set them beside her, poked about some more. Something folded. Heavy zipper, snap, double-sewed seams. A pair of jeans. Soft powdery dust lay deep in the folds, whispered from the worn denim when she shook the jeans out. A shirt folded under the jeans. She didn’t bother looking farther, enough to cover herself, that’s all she wanted. Getting onto her feet again showed her how weak she still was. All those weeks lying on her back, her muscles rotting. Stopping to rest every third breath, she got the jeans pulled up and zipped; they rode precariously on her withered hips, would have slid off but for the jut of her pelvic bones. She pulled the shirt on without bothering to unbutton it, rolled up the sleeves and let the tail hang, slipped into her sandals and wobbled to the door slit. Another stab of fear, hastily suppressed, then she laughed at herself and pushed through.
The moon was a feeble glow through the cloud fleece and the camouflage netting, but enough light came through to show her the disruption around her, shelter sides without their canvas tops, the edge of an empty corral-but over the noise of the wind she could hear a muted mutter of voices. She took a few steps and leaned against a tree, shaking with relief. She wasn’t abandoned. After her heart slowed and her breathing settled, she started toward the sounds.