Suddenly a greenish mass of horse dung smacked into the side of Genimo's head. His face flushed scarlet with rage and he released his hold on Kiram to turn back to Fedeles. Kiram slid down the wall to the ground. Beside Fedeles stood Javier, hefting a muck shovel in one hand.
"No, Genimo, what is clinging to your hair is a piece of shit." Javier's tone was light, and his expression almost friendly as he strode closer. "What you had the poor sense to toss around just now is something entirely different."
Genimo's fury seemed to dissolve into a stunned fear. He backed away.
"If you run," Javier said, "I'll bring the white hell out to hunt you. So I wouldn't if I were you."
Genimo froze. Javier glanced to Kiram and for a moment his playful smile disappeared. Then he turned his attention back to Genimo.
"You ought to ask before playing with my things." Javier wiped the back of the filthy shovel across Genimo's chest. "And if you break something of mine, you know I'm going to be annoyed, don't you?"
"Scholar Donamillo sent me to fetch Fedeles for his treatment and-" A terrified tremor ran through Genimo's voice.
"Not what I want to hear." Javier jabbed the shovel into Genimo's chest.
"I.I." Genimo's face was bloodlessly pale. His eyes were so wide that Kiram thought that he could see white all the way around Genimo's black, gaping pupils.
Kiram suddenly remembered his uncle describing the men he had treated during the bread riots. Many had died in states of terrified shock. His uncle always said that they had rabbit eyes. Kiram thought he knew what his uncle had meant now.
"I'm sorry, Javier." Genimo swayed on his feet and then sank to his knees.
"You're sorry?" The sadistic amusement in Javier's voice disturbed Kiram, and yet there was a part of him that was deeply pleased to see Genimo on his knees and covered in excrement. "I can't imagine what you could be sorry for. Except that I caught you."
"Please.Javier, I swear I won't do it again."
"You certainly won't." Javier gave a hard laugh. "In fact you may not do anything ever again."
Javier held his left hand out over Genimo's head. White sparks flickered between his fingers.
Kiram caught the unmistakable scent of human urine and realized that Genimo had pissed himself.
"Don't kill me," Genimo sobbed.
Javier flicked his fingers across Genimo's forehead. The moment Javier touched Genimo's skin a tiny white bolt burst up from his hand and drove into Genimo's skull. Genimo jerked backwards and then collapsed to the ground.
Kiram stared at Genimo's prone body in horror. He felt suddenly sick and he wasn't sure if it was from the throbbing pain deep in his groin or from the sight of such an offhanded murder.
Javier knelt down beside Genimo and lifted his head off the floor slightly. Genimo's neck sagged against Javier's hands like a dead snake.
"You killed him," Kiram whispered.
"Killed him?" Javier glanced up to Kiram and shook his head. "How dramatic you are."
Javier bowed his head close to Genimo's. Small white sparks skipped across Javier's hands and jumped through Genimo's hair. "Sleep. Dream of rats devouring your intestines." Then he lowered Genimo's head almost gently back to the stable floor.
Javier stood and turned back to the door of Firaj's stall.
"Fedeles, come out." Javier's tone was neither as amused nor as cruel as it had been with Genimo. He sounded a little exasperated.
"No," Fedeles replied from behind the door.
"I'm not going to take you to your treatment. Kiram is hurt and you promised to look after him, didn't you?"
"Yes." Fedeles sounded sulky.
"Come on, then," Javier said. "Help us get back to our room.
Chapter Five
Fedeles rushed ahead of them, opening doors and singing the names of horses triumphantly.
When they reached their room, Fedeles lingered outside the open door and then at last scampered away.
"Is he going to be all right?" Kiram asked as Javier lowered him to his own bed.
"Fedeles? He'll be fine. He's got his room all to himself tonight and he's gotten out of his treatments for another day."
"But I think something's wrong." It hurt his entire face to speak. The gash in his cheek throbbed and his head ached. "This afternoon he asked me to help him."
"He gets that way when he misses his treatments. He hates them, but if he goes more than a month between treatments he becomes agitated and then delusional. He starts seeing things and hearing things that aren't there."
"He said something about someone hurting Firaj, I think." The earlier conversation seemed muddled and confused as he tried to recall it. Kiram sagged back into his mattress. A dizzy, whirling sensation engulfed him each time he closed his eyes.
"Here." Javier lifted his head and propped a pillow under him. His hands felt warm. "Don't fall asleep just yet, all right?"
"Why not?"
"Well, I've got you talking to me for the first time in two weeks. I'd rather it not end too quickly." Javier left briefly, then returned to Kiram's bedside with the basin of water and a washcloth. "You really don't know the first thing about fighting, do you?"
"I know that a quick fist is the first sign of a slow wit."
This elicited a laugh from Javier. Very gently, he washed the blood from Kiram's nose and mouth. Kiram hissed in pain as Javier began to clean the cut across his left cheek.
Javier leaned closer, examining the wound. "This is really deep. Did he catch you with his signet ring?"
Kiram clenched his teeth as Javier continued to clean the cut. "He used his riding crop."
"He cropped you? God, he's a shit." Javier rinsed the blood out of the washcloth. "Maybe I should have killed him after all."
"I'm glad you didn't."
"Really?" Javier pressed the damp washcloth lightly against Kiram's cheek.
"Murder is a profane act." Kiram found it distracting to have Javier so near him. His attention kept straying to the faint shadow of stubble along Javier's jaw and the woody scent of his skin. "It would have injured your soul to kill him when he begged you for mercy."
"I have no soul to injure," Javier replied easily.
"Yes you do." Kiram couldn't help his annoyance. He was so tired of way Cadeleonian beliefs stripped the soul from anyone or anything they pleased. "Every living thing has a soul. Trees, birds, dogs, cats. Even demons-and I don't believe that you are one-but even if you were, you would still have a soul. You aren't a piece of furniture or a rock, you're just an egotist and maybe a bit of a flirt-I haven't decided yet. But you definitely have a soul."
"I'm not sure if I should be offended or comforted by that pronouncement of yours."
"You should just believe me," Kiram said and he realized that the pain was making him short tempered. Still, he added, "I'm sorry, but in this matter your religion is simply wrong."
"And you say I'm an egotist." Javier's smile widened. It wasn't the same smile that Kiram had seen him give Genimo in the stable. There was nothing sharp or cruel about his countenance now. His touch was gentle, almost caressing.
"You'll have a scar from this, I think." Javier poured salve from a glass jar and worked it between his fingers.
"It won't be my first." Kiram tried to sound casual about it. His mother was going to be horrified when she saw it. "I have another scar."
"One other?" Carefully Javier spread the warmed salve over Kiram's wounded cheek. It smelled astringent but dulled the pain almost immediately. For an instant Kiram wondered at the lucky coincidence that Javier would have such a salve ready at hand. Then he remembered the countless nicks and grazes that had scored Javier's pale body, the raw red scar that ran up his wrist, and the huge curling crest burned into his right shoulder. Obviously the life he led required such a salve, if not something much stronger.