Arcolin stared at him, too angry to speak for the moment, and the surgeon gestured to two of the guards.
“Come here and drag this fellow out of the way.”
“Stop,” Arcolin said; the guards stopped as if struck on the head. He glared at the surgeon, who was already bending over the governor, ignoring him. “Fetch a door or something,” he said to them. “My sergeant is not dead, but injured; he doesn’t need to be dragged.”
“Yes, sir,” said one. They both left and came back with a plank three handspans wide and half again as long as Stammel. “This do, sir?”
“Yes,” Arcolin said. He took Stammel’s shoulders and head himself, and helped the men lay him on the plank. “Lift him,” he said. He took his hanger and scabbard off his belt and used the belt to lash Stammel gently to the plank. “Give me your belts,” he said to the guards, and added them around Stammel’s chest and legs.
“We wouldn’t have let him fall,” one said, scowling.
“I think he’s been spelled,” Arcolin said. “If he starts thrashing, the belts may give time to set the plank down.”
“Oh … spelled. Well, then … where to?”
Where to indeed? Arcolin had no idea where to, other than Marshal Harak’s grange. He picked up his sword in one hand, the hanger and scabbard in the other and followed them outside. In the square, others were gathering—guards, citizens—and the councilors, recovering from their shock in the soft evening air, were talking rapidly to one another. He heard hoofbeats, wheels grinding, axles squeaking, and a carriage drove into the square. The councilors looked up at the noise, and saw him.
“Captain!” Councilor Janchek came over to him. “You saved us all! We cannot thank you enough—” Janchek looked at the men with the plank, at Stammel’s bloody body. “Your sergeant—he died, then?”
“He’s not dead yet,” Arcolin said. “And he’s the one who saved us all—he distracted Korryn enough to weaken the spell that bound us. I need that carriage—” He pointed.
“But—but that’s the chairman’s carriage—and he’s—he’s all bloody—”
“He’s worth more than any carriage ever built,” Arcolin said, grief and rage swamping deference.
“Sir—Captain!” His escort, left behind at the Merchants’ Guild Hall, came jogging into the prison courtyard.
“Gird’s grace!” Arcolin looked them over. “Vik—take my horse; ride at once for the camp and bring our surgeon to Harak’s grange. Smiths’ street. Tam—find Marshal Harak’s grange. Tell him we’re coming there. If you see him on the way—just find him. It’s Stammel; he may die.” Those two took off at a run, no questions asked. The other two moved over and took the plank from the local guardsmen. “Orders, sir?”
“Into the carriage with him.”
The Councilors in their cluster made no more complaint; Arcolin only realized he still had his bloody sword in hand when he tried to climb into the carriage.
On the short drive to the grange, Stammel’s condition didn’t change. Still that fixed unseeing stare, still the heat rising from him as from a stone left in the sun.
Marshal Harak was waiting outside his grange, Tam beside him. “What is it? What happened?”
“I think it’s a spell,” Arcolin said.
“And what about you?” Harak asked. “You’re soaked in blood.”
“Not mine,” Arcolin said, as he helped lever the plank out of the carriage. “And not his. Korryn—or whatever was in Korryn’s body—tried to strangle him. He fell. We were all spelled helpless; we couldn’t move. Korryn killed the guards—that’s the blood and gut stench—and Stammel crawled out of that welter when Korryn’s back was turned and stabbed him. That broke the spell for a moment; I killed Korryn. Then Stammel—” His voice shook; he fought to steady it, and told the rest.
They had Stammel in the grange by then. Harak pulled two benches out, bade them lay the plank across the benches, and called for his yeoman-marshal. “You say he said something was trying to invade him? And he was refusing?”
“That’s what it sounded like to me,” Arcolin said. “But it was just those few words.”
“I think you’re right,” Harak said. “And I don’t like it. This Korryn you speak of—” His yeoman-marshal came into the main part of the grange, drying his hands on a towel. “Wait a moment,” he said to Arcolin. And to his yeoman-marshal, “Eddin—we need water, a lot of it, and towels. And bring the relic over here, if you would.”
Eddin, Arcolin was glad to see, was no youngster, but a steady-looking man who might be thirty or so. “Yes, Marshal,” he said, going first to a niche in the far wall and coming back with a small knife—a stone blade in a wooden haft. Then he was off at a jog, buckets hung on a pole across his shoulders, to the well down the street.
“Now tell me,” the Marshal said. He had laid the little knife on Stammel’s forehead and put his hands on Stammel’s shoulders.
“Korryn was a recruit we had years ago—” Arcolin began. He repeated what Stammel had told him.
“Tell me about the attack.”
Arcolin related it in as much detail as he could; Eddin came in with the water in the midst of that.
“Stop a bit,” Harak said. “I want to keep contact with him, but we must get this blood off him. You all must strip him, and then wash him of all this. I will hold his head; we’ll wash that last, when I can hold his shoulders.”
During that bloody business, Arcolin held his tongue. They unbuckled the belts that held Stammel to the plank, unfastened his clothes, peeled them back, and then, with the help of the Marshal and yeoman-marshal, turned him side to side to get them off without having to cut them. Under the clothes, much less blood, but Stammel’s skin was flushed as if with sunburn and hot to the touch. His muscles still trembled; his eyes were still open and blank, the whites blood-red. They washed him, front and back, careful to clean off every smear of blood.
“Now his head,” the Marshal said. “Eddin, place the relic on his breastbone, right over the heart, and do you take your place across from me.” Without ever taking his hands completely off Stammel, the Marshal moved to his heart-hand side, and Eddin to the other; they knelt, heedless of the bloody water on the stone floor. Arcolin took a clean towel and bathed Stammel’s face, his hair, cleaning the blood out of his ears, the crease at the back of his neck. The bruises from Korryn’s grip showed dark against the red of his skin. “Be sure to get the blood off the plank,” the Marshal said. “We’re going to move him to the platform when he’s clean.”
Arcolin wanted to ask why, but instead wiped the plank with a fresh towel.
“Good. Now—we all go to the platform. Slowly, so that Eddin and I can keep our hands on him. You, Captain, keep your hand on his forehead as they carry the plank.”
As they neared the platform, Arcolin felt something—a cool touch of some kind—on his skin; he shivered. He felt struggled, fearing it was another evil attack; the Marshal glanced up at him. “Gird’s grace, Captain. It is but Gird’s grace; do not fear.”
“I—I didn’t know—”
“After what you’ve been through, I don’t wonder. Everyone step up, now, and do not be alarmed if it makes a noise.”
The platform made no noise, however. “Now, Captain,” the Marshal said. “We need a sheet from the back—there’s a narrow corridor with doors to small rooms. The third on the left is clean linens. Bring us two sheets, if you will.”
Arcolin found the linen closet without difficulty and brought back two clean, folded sheets that smelled of the fresh herbs kept with them. At the Marshal’s direction, he laid one on the platform; the others lowered the plank until they could slide Stammel off onto the sheet.