"Declan," she said, "the cold bathing seems to have worked wonders for your manners as well as reducing the fever, for suddenly your compliments are worthy of the silver tongue of Brian O'Rahailley himself. But his were usually bestowed with a selfish end in view and, well, I think I preferred it when your words were unmannerly but more honest.
"I must speak with Ma'el, now," she ended, "and light the cooking fire. Keep the blanket around you, lie still, and try to rest."
A few moments after she left him he did as he was told, but not before he sat up, rolled onto his hands and knees, and tried to climb to his feet with only partial success, and he came close to fainting while he was half crawling the short distance along the ravine to where they relieved themselves. It took all of his strength to cover his results with sand. He could not believe how weak he had become during the past few days and he was glad to roll back onto the litter and pull the blanket around him.
It was dusk when he wakened with his shoulder being shaken and Sinead demanding that he eat and drink some of the water with her foul-tasting herbs in it. He did try but she insisted that a hungry lark would have eaten more and that he should go back to sleep.
It was still night when next he wakened, shivering and with his limbs shaking so much that the sheet threatened to slip from his body. The lamp was turned down and the dividing screen had been partially removed in case he needed attention. He could barely see the muffled form of Sinead, who was sleeping with head, hands, and feet drawn inside her burnoose. He pulled the sheet tightly around himself and clenched his teeth to stop their chattering because he did not want to waken her or bear the brunt of her tongue if he did.
"I'm not sleeping," she said quietly as if reading his mind. "What's wrong with you? Has the fever returned?"
"N-no," he replied. "I c-cold."
In a moment, Sinead had the lamp turned up and she was kneeling beside him; her hand went to his forehead before slipping under the sheet to rest briefly on his chest and the upper muscle of his arm. Then she stood up quickly, turned and upended the bag that contained his clothing and emptied it onto the ground. Choosing his own burnoose and the bloodstained cloak, she spread them over him and waited for what seemed like a long time before speaking again.
"You are indeed cold," she said, again laying a hand on his chest. "In fact, your muscles were tightening and threatening to go into a rigor. Do you feel any warmer now?"
"I-I don't th-think so," he said through chattering teeth even though her palm felt like a hot poultice pressing on his icy skin. "I-I'm colder."
"There is no time to build a fire," she said in a quiet, serious voice, "and you could not get close enough to it without scorching yourself. I have to make you warm again or you will die…"
For the second time in a day he saw her pull off her burnoose, but this time instead of dropping it to the sand she spread it over him.
"… Turn onto your side," she went on briskly, "so I can lie close against your back. And Declan, behave yourself."
For an instant there was a blast of cold air as she opened the covers, then he felt the wonderfully hot contours of her body pressing against his back and leg while a warm arm tightly encircled his waist. He did not try to say anything because his teeth were chattering and he did behave himself because, difficult as it was for him to believe, he was sharing the blankets with a comely young woman and all he wanted from her was her body's warmth. He did not tell her that because to a young woman the words might not have been complimentary.
Dawn was showing through the fabric of the tent and bleaching out the lamplight by the time he stopped shivering and began to feel really warm, so much so that he was perspiring again. He felt Sinead waken and her hand slide briefly across his wet chest, then heard her say something very unladylike before she rose, pulled on her burnoose and left the tent. A moment later she was back with Ma'el's inner-body-seeing charm and a pitcher of cold water.
"What's wrong with you?" she said in a worried, exasperated voice. "Last night you were freezing to death and now you're burning with fever again. Drink as much of this as you can and sprinkle yourself with the rest until I can douse you in the pool again. But first let me look at your wounds. Turn onto your good side."
She talked quietly to herself while she was examining the places where arrows had pierced his leg and shoulder, pronouncing them healing cleanly and well. But the one just above his hip, while it had closed over and knitted to her satisfaction, was surrounded by an area of deep pink inflammation. The cause, according to the deep picture that Ma'el's charm was showing her, was a large, pus-filled abscess growing on the wall of the bowel where the arrowhead had nicked it. If it were to burst, which it might do soon, and flood through his body, her patient would quickly die.
"I'm sorry, Declan," she continued speaking to him rather than to herself, "I must cut into you again. Deeply."
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The sun was still low in the sky by the time Sinead had immersed him several times in the pool and pulled his litter back to the sandy bank where her instruments, bowls, boiled cloths, and several short lengths of rope lay spread out on a sheet ready for use. Declan felt cooled by the bathing but it was not the icy, breath-stopping cold that had gripped him during the previous night. Sinead shivered in the cool, morning breeze, then dressed herself quickly and knelt beside the litter and raised it a short distance above the sand before speaking.
"Please lie on your good side," she said, selecting a length of rope and passing it around his body and the underside of the litter as she spoke. "I am going to tie down your chest, waist, thighs, and lower legs so that, in the event that you have another rigor, you won't be able to move and perhaps cause me inadvertently to cut you in the wrong place. I will leave your arm free so that you may assist me by holding the deep-body-seer in position, but in case you have a serious tremor and lose control of it, I will place a noose around your wrist so that I can pull down the arm and secure it to the litter and proceed unaided unless…" she raised her voice slightly, ".,. Ma'el decides to help me."
The old man had left the wagon and was walking toward them. They both knew that Ma'el had keen ears and would have heard her, but when he stopped beside them he made no mention of her words. Sinead tried again.
"With respect, Ma'el," she said, "surely you have it in your power to help Declan. Some magical device or potion, perhaps, that will remove this sac of poison and.'.."
"You have mentioned this matter to me earlier this day," the old man broke in gently, "and my answer then as now is no. Believe me, there is a strong reason why I will not provide medication for one of your people's bodies. I have given away many of the secrets of my own people and done things to yours in the hope of providing you, and myself, with a timesight into your world's future. I thought that your forecast of the arrival of the djinn was an early demonstration of the faculty, but continuing timesight you could not give me."
"I'm sorry that I disappointed you," she said, "because I owe you much…"
"Do not be sorry," he broke in. "You are not responsible for the physical and emotional damage that was done to you, or for the sexual negativity that resulted over which you have no control. So clear your mind, and allow mine to aid yours in the only way it can, by wishing you sharp eyes and steady hands.
"If Declan is not to die this day," he ended quietly, "it is your skill alone that will make him live."
In the short but seemingly endless time that followed, Declan thought that he suffered twice, once because he had already undergone this cutting and knew what to expect, and again when it was happening but taking much longer. But his muscles did not lock in a rigor as he held Ma'el's device steady above Sinead's gentle, precise hands, and his body remained still and unflinching without help from the ropes. Deliberately he did not look at her in case that would be a distraction and instead looked into the eyes of the watching Ma'el, which were so dark and deep that he did not know whether they were empty of feeling or showing too much of it for him to read. While he did not watch Sinead, he knew exactly what she was doing from moment to moment because she talked about it continuously in a quiet, competent voice.