The kitchen had cleared again. It was the best room in the old barracks to use for the worst of the wounded. The large tables served well, and every counter and cupboard was filled with jars and bowls of ointments and remedies. I stared at their bright colors and the false promise of the claims that they could cure all ails. But nothing lay there that could save this man.
A noise drew my attention down. His eyes fluttered open. Once again I took up the water and cloth. As I worked, he focused on me, a question in his stare. I smiled.
“You are in the healing house, warrior. You took a wound. Rest now.”
He licked his lips, narrowed his eyes. “Lance… tip broke off… belly.”
I nodded. No need to speak. He knew.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again and for the first time he seemed to really look at me. “Fought with your father, Lady.” He gasped as the effort cost him breath. His voice was soft and tight.
I paused. Few were left that could claim to have known my father. “I am sorry, but I don’t know you.”
He didn’t seem to hear me. One corner of his mouth turned up. “You’ve his eyes, child. All fey blue and wise.” His arm trembled as he tried to raise his hand. I caught it and held it in mine. His eyes got a strange light in them, perhaps an echo of his younger self. “Now there was a king, your father. What a warrior he was.” He looked over my shoulder, seeing into the mists of memory.
“I miss him.” I said quietly.
A wave of pain crossed his face. “Aye, Lady,” was the breathless response. “So do we all.” He seemed to gather strength somehow, and he squeezed my hand and gave a slight tug. I lowered my hand to his mouth. With a rasping breath, he spoke. “My hand to yours. Bless you, Xylara, Daughter of the House of Xy, Daughter of Xyron, Warrior King.” He pressed his dry lips to the back of my hand.
It had been long since I’d heard those old words. I kissed his forehead. “My hand to yours. Blessings upon you, Warrior of the House of Xy.”
He smiled, slipping into death even as his hand slipped from mine.
“You care too much.” It was Eln again.
His voice floated over the stone tubs that had been set aside to wash instruments. I ignored him for the moment, concentrating on getting things clean and ready for the next wave of wounded. Experience taught that the lulls in the fighting were to be used, not wasted.
“A good healer is dispassionate. Objective.”
The warrior’s body had been taken up for burial. He had been the last of the severely wounded. I had a small cluster of unhappy apprentices outside, boiling bandages and linens. Not their favorite chore, but a vital one.
Eln had started brewing more orchid root at the fire. The sweet scent was a comfort. Others were tending the large kettles of fever’s foe outside. Everyone, no matter how tired, worked and waited. For the sounds of more battle, more wounded. I closed my eyes, giving in to my exhaustion and prayed for an end to the war that waged outside the city walls. Prayed that the Firelanders would stop using their lances. Prayed that I’d be skilled enough that no more of my patients would die.
Eln rattled the jars and bottles, and I opened my eyes and watched him. My old teacher, his long arms stretching out, putting them in some kind of order. Slow and steady, moving carefully on tall legs, considering each step. The straight, gray hair that flowed down his back only added to the image of a lake-crane. He gave me a look out of the corner of his eye, and shook his head. “How can one so slight be so stubborn?”
“Eln, how long was I your apprentice?”
He stared pointedly at my bruised cheek. “Long enough to learn.” He regarded me with a solemn look.
“And I have been a master for how long?” I rinsed more of the instruments and set them on a cloth to dry.
He pursed his lips, and pretended to study one of the jars. “Long enough to learn to talk back.”
I snorted. “During that period, how many times have you said that to me?”
“More than I can count, but that does not make it any less true.” He started to gather up the things we would need to check the wounded and tend them. “If you are so wise, Lara, then why do I see guilt in your eyes?”
I glanced out the kitchen window. The afternoon shadows were growing. “I should not have tried to cut it out. Should have left it alone. If I had…”
“If.” Eln came to stand next to me. “If you had left it in, was his death not as sure? You tried. That was all you could do. All any of us can do when we are overwhelmed like this.”
I dried my hands, and blinked back tears I didn’t have time for. “We’d better get to work.”
Out in the common room, men lay sleeping on cots and pallets, crammed close together. We moved quickly, checking bandages, dispensing medications and powders. Apprentices scurried back and forth, bringing water and cloths, supplies and instruments. Our medicines were greeted with the usual laments over the taste. We ignored the complaints, as we moved around the room, seeing to each man. There were even more upstairs, on the second floor.
Our job was made difficult by the enemy’s use of a thrown lance. Four foot long, tipped with sharp metal barbs which were designed to break off in the wound. When thrown from horseback, they tore flesh and muscle in ways that could easily cripple a man, and made healing difficult. Our warriors had seen nothing like it before. Nor had they ever dealt with an army that fought only from horseback. Devil riders, they called them, men and women who could sit on a galloping horse and shoot arrow after arrow, with deadly accuracy. We’d heard rumors that they ate their dead, and tore the hearts out of their kills. That they were black, and yellow, and blue, and that their eyes glowed with madness.
I ignored the talk, and concentrated on my work. The men were grateful, and it tore my heart, how a kind word and a cool cloth would lift their spirits. A few recognized me as a Daughter of the Blood, but most simply welcomed me as the healer that I was. Just as well. I was not particularly proud of my ‘royal ’ heritage at the moment.
We worked our way through the men, cleaning and checking wounds. Tomorrow, we would welcome a small legion of servants who came every morning, for the general bathing, bedding, and slop pots. Volunteers from the city folk, some castle servants, since the need was so great. The healers and apprentices couldn’t do everything.
It was late by the time I knelt next to the last patient. “It’s well?” He rasped, peering at the gash in his calf as I replaced the bandage.
“Very well.”
“It don’t look well.” He reached out a finger to touch it. I smacked his hand. He pulled it back, as shocked as a child.
“It will not be well if you poke at it.” I frowned at him, and finished covering the wound. “Leave it be.”
“Aye, Lady.” He bobbed his head, looking sheepish, giving me a toothless grin.
I rose from the floor, and stifled a cry as the muscles in my back protested. I was feeling all of my twenty-five years. I picked up my supplies and moved off, trying to stretch out the tightness in my back as I went downstairs. Eln was in the kitchen, washing up. He grimaced at me as I grabbed up some soap and a cloth. “Finished?”
I nodded.
“I’ve no one to send to escort you.”
I shrugged. “It’s not the first time I’ve walked to the castle alone.”
“It’s not proper.” He paused for a moment. “I suppose you are going to those tents now?” I could hear the resignation in his tone.
I avoided him for the moment and plunged my hands into one of the buckets. The familiar scents of the herbs and mixtures were welcome and I took a deep breath. The bitter smell of fever’s foe came in through the window.
“The King has told you not to go there, Lara. I thought that maybe…” His voice trailed off, hinting at the doubt in his eyes.