Confused, she looked up, and cried out when a booted foot kicked her hard in the jaw. Terrified now, she tried to crawl away and was grabbed again, this time under the armpits, and hauled upright. She felt a curse begin to burn deep inside her chest. Hard hands held her, and someone thrust a wad of greasy cloth into her mouth. “Don’t let her speak,” a harsh voice said, and another voice said, “Shut up.” Then someone punched her in the stomach, and she tried to hunch over the pain, but the hard hands kept her from falling. They hit her, and kicked her, until her world was nothing but red agony.
Someone screamed, very close by, a shrill noise that went on and on. The man holding her cursed. “Finish her the fast way,” said the second voice, and someone pulled her close to his chest. She felt something cold slide into and out of her side, so cold it burned, and the man dropped her, and she landed hard on the ground. Footsteps receded into the distance. Without thinking, she pulled the cloth out of her mouth, and the god’s curse boiled out of her, words in an alien language, burning like acid. More screams, from farther away. Thank you, my Lord. She tried to smile, but she couldn’t feel her lips.
Someone was leaning over her, a man she didn’t know. The nearby screaming had turned into sobs. “Get a healer,” the man said. “Can you stand?” Zerafine wanted to tell him, I can’t get a healer and stand at the same time, but her mouth wasn’t working right. He hauled her upright, and she made a sound that would have been a scream if her throat had not been torn apart, so it came out a reedy hiss instead. Her side felt hot and wet, and her legs shook so much that had it not been for the stranger, she would have fallen again.
He brought her into a small house and laid her on a bed. It was lumpy and smelled a little of urine, not so much that it was objectionable, but she was having trouble seeing so it was a good thing her nose still worked. She stared at the pattern of cracks in the ceiling. One of them looked like naked Genedirou doing his ritual dance.
From somewhere nearby, an argument was going on.
“...saw their eyes, burned out of their sockets, Atenas’s curse...”
“...that woman, the emissary...”
“...killed Alestiou...”
“...be better just to let her die....”
“I didn’t kill Alestiou,” she protested, but nothing came out. Tears came to her eyes. Was that going to follow her the rest of her life? It occurred to her to wonder just how long “the rest of her life” was going to be. It felt like an awful lot of blood was coming out of her side. She couldn’t feel anything but cold fire there.
A louder voice, stronger. “I know who she is. I also know I a’nt goin’ to let a woman die in m’bed if it’s not Kalindi’s will. So get out o’ my way and go get the damn healer already!”
Good for you, sirrah, she thought. Let’s not let any women die in your bed. Her stomach clenched, and she first retched, then vomited on the floor. So much for dinner. Sorry again, Dakariou.
The noise outside the room was growing. Did the stranger have all his neighbors over at once? She couldn’t make out the argument anymore; everything seemed to be coming from a long way off. The stranger who’d half-carried her to the bed was beside her. He had a blanket or sheet or something and was pressing it into her side. She wanted to tell him not to bother, she was warm enough, but she realized her feet were actually very cold and she wished he’d put the blanket over them instead. The line drawing of Genedirou on the ceiling really was quite fascinating.
She heard someone enter the room and felt, rather than saw, the person push the stranger aside. “Let’s take a look here,” said a woman. With a great effort Zerafine turned her head to look at the new person, whose white hair was disheveled as if she’d just come from her bed. The woman moved the sheet aside and felt along the wound. Zerafine hissed again at the pain. “Sorry,” said the woman, but she sounded sort of detached and far away, so it was hard to tell if she meant it.
“Thelis, can you hear me?” the woman asked. Zerafine nodded once. It was too hard to do more than that. “I have to ask you if your god has called you home. Do you understand me? Tell me if Atenas has called you home. Just a nod or a shake of the head.”
Zerafine gave this question due consideration. She was injured enough that it could be considered a sign that her time in this world was over. On the other hand, she’d lasted this long and that knife wound probably should have killed her. If it hadn’t.... With an effort, she made her head flop from side to side. The room spun.
She heard someone shouting her name. Why was everyone so far away? The woman said, “Get him out of here,” and then, “My dear, this is going to hurt quite a lot,” and then hands gripped her shoulders and feet and someone was shoving a stick wrapped in a rag into her mouth, and she tried to spit it out because it reminded her of being gagged, but the woman said “You’ll want to bite on this” so she took it between her teeth and—
Up until now, she thought she knew what pain was. Now she arched her back and screamed voicelessly through her damaged throat, biting down on the stick so hard that she felt it snap inside its wrappings. Fire tore through her side and into her chest, her arms, her head. She fought to be free of the hands holding her, instinctively trying to get away from the pain that filled her. Then her vision spiraled into blackness, and she couldn’t fight any longer.
She woke in a blissful pain-free state. The crack in the ceiling no longer looked like Genedirou; it was a cat climbing a tree. How much difference a change of perspective can make. Someone was sitting on the foot of the bed. She looked; it was Gerrard. He was staring at his two clasped hands as if waiting for them to reveal the secrets of the universe.
Her body told her it had a pressing demand. She moved to sit up, and Gerrard startled. “Don’t get up,” he said.
“I have to use the commode,” she told him. Her voice sounded rough and her throat itched as she spoke.
He gave her his hand and assisted her to a chamber pot in the corner, then tactfully turned his back while she used it.
“Back in bed,” he said, guiding her to it with his hand on the small of her back as if she were a child.
“I feel fine,” she said, pulling away. His touch made her uncomfortable; she needed him to keep his distance, wanted him never to let her go.
“Healer’s instructions, not mine,” he said. She’d expected him to be angry with her for proving him right about going out alone. Instead, his face was impassive. “We’re waiting for a litter to take you home.”
“I can’t go yet. I have something I need to handle.” Without waiting for his permission, she ducked out of the small room, staggering a little bit as her legs tried to give out on her. It opened directly onto the street. The paving stones were cracked and a thin line of dark fluid ran in the gutter, which was clogged with trash. How had she ended up in a neighborhood like this? The crowd of people she’d heard before was still gathered, talking in low voices. Their conversations trailed off as, one by one, they noticed her standing there.
“Which of you brought me here?” she asked.
A man came forward. He was grizzled, perhaps in his fifties, with a large nose and a scar across his cheek. “I did,” he said. He had the kind of belligerent expression on his face that conceals fear.
Zerafine committed his face to memory. “I heard you and your friends talking, before the healer came,” she said. Then she made her deepest bow, knee to the ground without regard for the filth, hands spread wide, the kind of bow a ruler might expect of his vassal.
“Thank you,” she said. “You could have let me die, and as far as you knew you would have been justified. You chose otherwise. I am in your debt. Whatever you ask, if it’s in my power and the god’s will, I will do it for you.”
Silence gripped the crowd. “I didn’t kill Alestiou,” she added. The silence felt like a void that needed to be filled.
The man said, “I only did what any right-thinkin’ man would.”
Zerafine said, “You did what a thousand others
would not have.”
The man scratched his head. “D’you think you could replace the bed what you bled on?” he asked. “It a’nt a good one, but it’s mine.”
Zerafine smiled at him, her heart light. “I’ll have it to you before tomorrow night,” she promised.
“What are you doing out of bed?” The white-haired healer pushed through the crowd, a bowl in her hands and righteous indignation on her face. “What is she doing out of bed? I told you to make her stay there,” she said, addressing Gerrard.
“We’ve established that I can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do,” he replied, his tone neutral, but Zerafine heard the rebuke and it burned inside her like a coal.
“Then you ought to try harder. Sit on her, if you must, you and that massive body of yours,” she grumbled. She shooed Zerafine back into the room and made her lie down on what, Zerafine realized, was a bloody, gory mess. She definitely owed her savior a new bed.
“Sit up a little and drink this. Don’t worry, it’s not nasty.” Zerafine sipped at the bowl and made a face. She’d hate to learn this woman’s definition of “nasty.” “You need to drink it all, but take your time. Young man, I expect you to make sure she doesn’t exert herself overmuch. She’ll want to at first, but a healing like that takes it out of you, and I’m too old to use any of my own energy. Her mouth didn’t heal. Any idea why not?”
“The god’s curse,” Gerrard rumbled. The healer’s mouth made an O of surprise.
“Well, I think it will get better on its own. She’s already able to talk and I imagine most of this is superficial.” The healer peeled Zerafine’s upper lip back from her teeth, a difficult task considering Zerafine had just taken another sip of the vile liquid. “Lots of fluids, plenty of rest, sleep if you can, and call in at the Goddess’s temple if you’re not recovered in twenty-four hours.” She patted Zerafine’s cheek. “You were lucky. That was a nasty beating someone gave you, quite aside from the knife wound.” Zerafine felt Gerrard tense beside her.
Nacalia peeked into the room. “Litter’s here,” she said. She didn’t look at Zerafine at all. Gerrard helped Zerafine to lie down in the litter and then gave a command to the bearers to head out.
The litter was surprisingly comfortable, the jolts minimal. Zerafine curled on her uninjured side—no, they were both uninjured now. It had been a miracle that she had survived. She remembered the hands grabbing her, hitting her, and she clenched her eyes shut, willing the images to go away. She drifted off to sleep, barely waking when the litter came to a stop. Someone—Gerrard—picked her up and carried her, cradled like a baby, to her own bed. She felt something brush her face, then she fell into a deep, painless sleep.
Chapter Nineteen
Zerafine woke once, in the early hours, feeling as though she’d been beaten. Then she remembered that she had. She curled into a tight ball, cried a little, and fell back asleep.
When she woke again, it was full daylight, and the aches had mostly subsided. Nacalia was asleep on her bed, curled up like a kitten. She woke when Zerafine moved, said “You’re not allowed to get up yet,” and ran out of the room. Zerafine, amused, propped herself on her elbows and waited. Nacalia returned with Gerrard in tow, half dressed, hair tousled. Zerafine caught her breath. She had seen him without his shirt on many times before, but from her new perspective, the sight of his bare chest, the ridged muscles of his stomach, made her dizzy with desire. Her heart thudded against her ribcage like a captured animal. Amazing that he couldn’t hear it.
“How are you feeling?” he said.
“Sore. Achy all over. But this—” she pointed at her side—“doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel like much of anything, really.” In pointing at her side, she realized she was still wearing her filthy, torn clothes from the night before. She couldn’t believe how stupidly eager she’d been when she picked them out. Poor Dakariou. Poor her, for that matter.
“The healer said that a divine healing repairs the body at the cost of your vital energy,” Gerrard said. “You’re physically entirely healed, but you need to take it easy while your body refills those stores. Please don’t argue with me about this. If you don’t rest, you will collapse and you could even die.” He sounded weary, resigned to her willfulness. She wanted so badly to throw herself at him, to reassure him that his opinion mattered more to her than anyone else’s.
“I’ll rest,” she said, her voice sounding tiny in her ears. “But Dakariou is coming over this morning to talk about the Talarannos estate.”
“Dakariou is not coming over,” Gerrard said grimly. “I spoke with him last night and we’re meeting at noon. He’s going to tell me about the progress he’s made finding out about the men who attacked you.”
“When did you speak to him?”
“Five minutes after I dragged him out of his bed and asked him some very blunt questions about why he’d sent you off with four men who turned out to be assassins.”
“That wasn’t his fault.”
“No, but I was looking for someone other than myself to blame.” For a moment, pain shone through the cracks in Gerrard’s impassivity. He’s not angry with me. He’s angry with himself.
“Will you tell me what he finds?”
“Of course.” But he still looked grim.
Zerafine looked at Nacalia, standing in the doorway, listening avidly. “Nacalia. Go to your room. Gerrard and I have to have a private conversation. And, Nacalia? When I say ‘your room’ I mean your room, not the hallway, not the sitting area. If I have to chase you away, I’ll hurt myself, and you don’t want that, right?” Nacalia, her eyes wide, shook her head vigorously, and was off like the wind.
“Shut the door,” Zerafine said, “and sit down.” He obeyed, looking puzzled and a bit wary. “Now, you listen to me, you big ox. This was not your fault. Nobody even thought to assume that I was in mortal danger. No one thought not to trust the bearers. Not you, not Dakariou, not me. No one could have expected this. So stop blaming yourself. As someone wise once told me, either forget about it or learn from it.”
Gerrard shook his head. “You have no idea,” he said, “what it meant to me to watch you in agony because of something I didn’t protect you from. It’s what I do, Zerafine. If you’re injured that badly, it should only be because I am lying in a dozen pieces on the ground beside you. We argue, we don’t always agree, but I never dreamed I would let you down so completely.”
“I don’t—” she began, then didn’t know how to continue. This wasn’t something she could make better, and her first instinct—to grab him by the ears and kiss him—would be less than useful. “Gerrard, sentare, I forgive you,” she said. “I forgive you. I want you to figure out how to forgive yourself.”
He looked away. “It would help if you let me do my job,” he said, and she could hear the edge of humor in his voice. Zerafine smiled and lay back.
“I promise,” she said. “No more solitary dinners, no traveling with bearers unless you’re with me, no meetings with the Council, nothing.” If I could, I would keep you with me always.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, and Gerrard sat up straight in alarm. “I have to break my promise already!”
Gerrard looked at her with such despair that she added, “I have to take a bath.”
He laughed. It was such a relief to hear him laugh. It was as if their argument had never happened.
He did have to help her fill the tub, but once he was gone, she sank into the warm water and watched it turn pink from the blood the healer hadn’t scrubbed off. There was a spot the size of a parsis low on her left side, just above her pelvis, scar tissue that felt dead under her fingers. She shivered, once again remembering those hard hands on her, a kick to the stomach...the healing had rid her of all those injuries as well. She tried to think about the attack impartially and only succeeded in making herself sick nearly to the point of vomiting. Very well, she’d forget about it. A day of nothing but rest seemed like a good idea, even if it hadn’t been healer-mandated.
>
Clean, scrubbed, and dried, she put on her oldest, softest gown and went into the sitting room while Gerrard took his turn in the bath. She was feeling a little wobbly, so she sat down and put her feet up. Aesoron emerged from the kitchen with a tray.
“It’s good to see you doing so well, thelis,” he said. He pulled another couch around to where it faced her and set the tray on it. “I’m told you are to eat well, so Fidonia has prepared some of your favorites. Let us know if there’s anything else we can do for you.” He bowed low and retreated.
“Thank you,” she called after him. She was starting to feel hungry, and the food did look good. There was a carafe of fruit juice and she drank thirstily, gulping down the cold liquid that soothed her still-sore throat. Everything was well-seasoned without being spicy, soft without being mushy—did Aesoron and Fidonia know everything without being told?
Nacalia peeked out of the hallway. “Can I come out now?” She looked nervous.
“Have you been in there all this time? Yes, you can come out. Come have some of this food.”
Nacalia leaped onto the couch and buried her face in Zerafine’s stomach. “I was so scared!” she wailed in a muffled voice.
Zerafine stroked her dark curls. “Nothing to be scared of,” she said. “I’m fine now and it’s not going to happen again.”
“Those men hurt you so much, and I di’nt know what to do, I should’ve screamed sooner,” she replied, still muffled. Zerafine went very still.
“Nacalia, are you saying you were there?” she asked, prying Nacalia’s face away from her midsection to look at her directly.
Nacalia nodded. “Sentare had me follow you in case anything bad happened, which it did, but I di’nt know what to do. Then the man came and I was going to get the healer, but somebody else did, so I ran for sentare. He was mad,” she added. “He di’nt yell at me though, just at the handsome man.”
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