by Lee Ramsay
He was naked beneath the blanket; the coarse fabric hid leather straps across his chest and hips. The tightness of the strap across his chest was partly responsible for his difficulty breathing. Additional straps, wrapped in soft cloth, restrained his arms and legs at each joint and bound him to the wooden bed. Whoever held him wanted to keep him restrained but comfortable.
He turned his head and tried to figure out where he was.
His bed was one of perhaps two dozen in a long, windowless room with double doors at each end. A handful were occupied. Tapers in brass candelabra trees lit the beds in the center of the room, where the light from the massive hearths was weakest. Several women in shapeless brown and gray wool gowns sat in comfortable chairs near the distant fireplaces; their wimple-covered heads were bowed, as though sleeping.
The soft thump of a closing book drew his attention. A man not much older than he slouched in an overstuffed chair near his bed. Long black hair fell in ringlets around a pale, angular face. Eyes as blue as the shirt the man wore regarded him with curiosity. Full lips quirked as Tristan blinked in confusion. He laid the book on a table beside a tankard and an empty plate. “You’re awake. I thought you might wake this evening, though the others thought tomorrow night more likely.”
Tristan licked his lips and felt his pulse race as he caught the guttural tones of the man’s Anahari accent. Dragging in a breath that made his chest ache, he asked, “Where am I?”
“In the town of Wenggen, in the Temple of Maponos,” the man said as he picked up a tankard and rose from his seat. Perching on the bed’s edge, he held the mug to the young man’s lips for a sip of water. “Not too much, and not too fast, lest you choke. You have been unconscious for the past seven days. Some of it was by our doing, but it was mostly your body trying to heal.”
A sip of water soothed Tristan’s parched mouth. He lay his head against the grain-filled pillow and drew another breath, hearing the strange bubbling sound once more. The Temple...of Maponos?”
“Relax. The shortness of breath will pass in time.” The Anahari man patted Tristan’s shoulder and allowed him another sip of water. “As you might guess, there was a need for healing after the War of Tenegath. The Caledorn provided. The temple is a sanatorium founded by a religious order out of Caledorn, dedicated to their deity of youth and healing. The Kingdom of Ravvos will not allow them to build their temple on Hegemony soil, as the Church of Vastor will tolerate no foreign religions. This place is on the island between Troppenheim and the Hegemony of Ravvos – quite literally neutral ground.”
“You are...Anahari.”
“I am. You may call me Alder.” The man gave the young man another sip. “The Priests of Maponos are fine people of generous of spirit, but have few physicians. I made my way here when I learned of their need.”
“You were...allowed...to leave?”
Alder lifted an eyebrow. “You’re familiar with Anahari society?”
“Somewhat. I have a friend...”
“Ah, yes, the young woman who arrived with you. I didn’t have a chance to speak with her, as you were quite close to death when the Troppenheim chariot came to our door.” He shrugged and set the tankard on the table beside the bed. “Suffice to say I did not wish to have someone tell me who I would wed and bed, so I left. Now tell me, what do you remember of the past few days?”
Tristan thought for a moment but shook his head.
“Confusion is to be expected with hypovolemia and compromised respiration. You lost quite a bit of blood. Some of it will pass in time,” Alder said as he rose from the bed’s edge. He turned a plain wooden chair to face Tristan and sat down, arms folded over his chest. “In truth, you have that young woman to thank for keeping you alive by forcing air into your lungs. Not many people survive being impaled by a sword.”
The leather straps holding him in place creaked as memory returned with startling clarity. He recognized Alder as the man who had had his hands in his chest.
“Relax, lest you hurt yourself anew. It appears you encountered the Meridan warlord called the Horned Knight. The bastard has been terrorizing Troppenheim’s countryside for the better part of the last year, but we thought him further north. You and your friends faced him – and lost.” The Anahari’s lip curled as his head tilted to the side, spilling heavy ringlets of his dark hair across his chest. “Luck was with you, however. A Troppenheim chariot patrol investigated the sound of battle. The Meridan were ill-prepared to face them and fled.”
“The others?”
“Your friends? I did not tend them, but I can ask after them. You were still moving, so the patrol emptied one chariot save for the driver and allowed the girl and a rather large man to bring you here. Too much longer, and I fear you would have died of blood loss.”
“What happened?”
“You took a sword to the side. A rib deflected the blade, else you would not be here now. Even so, it nicked and collapsed your lung and damaged your diaphragm. You almost drowned in your blood while you’re your body tried to suffocate you.” Alder shifted in his seat to find a more comfortable position. “You gave me quite the start, waking while I was stitching your wounds.”
“Will I live?”
“The worst chance of dying has passed, or you would be a grave man.” The Anahari gestured at Tristan’s chest. “As I said, your lung collapsed. The restraints will keep you immobile and prevent you from dislodging a glass tube inserted in your side. This is necessary to reinflate your lung; the bubbling you hear is air in your chest cavity being pushed into a bottle each time you inhale. Perhaps we can remove the glass in a day or two and see how you breathe without it.
“Your other injuries are of concern as well. It appears you had quite the misadventure,” Alder continued. “A missing finger, damaged fingertips, and more cuts and scars than I care to count. You are also malnourished. All of this will slow your healing.”
“When will I be able to go home?”
“Spring, at the earliest. In truth, there is no rush. The snows have begun, and soon it will become too difficult to travel. With how thin you are, I would not recommend you do so. Should the cold settle in your lungs, it would kill you.” Alder ran his hands through his hair, then extended the move into a stretch. “Now then, why don’t you tell me how you acquired so many injuries for one so young?”
“It is a long story.”
“You have nowhere to be.”
Chapter 73
Winter 1415
“Tristan,” a gruff voice said. A hand grabbed his bare foot through the blankets piled over him, giving it a shake and followed by the repetition of his name. He pulled his knees closer to his chest and pushed his face deeper into the pillow.
Much of the last fortnight had passed in a healing sleep, and he was loathe to wake. The hole in his back where the glass tube drained air and fluid from his chest had been stitched closed. Both puncture wounds where the Horned Knight’s sword had passed through him were healing well, as was the incision where Alder had cut him open to repair his nicked lung and diaphragm. Laudanum-laced tea was given to him several times a day, helping him sleep through the worst pain.
Food and rest were what he needed, the Anahari physician had told him. He was clean, warm, comfortable, and fed. After so long without those, he resented being disturbed. He did not want to be bothered unless one of the Priestesses of Maponos was bringing him a meal – which he doubted, as his stomach was still pleasantly full.
Being left in peace was not to be. There was an annoyed exhalation; the entire bed shook as a hand grabbed the footboard and gave it a jerk. “Wake up, boy.”
“A little gentler, Dougan,” a patient voice said.
“The physicker said he’d live.”
Still-healing flesh shifted as he rolled onto his back. He squinted against the sunlight slipping through a gap in the curtains covering the room’s small window. Dougan’s bald pate gleamed with reflected sunlight, and his graying beard was heavy across his jawline. Anthoun sto
od beside him, the old man’s cheeks and chin downed with white stubble beneath hair drawn into a loose club. “What in all hells are you doing here?”
“That should be rather obvious, don’t you think?” Anthoun asked with an arched brow. The old man turned the room’s wooden chair away from a small desk and seated himself with a groan. “We received a letter saying you had been injured. Once the horses were ready, we set out. We arrived within the past hour.”
Dougan gave a short nod of the head. “Terrible weather to ride in, too. Another week, and we would have had to wait for the snows to stop long enough to break a trail.”
Tristan tried to sit, and fell back with a hiss as his weak muscles failed him. The veteran was beside him in an instant, his muscular arm around the young man’s shoulder to support him as the sage sprang from his seat to stack pillows behind his back. Sweat beaded his upper lip as Dougan eased him down. “Who sent the letter?”
“That is less important at the moment than how we are to get you home,” Anthoun said as he dropped into his chair. “Winter is upon us, and you are in no condition to ride a horse – much less walk through drifts of snow.”
“I’m not going home.”
The two older men traded a glance. Dougan’s bushy eyebrows rose as he gave the sage a slight shake of the head. Ignoring him, the old man rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward with a scowl. “If you think we rode all this way—”
“Get out.” Two words, quietly spoken but hard as steel. Jaw clenched, Tristan locked his green eyes with Anthoun’s gray. Rising anger drove his heart to a rapid thrum, blowing away the drugs fogging his thoughts. When the old man did not blink, he drew a slow, deep breath to strengthen his voice. “I said, get out.”
The sage did not move for a long moment and hardly seemed to breathe. Dougan laid his hand on Anthoun’s slender shoulder, blunt fingers dimpling the iron-gray wool coat. The young man neither blinked nor looked away as his ward father rose, daring him to say something.
Anthoun shrugged free of the veteran’s hand and stormed from the room. The oak door banged closed with enough force to rattle the thick panes of glass in the window.
Dougan sniffed as he folded his thick arms over his chest and drummed his fingers against his bicep. He stared down at the young man, his brow wrinkled with displeasure. “That was uncalled for.”
“I’m not ready to talk to him yet.”
“Don’t you think a year passing without a word drove home that you are angry with him?” the veteran asked. “He was sick with worry, and hired people to search the countryside for word or sign of you. Then we learn you’ve been found, run through and more than half dead, hundreds of miles from home. We were on horseback within an hour of learning your condition, and hardly stopped to rest the whole way here.”
Tristan returned Dougan’s glare with equal intensity, jaw muscles jumping.
The older man shook his head with an irritated sigh and turned for the door. He paused as he lay a hand on the knob. “It would behoove you both to apologize and move on.”
TRISTAN REMAINED UNCERTAIN if he was ready to extend Anthoun an apology, but the old man did not give him a choice. The sage left Dougan to tend him and mounted his horse as soon as the grooms could saddle it. Hours passed before the veteran returned to the young man’s room with a tray of food and told him of the sage’s departure.
“So, he left again, without telling me.”
“He owes you no explanation about where he goes, or why,” Dougan said, hollowing out bread loaf. He ladled a rich meat stew into a bread bowl and handed the food over before starting on his own. “Besides, you made it quite clear he wasn’t welcome.”
“Do you know where he went?”
“Caer Ravvos,” Dougan said, stirring his food with a wooden spoon. He slurped a mouthful before continuing. “He figured that if his primary reason for being here wasn’t willing to talk with him, he might as well do something useful with his time.”
“I want to go to Caer Ravvos.”
“I wanted to fuck my way through every brothel I could find at your age, and to die with a full head of hair and a smile on my lips. We don’t always get what we want. Sometimes it is better that way,” Dougan said around another mouthful. He set aside his spoon and tore off a hunk of the soggy bread bowl. “You’re not yet well enough to travel that far anyway, not with the roads getting bad. Even in a coach, you would risk tearing open the stitches holding you together.”
The young man took as deep a breath as he could manage. Though his lung improved daily, there was no denying his breathing was poor. “When I am well enough—”
“Shut your mouth, and eat your lunch. We can talk about what comes later after you tell me where you’ve been.”
SOFT NOTES FILTERED through the door to Tristan’s room, rich but subtle enough to coax him toward wakefulness. For long moments he stared at the dull red glow cast by the hearth as he lay on his back, willing himself to return to sleep.
When curiosity prevented unconsciousness from returning, he swung his legs from beneath his blankets and examined the healing wounds in his left side. An angry, sutured incision curved around the bottom of his ribs, connecting the entrance and exit wounds from the Horned Knight’s thrust. The scar from repairing injured muscles was just one more to add to the dozens covering his skin.
His muscles remained weak and tender as he dressed in loose woolens and soft boots, which forced him to move slowly. Steadying himself with a hand on the bed’s footboard, he wobbled toward the door. He took several unaided steps across the rug between bed and doorway before dizziness threatened to send him to the floor. For a moment, he considered returning to his bed. Alder had warned him not to push his recovery, but he was tired of being coddled. Ever since his arrival, Dougan had been by turns gruff or doting to the point of smothering.
The young man propped his hand against the wall and spent a moment fighting to catch his breath before easing the door open.
He had not been out of his room often since leaving the ward where the sick and injured were tended, but he knew the basic temple’s layout – four blocky buildings arranged in a square, connected in the center by the shrine to the Caledorn god of youth and healing. Each building had a central atrium; the rooms and wards were separated from the courtyards by broad, enclosed hallways designed to insulate against the River Ossifor’s cold dampness. Large double doors could be thrown open to allow in the fresh summer air, but they were closed now; the beveled glass panes overlooking the gardens were frosted, the shrubs and small trees cloaked in white.
The music broke off as the door clicked open. Rathus set his strange instrument aside and rose from the divan, and he slipped a hand under the younger man’s elbow to help him to a seat on a cushioned bench. “I hope my music was not disturbing you. The priests suggested I play a bit while you slept to comfort the other patients. Music, like laughter, is one of the greatest healers.”
“I’ve slept enough, and wanted some time without Dougan hovering over me,” Tristan said as he leaned against the bench’s curved and padded arm. His fluttering heart slowed as he regained his breath.
“I assume that’s the bearded bald man who has been loitering about with a book? He listened to me play for a while, then said something about going to find a drink.” The bard sat on the other end of the bench and settled his instrument’s body on his knee. A trill of notes flowed from the strings as he ran his fingers along them. “You look terrible, though not as bad as when we arrived.”
“I’ve been better.” The young man shifted to a more comfortable position with a wry smirk and examined his friend. The bard wore a black fustian doublet, the slashed sleeves revealing rough silk dyed a deep blue. A fine woven linen shirt peeked from beneath the doublet’s unfastened top buttons, and its stiffened collar brushed his jawline. He had trimmed his beard into a goatee and shaved his cheeks, which made his unbound hair seem longer and fuller. Three gold rings winked from the lobe of his left ear. “
Your nose is a bit crooked, but you look recovered. In fact, you look to have done rather well for yourself.”
“Caer Ravvos has many taverns and inns, and while there are minstrels aplenty, they cannot compare to one trained at the colleges of Thorsbend. The city is a bard’s paradise, provided one knows where to look and the right notes to pluck. You can make a pretty coin with ribald songs in the lower pothouses, and the finer wine houses pay well for soothing tunes to aid the atmosphere. It has been a lucrative month.” Rathus grinned and winked. “There are also quite a few brothels, where the courtesans are quite...generous.”
Tristan snorted. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”
“To be honest, I’m happier to have an instrument to hand once more over female company. Not that I am turning away them away, mind you.”
“I would be shocked if you did.”
The nobleman’s fingers strummed across his instrument’s strings and raised a rich trill of notes. Gracefully curved and built from cherry wood, only the lower neck had frets; the six strings on the upper were tuned to bass notes, while an additional six thin, short strings stretched across the bottom to produce high-pitched notes.
“It’s beautiful. What is it?”
The bard’s fingers stilled, allowing the last notes to hang. “Have you never heard of a harp guitar?”
“A what?”
“Shreth must be more provincial than I thought. I may have to come and visit you just to bring some culture.” The Rathus’s face screwed into a rueful expression as his fingers drew forth a rich, full sound from the instrument. “The harp guitar is not an easy instrument to master. Some study the lute, and others the mandolin. Others dedicate themselves to the harp, while yet others apply themselves to the harpsichord.”
“So, why learn something so complex when a lute would suit?”
“Why do something everyone else is doing? Oh, I can play the others well enough, but I have found the notes less full-bodied and enjoyable. With this, I can sound as though I have two guitars or a supporting vocal.”