Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (35 page)

“My Lord and cousin, there is no such stuff in my thoughts,”
she said almost convincingly.  “My bond to you…”

He nodded impatiently.  “I’ve no doubt of your loyalty,
Renda.  Blood runs true.”

“Aye,” she replied, “but today, you put yourself at risk for
something Gikka could probably have done better––”

He laughed, and she stopped short.  “You truly believe it is
my own safety that concerns me here.  Do you know me so little then, after all
these years?”

She lifted her head.  “I know Damerien,” she said carefully. 
“But this recklessness is not what I came to expect!”  She lowered her voice. 
“Is this foolhardiness something you have put on to mark yourself as young?”

Damerien looked around them.  “You do not understand.  The
risk I took was far greater than you can possibly imagine.  You know more of me
than anyone save your father, it’s true, but even you do not understand fully.”

What he said was true, of course.  She knew only what her
father had told her, bits and pieces, dribs and drabs, and she’d been
encouraged strongly over the years not to ask questions.

“I have trusted your father and yourself, and even your boon
companion, Gikka, with more knowledge of me than any generation before.  Of
necessity, mark you, or I should not have done.  The prophecy…” he sighed.  “I
took the risk that this mage would recognize who and what I was by speaking to
him myself, in the hopes that I could learn what no one else could.  Oh, yes,
Gikka could have gotten him to answer any question, had she known what to ask. 
But she did not.  As it happened, I got nothing from him at all.  And then, of
course, he escaped.  That mistake could have brought down such violence and
destruction upon us…”

“It did not,” she soothed, mildly amused at finding herself
on what had been his side of the argument.  She touched his arm gently.  “At
least not yet.  So be of good cheer.  We yet have time to prepare.”

Amara brought the makeshift torch closer so she and Laniel
could both look more closely at the wound in Kerrick’s thigh. 

The Bilkarian prodded carefully at the skin and watched
blood swell and break free of the cut.

“A cut of a hand’s length, still seeping a fair bit of blood
this many an hour later,” Amara observed.  “To the good, the cut goes but a
little into the meat.  No damage to muscle.  Were it the least bit shallower I
should have expected it to seal by now.”

The priest nodded, pleased that her assessment matched his
own.  “The least bit deeper, and we might be sending his bones into the sea. 
As it is, would you stitch it or leave it heal on its own?”

“Stitch it?”  Kerrick looked between them and laughed.  “You
mean like a tear in a shirt?”

But neither answered him.  Amara shook her head.  “No.”

“Truly,” Laniel said in surprise.  “At the abbey we would
not hesitate to stitch a wound like this.”

“Ah,” she smiled, “but in the abbey, you have cleanliness
and quiet.  In battle, we have noise, chaos, grime, and almost always, other
wounds as need tending.  Stitches are a luxury unless the blood pulses or the
bone shows.”

Laniel’s brow rose.  He had not considered beyond the
recovery of the patient.  Yes, it made sense to him that treatment would need
to be a balance of risks, and that the risks here would be different.  “Such a
very different way of thinking.  I have much to learn.”

She shrugged.  “The basis of treatment is the same.  The
difference is simply in what is possible and what is not, what is safe and what
is not.  Those we can save and those we cannot.”  She prodded dispassionately
at Kerrick’s leg.  “True, stitches would seal this sooner and reduce the
scarring, but I would not risk infection from a field suture for so small a
gain.  In this case, perhaps a bit of clean silk to help it bind, no more.”

Laniel nodded.  “You should have been a Bilkarian, madam. 
You have given me challenge today, and for this, I thank you.”  He smiled.  “I
can offer more than just a bit of clean silk.”

The Bilkarian applied one of his salves to a tiny strip of
Bremondine silk and explained its healing properties and derivation.  Amara told
him she had not seen it before, and she eagerly drank up the knowledge.  It
felt so good to have a student to teach again.  But as he had already learned,
she was as much a teacher to him as he was to her.  Since he’d left the abbey,
he’d felt unnecessary except when he was sharing what he knew. 

He lay the tiny strip of silk into the wound and watched the
blood begin to bind to it, clotting and weaving a healing lattice inside the
cut. Since he had watched Daerwin’s wound burn away the silk at the abbey, he
was always relieved to see it work properly.

“You should get a nice boasting scar out of it, my Lord, and
a few days’ annoyance from the pain, but nothing more,” he told Lord Kerrick. 
“Just keep it clean and wrapped.”

But the knight shook his head.  “No boasting for me, not
over this.  A prisoner slipped out on my watch and tried to attack the duke, no
less.”  He scowled, staring darkly at the burning branch Amara held.  “Imagine
if he had succeeded… ”

“Indeed,” Amara murmured, and Laniel thought he heard a
slight tinge of disapproval in her tone.

“He failed.”  The priest wiped away the excess salve.  “You
were wounded trying to stop him, and the duke has expressed his gratitude for
your efforts.”

“Yes,” he allowed, “which is the only reason I do not hang
my head in absolute shame.  I have to wonder why he chose to attack the duke
that way.  He had nowhere to go”

Amara watched Laniel wind the bandage around Kerrick’s leg. 
“Most likely he recognized that the duke was in command, or perhaps because he
recognized his face as the one who had questioned him,” she shrugged.  “But
perhaps not.  His Grace has the look of command about him.  I doubt anyone
could miss that he is noble.”

“Certainly no one would believe the duke was responsible for
the prisoner’s wounds,” Kerrick continued, “least of all the prisoner himself.”

“No,” Laniel answered, looking up at him in surprise.  He
might have expected Kerrick to say anything but that.  “Not a soul of this camp
would believe it or even speculate to that end.”

“No, of course not, and for that, I am relieved.”  Kerrick
cocked his head.  “But I am surprised at your confidence that no one would
doubt.  For myself, I’ve not heard a word against him, but…”

Gikka chuckled softly from the darkness where she sat on a
boulder not far away scratching at it with the long nails on her little
fingers.  “His Grace’d not have gone in with the prisoner to muck about with
blades and such.  If that were his plan, he’d have set me on him.  He did not,
and the knights know he did not.  Is why not one of this camp even touches such
a thought as lays blame on Damerien.”  She looked up at them, letting them see her
eyeshine in the weak light of the makeshift torch.  “The prisoner was untouched
as the duke left him, as sure as the sun rises and sets.”

“Indeed!”  The viscount smiled and shook his head in
amazement.  “The loyalty among the knights for Lord Trocu is profound indeed.”

Through the corner of his eye, Laniel watched Amara’s
expression darken.

“Of course it is,” she growled, “and that loyalty was well
earned of us.  We follow because through the war, his father had our trust and
that of our Lord Sheriff, well earned by their deeds.  When Brada Damerien
died, that loyalty fell to the present duke.”

“Much like your own loyalty to him, Lord Windale,” murmured
the priest. 

“Oh, without question.  I followed Brada in the wars, too,
as I follow Trocu now.  But then, my loyalty was not tested today.  I saw the
prisoner when Damerien left him, and I saw how he attained his wounds with my
own eyes, right before he attacked me.  I certainly have no reason to question,
but I could see how one might.”  He gestured toward the cut on his leg.  “I am
frankly embarrassed that a wounded mage, of all things, managed to surprise me
that way.”  He rubbed his temples.  “Even now, it’s left me feeling a bit
lightheaded and strange.”

Amara glared at him, the fine lines of her face oddly lit by
the tiny fire on the branch she held.  “Strange indeed, Lord Windale.  I pray
you mind your words.  Your tongue is loosened as with drink, and the
thoughtless whims on your lips press my patience.  If you’ll excuse me.”  She
handed Laniel the brand, bowed rather curtly to Kerrick, and walked away.

Laniel cleared his throat in the awkward silence that
followed and resumed his examination.  “So small a wound can still give a shock
to the body, but it should have passed by now.”  The priest looked into Kerrick’s
eyes, alternately shading them and exposing them to the flickering light.  He
marked the beads of sweat on the young man’s temples, the damp stringiness of
his chestnut hair.  “Did you faint outright, perhaps hit your head?”  He looked
down at where the wound was already binding itself closed.  “I should have
looked into the wound more closely.”

“No need.”  Kerrick huffed and looked away impatiently. 
“Knights of Brannagh do not faint at the sight of a drop or two of blood,
priest.  As I said, I feel a bit lightheaded, no more but so.”  He tugged at
the cut fabric of his breeches, and Laniel gave him the needle and suture
thread he’d readied to stitch the cut closed if needed.  “The little bastard
was stronger than I expected.  Imagine if he’d had a real knife instead of that
bit of glass!”  He shook his head as he began stitching the cloth together.

“Glass…”  Laniel looked back at the knight’s wound
thoughtfully.

“Aye,” said the knight, waving toward Laniel’s pouch.  “Same
as he used to cut himself.  No doubt it was a piece of one of your medicine
vials.  Sure that’s the only glass I’ve seen since we left Pyran.”

A medicine vial.  Of course.

“If that is the case,” replied Laniel, “the mystery of the
lightheadedness is solved.  The only vials I opened near him contained a
sedative, and so, with his having cut you, the sedative in the vial no doubt
entered your wound when he cut you with the glass.  You’re lucky to be
standing, considering that the drug is meant to be inhaled amid large
quantities of air and not put straight into the blood.”  That solved the
mystery of Kerrick’s lightheadedness, but it brought to light several more.  He
felt in his pouch.  “I still know not how he might have acquired it.”

“You may have left one behind, or perhaps he thieved it from
you.”

Laniel shook his head.  “Impossible.  He was quite sedated––”
Though he had not been sedated when he came running from the lean-to. How had
he recovered so quickly?

“All I know is that he was cutting himself with a piece of
broken glass when I looked in on him.”  Kerrick smiled ruefully.  “Thus came I
to be injured in trying to stop him.”

Laniel shook his head.  “This, I do not understand.  I kept
him sedated so he could not move.  At all.  The duke was able to question him,
but I was certainly not going to leave him free to use his power.”

Laniel counted the vials in his sac.  He could not be
certain until later when he emptied the pouch back into his saddlebag, but by
feel, it seemed that all the vials he’d gathered were there.  “Further,” he
continued, “I do not know how he could have freed himself enough to do such a
thing, nor why.  To think that he might have been free to attack the duke.…”

He took out one of the vials and held it up to the light,
then shrugged and shook his head.  The color looked right, and the juice was
fresh.  Without the ano, the mage should yet be paralyzed, even now, these many
hours later.  Yet he had run from the lean-to with his wits about him, aware,
fully able to use his power.  What had he forgotten?  Was Bilkar right, that
his time as abbot had dulled his mind and weakened his judgment?  He felt a hot
rush of shame in his face.

Kerrick continued.  “The oddest part was that even while he
cut himself, he did not make a sound, not until I tried to stop him.  So quiet
was he that at first, so intent on his task, that I could not believe my eyes
and it took me far too long to mark what he was doing.  I still do not
understand what would make him cut himself that way.”

“Perhaps to enhance his magic since he knew he was weak.” 
Laniel returned the vial to his pouch.  “I have heard of such things, though
involving priests, not mages, and it’s seldom more than ritual.  Rjeinar’s
priests scar and tattoo themselves, and the torturer priests of Cuvien––”

“Do you know what I think?”  Kerrick stopped stitching and
looked up at them.  “I think he was trying to kill himself.”

“Bah.”  Gikka stared at the long nails on her little
fingers.  “He couldn’t have missed his death harder if he’d tried.”

The priest nodded.  No, the mage had been terrified at the
last.  He had not wanted to die.  Or perhaps he had not wanted to die that way.

“How do you mean?”  Kerrick looked between them.  “He was
bleeding horribly.  He had cuts all over his body.  Surely he would have died!”

“Face cuts always bleed to scare a mother blind, but the
blood means nothing in the end.”  Gikka stood and stretched.  “Oh, perhaps, an
we had no surgeon to see to him and he rubbed his own dung in the cuts, he
might have died, but sure he knew Laniel would not let him perish so.”

Kerrick shook his head.  “If I had not looked in on him, who
knows how far he might have gone.”

“You’re yet the hero, Lord Kerrick, fear me not,” Gikka
laughed.  “But he’d not have got far ere we saw to him, regardless.  His cuts,
though….  Something in the lay of them gives me pause.  Sure, I but seen them
at a distance, but to my eye, they were not a one as would slow him or cripple
him, and sure none for a quick death.  Not one cut did I see at his throat,
none at groin, none along his arms where the heart’s blood is close at hand. 
Sure he’d be wishing his death from the pain of it all, but on my life, he’d
not have seen it.”