The Red Knight (57 page)

“Is there anything you can do, Jodi?” Althus asked her.

“Not here, Captain, and even were we elsewhere, I think she’s beyond my skill, beyond the skill of most.”

It wasn’t in Althus to give up; being helpless put him in an ugly mood.

“The Order of Ashania has a monastery less than a day’s ride from here,” said Jodi. “They might be able to do something for her.” She tugged her earlobe, something she did when she was worried.

“Spit it out,” he prompted.

“I could give her more poppy juice…” she offered cautiously, “enough that she doesn’t wake up.”

He looked at Ali; clinging to life by the slenderest of threads. Perhaps that was the kindest thing they could do for her. He locked his hands behind his head. “Gods. I just don’t know, Jo.”

“I think it would be a kindness,” said the surgeon.

Althus shook his head. “It’s a kindness you give to a faithful hound, not a knight; not Alyda. I’ve never known her to back down from a fight; let her finish this battle on her own terms.” Althus bellowed across the hall, “Arno! I want a ten knight escort to take Captain Stenna to the Ashania monastery. And form up the rest of the Company. We’re going hunting.”

It was raining when the cart trundled into the monastery courtyard. Jamie rushed out as soon as he saw the green and black of the knight’s surcoats. Lieutenant Lorhine and Lieutenant Tristen followed him, all eager to find out the Anvil’s news. Jamie was pleased to see Flea huddled under the sagging tarp covering the cart. He’d thought the child had been killed.

The boy beckoned him over. What he’d taken for a bundle of blankets, was a person. When he saw who it was he almost collapsed on the spot.

News of her survival got round quickly. Amid the ensuing chaos, Jamie kept everyone away except for the priests and priestesses who came to tend her. Lorhine eventually cleared everyone out of the infirmary who didn’t have to be there, except Jamie. He refused to leave; afraid that death would take her if he let her out of his sight again. He wouldn’t even leave when the brothers and sisters began tending to her awful wounds. He prowled the room much to their obvious—if unvoiced—annoyance. Later, when the poppy juice wore off, she woke up screaming in pain. He’d never heard her scream like that, it shocked him. It also made him angry, not with her; but with himself, with the world.

He gave her more poppy juice and held her until she fell asleep. People came and went like shadows; he sat by her side, willing her every shallow breath to be followed by another, and another…

“How long?” Kieran appeared at the door, a looming shadow against the torchlight, he didn’t come in.

“They said it’s a miracle she’s lasted this long and…” He could barely force the words out. “…and that she won’t last the night.”

Kieran didn’t say anything. Jamie went back to counting breaths. When he looked up again, the Lieutenant had gone.

He tried to pray, but there was nothing inside. He bowed his head anyway, and held the Captain’s hand. The chain around his neck swung against his chest, reminding him it was there. His heart leapt; he tore it from his neck and closed shaking fingers around the Countess’s gift.

He hadn’t intended to fall asleep, and woke with a start. For a terrible moment he thought she’d gone, but then he saw her eyelids flicker. She was still wearing the pendent that he’d hung around her neck, proving he hadn’t dreamed it. The simple wooden charm defied his every attempt to see anything magical about it, but he believed in it’s power with all his heart; he had to, it was all there was.

Outside, the dawn chorus began to squawk raucous greetings to each other. He cursed the birds, and got up to close the shutters when it suddenly struck him.
It is morning, and the Captain is still alive.
Clumsy with sleep, he stumbled to the door and shouted for help. They would have to do something now. She’d held death at bay all night, he would damn well make sure they rallied—this time she would not stand alone.

“The knight insists on it, Mother. He’s causing such a fuss! I didn’t know what else to do.” Lalin lowered her voice to a whisper. “I told him that you were very busy helping those who could be saved, but he was adamant that you come. I’m very sorry about this.”

Jeneri listened to the novice gabble on. Lalin and the others had never seen casualties of war before. Shocked though they’d been, they’d done a wonderful job and had coped well with the influx; she was proud of them. Alas, Jeneri had seen it all before and it never got any easier to deal with. Lalin led her to the quiet corridor at the far end of the infirmary. It was where those deemed beyond help were taken to die in peace.

“It’s alright, Lal. It would be a waste of the Goddess’s gift if I only treated people who were going to live, don’t you think? Although, it would make me look good.” She gave Lalin a friendly wink.

“Well, yes, but I fear this warrior is beyond even your reach, Mother. She was as good as dead when they brought her in.”

“There’s nothing good about dead in my book. She’s survived this long; perhaps it is Ashania’s will that she lives. Ah, here we are.” Jeneri knocked on the door and entered.

A red haired lad was sitting by the bedside. He looked up when she came in. His eyes were empty, his face bereft of emotion. Not cold, but utterly drained, everything was shutting down, even the muscles in his face. All of the survivors looked the same; they always did.

“I’m Jeneri. You must be Jamie, and this must be Alyda,” she said, looking at the bruised and bandaged woman lying on the bed.

“They said she wouldn’t last the night, but she has and I need you to…”

“It’s alright, I’m here now.”

The boy watched Jeneri closely, studied every flicker of expression that crossed her face, as she drew back the sheet and looked beneath the bandages. She made sure not to grimace.

She was born a healer, possessed of a Goddess-given gift, and if Ashania willed it, she could sometimes treat diseases and injuries that were beyond mortal skill. The girl’s injuries were ugly, but not the worst she’d seen. The capacity to maim and torture was sadly not as rare as the ability to heal. The priestess took a deep breath and touched the girl’s forehead.

She had to force herself not to recoil when she was assaulted by the fresh memories of violence trapped in her pain-ravaged flesh. She smiled at the boy and hoped he didn’t notice that her hands were shaking. “She’s hot, but not burning—that’s good. There’s no fever or sign of infection which is also, very good.”

“But her injuries are bad?”

“They’re crippling, to greater and lesser degrees. Goddess willing, I can lessen their severity.” The lad looked crushed that she hadn’t promised him the miracle he so desperately wanted, but she couldn’t lie. She drew the blanket back over Alyda and paused. There was something else, something wholly unexpected. She ran her hands over the woman’s body.

“Are you her lover?” she asked Jamie.

“Me? Gods! No. I’m her squire. I mean, I…no.” He blushed as scarlet as his hair.

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Do you know who is?” Jeneri asked.

“Aye, but it’s not common knowledge. Why do you ask?”

Jeneri wondered if she should tell him.
Stick to healing Jen, and keep your own council.
“No reason. As for your Captain; some of her injuries may prove difficult to heal completely. She may not be as she was before.”

“So you can you save her?”

The honest answer was that she didn’t know, but he’d heard enough honesty for one day. “Goddess willing, Jamie.”

Chapter Eighteen

“What have you done to me?” Bethanglyn tore aside the curtain of bronze hair to get a better look at her reflection in the grey puddle of what might have been water. Inhuman, scarlet eyes stared up at her. She rocked back on her heels, unnerved and excited by her appearance and the power she could feel coursing through her veins.

“I’ve replaced what you gave me, filled the hole I made in your essence with fabric of a richer weave.”

“Sorcery then.”

“Aye, sweetling—sorcery. I unlocked your pattern and re-wove it. Do you like it? I can change it if not.”

He came up behind her pressed his naked body against hers and cupped a full pale breast in his rejuvenated hand. Her nipple hardened between his fingers, her barbed spine arched against him.

“I’m not sure. What am I now? Am I still human?”

“Does it matter? You wanted to learn, and I needed to be healed. You’ve fulfilled your half of the bargain, and I shall fulfil mine. Although you will find that I am a hard task master.” He kissed her neck, trying to re-connect the act to the feeling of pleasure it had once given him. There was a distant stirring, not quite an erection, but closer than he’d come to one for several centuries.
All in good time.

“So, what do you want to learn, sweetling? How to summon the Shadewalkers? Call lightning?”

“Everything.” she leaned into him, hot against his cold flesh. “Teach me everything.”

Feathery snow swept across the ward in a great white wave and drifted against the half built wall that enclosed the new inner bailey. It had grown at an incredible rate, but the harsh winter weather had forced work to stop for the present.

Hyram couldn’t believe it would be Midwinter’s Day in less than two weeks. Time passed so quickly these days. The two and a half months since the Arth had been razed had flown by in a frenzy of rebuilding and setting the kingdom back on its feet. There was still a long way to go, and much to do, but they had turned the corner. People could now look to the future in the certain knowledge that the worst was finally behind them.

Midwinter would not be an indulgent celebration this year, more a time of contemplation and remembrance. Many people had lost loved ones and were struggling with shortages and the other hardships gifted by war. Everything was set to improve once winter was behind them. Now that Herulth, the new Guthland Dragon King, had made peace with Daris, all that was left was to seal the alliance with a marriage. He wondered if he would see Merrin at Midwinter, but quickly brushed the thought aside.
Why would this year be any different to the last ten?

He shivered and closed the shutters against the biting cold and drew the curtains. His new offices were more to his liking now that the walls were lined with bookshelves. Alas, they were quite bare. The bastards had burnt everything; his room, the tower, all gone. It would be years before the tower’s more imposing replacement was finished, but already Thea’s designs for a larger, and more importantly,
stronger
Arth were beginning to take shape.

Thea had bold plans for the new castle and the flinty determination to see them through. She had thrown herself into rebuilding the Arth and the city; to the extent that Hyram worried she was doing too much. He understood why. It was a distraction from the less than honourable, if totally necessary, plan she had caused him to set in motion.

He looked at the empty bookshelves and felt acutely the loss of years—centuries—of knowledge. It was nothing compared to the loss of human life…probably, but it saddened him greatly, those books were old friends.

There was a familiar knock at the door. He didn’t bother to say, “Come in”, the boy no longer waited to be invited.

Garian dropped his snow-dusted cloak on the floor and pulled a bundle of letters from his jerkin. He tossed them on the desk. As usual, he was scowling. Hyram snatched them up. Several were written in Prince Talin’s hand and were addressed to the same person;
Captain Alyda Stenna.
The others were written by her, addressed to various people, the Prince among them. He noted that her handwriting was still little better than a child’s scrawl.

Hyram swept the letters into the drawer, he’d read them later, when he wasn’t under scrutiny. “What did our lay priest have to report? And he’d better not have been drunk this time.”

Garian poured a glass of wine and went over to the fire. “No. He’d wisely taken heed of my previous warning and was sober when I arrived.”

“Good. What did he have to say?”

His apprentice took a sip of wine and looked at him with an accusing stare. “That there wasn’t much change. She’s still bedridden, sick…isolated. He and the other little shit in your employ have intercepted every letter and every visitor since the First were ordered to Cathlan. Well done, My Lord.” Garian raised his glass in mock salute.

“Don’t you dare take that tone with me. This was necessary!” Hyram slammed his fist on the table, noting with some regret that his apprentice no longer flinched. Garian merely continued to sip his wine, and give him the lizard eye. The boy had already made it quite clear that he thought the Captain and the Prince were being treated poorly. Hyram took a deep breath, the pain in his chest a sharp reminder that he shouldn’t lose his temper, not unless he wanted to spend another week confined to his bed. It also reminded him to drink the mixture of willow bark and water that had been sitting on his desk for over an hour. He swilled the milky liquid round the glass, and threw it down his throat, but still managed to taste the awful bitterness. The vile brew was almost worse than the pain.