Chapter Two
The Priory of Junen
Anteran
Three hours later the unconscious man was transferred onto the smooth wooden table in the small thatched hut Lena shared with Eula.
Merryl and Karina left immediately without speaking.
Trying to shut out their strained faces from her mind, Lena struck a fire in the hearth at the centre of the cool, dark hut, feeding the flames with dry kindling. When it was blazing with reassuring heat she lit as many candles as she could find, while Eula fetched water from the well. The hunting trip hadn't been a complete washout; Lena had managed to harvest a number of crucial herbs and while they steeped she mixed a poultice in advance for her patient's thigh.
When Eula returned with the small cauldron of water, Lena was examining the man's worst wound. She peered over Lena's shoulder and wrinkled her nose at the filthy wadding around the broken arrow. "Eesh, what a mess."
"I know. I'm almost scared to look."
"Have you seen anything worse? I don't think I have. Except maybe when Iyllia stood on that barb last summer and it turned into an abscess. Remember?"
"I'm not likely to forget. I had to drain it three times a day for a week." Lena gingerly plucked at the grubby bandage. "Whoever did this almost did a good job. Shame it wasn't clean. At least they had the sense to leave the arrow in. He might have bled to death otherwise."
Her first task was to remove the tourniquet. She tutted in frustration. "It's set solid." With a sharp knife she gently sliced through the inches of matted material until at last it cracked apart.
Both women jerked back, gasping sharply in unison.
Eula grimaced. "Maybe I'll burn some safar oil. He's a little ripe."
Lena gave a rueful smile at the understatement. "Good idea." She hardly dared look too closely at the wound at first, fearing what she would find, but after rinsing away the caked blood saw with immense relief it wasn't as bad as she'd dreaded––a little red, but not yet seeping. The tourniquet had been tight enough to keep filth at bay. But there was no denying an arrowhead was not a sanitary object. Junen knew what evils lurked beneath the surface.
Soon the welcome scent of safar wafted past her nose. "Oh, Eula, that helps."
Eula returned to the table still with a frown of discomfort furrowing her brow. "Not much. What a rotten stench."
"I know, but it's mostly the bandage." She held up the offending material.
"Let me take that. I'll burn it outside." Pinching her nose, Eula disappeared outside with the bundle held at arm's length.
With the bandage removed the air was noticeably improved. Lena cut the man's leggings off. They were soiled beyond repair anyway and she had to make sure there weren't any hidden wounds about his person.
His genitals lay inert and innocuous in a nest of dark curls. It wasn't the first she'd seen in her life; most recently she'd tended Caldey's baker for the furuncle he'd developed in his groin. She'd behaved with perfunctory courtesy. But then Doran Malwand was as doughy as the bread he baked. It was easy for Lena to tend him with professional disinterest. The man lying here on her table begged to be looked at. Under the grime and dried blood he was a beautiful specimen––fit and lean, except for powerfully muscular thighs. A horseman, she guessed, and shivered at the thought of the beasts he'd controlled with a squeeze of his muscles.
Butterflies fluttered for a moment in her belly, and with a small frown at the direction of her thoughts, she set the image aside, covering his groin with a cloth and going through the mental list of tasks she must perform.
A low groan rumbled through the man's chest and his cracked lips parted.
Dismayed to see him waking already, Lena scurried to find some valerian to help him sleep. She returned just as his lids began to flicker open revealing pain-veiled eyes.
He stared at Lena. "Y-you came back." Some unseen muscle twitched in his body making him gasp and in reflex grip her arm with surprising strength.
"Hush. You're safe now. But I need to give you this so I can deal with your leg." She held up the stubby bottle of viscous fluid.
Panic replaced the pain in his eyes. "D-don't take my leg!" He tried to rise up but groaned and slumped back, his hand going to his head.
"It's all right, I'm just taking the arrow out, nothing more." Uncorking the valerian she poured some onto a wooden spoon and held it close to his lips. "Here, this will help."
To her alarm he pressed his lips together and shook his head.
"I'm going to hurt you...a lot. I can't have you moving about."
He shook his head again and remained tight-lipped.
Lena pulled back with the spoon. "Why won't you take it?"
He regarded her with a wary eye in case she meant to trick him into opening his mouth. "I-Ib preber to b-be awake," he mumbled through almost closed lips.
"If it was me I'd want to be asleep."
"I d-dob want to wake ub w-wibout a leg."
Lena's heart gave a squeeze of sympathy. "You have my word, you'll keep your leg."
"R-really?"
She made the sign of Junen across her breast. "On my life." Then she held up the spoon with an encouraging smile.
He hesitated, even more pale than he had been, but after another agonising twinge that made sweat bead on his grimy forehead he finally conceded and opened his mouth.
Lena passed the spoon between his lips and gulped as they closed over the small scoop. She'd never noticed before how intimate an act it was to feed someone when they were as helpless as he was.
By the time Eula returned the man was asleep again. "What can I do?" she asked.
"Keep an eye on him. If he shows any sign of waking, let me know."
Eula pulled up a stool and focused intently on the man's face. "Who do you think he is? A soldier? He looks fit enough to be one. He had no uniform though."
Or he discarded it, Lena thought. "Anything is possible."
"He hardly looks dangerous though. Don't you think? I don't know what all the fuss is about."
Lena wasn't so sure. She'd felt singularly not herself from the moment she set eyes on the man and she had no explanation. Why did her hands linger on his skin as if she took as much pleasure from touching him as she might from being touched? An image popped into her head of what it might feel like to be touched by him, and she shivered. Why did she keep looking at his face, which in repose and despite the beard revealed him to be younger than she thought, maybe about her own age, or a year or two younger? Not dangerous? She was beginning to understand Josta's reservations, and Nerris's for that matter.
She couldn't help her cheeks growing warm and fired a nervous glance at Eula to make sure her thoughts weren't too visible, but her friend was concentrating equally hard on their patient. "He might not be dangerous now, but who knows what he's like when he's well? He could be a monster."
