Easiest to tie off the final loose end, and force the review to its sorry closure. ‘Fathers of infants who are not blessed and marked leave their get to die of exposure.’ Mykkael finished, ‘I survived because mine was inept, or a coward, or else soft-hearted enough to ditch me in the path of a caravan.’
He rolled over then, and masked his hot face behind the bulwark of his crossed forearms.
Left staring at the damp snags of his hair, and the welted scars crossing his shoulders and back, the crowding men quickly lost interest. They pushed ahead to explore the broached closet, drawn to pursue the more gripping evil that might lurk in the drudge’s rag barrel.
They found Anja’s beautiful, jewelled gown; her silver-capped shoes, her exquisite wire bracelets.
A shimmering chime of miniature bells trilled through the dust-laden air.
The sound touched Mykkael’s ears with a sweet, haunting clarity, as he languished, face down on the pallet. He shivered, seized up as a cramp ripped his leg into mauling pain. Bared teeth hidden behind shielding forearm, he endured, exposed, but not bitter. At least he had Taskin’s forethought to thank, that the paroxysm had overtaken him lying down. Had he been savaged while still on his feet, he would currently be sprawled under somebody’s boots, curled into a whimpering knot.
Naked and cold, but held prone under orders, he could more gracefully withstand the public humiliation. While his hearing tracked the excited commotion unfolding inside the broom closet, more steps approached through the corridor above, then thumped down the dusty plank stair.
The arrival reached his side and stopped next to the pallet. Glass clinked, to the wafted fragrance of astringent herbs steeped in oil. Then a huge, warm hand closed over his shoulder, its touch trained and firmly knowing. ‘I’m Jussoud,’ said a voice of deep, velvet consonants, bearing the accents of the east. Cloth sighed with movement, as the speaker bent his massive frame and knelt on the rough stone floor. ‘I serve as physician and masseur for the guard.’
No hesitation occurred over skin tone. Only the tacit, professional pause as the hand became joined by another, probing one wire-strung muscle after the next.
Mykkael turned his neck, opened one jaundiced eye. ‘I’m sorry Taskin dragged you from your bed.’
‘And so he should have,’ that slow, cultured voice resumed. ‘You’re a mess, soldier. That liniment’s for camels; did you know as much when you bought it? The gum’s caustic, brings blisters. You’ll have weeping sores, if you’re stubborn and persist with its use.’
An inquiring poke near the hip socket raised a grunted oath from Mykkael. He continued to stare, anyway. He had the right, knowing just how it felt, to be foreign and billeted among northerners.
The giant looming over him was yellow-skinned, with black hair braided down his back. He had the flat nose, broad lips, and silver eyes of the steppelands, which fleshed out the clues to his origins.
Another fingertip contact, this stroke moth-wing gentle at the back of Mykkael’s thigh; except the result woke a nerve end, screaming. The garrison captain sucked an involuntary breath, half strangling the impulse to whimper.
‘For pity.’ But this time, the voice held compassion. ‘You’re a great deal worse than a mess. Without help, you’re not going to walk out of here.’
The touch melted back. Mykkael pulled in a shuddering lungful of air, while glass jars chinked near his elbow. Then scented, hot oil splashed and flowed down his back, and the hands began work in earnest. Their gentleness almost wrung him to tears. He subsided, smoothed down by an expertise that made him wonder if he was back in a coma, and dreaming. His chest unseized. Shortly, he was able to speak. In the language Jussoud would likely know best, Mykkael murmured, ‘How can I ever repay you?’
Jussoud gasped, his strong fingers shocked to a stop. ‘How is this?’ he exclaimed, overcome. Oblivious to the drama contained in the broom closet, he swept a searching regard over the desert-bred captain before him. ‘How can you know the motherland’s tongue?’
‘Taught. As a child. My stepfather traded.’ Mykkael raised himself on one elbow, straining to see what Taskin’s soldiers had unearthed.
Jussoud’s arm swiped him flat. ‘Do not spoil my diligent efforts, you impertinent upstart.’
Working a bruised jaw, just banged on the cot strut, Mykkael grumbled a filthy phrase he had learned as a boy from a drover. Then he added, through bliss, as those hands worked their magic, ‘Just don’t ask me to write your distant relatives a letter. I speak, but I don’t know the ideographs.’
‘I do,’ Jussoud stated, his dignity in place. ‘They take half a lifetime of patience to learn.’ He caught Mykkael’s elbow, planted a fist, then pressed down on one shoulder until something tight popped free in his client’s upper back. ‘Do you have patience, Captain?’
‘Only as I choose. Thank you, for that. I’m much better.’ Mykkael let his head loll in the crook of his elbow, warned as an icy shadow encroached that someone else came to stand over him. The near soundless step most likely meant that inimitable presence was Taskin.
The commander addressed Jussoud. ‘Can you do aught with him?’
Sweet oil licked a channel down Mykkael’s buttocks. ‘Oh, I think so,’ said the easterner, detached as a butcher who sized up the heft and weight of a carcass. ‘If the muscles are eased, the pinched nerves will subside. The limp can be made much less noticeable.’ His tone changed. ‘Hold now.’
The hands grasped his leg, applied traction and torque. A reaming, white fire tore through his hip. Mykkael crushed his face to his forearm, and scarcely managed to muffle a scream.
Then something crunched and let go in his pelvis. Pain laced his bad leg, then subsided. On his face, slammed limp, Mykkael tasted blood on his teeth. For that, he said more words. Ones that had once made the incensed drover chase after a sprinting small boy, waving a lead-tipped ox goad.
‘I can’t make him civilized,’ Jussoud admitted. Then he chuckled. ‘No. Don’t ask. I won’t translate.’ His hands moved, pressed a scar, testing with ruthless accuracy until a sharp flinch recorded the damage past reach of his skill. ‘I can’t ease the half of this knot of stressed tissue, certainly not overnight.’
‘Who expected that miracle?’ Taskin bent aside, clipped off an answer to somebody’s question, then considered the prone body, stretched out at his mercy on the cot. ‘If I send Jussoud down to the Lowergate barracks, will you make time for his services?’
Mykkael tipped up his face, disgruntled to be caught strapped with oil, and flat helpless. ‘Yes. If Jussoud will agree to start teaching me ideographs.’
‘That’s Jussoud’s choice.’ Taskin tapped his chin with an immaculate thumb. ‘Now, my choice. The whipping I owe you will wait. Can you stand yet?’
Mykkael flexed his leg with tentative care, then flashed Jussoud a glance of astonished gratitude. He shoved erect like a cat about to be served with a dousing, snatched up his dropped cloak, and covered his grease-shiny shoulders. ‘I can stand,’ he responded, running fresh sweat, but no longer wretchedly shivering. ‘Exactly what did you wish me to see?’
‘This.’ Taskin moved.
Mykkael stalked after him, barefoot, and entered the crowded closet.
They showed him Anja’s clothes, every one, down to the delicate, lace-sewn camisole, the fine, scented silk that had only hours ago kissed the girlish curve of her hips.
‘What do you think, Mysh kael?’ Taskin demanded.
The garrison captain blotted his stinging, split lip. ‘She took those off without help. Most likely willingly. Nothing’s torn. The lace isn’t hooked, or unravelled.’
‘Is that all?’
As though the words goaded like searing hot wire,