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Page 45
Chapter 45
Xander: “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?”
He opened his eyes. He was in the doctor's rooms, not in his own bed.
Aria sat by the bed. “How long was I asleep?” he asked.
She consulted the hourglass on the table. “About six hours. It's the middle of the afternoon. How do you feel?”
“Beat up. Have you heard from Lester?”
“No,” she said. “It looks like the escaped Texas men took him back with them.”
“Damn it!” He tried to rise from the bed.
She pushed him back down flat with one hand. “Don't even try,” she said. “We're not even finished with the transfusion yet.”
He craned his neck and saw the IV stand by the bed. There was a half-full plastic bag of blood there, its tubing carrying blood into his left arm. “Ah,” he said. He looked back at Aria. “You look pale.”
“I'm not surprised,” she said. “It is my blood, after all. Or was, until I got back a half hour ago. You're lucky the outpost had a fast horse for couriers. You lost a lot of blood and the doctor said mine was the only kind in the building that wouldn't kill you.”
He frowned at that. “I'm sure he could have found someone else. There's probably – “
“Shut up,” she said cheerfully. “And you're welcome. No, there was nobody else. He had dozens of volunteers, but when he mixed a drop of yours and theirs, they all clumped. Mine was the only blood that didn't.” Now she frowned. “It's strange, because mother's clumped too. But mine was fine. Something about A, B, and O and positive and negative. Anyway, you should be fine now.”
“I didn't think I was bleeding that much,” he said. “I made it all the way back here, after all. I was just having trouble breathing.”
“You had a punctured lung,” she informed him. “The arrow missed your heart but it went right through a lung. The bandages stopped you from making a mess but you were still bleeding into the collapsed lung. Doctor Daniels had to swizzle that blood out of the lung and then reverse the swizzle to re-inflate the lung for you.”
“Good thinking,” he said. “But where did he find a swizzle small enough for that?”
“We broke the little fountain you made for me last year. You remember? I only had to add a little water once every week or so to make up for evaporation. I'm sorry we had to break it, but I knew there had to be a little swizzle in there. And there was.”
“Tell him to keep it,” he said. “I'll make you another one.” But what are we going to do about Lester? “Ask the doctor to come in for a moment, will you? I need to speak to him in private”
“Fine,” she said. “I guess you don't need me, now that you have my blood.” She left, and the doctor came in.
Daniels didn't smile. “What do you want? You're not my only patient, you know.”
“Has she figured it out yet?”
To the doctor's credit, he didn't pretend not to understand. “No,” he said. “But if she gets curious it isn't that hard to work out from the explanations in the old biology textbooks. Why haven't you told her?”
“Only you and I, and of course the Governor, know this. I'd like to keep it that way.”
Daniels just looked at him. “Don't you think she deserves to know who her father is?”
Xander sighed, which was a mistake, because it hurt to do that now. “But that's just the point,” he said. “She thinks she already knows. All her life she's thought the General was her father. How can I take that away from her? He was a great man. If he'd lived a couple more months, he would have been her father.”
“I thought you, of all people, cared about the truth,” said Daniels.
“There's nothing I care about more,” said Xander, “except her happiness. And of course, the Governor's reputation. A kind and innocent girl's feelings, a hard-working ruler trying to hold everything together, and the security of Rado are more important than the paternal pride of an old wizard, don't you think?”
Daniels looked at him. “I think,” he said, “that this is an old story with a bad ending. Secrets are like infected wounds. The sooner you let out the pus, the sooner the healing can begin. Better to leave her with the memory of a father who admitted the truth, than to let her recall you as a man who thought she was dumb enough to be fooled forever. Think about it.”
“I will. But in the meantime, you won't tell her, will you?”
“I'll leave that to you. Try not to need any more of her blood.”