Aldik left as soon as was barely polite after the meal, his distaste at being in Kei’s company having not abated at all as they’d eaten. A more polite person than her guest, Eide extended an invitation for Kei to stay the night so he could sleep in a proper bed for a change. Kei started to refuse, sensing Gyek and Pik weren’t that pleased at the prospect, but then Tiko’s hand came down heavily on his shoulder. “I think that’s an excellent idea, Kei. I’ll have someone fetch you in the morning. You could do with an uninterrupted night’s rest.”
He turned, ready to tell Tiko he had no intention of staying, but then he saw the captain had that look in his eyes again which promised he’d be tied to a bed if he refused. “But my patients?”
“In good hands, and you’re but ten minutes away if we need you. None of them are dangerously ill, are they?”
He could have lied and said Arman needed him, but Tiko wouldn’t have believed him, and it would arouse even more ill-feeling to mention the general’s name again. “No,” he muttered. “But I want to be called if there is the slightest problem.”
“As you wish. I should get back to camp, Gyek.”
“You’re welcome to stay too,” Gyek said politely.
“No, but thank you. I’m military, it’s to be expected of me to sleep outdoors. Kei’s a civilian, and has had a bad time of it. He could do with a night among friends,” he added with a significant look in Kei’s direction. And not with those bastard Prij, was what he didn’t need to add. “But don’t press him. He’s not had a moment’s peace in months. A proper bed and no responsibilities is just what he needs.”
Kei glared at the man and his paternal tone, half wanting to refuse out of pure childishness, but all he did, in the end, was nod and mumble an agreement. He just wanted to be shown where he could sleep, and to be left alone.
He very nearly forgave Tiko for his interference when Gyek suggested to his wife their guest might like a bath. Kei was at the point where he would commit any number of less than mortal crimes for the pleasure of being truly clean, and when Eide offered to wash his clothes, promising they would be dry by morning, he grudgingly admitted Tiko’s suggestion wasn’t entirely without merit. As in many Darshianese households, there was a large barrel tub kept for the family’s use in a hut adjoining the rear of the house, heated underneath by charcoal at least in the winter months and kept permanently filled, often with rainwater overflow from the house cistern. It was both a place to get clean and for the family to relax with each other and occasionally neighbours, especially those who didn’t have such a bath of their own.
He handed his clothes over to Eide with an apology for the state of them, aware the trousers were spattered with blood although his shirt was cleaner—then soaped himself and his hair before rinsing off in chilly fresh water, and then entered the tub with a sigh of pure ecstasy. Normally one of the family would have joined him out of politeness—bathing alone was considered somewhat indulgent and antisocial. Either Tiko had warned them to leave him be, or he’d made himself so repulsive with his views or his associations that none of the family could stomach the idea of being naked in a tub with him.
Right now, he didn’t care. He hadn’t had a bath like this since he’d left Ai-Albon, since the Prij were too prudish to bathe communally. They only had either small private bathtubs in their bedrooms—or, as Arman’s wife did, a room used only for that purpose—or a washroom for the servants with buckets and dippers, the water being carried off in admittedly efficient drains but with a shocking lack of economy in a resource no one took for granted in the north. Not for them the pleasure of luxuriating in a hot, deep bath in which one could immerse one’s whole body, removing bodily aches and pains, and letting life’s cares drift away.
Kei’s cares weren’t so easily removed, but he relished the experience nonetheless, feeling a lot more human and less fraught as he soaked for easily an hour or more. Eventually, when his fingers were completely wrinkled, he reluctantly climbed out, wishing there was some way he could steal the bath for the journey, before drying himself and his hair with the provided cloth. Eide had given him a soft warm nightshirt to wear to bed. Kei put it on before returning to the body of the house, where his freshly washed clothes were already hanging on poles over the stove. Only Eide was still up, and showed him where he would sleep. It turned out to be Pik’s room, from which he’d evicted for their guest—an act which would not increase his love for Kei. She asked if he needed anything, and when he said no, bid him goodnight.
He combed his hair dry and braided it—it had not been so clean in a very long time, and he took his time over grooming it, remembering with a little sadness the conversation he’d had on the ship with Arman. Arman was fascinated by Darshianese hair, a rather frivolous obsession for such a serious man, but also endearing.
He sighed as Arman came into his thoughts again. Would he really be all right in the care of the soldiers? They were all good men and decent—but what if there was an emergency? His hand tightened around his comb as he fretted, but then he forced himself to calm down. They were only a short distance away. Arman was almost certainly already asleep. Kei should be asleep too, and making the most of this night in a normal household for a change.
His hair was still damp, but he was used to that, slinging it back away over the pillow as he got under the blanket. Gods—real sheets, an actual pillow, and blankets that didn’t smell of urs beasts. Maybe Tiko had had a point after all, the meddling old bastard. Not that Kei would ever admit it to his face—he didn’t need encouraging in that direction.
~~~~~~~~
No! Jena screamed, and then the sword flashed, burying itself in her heart. He heard the last rattle of her breath, and her eyes, glazing in death, still pleaded with him. “Help me, Kei...save me.”
Kei bolted upright, his heart pounding, feeling about to vomit, completely at a loss to know where he was or what was happening. He clutched at his chest, forcing his frantic breathing to slow. Oh gods. Another bloodied dream, another damn nightmare. Two nights of peace...and now they were back worse than ever.
He shivered in the cold room. The only light was faint moonlight at the window, not enough for him to see even his hands. How he’d hoped he’d been wrong about this.
But now he had to accept the truth. He was addicted to Arman’s presence just as Arman feared he would become addicted to pijn. If he slept by Arman’s side, or spent time with him, he felt good, almost happy, and he had no dreams. But when he was separated from him...then Kei felt old and dead inside, and his nights were a torment.
Arman was leaving. Kei was going home. If he let this go on, he feared when the time came to part from the man, he would go insane from withdrawal. More than that, he felt it stopped the natural process of healing. His mind was using Arman and not his own inner strength, to get past whatever in hells was happening to him. He had to put a stop to this now, if he had any hope of returning to Ai-Albon with even a semblance of normality.
He rested his head on his knees. When would he ever stop paying the price for his gift, for what the Prij had done? And why were he and Arman tied so unhealthily together? He felt like raging against the unfairness of it, but there was no one he could blame. He didn’t believe, as the Prij did, that the gods ruled mortal affairs. Mortals made this problem, though mortals could not solve it. Kei had only his intellect and his own moral fibre to work with. He had a suspicion this would all get much worse for him before it got better.
He lay again and stared into the dark. “Why me?” he whispered at the ceiling. But it, like Kei himself, had no helpful answer to give him.
~~~~~~~~
Arman usually prided himself on presenting a reasonably calm facade to the world regardless of his true feelings, but this morning he was in a mood so foul he really didn’t give a damn who knew about it. Kei had not returned the night before, but the captain had, and had informed him with a suspiciously large amount of satisfaction that one of the Darshianese soldiers, not Kei, would be
keeping watch over him that evening. The oaf had managed to bang Arman’s cot three times before he settled down, causing Arman rather a lot of pain though he had disdained to complain to the man about it. And then the bastard had spent the entire night snoring like a pen full of farting urs beasts, which meant on those numerous occasions when Arman woke from the cold, the bad dreams or the raw ache in his side, he had to listen to this disgusting sound and not actually kill the person producing it. He was tired, sore and most decidedly not in a mood to be snapped at by anyone today, even Kei.
That didn’t stop him snapping at the healer himself when he finally turned up some time after dawn. “Had a pleasant evening, did we?” he said with heavy sarcasm as Kei climbed into the wagon with fresh bandages in his hand, looking clean, groomed and collected.
Kei only glanced at him as he pulled the blankets back and pushed Arman’s shirt up. “I don’t know if you did, but I didn’t, particularly,” he said in a quiet voice, untying the old bandages and poking at Arman’s side.
Arman pushed his hand away. “Stop that, it damn well hurts. Anyway, you said I could get up when we arrived in this godsforsaken village, so why am I still lying here?”
“Perhaps, my lord, because I was more worried about your pace of healing than some theoretical deadline.” Kei put the clean bandage on, scowling at the injury. “You can get up tonight, possibly. If you’re in this much pain, perhaps I shouldn’t let you.” He picked up the old bandages. “I’ll fetch the pijn.”
“I don’t want it,” Arman said, feeling perverse today.
“Very well—since I wasn’t able to supplement our supply, if you want to be a stubborn fool, that suits me fine.”
He turned to go but Arman, belatedly realising there was something badly wrong here, grabbed the end of his overshirt. “Wait...what happened?”
Kei turned and looked down at him. “My people object to my caring for you. They call you the Butcher of Ai-Darbin. Does that make you proud, general?”
“Does it make you think less of me, their disapproval? I thought you were stronger than that. I thought you had these amazing ethics that would not alter no matter what any man thought.”
“Did you, my lord?” Kei murmured, reaching down and extracting his shirt from Arman’s grip. “Perhaps I don’t find them so admirable after all. If you change your mind about the pijn, let me know when we stop. I’ll be riding outside today. I find the wagon unpleasant.”
Arman stared after him in shock. Was that just a response to his own sour temper, or had someone managed to convince Kei that treating him really was the wrong thing to do? Arman wouldn’t have believed Kei would change his mind on that score even under torture—but he’d been removed from the clan which was the heart and soul of every Darshianese, the centre of their existence and the rock on which it was based, for a very long time. Perhaps he would change his ethical stance, if it meant he would gain acceptance by his own people again.
Arman hadn’t expected this at all. He’d believed Kei to be the most morally solid, high-minded person he had ever met, with the possible exception of Karus. But yet again, the gods proved they liked to mock their subjects by cutting away the surety of the lives, and Kei was more evidence that Arman had lost the favour of the gods forever. The only consolation was that knowing they would choose such a tool, confirmed their favour held no value for Arman whatsoever.
~~~~~~~~
Kei only spoke to him twice more that day, both times only to ask if he wanted the painkillers. Arman’s food was brought by one of the soldiers who also helped him piss, much to his mortification. When they stopped for the evening, he realised he needed to do more than piss, and sent the message. That brought Kei and four soldiers to the wagon. “This is a perfect chance for you to test your fitness,” Kei said coldly. “Bring his cot outside.”
Once more he and his bed were lifted bodily from the wagon. As he was removed, he saw two other men go in—perhaps to effect some rearrangements while he was gone, though no one explained.
“Right, general, we’ve arranged a latrine for the men with broken legs over there. Let’s see if you can manage that.” Arman wanted to snap at Kei he’d rather be called ‘you bastard’ than ‘general’ in that tone of voice, but he wasn’t in a position of strength here, so he just gritted his teeth and let himself be carefully raised to his feet.
Oh. Gods. That really, really, urs pissing hurt. “I can’t,” he panted, humiliated at his weakness.
“Just wait a moment, see if it improves.”
Careful, healer, that sounded almost like concern. Kei let him stand there for a minute or so—the pain did ease a little, so he nodded. “All right. I need a shit. Let’s do this.”
It wasn’t far, but it could have been ten miles away for the effort it cost him. They had made a little privacy with a screen, and there was a pole to sit on for those like him who could not crouch. It took him an agonisingly long time to produce anything, but no one urged him to hurry. With relief he finished, and even managed to clean himself, before calling for help. Kei ordered the soldiers to help him up. He thought he’d be taken back to the wagon, but instead, he was brought to the fireside, placed on a stool high enough to let him sit without bending, and then Kei washed his face and hands for him. He and Kei were the only people at this fire—the Darshianese soldiers were eating around campfires a hundred yards away near the wagons, and beyond them, what he assumed were his own men.
“We’re going to see if we can rig a bath tent,” Kei explained as he cleaned Arman with surprising consideration—surprising, at least, after the way he’d behaved that day. “But that will have to wait until we get some things from Ai-Vinri. If they’ll let us have them,” he added bitterly.
Arman caught his wrist. “Tell me what happened. Look, I apologise for my rudeness this morning. I was out of sorts.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed,” he said, his voice flat and apparently holding no sarcasm at all. “I told you—my people have a problem with providing comfort to one such as you who had murdered one of their own. I can hardly argue the injustice of that, nor do I have anything to argue with, general. You killed, you took prisoners, you and your kind have wrought misery on this land for twenty years.”
“You knew all that yesterday, but you weren’t so cold to me. What’s changed your mind? Don’t tell me a few bigoted idiots had such an effect on you. I know you. We’ve spent months living closer than I do with my wife. I know your heart, man.”
Kei stepped away from him. “Do you, my lord? How astonishingly perceptive of you.”
“Kei—please don’t do this to us. I thought we had reached some kind of truce. You know my reasons for what I have done, what I refuse to do.”
Kei looked at him with cold eyes. “Yes, I do, general. In four weeks or less, I’ll be out of your life for good. So don’t trouble yourself any longer about my opinion. You’ll have much more important people to convince of your good intentions when you get to Darshek.”
“Your opinion matters less than your well-being,” Arman said angrily. “Damn it, I’m worried about you—these mood changes are so unlike you.”
“Yes, once they were, but no longer. Your men have asked permission to see you, so I’ll have them come over with your meal. If you feel distressed or in too much pain, then tell them to tell me. You’ll be taken back to the wagon in half an hour or so. I don’t want you to overdo it.”
“What difference does it make?” Arman snapped. “You wish I was dead anyway.”
“No...I don’t,” Kei said, eyes lowered. “I simply wish I’d never met you.” He turned on his heel and walked away.
For the sake of his men, Arman forced himself to appear hale and in good spirits. They were touchingly pleased to see him out of the wagon, and since it was the first time they’d had to question him about their future, he found it difficult to eat and talk at the same time. He decided talking was more important, although he had little comfort to offer. He could offer them no answ
ers, no theories about how long before they were to return to Kuprij, if at all, and all he could tell them was that he felt they would not be harmed by the Darshianese. He asked if any of them had any complaints—other than one or two of them not much caring for the food, all said they’d been well treated.
He found it agonising to continue sitting upright, but he couldn’t just cut these men off—he represented some kind of security, the only voice they had with the authorities. Only when Kei came back and peremptorily ordered them all to return to their wagons, and the Darshianese soldiers had assisted them back there, could he put his hand over his side and let forth some oaths Karus would never have heard, even from his tuktuk.
“If you won’t take some responsibility for your own health, I refuse to have any conscience if you fall ill again,” Kei said crossly. “And you’ve not eaten—this is more important now than even sleep.”
“My men are more important than either,” he snapped, gasping at the pain pounding through him.
“If you won’t take the pijn, then at least try to stop tensing up,” Kei snapped back.
“If you were less changeable than a pregnant woman, then I might not have so many things to be tense about!” Arman shouted. “Gods, I’d prefer no physicking at all to this concern, hate, concern, hate—when are you going to grow up?”
Kei narrowed his eyes. “When the Prij let me have the peace and quiet to do so, I suspect. Tiko?” The captain came strolling over, picking his teeth. “Our guest needs to be returned to the wagon. Apparently I make him sick. Do endeavour to make him feel better served than I seem to be able to.”
“As you wish, Kei. Right, let’s get you up.” Tiko called for three of his men. Kei wandered off into the darkness, apparently unconcerned with Arman’s fate any longer.
Arman endured the transfer back into the wagon. “What in all hells did those bastards in Rutej do to Kei?” he demanded of the captain the instant he was inside.
“Not a thing, general. In fact he was treated with a lot more kindness than I imagine he received at your hands. Kei’s just realising that being friendly with you is not going to do him a lot of good in the future, and I’m damn glad he is, for his sake.” Tiko leaned down, right into Arman’s face. “I don’t know what you did to him, you bastard, but I swear to you, if I ever have proof you harmed him as I suspect you did, you won’t live long enough to reach Darshek. I’ve a son his age, and no one that young should look so old or so burdened. You took his life away from him, and I’ll damn well see you pay for that.”
Kei's Gift Page 38
