103. Pain

I was laying in an ornate bed on a higher level of the keep in a lavish room that was lit by the white light of a stormy morning sky.

The light came in via a balcony carved into the rough rock.

Next to the opening, rolls of sealed animal skin were stacked.

I guessed they were secured across the opening in inclement weather.

And then my mind’s observations came to a halt as physical pain flooded through me and I looked down at my left arm, no longer ending in a hand but in a bandage.

I was back in my body.

A wail surged up my throat, but my mouth was too dry and my throat was too raw and it came out in a mournful, hiccuping moan instead.

Jerking to life in a chair on the left side of my bed, Alric sat up, eyes wide and blinking, his brain and body coming to terms with waking.

“Edith,”

he whispered and sort of fell out of the chair onto the bed, sitting on it and leaning towards me, one hand supporting him, the other cradling my cheek.

“It hurts,”

I groaned, panic rising in me at the anguish and the fact that I now had but one hand.

“Oh my gods, it hurts, Alric!”

I ground the back of my head into the pillow beneath it, as if to create any other sensation than the throbbing at my stump.

He stumbled to a standing position, calling out towards a door, “She is awake! She is in pain.”

Then he returned to me, tears in his eyes.

“Gods, Edith.

I cannot— Thank the goddess.”

And his right hand covered his mouth.

“I thought I was dead,”

I bleated, tearful and trepidatious, rolling my head away from him sitting on my left side, but keeping my eyes on his face, refusing to look back down my arm.

He nodded, too choked to speak.

“How— how long have I been asleep?”

My eyes kept fluttering closed because of the pain, but opening to see his beloved face.

Alric reached across my body to take my right hand in his left one and held it over my stomach, careful to avoid bumping the bandaged arm on my other side.

He leaned in, lifting it to his mouth to kiss.

“I do not know,”

he said, a strangle in his words.

“Thatcher made me bathe yesterday.

He said you would not want to wake up to an unwashed man.

I think you have been unconscious for nearly six days.”

I felt my brow crease.

“I feel clean myself.

Did someone bathe me?”

He bent his forehead to the back of my remaining hand.

“Helena did.

And her daughter and Mischa.

With towels and sea sponges.

Every day.

And they put you in a fresh shift.

They would not let me help.”

“She is, as always, a saint.

And to me in particular.

All three of them.”

He kissed my hand again.

“She washed your hair yesterday.

I think it was yesterday.”

Sighing, I looked up above at the rock ceiling, a cracked mural done by an artist less skilled than my friend, winters ago, depicting a blue-scaled sea serpent wending its way through the Tintarian sea.

The memory of my magic returned.

“Did you— did you see the drakes?”

He swallowed and looked up.

“I looked over my shoulder but once, because I could not bear to look away from you.

I will never forget the sight of such magic, Edith.

Never.

What you did—”

I coughed over his words, my throat so sore, as if I had truly breathed fire like a drake.

My lips and eyes were dry.

The rest of my body felt rather dead below the neck, except for my left shoulder and arm.

I smiled, his face blurring before me with my tears.

“Do you think they have something? For the pain?”

He lurched up and strode towards the door, slamming it behind him, shouting.

Alric returned quickly with Prince Peregrine and two men dressed in the keep staff black, both of them with full leather aprons, one of them carrying a crate.

“Lady,”

said the prince, coming to stand next to where Alric had returned to sit at my side, reclaiming my right hand in his.

“You are the savior of Tintar.

There are no words—”

“She is in pain, your highness,”

my husband interrupted his prince.

“Forgive me,”

the man said with a frown on his handsome face.

One of the men in black stepped forward and came to the right side of the bed, his colleague behind him.

“Madam, my name is Walter.

I am the head physician in the keep.

This is my fellow physician, Dermot.

We cannot treat you for the pain yet.

You need to eat and drink water.

Your body has gone too long without sustenance.”

Tears sat on my lower eyelashes.

I felt my face pinch and I fought back a sob.

“Fucking hell,”

my husband whispered, wincing, but his eyes stayed on me.

Walter went on.

“There are broken bones in your forearm.

I think the power entered at your amputation and it shattered the bones inside.

And the muscles in your right arm are all strained and torn.

I know you are in pain.

Can you sit up?”

I could not.

Alric moved to sit behind me and, wrapping his arms around my waist, pulled me into a sitting position against his chest.

It reminded me of our positions like this but in reverse, both when I had bathed him and when he had lain in my arms, read me poetry and told me of his youth’s heartbreak.

The physician named Dermot fed me cold porridge and I, with no regard for my own dignity, moved my head forward like a baby bird in their nest to eat.

While Dermot fed me, Walter reached across my body to slightly unwind the bandage on my stump and check the wound.

I kept my eyes away, on the spoon.

Prince Peregrine, perhaps realizing I deserved some privacy, paced his own bedroom near the entrance to the balcony, head down, hands clasped behind him.

Behind me, Alric kissed the top of my head.

Dermot produced some jerky, hazelnuts and peach slices and fed them to me, while Walter ran his hands over my legs and gripped along the way, feeling for what I was unsure.

Both physicians were formal and remote in their manner, which I felt was easier than had they been kind.

A tin cup of water was tipped to my lips.

I gulped it down and gasped out, “more.”

Dermot refilled the cup from a pitcher on a bedside table and returned the rim to my mouth.

Walter stood up and looked at me.

“You will walk again.

I thought the magic may have ruptured other bones, perhaps in your spine or your hips and legs.

But it came through the left wrist and exited out of the right hand.

Your back and arms have born a blow.

The magic and the amputation alone could have killed you.

You were as a conduit and sometimes conduits fall apart.”

“How soon will she recover?”

my husband asked, his breath in my hair.

Walter crossed his arms, watching me slurp down a third cup.

“I would like her to stay in bed for the rest of this week.

Madam, your left arm will be in a sling for a season at the least.

The bones need time to mend.

And I would recommend you do not overuse your right arm in the coming days.

Someone will have to feed you.”

“I can do it,”

interjected Alric.

The physician nodded but his eyes stayed on me.

“Try to walk around the room tomorrow but if you cannot do it, go back to the bed and rest.

Our prince has graciously given you his room to recover and I would prefer not to move you down to the infirmary.”

Water dripping down my chin, I said, “The infirmary?”

“That is where they first tried to take your body—”

Alric said into my scalp, cutting himself off at his use of ‘body.’ “That is where they wanted to take you first.”

“But the prince insisted on giving you his room,”

Walter added.

“Of course,”

Peregrine said from across the room.

“You stay as long as you need, lady.”

I nodded at Dermot’s offer of one more slice of peach and gratefully chewed.

“I think you can now weather some lightleaf and a pain tonic,”

Walter said, waving to Dermot, who rummaged in the crate for two vials, adding them to my cup.

I ran my tongue over my teeth, my mouth dry and sour.

“Can I have a chew stick?”

Peregrine stopped in his tracks, then went to a desk, the surface full of pitchers of blue flax blossoms, and pulled open a drawer.

He brought over a cup carved from bone and gilded in copper, full of chew sticks.

When he handed it out to me, he cringed, realizing my right arm was limp and my left hand was missing.

“I am sorry, lady,”

he said, frozen in place, unsure if he should pull one out and put it in my mouth.

Alric pulled his left arm from around my waist and pulled one from the cup.

He guided it up to my mouth, letting me move my head on my own for the last bit and take a bite.

I ground the twiggy consistency into my mouth and swallowed the herbal and minty paste it made.

I repeated this, swallowing instead of spitting out the saliva and macerated stick.

Dermot then held the cup out to me with the pain tonic and I sipped.

“You will fall asleep within an hour or so.

That should relieve the pain.

We will visit you again in the morning,”

Walter informed me and the physicians left.

“Lady. Edie,”

the prince began, at a loss as to what to say.

He stood holding the cup of chew sticks, eyes wide.

“Please tell me what I can do for you.”

“Tell my people that I am awake, please.

But I will see them tomorrow,” I said.

He nodded, an emotional smile offered in return and left.