Earthly Crown (17 page)

The few older men, lined, sun-weathered, with silver in their hair, smiled directly at her and spoke a few words which she guessed to be some kind of thank you. The young ones never looked her in the eye, or if they did, not for more than an instant. But it was obvious that their apparent shyness did not stem from disgust. Quite the opposite, if anything; many times she turned only to see a young man blush and look away from her.

By the time they finished with the first group, a second group had ridden in. Things went much the same. The afternoon sun spread a layer of warmth along the ground, but it was shallow, and Diana knew that when night came, so would the cold. What if it rained again? Did these men even have blankets?

A second surgery had been set up in the Company tent, and Diana watched as Dr. Hierakis, now with two elderly jaran riders flanking her, walked into the tent. She had rolled up the sleeves of her tunic. Blood spattered the yellow fabric. Behind her, Maggie carried two unlit lanterns.

“Here.” Diana knelt beside a young man with cornflower blue eyes and fair hair. One shoulder piece dangled, cut away, and underneath it his scarlet shirt was damp. “You must be thirsty. Where are you wounded?”

An instant later she realized that the red shirt was doubly red, damp with blood not water, and that he was pale as much from pain as from complexion. He smiled at her, and looked away as quickly. He lifted his good arm and took the cup from her and drank, still not looking at her. But his body was canted toward her, not quite leaning, but yearning. He was pretty, not tall, and his shyness made him seem sweet to her.

She felt a sudden rush of affection and felt foolish all at once. “Goddess, I suppose that hurts like hell,” she went on, secure in the knowledge that he could not understand a word she was saying. “And you have the most beautiful eyes. Do all you
jaran
men have such gorgeous eyes?”

He blushed—clear to see, on his fair skin—and handed her back the cup.

“Careful, golden fair. The words may be Greek to him, but the intent is plain.”

Diana flushed and rose, casting a last sympathetic glance at the young rider before she turned to confront Marco Burckhardt.

Then he smiled, disarming her. “But the good doctor was right. He looks better already.” He knelt beside the young rider.
“Te chilost?”
The rider made a gesture with his good arm, speaking a few words. “Ah,” replied Marco.
“Pleches voy?”
The rider replied in a stream of words, but Marco only shook his head.

“Do you know their language? Did you know it before?” Diana asked, loitering.

“No. I’m learning it bit by bit. Very useful.” He glanced up at her. “Try asking
nak kha tsuva.
That means, ‘how are you called,’ more or less.”

That was definitely a challenge. Diana tried the words out in her head, and then turned to the young rider.
“Nak kha tsuva?”
she asked.

The rider grinned. “Anatoly Sakhalin.” He repeated the question back at her.

“Diana Brooke-Holt.” She hesitated, glancing at Marco. “I’m glad he's not badly hurt, at least.”

Marco had his little red knife out and was trimming the shirt away from the shoulder. “What makes you think that?”

Diana looked around them, at the men waiting patiently on the ground, some silent, some joking; one older man whose left arm hung limply and at an awkward angle sang a cheerful tune in a pleasant baritone. “They rode here, for one. And they aren’t—”

Marco peeled away the silk of the shirt. Skin came off with it. He dropped the bloody remains beside the broken shoulder piece. The shoulder had been crushed—by what, Diana could not imagine, except that bone gleamed white under pulped tissue. She gasped. Nausea and dizziness swept over her in waves. Anatoly Sakhalin shut his eyes. He paled to white with pain.

“Because they aren’t complaining?” Marco asked. “Well, they’re only savages you know, they don’t feel it like we do. He needs to go directly to surgery. I think the good doctor can manage something with this. Otherwise he’ll die when gangrene sets in. Could you fetch someone to help him over?”

He was mocking her. Through her horror at the sight of the gaping, splintered wound and her compassion for the young rider’s pain, she knew that Marco Burckhardt scorned her, that he scorned all the actors.

“I’ll do it.” She knelt without waiting to hear more, leaving her cups and leather canteen on the grass, and slipped her left arm around the young man’s waist. His eyes snapped open and he glanced at her and then, with an immense effort, he pushed himself to his feet. Swayed a little once there, with his good arm around her shoulders, but she steadied him. Marco stood up also. He looked, well, angry more than anything.

Diana ignored Marco and started off toward the screens. After about ten steps she felt dampness on her thigh and looked down to see blood leaking out of a rent in the rider’s black trousers. By the time they reached the surgery, the young man’s eyes were half-shut and most of his weight hung on her, but his right arm, gripping her right shoulder, was strong. Gwyn appeared at a gap between screens.

“Goddess, Diana. Here, let me help.” Together they half-carried Sakhalin in and lifted him onto the table. Blood spattered the grass around. Gwyn’s tunic was dappled with red.

“What’s this?” demanded Dr. Hierakis, pushing Diana away. Diana moved, only to be stopped by Anatoly himself. He clutched her wrist in his right hand. “Ah. Crushed shoulder, some splintering of the joint, dirt embedded; speared and trampled, I’d say. Thigh wound—that’s superficial. Here, Klimova, you see how the tendon—” Dr. Hierakis went on, explaining in Rhuian to her jaran companion as she doctored the wound. He watched, soaking in her techniques although he did not understand her words. But Diana lost track of the diagnosis. Anatoly Sakhalin had crept his hold up from her wrist onto her hand, and he held on to her as if she was his lifeline. While the doctor probed and poked and cleaned and moved things and took a needle and thread to him, he stared at Diana, his eyes locked on hers. She did not look away, as much because he so urgently needed her to fix on as because she did not want to see what the doctor was doing. Blood leaked out from the wound to trickle along Anatoly’s neck. His throat worked convulsively. His skin shaded from white to gray, and the black of pupil eclipsed the brilliant blue of his eyes. His grip crushed her fingers. A moment later, his eyes rolled up and he went limp.

She stood frozen until she realized his chest still rose and fell. She released his hand.

“Thank you, Diana,” said Dr. Hierakis. “Perhaps you’d do better here in the surgery. They’re stoic enough, but I must say this boy’s done the best of the lot.”

Diana felt like her head was attached by only a string to her neck. In an instant, she would be floating. She stared at the young rider, the blood, the pale curve of his lips, the blond mustache above his mouth and the cleanshaven line of his jaw. It stank here, of blood and wounds and pain.

“Diana,” said Gwyn calmly, “you’d better sit down.”

She sat down. Her vision blurred, dimmed, and focused again. Goddess, she would have fainted in another second. She took an even deeper breath, another, in and out, clearing her head. When it was safe, she looked up. Dr. Hierakis’s jaran companion, the old man, bound up the shoulder wound.

“Move him off,” said the doctor to Gwyn. “Who’s next?” She glanced down at Diana, who sat at her feet. “Move, Diana. You’re in the way.”

Gwyn and, to Diana’s surprise, Hal got their arms under the unconscious Anatoly and lifted him as gently as they could off of the table, carrying him away—to one of the tents, probably. Marco appeared, helping in a young man mutilated by a gash that had peeled the skin away from his cheekbone. Bone gleamed. It was horrifying.

“Where do you want me?” Diana climbed to her feet. “I’ll do whatever you think is best.”

Dr. Hierakis did not even glance at her. Diana felt—knew—that she had been judged and found wanting. An attendant who fainted at the least sign of pain was of no use in the surgery. “You’re doing very well with the water, Diana,” she said, though she certainly could not know how well Diana was doing, with all her efforts concentrated in the surgery. “Now, Klimova, you see here how the epidermis and facial muscle has—”

Diana retreated. Marco followed her, but she avoided him, gathering her canteen and cups back and starting down the line. A new group of riders had come in. She asked their names, one by one, as she gave them the precious water to drink.

Later, much later, she heard the wagons trundling in before she saw them. Belatedly, she realized that David was hanging lanterns from all the tent poles, that it was getting dark, well into twilight. The wagons rolled past: one, two…ten in all.

Diana hurried over to where they had halted, sure that these men would be parched, having fought all day and then jolted over the ground for such a distance. Out here, men had stripped off their armor and most of them clustered around the horses. A group broke off to assist with the wagons. At the head of the line, Marco and his young jaran associate leaned over the slats and peered at the wounded lying within. Diana ran up to the last wagon just as two men slung the first wounded man off.

She winced. How could they be so casual with him? Even if he was unconscious…They carried the rider past her, not a meter from her. He was dead. Fair hair hung down, trailing toward the grass. His face, so young, was unmarked. But the spark was gone. Whatever had animated him was fled, leaving only a shell.

Diana stared after him. She felt cold and hot all at once. He was dead.

“Diana?” The voice was tentative, and frightened.

Diana turned. “Quinn?”

“I…I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s just too awful.” Quinn caught in a sob. Her brown hair hung, tangled, loose over her shoulders, and dirt streaked her forehead. Lines of tears trailed down her cheeks. “Oh, Goddess. Look at them.” Then she spun and ran.

Diana knew where Quinn was headed without having to look: to the tent at the other end of the pond, where Anahita held her court, away from the horror that the camp had become. At the second wagon, Marco Burckhardt paused to stare toward them, to stare after Madelena Quinn, retreating from the ugliness of death.

Diana was suddenly furious. What right had he to judge them? Was he better than them, for having spent so many years on this barbaric planet? Because he had seen death before, because he could shrug it off now, did that give him license to despise them for their innocence? Marco was still watching her. Waiting. Seeing if she passed the test, which was no test at all except that he wanted it to be one. A man moaned, sobbing in pain. Goddess, these were the men too injured to ride. Another man was carried past her while she stood, hesitating; another man who was dead. She took two steps, three, then four, to the side of the wagon.

A man lay there, on his back. His chest rose and fell, rasping. An arrow protruded from his eye.

If she thought about it, she would scream. She knew it. But she was damned if she would give Marco Burckhardt the satisfaction of seeing her give up. And oh, sweet Goddess, the pain they were feeling. It tore at her, it hurt, to see them suffer.

She unscrewed the canteen and poured some water into the cup. Spooning it out, she got some through the lips of the man with the arrow in his eye—he was still partially conscious—and then she moved on to the next wagon.

As long as she didn’t think, she could manage her job. Each canteen went a long way, because these men were so badly hurt that mostly a spoon or two, fed through their dry lips, was all they could take. At some point she must have gone through all ten wagons, but by then two more wagons had come trundling in. About a third of the men were dead. They were carried away and set down in the grass. Some of the least injured jaran men carried brush out into the grass and laid out a circle of tinder; for what, she could not imagine. Funeral rites? She dismissed the thought as quickly as it came, knelt by a rider propped up on his saddle, and lifted the cup to his lips for him to drink.

“Nak kha tsuva?”
she asked him. He managed the barest of smiles and whispered his name so softly that she couldn’t make it out, but by that smile, she suddenly understood that he would probably live, although blood stained his abdomen and his right leg was sheared through to the bone.

She rose and went on to the next man. And the next.

Ran out of water and trudged across to get more from Rajiv. The moon was up. Its light cast hazy shadows on the pale expanse of grass and the monstrous angles of the tents. A man screamed in pain. A moment later the scream cut off, abruptly. A million stars blazed in the black sky.

Crossing back to the three new wagons that had just come in, she strayed past the field of the dead. Several jaran men rifled the dead bodies, but in a reverent way that made her understand that this was part of their culture, removing the silk shirts, unbuckling belts, rolling up tassetted armor, collecting sabers.

She got to the new wagons just as Marco did. Halted opposite him, staring in at six men thrown together on the floor. One was dead. She could recognize the dead ones instantly by now. Marco leaned in and pulled aside armor and cloth, looking for wounds, gauging their seriousness. They looked mutilated, all of them.

“This one, to surgery now.
Stanai.”
Marco’s jaran associate spoke to some waiting men. They lifted the wounded man gently from the wagon and carried him off toward the tents. “He can wait. He can wait. This one,
stanai.”
Marco paused by the sixth man, a young rider with black hair. His eyes were closed. His breathing came in liquid bursts, blood bubbling and sucking on his chest; a trickle of blood ran out of his mouth. Marco probed under armor for the wound. Then he shook his head. The young rider’s eyes opened, and he looked up at the sky and then at the men surrounding him. He spoke, weak words but clear.

Marco shook his head again, but he said nothing.

“Shouldn’t he go straight to surgery?” Diana demanded. All the riders started, shifting to look at her and then away.