WindBeliever (25 page)

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Page 115

Conar nodded, wished with all his heart that he hadn’t. He had a headache he knew the fight hadn’t caused and moaned in regret. All he needed right then was one of his violent migraines to come calling.

Sajin leaned against Peter, feeling the boy’s strong arm under his arm and pushing against a rib he had no doubt was cracked. He took a step forward and grunted with pain.

“Can you make it?” Peter asked anxiously.

“Shurhecan,” Sajin snapped. His own grunts were in cadence with his opponent’s.

Catherine stayed where she was as her brothers helped the two men off the field of honor. It was going to take more than a day or two before either of the foreign princes could be seen in the palace. She wondered how her brothers were going to explain to their father their whereabouts.

“Equally paired, wouldn’t you say, Catherine?”

Catherine turned around with a gasp to see her father standing beneath a cottonwood tree.

Her eyes went wide with fear.

The Tzar shook his head. “Did you and your brothers really think I wouldn’t find out about this?” He eyed her with a cocked brow. “Nothing goes on here that I am not privy to, Catherine.”

“They were just ... they were ....” She stammered to a stop as her father lifted an annoyed hand.

“I am perfectly aware of what they were doing, Catherine.” He tilted his head to one side in question. “Were you?”

Catherine frowned with confusion.

The Tzar clucked his tongue. “Catherine. Catherine. Catherine,” he admonished. “I grow more concerned with your naiveté with every passing day.” He put out a finger to point at her.

“Choose between them, Catherine, or I will choose for you.”

“Them?” she gasped, looking back toward the training huts where the militia was housed during maneuvers.

“It’s either them or the winner of the tourney,” her father informed her. “Take your pick.”

She watched as her father strolled back toward the palace, his merry whistling grating on her already-frayed nerves. She looked from his departing back to the huts, once more to his back, then once again to the huts.

Her mouth snapped shut with an angry click. No one, she thought with narrowed eyes and angry heart, was going to make her choose a man unless she wanted him.

The trouble was, she groaned to herself, the one she wanted really didn’t want her.

WINDBELIEVER

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Page 116

Chapter Twenty-Five

“God!” Conar groaned, turning his head to look at the man lying across the room from him.

“Do I look as bad as you?”

Sajin squinted his one good eye. “You look pretty damned ugly to me.”

“You ought to see yourself.”

“I think you took care of me not being able to,” Sajin quipped. He tried to shift on the cot and moaned, his broken, bandaged ribs protesting his movement. “What the hell did you hit me with?”

Conar gingerly moved his jaw. “Same thing you slapped me in the face with.” He would have given odds that his jaw had been broken.

“You ever get beat up like this before?” Sajin inquired.

“Once.”

“This

bad?”

“Worse.”

Sajin’s brows shot up. “Worse?”

Conar sighed. “Nearly died from it.”

“Tribunal?”

“Domination-hired

thug.”

“Is the bastard still alive?”

The sapphire gaze was unwavering as it met the brown curiosity in Ben-Alkazar’s face.

“What do you think?”

Ben-Alkazar felt his migraine returning. Putting up a hand to his brow, he rubbed at the sharp pain. “McGregor?” he asked.

“Aye.”

“You really want her all that bad?”

There was a long moment of silence before the Serenian answered. “Do you?”

The Kensetti warrior turned away. “It would seem so.”

“You don’t even know her,” Conar accused. “You only met the woman less than two days.”

“How long have you known her?” Sajin mumbled.

“A year. No, a bit longer.”

“Well, you’ve had a year, no, a bit longer, in which to have won her hand. That you either haven’t tried or didn’t want to or failed tells me she’s fair game.” Sajin twisted his head and stared across the room at his fellow patient. “Is that the way you see it?”

Conar looked away from the probing stare that was challenging him. “No,” he answered.

“That’s not the way I see it.”

“You’re going to go after her, then?”

A tiny, flickering smile pulled at Conar’s torn lips. “It would seem so.”

He hurt so badly he was having difficulty breathing. It wasn’t just his ribs that were causing him grief it was the blinding headache that felt like a giant fiend was inside his head hammering to get out. With his last bit of strength, he managed to pull himself over the edge of the bed to relieve the bubbling bile that galloped up his throat. The retching caused more agony in his temple and he gripped the side edge of the mattress with trembling fingers as his stomach heaved once more.

“Do you have migraines?”

WINDBELIEVER

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Page 117

Through the flooding taste of bitter saliva in his mouth, he told his fellow bedmate to shut the hell up.

“You know how I could tell? Your face is all screwed up and you look like you’re gonna puke.”

He wished the floor would open up and swallow the bastard across the room. The pain was increasing and he knew there was nothing that could be done about it. Nothing, that was, that he would allow.

“If you hadn’t been so damned good with your fists, I could go get someone to give you something for the pain.”

“No!”

“Suit

yourself.”

He lay back on the cot and panted, trying desperately to ignore the blinding pain in his temple, the flood of bitter vetch in his throat, and the dancing lights in his vision.

“Why don’t you want something for the pain?”

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?”

Conar grinned. “I’ve never known anyone who had those headache, but me.”

Sajin groaned. “If you have them, McGregor,” he snarled from between tightly clenched teeth, “then you know how much your blathering is hurting my head!”

Conar’s grin widened. “Goobledegookins.”

The Kensetti Prince opened his mouth to ask what the hell the idiot was talking about, but his mouth flooded with saliva and he barely had time to pull himself over the side of the bed before he gagged.

“Nothing left to puke, huh?”

“Go to the Pit, McGregor!”

“Didn’t you have buttered noodles with your meal last evening?” He waited until the nomad was once more flat on his back, groaning. “Didn’t they look like scrub worms to you lying in all that mucusy white gravy? The way you were sucking them in, I was afraid one might slither off your fork and crawl off the table.”

Sajin’s cheeks expanded, he gagged, and nearly fell out of the bed as he retched violently once more. The sounds he was making could have wakened the dead.

“Not feeling too good, huh?” Conar chuckled.

“Stop.”

“I, on the other hand, was going to try some of that jellied eel, but ....”

“Goddamn it, stop!” Sajin gasped, pushing himself up to glare at the Serenian.

“Goobledegookins,” Conar stated.

“If you don’t shut the hell up ….”

“You know those big fat green worms you find on tomato plants?”

“McGregor!”

“The ones with the little thorny-looking things on their backs?”

“I’m going to kill you.” He managed to swing his feet off the bed although his hands had a death grip on the edge of the cot.

“They’re

goobledegookins.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Sajin roared.

“You don’t look so good, Ben-Alkazar. You sure you don’t want me to try and get you ...?”

“I hate you, McGregor,” Sajin muttered, coming unsteadily to his feet. “I loathe you.” He took a hesitant step, feeling the jar of it all the way to the top of his aching head. “I despise you.”

WINDBELIEVER

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Page 118

Feeling more nausea coming to call, he turned slowly around and sat back down on the bed. “I abhor you.” Very slowly, he lay back down on his side and drew his knees up.

“I’m

sorry.”

“You can’t apologize for me hating you,” Sajin snarled.

“I didn’t mean that. I don’t give a rat’s pecker if you dislike me or not.”

“I detest you.”

“I had one of those infernal headaches when I first got here. I know how you feel. The Healer here gave me some laudanum even though ....”

“No drugs!” Sajin snapped, immediately sorry he did.

“That’s how I felt, too. I have a problem with drugs and alcohol.”

The Kensetti Prince lifted his head and looked over at the Serenian. “That’s a dangerous piece of information to give an enemy, McGregor.”

Conar shrugged. “You won’t use it against me anymore than I would use your childhood against you.”

If Sajin Ben-Alkazar was surprised the Serenian Prince knew about his abusive childhood, he didn’t let on. Instead, he closed his eyes and buried the side of his face deeper into the coolness of his pillow.

“Go to sleep, McGregor,” he begged.

“I won’t do it again.”

“What?” Sajin sighed in exasperation.

“Tease you when you’re in pain like this.”

“Good.”

“Unless I feel like it.”

WINDBELIEVER

Charlotte Boyett-Compo

Page 119

Something warm and wet and slick was teasing his face. It felt good. It felt sensuous and it felt stimulating. He smiled, easing himself into wakefulness only to find a fuzzy face peering down at him, tongue lolling, saliva dripping from its mouth. He stared at the apparition for a moment, trying to orientate himself to where he was and who this butt-ugly person was who ....

He blinked, clearing his vision and focused.

“Woof!”

Conar jerked up in the bed at the sound and banged his head against the head board.

“Thought it was a wench slobbering all over you, didn’t you?” came the amused chuckle from across the infirmary.

“He wanted to come see you, Prince Conar,” the little boy said. “He wanted to thank you for finding him.”

Conar glanced over at the nomad’s grinning face and then at the expectant look on the little boy’s face as he kept his puppy from jumping into the bed with Conar, although it was more than obvious from the mongrel’s leaping back feet that was his intent.

“His name is Maxi,” Sajin informed his fellow patient. “Relax, McGregor. He won’t bite.

I’ve been playing with the mutt for over an hour while we waited for you to wake up.”

Conar narrowed his gaze at the man. “Did you sic him on me, Ben-Alkazar?”

Sajin

grinned.

“Kiss my ass,” Conar spat.

“Did you have a puppy when you were little, Prince Conar?” the boy, Conar remembered his name was Niki, asked.

A shaft of pain went through the Serenian’s eyes and Sajin recognized it for what it was. He cleared his throat, drawing the man’s attention.

“It won’t hurt you to pet the little fellow, Conar. When Niki came into the room, your bed was the first one he went to. I think he likes you, although for the life of me I can’t imagine why.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Conar smiled warily at Niki and then patted the bed beside him. He laughed as the little mongrel whined and then jumped up on the covers, his bushy tail wagging like crazy. A long pink tongue thrust out of the puppy’s muzzle and caught the Serenian directly across his scarred cheek.

“No accounting for taste, I’ve always said,” Sajin remarked dryly.

When Catherine walked into the infirmary, she was surprised to see two grown men sitting in the middle of the floor, playing with a little puppy, tickling it and talking to it as though both of them were children.

“I see you’re both feeling better.”

As one, the two men jumped, their faces blushing furiously as they struggled to their feet, staring at Catherine like two boys caught doing something wrong.

“Niki brought the puppy in here,” Sajin defended.

“We’re watching it for him while he’s ...,” Conar began, but Catherine shook her head.

“Get back in bed. Both of you,” she ordered, her lips pursed to keep from laughing as the two of them scrambled onto their cots like schoolboys. She waited until they pulled the covers over them before reaching down to pick up Maxi as the pup stood on its hind legs for her attention.

“Did Doctor Talebov tell either of you that you could get out of bed?”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

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The two men looked at one another.

“He didn’t say we couldn’t,” Conar answered.

“But he didn’t say you could, either,” Catherine reminded him.

“We’re feeling better,” Sajin mumbled, looking for all the world like a pouting child.

“You don’t look any better,” Catherine admonished. She eyed the purple bruises and scabs.

“Neither of you are fit for the tourney this weekend.”

“This weekend?” both men gasped.

“Yes.” Catherine put the wiggling puppy down on the floor and turned to leave. “I’ll tell Doctor Talebov to look in on you.”

They watched her leave, the little puppy scampering behind her long skirts. Both were silent as the situation crystallized in each of their minds.

“I couldn’t hold a lance if it were tied onto my arm,” Sajin sighed.

Conar winced. “The thought of climbing on a horse right now makes me ache all over.”

The Kensetti nodded. “Me, too.”

McGregor turned his head and looked at his bedmate. “What are we going to do?”

“Get the hell up,” Sajin snapped. He threw back the covers and swung his legs to the floor, grunting as the ache in his ribs reminded him they were nowhere near healed.

“You fall off your horse and you’ll put one of those ribs through a lung,” Conar said, watching the nomad massaging the pain in his side.

“How’s your collarbone?” Sajin grumbled.

“About the same as your ribs.”