The Sword Of Heaven - An Earthly Crown Part 12

She hurried over. "What is this?"

"The doctor wants an outdoor surgery. Tie that there-"

Diana watched the riders from her vantage point. "It doesn't look as if this group has any wounded, or as if they're even going to come into our camp-" She broke off as Dr. Hierakis and Marco strode across the gra.s.s to the group of waiting jaran. Their gestured conversation was fascinating to watch, since it was obvious that no one spoke a common language. Soon enough Owen wandered over to study them.

"Excuse me." Diana whirled, to see David and Maggie carrying a long, rectangular table. They brought it inside the screens and set it down. David stepped back to examine it. "Well, it was the best I could cobble together."

Out by the riders, the doctor and an older jaran man had reached some kind of agreement. They walked together back to the tents, and behind them, walked-or limped-a number of the riders. As they came closer, Diana could see that they were indeed wounded: one man had an arrow sticking out of his thigh, broken off; another had blood seeping from his right side; a third had a b.l.o.o.d.y strip of cloth tied around his left eye.

"Marco, get my kit. Maggie, where's Jo? I want her to stay in my tent and run sterilization on my instruments, so we'll need someone-one of the actors, say-to fetch and carry. That should be easy enough for them. David, we'll need another table, the wagons will be showing up by dusk. Can you find-yes, leave Rajiv in charge of the water; perhaps one of the actors can help you." Dr. Hierakis caught Diana staring at her.

Diana felt like she was being considered by an expert. She s.h.i.+fted uneasily and glanced at the elderly jaran man next to the doctor. He had a kindly face-for a savage-and, meeting her gaze, he smiled at her and nodded.

"Of course," said Dr. Hierakis abruptly. "If you think you can stand it, Diana, you can take water-boiled water, of course-to the wounded who are waiting to be treated. G.o.ddess knows, they'll be thirsty enough, and a pretty face will likely do them as much good as the drink. Can you manage it, do you think?"

It did not sound precisely like a challenge, but Diana became aware all at once that Marco Burckhardt had paused and was looking at her. "Certainly," she said, hoping there was no betraying quaver in her voice.

"Good," said the doctor. "Tell Rajiv what you're about, and get some cups. And a spoon, perhaps, for the worst of them.''

But the cup sufficed, Diana quickly discovered. Of the fifty riders who had come in, at least three-quarters had some kind of injury that clearly kept them from fighting but not from riding. They settled in on the ground, waiting patiently as Marco and a young dark-haired rider performed triage and sent the worst-injured up to the privacy of the screens. Quinn got a cup, too, and they took water to each rider in turn. Diana soon suspected that many of these men could have gotten water for themselves but were content to wait in order to receive it from her hands.

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 s.h.i.+rt was damp.

"You must be thirsty. Where are you wounded?"

An instant later she realized that the red s.h.i.+rt 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. "G.o.ddess, I suppose that hurts like h.e.l.l," 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 tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the s.h.i.+rt 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 s.h.i.+rt. Skin came off with it. He dropped the b.l.o.o.d.y 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 compa.s.sion 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 gra.s.s, 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.

"G.o.ddess, Diana. Here, let me help." Together they half-carried Sakhalin in and lifted him onto the table. Blood spattered the gra.s.s around. Gwyn's tunic was dappled with red.

"What's this?" demanded Dr. Hierakis, pus.h.i.+ng 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. G.o.ddess, 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 cl.u.s.tered around the horses. A group broke off to a.s.sist with the wagons. At the head of the line, Marco and his young jaran a.s.sociate 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 gra.s.s. His face, so young, was unmarked. But the spark was gone. Whatever had animated him was fled, leaving only a sh.e.l.l.

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, G.o.ddess. 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 pa.s.sed the test, which was no test at all except that he wanted it to be one. A man moaned, sobbing in pain. G.o.ddess, 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 d.a.m.ned if she would give Marco Burckhardt the satisfaction of seeing her give up. And oh, sweet G.o.ddess, 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 gra.s.s. Some of the least injured jaran men carried brush out into the gra.s.s 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 gra.s.s 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 s.h.i.+rts, unbuckling belts, rolling up ta.s.setted 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 a.s.sociate 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, s.h.i.+fting to look at her and then away.

"Lungs," said Marco. "He won't last another hour. If he's conscious at all, now, it's only because he's in shock and can't feel the wound."

"But you can't just leave him-"

Marco shrugged and went on to the next wagon. Riders carried the other wounded men away, and lifted out the dead one, leaving the black-haired boy alone in the wagon. He watched them, but he said nothing more.

He knew he was dying.

Diana started to cry. Tears trickled down her face. The worst thing she could do was to cry; it weakened all her defenses, it was idiotic. There was nothing she could do for him, nothing anyone could do.

Then he saw her. His face lit with wonder. "Elinu," he said, and he smiled.

Fiercely, Diana wiped the tears from her cheeks. She slung the canteen over her shoulder and crawled into the wagon. Getting her hands under his shoulders, she lifted him up and cradled his head in her lap. His eyes were clear, perfectly clear, as he stared up at her.

"Nak kha tsuva?" she asked.

"Arkady," he whispered. His breath rattled in his throat. "Arkady Suvorin." He said something more, words she did not know, but that one word again, elinu. She faltered. What else could she do but stare at him, and he at her. What use? She wanted to cry, but that would do neither of them any good. She grasped, and found the first leading role she had played, as an ingenue. And said it to him: " 'Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say 'Ay;' And I will take thy word.' " He gazed at her, rapt, as she went on with the lines, every fiber of her being concentrated on him. What else could she do, but ease him in his dying? " 'Therefore pardon me, And not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discovered.' "

But he was dead by then, slipped silently away. He lay still. His chest neither rose nor fell, and a last drop of blood congealed on his chin. But his face was at peace.

"Bravo," said Marco softly, from so close beside her that she would have jumped if she weren't so bitterly exhausted.

She stared at the dead man, his slack face, his dark hair.

"You're braver than I thought," said Marco. He made it sound like an apology.

" 'I have no joy of this contract tonight,' " she said in a low voice. She lifted the dead boy's head off her lap and laid him down on the wagon floor. Stood up, brus.h.i.+ng off her trousers and shaking out her knee-length tunic. Picked up the cup. Marco came around to the end of the wagon and caught her by the waist before she could clamber down, swinging her down, holding her. She felt the flush all along her neck, up into her cheeks. One of his hands rested at the small of her back, pressing her into him, against his chest and his hips. His breathing was unsteady, and he bent his head and kissed her lightly on the lips. Lightly, but he shook with some extreme emotion, desire for her, certainly, and perhaps even sorrow or rage at his night's task.

"The other wounded-" She squirmed away, but he held her.

"No more. It's quiet. They're taken care of, or they're dead."

Out here, the two of them stood alone with the dead, those left in the wagons and those laid out in neat lines in the gra.s.s.

"I love you," said Marco.

Diana wedged her hands in between them and shoved him away. "Don't patronize me, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she screamed, and then wrenched away from him and ran back to camp, not caring who stared.

Campfires ringed the cl.u.s.ter of tents. She slowed, coming to her senses. Or at least, coming to a sense of her dignity again. Her breathing came in short bursts, ragged, and she impatiently wiped another tear away from the corner of her mouth.

Wiped at her nose with the back of one hand. The canteen sloshed against her right hip. She was gripping the cup so hard that her fingers ached, and then she realized that the fingers ached as well from the grip of the young rider, Anatoly Sakhalin.

As if the name, rising to her thoughts, was a talisman, she saw him. He sat inclined against a saddle, his face illuminated by firelight, talking to a man crouched beside him. He glanced her way, marking her movement, but his glance caught on her and his entire body tensed as he recognized her. The man next to him s.h.i.+fted and looked her way. Bakhtiian.

As if with a will of their own, her feet took her over to them, and she knelt beside Anatoly Sakhalin.