“ I’ll not lie to you, Captain,” Doctor Metai stated. “Kami has fallen ill with a very serious malady. I’ve seen it most often in young women during the early weeks of a first pregnancy. Sometimes, the girl miscarries. Sometimes, she dies.”
“ No!” Jelena whispered, her hand flying to her mouth.
“ But Kami is strong and healthy,” the doctor continued. “With luck and good nursing, she has a decent chance of survival.”
“ What about our child?” Gendan asked quietly, resting one hand on top of the blanket covering Kami’s belly.
The doctor paused a heartbeat before answering. “If the mother survives, usually the child does as well.” She motioned for her assistant to bring her bag. “Kami will need constant tending through the crisis,” she added, reaching into the bag’s depths to withdraw several vials.
“ I will watch her,” Jelena volunteered. Both Aneko and Gendan looked sharply at her.
“ You don’t have to do this,” Aneko said. “Gendan can find a nurse…”
“ No, I will nurse Kami,” Jelena insisted. “Captain Miri must work. You must work also, Aneko. I need not work…I mean, there is other messenger…Taba. He can carry all Lord Sen’s messages for a short time. I will stay with Kami as long as she needs me.” She paused, then added, “Kami is my friend.”
Gendan noisily cleared his throat and scrubbed at his eyes with his fists. When he looked again at Jelena, his face shone with relief…and gratitude. “Thank you, Jelena,” he murmured.
When the doctor at last departed, she left behind three vials of medicines and instructions on their use. Kami was to be kept warm and the room quiet and dim. Gendan left briefly to shed his armor, and Aneko went to fetch them all some dinner. For a while, Jelena sat alone with Kami, who looked so small and vulnerable beneath the blankets. Kami might be small, but her size misled many. Jelena had seen her friend’s skill at arms, had witnessed first-hand the strength of her sword arm.
“ You have to live, Kami!” Jelena whispered fiercely.
Kami sighed, and her eyelids fluttered. “Gendan,” she murmured. “Sweetheart, where are you?”
“ Gendan will return soon, Kami,” Jelena replied softly.
“ Jelena…You’re here.” Kami smiled weakly. “I’m so glad.” Abruptly, her face crumpled. “I’m scared!” she sobbed. “My baby…”
“ Do not worry, Kami. All will be well.” Jelena made no effort to hide the tears streaming down her cheeks.
When Gendan returned, he found Jelena huddled beside Kami on the narrow bed, holding her friend in her arms.
For three exhausting days and nights, Jelena remained by Kami’s side, leaving only to tend to the most basic needs of her own body. She slept very little and ate and drank sparingly, ignoring the aches in her own barely healed arm and side.
Kami alternately burned with fever and shivered with chills as the illness raged through her body. Jelena could do little to ease her friend’s suffering, other to than bathe the sick girl’s forehead with cool water one moment, then pile on more blankets the next. When Kami writhed with nausea and retching, Jelena held a basin to her cracked lips and wiped her mouth afterward.
Gendan came in the evenings after the end of his shift. Lovingly, he massaged Kami’s back and limbs with sweet almond oil; his touch seemed to do more to relieve her pain than anything else. Jelena had never witnessed such a tender display of love and devotion between a man and woman before, and she slowly came to realize that, beneath Gendan’s gruff exterior dwelt a soul perhaps as kind and good as Ashinji’s.
Ashinji came to the barracks each evening to check on Kami and to personally bring Jelena her dinner. He didn’t stay long; he seemed to sense that Gendan preferred the nobles not to make a lot of fuss. Lord Sen paid a visit only once, and Gendan seemed greatly relieved when he had gone.
“ Don’t get me wrong,” he’d said. “I ‘preciate my lord’s concern, but Kami’s ours to take care of.”
Jelena understood his meaning. Gendan believed that the lives of noble and common folk should intersect only in carefully prescribed ways. He considered caring for his sick sweetheart a private matter, one in which his bosses had no reason to involve themselves.
Four days after she’d first fallen ill, and after having spent the past night in restless semi-consciousness, Kami at last lay sleeping. Groggy from fatigue, Jelena rose from the chair she’d occupied since sundown and stretched her aching limbs. She shuffled over to the open window and peered out, shading her eyes against the sunrise with one hand. Behind her, Gendan’s rough snoring rattled the stillness. Drawing in a deep breath of the fresh morning air, Jelena rubbed her eyes and then returned to the bed, where she laid a hand on Kami’s forehead. The girl’s skin felt cool and dry. Jelena nodded in satisfaction.
The room had gone quiet. Jelena looked up to see that Gendan had awakened and now silently watched her. The expression in his eyes confused her, and she covered her discomfiture by fussing with Kami’s blankets. Gendan rose from Aneko’s bed-she had relinquished it to him so that he could stay by Kami’s side-and padded over to the window. He, too, took a breath of the cool air, then came over to stand beside Jelena.
“ Jelena,” he murmured. “I don’t know how t’ thank you for what you’ve done.”
“ Please, Captain, do not thank me. I did this for my friend,” Jelena replied softly. She had returned to her chair and now gazed fixedly at Kami’s sleeping form.
“ I…I’ve treated you…well, if I’ve treated you…less than kindly…”
“ No, Captain, you have always been polite,” Jelena insisted.
“ But, I haven’t… not really.”
“ You have, Captain.”
“ Goddess’ tits, girl!” Gendan exclaimed. He laid a hand on her shoulder, and Jelena looked up, surprised. “Will you please let me apologize to you?”
Looking into Gendan’s eyes, Jelena could see his contrition and something else as well.
“ I was unfair to you, Jelena, because of… well, because of the way I was taught as a boy t’ see things…and people, as one way or another. I’m beginning to understand now that sometimes, old ideas need to be let go of, that not everything we’re taught as children by our elders is right.”
Jelena swallowed hard against the lump in her throat and nodded. She now knew that, from this day forward, she would be able to count Gendan Miri as one of her friends.
Kami moaned softly and stirred beneath her blankets. Gendan immediately moved to kneel beside the bed, where he tenderly stroked her cheek. “Kami, my precious girl, my precious, lovely girl,” he whispered into her ear. “I love you…so very much. You and our baby.”
Jelena yawned and rubbed at her stinging eyes.
“ Ai, Goddess! Of course!” Gendan rose to his feet, shaking his head in chagrin. “You must be exhausted, and I’ve been completely selfish not t’ see. You sleep now, as long as you need to. I’ll watch Kami until Aneko comes.” He added with a gentle smile, “Call me Gendan, please.”
Gratefully, Jelena rose from her chair and went to lie down on her bed beneath the window. She sighed, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.
Jelena awoke at sundown to find herself alone. She sprang from her bed in alarm and hurried out into the
