Angus came over with a clean cloth and a thin knife. “That was quite a combat.” He spoke conversationally.
“I was distracted.” Angus probably wondered how the Scot had managed this blow. It was the sort of wound an inexperienced knight might suffer.
“She must have been pretty,” Angus said.
Zander said nothing to that, least of all that she was pretty enough that he had been plagued by daydreams about her that left him hard and hot.
Angus unbuckled and removed the plate on his shoulder, then pushed the surcoat aside so he could clearly see the left arm. “I was going to bring one of the whores here tonight, so you that could celebrate all these victories, but I’m thinking you won’t be fit for such labor now.”
“You underestimate me. How bad is it?”
“I’m not saying it won’t hurt.”
“It always hurts. Any warrior who claims it doesn’t is a lying churl. Well, get on with it.”
“There’s a surgeon here. Do you want to go to his tent?”
“You’ll do better. He’d probably kill me.”
Angus lifted the knife and began prying the mail out of Zander’s arm from where the force of the sword had buried it deep into his skin.
It hurt like a devil’s bite. He gritted his teeth but had no hope that this would not end with him screaming. As the pain worsened, his mind turned red with anger, and a few curses erupted from his mouth. Angus just worked on as quickly as he could.
“Done,” Angus said, sitting back on his heels. “Mostly.”
It was the rest that would be total hell. Zander began steeling himself for it.
A shadow fell over them. A presence entered the tent.
“Move, Harold,” Angus snarled. “I’ll be needing the light.”
“I am not Harold.”
The feminine voice made Angus stop his preparations. Zander looked down his body to the tent’s opening. Elinor stood there in a green dress, with her hair bound in a long braid.
“Are you badly hurt?” she asked.
“Badly enough.”
“Don’t be paying him any mind,” Angus said. “He’s seen far worse, and it wasn’t his sword arm anyway.”
She came forward and looked down at the pallet. “Should you not remove the mail?”
“We can now,” Angus said. He gestured to Zander to sit, then went to work on the rest of the armor.
“I don’t understand. How were you wounded if wearing the mail and the weapons are blunted?”
“It protected him as it should,” Angus said. “But the force of the blow made the mail itself gouge into him. I’ve just pried it all out.”
Zander swallowed a curse as the mail slipped over his arm.
Elinor dropped to her knees beside him. “You appear very pale.”
“I’ll be paler yet in a short while. You should leave now. Angus is not done with me.”
“Can I help in some way?”
“No.”
“Yes,” Angus said. “You can give him your bare breast to suck while I burn this wound. He never will bite the wood, like any sensible man. He’s too vain about his teeth.”
“She isn’t a whore, Angus.”
“Oh. My apologies, my lady.”
“Would a bare breast really help?” She sounded concerned, and quite serious. Zander came close to saying indeed it would, just to see if she would offer one.
“No,” he said instead.
“Yes,” Angus said. “Anything to get him thinking of other than the pain.”
“I don’t suppose holding his hand would distract him much.”
Zander bent the bad arm over his body, reached for her hand with that one, and grasped it. “Not much, but enough.”
Angus rose and walked outside. Zander did not look to see what he was doing. He just gazed into Elinor’s eyes and hoped he did not scream like a stuck pig in her presence.
There was a lot of blood on the clothes in front of where Angus had knelt. The fear she had been battling surged when she saw those linens now dyed crimson. It didn’t seem fair that a knight could wear armor and lose so much blood.
It had taken her a good while to find his camp. First, she had to dodge her father, who was heading to the tavern with some other men. His path forced her to circle around the crowd. Then she needed to find people who could point her toward this pavilion set in the middle of the encampments.
She knelt close to Zander’s hip, with their hands grasped on his stomach. Even thus, wounded and in pain, he looked magnificent. His dark, wavy locks now hung with damp, and his pallor worried her, but his eyes gazed into hers with warmth and humor.
Angus returned and knelt again. Elinor glanced over and almost swooned. He carried a knife by a cloth-wrapped hilt, its blade red hot from time in the fire outside.
“Must you?” she asked, almost crying while she imagined the pain.
“He must,” Zander said. “Better a burn than the corruption that might start. Now look me in the eyes, pretty Elinor, so I have visions of heaven and not hell.”
She looked deeply in his eyes, and refused to watch Angus. She knew when the knife touched flesh, however. She smelt it, and saw for a second how all the lights in Zander’s eyes died, buried in a kind of horror that terrified her. Then the hot flames returned, the angry ones. While the stench from the knife continued, he grabbed her with his right arm and pulled her roughly down to his chest and kissed her hard, furiously. She felt his gritting teeth beneath her lips.
Then it was over. Angus knelt back on his heels. Zander’s whole body went slack, and he slowly transformed into the Zander she knew.
Angus gathered the bloody cloths and left the tent, closing the flap behind him. Zander still clutched her hand.
“You were very brave,” he said.
“I did nothing.”
“You did not get all womanish and weepy, or faint.”
“You were the one who was brave.”
“You helped that part of it.”
“It was all the talk, how you defeated him. He is well known as a great champion. He never loses, it was said.”
“From the
