Captives

'My lord,' Hevert said to Torio, 'will you please Read two injuries for me? This man seems to be bleeding inside. I cannot stop it.'

The man's ribcage had been crushed. Perhaps after he had fallen from a lesser wound, one of the heavy supply wagons had rolled over him. Whatever the cause, he was critically injured.

The splintered ribs had been pulled back into place, relieving pressure on lungs and heart, but the man's skin appeared yellow-no color beneath his outdoor tan. His lips were blue.

'Is it his spleen?' Hevert asked. 'I worked on that-'

'Not his spleen,' Melissa answered. 'You missed a splinter of rib from his back. It's piercing his right lung. Where is your surgery? We must-'

'Surgery?' Hevert was speaking hesitant Aventine for Torio's benefit; this was obviously not a familiar word. 'You mean-cut into him? He is injured enough already. Tell me where the rib is. I will move it back into place.'

Melissa understood at once-when Hevert handed her a chart of the bones of the human body, she quickly pointed out the rib that was broken. Hevert studied the chart, knelt down and gently felt the ribs of the injured man with his fingers, counting… and as he concentrated, the splinter of rib dislodged from the man's lung and slid back into its proper place.

'He's bleeding more heavily!' Melissa said. 'He'll drown in his own blood!'

But in moments Hevert had the bleeding under control. When Melissa said, 'That's it. He's healing,' he sat back on his heels, breathing heavily.

'Thank you, my lady,' Hevert said. 'You are as good as Lord Torio at pointing out injuries.'

'She's better,' said Torio. 'She's had medical training I haven't. Thank you, Melissa. Hevert, you said you had another critical patient?'

'Not critical,' replied the healer. 'He'll live, but I don't know if I've done the right thing.' He got up, and led them to another pallet where a man-hardly more than a boy-in an Aventine tunic lay. His right arm showed an ugly cut through the bicep. The bone had been sliced through, although it was already beginning to heal. Muscles and blood vessels were reunited-he would keep his arm.

Torio could say nothing; he was too powerfully reminded of discovering Decius with a similar wound-although to the thigh rather than the upper arm. In the empire, there had been nothing their best healers could do but amputate.

If only we had had such powers!

'Sorcery!' said Master Corus.

'He will have his arm,' Hevert said, ignoring the comment, 'but will it do him any good? Will it be paralyzed, my lord, my lady?'

Torio said, 'Melissa, I can do the fine discernment to Read the nerves-but I have not had medical training you have. I cannot tell whether they have been reunited in the proper patterns.'

Melissa looked to the two Master Readers. 'Help me, please, Masters.'

'Aid you in abetting Adept sorcery?' asked Master Amicus.

'This man is an Aventine citizen,' Melissa answered. 'Our own healers could not have saved his arm at all-I certainly could not have, and I am a skilled surgeon. Think of his whole life ahead. Will he be left with an unfeeling, unmoving, useless arm? I will do my best-but I am only a Reader in training. You are Master Readers. You can Read deeper into those fine nerves than either Torio or I could.'

'Which is the true betrayal,' Torio asked, picking up something of the turmoil in the two Master Readers' minds, 'aiding a healer to restore an Aventine soldier to full function, or denying health to a man who might have served again to protect his country, and preventing his even working to his full capacity as a citizen?'

The Master Readers looked at one another, and nodded. 'We will help.'

Hevert had successfully united most of the major nerve fibers-the ones that had shown in the cut flesh. But there were others, not easily seen, that he had missed. When the Readers were finished, though, the boy on the pallet had an arm that would heal to full function, as good as it had ever been. Through it all, he remained in healing sleep. Torio wondered if he would ever know that he had a savage healer and at least one renegade Reader to thank for a healthy arm.

To be sure that Hevert and the other healers had missed nothing, the Readers Read the other injured men. 'A fine job, Hevert,' Torio said when they had finished. 'I will report to Lord Wulfston that you have done well. Even the most badly injured will be ready to be moved by the time the men from the castle join them.'

'Thank you, my lord.'

Some of the men who had been less severely injured were waking, the Aventines confused, the savages used to such rapid healing. They got up and stretched, testing their bodies, and headed out to the food line, almost as hungry for food as to find out what had happened while they were in healing sleep. Torio and Melissa were also hungry; the two Master Readers joined them, although they ate little and said less, merely absorbing the peculiar scene as the savages made certain that the enemies who had attacked them were helped off the muddy plain and shown the small river where they could wash, then were fed and given places to rest.

Torio Read Melissa Reading for her friends among the Readers at the back of the army-they were still hours from moving off the plain, although progress was easier now as the sun dried the mud to a firmer surface.

//Magister Phoebe!// Melissa pleaded, //I know you can hear me!//

But no Reader would respond. Torio caught a thought-and he was sure Melissa did, too-We must think of them as being dead. There were tears behind the thought, and Melissa forced back her own tears, choking on her bread and cheese. She gulped some wine, and looked at Masters Amicus and Corus. 'It's no use, child,' Master Amicus said aloud. 'We are cut off from them forever. I know you don't understand that it's better that way. I don't suppose I will, tomorrow.'

Before they left the scene, Torio went to wash off himself-much of the exterior mud he had picked up rescuing Rolf had dried and brushed off, but sand had worked its way under his clothes, chafing him. Shivering, he stripped and washed out his clothes. It was spring, but not really warm enough to be comfortable naked. His silk shirt was almost dry, if badly wrinkled, by the time he had washed all the sand from his hair, brushed his tabard, and scraped his boots. Then he cleaned his sword-Lenardo's sword, originally. There had been no time for Torio to return for his the night they escaped from the empire… and now Lenardo no longer needed conventional weapons.

Torio's hose and undergarments were still soggy-he didn't really want to climb back into them, but he had nothing else to wear. Wishing for the thousandth time that he had some Adept talent, he shook out the garments, but succeeded only in spraying drops of water on himself.

'Let me help, me lord,' said a savage soldier standing guard-and the water ran off the clothes as if they had been made of duck's feathers.

'Thank you,' said Torio. 'Your help is appreciated…?'

'Huber, me lord.'

'Thank you, Huber. I will remember your kindness.'

Huber, a grizzled soldier who must have seen many a battle over the years, gave a gap-toothed grin. 'And I'll remember this day, me lord, them empire soldiers stuck in the bog-! Things has changed since you Readers come. My family's got enough to eat, 'n' we're safe from attack by sea or land-hardly have to fight at all. You got no need to thank your people, me lord, for what little favors we can do you.'

Warmed by the encounter, Torio pulled on his clothes and joined Melissa and the Master Readers again.

Horses were waiting when they were ready to ride. In a few hours they caught up with the wagons-and joined the Adepts on the pallets in them, for it was almost sunset, and Torio and Melissa had had no sleep the previous night, the Master Readers very little.

Torio woke once as the wagon stopped for a change of horses. The smell of roast meat filled the air, and the Adepts all got up to eat. Torio rolled over, covered himself with someone's abandoned cloak, and didn't wake again until dawn. Everybody was waking and stretching. Master Corus, who was in Torio's wagon, sat up and looked around glumly, not Reading.

'We'll be home within the hour,' said Torio.

'You truly think you are at home here?'

'I'm sorry-you're here under protest, but you won't be mistreated. You haven't been so far, have you?'

'No. Several times during the night I thought of climbing out of the wagon-everyone was so sound asleep, and I don't think the driver would have noticed. But I thought, if you don't think it's necessary to bind us or guard us, you do not think we could escape if we tried.'