Pushing up the tunic’s sleeve, the healer looked closely at the wound, moving the separated skin around and causing Eskkar to flinch, though he made no sound.
“It’s nothing serious, Lord Eskkar. Let me look at the others.” He spent more time with Grond, and a few moments with Lani. As he finished with them, a soldier came in carrying a bucket of water. The healer took an empty wine cup from the table, filled it with water, then poured the contents over Eskkar’s arm, dribbling the water into the wound, his face inches above the gash as he examined it. The blade had sliced along the outer forearm, carving a furrow nearly a hand’s width long.
“Nothing inside the flesh, lord. That’s good. I don’t think it will even need to be stitched. Binding will do. A clean wound, bound up in its own blood, should heal quickly enough.”
Eskkar felt relieved, though the gash stung even more after the healer’s examination. The old man dipped another cup of water from the bucket and again washed the blood away. Another woman arrived with clean binding strips, and the healer looked at them carefully before selecting one. Then he took the cup of wine that had been poured for him and clasped his other hand firmly on Eskkar’s wrist. “Don’t move now. This will sting.”
A lance of pain went through Eskkar as the wine trickled into the wound, and he had to bite down hard to keep his arm immobile. The pain faded after a moment, but the healer continued until he emptied the cup.
He wiped the excess from Eskkar’s arm, and with considerable dexterity for an old man, tightly bound the long cloth around the lower arm, pulling firmly as he did so.
“I’ll need to change that in the morning, Lord Eskkar,” he said. “Try to move the arm as little as possible until the flesh has time to heal.”
Eskkar grunted at the man’s advice. Lani came over and sat next to Eskkar, holding on to his hand while the healer examined her head. When he finished, he merely washed it out with water from the bucket. “Nothing to do here,” he said. “Just a bad bruise.”
Grond’s hand didn’t take long. The healer rinsed it clean with a cup of water, inspected it carefully, then made Grond open and close his fingers several times. The healer treated the cut with water and wine, then bound it up, using enough wrapping to make sure Grond wouldn’t move it for a few hours. “Keep it bandaged until it heals,” the healer ordered. “And change the bandage every day.”
The healer finished up and slung his unneeded box of instruments back over his shoulder. While he was doing this, Lani went into Eskkar’s room. She returned in a moment, with two silver coins in her hand. The healer took up the wine cup and refilled it. This time it didn’t go to waste, as he drank it down in four loud gulps.
“That was good wine, Lord Eskkar. Perhaps I should have spilled less on the floor.” He took the silver coins from Lani and bowed thankfully. “I’ll return first thing in the morning, to see to the wound and change the bindings. You should be more careful in the future, lord. It would be a shame for you to be killed so soon after having rescued us.”
Eskkar thanked the man, but didn’t say anything else until the healer had left. When the door closed, Eskkar turned to Grond.
“Well, what do you think?”
“Those men… they were good. Very quick. If you hadn’t shouted … I’d have been butchered, and probably Tippu, too.”
“Don’t thank me, Grond. I never heard a thing. Those men knew how to move quietly. The damned cat heard them creeping up.” Eskkar shook his head in disgust. Angry now, he cursed himself for a fool, taking his ease, his hands on a woman, while two men with naked swords in their hands walked within six paces without him noticing. He turned to Lani, put his good arm around her, and pulled her to him for a moment.
“Tomorrow, I want you to feed that cat a whole chicken, Lani.”
“You’d better sacrifice something to Ishtar, then, for sending the creature to guard you,” Grond answered. Everyone knew he didn’t care much for animals. “Now I’ll have to bow politely the next time it hisses at me.”
“No, I’ll thank Lani instead. She threw herself in front of one and tripped him up.” He kissed the top of her head.
“We were lucky, Captain. We’ve been idling and careless. I should have been more alert.”
Shouts from the square made both men look up, and in a moment Sisuthros came striding into the room. “Hamati found the horses. There were four of them, tied up about two hundred paces from the palisade, near the river, near the southern road. And one of the guards found a rope fastened to the fence, just opposite where the horses were.”
“Could there have been more men? There might have been one with the horses.”
“Hamati didn’t think so. The horses were well tied. He’s still out there looking. We’ll know for sure in the morning. It’s too dark to see tracks now.” He noticed the bandages for the first time. “Are you well?”
“Well enough,” Eskkar answered. “Now we have to find out who to kill for this.”
That reminded Sisuthros of something. “I found gold on the men, Captain. On all of them. One man had ten gold coins, the other three had five each. Someone with wealth wanted you dead, it seems.”
More than enough gold to buy anyone’s death, Eskkar knew. And that meant… What did it mean? He didn’t know. “That’s a lot of gold for anyone in Bisitun to pay for a murder.”
Sisuthros picked up Eskkar’s empty wine cup, poured himself some wine, and sat down facing his captain. “Twenty-five gold coins… nobody in Bisitun has that kind of gold, Captain, not after the Alur Meriki and Ninazu. Believe me, I’ve worked with every merchant and trader in the village. Even if someone wanted you dead… Besides, you’ve treated everyone here fairly, more than fairly.” He shrugged. “They’d be more likely to try and kill me.”
“And Ninazu didn’t have any other kin,” Grond offered, “and even if he did, they wouldn’t be the kind to spend gold to get their revenge.
They’d do it themselves.”
“Akkad. That much gold had to come from Akkad,” Eskkar said with understanding, his lips tightening. “What about the marks on the gold?”
Sisuthros shook his head. “At least ten different merchants, and I only recognized about half of them. No way to tell from that.”
“Something must be going on there,” Eskkar said.
“There’s nothing happening in Akkad, Captain,” Sisuthros said. “Yesterday’s messenger said the city was quiet. And Bantor is due back any day.
He might even be back by now.”
Eskkar had talked to the messenger himself. It had been one of the regular couriers, carrying routine messages, even a personal message from Trella. “Sisuthros, make a head count. See if anyone is missing. Check the scribes and traders, too.”
The sons of Akkad’s merchants that accompanied them to keep the records might be involved in some scheme or another. Damn the gods that they hadn’t taken one of the attackers alive. Even one would have been enough.
Sisuthros got up. “I’ll take the count. Is there anything else we can do before daylight?”
Grond looked at Eskkar and shook his head.
“No, I can’t think of anything else,” Eskkar said. “We’ll know more in the morning.” He stood up as well. “I need to think about this. Wake me an hour before dawn.”
When he and Lani were alone in the bedroom, the door barred, Lani sat on the bed, trembling, and he saw the tears glistening in her eyes. “Don’t be afraid, Lani,” he said. “We’re safe enough. There are two men standing guard right outside the door.”
“I am not afraid, Eskkar. But now the fighting will start again. You will go off to kill your enemies.”
“That’s what I have to do.” He sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll take care of whatever has happened in Akkad, then I’ll send for you. You saved my life tonight, Lani. I won’t forget that. Now, put out the lamp and lie beside me. I need to think, and I’ll do it better in the dark.”
Eskkar had already finished dressing when the guard knocked on the door. Lani had cried herself to sleep while Eskkar lay beside her, questions churning in his head. He hadn’t slept much, dozing and waking throughout the night. In the end, he couldn’t wait for the summons to arise.
In the outer room one lamp burned. Sisuthros sat at the table, talking to Grond and Hamati. Sisuthros looked weary, and Eskkar knew he’d stayed awake all night as well. One of Lani’s women had built a fire and heated water, so the men would have something warm with their day-old bread. Glancing out through the open door, Eskkar saw half a dozen soldiers gathered beneath a flickering torch, all of them alert and ready.
