Free The Alliance by David Andrews

This was his Rubicon. Soon he must cross it or turn back.
    He sat down on the bale of cloth she indicated, his right leg extended. “Thank you.”
    “I suspect I should be thanking you.”
    Kamran shook his head. They were all the same. Too stupid to leave well enough alone. He hadn’t committed himself yet.
    He drank from the beaker while she knelt to ease the blood-soaked bandage clear of the wound, her touch surprisingly gentle.
    She was no great beauty in the conventional sense, as the Federation redhead certainly was, but Kamran suspected Helene’s image would remain in his mind long after the redhead’s had vanished. He’d been mad to think her anything but a High Born. Her face radiated strength, pride, and arrogance. She would demand much and reward haughtily.
    The wound exposed, she studied it, gentle fingers probing, stretching the edges to see its extent and gauge its seriousness. She examined the pad he’d used to stem the bleeding, weighing in her hands to determine how much blood he’d lost. “I’m going to bind it firmly. Will you march tomorrow?” She’d looked up to meet his gaze.
    “Yes.”
    “We can loosen it then. The healing will take longer and the scar will be permanent. You’re a fool. The day you save by marching tomorrow will be paid in interest.” She turned her attention back to the wound. “It runs along the muscle, not across it or you wouldn’t have walked back.” She started sponging away the crusted blood. “I’ll sew the edges together. The rest can knit by itself.”
    He endured the next ten minutes as stoically as he could, although he suspected Helene prolonged some of his discomfort out of anger, a punishment for what she considered his stupidity. She stitched the wound edges together with silk thread and bandaged his thigh firmly with an undyed strip of the same material taken from one of the bales. He’d protested mildly about the waste of a bale and she’d immediately breached a second. A typical High Born, she turned an inch of concession into a mile of liberty.
    His wound had stiffened and he almost fell when he tried to stand.
    “Fool,” she snapped. “Lean on me.” She put her arm under his and supported him. “You’re going no further than the bed over there.” She’d ordered the bales lashed into a large bed and cushioned with fresh cut grass covered by more silk. Two spears, their hafts buried in the earth, supported a curtain of the same material to give a semblance of privacy.
    A chill came from nowhere, sending a shiver through his body as it protested its injury.
    “Get some blankets,” she said, and her tone sent one of her women scurrying to obey. “Come on. Three more steps and you can lie down.”
    Kamran’s head felt too heavy for his neck and the earth shifted oddly beneath his feet, but he gathered himself and lunged forward, reaching the bed in a half run before he collapsed across it. The two women stripped him of chain mail and clothing, removed his boots and rolled him into the blankets.
    “A bath is the first order of the day tomorrow,” Helene muttered. “Leave us,” she told the woman. “Tell the guard commander, he’s to disturb us at his peril.”
    Kamran tried to protest, but a deep well opened beneath him and he plunged into its depths.
    He surfaced groggily. The angle of the light said it was late afternoon outside the cave and he was aware of an organized bustle beyond the screening silk and Helene’s voice interrogating the senior company sergeant.
    “When did he last sleep?”
    “Dunno.” The man was genuinely confused. “The night before we marched, I think. Don’t remember any other time.”
    “At least forty-eight hours then.”
    “Suppose so.”
    “We won’t march before tomorrow. Continue cleaning the area. There’ll be a meal ready at six. Set your piquets and be ready to report after that. He’ll be a bit grumpy. Just say yes, sir, no, sir, and it will pass.”
    Kamran smiled at her advice.