Free Snakehead by Ann Halam Page B

brought more lights, a pot of hot water, clean cloths and the chest of household medicines. Moumi and the boss stripped off Anthe’s sodden makeshift bandages, and the remains of Pali’s clothes, while Anthe and I stood by, feeling useless.
    Pali’s whole torso was a mass of cuts and darkening bruises, but the shoulder and the great cut across his head seemed the worst of it. Dicty felt his skull, gently, while he cleaned and snipped away clotted blood and hair. “It’s not too bad,” he reassured us, as quickly as he could. “No broken bones, no damage to internal organs so far as I can tell, no dangerous fracture to the skull. He’s lost a good deal of blood, but he’ll recover.”
    “He was set on,” murmured my mother. “Cut down from above and behind, see, Dicty? With a heavy sword. And theslash through his shoulder, looks like the same weapon. They could easily have killed him, but they didn’t.”
    “The rest was done when he was on the ground,” said the boss. “With boots, fists, and here’re the marks of an armored boxing glove. I’d say at least three men.”
    “The cowards!” wailed Anthe. “How dare they! I hate them! I’ll
kill
them!”
    Moumi prepared a length of catgut by passing it through flame, and threaded a needle that she’d treated the same way. Koukla poured wine into the smaller wounds to clean them. I’d seen this team deal with broken bodies before: I trusted them. I’d been afraid he was dying, so relief flooded me with fury. “I’ll do it for you, Anthe. I have kept the peace, because I know the price we’ll all pay. But this means war!”
    Moumi stared at me, across Palikari’s body.
“Perseus!”
    She was right, it wasn’t for me to say.
    The boss looked up from his careful work of searching the head wound, to make sure no dirt or debris remained. “Means war?” he said, head on one side. “I don’t think so. Strangely enough, I don’t believe the king means war. No, the truce still holds.”
    I couldn’t believe it. I was dumbstruck.
    “If we want it to, at least.”
    That’s how things were when Kore found us. We had not heard her coming down the yard stairs, barefoot, and she was not carrying a light. She stood there, a dark bluemantle wrapped over her white sleeping shift, taking in the blood-daubed scene. “What
happened?”
she gasped. “Great All! It’s Pali!
    Who did this?”
    Koukla brought another basin of hot water for the boss, and carried away the one that was fouled with blood and dirt, shaking her head. “What a mess,” she muttered.
    “He got into a fight,” I said. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
    “He was attacked, you mean,” cried Anthe. “A cowardly, brutal attack. And we know who’s responsible. But we can’t touch him!”
    “You m-m-mean, the
king
did this?”
    My mother gave Anthe a warning look, and went on sewing Pali’s shoulder. The boss was swabbing fresh blood from the scalp wound, ready for Moumi to sew it next. “The king Polydectes is my full brother,” he said quietly. “As I’m sure you are aware, my dear. I don’t know if people have heard of him, in your great city so far away, but he has made our island both feared and respected. Our agreement, which works most of the time, is that Seatown is my house, so to speak, where my ways are followed. The High Place belongs to the king and his men, and members of my household respect the boundary. If Palikari broke the agreement tonight, which we won’t know until we can ask him, I’m afraid I’m to blame, because I encouraged him to go in search of information.”
    “But you
didn’t
send him!” Anthe broke in. “That’s why we didn’t tell you!”
    “Thank you, child, but I will decide how to answer my brother’s men.”
    Then, for once, Dicty’s calm gave way. He wiped his hands on a towel and went with stumbling steps to sit on a bench by the dining room, his head bowed, twisting the towel between his hands. “He would always take the