Free Silver Eve by Sandra Waugh

that I acted far less efficiently than I should. So I’d forced my hands, my breath, to behave, to pay attention to detail, to do all the things Healers would do for anyone, checking for a break of bone, for any wounds to clean or repair.
    But finally I’d given up, frustrated at my sloppiness, sat back a little way from Laurent and simply watched him. ’Twas curiosity affecting me, I decided, and if I drank my fill of the Rider this once, then I’d not need to think of him again. It would take time, though. This Rider was a mass of curiosities—a history of pain imposed on gentleness, of strength built from necessary endurance. It was all there to be read from his body.
    Hands that should have been a sculptor’s, face and form that would have been a sculptor’s muses. Square jaw, faint stubble, and hollow cheek—’twould be expected his mouth be grim, set in that hardened look, but it wasn’t. Whatever a Rider was, Laurent was not born to it. There was the bruise at his left cheekbone from the fall—that would be gone by day’s end. The deeper cut above his collarbone would last but a day longer if I found some mithren for a salve, likewise the raw scrape where his breath raised his chest. Nothing needed serious attention or my tending, honestly. But there too were fine scars from wounds that had been inflicted long before. Wounds that had been tended—by some other Healer perhaps—from some other time. Twenty-five year’d, I deemed this Rider. I wondered what other Healers he’d known in his life.
    And then I wondered why I wondered that.
    There was one scar in particular, a thin line that ran from just above his left eyebrow to his temple. It was old and very faint; most would not notice. But my eye was sharp for such marks that did not belong. The wound had been severe. Laurent would have lost too much blood before any herb or hand could have sealed it—a spell had to have been involved. A White Healer treated that wound. A thorough, perfect job. I reached my hand out and drew a finger across the scar, sensing warmth and the life force of this Rider—
    I pulled back, got up, and stormed across the bank. Why had I done that—touched him not as a Healer? This was a betrayal to Raif, to my own calling. I should have left then and there. Still, I paced back again, swore at Laurent for having come, and then (with stern focus) forced myself to finish what I’d started. I rinsed his cloth, spread it to dry, then worked the saddle from his steed and dragged it to rest by his head. There was a cloak rolled with a small pack, which I unstrapped from the saddle. I opened the pack. There was food—a tough bread of sorts, a cup and knife, and some sort of cake that smelled distinctly of oats, which I tossed to his horse. I placed the bread atop the pack ready for him and filled the cup with water. I spread the cloak. I would drag Laurent onto it and be done; walk away. He did not need further attending; his life force was strong.
    It burned a little that what questions I had for the Rider would go unanswered—but it was a far lesser hardship than to actually speak with him. I already bore the memory of his gaze and seared the feel of his skin against my fingers; I didn’t want the cadence of his voice to ring forever in my ears.
    The reed fire spit and fell to smoking. I’d not rekindle it. Dawn was nearing anyway. I crouched down and caught under the Rider’s shoulders to drag him onto the cloak. A simple move, one I’d done often: with the right leverage even bodies twice my weight could be slid evenly—
    And then suddenly it wasn’t simple.
“What—?” “Ow!”
His yell, my gasp, a thud. One moment I was dragging the man, the next moment he had me pinned underneath him—a swift, hard move—his hand on my throat. I’d surprised him and he was quick to defend.
    But I was quick too, reflexes taking over. My hand was there, digging under his ribs, pinching the place that would incapacitate him long