Elisha Barber: Book One Of The Dark Apostle (27 page)

As Lucius droned on, Brigit stared at the ground and the little stream where she dangled one foot. “
Don’t be ridiculous, he’s like a father to me
.”

“
Do you know what punishment for the third offense is, Brigit?
” A slight shrug answered him. “
Hanging. Look at his face. If you continue to take my part, he’ll find a way to hang me.
”

Her mouth dropped open. “I’d no idea.”

“Well, naturally you didn’t,” the physician said, taking breath for another explanation. “A man like this, coarse and unrefined, a criminal really, well…”

“
I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it’ll only go the worse for me the longer you stay.
” Elisha forced himself to maintain an attitude of resignation, much as he longed to stare at her, or to ferret out the truth of her other midnight visitor.

“I see, sir.” Brigit’s voice was soft and calm. “I did not understand all of your considerations.” She turned back to the physician with a faint smile.

“I hope now, you can appreciate what is at stake here, my lady. A scoundrel like this cannot be allowed to violate a lady’s presence. If you have need of medical knowledge, I am at your disposal.”

“Yes, thank you. I’ll be returning to my bed then.” She tightened her sash and walked toward the door, without a backward glance.

Once she’d gone inside, the physician stalked a little closer. With his
hands, he gestured Matthew and Benedict in closer. “Get him to the front, I don’t care how. I want him away from here, away from her. Who knows what notions he might take up now that she was unwise enough to invite him?”

“But, sir,” Benedict began.

“My lord physician,” said Elisha at the same time, but Lucius ignored him.

“Have I made my wishes clear, Benedict?”

With a quick nod, he said, “Yes, sir.”

“Get on with it, and make it quick. There’s one of the captains in the infirmary headed back before dawn, send the barber along.” Lucius grinned at Elisha, a nasty expression of pointed teeth. “Welcome to the battle, Barber. Perhaps we shall meet again, if you find yourself in need of the hot oil cure.”

Elisha stared, hardly believing what he heard. He knew the way the battle went, hundreds wounded when the siege towers exploded or went up in smoke, more from the arrows and the bombardelles when they got too near the wall. “Sir, I—”

“Save the apologies for God and bid Him good day for me—if you’re heading that way.” The physician stalked away to his little house and shut the door with a resounding slam. Elisha twitched at the sound; it was the sound of his coffin-lid falling shut.

Matthew jumped the ditch and grabbed Elisha’s arm, jerking him off balance in the direction of the kitchen. “Come on, then, Benedict, we’ve work to do.”

Trailing behind, Benedict did not answer.

Two of the night guards fell in along with them, to be sure that justice was done, Elisha thought, or perhaps to join in the fun.

Once inside, Matthew turned him over to the guards, then went in search of the right iron and stoked up the ashes to heat it. He could fight and run. What was the penalty for desertion? What would be his chances on the battlefield—unprepared, unarmed? He imagined the smoky blast of a bombardelle that hurled him backward, shattered and screaming. He would die, or survive, only to be scalded by the physician’s cure. Even Helena at her most furious would not condemn him to such a fate.

Arms crossed, Benedict settled on the edge of one of the damaged chairs, frowning at the table.

“Hard to believe the king brought Lucius all the way here just to torture me, isn’t it?” Elisha said lightly, enjoying Benedict’s little flinch, his obvious discomfort giving Elisha a moment’s distraction.

“It was my master’s own idea,” Benedict muttered, “coming to the front to better examine this type of wound and develop practical methods for dealing with it.”

Elisha cast his mind back to that day in the cell. Lucius had distinctly claimed the invitation of the king. Evidently, Benedict had been told a different story, but why? “I didn’t think he had much interest in practical medicine.”

Benedict glared. “You would do well in your position to use my title.”

“Sorry, doctor, I am a bit rattled.”

At the hearth, Matthew pulled out his iron and pressed it to a scrap of leather to test its heat. The leather sizzled, smoke curling up from it.

Elisha’s stomach gave a lurch. He drew back from the fireside and the guards’ grip tightened.

“A little hotter yet, I think,” Matthew murmured, replacing it in the fire. He had chosen an iron with a broad, flat face, suitable for cauterizing the stump of a leg with just a couple of burns.

Turning away, Elisha looked through the door at his hospital. Most patients kept their noise down at night, but he could hear a drone of prayer above the whimpers and moans. “Pray for me, too,” he whispered. His dread of cautery arose from the day of the witch, when the smell of burning flesh became anathema to him.

“As the senior man,” Matthew said brightly, “perhaps you’d like to take over?”

“No,” Benedict cried out. “I mean, you have much more practice than I.”

“Very well then, doctor, why don’t you hold him?”

“But we’ve got the guards for that, I—”

“Does your master know what a coward you are, doctor?”

“There is no call for that.” The chair scraped as Benedict got up. “I’m only tired is all and concerned that he may struggle.”

Rough hands dragged Elisha back, shoving him to his knees before the fire. Then the guards withdrew a few steps. “We’ll be at the ready, my lords, if he gives any trouble.”

“Off with the shirt, Barber, unless you’d like a hole through it.” Matthew smiled down at him.

Slowly, Elisha stripped off his shirt, delaying his fate a few more breaths, a few heartbeats. Matthew’s smile turned sharp.

Benedict took the shirt from Elisha’s grasp and set it on the table. Then he knelt behind, locking Elisha’s elbows with one arm.

Elisha pushed down the rising panic. Fighting could only get him one step closer to the noose. The effort of holding back strained his shoulders, bunching his muscles against the pressure of Benedict’s arm. The physician’s assistant had an unexpected wiry strength, born, perhaps, of a dread akin to Elisha’s own.

With his other hand, Benedict turned Elisha’s face toward his shoulder, almost delicately, then he clamped his palm over Elisha’s mouth.

Benedict’s pulse jumped in his throat, his Adam’s apple working furiously.

Elisha caught the intake of breath when Matthew pulled the iron from the fire, and he shut his eyes.

Searing heat slammed through his chest, just over his heart. His skin sizzled, the thick dark hair scorched. His body went rigid against his captor. The muscles shrieked.

Benedict’s hand twitched over Elisha’s mouth.

His teeth slid open to suck in a breath, then bit hard into Benedict’s palm.

A howl of pain rent the air.

Through the stench of his own burnt flesh and the fog of his pain, Elisha tasted blood and fear. Remorse and sorrow twined beneath Benedict’s pain, self-loathing tinged the blood along with resignation. Hatred, too, tainted the skin, even as the pressure slackened with the injury.

The burning ripped through Elisha leaving him breathless and shaky as the iron finally withdrew. Tears steamed down his cheeks, wetting the hand at his mouth until it, too, withdrew, shaking, blood seeping from torn skin.

Benedict let him go, but slowly, separating them and rising to his feet, his breath ragged.

Elisha remained on the floor, his knees bruised by straining against the stone. His right arm ached a little from Benedict’s grip, but the left had gone
numb. The pain shot out from his chest, tightening his neck and shoulder on that side like a man whose heart has failed him.

At last, he moved, cupping his left elbow with his right hand, drawing his arms close beneath the burned skin. He blinked open his eyes.

For all the pain that they had caused him, the welts had been only a surface ache. To be sure, they protested his every movement, while this new wound confined itself to the left side of his chest. But it felt that much more personal, a patch of himself burned away, the pain reaching deep inside so that his ribs groaned with each quick breath.

He had seen Matthew burn to the bone, when the bullet had gone so deep. It would not have surprised him to open his eyes to the sight of his own ribcage gleaming pale through a rend in the flesh, a rend that could never be healed.

Singed black hairs, curled tighter than before, surrounded a ring of pink skin, growing more livid toward the center where it turned to angry red, then a sunken bull’s eye of blackness, the skin so tight that every gasping stretch and release of his lungs pulled against it. He would never be the same.

“Come on, then, we’ve got beds to get to,” Matthew said.

A hand grabbed Elisha’s right arm, pulling him to his feet and hanging on until Elisha grew steady enough to stand.

Drawing breath, Elisha raised his head, bending his neck against the quivering of the injured muscles. Matthew stood before him, his lips upturned in the devil’s imitation of a smile. Gloved, his right hand still held the iron, steam rising from its head. Elisha’s eyes traced the forms, the strong, concealed hand, the flat black iron with its curls of steam from the moisture of his flesh. He wet his lips, tasting again the tang of Benedict’s blood, but, without contact, it was only blood.

Shuffling in a half-circle, he faced Benedict who held his wounded right hand, the blood dripping down to his wrist. “Have that seen to,” Elisha said thickly. “The bite of a man can kill you.”

Ducking his head away, Benedict darted out his hand and plucked Elisha’s shirt from the table. With a careless gesture, he flung it over Elisha’s left shoulder, draping it to hide the brand. Benedict was cowed by his master, to be sure, but he did have some compassion.

One corner of Elisha’s mouth twitched up, and curved itself into a tiny
smile. For a moment, he studied Benedict’s face. The assistant was a few years younger than himself, with sandy blond hair just brushing his shoulders. He had thin, handsome features—the sort of boy Martin Draper would admire, Elisha thought in some back corner of his mind. His brown eyes were rimmed now with pain that went beyond the body. As Elisha gazed, Benedict looked away again, his lashes quivering.

He was a sensitive, that much was clear from his reaction to the branding, and Elisha wondered idly if he might be a magus, as well, if he might sneak down to the river to trade philosophy with a man he would not acknowledge by day.

Abruptly, Benedict walked through the door into the commoners’ end of the hospital, prompting the little group into motion. Elisha followed at a dream pace, unaware of his feet as he drifted in the haze of shock. A few of the men around him called out, their voices demanding or concerned, uncomprehending. Their voices did not penetrate very far.

They greeted Matthew, bringing up the rear, with a chorus of curses and booing, which he ignored.

Benedict held aside the curtain letting them through into the infirmary. Here, the lords snored or drank, trading murmured comments with their companions. Ahead, on the stairs, a figure stood in the darkness, then descended the last few steps. Ruari burst in behind, his face pale. His lips moved, but Elisha couldn’t gather his lost concentration. He allowed himself to halt with the others, glad to take someone else’s lead.

Stepping down, his head at the level of Elisha’s chin, Mordecai reached up and twitched aside the draped shirt. Behind him, Ruari looked faint. The surgeon turned his head just a little, his dark, wet eyes seeking his assistant.

Matthew came around to stand beside his master, the branding iron held now in both hands. “Physician’s orders,” he said. “The barber tried to get into Mistress Brigit’s room.”

With the slightest of nods, Mordecai returned his gaze to the wound. His other hand clutched a substantial book bound between covers of wood, though he had left behind the belt of dangling pages; the expression on his face did not change as he dropped the shirt back into place. “So deep?” he asked, his voice a blank. “For so long?”

As if he had been upbraided, Matthew winced, pulling the iron slightly closer to his chest. “A firm lesson,” he stammered.

“Need this man to work, don’t we?” Mordecai continued in that flat, dull voice, as if he repeated a lesson which bored him.

“Not any more, sir,” Benedict supplied. “He’s been ordered to arms.”

This got some reaction, as the surgeon again took his book in both hands. His graying eyebrows quirked up for an instant. “I see. Who’s to do his work, then?”

“Well, he’s trained his own butcher and seamstress,” Matthew put in, some of the haughtiness returning to his posture.

“We’ll see who’s a butcher,” Ruari shot back, propelled into motion at last. He flung himself down the steps to Elisha’s side. “I can’t do it without you,” he said urgently, searching Elisha’s face for some sign of recognition.

Elisha felt himself adrift, as if he had suffered too long a bleeding, detached from anything around him, and most especially, from the throbbing pain at his chest. Ruari’s search became ever more desperate, and Elisha found words at last. “You’ll do fine,” he whispered.

“You’ll die,” Ruari hissed back.

“It’s not in my hands, nor yours.” Then he smiled that tiny smile. “Not yet, anyhow.”

“Henry,” Mordecai said, and his chubby second assistant jumped up from his chair with an eager face. “Fetch some of your burn salve. And bind up the physician’s hand. Bite, is it?”

Benedict nodded.

“Barber, your assistant may wish to bring me your tools, for safekeeping,” Mordecai went on in his dead voice, his eyes unfocused somewhere beyond Elisha’s chest.

This got Elisha’s attention at last, and he stiffened. Safekeeping indeed. Why should he worry about a barber’s tools, unless he knew there might be something of greater value? Had he been wrong to accuse Brigit of the search? “Don’t do that, Ruari,” Elisha said, the power of speech returning with a vengeance. “You watch over my things. Give the tools to Lisbet—she’ll keep them well. And you’ll need to use them yourself.”