Kings of the North - Elizabeth Moon [85]
“There they are!” Pir, spotting them across the court and pointing, had a voice that affected Arvid like a squealing saw. “We found this one at least!”
Faces turned toward Arvid, including the Marshal-General. She came toward him, the others shifting out of her way, and looked him up and down.
“Arvid—you look the worse for wear.”
“Yes, Marshal-General.”
“You don’t look like a man who successfully killed four Girdish knights and made off with a stolen necklace, a horse, and a pack.”
“No, Marshal-General.”
She glanced at the gnome and to Arvid’s astonishment said, “Greetings, rockbrother. Was it you who bound up this man’s wound?” in the gnome’s own language.
“Yes, Marshal-General,” the gnome said, eyes alight.
“And you were with him in this … situation?”
“Yes, Marshal-General.”
“An accomplice, I’ll warrant,” Pir said. “I’ll tell you what I think—”
“Later,” the Marshal-General said. “I will see Arvid, whom I invited and who is my guest, cared for first.”
“But—”
She turned her shoulder to him and spoke to the man leading the horse Arvid had ridden. “It was well done, Torin, to offer him a mount. I suppose the rockbrother refused?”
“Yes, Marshal-General.”
“Arvid, come with me, you and your friend. You will sleep in the main Hall tonight.” Arvid was not sure he could walk that far, but one of the Marshals offered him an arm, and he made it inside the cool entrance chamber of the Hall without disgracing himself. “You both need a chance to bathe and change,” the Marshal-General said. She spoke to a young man in gray. “We need a suit of clothes for this rockbrother and also for this man.”
They moved down a passage past a long room filled with tables and benches and turned left into one furnished with two beds and opening into a small chamber with a tub and spigot and a stool. A window in the bedchamber opened onto a walled garden.
“You will wish to stay together, I imagine,” the Marshal-General said. “You will be more comfortable here than in the School barracks, and anyway, there’s a disturbance over there right now.” She turned to the gnome and again spoke in that language. “Rockbrother, I honor your skill in wound care and do not doubt you have applied the best herbs you could find, but Arvid is a man, and I would ask that you permit one of our healers to see him. I am sure it will not lessen whatever ceremony of exchange you had with him.”
“He was wounded by my blade in another’s hand, and he saved me,” the gnome said. “The debt is mine; my life is his; do what you will.”
The Marshal-General glanced at Arvid; he opened his mouth to explain, but his vision darkened and he was hardly aware when he slumped, other than to think, Oh, no. He came to himself again in one of the beds. Snoring from the other bed proved to be his gnome companion, sound asleep. A dim lamp burned in the bath chamber. Outside, it was dark, as he could see between the slats of the shutters, now opened for a nonexistent breeze.
Beyond the closed door, he could hear footsteps and voices, but not what they said. Some passed … more silence … then immediately outside the door he heard voices again.
“I’ll just look,” one said. The door opened. The Marshal-General, in a simple blue shirt, sleeves rolled up, over gray trousers.
“I’m awake,” Arvid said. “But he’s not.”
“I’ll be brief. Do you remember waking once before?”
“No.” He hated the thought of that.
“You roused enough, after you were cleaned up, to drink a little soup. Your wound has been healed, though we can do nothing for the blood loss. If that bloody mess in your cloak pocket—and dear Arvid, I do not wish to think what purpose you find for all those pockets—is all your own blood, our healers think that is quite enough to explain what happened.”
Arvid squeezed his eyes shut a moment. So now the Marshal-General and doubtless all the other Marshals knew some of his secrets … and the cloak was the easiest of his tools to use, most times.
“I travel a lot,” he said, his voice coming out in a croak. He had never felt more like a rain-sodden rooster, tail feathers