Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [183]
Bit by bit, she did. An acolyte arrived with a steaming bowl of beef broth. Because it hurt too much to lift my arms, Alais fed it to me with a spoon and told me that I'd been unconscious or raving for ten days. The bear had wounded me badly, laying me open from shoulder to hip. At Clunderry, the wounds had begun to fester and I'd developed a raging fever. It was Drustan—I'd remembered aright, he and Talorcan and an armed escort had arrived on the heels of the horror, alarmed by Hyacinthe's message—who had made the decision to have me moved to the temple in Bryn Gorrydum, which had recently been joined by a young priest of Eisheth trained as a chirurgeon.
I laughed bitterly and wept when I heard it. "I told her. I told her she needed a proper chirurgeon to attend her!”
"Dorelei?" Alais asked softly, dabbing at my tears with a kerchief.
I nodded. "She died," I whispered. "In the future I saw. Carrying a child, another child. And I left, and never came back. I left our son.”
Alais frowned. "Why?”
I turned my head away "I don't know. What else?”
She told me that Dorelei was dead, which I knew. In a toneless voice, she told me that the bear had broken Dorelei's neck with a single swipe before savaging her belly. That the babe was dead, too. And that Talorcan had gone nearly as mad as I had, driven by rage at the murder of his sister and his sister's child. That he had ordered Morwen's lifeless body retrieved from the stone circle so it could be buried beneath Dorelei's feet. That he had sworn an oath of vengeance, and half the men of Clunderry had sworn it with him. They'd ridden out in pursuit of Berlik and his folk. All across Alba, the Maghuin Dhonn were hunted. Even the Lady of the Dalriada had pledged her assistance, and Eamonn had taken up the hunt himself. I thought about his brother Conor and shuddered.
"Have they found them?" I asked.
Alais hesitated. "Some. Not the magician.”
I stared at the ceiling. "Send for your father. I need to speak with him.”
The Cruarch of Alba came to visit me on the morrow.
I'd slept through the night, albeit fitfully. The pain kept me awake. In the morning, the Eisandine chirurgeon Girard came to examine my wounds. A pair of acolytes gently propped me half upright as he unwound the bandages. I'd an idea they'd done it before, though I remembered naught of it. Girard unwound long lengths of clean linen, then carefully peeled away a layer of cotton padding.
I looked down at myself and hissed through my teeth.
Four raking, parallel gouges ran the length of my torso, angling from my right shoulder to my left hip. Around the furrows, my flesh was raised and swollen and inflamed; tending toward pink in a few places, reddish in others, seeping a yellowish, crusty matter.
"You should have seen it three days ago, your highness," Girard said calmly. "Believe it or not, it's beginning to knit. 'Tis a mercy no vitals were pierced.”
He bathed my wounds with an infusion of lavender; a scent of home, a scent that brought new tears to my eyes. And then he applied a poultice of comfrey and agrimony, and rebandaged my injuries with gentle hands.
Thus did I receive Drustan mab Necthana.
A day's lucidity and a diet of beef broth had restored a measure of strength to me. I was able to receive him sitting, propped on pillows. As he entered my bedchamber, it struck me for the first time; Drustan looked old, his face worn with sorrow beneath its tattoos. "I'm so glad you're alive, Imriel," he said in a direct, earnest tone.
Whatever words I'd meant to say caught in my throat. The loss of Dorelei and our son struck me anew, and my eyes burned with tears. "Forgive me, my lord.”
He pulled over the room's single chair. "There is no need. I failed you.”
"No." I took a deep, experimental breath, pressing my hand to my chest. Nothing fell out, so I tried another. "We all did. We all failed one another.”
"I don't understand," Drustan said quietly.
"Doesn't matter." I shook my head. "Just…don't punish them all, my lord. All of the Maghuin Dhonn." His eyes widened. "They saw what