Part 14 (1/2)
”I need food.”
He bestirred himself. Grabbing their bags, he knelt at her side and rummaged through them, then handed her a hunk of bread and cheese. He watched her chew without interest. She laid her hand on her lap. The food slipped to the ground.
”Finian?”
”Senna-” he interrupted, thinking to stop her scattered, hesitant talk. Talk, or sleep. Or pa.s.sion, he thought languidly, but one or another fully. He was so weary he could almost hear sleep calling to him.
”My hand hurts. Help me with it, would you?”
”Aye.” He reached for a flask. ”Here.” Tugging the cork free with a muted pop, pop, he held the vessel in front of her face. he held the vessel in front of her face.
She wrinkled her nose, pus.h.i.+ng it away. ”It stinks.”
He furrowed his brow. ”Ye drank well enough earlier.”
”That was then.”
He sat back on his heels and exhaled noisily. The hair over his forehead lifted and lowered with the breeze. Senna watched with some interest.
”Drink,” he insisted, holding the flask closer to her mouth.
She sighed as if enduring the torture due a martyr, then swallowed and sputtered.
”Another.” His hand touched hers, his wide fingers curling around hers as he made her hold the flask and lift it to her lips.
She drank.
He coaxed her to take another couple long draughts; then, while waiting for it to take effect, he dug a deep, small hole and built a small fire in it, then prepared the herbs. He pounded out the root with the hilt of a blade while he boiled the water that he'd procured, then made up a poultice and a tea; then, finally, he removed the stained linen bandage from her broken fingers. It was caked with dried blood, stiff and thick and dirty.
”Ye haven't been at was.h.i.+ng it,” he scolded gently, his eyes not leaving her hand.
”You haven't taken me to water,” she accused unsteadily. haven't taken me to water,” she accused unsteadily.
He glanced up briefly. ”We crossed a river last night.”
She gave him an evil look. ”On rocks. We crossed a river by leaping on large rocks. That hardly counts.” She hiccupped. ”Hardly.”
”'Tis a grievous wrong I've done, mistress. I'll right it as soon as I'm able,” he murmured, not paying attention to his words, only her beautiful, wrecked fingers.
”I'll remember that,” she continued through gritted teeth as his sure fingers probed hers. ”I stink to the high heavens. We both of us need a bath, and instead, we jump over rocks,” she lamented in a singsong voice, then reached for the flask again, hiccupping quietly.
A smile lifted his lips, but his worried eyes and confident fingers never left her hand, feeling with his hand and his mind, seeing the bone. Let her prattle on, and let her drink.
”And after lying in Rardove's ditch,” she went on after swallowing again, ”I must smell worse than the leavings under the rushes. Why you tried to kiss me, I'll never know.”
”I didn't try.”
She shook her head sagely, as if lamenting the pa.s.sing of chivalry. ”'Tis a sad day, I tell you.”
”Sadder than ye know. And ye asked me to kiss ye.”
She glared from beneath lowered eyelids. ”You're laughing at me.”
”Never,” he murmured, dusting his touch up the length of the ring finger of her left hand. This, and the little one beside it, they were the damaged ones. They'd not been set properly. Sinews were already threading themselves wrongly, roping themselves like snakes where they didn't belong. The bones would knit askew, and she'd never use these fingers again.
Rardove had known what he was doing. He hadn't shattered the bones-just a nice, clean break. And she could still function without these two fingers. Sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d.
”After scrambling around in the dirt with you,” she slurred derisively, then hiccupped. ”And without bathing-”
”Back to the bathing, are we?”
”-and you think I asked you to kiss me?” She shook her head. ”You, who know so much about women-”
”Who said I know anything about women?”
”-should know a woman does not ask ask a man to a man to kiss kiss her.” She looked at him triumphantly, her torso weaving slightly. her.” She looked at him triumphantly, her torso weaving slightly.
”Here.” He shoved a large stick between her teeth. ”Bite.”
She took it but glared. ”Moo, ambove all ufferz, fhould know a woman preffers-Ahhhhh!” she shrieked as he abruptly rebroke her fingers.
She flung herself backward, howling in pain. The stick tumbled to the ground. Rolling over onto her belly, she held her now-straight fingers in her good hand and rose to her knees, then staggered to her feet. Finian sat back and watched. She stumbled forward a few steps before falling to her knees again, clutching her hand and biting back screams of pain.
Finian was surprised it took as long as it did-perhaps a minute-before she found her voice. ”Irishman,” she vowed hoa.r.s.ely, ”come a time, I will hurt you as much as you just hurt me.”
”I'll be counting the days,” he drawled, pleased she showed fire. He must keep her in this angry state, for he still had to set the bones, lash them to hold them straight.
She was kneeling but no longer rocking. In the distance, a chorus of frog songs bubbled out of the creek. She sniffled.
”Ye're wailing and complaining in a childly way,” he remarked coldly, to give her anger, and thereby strength.
She glared. ”I neither wail nor complain-”
”Come here,” he ordered roughly, reaching out his hand, done with placating. There was a bone to be set and sleep to be had. He yawned hungrily and turned his palm up.
She staggered over, weaving as she came. She lowered herself, swaying slightly as she sat, her knees bent, legs kicked out to the side. Her hair was free of its confinement, a tumbling chestnut wave that spilled over her shoulders and down her back. She looked like she belonged in some sultan's palace. Or right where she was, on the hills, with him.
She shook and cried out as he worked on her fingers-first whisky, then poultice, then cobwebs, then strips of linen torn from the spare tunic in her pack. She kept him informed of every bolt of fiery pain that shot through her body, but she did not move her hand until he was done, by which time she'd become utterly quiet. He lifted his head to encounter a small, shocked, tearstained face.
With a m.u.f.fled curse, he held out his arms. She fell forward into them and he wrapped her up, stroking her hair and murmuring soft, soothing words for a long time.
”The yarrow should start to dull the pain soon,” he murmured eventually.
”'Tis a'ready.”
”I'm sorry.”