I turned to Zahnin and noted, “You’re not lying down.”

“Right,” he muttered, I moved to the bed and pulled the bloody sheet off and also any hides that had blood on them. Then I shoved off any pillows that had been bloodied.

What I didn’t do was look at any of the cut up bodies or body pieces littering my tent or think of the fact that I, myself, had taken at least one, possibly one and a half lives (I might have delivered a

killing wound but it was Bain who definitely executed the kill so I was counting that as a half). Nor did I allow myself to think about the obvious news that my Teetru had betrayed me to her people.

She betrayed me yet got out my dagger, exposing it openly both to warn me and to give me a fighting chance by providing me with the only weapon she, or I, had at our disposal.

And lastly, I did not think about why she would do either of these things, betray me first then warn me second.

“May I have my queen’s leave to find a warrior and ask him to gather other warriors to collect these bodies?” Zahnin asked solicitously from behind me, far more solicitous than he ever spoke to me (mainly because he never spoke to me solicitously) and I heard the humor in his tone and something about it made the adrenalin surging through my system and subsequent temper flare evaporate.

I straightened from the bed and turned to him.

“I’ll do that,” I said softly, “can you please, for me, lie down?”

He read the change in my tone and his face softened, the amusement faded and warmth hit his eyes.

“I am fine, my golden queen, this is my vow.”

“You bleed for me,” I whispered, “please, please, I know you don’t need it but I need to take care of you. Please. ”

He studied me. Then he nodded. Then he lay down.

I ran to the flaps of the tent, stuck my head out and saw two warrior guards on either side.

“We need clean up in here, if you don’t mind,” I said to the one on my left.

He nodded but didn’t move. Instead, he bellowed my order to a warrior standing post some ten feet away. That warrior nodded, turned and bellowed my order to someone else.

I didn’t hang around to watch the rest. I saw Packa running toward me with the big bath cloths Lahn and I used and I moved back into the tent.

* * * * *

Needless to say, everyone was a little surprised, and get this, sickened, by the medicine I explained was practiced freely in my land.

They did not sew flesh together, Bain informed me with curled lip, eyes filled with disgust.

Yes, this from a man who cut up a bunch of the enemy in what amounted to my freaking house. And, after, stood amongst the carnage bantering with his comrade.

Furthermore, they didn’t have a word for germs, because they didn’t know what germs were, so my explanation of why I would waste good zakah cleansing Zahnin’s wound fell on deaf ears.

Luckily, I was queen so they had no choice but to give into my commands and they did.

Though Bain and Zahnin did it obviously humoring me.

However, when I commanded a clearly squeamish Gaal (Jacanda told me she was a very gifted seamstress when I demanded she find the best one in the Daxshee) to sew together the edges of Zahnin’s wound, the healer, standing and observing, saw the wisdom of this.

“Very clever,” she muttered as Gaal, swallowing with nerves and aversion but still game, started to use the needle I’d further sterilized in a candle flame and thread that Jacanda had boiled in a pot over the fire and I’d soaked in zakah to sew Zahnin’s wound together.

Gaal looked like she was about to heave a couple of times (and I was right there with her, talk about gross) but she stuck with it mainly because I stayed close for moral support. Her eyes kept lifting to me, I nodded to encourage her and eventually she lost her distaste for it and did, from my extremely limited experience, what looked like a very good job.

For Zahnin’s part, he didn’t even wince but lay on my bed with pillows I’d shoved under his head, one arm bent, hand behind his head, chatting amiably through the whole thing to Bain who was standing at the head of the bed, arms crossed on his chest and one

ankle crossed over the other in a casual warrior pose which didn’t fit with what had become a minor medical procedure in a primitive examination room.

Once closed, I cleansed the wound again with zakah when Gaal moved away, the healer gooped him up with some salve she promised aided healing (after I made her wash her hands with soap and rinse them in zakah) and then he sat up so she could press a long bandage down his front then roll a clean gauze tight around and around his torso, tying it expertly at the end.

The bodies, by the way, had been removed by young trainee warriors and Packa and Beetus, faces pale, had grabbed the sheet and pillows and pulled up the rugs to take them out as Jacanda went to work wiping down furniture and trunks.

Boy, I needed to go back to the market and buy my girls more gifts. They already went beyond the call of duty and got nothing for it except food, cham and minimal clothing. Wiping up blood went so beyond the call of duty, it wasn’t funny.

Ghost, by the way, was lying on her side at the foot of the bed, napping in a dead to the world fashion and I knew this because, even with all the people and activity around, she didn’t even twitch.

When I put pressure on Zahnin’s shoulder to press him back, he went without complaint but he looked at me when he was fully reclining.

“Can I have some zakah now?”

I studied him. He was not pale. He had never been faint. And his eyes held no pain. None at all. In fact, he looked totally normal.

Boy, they trained these boys to within an inch of their life.

Literally.

I sucked in a calming breath and answered, “Yes, my protector, you can have –”

I stopped speaking when the cham flaps slapped and I was turning toward them when I heard a soft, feminine intake of breath.

Sabine was standing inside my cham and Diandra and Claudine were entering the flaps at her back. And Sabine was staring at her husband and his bandage, her eyes wide, her face pale, her mouth soft. I watched those eyes drift up his chest to his face then I stared as they got bright with unshed tears.

They slid to me. “Circe?” she whispered.

“He’s fine, sweetheart, we’ve fixed him up,” I assured her.

She held my gaze for several moments before she nodded. Her eyes went back to Zahnin who I noticed had not moved and he was watching her silently. Then they swiftly came back to me.

It hit me that she didn’t know what to do.

I was sitting on my knees in the middle of the bed next to her husband and I extended my arm to her.

“It’s okay, you can come to him. He’s fine and you won’t hurt him,” I called softly, her body jerked slightly then she bit her lip.

I held my breath.

Then slowly, foot in front of foot, she walked to the bed. When she made it to the end, she put a knee to it and crawled on all fours to me.

Zahnin watched without a word.