Page 10 of Salt in the Wound

Eskil crosses to him. The sand shifts under his boots and Indrie doesn't seem to hear him approach, or if he does he doesn't turn, not until Eskil is beside him and reaching for one of the supply packs stacked nearby. He picks it up, rope, canvas, a rolled bundle of sailcloth, and places it in Indrie's startled hands. The young man takes it reflexively, arms closing around the weight, and looks up at Eskil with wide eyes.

Eskil gestures toward the ship. The longboat at the waterline. The men loading it. The meaning should be clear enough.

"Go," he tells him, motioning again.

Indrie stares at him. Those dark eyes search his face, flickering between Eskil's eyes and his mouth and the hand that just released the pack, and Eskil can see the calculation happening behind them. Not defiance, nothing so bold, but an assessment, a weighing of options that probably comes up empty no matter how many times he runs the numbers. The young man glances over his shoulder, back toward the castle, back toward the kingdom that is no longer his. Whatever he sees there, the crumbling walls, the barren fields, the life he was forced to live, doesn't seem to offer him comfort.

He turns back to Eskil. His jaw tightens, just slightly, and he nods once. Then he adjusts the pack in his arms, shifts the satchel higher on his shoulder, and makes his way toward the longboat with a stride that is marginally more confident than his unsure stance at the waterline had been.

Eskil watches him go. Watches one of the men offer Indrie a hand into the boat, watches Indrie hesitate before taking it, watches him settle on the bench with the pack in his lap and his knuckles white around the satchel strap. He looks very small in the longboat. Very alone, despite the men around him.

Eskil realizes the healer is probably reluctant to come. More than reluctant. He's being taken from the only land he's ever known by people whose language he barely speaks, toward a destination he knows nothing about, under the authority of a man he has every reason to fear. The reasonable response to all of that would be reluctance. Resistance, even. The fact that Indrie went without argument, without protest, without even asking where they're taking him, that's not compliance. That's learned behavior. The quiet obedience of a body that knows objecting only makes things worse.

But Eskil knows where the boy's future leads if he leaves him here.

The bruises and scars on his body tell a story Eskil doesn't need translated. A healer, young and slight and without protectors, in a kingdom whose king is dying and whose court has already demonstrated its willingness to beat what it can't break. And once Armond finally succumbs to Granger's, which he will eventually, even under Indrie’s dedicated care, they'll have no use for the man who kept him alive. Worse than no use. A healer who couldn't cure the king is a convenient scapegoat for those looking to assign blame.

The safest thing is to find him a better way of life. Eskil can't promise that's with his people, can't promise anything, really, until they've made the crossing and he's had a chance to discuss it with his brother and his council, but it's the best he can provide. A chance. An open door, even if Indrie doesn't know it's open yet.

"You make standing around doing nothing look majestic."

Bohdi materializes at his side with the uncanny ability he has to appear exactly where he's least wanted. He's carrying a crate under one arm and looks far too cheerful for someone who slept on the same miserable ground Eskil did.

"It’s called supervising," Eskil says flatly.

"Mm." Bohdi shifts the crate to his other arm and follows Eskil's line of sight to the longboat, where Indrie is now wedged between two of their larger warriors and looking very small. "That one's sitting in the boat looking as though he's headed to his own funeral."

"He's been uprooted from everything he knows. A little reluctance is expected."

"Reluctance, sure." Bohdi glances at him sideways. "You know he didn't sleep last night."

Eskil hadn't known that, but he's not surprised. He keeps his expression neutral. "Did you?"

"I did, thanks for asking. Dagny sat with him by the fire for a while. Ermin too. The boy was up when I did my last round at the fourth bell, sitting on that log, staring at the castle." Bohdi pauses, then adds, more carefully, "You need to be gentle with him, Eskil. Or you're liable to break him."

Eskil's jaw tightens. He turns his head just enough to give Bohdi a look that has ended conversations with lesser men. "If the man hasn't broken this far, then being given a task isn't going to be the thing that does him in."

"I agree. He's resilient. Remarkably so, given the circumstances." Bohdi sets the crate down and straightens, crossing his arms. "But he's suffered countless years of abuse at the hands of the king and his men, and maybe we shouldn't start off his journey to a new world by barking at him as though he's a dog."

The words land harder than Eskil wants them to. He thinks of the way he'd shoved the pack into Indrie's hands. The single word, go, delivered as an order, not an invitation. The gesture toward the ship, a command rather than a request. He'd been efficient. Direct. The same way he communicates with everyone under his authority, because efficiency keeps things moving and a moving ship is a surviving one. But Indrie is not one of hiscrew. Indrie is a young man who flinches at sharp tones and has spent five years learning that orders are followed by violence if he doesn't comply fast enough.

Eskil doesn't say any of this.

"Mind your business, Bohdi. Get back to work."

Bohdi holds his hands up in peace and complies, picking up his crate and turning back toward the supply stacks. But his words stay with Eskil even though he doesn't want them to. They lodge themselves under his skin, small and persistent, and he carries them with him through the rest of the morning.

He carries them as he oversees the last of the loading. As he ensures the water barrels are properly sealed and the provisions accounted for. As he gives the order to strike the final tent and kick sand over the firepits. He carries them as he takes one last look at the grey, crumbling kingdom of Kalkoa, its depleted mines and empty fields and hollow-eyed people who deserved better than the king they got, and turns his back on it for the last time.

When the crew finishes loading the ship and the last longboat makes its final trip to the vessel, Eskil could not be happier to board and figuratively wave goodbye to this rotten hellscape of a land. He climbs over the side and his boots hit the deck and the wood beneath him feels solid in a way that ground hasn't for the past two days. This is where he belongs. On a ship, on the water, heading home.

He notices Dagny talking to Indrie near the bow. She has her arm around his shoulders, the gesture already familiar, comfortable in a way that should take years rather than hours, and she's whispering in his ear and gesturing out at the brown landscape they're leaving. The shoreline of Kalkoa recedes behind them as the oars pull them toward open water, and Dagny is pointing at it with one hand while her other arm holds Indrie close, and Eskil can tell from how animated sheis that she's describing their homeland. Something green and sprawling, leading to mountains and rivers lush with life. He can almost hear her butchering the words in Indrie's language, painting a picture with broken grammar and wild enthusiasm. Things Indrie has probably never seen. Things he's probably never imagined.

The young man is watching Dagny's gestures with an expression that's difficult to read at this distance. Not quite hope. Not quite disbelief. Something tentative, balanced on the edge of both.

Eskil crosses to them and Dagny straightens, though she doesn't remove her arm from Indrie's shoulders. Her chin lifts slightly, not defiance, not exactly, but a subtle positioning that saysI'm protecting this one and I'd like to see you argue with me about it. Eskil has seen that look from her before. She gives it to Ermin regularly. He’s also not about to argue with her about it.

Indrie tenses beside her. His body draws inward, shoulders tightening, eyes dropping from wherever they'd been to the deck beneath his feet. He won't look Eskil in the eye. His hands find each other in front of him, fingers lacing together, knuckles going pale.