Page 76 of The Winner's Crime
Verex talked to her the entire time. He described what each of the healer’s tools did, and the antiseptic properties of the wash. “Abdominal wounds are dangerous,” he said, “but the blade didn’t damage any internal organs.”
“How do you know?” asked Kestrel.
“He’d be dead by now,” the healer said shortly.
It was a gash, long and deep. It exposed pink layers of flesh and went down right to yellow fat. The healer’s antiseptic fizzed in the wound, and blood ran out.
Kestrel felt sickeningly light. She was going to faint after all. Then she looked at her father’s sleeping face and wondered who would protect him while he slept, if not her. She kept her eyes open. She kept her feet on the ground.
“Too deep for stitches,” muttered the physician.
“He’s going to pack it with wet, sterile gauze instead,” Verex explained. “It will heal slowly, from the inside out.” The prince’s voice was strong and sure. He was turning the grim words of the physician into something hopeful. “Really, that’s the best way to avoid infection, because the wound can be cleaned out daily.”
The physician gave him a sidelong look. “I’m not sure I need the commentary.” But Kestrel did, and Verex knew that she did.
When it was finished and the gore was cleaned away, the wound hidden below swaths of gauze, Kestrel’s father looked both larger and smaller than he ever had to her. His face had always seemed to be cut from stone. It was softer now. The sun lines that fanned from his closed eyes were as white as thin scars. His light brown hair held no trace of gray. He had been young when she was born. He wasn’t old now. Yet he looked ancient.
The physician left. He would return, he said. Verex brought a chair so that Kestrel could sit by her father’s bedside. Then he became awkward again. His stooped shoulders hunched a little more as he asked whether she needed him to stay with her.
She shook her head. “But … thank you. Thank you for helping me.”
He smiled. There was a touch of surprise in his smile. Kestrel thought that he was probably not used to being thanked.
Then she was alone with her father. His breath was slow and even. His hand lay palm up on the bed beside him, fingers slightly curled.
Kestrel couldn’t remember when she had last held his hand. Had she been a child then? Surely she had held his hand before.
She hesitated, then she let her palm rest upon his. With her other hand, Kestrel made his loose fingers hold hers close.
* * *
He woke during the night. The lamp had been turned down low. His eyes opened just slightly, and gleamed in the feeble light. He opened them wider. He saw Kestrel, and didn’t smile, not exactly, yet the set of his mouth changed. His hand tightened around hers.
“Father.” Kestrel would have said more, but he closed his eyes briefly in the way of someone who wants to say no without speaking, yet hasn’t the strength to shake his head. Softly, he said, “Sometimes I forget that you aren’t a soldier.”
He was thinking about when he’d entered the palace yard, and the way she had greeted him. Kestrel said flatly, “You believe I don’t know how to behave around you.”
For a moment, he was silent. “Maybe I’m the one who doesn’t know.” There was another silence, long enough for Kestrel to think that that was all he would say, but he spoke again. “Look how you’ve grown. I remember the day you were born. I could hold you with one hand. You were the world’s best thing. The most precious.”
Aren’t I now, to you? she wanted to say. Instead, she whispered, “Tell me how I was.”
“You had a warrior’s heart, even then.”
“I was just a baby.”
“No, you did. Your cry was so fierce. You held my finger so tightly.”
“All babies cry. All babies hold on tight.”
He let go of her hand to lift his, and brush his knuckles across her cheek. “Not like you.”
* * *
He had fallen asleep again. When the physician came at dawn to clean the wound, the pain woke him.
“More?” The physician nodded at the empty cup that had held the medicine. The general gave him a dark look.
When the physician had left again, her father rubbed his eyes. His face was slack with pain. “How long did I sleep?”
