Tasia returned with Joslyn’s box and set it on the ground before the guard, who had shifted into an awkward sitting position, legs splayed wide before her.
“What can I do?” Tasia asked.
“The armor…” Joslyn reached down to lift the padded leather armor off her torso, but when she tried to pull it off, she let go with an anguished cry. “Help me get it off… so I can treat the wound,” she panted.
Joslyn raised her arms with a grimace of pain, and Tasia pulled off the armor as gingerly as she could, cursing when a metal rivet tangled itself in Joslyn’s raven-black hair. The linen shirt below the armor was soaked in dark red blood, and Tasia took this off, as well. When she did, she saw that the shallow wound in Joslyn’s side, the one she’d gotten defending Tasia at the Speckled Dog, was still a tender pink with fresh scabs.
A wave of guilt washed over Tasia. She was nothing but trouble for Joslyn.
Beneath the shirt, there was so much blood covering Joslyn’s torso that at first Tasia worried that the woman had been completely gutted. But the guard used the ruined shirt to swipe away the blood, and Tasia was relieved to see that there was only one long, horizontal slash across the middle.
“It wasn’t a puncture,” Joslyn said with a strained voice, as if reading Tasia’s thoughts. “If it was… it would be much more dangerous. But it didn’t go deep enough to… deep enough to…” She grimaced as she trailed off.
Tasia forced herself to look at the wound again, despite the fact that the blood and cries of pain from the dying men around her were making her stomach queasy. But she was the Princess. She would not allow herself to look away from pain.
She took the shirt from Joslyn and dabbed gingerly at the slash. The cut was deep enough that layers of Joslyn’s muscle and fat were exposed, but not so deep that any organs had been penetrated. Joslyn was right: The wound wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Had it gone even a half-inch deeper, it might have cut through her entrails, and then, even if she survived being sewn up, she might’ve died from what the soldiers referred to as “battle poisoning.”
With a shaking hand, Joslyn reached for her box.
“Here,” Tasia said, quickly, opening the lid and bringing it closer to Joslyn. “What do you need? Let me help you.”
Joslyn supported her weight with one hand; with the other she reached inside the box, fumbling through its contents until she produced a small glass bottle with a clear liquid inside. She pulled the small cork out with her teeth and groaned as she dropped back on her elbow, tipping the bottle towards the gash with a trembling hand.
“Let me,” Tasia said. “Please.” She took the bottle from Joslyn. “How much?”
“Half the… half the bottle,” Joslyn managed.
Tasia dabbed more of the blood away and then carefully poured the clear liquid onto the wound. It foamed and sizzled when it struck the guard’s skin, yellowing as it dried. Joslyn sucked in a breath between clenched teeth and let her head fall backwards.
“Are you okay?” Tasia asked.
With effort, Joslyn sat up a bit straighter and nodded. “Yes,” she breathed. “That part is always the hardest. Now the moss.”
She dipped her chin in the direction of the box, and Tasia pulled out a bundle of the scraggly dried weeds she’d seen before, the last time she’d sewn closed one of Joslyn’s wounds.
“Do you remember how to…?” Joslyn said.
“I do,” Tasia answered, pulling out the needle and the thick black thread. “But I need to heat the needle first.” She glanced behind her, wondering if she could find a live ember to light Joslyn’s small candle and heat the needle.
“There’s… no time for that,” Joslyn said. “Use the solution from the… from the bottle. Put the needle in it.”
Tasia did as she was told, sticking the long, curved needle into the bottle as far as she could. Then she broke off some of the dried moss, packed it into the first few inches of Joslyn’s wound as gently as she could. She lifted the needle. “Are you ready?”
Joslyn nodded and closed her eyes.
24
By the time Tasia finished sewing closed Joslyn’s abdomen and binding it with clean white gauze from her box, the survivors of the attack had put out the fires, recovered the horses and pack animals, and bandaged the wounded.
It was darker and colder now with the two tents extinguished, and the night’s foreign sounds seemed stranger than they had before. A kind of muted disquiet took over the camp, with men whispering and speaking in low voices to one another rather than speaking at a normal volume. A woman sobbed somewhere, probably the washer woman or her daughter. A solemnity hung like a shroud over those who had survived. Despite the fact that they had emerged from the battle victorious, all those who remained nevertheless recognized that, somehow, they had also lost.
Tasia could almost taste the mood. It had a sour, bitter taste — sharp and unpleasant like a piece of fruit that had just begun to turn. The mood was a poison, she knew, and if it didn’t dissipate it would sicken the camp’s survivors.
She left Joslyn sitting on the ground, still in the same place where she had fallen, while she retrieved a fresh tunic from the guard’s canvas bag of belongings. As she rifled through the bag, she marveled at the woman’s simplicity. The canvas bag was all the guard had brought with her — it was filled with a few tunics, a few trousers, spare undergarments, and a few tools to mend weapons, armor, and her own body. That was all.
Tasia, by comparison, had brought no fewer than three large trunks with her, filled with gowns and traveling clothes for every occasion, enough to keep the washer woman busy each day. A separate, smaller box was nestled inside one of the larger boxes with nothing but Tasia’s jewelry and face powders. Another small box held her bath salts, soaps, and perfumes — all of which she’d barely had occasion to use.
Joslyn was sitting straighter by the time Tasia returned to her, cleaning the blood off one of her swords with the ruined linen shirt.
“Here,” Tasia said, showing Joslyn a clean tunic. The guard reached for it. “No, I don’t want you pulling out your stitches. I’ll help you.”
It took the two of them a few minutes, but they managed to get Joslyn’s tunic on without too much pain.
Tasia looked for a place to sit down without getting dirty, found none, and squatted next to the guard.
“So,” she said. “Who were they — the men who attacked us?”
Joslyn shook her head with a frown. “I think they — ”
“Princess!” someone called.
Tasia turned to see an ash-smudged Norix waddling towards her as quickly as he could. Like the Princess, the old Wise Man was in his sleeping gown and bare-footed. Also like the Princess, he was covered in dirt, but also smudged with ash. Two bedraggled soldiers walked on either side of him.
“Thank the Mother Moon you’re alive!” he exclaimed when he reached her.
That was how Tasia knew just how upset Norix was — he had let slip a Mother Moon.
He dropped down to both knees in front of Tasia, patting her arms and sides as if to reassure himself — or her — that she was truly unharmed. “How did you escape?”