Down one of the turnoffs that ran to the rapids of Gonglik Jong, where the water rushed over the stepped falls, Zandaril led her to a grassy spot near a backwater and pulled her off her horse, careful of her left arm. He tethered both mares where they could graze the autumn-tinged herbage and walked Penrys over to the bank before letting her rest.
“That hand needs looking at, now that we have lots of water,” he said. “And you’ll feel better if you can get cleaned up proper.”
Penrys let herself be handled. It was pleasant to sit and do nothing, the music of the falls drowning out everything else, and the spray soft against her skin, if a bit chilly.
Zandaril came back with yet another shirt, and someone’s tunic, too.
“Well-stuffed saddle bags,” she commented.
“I didn’t just look at the beasts when I chose these two.” He grinned at her.
“Stand up, now, you lazy woman.” He grabbed her right hand and hauled her up.
“Another drink before we start.”
He shoved an open canteen into her hand and she obediently drank, whereupon her body reminded her of other urgencies.
She looked down and remembered the knotted cord holding up her too-large breeches.
“Um, if you’re planning to strip me anyway, I’m going to need your help, as well as your assistance in… other matters.”
A look of comprehension crossed his face. “Well, if I keep pouring water into you, what do you think I expected?”
He waved his hand. “Let’s get the top off first, so it doesn’t stain everything else more than it already has. Then we’ll see how far down we have to go.”
He flourished a knife. “From the saddle-kit. Good to have a knife again.” With it, he cut the shirt and tunic off her left side, and let her pull her right arm through on the other side.
She glanced down and saw that her improvised breastband was soaked with blood. “That, too, I guess.”
“Ah, nothing I haven’t seen before, Pen-sha. I’ll find you something else to use.”
The top of the breeches were also sticky with blood, and it was easier to cut the cord than to try and untie it.
“Now that’s a puzzle,” he said. “Didn’t find any spares in the saddle-bags.”
“It’s only the top part,” Penrys said. “If we wash that and keep the rest dry, maybe I can just wear it damp.
“Let me think about it. Meanwhile, off it goes. Everything.”
She leaned on him as she hobbled over to a bush, throttling her embarrassment, but what else could she do? He held her right arm solidly and looked away while she did the necessary and escorted her back to the water’s edge, naked and cold. She thought for a moment of torches and snow.
“We’ll start at the top and see what we find,” he said.
He made her lean forward so that he wouldn’t soak the bandage around her neck, and he scooped water through her hair. She was shocked to see the red come out—she hadn’t realized how much blood there was.
He wrung her hair until it stopped dripping, then took rags from the unstained back of her ruined clothing and wiped blood off of her face until she felt as scrubbed as a kitchen floor.
The bandage around her neck was damp, now, but he left it in place as he started wiping down the rest of her. The worst of the blood was on her clothes, of course, but she was sticky everywhere.
Cold as the water was, the thrill of being clean was better than any fire. He saved her left arm with its bandage for later and worked around it, while she held it up to keep it from getting wet.
When the water finally ran clear, he asked, “Bandages now, or after I get the clothes ready?”
“Do it now, let’s get it over with.”
“Good girl.”
He’d cleared a place for her to sit, on the laid-out bedroll from one of the horses. “You just slip into that and sit up.”
He filled both canteens from the freshest part of the water, and brought them back, along with the rags he had prepared for bandages.
“Now you hold that chain of yours, high as you can.”
Penrys sat cross-legged in the bedroll and exposed from the waist up. She spread her right hand and used the thumb in front and the fingers in back to try and keep the chain rolled up as high on her neck as it would go.
Zandaril cut the old damp wrapping off and patted at the damage with a fresh rag.
“Not too bad, this is.”
He tied a clean multilayer coil of bandage around the burns, and she let the chain roll down to lie against the top of it.
He pointed at her left hand. “Ready?”
She nodded and looked away while he unwrapped the bandage instead of cutting it off. When the bloody mess was gone, he began sponging everything clean under it.
“I can stitch this, like for horses. It would be better, keep it cleaner.”
She forced herself to look at what remained of the back of her left hand. From the lower left to the upper right below the knuckles, the Voice’s sword had taken everything in one slice. Her thumb was intact, longer now by a good bit than anything else. The back seemed wider, looser, and the feel of it turned her stomach.
It ached and burned freshly now that it was exposed to air and water again without the support of the wrapping.
“No,” she said hoarsely. “No sutures. Something will heal, I expect, and that will get in the way.”
She looked away again. “Just make sure it’s clean and bind it tightly to keep the dirt out.”
Pulling up her knees and leaning her head on them, on her right arm, she held her left hand out for him to work on and gritted her teeth.
Eventually it was done.
“Lie down, now, Pen-sha, and I’ll get everything ready for you. Won’t take but a few minutes.”
“We’ll keep going today, right? All the way?” she asked.
“All the way. I promise.”
She let his words soothe her and she snuggled into the bedroll on her right side to the sound of the bubbling water.
“It’s time.”
Zandaril shook her shoulder gently and Penrys opened her eyes. When she checked, she found the sun had moved in the sky but it was still shy of mid-day.
“I wanted to let you sleep longer, but I promised to see you back today.”
Zandaril gestured at the clothes laid across the foot of the bedroll. “Come see your new robes, bikrajti.”
He held up the breeches first. She recognized them, the same ones she’d been wearing, but the bloody top had been cut away and suspenders added, a neatly stitched leather strap permanently attached at the back and divided to cross over the shoulders.
“We’ll have to tie it through the holes in front to make it fit, but I think this will work, and you don’t need to unfasten anything to take it off.”
“How did you manage that?”
He grinned. “Whoever this wizard was, he understood what to carry for a long trip on a horse. Spare stirrup leathers always come in handy, and a repair kit for tack.”
“Near as I could tell, you were using a long strip of cloth over your breasts, yes? I hope this will work. Seems to me that’s got to go on first, and I’ve been looking forward to helping with that.”
He leered at her as he picked up the cloth he must have sewn together from several shorter ones, and the good-natured badinage lifted her spirits as much as the brief nap.
“Don’t get used to it. I’ll manage for myself, soon enough,” she said.
Still, she laughed as she raised her arms and, with him fumbling and her helping one-handed, they managed to wrap a reasonable support around her and tuck in the ends.
“Shirt next. No matter if it’s too big.”
That slipped easily over her head and she let him pull her up by her right hand.
“I’ve been wanting to see how these breeches will work out,” he said, as he helped her balance while she put one leg in, and then the other, and shoved her feet into her shoes.
“No socks are better than wet socks, I think, and you’re not walking anywhere,” he said.
The cut-down waist was in a reasonable position, and she had him tie the braces off in front so that the crotch was comfortable. She managed to tuck the excess length of shirt in without too much help from him.
“You should turn tailor, I think,” she told him.
“Carpet weaving is more respected, in my family,” he deadpanned.
The borrowed tunic was snugged in with a new belt. “Let me guess—the other stirrup leather?”
Zandaril nodded.
She looked closely—he had unstitched the buckle from the old bloody belt and attached the new leather to it.
He bored a hole for her once she had it on, and she felt like a new woman, despite her aching hand and throat.
The horses were ready, she saw, and her spirits sank. How would she mount again?
Zandaril followed her gaze. “Ah, nothing to it. Same as before, only you’re stronger this time, and I won’t let you go over too far.”
When he threw her up into the saddle, he was as good as his word, with a grip on her belt that anchored her as she settled.
Then he mounted himself and took her reins again. She protested, but he ignored her.
“If your horse shies at something, you may need a hand to grab with.”
She felt a tinge of panic, and she waved her arm in its sling at him. “I can’t let this stop me from riding.”
“No, no, Pen-sha, it won’t. Once it heals, however it heals, you’ll be able to use it well enough for lots of things—riding, too. But not right now.”
They walked back onto the road and settled in to the rhythm of a long day in the saddle.
