“Be silent!” Lhe hissed at him, his hard fingers clamped into Kurt’s arm.
“Take him from here,” said Ylith. “Put him with t’Elas. They are both mad. Let them comfort one another in their madness.”
“Methi,” Kurt cried.
Lhe had help now. They brought him to his feet, forced him from the hall and into the corridor, where, finally, clear sense returned to him and he ceased to fight them.
“You were so near to life,” Lhe said.
“It is all right, t’Nethim,” Kurt said. “You will not be cheated.”
They went back to the upper prisons. Kurt knew the way, and, when they had come to the proper door, Lhe
dismissed the reluctant guards out of earshot. “You are truly mad,” he said, fitting the key in the lock. “Both of you. She would give t’Elas honor, which he refuses. He has attempted suicide; we had to prevent him. It was our duty to do this. He was being taken from the temple. He meant to cast himself to the pavement, but we pushed him back, so that he fell instead on the steps. We have provided comforts, which he will not use.”
He dared look Lhe in the eyes, saw both anger and trouble there. Lhe t’Nethim was asking something of him; for a moment he was not sure what, and then he thought that the Methi would not be pleased if Kta evaded her justice. Elas had once hazarded its honor and its existence on receiving a prisoner in trust, and had lost. Methi’s law. Elas had risked it because of a promise unwittingly false.
Nethim was involved; the priest had said it. The honor of Nethim was in grave danger. Both Elas and the Methi had touched it.
The door opened. Lhe gestured him to go in, and locked the door behind him.
There were two cots inside, and a table beneath a high barred window. Kta lay fully clothed, covered with dust and dried blood. They had brought him back the day before. In all that time they had not cared for him nor he for himself. Kurt exploded inwardly with fury at all nemet, even with Kta.
“Kta.” Kurt bent over him, and saw Kta blink and stare chillingly nothingward. There was vacancy there. Kurt did not ask consent; he went to the table where there was the usual washing bowl and urn. Clean clothes were laid there, and cloths, and a flask of telise. Lhe had not lied. It was Kta’s choice.
Kurt spread everything on the floor beside Kta’s cot, unstopped the telise and slipped his arm beneath Kta’s head, putting the flask to his lips.
Kta swallowed a little of the potent liquid, choked over it and swallowed again. Kurt stopped the flask and set it aside, then soaked a cloth in water and began to wipe the mingled sweat and blood and dirt off the nemet’s face. Kta shivered when the cloth touched his neck; the water was cold.
“Kta,” said Kurt, “what happened?”
“Nothing,” said the nemet, not even looking at him. “They brought… they brought me back….”
Kurt regarded him sorrowfully. “Listen, friend, I am trying as best I know. But if you need better care, if there are things broken, tell me. They will send for it. I will ask them for it.”
“They are only scratches.” The threat of outsiders seemed to lend Kta strength. He struggled to rise, leaning on an elbow that was painfully torn. Kurt helped him. The telise was having effect; although the sense of well-being would be brief, Kta did not move as if he was seriously hurt. Kurt put a pillow into place at the corner of the wall, and Kta leaned back on it with a grimace and a sigh, looked down at his badly lacerated knee and shin, flexed the knee experimentally.
“I fell,” Kta said.
“So I heard.” Kurt refolded the stained cloth and started blotting at the dirt on the injured knee.
It needed some time to clean the day-old injuries, and necessarily it hurt. From time to time Kurt insisted Kta take a sip of telise, though it was only toward the end that Kta evidenced any great discomfort. Through it all Kta spoke little. When the injuries were clean and there was nothing more to be done, Kurt sat and looked at him helplessly. In Kta’s face the fatigue was evident. It seemed far more than sleeplessness or wounds, something inward and deadly.