“Pause and identify yourse—” The guard finished with an expletive. All four of them crowded around the administrator. They were taller than she was, and for a bad moment she was mentally back at the port, surrounded on all sides by a surging mob homicidal in intent.
The feeling passed quickly. “I’m fine, thank you. Well, maybe not fine. But I’m okay.”
“The infirmary . . . ,” a tall blond woman began.
Matthias pushed past them, leaving a pool of slightly stunned expressions in her wake. “No time for that. I’ll get patched up here. Too much to do.”
She was more right than she supposed. When she had finally managed to reassure her staff, each of whom wanted to treat her assortment of bruises and scratches personally, she found a Deyzara delegation waiting for her in her own office. Oddly, their presence affected her less than had the knot of four guards outside. Perhaps, she decided as she removed her filthy and torn rain cape and dropped it to the floor before she slumped behind her desk, because for the first time in hours she was in a place that was wonderfully, delightfully, blissfully dry. But not quiet.
Nearly a dozen Deyzara had crowded in to see her. According to Sanuel, they had been waiting hours for her to return. It was a measure of their distress that not one remarked on her visible, if minor, injuries, a most un-Deyzaran oversight. Ordinarily, death would have to be approaching for a Deyzara to be reduced to rudeness. But then, these were not ordinary times, she reminded herself. Just that morning, a very large number of Deyzara had been somewhat more than rude to her. Reaching up, she felt gingerly of the slowly healing wound on her forehead. Forget diplomacy, she decided. For the moment, anyway.