‘You’ll do, laddie,’ said Druss softly.
‘Druss, old horse, how are you feeling?’ Bowman asked.
‘I have had better days,’ snarled the old man, lurching upright and gritting his teeth against the pain from his knee. The young archer almost made the mistake of offering Druss an arm to lean on, but checked himself in time. ‘Come and see Caessa,’ he said.
‘About the last thing I need now is a woman. I’ll get some sleep,’ answered Druss. ‘Just here will be fine.’ With his back to the wall he slid gently to the ground, keeping his injured knee straight. Bowman turned and walked back to the mess hall where he found Caessa and explained the problem. After a short argument, she gathered some linen while Bowman sought a jug of water, and in the gathering twilight they walked back to the battlements. Druss was asleep, but he awoke as they approached him.
The girl was a beauty, no doubt about that. Her hair was auburn, but gold tinted in the moonlight, matching the tawny flecks in her eyes. She stirred his blood as few women had the power to do now. But there was something else about her: something unattainable. She crouched down by him, her slender fingers probing gently at the swollen knee. Druss grunted as she dug more deeply. Then she removed his boot and rolled up the trouser leg. The knee was discoloured and puffy, the veins in the calf below swollen and tender.
‘Lie back,’ she told him. Moving alongside him, left hand curled around his thigh, she lifted the leg and held his ankle in her right hand. Slowly she flexed the joint.
‘There is water on the knee,’ she said, as she set down his leg and began to massage the joint. Druss closed his eyes. The sharpness of the pain receded to a dull ache. The minutes passed and he dozed. She woke him with a light slap on the calf and he found his knee was tightly bandaged.
‘What other problems do you have?’ she asked, coolly.
‘None,’ he said.
‘Don’t lie to me, old man. Your life depends on it.’
‘My shoulder burns,’ he admitted.
‘You can walk now. Come with me to the hospital and I will ease the pain.’ She gestured to Bowman, who leaned forward and helped the axeman to his feet. The knee felt good, better than it had in weeks.
‘You have real skill, woman,’ he said. ‘Real skill.’
‘I know. Walk slowly – it will feel a little sore by the time we get there.’
In a side room at the hospital, she told him to remove his clothes. Bowman smiled, and leaned back against the door with arms folded across his chest.
‘All of them?’ asked Druss.
‘Yes. Are you shy?’
‘Not if you’re not,’ said Druss, slipping from his jerkin and shirt, then sitting on the bed to remove his trousers and boots.
‘Now what?’ he asked.
Caessa stood before him, examining him critically, running her hands over his broad shoulders and probing his muscles.
Stand up,’ she told him, ‘and turn round.’ He did so and she scrutinised his back. ‘Move your right arm above your head – slowly.’ As the examination continued Bowman watched the old warrior, marvelling at the number of scars he carried. Everywhere: front and back; some long and straight, others jagged; some stitched, others blotchy and overlapped. His legs too, showed evidence of many light wounds. But by far the greatest number were in the front. Bowman smiled. You have always faced your enemies, Druss, he thought.
Caessa told the warrior to lie on the bed, face down, and began to manipulate the muscles of his back, easing out knots, and pummelling crystals under the shoulder-blades.
‘Get me some oil,’ she asked Bowman, without looking round. He fetched liniment from the stores, then left the girl to her work. For over an hour she massaged the old man, until at last her own arms burned with fatigue. Druss had fallen asleep long since, and she covered him with a blanket and silently left the room. In the corridor outside she stood for a moment, listening to the cries of the wounded in the makeshift wards and watching the orderlies assisting the surgeons. The smell of death was strong here and she made her way out into the night.