Jenny: Wounds

"This is the second time you have broken this arm," Jason murmured. The boy sat still as a stone under his surgery, a quirk of a pained smile on his face as he reveled in the attention he was getting. Jason pulled the last knot tight and straightened. "Break the other arm next time," he ordered. "Go on with you, and don't ruin my bandages."

The boy flashed a smile. "Right!"

"Yes, sir," his mother prompted from the other side of the room. "And thank you."

"Yes, sir," the boy repeated obediently. "Thank you."

Jason ruffled the boy's hair. "Run along with you and help your mother. And stay out of the apple trees."

He moved to the doorway to watch the two go, the boy skittering at his mother's side through the sunlight. As they went, the other boys flocked to them to see the new splint and admire his patient's wound. A wound of folly, he reflected with a sigh. The boy ought to be more careful. Worse might happen to him if he doesn't think before he leaps. He shook his head and turned back inside to put his tools away. The light streaming through the open doorway sparkled on the knives and needles and turned the swaths of wool into misty shapes among the clean cloths. With a little quirked smile of his own he took them up, rolling them back into their muffling folds to put them away for when the boy managed to break his other arm. Careless, the boy was, but obedient.

It did not take much to prompt the memories, but he quickly found himself thinking not of his tools, but of the Guttersnipe. In a spot on the handle of a pair of scissors he saw her freckles, in the fine curve of a knife he saw her figure. A small ache that he could not quite push away began to grow beneath his breastbone.

"Huh!" he grunted violently, and shoved the roll of knives into his metal case. He swallowed back the dry feeling in his throat. But even as he made to shove the thoughts out of his mind he heard a splutter of noise in the lane, heard the shrill angry cry of a horse - a war-horse - and he whirled and froze, straining with everything he had for the sounds, unable to move toward the door. Noises, running feet, urgent and indistinct shouts punctuated by the squeals of mounts. They were coming from the Beacon-road. Then -

"Jason! Jason!" And a moment later Gaius' form loomed in the doorway, the familiar muddy spots at his knees, a white look of urgency on his face. Jason's heart plummeted to his feet and seemed to wedge in his throat at the same time. Here it comes. "Jason," Gaius panted. "Get your things and come help me. It's Artos."

He was gone then. For a heartbeat Jason was left rooted in one place, the panic still thundering in his mouth so that he felt he ought to be sick. Then the surgeon in him took over and the panic dropped away like an old cloak. He turned about, snatched up his case, and was out the door running for all he was worth up the Beacon-road toward the cloister. He was dimly aware of the core of the war-host clustered under the trees, flickering in and out of the shadows. Someone gestured as he ran on, someone he might have recognized under other circumstances, and he swerved aside, ducking in through the arch to the cloister garden.

There he found Ambrosius, sweating under his mantle of scarlet, crouched at Artos' head, the latter laid out on one of the benches in the clean air with his leg open to Gaius' prying fingers. One glance at Artos' face and Jason saw he had grown accustomed to the pain. He lay patiently watching Gaius work.

"How long?" Jason asked no one in particular.

"Nearly a week," replied Ambrosius. He nodded at the wound. "He took an arrow."

Gaius moved over to let Jason in. It was a long gash, horribly deep, superficially stitched up. They had managed to keep it clean, and even as he came to a decision on the wound, he heard Gaius saying, "It will heal. You haven't lost anything serious, but you're going to have a limp for the rest of your days - and this leg will never be as strong as the other."

Artos nodded. He seemed to have understood that already. Unscrewing his case, Jason looked around and spied Lucretia at a distance quietly working among the wildflowers. He called her name as he set to rolling up his tunic sleeves. "Lucretia, we're going to need two bowls of water and some clean rags."

"You're going to make a bloody mess," Gaius murmured.

Artos added, "And on the Guttersnipe's bench," which sent a sudden look of pain across his face and he turned away, avoiding Jason's gaze. Feeling suddenly cold in the pit of his stomach, Jason realized that the girl was not hovering about Artos' head. A stillness had taken Ambrosius at his back, and he feared to turn around and look at the man's face. Here it comes...

"Jason - " Ambrosius began.

"Let me get this done," he broke the other off savagely. "I have a patient to tend to."

Gaius glanced over his shoulder sharply, first at his face and then at Ambrosius'. Ambrosius must have nodded, for Gaius turned back to Artos, grim-faced and silent, and together they set to work on Artos' leg.