Aleksey's Kingdom (A Royal Affair #2)(29)
Fortunately neither Faelan, Aleksey, nor I were anywhere near the demon when it fell and apparently broke its poor little leg, or I think we’d have come under more suspicion than the tied fastenings of the tent did. He had been running in the woods with his bow and arrow (and where is a grizzly bear when you need one?) and fallen into a burrow that had opened up beneath one leg. His speed had apparently caused this limb to snap. Aleksey, being the sort of man he was, immediately reminded everyone that I was a doctor. Fortunately, as I’d been cursing him all morning anyway, I had some practice in what I then did more roundly (although still silently) as I approached the cart where the boy had been placed.
The irony of the situation did not escape either of us, I think, as I examined my patient. I will say this for the creature—he was stoic. He seemed more curious than anything. I felt around his leg and ankle, torn between various temptations. After a very thorough examination, I moved away from the cart and approached the father to explain that it was imperative I immobilize the leg—that given a few weeks’ rest, the boy’s young bones would be good as new. He nodded, not really understanding any of this but glad to have someone doing something.
The boy, however, refused to have me treat his leg further. He didn’t cry or scream. He informed me in a cold, flat little voice that I was not to touch him again. He even added that he did not like my kind of touching. I didn’t really care one way or the other, but I did murmur that he was clearly wise beyond his years, for now he would always have a good living—as the crippled freak in the marketplace begging for coins… that his one leg would always be half the length of his other, and he would waddle around with his head jiggling… that boys would make him their sport, and wasn’t it good, therefore, that he understood such cruelty so well and that he would not mind this treatment for the rest of his life.
Have I mentioned I am not a good man?
He relented. I did what needed to be done. I broke some boards off the cart and fixed these securely either side of the small limb, bound them around and around with strips of cloth (I used the burnt and bloodied sleeve of my shirt, which only added to the irony of the whole situation). The child did not look down once at his leg, but kept his empty eyes fastened upon my face. By the time I had finished, the improvised splint was possibly heavier than the child. I withdrew from the cart and turned to the mother, who had been hovering, silent but watchful, as I had worked. “He must not walk on it for at least a week and then only with his weight taken off with crutches.”
ALEKSEY, AS I said, is a very good man, but even he could not help confiding wryly as we rode away from the cart, which was now the boy’s enforced bed, “If wishes were horses… ah, look, horses….”
I chuckled. “Do not say that in company. Witchcraft is almost worse than papistry. Although I suspect there were twelve adults wishing for just the same thing.”
He was silent for a moment, then ventured cautiously, “Is it not a very odd coincidence that he put his foot into a hole? We could not give the soldiers a Christian burial in the ground… in a hole… yet almost immediately a hole opened up and—it is very rude to laugh like that! You can scoff all you like, but they are barely cold, and yet it appears they have taken their revenge on—”
“They have not taken very effective revenge, then.”
“I think that snapping the boy’s leg was quite….” He trailed off, studying my smug expression, and then exclaimed, clearly torn between horror and awe, “You did not! Nikolai!”
I could not help a grin as I shrugged. “I said he needed to rest his leg for a week… that it needed to be immobilized—it did, but just not for his benefit.” I glanced over. “He did have a very small sprain, so something had to be done!” He was trying not to laugh too; I could tell.
THE FIRST flakes of snow began to fall that afternoon. We were making good time, and I did not fear it would settle much in the forest and impede our progress. God forbid I had to remain on this journey one day longer than necessary. I kept casting glances back at the cart, wondering if it was cold lying there immobile all day.
I hoped it was.
I was about to suggest to Aleksey that we go hunting to celebrate, when I sensed we were being watched. The feeling stayed with me. Casually, I told Aleksey to stay on the riverbank and then eased Xavier off into the darker forest. I had not gone far when a voice appeared to speak out of a large tree. “Bonjour, mon ami.” A figure dropped lightly to the ground, startling Xavier, who reared in alarm. I backed him away and calmed him, then slid off. After a moment the figure came forward, and we embraced warmly.
“Etienne. I did not expect to see you here.”
Etienne’s real name was Onekwenhtara Okwaho, but he preferred to call himself Etienne—the name he had been given in the mission. Etienne and I had enjoyed uncannily similar experiences of life in many ways—but in opposite directions. He had been born into the Mik’mac tribe but raised in a papist mission across the border by Jesuits. Upon becoming a man, he had traveled widely both to Europe and around the new colonies. He could read and write not only English and French but also Latin and Greek. He had returned to the New World and to his tribe a few years previous and was now to all intents and purposes a savage heathen once again. Thus his journey had been from savage to civilized man to savage. I had been civilized, savage, and was now civilized once more. I think we both knew only too well, therefore, that these ways of thinking were utterly ridiculous, and that savagery lay in the heart of all men, and civilization was merely a trick of the light: blink and it was gone.