The Tender Vine (Diamond of the Rockies #3)(113)

Vittorio brought the tincture of opium.

Dr. DiGratia unfastened the strap across Quillan’s ribs. “Help me get his back first.” They raised him only enough to rub his back with the warm cloth, then wipe it dry and lay him back down.

Quillan’s ribs shot with pain, but they were nothing to the throbbing wound in his abdomen and the muscles surrounding it. The doctor raised quizzical brows. “Now you will accept your medicine?”

Awareness of the pain grew until it sapped his thought, his will. Quillan closed his eyes and nodded.

“I thought as much. Vittorio.”

Again Vittorio spooned the liquid into the side of his mouth. Quillan swallowed, lulled into a false complacency that evaporated the moment Dr. DiGratia lowered the sheet. Humiliated and fiercely resentful, he lay still while the rest of him was cleaned. Had he ever felt so stripped and vulnerable? God, what are you doing? Only the image of Christ likewise stripped and humiliated kept him from kicking with his one good leg. That, and the weakness that again overcame his fury.





TWENTY-FOUR

No horror terrifies the soul, like rendering the flesh unwhole; Poor feeble spirit tethered by a mangled man too dense to die.

—Quillan

WHEN CARINA WENT INTO the treatment room she breathed the scent of arnica and rosemary. The room was warmer than the rest of the house, and she noted the coal burning steadily in the brazier. Quillan slept, peaceful now after his thrashing—what thrashing he could do last night, tied to the bed, chest and head. But Papa told her he had wakened.

The restraints were removed now. Papa must believe the worst was past. She dropped down beside Quillan. She had left him only when the sweat poured from his skin, cooling the fever and ending his delirious rantings. Papa had promised it was a good thing and that Quillan would be stronger by morning. He looked stronger, and praise be to God, he felt warm, not fiery. It was a miracle.

Five days of burning fever. Papa had grown silent and grim as Quillan’s delirium worsened. But when it gave way to drenching sweat, Papa seemed satisfied, though to her eye, Quillan had looked the worst yet.

This morning, though, he seemed fresh and restful. What a change had occurred between the time Papa ordered her to bed and now!

She looked at the face of her husband, smelled laudanum on his breath. His sleep was drugged, then, but Papa knew what he was doing. His chin was covered in beard, the mustache grown over his upper lip. His whiskers ranged down his neck in a W shape. She touched his face, smoothed back his hair, and stroked her fingers through it. If he awoke it would be to a loving touch, but he didn’t. His hair was damp and clumped. Though they had bathed his skin throughout the fevered days, no one had washed his hair.

She stood, filled a pitcher from the pot of water on the warming surface over the brazier, and took from the cabinet a shallow dish shaped like a large shaving bowl with an indentation in the side. She set them and a small jar of hair soap on the table beside the bed. Gently raising Quillan’s head, she put the shallow pan beneath him, resting his neck in the hollow of its side and laying his hair down in the bowl. Then she slowly poured the warmed water over his hair, starting at the front of his scalp.

“I said no!” He jerked, and she nearly dropped the pitcher.

“Easy now or you’ll soak yourself.” Carina poured half of the pitcher over his hair and set it down.

“Carina?” He opened his eyes, then closed them again, breathing thickly. “If it’s not really you . . .”

Heart rushing with love and relief, she bent and kissed his mouth. “Who do you think it is? My papa?”

He scowled, drawing his face into a tight mass, and his eyes opened stormily.

Grazie, Dio! If he could be so angry, he must be getting strong! “What’s the matter?” She dipped her fingers into the jar of soap.

“What’s the matter? I have to lie like a baby while your father . . .”

She worked the lather into his hair, scrubbing with her fingers.

“While Papa what?”

He clamped his mouth shut, seemingly torn between anger and the irresistible comfort of her fingers on his scalp. She balled and lathered his hair, working out the snarls, the sweat, the last of the blood and dirt, then poured the rest of the water from the pitcher to rinse it. He sighed softly as she wrung his hair and wrapped it in a towel. Then she slid the bowl out and set it aside.

She smiled at the begrudged loosening of his face. Suddenly overwhelmed that he was truly awake and speaking to her, she kissed his damp forehead. “Caro mio, I was so afraid.”

His face contorted, his mouth working before any words came out. Then he sucked in a breath and said, “Carina, what’s wrong with me?

Am I paralyzed? Why can’t I move anything?”

She stared into his face. “Paralyzed? No. Immobilized.”

“Why? Why am I strapped down like an animal?”

She saw the same fear he’d betrayed in the cave. He could not stand to be trapped. Panic shot through his eyes like flashes of heat lightning. “Pace, caro. Peace.” She stroked his hair back. “You’re no longer tied. That was to keep you still while you raved. To protect you from hurting yourself.”

“Then why can’t I move my leg?”

She looked down. “It’s heavy with plaster, and your hip was injured, as well. You haven’t the strength, that’s all.”