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"No, I-"

"Shut up, Dog!" Her booted foot kicked my leg. "Your actions are suited to a position where only you will be accountable. But here, others can be made to pay for your ’bravado’. You must think!" I sensed her running hands through her hair. "Mugha will be back again today when we rest the teams. She has tended the wounds well."

I could sense the curiosity. "But over the old tissue, it was hard to deal with." Zhura did not say anything. "I was captured in Ozir during the last campaign with Saerosh. It was - unpleasant." Curiously, she did not ask who I’d been fighting for.

"Who are you, Dog?" The question was intensely delivered. I shook my head.

"I am no one of importance, Zhura," I admitted. "I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. This time as well." I looked over my shoulder. She was gazing at my bandaged back. "It was not so bad this time." Her gaze shot back to mine. "Did Aedus give you the mouthpiece?" At her nod, I smiled. "And the servant?"

"Servant?" She seemed to put two and two together. "I thought he had the woman sent over because you were in no shape to do your work. You arranged it?"

I nodded. "I knew it would go-" I winced as a lancet of pain creased my back. "I knew it would go badly for me."

"Do you require Mugha now, Dog?" The concern in her voice cut me to the quick. I looked at her and shook my head. She was still examining my back. "It will become worse, but if I use too much of whatever she gives me, it will cloud my judgment."

Zhura laughed, and the sound was more welcome than her brooding. "You have bad judgment, Dog," she chuckled.

"A dog, if that be what I am, is never wrong about those he defends, Zhura."

"So you are a philosopher, too, Dog?" Zhura shook out her hair once more and then bound it with her leather cord. "You should cultivate some manners and a healthy dose of humility. Otherwise you will be put down like a mad-dog." As she stood, she prodded my posterior with the horn at the tip of her bow. "You are to be brought before Dhras again tomorrow," she warned. "Behave yourself until then and you might get away with your skin intact." Her voice died away as she realized what she’d said. I just chuckled.

"I will be advised by you. I will behave." I was no shape to argue anyway. "I will continue with my chores, mistress. I can move enough to cook and pick up after the two of you."

"Cook? Yes, I will allow this. Last night’s fare was horrid!" Zhura shuddered thinking about it. I was slightly offended - I cook pretty well.

"I am sorry my soup displ-" I was interrupted by Zhura’s pleasant laughter.

"You cooked two nights ago, foolish one," she chuckled. "Last night Shiza tried to emulate it and. well I shall give her some credit for the attempt." As she stepped out the door she shook her head at him. "Aedus has lent us his servant’s use for a day or so until you can pull your own weight again."

"I shall endeavor to heal quickly," I quipped. The door shut behind me once more.

* * *

"No, Mugha," I argued. "That will be too long. I need to be up and mobile by tonight at the latest." I was being argumentative, but I was frustrated.

Sjienna had been loaned to Zhura as a fill-in until I could do what was required of me. However, looking at the quiet, beautiful woman, I had no doubt I was depriving Aedus of more than a pair of hands to help him with work. The way she talked of him was enough to give me the thought. I did not wish to further impose upon the man. I might need his good will later on. Sjienna was cleaning up the supper pots near the cook fire, only source of light in the vast darkness of the open plain. I had made more food to accommodate the increase in Zhura’s responsibility and the pots were therefore larger. Mugha had been moved to Zhura’s wagon to tend to me. I began to suspect something was in the wind. No one devotes that much labor for what amounted to a wounded prisoner. I had been told that we had left the Drun River behind and that we would follow the Tybe River down into Frehmal, the only Free City on the west coast. I was told we should reach that huge mass of buildings and people in three days. I would have to disappear before then, as Saeroshic authorities were still ’curious’ about my whereabouts.

"Be silent, makhti," scolded Mugha. "You must learn to pick your battles better. What was that foolishness at the Feast? Stupid, prideful if you ask me."

"I didn’t."

"You will joke about it, will you? You are lucky to be alive. You lost much blood and if you had not had some value to Dhras, he would have had you strung up next to that thief." She growled in her throat. "You are a stubborn one, Malik. But there is a time to bend and a time to resist bending." She shook her head.

I couldn’t help but laugh. "You sound like my - grandfather." I don’t think she caught the slight hesitation. "He used to say the same thing just before I’d get a whipping."

"You should have listened to him - he was wiser than you!" Shiza’s voice preceded her out of the darkness. Her long stride carried her into the yellow light and up to where I sat. I couldn’t help but notice the interesting flare of her leg-muscles as she walked. Mugha was irrigating the wounds with an herbal concoction. I knew there was lavender in the stuff, but beyond that it was mysteriously mixed. That it stung like hell was no secret. In fact, Mugha kept slapping the back of my head because I was squirming so much.

"You men are all the same." I got slapped by Mugha from behind. "Keep your eyes where they will do you some good."

"I am." I got another slap.

"No, Mugha," muttered Shiza. "This one is mentally deficient, I think. He does not learn so well. Besides," she said, leaning down to face me, "I would be too much for you, Dog. I would hurt you."

"Uh-huh," I countered.

"If I may trouble you, Shiza, could you help me with the dressing?"

"Or undressing." I muttered under my breath. I got yet another slap. I whipped my head around. "Hey! Could you please cease the slapping?"

"As soon as you act your age, Dog," chuckled Shiza. She took the proffered end of a thin white linen strip, and held it against my side. She dug her fingers into the muscles, testing their depth and hardness. Her other hand traced a finger over the scars across my chest and the shoulder nearest her. Mugha reached around me and handed the bandage roll to Shiza. She leaned closer to me to hand it around in its circuit. I could feel her warmth and the slight scent of horse, grass and sweat. She’d just been on a scouting patrol with Zhura, whom I’d not seen since that afternoon in the wagon. The wrap made it around a couple of more times.