‘Stop it! Both of you!’ Mara broke in, and the voices merged together in a spill of sound that rose and fell like waves.
Keyoke lay still and wished the arguing would end. The poet had reached the stanzas that referred to the raid he had once staged with Papewaio against Tecuma of the Anasati, and he wanted to listen for inaccuracies. No doubt the bard would not mention the celebration that had followed, nor the jars of sa wine he and Pape and the master had shared to celebrate the victory. They had all paid with a hangover, Keyoke recalled, and he had hurt afterwards nearly as much as he did now.
But the poet did not resume his verses. Instead, Keyoke heard Mara’s voice carrying from the hallway. ‘Kevin, it would be no kindness at all to save the life of a warrior who is missing a leg. Or didn’t you know that Lujan’s field healer had it cut off, since Keyoke took an arrow wound that festered?’
Keyoke swallowed hard. The agony that racked his body masked his awareness of the missing limb. He kept his eyes closed.
‘So what!’ Kevin said in exasperation. ‘Keyoke’s value lies in his expertise, and even your gods-besotted healer knows a man’s brains are not in his feet!’
Silence followed, then Keyoke heard the screen swept back and someone step through.
Keyoke opened one eye and looked in the direction of the disturbance. Entering the room was the tall barbarian. His hair blazed like fire in the candlelight, and his height threw dark shadows on the wall. He shoved determinedly through the musicians, then shot a glance of disgust at the poet. ‘Get out,’ he said imperiously, ‘I want to talk with the old man and see what he thinks about dying.’
Keyoke looked up into the face of the barbarian slave, his eyes dark with fury. He forced his voice to be as firm as his condition permitted. ‘You are impertinent,’ he echoed Lujan. ‘And you intrude upon matters of honour. Were I armed, I would kill you where you stand.’
Kevin shrugged and sat down at the old warrior’s side. ‘If you had the strength to kill me, old man, I wouldn’t be here.’ He crossed his arms, leaned his elbows upon his knees, and regarded Keyoke who was very much a general of armies, even propped like a figurehead amid a sea of cushions. His flesh might be drawn with illness, but his face was still that of a commander. ‘Anyway, you are not armed,’ Kevin observed with his shattering, outworld bluntness. ‘And you’ll need a crutch to rise from that bed. So maybe your problems can’t be answered with a blade anymore, Force Commander Keyoke.’
The pain dragged at his belly as the old man drew breath to reply. He could feel the weakness sucking at him, the darkness in the wings that waited to draw him in, but he gathered himself and managed to speak with the tone that had stopped many a young warrior from cockiness. ‘I have served.’
The words were delivered with unassailable dignity. Kevin shut his eyes for a moment, and inwardly seemed to flinch. ‘Mara still needs you.’
He did not look at Keyoke. Apparently his rudeness had limits; but his hands tightened white against his forearms, and Lujan, in the doorway, turned away his face.
‘Mara still needs you,’ Kevin grated out, as if he struggled for other words that eluded him. ‘She is left with no great general for her armies, no master tactician to take your place.’
No sound and no movement issued from the man in the cushions. Kevin frowned and, with obvious discomfort, tried again. ‘You need no legs to train your successor, nor to advise in matters of war.’
‘I need no legs to know that you have overstepped yourself,’ Keyoke interrupted. The effort taxed him. He sagged back against his pillows. ‘Who are you, barbarian, to judge me in my service to this house?’
Kevin flushed darkly and rose to his feet. Embarrassed, in his transparent way, but also unknowably stung, he clenched his fists and added, ‘I did not come to hound you, but to make you think.’ Then, as if angry, the huge redhead stalked from the bedside. At the doorway he half turned, but still would not meet Keyoke’s eyes. ‘You love her too,’ he added accusingly. ‘To die without a fight is to deprive her of her finest commander. I say you seek an easy way out; your service is not discharged, old man. If you die now, you desert your post.’
He was gone before Keyoke could summon the strength for rejoinder. The candles seemed suddenly too bright, and the pain intense. Quietly the musicians resumed their play. Keyoke listened, but his heart found no ease. The poet’s verses lost their lustre and became just empty words, recounting events long done and mostly forgotten as he lapsed into sleep.